Latest / The You Project / #1863 Why Choosing Easy Leads To Hard - Harps

Transcript

#1863 Why Choosing Easy Leads To Hard - Harps · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get o to him. I hope you're bloody terrific. No,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: this is not the show. It sounds like it's the
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: start to the show, but it's not. It's an AD
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: so quick run, but it's an AD for me, So
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: maybe stay. I'm doing a ten week mentoring program. Some
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of you know that I do those. I've done a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: couple in the last few months, and he says humbly,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: they've been fucking amazing, really good feedback. Lots of breakthroughs, breakdowns, wow,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: not too many breakdowns, few revelations, but it's not in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: tears and laughed, a bit of joy, bit of transformation
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and inspiration and education.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: And all of that shit.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And clearly, if anyone's got all the answers to all
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the big questions in life's greatest mysteries, it's jumbo. It's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: fatty harp. So you should definitely come. No, not really,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: but I have spent a lifetime swimming in the deep
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: end of the human experience and talking to people for
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a very long time about their stuff psychology and physiology
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and emotion and career and all that stuff that kind
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of comprises our life and how we can think better,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: do better, create better and be better.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: So that's what it's really about. It's ten weeks, it's.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Online, it's on zoom, it's you know, it's you and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: me in a zoom room, as the kids call it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And you can watch it in real time, you can
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: interact in real time. You can watch it on delay,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: or you can do both. Some people come every Monday night,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: which it is, and they sit in there and take notes,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and then they come back through the week and take
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: some more notes.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: That's what some people do. So we're talking about brains.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And bodies and beliefs and bullshit.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: And why and how we keep getting in our own way.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And we're going to unpack fear and self doubt and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: communication and motivation and purpose and money and meaning and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: mental health and a lot of that shit that we
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: don't deal with until it punches us in the gob.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: So it's structured.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: It's kind of structured in that we have a different
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: theme and a different topic each week. As you know me,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like four year old in a lolly shop. I
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: do veer from the intended path from time to time,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: but we get there.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: We cover everything.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It's deep and philosophical, but not cheesy and cringey, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: if you're expecting you know, firewalks and ice bars and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: unicorns and dream boards and just think positive, well you'll
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: be disappointed. But having said that, I'll probably bring my
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: drain catcher at least one night, so there's that. Anyway,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: if you're ready to stop fucking around or roll up
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: your sleeves and actually do some work in a supportive
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and fun and curious and probably sweary environment, then saddle
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the fuck up, kids.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: We start April twenty eight. Are we there?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And I hope you are too. Head to my website
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: which is crakharperdt net creak Harper dot net for all
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the deats I get a him. I hope you bloody terrific.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So this won't be long. This won't be long, I
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: don't think as I sit here right now, and I'm
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: intending it not to be long because I think it
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't need to be. But I think some people think
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that sometimes that I'm a hard ass, or I'm all
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: about people just like going to the limit, redlining it
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: all of the time and exploring their ultimate potential and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: their optimal everything, And that's not exactly true at all.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: In fact, I think we're always going to be works
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in progress. I don't think I have ever been, or
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: will ever be, the absolute optimal version of me.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: But what I do know is.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: My willingness to get uncomfortable, and my willingness to lean
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: into uncertainty and inconvenience and a bit of psychological or
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: emotional or situational or sociological or financial pain, and to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: put myself in that place where I just have to
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: learn and grow and evolve and adapt and survive and
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: eventually thrive. I know that for me because I wasn't
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: wildly and I'm still not wildly talented or clever or genius.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It's only been my readiness and willingness to be able
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to do the hard things that has helped me achieve
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: some I say, very moderate success. And we really live
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in a time where people are not all people, but
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: many people are enamored with comfort, enamored with easy, enamored
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: with the quick fix, enamored with instant gratification. And while
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that is understandable, because in many ways we are hardwired
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: for pleasure and we are hardwired to avoid pain, but
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the other simultaneous truth is that when we do the
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: hard thing, I'm not talking about the reckless, silly, crazy
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: hard thing. I'm talking about the conscious, intentional, strategic hard thing, like,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: for example, going to a gym and training progressively and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: being consistent and doing hard things and a systematic, methodical,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: intelligent way over time, and the byproduct of going and
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: maintaining that momentum and using the gym membership the way
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that you intended to at the start, and doing the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: work and embracing all those scientific principles of progressive overload
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and adaptation and all of those things over time. In
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the middle of the hard, in the middle of the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: inconvenient and the uncomfortable, and initially the uncertain and the unfamiliar.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: In the middle of all of that, we build strength
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: in the gym, literally physical strength and endurance and power
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and capacity and function to be able to do all
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of these awesome things. So what we do is we
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: stimulate our body in a certain way. We interact with
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: these certain things that we call whatever dumbbells or barbells
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: or cables or machines or whatever it is, or a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: skipping rope or a bike. We go in and we
