Ization or explanation of why I'm not prepared to move ahead. So the question would be, well, what makes you think that anything I have.
To say.
Would be more useful than the conclusions you would arrive at on your own, knowing yourself better than anyone else could possibly know you.
I think someone would look at you and go, what the fuck are you talking about?
I just asked what I should do?
You know what I mean? Like to me, just I just asked, mate, Yeah, that seems unnecessarily high level, complicated. Yes, I'm like to me, it does. It's like, bro, I want to know what fuck? Uh? You know, like my shoulder hurts when I do this movement for chest? Have you got any other ideas? You've trained your whole life. You're a qualified trainer, you know, you've worked in gyms.
You know, like, surely then you could go, well, what don't you try instead of overhand grip, try a neutral grip with dumbbells instead of a straight bar, or something where it's like, oh, that's a specific answer to a specific question.
You're talking about.
Say, when I think about advice, I'm thinking about I'm in this situation. What would you do and guide me and I will take action based on what you would do in my situation someone in the gym. That's kind of like technical observation, analysis, application, assessment of how that worked, and modification of what do we do next?
No, because I feel like I need some help. Give me some I need help. I got a question. Give me some advice. Try this. That's advice.
Yeah, so okay, So let's let's break this down. Are you giving technical information and disseminating knowledge or expertise, or you're saying, Okay, here's my life experience.
I've been in your situation, with.
This relationship, with this life transition, this career progression, here's what I would do. And I've asked that question a few times. Why is my insight greater than the conclusions that you would come to on your own. And it's a big question, but I don't think it's an unnecessary one.
I think it's a powerful one.
On confident, I reckon it's powerful. But it's perhaps situation dependent, like many many, many things. Do you think that sometimes when people I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, by the way, I'm just fleshing it out, which I think is this is my point. I've been thinking about advice and how and when I know that sometimes no advice is the best advice. And I'll talk about an example in a minute.
I feel like sometimes when people say, hey, I want some advice around this, what they actually want is reinforcement, you know, more support for their current idea. They really want you to go, yeah.
This is what I'm planning on doing.
Tell me why I'm correct in my thinking, and that eyes this advice, and that is not a request for advice. So that's nonetheless my reluctance comes from.
But it's framed as a question for advice.
Right, so you can answer it.
You could give a simple answer like I would do this, so Craig, now that I've told you what to do, what's going to be different about your situation moving forward? What's changed from now versus sixty seconds ago. That's kind of a good question too. None of these questions are easy, and they might be irritating because they are quite confronting. But if you're coming to me for advice or something you're wanting, and I'm not sure that what you're wanting is my opinion, what.
About yeah, or it's U Scott right, what about Okay, I'm coming to you for advice, And then can you say to me, perhaps, do you really want my advice or do you want me to endorse or reinforce or support what you already plan to do? Be honest, because what I have to tell you might not be what you want to hear. Like if all you want is a fan club or a support team, that's not me giving you advice, or that's not me giving that's not
me coaching you. Well, if I'm just your support crew and cheersquad, and no matter what you're going to do, I just go well done, well, I'm no value to you, you know. And I feel like sometimes when people ask me for advice, I give them advice or I give them information or support or guidance that they actually don't want.
And it's I see this fucking look of disappointment. And I've said to audience as many times, I can tell you what you want to hear, or I can tell you what I believe based on lots of encounters and conversations and experiences and research and knowledge, and I can tell you what I believe to be a better path, right, which is not I'm telling you what to do. But then because I think that we think we're really open
minded about feedback. It's like we like feedback until we get the feedback or advice that we don't like.
Well, I think that's a great question. What are you really wanting in this situation?
And if it's like, well, I just truly don't know what to do right, like with the old bad Press, I'm not a biomechanist, right you are, so help me?
Great?
That is an appropriate situation to put your expert hat on and disseminate insights versus well, I really think this is the right thing to do, and I want to know what you think, meaning I want to know if you think that I'm right in thinking this is the right thing to do. So, I feel like advice can be useful, but you got to be careful because of overstep autonomy. It's you're probably not helping as much as
you think you might be. Like that guy in that conversation, if he's giving advice and it's obvious to you that someone that he has a relationship with is completely disinterested. What I wonder is, who's that conversation about? Is it about the advice receiver or the advice giver in that moment and it sounds to me like it's more about the giver of advice rather than the recipient, because otherwise you might want to be more tuned in to how that's landing or not landing.
