I'll get a champions of taps. Who else would it be? Of course it's me. It's typ And when I say it's typ it's typ esque today. So recently, a few weeks ago, I had a guy called Ian Williams. He's a gun, he's an absolute ripper doing great things around men and mental health is showing up and stepping up and doing beautiful work. God bless his little socks while in his case, fucking gigantic socks because he's a big unit. Here's a podcast called the Artistry of Humanity, and he
kindly asked me to go chat with him there. Now, what us podcasters do sometimes is we share each other's episodes, so they'll record me on theirs and then they put it up, and then a few days later I put up the same conversation over here at typ Central. So for those of you who didn't hear me on him, which I'm guessing is most of you of my particular audience, that is this is that this is the conversation that
he and I had a little while ago. And yeah, I think, look, some of you are going to hear stuff you've heard, so I'm going to give you the heads up there might be some because remember, for me in this instance, I'm talking to a new audience as he's interviewing me. So for some of you you might go, I've heard the old bloody Harper tropes and the old bloody stories and oh these old chestnuts, so you might want to listen. Some of it you won't have heard.
Some of it you will have heard if you're a regular. Either way, I think it was a pretty good chat. Here's a good dude and enter at own risk. All right, team, see.
Yup, Hey Craig, how are you my friends?
Oh buddy, I'm good. Thanks for having me on your show. Thanks for coming on. Mind, it was nice to meet you. We are probably a little bit kindred spirits, so I don't know what's going to happen in the next hour.
Probably a lot of swear.
And you're misrepresenting me. You're misrepresenting me.
Represent myself. I was like, I'm a big fun I have to tell it. I mean, missus keep telling me to tone it down.
I said, I can't help it. I'm from Liverpool. This is that we talk.
There's a lot of there's a fair bit of research so that people that swear are more trustworthy. Maybe I'm just cherry picking this research, but more trustworthy, some suggests more socially and emotionally intelligent. I don't know. I'm going to hold onto that.
So I've just noticed both of those down mates.
I'm let's just wheel that out whenever we can, because also we're both insecure and we both need approval. But other than that, we're fucking rock stars, all.
Right, mate. Look, as I say, appreciate you coming on.
What I like to do is obviously you're doing some really great stuff and I really appreciate the work that you're doing, and I love your honesty and author anticity it shines through.
So I'd really like to understand who little Craig was.
You know what made this man that's sitting in filming me today doing the great work that you do. And yeah, just if you wouldn't mind take them on a haigh level journey of you know what?
What what made you? My friend?
Thank you? So I grew up in the country in rural Victoria and I was only kid, only child, so mum and dad. Mum and dad are still around. God blessed hern and Mary. And yeah, I was like a really mediocre kid, not a great student, not a great athlete. I was fat. I was more. I don't know, you can say it when it's about yourself. I think I was morbidly obese. I was the fattest kid in my school, and at school my nickname was Jumbo, So parents and teachers and kids called me that, so very few people
for quite a few years called me Craig. That was obviously pre political correctness, but so kind of yeah, really really average and in some ways probably below average kid, like not a genius, not a creative talent, not a great academic, not physiologically blessed, not genetically blessed, but you know, a relatively happy kid. Had good friends, good friendships, good influences.
And I guess when I was about fourteen, I had a I had a moment at the school swimming sports the epiphany when I was the fourteen year old kid who weighed ninety five kilos at five foot six or seven or something like that. Right, So, yeah, I was a big kid. Will now put that in context, I'm I think I'm five ten now and I'm eighty kilos, So I was literally four or five inches shorter and fifteen kilos heavier when I was fourteen than I am now.
I'm six four and ninety seven kilos, so, you know, putting that into comparison, meat woe.
Oh dude, I was a big kid. So and anyway, I had a moment and in that moment where I was very embarrassed and humiliated and all of the things which were creations of my own doing in many ways, but again I was a kid. I decided that I was going to not look like that, or feel like that, or experience that, or have to be that socially anymore. And you know, I think a lot of times when we create change, or when we do something that is life changing, we make a decision, we take an action,
we change a behavior. I think that is often precipitated by an event or an awakening or some kind of internal switch. And so for me that I got really humiliated at this point in time, just because I had to swim in front of all of these people and take off my T shirt and be there in my big fat body that I really didn't want to do this thing, and I tried to avoid it. And I went to a private boys college where everyone had to do everything, and that's nobody's fault. But so I went
through this experience and I came. I literally came out of the water at the other end of the pool after struggling through my fifty meters freestyle and went, I didn't I probably didn't say it like this, but essentially I went, fuck it, I'm never going to feel that again. I'm never going to experience that again. I'm never going to put myself in that situation again. And yeah, I came out, and I just I just created a new
operating system. So I lost thirty five kilos in about four or five months, and I went down to sixty kilos probably within about six months, but maybe a little bit less. And so obviously losing weight and not being obese anymore and being fitter and being a bit stronger and being a bit more healthy and functional and operational. All of those things were good, of course from a
physiological point of view. But interestingly, for me, what kind of really was the game changer was me starting to realize my own potential, me starting to see the space between what was possible and my story about what was possible, my story about who I thought I was and the
reality of who I could become. And so that kind of moment in time, and those subsequent months in time were for me very cathartic and very influential and very formative in terms of how I kind of progressed from there and became a young man and started working in gyms at eighteen and started you know, you know, honestly becoming quite obsessed with it all and probably not in a good way at times, with health and fitness and performance.
And then yeah, eventually going to university and doing a degree in excise science and then becoming a university lecturer and writing the first course. I wrote the first course in Australia for with one of my friends for personal training. I opened the first personal training facility in Australia in nine ninety. I started pteeing people. So I was born in sixty three. I started pteeing people. I started in
the fitness industry in eighty two. I started pteeing people in eighty five, So nobody ever knew what a trainer was. I spent my life explaining to people my job, and most people thought that's not a real job, and it kind of wasn't at that stage because there was no industry, there was no regulation, there was no qualification, there was no insurance, so I'm literally doing a job that doesn't exist. I'm a personal trainer in a country where there are
no personal trainers. So it was very much, you know, trial and error. Yeah, and it just kind of went from there. Mate. I realized early that how much I knew about bodies and anatomy and physiology and biomechanics and nutrition and exercise programming and progressive overload and all of these things that you need to know as an exercise scientist or exercise professional. I realized that how much I knew about that wasn't nearly as important is how much
I understood the human inside the body. Because I was pretty good with bodies, but not brilliant with humans. So probably from when I was about and you know, obviously I'm an XI scientist, and I've worked with athletes and teams and blokes in prison, and you know, tens of thousands of the general public, and I employed five hundred trainers, and so I did all that. I worked in the
fitness and strength and high performance space. But the thing that I was really fascinated with and have been ever since, is how human beings work. So you know, now, as
I said to you before we started recording. I'm in the last four weeks of my PhD in psychology, so it's you know, the last thirty five years have really been me trying to understand how people work and how potential works, and what success is and what failure is, and you know, how we self sabotage and yeah, and the journey continues.
