Good eight Champions. Dr Sam is back on board for the You Project. Craig Anthony Harper is my name, But do you know that? And it's fair to say, doctor Sam, that we just had a little micro coaching session before we started rolling, because you've got can I say, we won't say where or what, but you've got a reasonably big public speaking event coming up. And while I'm sure you'll kill it and crush it, there's a tiny little bit of nerves in there, which is healthy and good.
Was it helpful? Was the little micro coaching session helpful?
It really was, And I think being able to even babelize that right of going actually I'm feeling really nervous about it, and this is kind of where I feel like the gap isn't being able to look that through I think is really it is really helpful. It gets me to focus on the areas that I know I need to while feeling confident with the areas that I've got down packs. So it's good and.
I think you're right, it's really important that we can verbalize stuff. And I think also from even when we have I'll call you an expert, oh, I call me because that sounds fucking arrogant. But let's say we've got two experts on a show right chatting, and then when one of the experts goes, oh well I fuck this up regularly, people are like, oh, well, you're more relatable and the fact that you are very good at your job,
your world class, you're a leader in your space. But now we're doing something which is kind of adjacent but not the same as, which is working with a group of people educating people. But as I said to you, yeah, well, you're not lecturing university students. I didn't say that actually, but it's very different. If you've got one hundred UNI students, you're in an academic setting, we're in a lecture theater. You kind of just got to give them the information
you want it to be not too boring. But then when you're in a public speaking environment where you don't know who you're talking to. They could be educated academically or not. They could be there's you know, two hundred people, You've got two hundred personalities, two hundred backgrounds, two hundred lenses are looking at you through their own kind of filter, and so there is essentially as an experience for all
of them, there's two hundred different versions of SAM. And so that's the thing is like trying to understand And I told you we were going to dive into my stuff today a little bit just because I want to get your feedback on stuff, but trying to understand the SAM experience for a people full of room, a room full of people. Put your teeth in a room full of people in real time. Like that's because one, you've got to get up there and do your presentation. You've
got to not stammer and stutter. You've got to be at the very least kind of look okay and confidence and you know, but then at the same time you need to be present enough to go all right, I might chuck in a little activity here because I feel like I'm losing them, or you know whatever. It is that ability to be able to know your shit but also adapt in real time and be present in real time and not be the the very intelligent, educated person who gets up there and the room finds my numbingly boring.
So it's a real it's like a multitasking kind of in the moment thing.
Oh, I've just been to so many of those kind of presentations myself. You know, when I go to professional development that I'm sitting in this in a presentation and I'm looking at these slides and going this literally looks like copy and paste jobs from a jeneral article, and I could have read this journal article. Or they're just reading like literally academic like academica, you know kind of stuff,
and there is no translating it to practice. There's no context, there's no stories, there's no deeper understanding than what I would have got from just reading that. And so yeah, I know what that feels like. It's almost like you kind of just check out mentally. No one presitation like that, so I know what it's on the other side. So I don't want to give that experience either.
I think some people call this, which is just a bit of a play on words I'm writing it down, they call it edutainment, right. I like it entertainment because and you don't need to be a performer or a stand up comic or a world class storyteller, but a little bit of all of that. You know, it's because like, well,
do you want them to like you? And I know that sounds like an insecure question, but will fucking of course, because I want them to say good things and have a good experience and learn and hopefully build a poor and connection. And some people think that if they're confident
with their topic, they'll be a good speaker. And the amount of times probably you've seen that, and I've seen that where somebody who is literally more intelligent than me got more knowledge than me about a different area anyway, and they get up and I feel bad for them because the energy in the room just fucking dies a horrible death while they soldier on with their PowerPoint slides or worse. And I've seen this happen multiple times where
their PowerPoint crashed and they could not recover. They did not know what to do because they couldn't just be there in real time just talking about their stuff because it's all choreographed. You know.
That would even feel like more pressure too, right because they'd be like, I know exactly how it's meant to go from you know, slide one to ten, and then, like he said, something happens in side three and they just don't know how to come back from that because they're like only nowhere in this order, I don't know, yeah, what to do now, versus like you said, just feeling away kind of confident and yeah, in what you're doing, I would assume just within his yeah, And I.
Think for anyone listening who is somewhat interesting, not necessarily being a public speaker, but you know, when you're trying to solve problems with people or help open kind of an awareness door for people, or to educate or inform people in a way which works for them, right, because I think one of the biggest things, you know, there's an idea in psychology called the false consensus effect, where
we assume that other people think like us. So I would in that case, I would get up and I would talk as I was talking to one hundred crags, right, But there's not one hundred craigs in the room. There's one. So if I talk as though I was talking to one hundred different versions of me, undoubtedly I will crash and burn. So to start from the assumption that are they're not like me, not better or worse, They're just not me. They're different and trying to ascertain you know.