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: subject our body to these various stimus lie that are uncomfortable,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and then the byproduct of that is that our body changes,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and it's in the doing of the hard, the doing
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of the unfamiliar and uncertain and uncomfortable, and repeatedly doing that,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: just keeping on showing up and showing up and showing up.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Over time we create this body, this thing that we
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: live in, that is now way more competent and capable
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of dealing with hard shit. So when life requires us
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to run or to lift, or to move, or to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: work against some kind of physical resistance in a way
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: that an untrained body would really fucking struggle with us,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and our trained body can not only survive but thrive
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: because we've done the work. We've done the hard work
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: that now makes the hard thing easy. But for the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: untrained person, that hard thing is hard, that hard thing
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: is fucking hard, that hard thing is potentially impossible, just
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: like when you know, we keep showing up and we
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: walk up the hill. Every day, we walk up the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: hill a slow walk, then then a faster walk, than
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a fast walk, than a real fast walk, then a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: slow jog, and then a normal jog, and then a
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: quick jog, and then eventually maybe we're running up the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: hill at quite a gallop. We're walking down, we're running up,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and then maybe we're running up and running down, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: maybe over time the thing that was really fucking hard
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: becomes really quite easy and comfortable. Not because the hill
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: has changed, obviously, but because we've changed.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: We're different.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Our body is different, our thinking is different, our capacity
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: is different. But the truth is metaphorically, most people avoid
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the hill. Most people choose the elevator or the escalator.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Most people don't want to even walk the stairs. Most people,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in most situations, if in front of them as an
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: easy option or a hard option, most people, people in
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the moment, will choose easy because in the moment, that's
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: going to give me a thing that is more comfortable.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Now I understand this, and I'm not being critical of this.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just speaking awareness around this. So when in the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: moment I choose easy, I choose to eat junk food.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I choose to eat the crap that that is full
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of sugar and fat and calories, and it gives me
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that dopamine hit. And while it makes me feel momentarily good,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make me feel good ten, fifteen, twenty minutes
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: later and over the long term. When in the short
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: term I'm always pressing the dopamine button or the doughnut button,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: or the hamburger button, or the dim sin button, or
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the Coca cola or the beer whatever button it is
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: that gives me that momentary pleasure that hit right, which
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I understand. But over time, what I'm doing is I'm
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: actually making myself weaker and sicker and less resilient and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: more likely to be hit with disease and dysfunction and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: loss of mobility and cognitive decline. And I'll live shorter,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and I'll live healthier for less longer, So shorter health span,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: shorter lifespan more than likely over time versus the same
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: human who made different decisions.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: So what we know.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Is that this instant gratification habit, this quick fix, this
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: quick hit, this dopamine kind of obsession that we have
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: of pressing this metaphoric button that makes us feel good. Now,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: when we perpetually and repeatedly do that, over time, it
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: leads to not instant gratification, but sustained pain, sustained discomfort physical, mental, emotional,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: financial pain, because we've created a version of us. We've
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: created a version of us that now is not strong physically, mentally, emotionally,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: is not resilient cannot perform under pressure. Because whenever pressure
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: or the opportunity to step into pressure, or the opportunity
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to step into the mayhem and madness and the tough
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: stuff and to climb the hill or run the hill,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: whenever that presented itself, that opportunity or situation, we chose
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to avoid it. We chose not to have that opportunity
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of growth and strength and skill and resilience development. And
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: so when we systematically and intelligently and strategically go, you
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: know what, I'm going to do this thing that's hard.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do this thing that's uncomfortable. Now again
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about not in a reckless or silly way,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's like I'm going to do this PhD.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: This is hard, This is not comfortable, This is not painless,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: This is not quick, this is not convenient. This takes
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of time. Fuck, I'm not suggesting anyone needs
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: to do that. I'm just giving an example. And the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: middle of the five and a half years that I've
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: been doing that, guess what I've evolved and I've developed
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and my ability to study and research and focus and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: write academically and learn new things and keep my sixty
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: fucking one year old brain in some kind of shape.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: In the middle of all of that hard, tough, inconvenient,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable process, this academic process of one, you're achieving something
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: good if that's what you're interested in, perhaps in doing
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a PhD. But apart from the actual achievement of the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: PhD itself, all the psychological, the cognitive, the emotional, the behavioral,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and even the physiological right, it makes your brain work better,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: all those benefits that come with doing a hard thing.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Just like when you fully fucking commit to working out
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: or doing some kind of movement or exercise every day
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of your life Ryan hale or shine, convenient or not,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: fun or not, painless or not. Because you choose this thing,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you now create a different version of you when you
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: choose to optimize what you've got to work with. When
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you say, you know what, I want to be the
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: best version of me physically, mentally, emotionally, physically, mentally, emotionally,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I want to be the best version of me. Now,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: if I could ask you individually, do you want that?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: If you and I were sitting at a table and
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I said to you, do you want to be the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: best version of you? Do you want to be a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: drastically better version of you in a year from now?