That's beautiful.
I'm just looking back to that fourteen year old who you know, was called, as you say, very politically, he called jumbo, even by teachers.
That would have had.
A massive, massive impact on you, and obviously it would have been seems like part of the drive of the person, you know, influence of me today. Is that something that you've had to kind of on peck and process and kind of come to terms with as you've got older, as that has there been some kind of trauma that you're about to go through.
That Like, honestly, I try to be really self aware around this and I look back and I think, were any of the people who called me jumbo, Like my best friends called me jumbo, so there was no malice. They actually loved me. But I was just this big, huge kid, and you know, it didn't it. Yeah, I don't think it really traumatized me. But you know, trauma is an interesting thing, and being affected emotionally and mentally by things is It's complicated. When I look back, I
don't think that anyone was trying to hurt me. I think they're probably I got picked on for being fat, and that was very overt and very obvious, you know, and there was probably I don't know that trauma is the right word, but a bit of I guess sadness and or anxiety around being bullied or picked on for
how I looked and for my weight. But at the same time, I think, while I wouldn't suggest that for anyone, and I don't think, you know, in an ideal world, there'd be no bullying, there'd be no criticism, there'd be none of that. But we don't live in that world. And I look at my childhood compared to many other childhoods, and I'm like, well, Craig, you like your trauma was a one out of a hundred. So I don't, on
no level do I think I had it hard. I had a few very minor social challenges, but for the most part, I look back with fondness, and you know, gratitude. I grew up with great parents, great friends, great time, great environment, had all the opportunities. We weren't by any means wealthy, Like I don't know how my parents paid for me to go to a private school. I feel there's a bit of sacrifice in there. But yeah, for the most part, yeah, nothing but gratitude. Mate.
That's beautiful.
And the thing you touched on there about I think in the pain, that's where we get our lessons, that's what gives us those drivers. So being that fourteen year old, you know, ninety five kilos guy has driven into where you are today.
You've used that, you know, and I think you touched on there.
You know, if people talk at traumas and everybody in school, I believe the majority probably would have been bullied at some stage.
I remember being bullied when hours, I don't know about fourteen fifteen.
I came back and I lived in a different area and it was the summer holidays, and I was.
Away from all my friends for a period of time from the school.
And then I came back and for some reason I felt a bit shy, thought, oh, they've all been buddies together that I've been a bit and I came back and I just sat back a little bit more and those just kids have very you know, kids a lot different than than maybe when you're adults, and me being silent must have signaled this weakness that then they came.
Through and I sensed this bully and it was difficult.
But you talk about it's a once a hundred because this but also everybody's biggest pain is their biggest pain, because there's a lot of people have on the podcast who've had sexual abuse, you know, physical abuse, real traumatic events. But at that moment in time, that was my biggest traumatic thing. And I remember thinking to myself, this life, shit,
it's not worth it, you know, And I was. I wasn't genuinely starting to question stuff because I hated going to school, so I hated the existence of it.
Only for a short period of time, but it got pretty dark and the think about it.
But if you put that on the spectrum of somebody over there, you know, people I've spoken to nowhere near and similar to yourself. I had a mum and dad who up until obviously recently, my dad just passed. They stayed together fifty six years. But even within those dan I've seen things that hang on a minute. There's a lot of sometimes there's a lot of argument, there's a lot of this. I felt like I was in Fatal Flake quite a bit. They had two more others. One
took a bit of a Roague path. So although it was kind of it wasn't as severe as others. I do think it's worth Colin ow greg that those dark times can't feel very dark when we're.
In them, right, Oh of course, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. And it's not to devalue anyone's feelings. It's a really tricky thing, like you know, grief and trauma and sadness and mental health, to try to navigate that and realize, you know, it's like a really interesting thing is when you see, say three people in the same situation, and in that situation, one person is traumatized and one person is curious, and one person is unaffected, and you go, oh,
is that a traumatic situation or not? And you go, well, two people are not traumatized, one is. And this is not to be critical, this is to try to dig into how does trauma work, how does mental health? How does anxiety work? You know, you go, oh, that's a stressful situation. And you go, well, how come that guy or that girl isn't stressed in the middle of that situation. Why is that person not stressed? And that's because the
situation doesn't cause the stress. It might be it might create a trigger in an individual, But if a situation was let's say, universally categorically stressful, then every person in that situation would experience the same emotional state, which is stress, which is distress, which is anxiety. And so part of navigating trauma and grief and mental health and sadness and anxiety is not like you said, it's not to say you're good or bad. It's not to say this is
more traumatic than that. This is it's not that at all. It's starting to understand the self, the me, the individual, the way that like my stories, and to understand the relationship between your stories and your mind and your physiology. So, if for example, I am in a situation and you are in the same situation next to me, you and I are in the same room on the same day, being exposed to the same stimulus, and in the middle of that moment in time, sitting next to you in
that room, my story is we are in danger. This is terrifying. This is bad, something terrible is going to happen, etc. Etc. This is my story. Then the fear response, or the emotional response is fear and anxiety and dread and anger perhaps, And then the physiological response is my sympathetic nervous system kicks in. My blood pressure goes up, my heart rate goes up, my body starts producing adrenaline and cortisol, and blah blah blah. There is this cascade of physiological consequences
as a result of my story. And then all of a sudden I am legitimately and genuinely in a state of stress, and my body will tell you that. Conversely, old mate Ian sitting next to me, cool as a cucumber, is like, well, this is not stressful at all. This is fine, and you're thinking about what you're going to
have for lunch once we get out of the room. Right, So you are next to me in the same place on the same day, I'm producing cortisol, adrenaline, Nora Perreefron, you're producing dopamine and a bit of serotonin or whatever, because you're actually having a bit of a good time. Your heart rates low, your blood pressure is low, your parasympathetic nervous systems just cruising along because you calm and
then you go, well, how does that work? Well? That works that way because people respond differently to the same thing, and the way that we respond, even physiologically, is often a byproduct of the story that we tell ourselves about what is happening. If my story is I'm in trouble, then my body believes it. My nervous system, my cardiovascular system, my respiratory system, my endocrime system believes it because my body can't distinguish between my bullshit story and the objective truth.