That's why as much as you can, you figure out who's going to be in the audience, so you can you might just go, oh, it's the general public that's cool, or these are all corporates, or these are all the lead athletes. All these are all blokes that I'm working with on a construction site, which I've done. All these are all blokes that I'm working with in a prison,
which I've done, or I've done multiple gigs. At the Royal Australian College of Surgeons Annual Conference, I go, well, everyone in the room except me is a surgeon, right, so that gives you certain context. Right, So I'm not going to talk to the room full of surgeons like a room full of whatever our trade is not because one's better or worse, but they just don't typically think and talk and solve problems the same. So I'm always like, who's my audience? What am I talking about? What are
the key things I want to get across? But more importantly, how do I build trust, respect and rapport quickly and give them something that is going to be helpful? Like, just really is this helpful? Because so much shit is not helpful. It's just fucking noise.
It's noise, and it's just an information overload. And they leave and they're like I don't feel any better off, Like I don't have a next step. I don't have this insight that I can actually translate to practice or yeah, so I agree, you don't want to you don't want to give a talk like that where people don't leave inspired, maybe feel a bit challenge, but also you know, has that next step bit to it as well.
And there's another I guess another component that people are aware of and think about but then don't necessarily have a strategy, which is the fear and the anxiety and the nerves. Yeah, and it's like, oh, well, and this is a well worn trope here at the at the U projects, I apologize for my listeners, but I don't know. At least five hundred times in my life, probably a thousand, I've been asked by people how do I overcome my fear of public speaking? And the answer is very unexciting
because the answer is by public speaking. Yep. You know. It's like, how do I get better at doing arm bars in jiu jitsu by doing arm bars in jiu jitsu? How do I get better at tennis because I'm shit?
By playing tennis? So you know, we also spoke before about sometimes the best, the most advantageous and productive and fruitful kind of thing that you can do for your growth and your development and for you to build a brand and competence in this field and space is a thing that you don't fucking want to do because it's hard and.
Horrible, and yet that is the way through, right, The obstacle is a way. That's Ryan Holiday's book. You know, I'm starting with them, yeah, which is for me just feels like such a concept that I especially coming from an academic background. You know, we try and read and prepare and get this knowledge and then we're going to be ready, right. And I think sometimes even a mental
health system still speaks like this. It's like, go to therapy and let's just learn more skills and war coping strategies, and no one talks about the actual thing that helps, especially when it comes to anxiety, is doing the thing, experiencing life. It's the experiences that actually helps us, not the preparation in our heads for it. And I think
about that with public speaking. A lot of the time people are like, let me just get confident first, let me get all this fear out of the way, and then I will start being a public speaker, rather than going actually, I'm going to feel the fear and I'm going to do it anyway, this doesn't actually have to change, but through the process of showing up even amongst this, it will change. That is how it does, right when you have new experiences and you're able to overcome.
In Yeah, this seems like a self centered, egotistical question, but it is at the core of my research. Do you ever think about what it's like being around you for the rest of the world, like on this podcast, with your kids, with your friends, with your peers, for your patients, for the parents that you do you ever think what is the Sam Casey experience like for other people? And does that matter? And why does that matter? And maybe what cold or should I do with that awareness.
That's really good, that's really good question, because you know, given my academic background leaving high school quite early on, I was never the smart one, is never the one acing school. I was failing, right, So I never had that identity of being that, but I definitely saw that with a lot of people. And then I obviously know what the title doctor holes in society, So I think, if anything, I'm probably really quite conscious of that, probably since getting the PhD, not so much the degrees, but
when I got my PhD, I was like whoa. People are going to see me a certain way and almost like put me on a pedestal in potentially good ways, but not so great ways too. And I think that power in balance I've become very conscious of because you know, people asking for advices and just asking someone for advice, you know, they're like, you're a doctor, so what you say is like, and I'm having to constantly, especially as a therapism, having to constantly remind them you're an expert
in your life. I've not lived your life before. Yeah, I'm to be a mayor. I'm supposed to be, you know, walking alongside you on this journey. Yes, I may have expertise in all these human behavior and psychology and all of those things, but you have expertise on yourself and together that we're on this journey rather than them kind
of giving all the decision making to me. So yeah, I do think about that a lot, and I think it can help in ways thinking about it, because it then, you know, gets me to be conscious of the power dynamics, for example. But on another token, I think sometimes it also could be something that they're working through too, And I think the more I can share maybe my journey about how I take radical responsibility for my life and I don't believe there is any expert out there that
knows me as well as myself. It means I can go to people for advice, so I can get great advice, but ultimately, right I hold the decision making for my life. I have to go do the hard thing. You can sit and talk to me for hours about public speaking, giving me all the tips, but at the end of the day, I have to drive myself out of bed that day and to put it on clothes and get on that stage.
Right.
So I think the more I hope that I can share that journey for myself, you know, of being responsible for my life, the more hopefully others will yeah, take the experts off the pedestal and start taking responsibility for their yeah, and.