Yeah, yeah, that's perfect I think also, like for me, one of my fuck ups around advice has been giving advice to people. My biggest fuck up in this space, honestly, being brutally honest with me self reflecting is with my mom and dad. And I started, I recognized started it twenty giving my mum advice about her smoking habit, right, advice that she didn't fucking want, conversations that she didn't want, right, Mary, the fucking chain smoker, and that didn't work out. Well,
she's got one lung now. But anyway, I don't want to say I told you so, Mum, but fuck mum, you know. And then all I did when I would give Mom some I would give her feedback, or I would give her advice, or I would give her whatever that she didn't want. But my excuse was, but I love you, I want you to live a long, healthy life.
My reasons are good. Therefore, fucking sit down and listen, right, And all I did was create more of a problem personally, interpersonally, sociologically, you know, communication I created more of a problem than any solution, despite the fact that the knowledge was good, the science was good, the intentions were good. Yeah, So that I see that a lot in families where people are like, I'm just trying to help. That's great, but you're not helping, Like, I know what you're intending to do,
well done, that's nice. Guess what, it's not fucking working. It's ineffective. So hit the brakes and just find a bit of space and self awareness and say, is the thing that you're constantly trying to shove down that person's face isn't helping. It might be right, you might be right. You might be this might be your version of love. But guess what it isn't for them.
So that's an equally important question, not just with the asker, what are you truly wanting? What's your intention?
In the question?
To the advice giver, what is your intention in giving advice? You're got to know what your motivation is because sometimes we want change for people more than they want it for themselves, are more than they're ready to face. What the cons difrinstance of change? My or maybe it's okay, Maybe they are in pre contemplation, which means I won't change.
I don't think I have a problem.
You have a problem, or I believe everything you're saying is true, but for a million reasons connected to my habit, my behavior problem. It's not that I won't change. I believe I cannot. And the more you push, the more you keep them stuck in that phase. You are not helping. When you are doing that, people do not change because of your sheer force of will and desire for them to be something or do something different than what they're
doing or who they're being in the moment. And that is something that I think really gets in the way of communication dynamics in every facet of our lives and work.
There's someone right now listening to there's someone right now listening to this, thinking, yeah, that's great, But my son's an addict, Well, my daughter's an addict, and I'm watching them fucking kill themselves and I'm distraught, They're distraught, the family's broken. What should I do? Just sit back as a passenger?
Oh fuck now, no, fucking hold on, we're talking about now, we're crossing into It is.
Like imminent danger.
It is urgent and emergent is what we're referring to at this moment.
I like that urgent and emergent.
Yeah, good toddler's If your toddler is crossing a busy street, it's like, wow, I don't want to rob them of their autonomy. Get out of the street or run into the street and grab that fucking kid and pull them onto the pavement. Talk about it, like, talk about it later,
but get them out of the street. So, if you're dealing with someone who is doing serious damage to themselves and the consequences are not going to happen ten years down the road as a result of whatever that bad habit is, whether it's cigarettes or alcohol, or whether it's Canoli's. I don't know why I say Canolis. But how good Canoli though?
Now? And all these are amazing?
Yeah, come on now, I want to fucking Cannoli. Yeah, they should get a Nobel Prize for food.
No, it's sinister.
It's fuck it's a sinister How do you creat something that's so good but so bad? Anyway, So, if you're dealing with someone and the extreme consequences are imminent, yeah, I think now's not the time to respect their autonomy and to reflect.
And to go through exploration.
Yeah, I have a very strong kind of rule about not giving advice to anyone around exercise who hasn't asked me for it. However, there's been a couple of times I've told this a couple of times, maybe so those who've heard it, I apologize. But twenty one hundred episodes, give me a break. I was in a gym in Sydney. I was doing a gig and I went into the or they had a relationship with a chain of gym's feud. Doors up from the hotel, walked up to the gym.
I was doing a workout. There was a lady doing something in there that it wasn't whether or not she was going to hurt herself, it was just when, like with the thing that she was doing the way that she was doing it, she was definitely going to hurt herself, like a zero doubt in my mind. And I'm thinking she didn't know me. I don't know her. I could be some fucking widow, which I probably am. But like you can't go, hey, guess what, I'm this and I know that, and you can't do that because you also
look like a dickhead. I never would anyway, but anyway, I just went up. I said, I go, this is going to sound weird, but could I just give you a little bit of advice? And she goes no, and I go, Roger that, and I walked away and I just went, yeah, why do I do that? It's like, but you know, when you see someone like she wasn't going to get run over like the kid on the road analogy, but for sure she was going to injure herself.