The subjective story of Craig will be the determinant of my physiology in that moment, not the objective reality of the room, which is why you're in a good state. I'm in a shit state, and understanding how this works is really fucking important for people, that's not. And by the way, this is not about self loathing. This is about self awareness. This is like, oh, oh, you know what creates anxiety in my life? I do?
Oh?
They again, great kind of overview there with depth and simplistically explained, And as you're describing that, I'm kind of reverse engineering the way that you use this as a strategy, right, because what you're just describing to me is that's why I think the importance of gratitude, of the story that you're telling yourself on a daily basis. And what am I looking at? What's my brain looking at? What am
I thinking about? Because I become that I often describe if I'm having a really shit day, and I've had a few shit days recently, that I have this moment in time. I love fucking Australia. I always wanted to come here. I had something in me when I was younger. I came here when I was twenty one. I spent six weeks here.
I thought I'm gonna move there.
Life events happens, ill fated marriage, this, that and the other, and I didn't come up here until I was thirty five thirty six. And I remember the moment I landed here and I got the job, and it was this overwhelming feeling of joy which just consumed the shit.
Out of me.
I can remember that moment and it just gets rid of all the crap and body and I just remember that and it's like, in that moment of high gratitude love the highest frequency, nothing else can li They and I am. I'll preach it to the day I die. That people don't realize there's a strategy to change your physiological and mental state that is there for you, and it's not as complex and hard as sometimes as people believe. And what you've just described here, you know, it's the
story that we tell ourselves. I've just been back to the UK. I've got two brothers. All three of us see the world totally differently. And that thing that you're describing, I was sitting in the room and what you described happened. Three of us were seen reacting differently and three different things.
And there's a satin person I won't say a brother, could be might be who sometimes sits in that victim mentality and bloody, all that painful and I'm witnessing it, and I'm going, you are creating this crock of shit. Whether it's be a relationships that aren't working, whether it be this situation that you're sitting in this darkness and you're staring at this darkness. Well, is that what this life's about?
Do we'd have to? It's like with grief? Am I do? I do?
I love my dad less if I'm not sitting and staying at the grief all day or not?
Is that is what? What is life about? His life about?
Is life about learning from that and honoring that? And you know, trying to how do I look at grief? And that's something I'm trying to explore it.
Now.
I'm far, I'm over here, I'm extracted from the situation. Sometimes I feel a bit distant from it. And there's a question, and I'm asking myself, should I be sitting in this more? Should I be more upset because of a want?
Who I can? I can go look at it and.
Put sad music on with Dad's sad music and staying at his face and read the letter that I wrote on the eulogy and I'll cry my eyes out?
What is that? You know?
And that's another question that I would maybe pose to you because that's something that I'm kind of working through.
With the moment.
Yeah, It's it's so funny. We have these ideas of how things should happen and how we should when they happen, and ian you know that there's multiple steps of grieving and you need to grieve the right way for the right amount of time, in the right chronological you know, it's like how about fuck that? How about how do you feel? Mate? Well? I feel actually I don't know why I feel okay, cool. We're not pretending that dad didn't pass away. We're not we don't not love dad.
We're not being disrespectful. I think you know, there's no set It's like, what's the best way to lose weight? Harps? I don't know? Who are you? You know?
How?
I mean? It's probably involved some food, some exercise, some sleep, maybe a supplement maybe not, Maybe some decisions, maybe some fucking resilience, maybe some consistency. I can give you forty different ingredients to help you lose weight. Oh cool, what's the best way to build a business. We'll sit the fuck down, let's workshop that. What's the best way to grieve? It's the same, Like we have this stupid mentality that there is only one way to create this particular outcome.
And the thing is that you are not me and I am not you. What will work for you could be a fucking disaster for me. I can eat a handful of nuts and I go, that's a healthy snack. One of my friends eats one nut, they have a fucking anaphylactic reaction. So it's not a nuts good or are nuts bad. It's about the individual response to the same stimulus. It's like talk therapy. A lot of people think talk therapy is the solution to all problems. That's absolutely,
unequivocally not true. Talk therapy is really good for some people and not so great for other people. And it's not that talk therapy is categorically good or bad. It's just not optimal for everyone. It's just like, hey, should I train with dumbbells, barbells and free weights or pinloaded machines? Well, let me find out about your body and your background and your injuries, and let's have a talk and let me see what you can do, and then I will
help you make it like this idea? Right? So, mate, you just fucking grieve, But I also think let's not overthink it. Let's not get up and go, oh shit, what should I be doing? Read my grief? What should I do to fucking just do life? Bro? And if you're sad, you're sad. If you're happy, you're happy. Don't
feel guilty for being happy. Don't feel guilty for being sad. Like, we overthink the fuck out of things, and we invest our time and emotional energy in things which do not give us a good return, like you obsessing about how you should grieve is a waste of your time.
I appreciate doublether and going back to that kind of that victim mentality of you know and you know to tear. Maybe overused, but I've there's people in and around my world who I just watch and I just think that the conversation where having now you're talking to me, I'm talking to you, there's an awareness I can understand what you're saying.
I grab it and go that makes sense.
That doesn't obey that, don't buy that, but I can take I can consume the language. There's people I think cannot consume our language at times. They just haven't got the level of consciousness I'm seeing. I always say people level conscious one to five and the same people, I just think, you can't consume this. And my thing is, and I'm witnessing that. I'm witnessing people who like, we're just saying you as you were describing stuff to me,
I'm reading it. It's there's a story coming in place, and I can Then we just spoke about gratitude and we nod to each other and we explain and we go Okay. Now, I might not do all these things every day, but it brings it back to the forefront of my mind. I'll probably come off this thing, I'll
get some stuff from it, and I'll do something. But there's people, there's other people, and I think there's with a lot of large parts of the suffering has come from there's a language barrier to a lot of people. They're not understand so they're suffering that are either suffering in silence or the or the you know, telling everybody under the son about the about the about the suffering and making it worse. But I think there's a language barrier to get to these people.