Whether or not it's getting on stage or doing something else. I think that kind of thinking applies. And also one of the you know, because I'm very late to that. Well. I did my undergrad degree a long time ago in exi science, but I'm late to the game, and you know, so for me, academia is like a curious wonderland of brilliance and bullshit. I'm like Some of it's fucking amazing. Some of it I'm like, oh, this is I won't use the word that I want to use, but this
is so not brilliant. This is like, oh my goodness, there is a mix of genius and stupidity in the same room. Like you're like, how fucking hard can you make this one thing? Like even sometimes meetings at university, I'm like, ah, I could make this meeting ten minutes, not an hour and a half. We could get everything done. Most of what was said in there was just fucking
people just rambling or maybe twenty minutes, you know. And of course then there are other things where I'm in a conversation and I'm a fucking idiot because I don't know what they know, right, So but I think I think the ability or the willingness maybe to go like if all my knowledge is sounds funny, but a box of tic TACs, right, that's all my knowledge. That's all as a box of tic TACs. All of those tic TACs except for one at the bottom, has come through life,
not through research or study or academia. Like I think we really in our culture overestimate the value of academia as an attribute I think it's I think it's valuable. Don't don't misquote me or misunderstanding I think it's valuable. I think it's good. But when I try to explain to people, they go, oh, so you'll be a doctor
of psychology. I go, well, technically, yes, but if psychology is an ocean, I spent six years studying a drop of water in that ocean of information and knowledge and research. So if we wanted to be really accurate, I will have a doctorate in a meta perception and meta accuracy, which almost nobody knows what it is. And that's cool. But I could then perhaps be loosely termed an expert in that. But psychology is so big, But that's true.
With a lot of degrees. You come out and you're a you're a doctor of engineering, or you're a doctor of business or you know. But I know the fuck ten people with pH ds in business who have never owned a business. Yes, like they have a doctor in business, but they've never owned a business. I might go talk to a successful business owner.
First, Yeah, you're right, it is such a Oh it is, it's so important, But then it also so with it. Think about the knowledge and how much it actually influences us. When you know, when you look at the field of psychology, a lot of the time people do think of psychology is only the DSM and only you know, diagnostic stuff, and that's really not a lot of the core and
the foundational stuff of psychology. You know, it's how we experience life and meaning making and all of these subjective experiences. And then what you said there around the entrepreneur, it's the experience that they've learned, writing the lessons and the wisdom that comes from that, which was knowledge. There's no feedback loop, like we're getting knowledge, but we're not really being able to reflect on how we're processing it and
how that's coming out. And my actual PhD research found this, and I was structed with it too, because when we were looking at how does someone get trained and working with different cultures for example, it's like, let's get more knowledge around this. And what we found is no matter for PhD level therapists, to graduate therapists, it wasn't knowledge that was coming out in their sessions. It was actually their own callas, their own worldviews, their own but their
own stuff. Yes, and yet they don't I noticed in social work, we very much do we do a lot of critical reflection, but I find in psychology they don't really have much space for that because we're meant to be this blank slate. And so the problem was they were like, oh, no, I'm being super professional. My degree is the only thing I'm using when I'm working with
this family. But actually it was their own views about what a mum should do and what a dad should do, and what a child should do and all of these things coming out, which really the knowledge actually didn't ship the surface of that. So I do feel both we need understanding of ourselves. We need that continuous reflection and using knowledge is almost like yeah, going back and forth right with that.
Yeah, and realizing that the knowledge and the insight and the skills developed and achieved through academic research is good. Like there's no criticism here. But it's one part of the human exper it's one part of knowledge, it's one part of understanding. Like I've got friends who My best mate in the world, he Vin. He left school at year eleven, he worked forever, still working, He's a tradee. You talk to him. I talked to him, and I'm like, he's smarter than me, like about a lot of things.
That we talk about. He's smarter, and he can explain to you things about human behavior and he doesn't realize what he's doing, but his understanding of how people work essentially, which we would call psychology or sociology or neuropsychology or whatever. He'll explain things to you. You wouldn't even know what he's describing. But he's right, like he wouldn't even know the psychological
construct or the term or the label. But because he's done so much stuff, met so many people, solved so many problems, had so many experiences, and being open minded and aware, his knowledge is fucking amazing. And it's like, but that's not held in high regard broadly speaking, where you know, I think even with my undergrad and exercise science, by the time I did that, I had already been working for eighteen years in gyms and owning gyms because
I started at thirty six. And while it was interesting for me other than anatomy and physiology and biomechanics and some of the real science, I did not learn a lot, but I loved the experience. But I didn't go away like I'll tell you a funny story. I don't think I've ever told this, but I so, for example, one of the subjects in my course was exercise programming, exercise programming, right, And it was apparent it doesn't matter who, but our
lecturer had never prescribed exercise in the real world. Right, great guy, really good, but his real area of expertise was kind of high level physiology and all of this. Right, So it'd kind of been lumped into teaching this subject. And at the end of the first lecture, he came up to me and said, because that was my job, was prescribing exercise for everyone, for athletes, for non athletes,
people with abilities and disabilities in the general public. And I had probably at that stage, I'd probably written twenty thousand programs by the time I sat in that lecture, right, I mean this is over nearly twenty years, right. And I would write multiple programs a day and train my
you know. And he went, how did I go? Because he came to me for approval, and I went, you know whatever, And he said to me, if I could organize with I don't know whoever the powers that be, because I was already teaching that in vic fit courses. I was teaching exercise programming at a higher level, right, so I ended up teaching one subject in my own degree at university. That's crazy because I was more knowledgeable than the people, like they were smarter than me and
more knowledgeable at everything else. But it's like this is the thing, like, well, how do you know all that well? Because I've been doing all that? Like what are you teaching your Yes, yeah, this is good in a book, but it doesn't fucking work in a gym.