And I knew how she could avoid that. But you know, one stranger come up to another stranger in the gym. She's probably been training for five years, I don't know. Yeah, so it's I find that juxtaposition that fucking oh well, because I don't want to stand by and watch people hurt themselves or let them hurt themselves. But I think sometimes, you know, okay, so she fucks up her shoulder, all right, Well,
is it my job to intervene? Probably not. But that's just one of those almost those ethical or moral or fucking empathetic kind of conundrums that I get myself in.
And we would teach that in the gym. Chance, so.
One of the most widely requested all day trainings that we ever did or I ever did. This has gone back to my ANSM dees was can you come into the gym and teach trainers how to build a business a clientele off the floor and we would teach step by step how to gain trust, build rapport, not violate autonomy, how to ask questions and that question is not necessarily
Hey can I give you some advice? Do you might if I make a suggestion or this was a brilliant one that I always got caught up with when I was a trainer.
Is there anything I could do to help you?
Yeah, I'm kind of could you get me a water at the ft?
Oh? Sure, yeah, I'll take care of that.
Yeah?
Really what I was getting at off? Yeah or fuck off? Yeah? So, and we structured a layered.
Process to get to the point where you draw requests from the person rather than giving them advice in the moment. Yes,
so we would do things like that. But when one of the caveats was if you see someone and this goes back to urgent and emergent, who is doing something where you're pretty sure that you have a good idea they're going to dislocate both their shoulders, rip both their arms off, and be spinning around as these two armless stumps are spring blood all over the walls in circular patterns?
Could you be less traumatic?
Going? Now?
That happened to A guy wants now anyway, Well, I did see something. I mean, god, you've seen some horrible shit in the gym.
I've seen some horm I've also had my training partner to die in front of me, So it doesn't get much worse than that.
That is that that is pretty serious. I've seen double shoulder dislocations and someone screw eaming. If you think that's about to happen, like fuck it, approach that person and be pretty and be pretty assertive about it. But if you don't think it's going to happen, then and it's something that might be a problem a few months down the line. Put a few steps in between, I don't know who you are and I don't care and oh here's my best thinking, because that usually doesn't go over well.
So you really have to think, am I being right? Or am I being effective?
Is?
Like it's kind of like you said, with the gym, It's not like somebody is like John is out of shape, and I don't say something to make John join the gym on Thursday, He's probably going to be dead by Tuesday. And that's on me. That's probably not the situation you're dealing with.
Yeah, probably probably what about I think almost in a kind of starting with a bit of a theory of mind kind of vibe of understanding the person. You know, when you have little or no insight into you know, you see you see the tip of the iceberg with the problem, but you don't see the iceberg, right, So you don't have any insight into the totality of their story or issue or background or mindset or physiology or
worldview or personality or their own personal reality. So you're seeing point zero one percent of the issue thinking that's all the issue, and then you're launching from there like you're like, hey, I know, wow, this is you know, And then again, as to earlier, it might be perfect for me, it might be catastrophic for them because you actually you don't know the story, you don't know the problem, you don't know the totality of it nearly, but you
operate on the assumption that you think you get it, and so you're you're going to be valuable to them.
I'm thinking about this comprehensive book right here on my bookshelf that the gargoyle is sitting on.
Yeah, that's the orange book. What is that orange book called?
It is Behaved by Robert Soopolski.
And you might be looking at someone who you care about, and when week, it's hard to disassociate from someone we care about, we want the best for, and we definitely don't want pain and suffering for.
So this is a hard situation.
And I'm assuming that most people who give unsolicited advice are coming from a caring place. I mean, you know, I used to be in the health and fitness industry. We know a lot of these people who seemed very intense from the stage I'm thinking about someone right now, But when you talk to them, they feel because they know so much, they're able to see more, They have more distinctions, and it's urgent for them because they see dangers in front of people in ways that that individual
and people around them might not even see. So I get, but you see somebody doing something two minutes ago that you don't agree with, or on a Saturday night you don't think they should be doing, or there's something they're not doing that you think they should be doing. But what you don't see is what led up to that. What happened three milliseconds in their brain before they engaged in that. Now, what happened three minutes before in their brain?
What happened three weeks, three months, three years, three decades in their brain living every moment, every minute of their life as them with a myriad incalculable influences and reference points shaping that person up to that point when they did that. Bless you, and you understand that's because Craig just Niez.
For those of you who are just I turned off my audio, thank you.
So, and understand that you have the same dynamic complexity in your brain, but it's led you to very different places.