People.
And I think, you know, there's so much awareness out there, but the suicide rates keep increasing, the mental health crisis keeps increasing. There's a as I think we've foken on your podcast, I think there's a there's no shortcomings in information, you know.
Anywhere we go. I can tape into it. Now with AI, I can tape anything.
Again, I get battered with everything, right, But I think there's a real language barrier. My question to you is, you know, is that something that you see and what what do you believe? Is an anecdote to an antidote to the how how can we tackle that? Because there's a huge crisis, but some people just can't understand the language.
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think there's two things that come to mind. I'm gonna answer that immediate question. Second, but I'm going to speak to something else first. First thing I think is, let's say, let's say you recognize that I've got a problem, and you're my friend. You're educated, you're knowledgeable, you're compassionate, you love me, you care about me, you want the best for me. But I might not
be interested in what you've got to say. So you can you can have the right language, you can have the right intentions, you can have the metaphors, the stories that all of that. And I'm like, hey, Ian, fuck off right.
And I can ask you a question on that point there. Yeah, is that ninety percent of the time, ego, do you believe?
I think it's fear. I think it's fear because if you're right, then I'm gonna have to own up and step up and listen to you and do something. And I'm terrified. I'm a man, and I'm terrified of everything, and this this fucking shell, this ego, this bullshit, this alpha male fucking thing that I'm wearing. It's all bullshit.
It's all hiding fear and all of that stuff. Right, So that the problem is that sometimes we and I mean you and me and people like us, we have good intentions because although we're flawed, we try to do the right thing and you fuck, I fuck up. Welcome to humanity, right, But there have been many times and I do it less and less because I've learned my lesson where I would, with very good intentions, try to help someone who actually needed help, but they didn't want
the help. And so in the middle of that me trying to tell them how it was going to work and what they should do, and I go, you know, I know you're a bit fucked up, but I've got answers and I'm educated and I've been down there, and that's cool. All I would do is I would create
more disconnection than connection, and more problems and solutions. So recognizing that somebody needs help is not the same as someone asking you for help, and so we need to be very careful about one if at all we approach that, or two if we do how we approach that now, pursuant to your initial question, your honor language really matters, because, like if I talk about my research with my doctorate, talk about you know, metacognition and theory of mind and
metap perception and metaaccuracy and all of these fancy fucking words and the consensus effect and all of this psychological language that is actually relevant for every human that's got a brain in a mind. It's broadly universally relevant. But if I just start talking like a researcher or a scientist, the average person who is not dumber than me, it's just a different language. In fact, a lot of people are smarter than me that have never set foot in
a university. Right, you're one of those people. You're a very fucking smart human. And I was very impressed with you. Your natural intellect, social, emotional and intellectors through the roof, right,
And I mean genuinely thank you. Yeah. But but then, you know, so Craig needs to understand, well, how do I share this thought, this idea, this message, this encouragement, this insight in a way which resonates within, which resonates with this audience, Because in fact, my whole PhD is around trying to understand the Craig experience, you know, or in your case, trying to understand the the Ean experience for an audience, be that an audience of one at
a coffee table or an audience of fucking ten million on the television, right. And so I need to try to understand not only how other people perceive me and whether or not this message is landing, but I need to try to understand what is their language, what is their level of knowledge, what is their current psychological, sociological, emotional state in this moment. Not what do I want
to say at them. I need to try to understand their present emotional and psychological state so I can build rapport, build trust, build respect, build connection. And then once I have that level of real world in the moment, interpersonal engagement, then I can carefully wheel out some ideas and information.
What you've just described there is kind of really really interesting for me.
And you know, if I look.
Back at everything that I've been through over you know, my forty forty seven years and all of the work I'm doing at the moment, there's not many men who are actively going to reach out. They suffer in silence, and they don't even know that they need help. And they don't even know they need help. Then in this I talk about that suicidality risk, you know, and I've got this matrix of twenty questions.
If anybody sits.
Below fifteen, they're at risk as far as I can say, because they've got no things to clamber too. They've got no health and fitness, they've got no internal work, they've got no safety net, and they don't even know. So for me and the work that I'm trying to do and scale and talking to you know, incredibly smart people yourself can only add value because we're at the early stages of what we're trying to achieve is how do we bring awareness to the people who aren't aware, who
aren't looking. It's not even about sometimes you know, it's about you know, they might just this language might get them in passing. You know, they could be oh, and it sticks to someone and they go, oh, I just heard something there that resonated with me.
Now going to come on board.
And that's why, because of what's happening, there's got to be a commonality message and that needs to be getting banged out on repeat for humanity right now because it's not landing everything that's out there, whether Ian Craig, you know, fucking Tony Robbins, fucking whoever, everything else, it ain't landing with the people that needs to land with. They're suffering, they're in silence, and they're killing themselves. So I'm really intrigued and and hell bent on solving this. And my
one is about number one. I believe we have to stay away from the word suicidality because of the stigma. We have to have this kind of community brotherhood, you know, and you know, the manly side of it. We're coming together as men, right because and having this collective thing. But then is attractive to people to come in and once they come into our safe space, making sure that the language is simple, so fucking simplistic that it captures. And again I'm not you know, I'm not belittling anyone.
It might be of the lower intellect or the people who haven't been through the skill system to a level that you know other people have. And I think that's the success equation. The success equation is simplifying the shit out of it. And how do we draw people in not into an ian you know, into a small community or a Craig work short, but it's.
It's bigger than that. It's do you know what I mean?
And I'm trying to and I'm almost asking what's your opinion or what ideas you have to to pull these people through are taking their own lives.
