Latest / The You Project / #2203 Back To School (At 50) - Dr Bill Sullivan

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#2203 Back To School (At 50) - Dr Bill Sullivan · The You Project

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Speaker 1: Good, Id Tellim Craig, Anthony Harpa doctor Bill Sullivan, Professor
0:04
Speaker 1: Bill Sullivan. And he's not just a professor. I was
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Speaker 1: what is the Show Walter professor of pharmacology and toxicology?
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Speaker 1: What Show Walter? If I'm pronouncing that right?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, The Show Walter is a family that is given
0:19
Speaker 2: very generously to our university and they have created two
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Speaker 2: endowed chair endowed faculty positions. I've the honor of having
0:31
Speaker 2: that slot for several years now, and it just basically
0:36
Speaker 2: is a recognition of the work that you're doing. You know,
0:41
Speaker 2: this family is really appreciative of it, and we are
0:43
Speaker 2: really appreciative of their support in return.
0:47
Speaker 1: So you're not just a professor of that. You're a
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Speaker 1: professor of well, I'm going to side again, pharmacology and toxicology.
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Speaker 1: Independent of that, you're a professor of micro biology and immunology,
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Speaker 1: and you're also a professor of Big Tree molecular biology
1:01
Speaker 1: in pharmacology. I don't understand the like, did are they
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Speaker 1: three different kind of awards or I don't know, like,
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Speaker 1: how does that work where you become a professor in
1:15
Speaker 1: three distinct areas. Yeah, I know they're interwoven A bit,
1:20
Speaker 1: but you know what.
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Speaker 2: I mean, absolutely, And the first one you mentioned, pharmacology
1:24
Speaker 2: and toxicology, doesn't exist anymore. That department was merged with
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Speaker 2: the biochemistry one, so that's now called the Biochemistry, Molecular Biology,
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Speaker 2: and Pharmacology department. And this happens quite a bit in academia.
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Speaker 2: As fields advance and start to overlap, they just combine them.
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Speaker 2: So that's the story with that. My primary appointment is
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Speaker 2: microbiology and immunology, which makes sense you and your loyal
1:53
Speaker 2: listeners who've heard me before know that I work primarily
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Speaker 2: on parasites, you know, on my day to day research agenda.
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Speaker 2: But my secondary appointment is in that other department with
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Speaker 2: the very long name, the biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Pharmacology.
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Speaker 2: In the States, we have multiple departments at our schools,
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Speaker 2: roughly divided into various disciplines, but people whose work is
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Speaker 2: multidisciplinary and extends into other fields, they usually get appointed
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Speaker 2: to multiple departments. So I teach classes in those other departments.
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Speaker 2: I teach students they can work in my lab if
2:37
Speaker 2: I'm affiliated with that department, So it kind of speaks
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Speaker 2: to your expertise to a degree, but it's not unusual
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Speaker 2: for faculty in the States to have multiple appointments in
2:51
Speaker 2: a variety of departments.
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Speaker 1: I want to ask you what might seem like a
2:59
Speaker 1: weird question. It's something that's been I've been talking about
3:03
Speaker 1: quite a bit lately. Both my parents are struggling with
3:07
Speaker 1: cognitive stuff, and a few other bits and pieces, but
3:10
Speaker 1: just in general, I've just become a lot more aware of,
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Speaker 1: you know, how our brain works and doesn't work, and
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Speaker 1: what we can do to you know, support cognitive function,
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Speaker 1: if not improve it, and how to healthily slow cognitive decline.
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Speaker 1: And it's just been a lot of conversation with a
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Speaker 1: few other people who are in the similar situations, and
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Speaker 1: it's I mean, I had a basic understanding, but I've
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Speaker 1: learned a lot. Recently, I spent time on the weekend
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Speaker 1: with my dad, who's in full blown dementia, and there
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Speaker 1: are moments of I was sitting there with him at
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Speaker 1: the you know, like the care home, and we were
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Speaker 1: eating some food and this music came on and it
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Speaker 1: was all this old fifties and sixties music. Bill I
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Speaker 1: had to do everything not to cry because all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden, my dad, who if he met you, he
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Speaker 1: wouldn't know you A minute later or two minutes later,
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Speaker 1: he wouldn't remember your name, but he's he's singing lyrics.
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Speaker 1: I mean song after song, line after line in time
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Speaker 1: with the music, remembering all the words like just fluently.