Like you, when you realize it doesn't work, you're like, okay, so it doesn't work, then what do we do exactly?
And so it can be this beautiful synthesis of stuff that you've learned academically or theoretically, or watched a video or read something online. You don't need to be at UNI. You can learn lots, and then you can go try stuff, and then you can see what is the relationship between what I read or what I learned or that paper that I read, and when I tried to put that into practice, what was the real world experience and outcome?
And then you kind of arrive at something which is close to like a bigger truth or a more you know, a more what's the word, like like a fuller version of you know other than this, and it's the same. If I only had experience in the field, I don't think I would be well. I definitely wouldn't be as good or as knowledgeable or perhaps capable as I am, because I've also got a fair bit of academic stuff as well.
Why both is so powerful? You need both? I feel like it if you need to go with the knowledge and then you and then you have the experience, and then you go back to the knowledge, and then you go back to the you need to keep doing both.
That's right. And I say to people, you do not need to be a scientist to be scientific, Like what did you do? What was your protocol? What was your aim? Like when you started, what did you want to achieve? Do be create change? What was the intention? And then what did you do? What's the protocol? Right? And then what were your results? What happened? And what's your interpretation of the results? Right? That's science. You don't need to go to you you don't need to go to you need to do that.
I think that is just such a good way approaching life too, being experimented, like you've never lived this life before, and you know based on what age and what circumstanture and you've not lived that phase of your life that season, and so being able to be an again a researcher experiment with your life, it just takes a pressure off because it goes beyond I need to get this right
and this needs to be perfect too. I'm just going to try this and see what works for me, and I'm going to just continuously be refined and refining, reassessing, readjusting as they need to. But it's always going to be this process of doing that, and I think that's a really good way of approaching. I think you know when people come to therapy and they're like, just give me the is it yoga, like, is it breathwork? Like, give me the one thing that's going to change at all?
And you can't give that right Based on what someone is going through. They might need little bits of everything, but you have to start somewhere and you have to be able to be willing to get that feedback.
Yes, And it is very hard to be objective about what's happening in your life because your experience of your life is subjective. But what is objective is results. Yep, Okay, I followed this program. Cool, what happened, What happened at the end of the four weeks or the six or the eight weeks. Like I always say to people or ask people, what is your life telling you? Because you are always producing results, always producing results, So what's the data?
So when you talk to your kid this way and you've got this challenge that you're working through in the last ten times you approached it that way, what do you now know? What do you know that you didn't know before you started those ten interactions? Like what is now? That's not necessarily the totality, but it's somewhat indicative. It's like if I have a coffee, Like I'm having a coffee now. I just finished. It's two forty nine. If I had a coffee at six forty nine, that would
really fuck me up. I've had two coffees today, but my results tell me my outcomes tell me three coffees a day. No good for me.
Yeah, So that's the immediate feedback, right. What about a situation like someone leaving their job because they're wanting to pursue an entrepreneuri like you know, Jenny, what about if someone goes You've got no job now? So if you look at that in terms of what is your life telling you. It could look like a failure, right, but patch we know that this person could be wildly successful six months down the track. So how do you reckon? How do you get that feedback from your life without?
Okay, so that's a standalone thing that happened amongst a million things that will happen to you. Yeah, and over the totality of your life. I've failed at many things, many many things. I've done speaking gigs that were horrible, of run programs that didn't work. I've you know, I could give you a list, you know, like we were talking before we're on air about how many episodes of the You Project I did before it worked or before
it became commercially viable. Well, probably, if I had any common sense, I would have given up an episode fucking five hundred because people would go cray for Fox's sake. Your results are telling you don't do this, and I'm like, well, my results so far. But if this is how I thought, Okay, so I'm five hundred episodes in, I'm still not making money. But what I know is a lot. I have learned so much about podcasting, about interviewing, about editing, about what
people want and don't want, about my multiple flaws. You talk too much, you talk over the top of people, you do I still do some of that, right, But it's even though you're not producing, because I think, of course we want to make money. Yeah, we want a job where we want to make money. But if I said, but also, do you want to work in an environment that you love, well I do. Do you want to be around people that value and respect you? Yeah? I do. Do you want to get out of bed and look
forward to going work? Well yeah I do. You know, it's not just about do, It's about a multitude of things.
And all measurements of success is what you're saying.