Yeah, So I think when people I work with a lot of people who are struggling, and you know we're talking before about you know that my problems, if on the one to one hundred minor are one, right, So I'm my overwhelming every day. If it's not my default, I try to make it that you know, is you know, just gratitude. But I think with people who especially blokes, because and again I don't I actually think some blokes are better than people think. Everyone goes ah, men are
all fucking idiots. They can't that's not true. It's not true. And no, culturally we really haven't been historically supported to be overly expressive and emotive and conversational around feelings and all of that, but that that's slowly becoming a thing in the past. But having said that, I think ladies are generally better, but I think blokes are improving. So well done blokes, But I mean, you're an alpha male, right, but you're also a compassionate dude. But you're a blokey bloke,
and I'm a little bit the same. I think what people need is they need to know that you are authentic, that you or me, that you are coming from a place of love, That this is not a strategy to build a business or make dough. Right. I say to people all the time, like I've written seven books, I reckon in two, I don't know, twenty one hundred episodes of a podcast. I have never once advertised any of my books. I've never ever encouraged anyone to buy one book.
I don't talk about it. I never sell anything. I never push programs. You can go to my whiteboard my Instagram, which is all handwritten whiteboards. There are over six thousand posts, and there might be in six thousand, there might be ten where I'm letting people know I've got a workshop coming up, right, because one I make enough dough talking of fat blokes in suits, right, I can just rock up do that, and I know you're not allowed to
say that. I don't care. They know I'm fucking with it, right, right, I turn up and I talk to them, and they know I love them and the amazing women that are part of the crowd as well. Right, I just turn up and I do my thing, and I fuck off and I get paid well. So it's not like, oh, I need money from all of my I don't. I don't because I actually money's not a high value for me. That's not to say that, you know, it shouldn't be
for anyone else. Right, I'm just speaking personally, but what I try to be, and this is just my philosophy. The biggest compliment for me is when people meet me and talk to me and go, oh my god, you know what I love? I go, what do you love? They go, I love that you're exactly the same here at the coffee shop as you are on the podcast. I love that that is actually how you are. And because I don't have a persona, you know, I don't get on the podcast. Get everyone, welcome to the You project.
It's harbs, it is number coming up today. There's none of that. It's just like you're a bit of a fuck with at times and you're a genius at times. Welcome to being you know me too? Do I have a fuck up? Yes? Am I smart? Depends on what room I'm in sometimes I'm the dumbest in the fucking room, right, But I think if people know that you have integrity and authenticity and that you are coming from a place
of love. This is going to sound weird, and I probably shouldn't fucking say it, but I'm going to be vulnerable. When I was thirty, I was a millionaire when a millionaire was a lot, so that's thirty two years ago. I owned multiple businesses. I had a beautiful house. I had a beach house because I had all kinds of shit. I was writing for the Herald Sun, I was making lots of dough, and in the middle of all of that, I was fuck and miserable. Bro. And I'm not saying
one caused the other. I'm just saying, oh, so you can actually be in inverted commas, successful and simultaneously sad and anxious and not sleeping. Oh well, then that idea that I had of what success is and what that would mean emotionally and mentally, that for me, that was a flawed concept. And so you know, that kind of
exposed me to the truth. My truth anyway early on that wealth is about a lot of things that may or may not involve money, wealth is about love and kindness and connection and belief and truth and gratitude and self awareness and compassion and empathy. And that sounds cheesy and cliche, but I really don't care. So yeah, I think if people.
Will see that in you, yeah, I love that. And no, I don't think it's cliche, and I don't think it's cheesy. I think it's absolutely right.
And I think I said that the two questions that I've been I got this from one of the guys early in the podcast, this line, and I think that's something I try to live by.
It's that question of are the actions I'm.
About to take or the words I'm about to speak going to intentionally calm harm to others?
Now?
If if I if the.
Answer to that is yes, I am going to do that, then I'm not being a good human I'm going against the collective of humanity. And that's why I say we have collective consciousness. We're all dropped from the same ocean, and you know, and I believe that is what we're trying to get to. And my thing is, if we're all drops of the same ocean, some of these droplets
aren't hearing this message, and they suffering in silence. They haven't got the tips and the tricks and the simple shit, the stuff that you've spoken about, you know, which I'm thinking gratitude is such a game changer. I don't do it enough. When I do do it changes my state and all the shit can't live there. And I think we get rid of all of these pills and stuff that people then get associated to. They're going to go, no, I am this and I have to take these pills.
They then live in vanilla and for the rest of the days, the self identify with this fucking illness and they're not giving themselves the kind of an opportunity to experience life, and they usually decline. I'm witnessing that with a couple of friends around me at the moment. So I totally agree with you there. And you talked about those things within you know, people and emotional intelligence and
honesty and authenticity, and it does shine from you. I said this at the beginning, and I think when you're talking about you know, people in suits and stuff, that is one of the things. The reason why And again I teld you i'd to send you an email with you know, the kind of mission that we're on you know, I'm already working.
With companies at the moment.
And one of the biggest things that I see is most people in organizations are wearing a mask. They're just wearing this mask more so than even in everyday life we all wear masks. But like it's like I want to wear a mask and my boss because don't want to piss them off, because I want to get that, you know, pay increase and I want to get that, you know, I need to get to where they need to get to. And they're all kind of performing, sometimes
more so than others. And I believe as leaders, genuine leaders, if we can remove our mask and and and actually have a conversation with people where you know that that's not a mask, and that leads in with the vulnerability dissolves the mask.
It dissolves the mask.
And if we all it's like the biggest thing I say in an organization I've seen a time and time again, you get these you know, stereotypical bosses who are you know, high performers driving for the business forward. Somebody comes through to them with their team and they might have been doing something wrong for five years and they identify, oh shit, have cocked up and it might have cost a bit of money and stuff. That boss then you know, beerates them,
gives them shit, this, that and the other. What's going to happen That person's going to close up, put a bigger mask on. They'll never reveal where the problems are within an organization and we we we then block you know what it is. And I think that happens within society. That's like a microcosm within the workplace. And what we're talking about is authenticity vulnerability. If we all just drop the fucking mask, everybody having relationships with things that are real,
it's all facade. And it's so important with in business because that's how we identify with our best return on effort is to improve a business. And I think it's so many people talk about it, it's on the walls, but it's fucking bullshit. You know, it's it's on the walls, it's the it's on the laptop, and they don't realize that to connect with somebody, it's not actually that hard. You've just got to be real and ask yourself, I'm I being real, Do you know what I mean?