I think that is.
A very important thing to understand about how complex human behavior is. And sometimes you can't put in what you think was laughed out, but you could draw out what is inside.
And yeah, you know.
But I think that whether or not they've asked for it, I'm just writing notes, which is terrible on air, but I just thought of a title for the show. I just think that that is a high risk activity, whether or not you know them or not. You know, even when people have come to you so it is solicited a device, there's that still. I you know, if somebody comes to me just for a chat, you know they want to be coached, and obviously they want some kind of what we might call advice or direction or input
or feedback or whatever guidance. I kind of will generally talk at the most maybe twenty percent of the time, because I just I want to understand them. I want to understand, like, what is going on with you physically, emotionally, mentally as best I can in that very limited timeframe, so that I'm speaking from an informed place, informed in regards to who you are, how you are, why you are the way you are, because I don't want to be. You know, that guy that's talking to what he thinks
is just another version of him. And I think also what is interesting, I was just thinking a moment as you were talking moment ago, people who have a bit of a personal revelation and kind of catharsis and reinvention, then all of a sudden, they're fucking evangelists that nobody wants to hear. It's like, mate, you know what you need to do?
I'm doing this and this has done that and it's changed my life, and so you need to do that because it all.
Like, bro settle the fuck down. One of your energy is obnoxious. May be good intentions, well done, but read the room, Champ like read the room. And in doing that sometimes I've got many friends who are zealots about our thing, our thing, and I won't mention the things because I'll get someone's nose out of joint. I'm like, cool,
that may or may not be true. I know it seems to be very true to you and for you, and you could be right and I could be wrong, but right now, just could you not assault me with all this? Could you just also didn't ask? You know, but you need to know though, No, no, you are creating this not connection.
Are you talking about when I got a cat?
That's fucking hell, you're onto me. That's exactly what I'm talking.
About, you know, just that.
I mean people understandably, people get excited and you know, you know, evangelical, and I will I'm going to really throw myself under the bus now when I when I got churchy when I was younger, because I grew up in church. But it's kind of like being a Catholic is just kind of going to a room once a week with a bunch of other board people listening to you know, well, that was my experience. A bunch of
board people listening to a boring bike. Right, then, that was it, right say stuff that he said essentially last week and the week before. But then when I went down this other path, I'm like, oh my god, I've discovered the thing that everyone needs.
Everyone needs to know. Doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what they want. They're going to know this thing that I know. And I'm like, oh, I look back, and I go I was such a dumbass. I was so unaware.
I was fucking cute and innocent and had great intentions. But I must have fucked up. So I fucked up way more than I got right, you know. But I truly believed that I was doing the right thing. But I totally wasn't.
Yeah, like when I was in eighth grade, I was fourteen and I got involved with Nietron Daishon and Sokia got gay Buddhism in South Brooklyn.
Dude, that seems like a weird place to get into all of that BuddhismA. I can't remember any of that ship. You said, let's just go with Buddhism. Is that a different kind of Buddhism too.
Well, there's so many sacks of Buddhism. That was the Buddhism I was in, and there was a very specific chant and there was there were very specific things that I would do, like take a very specific path home or else I would get beat up severely because did you say class home or we said num numb your hold on gay kio?
Wow?
Wow? Do you want to know what that whole thing means?
Like I want to know what that means?
Okay, Well that was just a joke, but it talked about devotion to the mystical manifestation of the universe represented in the in the Renge flower. Rene was was the Lotus Sutra flower and Kio is the rhythm, the the energetic resonance that the universe universe vibrates on, and that they used the load of Sutra flower because it is this beautiful, flourishing flower that grows in an environment where no life should be possible. It's it's the audience possibility and miraculous.
The audience from mimmy not to say I want to hear next time frommy.
So, what I'm trying to say was I got the living shit kicked out of me a lot that year.
Ah, they didn't. They weren't picking up what you were putting down. Bro. No.
Yeah, So talking to a bunch of kids in Brooklyn about load of sutra flowers and like, yeah, just I'm shocked from your physical wellbeing.
Wow, maybe you should have just border mate and ice cream. They would have loved you and accepted.
You in hindsight.
Yeah, what about This is more practical and almost lands in the psychology. But what's the term I guess situational awareness, like in the moment understanding, you know, being able to colloquially read the room or read the person in the room and just understand. Because sometimes, like for example, when I would have one of my trainers, and you know I have lots and lots of trainers, and I would see them doing something on the gym floor that wasn't okay.