Yes, and also guess what like you're going to And again, even a failure, well that's an individual interpretation. You could just go didn't work out here. You're not blaming them, You're not blaming you. You're just going I'm not here anymore. Cool. So you can't undo that. You can't control what happened this morning. You can't control that, can't change it. All you can do is go where am I now? And all of this, of course is theoretical and easier said
than done. All of it, But ultimately you go what is in my control and what is not? And how do I want to be and who do I want to be? And this is all very as everyone's gone rolling their eyes, paps. I understand this is way easier said than done, But the truth is, and I've never had to deal with this before, and I don't want to bang on about it too much, but right now my parents are both pretty unwell, and I'm like, oh, well, I can't magic them into well, and I can't pretend.
I don't want to pretend that it's great when it's not. And by the way, they're okay everyone, They're in a bit of a holding pattern, so it's finest. But there's just so many things that are emotional. There are so many things that are out of your control. There are so many things that are unfair, that are uncertain, that are not nice. There are so many things that are painful and potentially really fucking painful. But in the middle of all of that, you're like, well, yeah, this is life, Craig,
this is life, Sam, this is what happens like. Life is not some conscious being that cares about your feelings in the moment. Life is just a series of events and people and outcomes good and bad, and challenges and joy and pain and happiness and tears. That's as I see it, as I experience, it's just the totality of all of that. And so it's really like, you'll come out of your gig next week. I'm sure you'll do a good job. But if I was coaching you, go,
all right, let's the day after. Let's debrief. Tell me about the gia. What did you do well? What did you do? What didn't you do well? And what was somewhere in the middle, and what did you learn? And then so we take that experience. We don't call it anything other than an experience. Yeah, you can call it whatever you want if you want, but I would go, So, you had an experience, you did a thing. Where are we at? What was good? What wasn't blah blah? What
would you do different next time? What did you learn? How was the you know there are now when we put down the oh, I'm shit, I'm fucked, I'm no good at that. You know, that's all emotional, and that's understandable, but as best we can, like moving through life, being controlled by emotion is an awesome way to have a terrible life. Yeah, we want to feel the feeling, acknowledge the emotion, but also try to be logical and strategic. Yes, we're not pretending oh I was great. We're going, yeah,
I could have done better? Cool? What would you do different? You know? So it's that nav gating the complexity and the nuance of a myriad of intersecting factors and variable that make up doctor Sam Casey's life and then figuring out, well, this is you know, even how old are you again? Thirty three or something stupid thirty five? You go, I'm thirty five. Realistically, I've probably got another thirty five years of work if I want less, if I want more,
who knows. But then I would go, Okay, so you've been working for probably graduated at whatever you've been working, because I know you started working early, but you've probably been working for twenty years issue of your life. But you've probably got another forty if you want. So you go, do I want to be doing a version of this in five years?
Yeah?
I do? But better? Or no, I don't I want to be doing that? Cool. Well, let's maybe let's timeline that a little bit, and course things will change because the world's dynamic, and we are somewhat rigid and fixed. So we need to be less rigid and fixed and more dynamic and more adaptable. But that's that, you know. That's why I literally called this show that you project because I feel like our life is kind of a project or even a study, and like you're the participant
and you're the researcher. Yeap on your project. I love that.
And all of what you said actually really aligns with we call acceptance and commitment therapy ACT. I don't know if you're aware. Yeah, what you're saying right that even you know sometimes the other ways of going in and we need to reduce that suffering, We need to reduce the symptoms. And it's like, actually, what if we just experience accepts that that's part of life and continue to go do the thing, continue to work towards our values. Like you said, who do I want to be in this moment? How
do I want to be in this moment? And I really like that. I feel like that You're not then going I'm going to wait for the perfect conditions and then I'm going to go do the thing. It's I'm going to make this work in the most imperfect conditions, because I know if I can do it.
In that, I can do it.
And that's how much the exercise for me, especially like I've been trying since six weeks postpardoned with my son, when I was like, I need to get into fitness. And if you could imagine having a little baby right, things don't go to plan and breastfeeding them up all hours of the night, all kinds of things. But rather than going, it's either an hour I work out at the gym or nothing. I thought of it like a spectrum, and I'm like, every day I'm going to show up
for movement no matter what. Okay, I'm showing up. And that could be like a ten minute, you know, body weight session on my on my little mat while while my baby's just there right at home, or it could be in the gym for an hour and I get you know, I'm lifting heavy weights, but either way, I'm doing it. And I felt like this is what sustained me pretty much throughout Again, what for the last ten
years where it doesn't look perfect. I have you know, workouts that last you know, twenty minutes and it's not that great. And I have workouts at last year and a half and I'm like, this is amazing. But I show up every day in some capacity for movement because I do that for my mental health as well as my physical health, and it's been able to do it in the most imperfect conditions. I feel like if I got that down paths, then it's just the resistant goes versus.
I hear a lot of people say I'm going to go do that one hundred percent. I'm doing that. But when this happens, when I'm closer to a gym, you know, the life's a bit busy right now. When I come back for my holiday, I'm going to start fresh. And I'm like, if you can't start today, it's not going
to be any easier after that holiday. If you can't pull out them out for ten minutes and do some stretches today this afternoon, I can assure you these barriers in your head, the stories in your head that you're saying about this is not going to go after this holiday.
Yes.
Yeah, So I think that really getting to know ourself talk and ourself stories is so powerful when overcoming these things.