I don't know what you've experienced within the workplace.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. Also, I think there's an element of social awareness and social intelligence that needs to be injected into that because people are at different stages of their developmental journey. Like forty seven year old a In. He could rock up and chat to twenty three year old ay In and twenty three year old ay And would think forty seven year old and was a fucking idiot because twenty three year old and wasn't ready well right then. So it's like, yeah, that's true.
What you're saying is true or relevant or appropriate, but this person isn't where you are, and you can't make them be where you are mentally and emotionally and developmentally. So that's where wisdom and judgment and social intelligence and situational and awareness come in. Where you go, Ah, even though I have some insight and some wisdom and some knowledge that could help this person, it is not appropriate that I share it. And that's just wisdom.
No, No, I totally agree.
But how do you how do you foster the truth within an organization? You know, remove the mask to collectively the majority of the workforce. We need to hear the truth. That's why we identify problems. You understand how people tick bring in those ideas because a lot of people who sit silent in meetings because they're afraid that they might get clipped for something wrong. So we don't get those you know, we get those people a bit more silent.
You might have fantastic ideas and in an organization, we might not get them. So what would your kind of tip be, then, to foster truth as much as possible through organizations considering those social kind of elements.
Oh that's tricky, dude, I mean they think. I mean, depending on which research you look at, you know that maybe I'm just saying maybe everyone, maybe twenty percent of CEOs a sociopaths. Right, yeah, yeah, right, you've heard that or a similar figure. So that's one in five. Well, good luck telling that ny or that girl that you disagree with them. That is not a great career move. Oh no, I was really honest, and now I don't have a job. So you know, they like being being
honest and being truthful and being direct. It seems like that's what we should all do.
But there, but that's that drag. It has to come from the top, right.
Oh, you know, one like I've been a leader of sorts my whole life in that I've managed people, led people, coach people. I'm not saying I'm a great leader, by the way. It just happens to have been my journey. But when I employed my first person, like in my company, I was twenty six. I had no idea how to do that. I didn't know how to be a good boss or a good role model or like it. But
I kind of like you. I think you and I are quite similar because you've kind of figured stuff out experientially and in the moment, and I figured it out as I went along, and I we used to have these monthly staff meetings. At this stage. When we had these monthly meetings, I had three different gyms, and I used to get all of my staff members to one of the gyms. It was usually Friday, at midday when we were the quietest. I'd get all of them to my main gym, which was huge, a huge place in
Brighton on the Peene Highway and Victoria. I'd get everyone there and we'd sit down and I'd try and make it pretty productive, pretty light, pretty quick. But the first thing that I would say to my group is how am I going go? Don't tell me what I want to hear, tell me what I need to here, Don't be inappropriate, don't be a bit sure you know, don't be a prick just for the sake. But if I am doing in your eyes, if I'm doing a bad job,
tell me what it is. I will take it on board and I will do my best to address it. And so for me realizing that I'm flawed, realizing I'm not the best boss, I'm not the best leader, realizing that they are going to talk about me anyway, realizing that they think that I could do things better anyway, as much as my ego didn't want to hear it, it was actually it didn't always prove to be fruitful. But you can't do much more than that. So, yes, you are absolutely right. I think it needs to start
at the top. I think the boss, the leader, whoever she or he is, needs to walk the talk because what you do teaches people way more about you than what you say. You can say all the words, but unless the words are backed up with behavior and consistent behavior, people won't trust you or believe you.
No, I couldn't agree more and I've seen that. I've seen that time and time again. I remember in a large organization I was working for. As said, I've been in senior roles similar to yourself and led large kind of companies and whatnot.
But I've kind of I found the higher upper God.
The more I was aware of the bullshit, as like, because when you're down here, you think when it was up there, it must be like they're like God's you know what I mean, We've got this philosophy and stuff. But then you kind of realize, hang on a minute, this is pretty horrendous the way they're talking.
They really don't give.
A shit about the people, and it's like they're just driving for the dollars. And what I always think is they don't understand that you can if you do it the right way. It's not like all fluffy, just people. There's a business to be run, and we have to make big decisions and we have to, you know, coach people. Sometimes there's a lot of people have removed out of organizations because they were never going to change, and unfortunately
that happens. But there's an ethought the reason that would be done is to protect others within the organization, for example, And I think there's a big lack in what I saw and I went through my toughest time. I remember looking out on Cougie Beach as the manager director of a business and achieving my goals living exactly in the area I want to live. When I used to be in the UK, I used to do in the pits and down Liverpool, go for runs, wind Chap that was
my son town. It was fucking wind and rain and I have a red face. Now I've got bronze time, running in the sun, fantastic coffee. But I was looking at the beach going is this it? In a more money than I've ever ends, the job that I always wanted, And I'm looking out at the water to go, and I couldn't even beans the water and the beats the thing that I wanted because I was so frustrated in my head with the toxic things I was witnessing from the people.
I was trying to protect my team and I was hearing.
Such horrendous Then going back to those questions, are the actions of the words I'm about to speak or take? They were happening in left, right and center, and they were they were happening on my watch with people above me, and I was trying to protect my team, and it was so harsh that over a period of time I had to exit. I couldn't exist in this anymore. Because that's the thing, if you genuinely are a good human being, there's only so long that you can sit in.
That environment because it's so toxic.
For you as a human being that you're gonna go pop and you have to remove. And you know, so, as leaders, we have to look out for underneath us. But as a leader, if you've got someone above you, you've got to protect your own energy as well. Because what I've seen a lot I call them, I've used my own little term unhappy journeymen, the people who kind of maybe want to aspire for things and they get all these clips and they haven't got that role that
they want to. And then you look at them, thinking, you're quite smart, but you've accepted you're in this company. It's been there like thirty years and they've just accepted that this is it. But you can see life they just kicked the shit out of them. They don't put the head above the pulpit. They don't defend the team. They just go along for the ride and they can talk to talk when they need to. For customers and stuff, and they just I just look at them and go
unhappy journeymen. And I used to look at them and think, I never want to be one of you. But I felt myself getting kicked along at some point like that. Does that make sense to you in the corporate environment. Is that something that you've seen or experienced.