If it was diabolical, I would have gone and stopped it. But just something that's not what I want to happen or not the way I want it to happen exactly, So I would never go up to them and say hey, what are you doing? But I would never do that. I would just say, hey, when you get a moment, come see me, no dramas, just want to chat to you about something, right, And then they would still come
into my office terrified. But when it's just me and them in a room and no one else can hear the feedback, we'll call it feedback or the direction or the coach, remembering they were all junior to me and I was their boss, and it would be received somewhere between usually okay and really well, not always but mostly.
But had I done that in a different context, like in front of their peers or their clients, which would be stupid, the exact same information with the exact intention would create a fucking diabolical outcome most times, you know, ranging from resentment to wanting to fucking punch me in the face in the car park. Right, So, just that understanding of the when and the how and the why and the context and is this a good place and
time to share this? I think it's somewhat situation dependent too, or it can be.
Oh god, you have to be emotionally intelligent and if you're not, you're not going to be effective. Not just in that instance, but in many instances that you're going to engage, and you have to understand.
What that environment is like, and not what it's like for you.
Being the sage giving the advice, but the person receiving it, and the environment and the timing and the context in which they receive it and the delivery.
It all mattered. Today I was writing a.
I was writing an employee review which they requested, and it was a good one. I went over it a couple of times and I was like, Okay, even when I'm making recommendations, which is part of mede, Okay, moving forward, Here's what I'd like to see or what might be useful.
How is this being framed?
Is this being framed as a critique or something I am telling you I think you should do, or something that you might want to explore because of the way.
It will impact you in the near and long term. So you and I sorry going back. So that's all I want to say.
There's another valuable human being at the other end of what it is that they're reading or what you're saying.
Is what you and I are doing right now giving advice on full paople on how not to give advice.
I think it's really different, though.
What we're doing is sharing insights and exploring ideas around the value of those insights, and not just the value of them, but what's the framework, what are the things that you need to consider? And when people listen to this, some of what we're saying might resonate and they might say, oh, okay, I can use this, or I understand more clearly now
why I asked someone for advice. They gave it to me, I got upset and and follow it, or maybe I was at the other end of that is the advice giver, and I had a couple of assumptions that might have gotten the way, But I don't think to go back to what we were saying earlier, You and I have no expectation that anybody listening to this needs to do anyth thing or should do anything. People listening to us like, oh, well that was kind of insaneful. I get that, and
they choose to do absolutely nothing, that's totally okay. Or if they're like, you know what, I think, I think I'm going to ask a couple of questions and next time somebody gives me advice to see how that goes that's great, they're plugging in. This is very different than a one on one conversation.
I used to do, as I think you know and some of my listeners now. I used to work on a station in Melbourne radio station called SCN and for probably twelve years, and in general terms the exercise science, health wellness dude. And compared to I guess the other people on air in that space, my knowledge was better in all of that. But I would often get to ask questions by because it's real time. So it's real time radio, it's live, it's not a podcast, it's not
a workshop that's not being recorded. It's like thousands of people listening. And I remember one day this guy rang up and went harps. So when I do this movement, I get clicking in my knee and I'm like, he's like, what do you reckon that is? And I go, that's definitely clicking in the knee. I go, bro, Not only don't I know, I'm not a physiotherapist, I'm not an osteo, I'm not a surgeon, I'm not a GP. Do I have thoughts in my head right now of what it
might be? Yes? Could they be all wrong? Yes? I said, I would be the most unprofessional fitness professional in Australia if I started telling you diagnosing you the guy I've never met or seen with the knee that I can't see even if I could see it right, And I said to say, I just said to him, dide, you need to go see a physio or an ostio or a doctor. And he's like, oh really, but surely I go, no, mate, no, no,
like sometimes you've just got to go. I've had to say many times, Look, I don't that's not my expertise.
If I have any expertise, I don't even know enough about that to even pretend to give you what I think is something in the vicinity of some insight, you know, And I think that's when you are a coach, or when you are an educator of some sort, or when you and I think this is one of the dangers of you know, some I say, some social media influencers who are telling people to take all sorts of shit that's never been tested really or you know this herbal,
that herbal, this peptide or that thing and this ll like nobody wants you to know about this because of Big Farmer. It's like that's the thing right now, Big farmer, Big farmer, and I get it. I'm not a big fan of Big Farmer, but you know, like swings and roundabouts, there are some pretty good drugs that have helped people
a fucking lot. Let's be honest, and you know, this whole kind of it's everything's a fucking conspiracy and they don't want you to know about why you should take two cloves of garlic and some ginger every day because that would send the pharmaceutical companies broke. I'm like, yeah, probably not. Probably not Kevin, who's got his YouTube show with seven followers. I don't know, keV. Maybe food for thought, but not It.