Yeah, I've say to people all the time, start before you're ready, because everybody's got a when I'm ready story and then they look up and they're like, fuck, now I'm forty five. Yeah, and the when I'm ready story has been on loop since they were twenty two.
And you know what I find as well as for parents, it becomes an avoidance. So you know, for parents, parenthood becomes a way that we can say, oh, my kid's a little right now. So when they're older, older the thing, you know, I've really got to prioritize them right now. And it's almost like motherhood is a perfect conditions for avoidance.
And what I've noticed with these women, right they because they have their moms of babies to then todd list, then school aged yis the teenagers and their grandparents and they you know throughout that right it may take them to get to that point to go, Actually, this is
a pattern. It's really got nothing to do with my excel and everything to do with this story that I'm saying, this is hard, and I'm trying to avoid the hard rather than going I value my kids and I want to be present in their life and I want to have time with them, but this is something else I value, and so how do I make this coexist? Again? Not trying to get this perfect balance. But just going, how do these two values of mine exist in my world?
Yeah? I love that. I had a chat with some friends of mine a couple of months ago and they had they've got three kids, and they had a relatively new kid and the wife who's lovely. She was talking to me about. I think she's got I think the like a newish born maybe six months and maybe a two and maybe a four, like still all at home and fucking chaos, right, and it is. It's of course, that's hard, harder than I can imagine because I'm just a dumb bloke, so I don't try to understand what
that's like. But she said to me something like I need a help, or I need an idea, or I need something. She calls me harps, harps, just anything, and I go, I will give you one. By the way, this is not an answer. This is just a single idea, a single experiment that I want you to do. But you have to do it. Don't go oh, I started, and otherwise I'm not going to talk to you. She goes, I promise you, I will do it. And I said, so.
She lives in a two story house, and I said Okay, So for the next thirty days, three times a day, I want you to walk the stairs in your house for five minutes, right, five minutes, So there's one four hundred and forty minutes in a day. And yes, you're doing stuff, feeding kids, sending kids to playgroup or whatever it is, and you're sleeping, and you're you're doing all the things that a busy mum and a busy woman does.
I get it. But of the fourteen forty, I want you to invest fifteen, right, And all she did was and I saw it wasn't thirty days later, but it was probably a month and a half two months later. And I said, how did you go? And this is not a word of a lie. She lost three and a half kilos. She didn't change your diet, She didn't. She lost three and a half kilos. She goes, my ass and my legs are fucking fantastic. Right, that's what she's did. She goes, and the husband kind of goes, yeah,
you know, so she toned her bum and legs. She lost weight body weight, which means she probably actually built some muscle and lost more than three and a half kilos of fat paw as her brain worked better. She was so much happier. And I said, what are you doing now? She goes, I'm doing three times ten. So she was now doing and I said great, and she goes, what's next? And then I just chucked her in three
body weight exercises. And so she's still not going to a gym, she still has no equipment, but she's doing the thing consistently, the thing that was boring and wasn't fun and wasn't convenient. All of a sudden, now she gets excited about it because she's committed and she's getting results. Now. You don't need a degree, you don't need a membership, you don't you know. It's like, if we want to find a way to do something, will that get her
into the Olympics? No? Will that move the needle on a psychology, emotion, physiology, confidence, you know, happiness, emotions like all of that. It's moving the needle. And she's like, she goes, I'm excited. I'm excited. So that's that when we find want to find a way to do it, we'll find a way to do it, you know. And I think that it's understandable that we put things on hold, and I'm not trying to be judgmental, but I've said this a few times, so I don't want to be
too repetitive, but it's true. So a friend of mine who's been on the show, his name's Joel Sardi. He was in the Australian Army soldier, served overseas frontline. All of that came back to Australia. He was out at I think it was an event, a party or something fell down some stairs. Became a quadriplegic.
Wow.
Right, So he instantly became a quadriplegic. So he couldn't So from that moment that was his life. It's not say he's not improving or he's not you know, but he couldn't go I don't want to do quadriplegia now, I'll do it in six months. I'm busy now, Like there are things that happen in our life where we do not have the option of not doing it now. Yeah, we just have to do it now because there is no option. But the problem is when we go I
want to get in shape, but here are my fifteen reasons. Well, you can do it, but it's almost like we.
Have to create the conditions for this urgency right, but it does. That's non negotiable.
That's the problem. That's the problem. We want, we kind of want to do it. But imagine if you didn't have an option. It's like imagine if oh, you had to walk those steps three times a day for five minutes, there is no option. Well, we would just do it. We'd probably bitch and Moana not like it, and that's okay,
so would I probably, I'm not judging, but yeah. But the thing is when we have that internal shift of this is a thing that I need to do, not a thing that I'll do when all the planets are aligned and the kids are here and I'm there and you know, then we go, oh, I'm just doing it, and now I'm doing it. And then within a few months, like with this lady, this is now a thing that I enjoy. This has now become part of my lifestyle. This is now intertwined with my subconscious. This is just
what I do. This is not me being amazing, This is me being normal. So the idea, and I mean you're very well versed in this, but the idea of trying to manage your mind, fuck how hard is that?