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Your brain, your mind, your emotional system, your mental health,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: your physical health, your strength, your resilience, your aerobic fitness,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: your posture, your immune system. Would you like to, if possible,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: be a much better version of your current self in
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a year. Depending on where you're at right now, I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: know many of you would say, fuck yes, I do.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to say to you that that won't
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: accidentally happening to say to you that there is not
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: an easy path to that. Now here's the thing saying.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying in twenty twenty five, when everyone is
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: fucking enamated with quick fixes and magic pills and instant gratification,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: is not easy to sell. But and I mean this
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: with total respect, I don't care. I don't care because
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to sell you on anything. I'm not
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: going to do an announcement for a program or a
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: product or a pill because truthfully, truthfully, the gift in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: your life is you, The magic is you, the solution
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: is you. I'm just telling you how strength and adaptation
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and growth and development and resilience happen. I'm telling you
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that all of those great things that make our life better,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: because here's what happens. They happen in the middle of pain.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say. But here's what happens.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: When you choose to do the hard but correct thing,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: when you choose to do the inconvenient, uncomfortable, unfamiliar thing,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that's going to make you a better version of yourself
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: when the actual challenges that you didn't choose, or you
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: didn't want, or you didn't predict, when those real challenges
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: rock up, you are way better equipped than the average
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: punter who spends their life choosing easy. Because choosing easy
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: makes us weak. Choosing easy makes us more likely to
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: end up in pain. Does life need to be an
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: ongoing process of pain and struggle and adversity, And of
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: course it doesn't.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Of course it doesn't.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: But every day, if you can, every day, if not
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: every day, most days, choose to do something that you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: just don't necessarily in the moment enjoy, or perhaps you
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: choose something that isn't convenient or it isn't fun, but
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: you understand that it creates the outcome that is going.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: To serve you.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: It creates a byproduct of whether it's mental, emotional or
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: psychological strength, or it lowers your blood pressure, or it
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: produces changes in your physiology. Broadly speaking, that it means
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: you're going to sleep better, You're going to cope with
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: stress better. You're going to be able to be the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: calm and the chaos equanimity, the person who can deal
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: with a hardship. And now, because you've over time, you've
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: chosen to do the hard but important stuff that makes
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you fucking awesome. When the shit hits the fan, and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the shit hits the fan for everybody, and say that again,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the shit hits the fan for everybody, Nobody gets out
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: alive with all that shit. Everybody has to deal with shit,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: with pain, with inconvenience, with tragedy, with loss. Everybody has
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to deal with adversity. Everybody has to deal with it.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: What I want for you is I want you to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: be prepared. I want you and this is me coaching.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: You feel free to ignore me.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to choose the path that is the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: path of growth and development and building resilience and understanding
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and awareness and getting you closer to what is optimal you.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: You're never going to be optimal you, but you can
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: be fucking much better you. I want to be much
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: better me. I truly believe, as I've said too many
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: times on the show, that it's sixty one. I think
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: in many ways I'm better than when I was thirty one.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And it's not because that's what's meant to happen. It's
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: not because, oh, it just worked out like that. It's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: because I'm doing these things consistently. Still fucking up, by
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the way, still making mistakes, by the way, still human,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: still full of ego and bullshit at times, of course,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, I'm creating an operating system,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a way of doing and being and eating and living
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and sleeping and exercising and moving and socializing and working.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: That for me means that I am atypical for my age.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not special, I'm not better. But because of the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: work I do, and because of the hard that I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: lean into and the inconvenience that I lean into, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the optimal pain and suffering that I choose, it produces
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: good outcomes. And you can do the same. You can
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: do the same. You're all about personal growth. You're all
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: about personal development. You don't fucking grow or develop or
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: learn or evolve on the easy path so get the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: fuck off that