Might create distance between you and your family members. But you know, you know what the worst part about that whole thing is, I've got this clicking my shoulder.
I really wanted to ask you about.
That's funny. I was having a sip of coffee. You almost made me spid. Yeah, okay, So internal rotation, external rotation, abduction, sorry, abduction of the humorous. What where do you feel it, Bobby?
What position? You know, on a ball, on a bench, you know, cleaning your teeth, putting on a seat belt, like everything, like, all, yeah, right, What you should probably do, in my advice is, yeah, just start cooling your testicles, because apparently cooler testicles greater testosterone production, your shoulder or heal quicker. So put your balls in some ice and call me in a week and let me know how you've gone.
Yeah, got it.
When have you given advice that you Is there any moment that you reflect on a specific one? Not like I've done a hundred, but is there something I can think of at least ten hundreds, but ten specific things where I've gone, oh my god, why did I tell them to do that? Or why did I suggest that? Or is there one thing that you regret or look back on with embarrassment that you a piece of advice for one of a better term that you gave.
Oh well, I'm sure there's a lot of instances that pops into my head right now. Is when I had gotten back from remember where I moved to Australia.
I remember how fun that was?
That was a bull, wasn't it? And and for all twelve minutes that you were here, we loved it. Now you hear from a month, you hear from.
Us, Yeah, yeah, And then you know like everything fell apart. And then I came home and like, my wife had gone through a lot of stuff in her business, and she was asking me for my advice about which film festivals to go to, like invest In be part of.
She had a few invitations.
Of course, me, never being a filmmaker whatsoever, had lots of opinions completely contradicting everything.
I've said on this show.
It's like, wow, you know, and she's like everything I told her to do was the exact opposite of what she should have done. And I made a bad situation even worse. So yeah, that was That was great. But right around that time in my life, I was saying all the wrong things, doing all the wrong things at the worst possible time with the worst possible people.
So do you ever recognize yourself? Okay, I am not a great I'm not in a great space today me personally, like emotionally or mentally or even physically. You don't want to ask me anything today like I'm not like today. For example, people know I've been dealing with a few things just with my health. I'm fine, but today I feel really fucking good. But one day this week I
was so smashed. I felt like I had chronic fatigue time six for one day, and I just I felt sad, I felt shit, and a bunch of people rang me and I didn't answer any calls because I thought, I'm not going to be good on this call. I don't want to answer their questions. I don't want to whatever it. Even if they're just ringing up to chat, it will
not be a good chat for them. And I wasn't grumpy or angry, but I just recognize I try to recognize my own bullshit or when I am mentally, emotionally or physically in a place where whatever I'm going to do, unless it's a pre arranged thing that I cannot avoid, there are times when I just cancel stuff because I know today I'm not going to be good and just recognize the limitation that is me in the situation.
I think that's self awareness and emotional maturity. Absolutely. I think that is a very positive thing to do. It's like I am in this state right now and I'm not. I mean sometimes, obviously, as you said, you can't do that. You have albums that exceed what mental state you're in at the moment. But if you can do that, and there is a need. I think having that conversation is
very important to people. And it's not like, no, I'm just not in the mental space say hey, you know you're asking me for A and B and hey, that's kind of a rough day for me. What about I propose C like can we reconvene on Thursday? Maybe like proposing a solution rather than I'm just I was on the phone with somebody it was very important in my personal life, and they were just like, I just don't
have the bandwidth for this conversation. And I was like, is that because they're having a bad day or is that just because like the conversations with me? And it's like I'm just frustrating them with what we're talking about. And I was just I left that I was scratching my head. There was no further explanation given.
It's like, Okay, I remember you telling this story a weak or two ago about the lady that I think he had a zoom call with something to do with coaching or she was in part of the coaching course that you were doing, and you looked at her and you saw straight up that she wasn't great. She looked like she'd been crying.
Oh, my god.
No, okay, yeah, I cushioned that actually because I felt really weird telling that story. She was hysterically crying right like like I can't, Oh my god, my marriage just fell apart everything. But it was it was so extreme that at first I was like, oh my god, is.
This is this the practical test? This is intense. I don't think I've prepared for this. I would have failed this thing. What do I do?
And it turned out that it was legit that that literally her whole life blew up that day.
Yeah, I was just.