It is? On a daily basis, all day, every day. It is that it's almost like that self leadership, right, trying to manage your mind, trying to know when you need more compassion for yourself, trying to know when you need more accountability for yourself. And you know that in a talk, isn't being really critical? Like all of these
things are coming through while we're experiencing life. And I think that that's again one of the most important things, because we're the ones making decisions and choices in our days right every day. Yes, and so many people say I need to make all these changes, but like I'm on a wait list for therapy. Once I get into therapy, it's going to be better. And it's like, well, that's
one session a week. You're still with yourself for the rest of the time, and you're still having to make decisions right for what's it would be good for you. These are things that we should be doing every day, looking at how we're spending our time, looking at what we're putting in our bodies, in our minds, all of those things. So that's what really impacts them into health, not as a therapist.
And to be aware of our to try to be aware or at least open to how our mind works meant a cognition to think about how we think and why we think the way that we do. And that's the way that I think work? Or is it more do I self sabotage? Do I get in my own way? Are my beliefs which are the contents of my mind? Are my beliefs a form of self limitation or self empowerment? Why do I believe this thing? Did I choose this thing? Or is this belief a byproduct of who I've been around?
What I call social osmosis. I just believe this because everyone I've been around believes it, or my mum and dad believe it. So now it's mine. I guess what? Yes, yeah, But that thing that you believe might actually be the problem also might not be true, and it might not be something that you actually want in your life.
Now you might have you just inherited it from the previous generational society, but deep down you actually don't believe in that. Like you believe it right, because it's a deepault belief. But looking at your values now, you're like, that doesn't really align. This belief is not saving me. This belief I'm saying about myself, I don't really feel
that way about others or something. So yeah, I think it's really important we look at it again the childhood, right, those first what seven years, and how that really influences the rest of our lives and how we parent, how we lead others, how we lead ourselves, how we see ourselves get so important.
And I think being able to courageously do a deep dive into some of your psychological and even behavioral responses that you're not proud of, like sometimes for me, like often for me, it's ego and insecure. Whereas I do it less, I think, But I used to do it a lot because I was so because I thought so little of myself and I thought everyone else thought so little of me that I subconsciously must have felt a
need to impress them. And so that go I did X, and I go, that's great, I did two X. I mean, it wouldn't be that bad and obvious, but that's essentially what I was doing right Whereas now I'm much more interested in how they feel than how I feel in the moment, and being able to in real time have an awareness of what I'm about to say. Where is that coming from? Though? Don't say that that is not about that is all about you and your bullshit. I have a little exact go on sor I was.
Going to say, I feel like that's an example if you just been I mean, you've larned this ability to be self reflective and getting to know yourself and granting yourself and that's why you can be pressed with someone else. Yeah, people that need to know yourself is how you know others.
Yes. And it's like when I have a chat like this with you, I mean I've gotten to know you today. We had maybe twenty minutes before we rolled, but so whatever, that adds up to an hour and a bit, Like I know more about you now as a result of this hour, I think than I do through probably the last ten episodes. Not that they were disingenuous, but that was just let's talk about this. I'll see you next time, right.
Being able to do that, I think also you as an educator or a speaker or whatever, being able to teach people the theory or the ideas or the science
is great. But also when they see that you are also Sam the mum, Sam the daughter, Sam, the person that has peaks and troughs and good days and bad days, makes it much more real and relatable, accessible than this genius who seems to float above us, right it doesn't, and teaches us normal humans you know, how to like it's just bullshit, you know, it really is.
And that's definitely something I feel passionate about in being able to really talk about this ongoing journey of knowing ourselves and breaking through our barriers and we've all got them. And I hope that I continue to spend the rest of my life doing this right where I'm in this state of learning, constantly being a student of life, learning about myself and unlocking new levels and releasing those beliefs that don't save me gaining new ones. And yeah, that's really the journey, isn't it.
And I think also, like on top of that, you know, that idea of trying to understand how others think, not so that you agree or align with them or endorse their ideas or their behaviors, but just to understand, you know,
that's old chestnut that gets wheeled out too much. Seek first to understand, right, And when I'm working with someone who's nothing like me, which is quite often not better or worse, just real different, I'm so interested in trying to figure out what's going on in their mind, or at least having some insight so that I can connect, because if I can't understand how they think, then all the shit I'm saying is just a.
Guess yeah, and you're right. And this is why I think sometimes when I look back at these periods of life where I'm like, this is the worst. This is such a horrible thing that I'm going through, andever I know would go through that, or even going through school and trying to study, and this is so hard, and
why does this have to be so hard? It is those experiences that actually help me have empathy for others, because even though this situation may look different from mine on the beds eye view, going deeper, it's like, ooh, I remember a time where I also did feel in control of my life, or I remember a time where things didn't go to plan, and you can empathize with that. So I feel like this lived experience is so important
for us to actually have the empathy for others. And you can't read about that in a book and you can't experience it. If you're trying to be perfect, do you actually have to constantly put yourself in new situations and start to chip away at you know, things that are holding you back in order to almost like I wouldn't say crash, but actually you know, like you said, sit with a discomfort, go through hard stuff, show up
when you don't want to. All of these things, I feel like is what actually helps build that empathy for others.