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Speaker 1: And I'm like, that is, excuse my language, fucking amazing.
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Speaker 1: Like there is just some part of the brain obviously.
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Speaker 1: I mean they talk about music and cognition and all
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Speaker 1: of those things, but or memory over time, but that
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Speaker 1: shit is amazing. Have you ever you know, and which
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Speaker 1: brought me to the question for you, do you think
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Speaker 1: about do you consciously think about how do I keep
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Speaker 1: my brain in shape for as long as I can?
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Speaker 1: Or is it just a byproduct of your work?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, well let me answer that after first, you know,
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Speaker 2: expressing my sympathies for you and your family. That's not
5:07
Speaker 2: an easy situation. I've had many friends about my age
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Speaker 2: with parents who are undergoing the same tragic process and
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Speaker 2: it's never easy and it never really gets better outside
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Speaker 2: of you know, blips like you're describing of lucidity where
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Speaker 2: everything seems normal again, but unfortunately that doesn't remain stable.
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Speaker 2: So yeah, my heart goes out to you and you're
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Speaker 2: family and anybody else who's dealing with this horrible situation.
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Speaker 2: I know there has been a huge uptick in research
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Speaker 2: into dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease, because it remains so mysterious,
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Speaker 2: and it's partly so mysterious because we don't understand how
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Speaker 2: memory really forms and is maintained over time. To begin with,
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Speaker 2: we had a better understanding of fundamentally how the brain works,
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Speaker 2: we'd probably be in a better position to understand some
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Speaker 2: of the pathologies that develop, you know, in the brain. So,
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Speaker 2: circling back to your question, I find that story fascinating.
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Speaker 2: It's just amazing how there are certain sensory stimuli that
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Speaker 2: can trigger memories that are so strong they yank a
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Speaker 2: person right out of that state of dementia and into
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Speaker 2: their old lives in a very vivid manner. So, in
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Speaker 2: addition to music, you know, I've heard similar stories like
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Speaker 2: yours before, other sensory things can snap them out of it.
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Speaker 2: If they see a certain photograph, where if they hear
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Speaker 2: a different sort of sound, smell, song that does the
7:02
Speaker 2: same thing, and you get this temporary lapse of you know,
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Speaker 2: you know, this person's back again. Unfortunately it doesn't last,
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Speaker 2: but it is remarkable and it tells us something about
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Speaker 2: the brain that there's like distinct chambers of memory that
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Speaker 2: must exist, or in the case where folks can't remember something,
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Speaker 2: it's debated whether those memories are still intact and somewhere
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Speaker 2: in the brain, and stories like you Know your Dad
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Speaker 2: suggests that that's true, and others suggest that depending on
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Speaker 2: the extent of the damage and where it occurred in
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Speaker 2: the brain, certain memories can be lost forever. And that's
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Speaker 2: really who we are, right We are basically an accumulation
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Speaker 2: of a lifetime of memories, and if we can't maintain
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Speaker 2: that matrix of who we are, then we really are
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Speaker 2: different people at the end of the day. So, yeah,
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Speaker 2: I have heard about stories that you just related, and
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Speaker 2: it gives us a little bit of a peek into
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Speaker 2: this huge black box in our head as to the
8:12
Speaker 2: mysteries of how the brain works.
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Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's like if I just said to him, also,
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Speaker 1: if you know, he's singing this song word perfect And
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Speaker 1: my dad always loved I grew up around music. My
8:24
Speaker 1: parents played music twenty four to seven obviously records back
8:28
Speaker 1: in the day, right, But if you said to him, Dad,
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Speaker 1: who's singing this? He wouldn't know but the music, like
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Speaker 1: the actual and also his physiology changed, like he went
8:42
Speaker 1: from looking just exhausted and tired and it's I don't
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Speaker 1: know if this is true, but it looked to me
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Speaker 1: it's like his eyes became clearer and wider and it
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Speaker 1: was just happy in this moment. Now this is just
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Speaker 1: a stimulus, an inbound stimulus, and it's just had this. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: if somebody described it to me, I'd believe it, but
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Speaker 1: I'd be like, yeah, it couldn't have been you know,
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Speaker 1: it couldn't be that profound, because you know, normal him
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Speaker 1: at the moment, there's that's not going on, you know.