Well, that's a good that's a good day not to do work. That's a good day not to try to give other people advice when when you're just clinging onto your sanity and your emotional stability by a thread.
I felt horrible for her because like we've had that, like where someone we love something's gone very wrong in a very maybe the most important relationship in our lives. So I could relate to how that feels.
I was.
I also remember being so grateful for her having the self awareness, maility and the courage to not just try to pull herself together and just like go through it with me on my practical exam so I felt so grateful for her.
Okay, So I don't know if we've figured out if giving advice is a good thing or a bad thing. I think it some depends on the situation, context, person issue, all of that. But so let's wind up, and I want you obviously everyone, this is all unprompted, so as in unprepared. So is there any advice that you have, ironically or are there any things that you think people should be mindful of in the context of navigating the should I shouldn't I advice space?
Yeah, but before you know one, check in with your self. Are you emotionally attached to giving advice? And I don't mean like it's all about you, but with the example with your mom and smoking, that's a very difficult situation. When you see someone that you're you love very much and they're doing something that is potentially damaging and especially if negative consequence has come to fruition, that's a lot. But check in with yourself this is there something you're
needing personally in that advice? Is there something that you are attached to in the moment, like on a personal importance level? Ten I absolutely need to say this one. Well, I'm here, but you know it's not something that I personally need. If you're at a level nine or ten, if it can wait, don't say anything that day. If it is urgent and emergent, yeah, like go for it, because the damage of inaction is probably the exceeding the
consequences of somebody not taking your advice. So that's first of well, check in with yourself and then check in with the other person, like are they in a place of high emotional arousal, because sometimes I might just be asking for advice because I'm very attached and desperate around something that may not be an issue two weeks from now.
So check in with yourself, check in with them, and if possible, ask more questions before delivering insights to kind of identify what is the context around this and what are they really looking for?
What are their intentions? Again? Is it just the sounding board.
Are they looking for someone to affirm a decision that they're about to make, or are they really have they come to the end of their own area of expertise and they really want to know, Hey, what would you do? And then make your decision empathetically based on what is in the best interest of the individual in that moment and just understand you're never going to have the exact rate response or the right feedback or the right thing to say. But you can't say the wrong thing to
the right person if there's trust in the relationship. Conversely, you can't you know, you can't say the right thing to the wrong person if someone's completely not prepared to hear.
What you have to say. It might be about to say it.
Well, my mum didn't talk to me for three months when I started banging on like almost my last stand where it was probably a bit melodramatic about the smoking.
Well that's that's clear feedback.
Yeah, that's feedback. And Mary talks to me all the time. She was so fucked off at me, a little angry five foot weapon that she is, fucking Yoda of the family.
She was.
She shut me down like a fucking cheap stallsale. You know, it's like, ah, what one of the things, like, I know, we're winding up. But one of the very unusual for most people would be this kind of scenario where I reckon. In the last forty years I have had at least which doesn't sound a lot over forty years, but it is one hundred conversations with a person or persons, often business partners or husbands and wives who want to set up a PT studio. So let's go see the guy
who set up the first one. Let's see the guy who set up the biggest one. Let's talk to that guy. And that is a tricky conversation to navigate because firstly, most personal training centers don't work over the if you call it, you know, surviving for a few years they work, But if you're talking about flourishing over ten twenty thirty years,
they don't. And then then trying to figure out all of the variables around the commercial stuff, the financial stuff, the personality stuff that works stuff, the effort, the energy, the sacrifice, the risk, that all the stuff you know. And I would say to people regularly, I cannot tell you what to do, but I would tell you these are the things that I would consider, and this is how I did it, and this is what worked for me and what didn't work for me. But let's remember
you are not me. It's like the way that I live. I would not recommend to anyone. I would never advise anyone take my path because I think it was a good path. Good path for me, but not for most people. So just coming from that, yeah, I can't tell you. And I know I've had people fly from many people fly from into state to spend a half dayish or whatever just going through this, and would usually do it on a whiteboard, drinking coffee in a room in my house.
And you know, it's like, yeah, I know what you're wanting to hear. You kind of almost want to formula. I can't give you one because my formula would be a fucking catastrophe for you. But just leaning into the why why do you want to do this? What do
you think? What do you think? Eighteen months into working night and day, maybe seven days a week on this business where it's precarious because in the street that you're setting up there are five other pt studios, not to mention pilarates, not to mention twenty four hour gyms, not to mention spin studios, not to mention a range of different martial arts, not to mention a fucking rock climbing gym, And.
So you're not just people on that street.