And I think being able to change the way that we see others or the world or ourselves, or being able to really kind of manage our mind, which I think is it's not close to impossible, but it's tricky. It definitely manages me sometimes and I manage it sometimes, but you know, being able to just be open to whatever it is that is going on without trying to label yourself one way or the other, good or bad. And then others the same, where like, how do we
build real connection with people? Well, there's got to be trust, and there's got to be understanding, and there's got to be a real desire to want to connect with people. And it's work. Like there have been many times where I've sat to coach someone and five minutes in, I am not even there. I mean, I'm doing it on altipilot because I can do it. But that's just skill. But I'm not actually fully present, and I have to pull myself up. You have to go what are you doing?
Like you're not even like this hour isn't about you, Craig, it's not about you, It's about them. You're not even really there, you know. And then that that kind of stuff where you're not beating yourself up, but you're just acknowledging what is. And I think it's the you know, like, I don't think we can think our way into different thinking. I think we've got to do our into different thinking.
I think it's in the action and the behavior and the decisions and the what we do that changes that kind of cerebral and psychological, cognitive, whatever landscape.
I really agree with that. I think it's the experiences that make it up. And I feel like those with the most wisdom are the ones that have actually had such a ranging experience in life. It's not the people that have, you know, just kind of been there, not you know, being too sched to engage with it.
It.
So people that have been courageous with their lives really to kind of in the arena and being like, yep, I'm here trying something new. I am here, and I am willing to kind of yeh, to grow in public basically. So yeah, I think it's definitely the experiences that change us.
It's always good chatting to you. I like that chat. I feel a little bit self indulgent because I actually there might be no listeners still listening, but I love that. I love to hear how you think. I love to hear how you do life. I love to hear how you work on you. You know. The one thing about personal development and self help, it seems to me that sometimes the focus of self help in a commercial sense is about changing everything around us. You know, more money, more
this different job. But you know, ticket and boxes and all of that's good and part of life. But I think the real challenge of personal growth is to change me. Oh definitely, It's about changing me, not so much changing everything around me. Definitely.
And I feel like in this in this era, we are so quick to then judge others with this new self awareness knowledge, and you know, I see people right labeling their ex partners and it's just because they've got this diagnosis or they're just whatever, and it's like, well, hang on, the real work is why why was I attracted to that at one point in my life? Why do I think that that was okay to be treated
like that? Why did I like that's the real growth and us going I can't actually change anyone else outside me, So how where is that for me?
And also maybe I don't want to get in trouble, but also maybe what you think about your partner him or her, or your sister or your brother or your maybe that is true, But is there a chance that you're a bit wrong? I'm talking about have I ever been wrong? Every day ten times a day my whole life? So that thing that I really think, could it be wrong? And the next thing is what is the point of getting into a public foring forum and essentially just bitching
about another human being? Like why are you doing that? Like what is your Maybe it's a good reason. I don't know. I'm not saying don't ever do it. I'm just curious about that practice of going. I'm going to write to the world, mostly people that don't know me, but these people that read my stuff, and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna just share all this stuff about this person, and I don't know. Even with that, I'm like, maybe don't know, but I think, is that a good
use of my time and energy? Could I use that time and energy on something that's better for me?
Exactly? And it's yourself, right life? And how are you living that out with your values and being in aligned with that?
Yeah, definitely, And we're not excusing anyone's behavior and we're we're not doing that. But it's like, growing up, I got bullied a thousand times. It's like I never talk about myself as having been a bullied kid because I was just a fat kid, and fat kids back then got bullied all the time, right, But most of my memories, most about my childhood are somewhere between okay and really fucking good because I also had lots of fun. I also had great mates. I also most of my experiences.
I grew up in the country. The country's fucking great, you know, So I don't live in that. I recognize that. I don't put my head in the sand, and I don't pretend bad things don't happen to good people. Of course they do. But it's like, but here I am now today as we're recording, you know, February twenty seven, three seventeen. Here in twelve seventeen where you are, and I go, all right, well, now in this moment, what's the best use of my energy in time? Now, it's
probably not right. And about that thing that happened to me when I was eight.
Yeah, well, I guess you're working on what you need now, right, which is like you're building confidence and the stuff you're doing, the things that you know right are going to make you feel good about yourself. I feel like that's the importance. It's not to go back for the sake of going back. It's going back and filling in the gaps, which you're doing. So yeah, it's good.
Where can people find you, Sam.
On my website which is www dot doctor Samcacy dot com or on Instagram at doctor Samcsey.
Well, I hope your presentation goes well next week.
Thank you.
I told you give me a buzz in between now and then if you want a little chatty mcchapster about it. But we'll say goodbye a fair but thank you for today and good luck with you gig next week. I'm sure you'll smash it. If you don't smash it, you'll do pretty good and you'll learn a few things right.
Thanks trying either way I'm winning right absolutely