Yeah, I mean, I think zooming backwards from the micro of that story, zooming back to the macro of most of us are going to work, not all of us, but a lot of us are going to work for about forty years, right, fifty years, forty five whatever. I think it's really important that we think about that, the impact of one the impact that we have on those
that we work with. And you know, if my and you've done this, and I've done this, if your work and intersect with your passion and your purpose and your people skills and your person if you can actually, like I realized early on, I wrote about this the other day, I didn't want a job. I wanted to work, but I didn't want a job. I was shit at having a job. I was shit at having a boss. I
don't like working in that ecosystem. It's like, oh, clock on it this time, go home at that time, and basically do a version of that for the next ten years. Oh fuck, punch me in the face now. And it's not good or bad, but it's not good for me. So I think trying to recognize where do I flourish in what environment, in what situation, in what context, doing
what job, with what people? Might I flourish Because if I'm flourishing, then I'm going to be fucking great to be around, or at the very least, I'm going to be better to be around. I'm going to be a better teacher, better problem solver, a better conflict resolver, a better human, a better connector, a better communicator, more compassionate, more loving, more empathetic, more aware because I'm doing what I'm meant to do, and what I'm not meant to do is a job. Fuck that, that's not what I'm
meant to do. Now. I'm not superior or better, but me and a job don't work. I haven't had a job since I was twenty six, which was thirty six years ago. I don't this sounds melodramatic. I don't even know if I'd be alive if I had a job. If I had to just rock up and do now for other people. Their job equals fulfillment and purpose and growth. So jobs aren't bad. As I said before, Arman's aren't bad, this workout's not again. I'm not an anti job or career.
I think for probably the majority of people, having the right job with the right organization and the right conditions is really smart.
I love that.
And I can even dial into a little bit bit more and we'll close this out shortly. But like I remember being in a in a corporate environment and kind of going, what do I really like to do? And I found myself one time I created this kind of I used to call it the execution of excellence. I created my own thing in this organization I used to have and it once a week within the I had multiple warehous as. I go to these warehouse and bring all these managers together and they would kind of talk
to me about what they had done. And I had a segment each week in this thing. And I found myself one time, in complete flow, had this unbelievable feeling of just you know, when you've got the whole audience and they're looking at you, and you've got this collective consciouness. I thought and a lot of time and I went, what the hell was that? And I was like, I think I'm meant to do this, you know, I think I'm meant to do this.
Now.
If I put that two years later, I've I carried on.
I started the naxt Own business. I've just exited that.
You know that that that I now do this and and folcas and I've worked with in organizations, work for another leadership company. I've done workshops. But the workshop wasn't mine. And I was standing there talking, I didn't get the flow state. It felt like a job. I wasn't as passionate about the thing I was talking about, if that makes sense, because I was talking about something else now, So it's not up. Sometimes the job can actually be what are you passionate about? What are you feeling?
Do you know?
And that's something that I think a lot of people in their job and what they do, there'll be aspects of the way they'll go, and it's be conscious and think about what it is that you really really enjoy. Because people ask how do you find your passion? How do you find your purpose? It's that excitement sometimes that comes across. But if you're not a word of it. It can scape pasture, and I think it doesn't almost
have this overwhelming feeling. And not everybody's going to get the Craig thing or even where hopefully I'm going to get to with Dean thing. But you can improve your job. You can improve the enjoyment of your job. It could be a sixty forty. You could be a sixty enjoyful grind rather than an eighty grind ten percent and enjoy you know what I mean. And I'm just thinking think about those exciting things. Where did you get a bit
of a flow and where'd you get that enjoyment? And it really really resonated with me that.
Yeah, man, Look, I think a really good question for all of us to ask is how do I manage me? How do I manage my mind and my body and my emotions and my choices and my relationships and my money and my career? And where do I work best? How do I work best? Like? What? What lights me up? You know? It's like right now I'm in my office at home. I have a recording studio downstairs, a beautiful,
commercial quality recording studio right outside my window. I've got a whole garden full of forty foot tall bamboo trees. I've got a gym in the front garden, which is fucking beautiful. I've got all this, and I'm not that. If that sounds braggy, I apologize. What I've done is I've built an environment where I work best. You know, right now, I'm wearing shorts and bare feet. I never wear shoes ever, unless I have to wear shoes. I
never wear long pants. Fuck long pants. Like you know, I almost resent having to put on long pants, right, And it's not, you know, Like every day I get up, I put on a pair of cargo shorts and a black T shirt usually, and I walk down the road and I get some coffee and I sit there and I think about shit, and I go, how good's my life? And by the way I can walk, How lucky am I? By the way, I don't live in poverty? How lucky am I? By the way my life's not under threat,
I don't live in a war zone. How blessed am I? By the way, somebody loves me, at least a few people, God knows why. Like when you navigate, when you do a treasure hunt on your life, when you go not what's wrong, But what's right, what's fucking great. You know, one of my best friends got blown up eight years ago the other day, December one, So yesterday you got blown up in an industrial accident by gas bottles. And
he was meant to die in inverted commas. Then he was meant to be a paraplegic, and he was meant to be essentially brain dead, and so on and so on. I used to go visit him in the hospital. He was in a coma for a long time. Then he came out of a coma. They couldn't believe that he didn't die. Then they couldn't believe he's got a traumatic brain injury and a spinal cord injury, and they didn't
believe that he didn't die. And then they were saying to everyone who would listen, and he'll never walk, he'll never talk, he'll never have any quality of life. And I used to go and just talk to him and go, mate, that's all bullshit. You know it's bullshit. I know it's bullshit. Stop fucking around. Let's get you in the gym and let's rehab you. And six months after he was meant to be dead, I started rehabbing him in the gym in a wheelchair, and now he walks, and now he talks,
and now he's operational and functional. He's in pain and he's not brand new, but he drives himself to the gym. I see him three days a week. He's one million times more inspirational than I will ever be. And because he's in my life, I just thank God that I can walk, can open a fridge and there's food, I can get out of this chair. I can stand up and give you a fucking hug. I can like, can
you do that? Can you? You know? For somebody who's in a wheelchair, like my friend Joel Sardi, who's a quadriplegic, Joel can't say, oh, I'm not doing quadriplegia today, fuck it, I'll start Monday. Like he doesn't have a choice, So he's just got to navigate life from a wheelchair, you know. For Johnny, who my friend that I was just talking about, he has constant pain twenty four hours a day, and I've trained him for seven and a half years. He
had his accident eight years ago. Three days a week we see each other, and in seven and a half years he has complained to me zero times. Every time I see him, I hug him. Every time I tell him I love him, he tells me the same. And it is a privilege to spend time with him, and a privilege to be able to just get out of this chair and go for a walk and turn on a tap and there's cold water, push a baton and there's air, there's warmth. Fuck, you know, I am the luckiest person I know.