Yeah, well this is Hampton Street, dude, Apart from the rock climbing, that is Hampton Street. And so not only you're cutting the personal training pie, you're cutting the fitness pie because people can go you don't need.
To train it.
Come rock climbing, or come do forty five, or come do CrossFit, or come do that high drox or come do like there's so many options for people who want to change their body in some way that Yeah, it's like, oh, it's and also since I started, Like when I started, I had no competitors, Like how lucky was I. It's like, let me think about what all the other PT studios that don't exist are doing. It's like, no, well, just if I fucked up, it would have been totally me
because I, essentially, in that space had no competition. So yeah, it's it's a it's an interesting territory to navigate when you're talking in things like that where there is no real right or wrong specifically.
Yep, there's there's a lot of variables. What I love about that is this is what has worked for me. Yes, that's really mean, it's going to be what works for you.
Last question before we go, what is one thing for you that you thought would work for you, not for anyone else, but what you thought was going to be the next big thing. Or light you on fire, and that was going to be your destiny or journey or path which you realized or had an epiphany or just discovered as a byproduct of results that turned out to be not the case.
Maybe going into one of my businesses, I had thought at one point, not that the business would endure forever, but that the path I was on and the people I was on that path with or where I was going to spend the.
Rest of my life.
Right, I got into my head, this is this is this is my people, this is this is my geographical kind of destiny, this is this is my career path. And no, it did not work out like that at all.
I think I know what you're talking about. Heim I love you. Always good to talk to you. The self help antidote is Bobby's show is his podcast. Robert Capuccio dot Com is his websites. You can find him on LinkedIn. Better than Instagram for.
You, Yeah, definitely better than an Instagram.
Yeh. He's still coaching people, by the by the way, like he's still available. Can people online coach with you?
It's a case bake case basis, Like my job is coaching a lot of it. So I don't really take on private clients, not saying I wouldn't.
It just it would.
It would just be a case bake case basis would depend on on why and why.
Yeah. Yeah, I took on a client recently and I don't I'm like you, And we did one session. I love this dude. I can't say who he is, but he's got a very high level job, really good guy. And we spoke the first week on Zoom like this, and the next week he sent me a message. No, I said him a message because half the time, like we're talking about work related stuff and him and performance and other people and dynamics and just all the normal
shit you talk about with kind of corporate coaching. And I discovered he's like he's a meathead, Like he's a very educated meathead. He loves the gym and so and this is weird, Like this is how flexible for me this stuff can be? And how buy the books? I am not? I said, hey, mate, do you want to do the next session at the gym so we can lift shit and talk about shit and then have a coffee. He's like, fuck, is that possible? I'm like, yeah, dude, would you like that? I go much better than talking
on a fucking computer for an hour. And so now we do that. It's the best. Like it's the first time I've trained anyone in inverted commas, like in any kind of professional context. I'm talking about training, I'm talking about conditioning and stuff.
Yeah, for ten years, And it's such ability to build community at the gem, Like I'm like one of those people that when I go to the gym, I don't talk to anyone.
Right, no, I don't even make eye contact. But like the community at the gym down by Hampton that you've built, I love that, do you know what I love?
I love that though, Like just before we got on air, you saw me drinking coffee through the show. Right, I live across the road from a cafe that I don't go to very often, but the last time I was there, well, i'd probably go once a week. But the last time I was there, this same young lady, I guess twenty, I don't know, two three four. While she was making my coffee, she was singing. I'm like, I so loved it, and she can sing. She can sing right, great coffee,
great voice. I'm like, this is the best coffee ever. And then I went back in just before the show to get another coffee and she was there. I'm like, it's the singer and she laughed. I go, do you sing sing? Or did you just sing when you make coffee? She goes, no, I'm sing in a bunch of bands and this and that, and she was so happy that I recognized her. I hope she doesn't listen to this, because she asked me what the show is called. But anyway, if you're listening, I think your ace. And then we
had this beautiful chat for three or four minutes. She's like, what do you do. I go like, ah, I don't really know. Like I gave her an insight and it's like a bit of this and a bit of that, you know, and but it's just to have an encounter with somebody. Three minutes. It was fun. And then I walk out the door. I turn around, I go, see you sing? I keep singing and she laughed. All good. It's like just those moments, like to have an encounter
with someone where it's like win win. It's like just energy energy, and.
I'm totally a sucker for talent. And on that note, I've got to get to an improv show.
All right, dude, it's been great. Love your guts. I'll everyone talk to you soon.
Bye bye