May First of all, thank you for sharing those stories. I could feel like emotion coming through there. I really love that those powerhouses of men that you know, they are a kind of a blessing to humanity, that they are a message folders out there who are struggling.
If they can fucking do that, we can all fucking do that, right.
And I also want to touch on the fact that you said that you love them and they said they love you too, because something that I got through, you know, one of the most beautiful things and it kind of gets me emotion when I think about it, grieving in the UK, going through what I was going through, and there were several moments when I realized, fu me, there's a lot of people messaging me, and I've got a lot of men telling me I love you and I
haven't hit a lot before. And there was friends who turned up I han't seen for twenty five years and they were there at the funeral and they were talking to me saying I miss you, and we were talking about the times it spent together and it was unbelievable. And I was like, when we need it, it's there. And I think something you've picked up on before. You said, men aren't as bad as what we make out with stuff when we you know, men, when when the shit hits the fan, men step up. And I felt that
and it was beautiful. And I also think if more men would take it on a daily basis, Hey, I love you brother. It means a lot because it's hard to say sometimes. And yeah, I just thought i'd pause on that. It's something that I've felt and I could feel it coming through from you there too, Craig.
Yeah, mate, it's that you know, there are things happen in your life. I'll tell you one more brief story if you want to. I think you'll like it. It's a fucking belter rise. So six years ago, I was at the gym with one of my best mates in the world. We've been training partners for twenty years. His name is Mark Lampard. He was a pro bodybuilder. He looks and walks like a crab, right, so I call him the crab. So he gets called he gets called yeah, yeah, yeah,
So we just called him the crab. Anyway, we're at the gym. It was a Friday night, I think it was November seventeen, Friday night, seventeen oh five. He was doing so five oh five pm. He was doing a set of chins. He did twenty chins. He came down because he's a genius. He held his breath the whole time, which is clearly not a good idea had I don't know about a million milligrams of coffee that day. He'd been working outside, he was dehydrated, and all of that culminated in a cardiac arrest.
Wow.
So so he died in front of me at five minutes past five, in between the cable crossovers, the cable crossovers, and he fell on the floor and five kilos face down, smashed his face, blood coming out of his mouth. I won't get too graphic, but and within a very short period and no heart rate like dead, like dead, flat lined cardiac arrest. So I started working on him straight away. He was face down, and it's funny what happens in moments like that. So he was probably twenty twenty five
kilos heavier than me. I turned him over like he was a toddler. I flipped him over. I don't know how my lower back did that, because my lower back's a bit dodgy. No pain, no anything. Flipped him over, started working on him for straight away. Within twenty seconds. He was dead for seventeen minutes. So he went off line at seventeen oh five, came back online at seventeen twenty two. I worked on him for eleven minutes before the paramedics got there. They worked on him for another
six before he took a breath. Wow, And I know this sounds dramatic, but this is just a story as part of my life. Probably the best thing I've ever done in my life, and I've done some cool things, right, And I don't mean an no great I'm not saying
that at all. Because you get in a situation like that where your best mate is fucking dead, and there's some interesting conversations that go on in your head and you're like Oh, if anything is ever going to give me perspective about what actually matters in the context of being a human, in the context of my life, Craig, this is the fucking ultimate teaching moment. And I've done lots of great things. I've spoken all over the world. I've built businesses and money and blah blah blah blah.
Fucking none of it even comes close to being able to be part of helping him live, you know. And he's we still train. We're training together at four o'clock, which is three and a half hours from now. It's got a pacemaker, thankfully hasn't died lately. He is healthy as fuck, you know. But it's just that's what it's about, mate. It's about love. It's about looking after each other. It's about being there. Like, to me, one of the greatest gifts of my life, not his mine, is that I could do that.
For him, brother, that's beautiful, and tell him alone from me, I feel like I know him after that story. Yeah, wow, it is. You've given him the greatest gift. But it's almost selfish for you because you would have felt so fucking good after doing that.
You know, mate. That's rough.
Tears to my eyes, beautiful story and thank you for sharing.
Just to close, I mean.
You've given us heaps of golden snippets there to help people as it is. But for anybody out there who's struggling in any form of mental you know, health crisis at the moment, what would you what would you recommend, what would you say? You know it would be a priority that maybe could assist them in their dark times.
Yeah. Well, firstly, I know you don't know me whoever's listening to this and struggling, but I'm sending you love. I think, you know, I think sometimes it's about starting when you're not ready. You know, we have this story in our head. It's not the right time, it's not the right moment. I'm this, I'm that, And it's like, you know, sometimes it's in the middle of the discomfort and the uncertainty and the unfamiliarity and the unknown that
we have to be brave. And as I say to people all of the time, you know, courage can't operate in the absence of fear, like courage only operates when we're scared. And so if you're scared, I get it. I'm scared too, and I'm not saying that to make you feel good. I have fear about things constantly. I worry about things. I don't over worry. But do I
ever worry? Yes? Do I ever get anxious? Yes? And I just think, you know, if you're depressed, if you're sad, if you're anxious, if you're lonely, if you feel like no one cares, you're not broken, You're normal. Like that's human, that's human, and you know, reach out to someone and do something. I know it's hard, because you know, sometimes it's what we do when no one's looking and no one's cheering, and no one's helping. Sometimes it's what we do in those moments that are truly transformative.
Right, great, great way to finish some real gold.
Look.
I really enjoy speaking to you. I really enjoy I could converse with you all day. Let's let's continue, you know, talking. I'm going to say, I'm going to hit you up whether it's there, with an email after this, because I definitely could do with some guidance on a few things from somebody who's been there, done it, you know. And Yeah, I think it was a beautiful conversation and hopefully some men, some women, some people will get some real value from that, So thank you, Craig.
Pleasure mate. We're friends now, so giddy up butter Cup.
Thanks mate. I have a great day you.
Too, buddy. Alrighty, team, there you have it. Me and the young boy just having a chat around the peaks and troughs and the ins and outs of the human experience. I really enjoyed my time with him, young Ian. His podcast is the Artistry of humanity. Good Man, I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you tomorrow at t YP Central.