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Speaker 1: So all right, my very long winded lead up to
9:24
Speaker 1: today's theme and topic which I didn't tell you before
9:28
Speaker 1: we went live, which you told me you don't like
9:31
Speaker 1: you like to know what's coming. And I don't blame
9:34
Speaker 1: you because you can't prep for what you don't know,
9:38
Speaker 1: but I feel you've got the capacity. All I want
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Speaker 1: to do today is I want to talk to you
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Speaker 1: about older and by that I mean older than typical
9:50
Speaker 1: older people say thirty five plus. Hear me out. Everybody
9:54
Speaker 1: don't get distressed going back to school or some form
9:57
Speaker 1: of academic environment and doing some study and maybe the
10:01
Speaker 1: pros and cons and just from someone who lives in
10:07
Speaker 1: academia and who constantly researches and talks and teachers and mentors,
10:12
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine how many thousands of students with
10:16
Speaker 1: different personalities and abilities and disabilities, and you know, kind
10:21
Speaker 1: of strengths and weaknesses you've worked with to help them
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Speaker 1: achieve a particular goal that a hundred other people next
10:31
Speaker 1: to them are doing, but with their own unique kind
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Speaker 1: of proclivities and challenges. Right So, and off the back
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Speaker 1: of this is a news story I saw the other night.
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Speaker 1: I just caught the end of it. But they were
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Speaker 1: talking about here in Australia there's been a big upturn
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Speaker 1: or uptick in people going back to if not university
10:53
Speaker 1: like I rung or two below, where they're doing some
10:55
Speaker 1: kind of diploma or certific certification in something. But I
10:59
Speaker 1: want to talk about out the idea of going to
11:03
Speaker 1: university and doing an undergrad degree in something. Now, clearly
11:07
Speaker 1: some of our audience are not interested in this, But
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Speaker 1: even if that's not what you're thinking about or would
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Speaker 1: never think about, I think it's an interesting conversation also, listeners,
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Speaker 1: I never dreamed of doing a PhD until I went
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Speaker 1: to Brain Park where I did where I'm doing my
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Speaker 1: PhD now, and I was asked to talk to the
11:31
Speaker 1: faculty and the PhD students because I met a guy
11:36
Speaker 1: who's there and he listened to me speak at a
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Speaker 1: public workshop and he's like, all the stuff that you
11:44
Speaker 1: teach and talk about is essentially you know, psychology and
11:47
Speaker 1: human behavior in a different way and anyway, So I
11:50
Speaker 1: went to this place, I did this talk and it
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Speaker 1: was ace and they were all super supportive and nice.
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Speaker 1: And then one of the one of the senior academics,
12:01
Speaker 1: asked me if I'd ever thought about doing a PhD,
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Speaker 1: and I went absolutely not, And then we ended up
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Speaker 1: having a meeting and that was that. But I never
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Speaker 1: would have done a PhD if not for that moment
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Speaker 1: and that support and the thing that I thought I
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Speaker 1: could never do. You know, I'm pretty much at the
12:18
Speaker 1: finish line now, and I think part of not doing
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Speaker 1: study is maybe because we're scared or you know, an
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Speaker 1: intersection of self doubt and not understanding our own potential
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Speaker 1: and possibilities. But what are your general thoughts about people
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Speaker 1: going back to university or going to university for the
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Speaker 1: first time, say, you know, thirty five plus doc.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so that wasn't too terrible of a surprise
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Speaker 2: at all. That's definitely in my wheelhouse. I know it
12:50
Speaker 2: would be, and you probably also know my answer. I'm
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Speaker 2: a huge proponent of people remaining active learners all of
13:00
Speaker 2: their lives. And one way to do that, I think
13:07
Speaker 2: is a little extreme is to go back to school
13:10
Speaker 2: and get a new degree or further the degree that
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Speaker 2: you currently have. That I couldn't applaud it more. I
13:18
Speaker 2: think it's wonderful, but it might be too onerous on
13:22
Speaker 2: some people, especially if they've been out of the academic
13:27
Speaker 2: environment for a long time, and it may not be
13:30
Speaker 2: conducive to their schedule. You know, they probably have full
13:34
Speaker 2: time jobs and families to take care of, parents they
13:38
Speaker 2: have to take care of, and in order to go
13:41
Speaker 2: get a PhD. As you know, it takes a huge
13:44
Speaker 2: amount of time. It's a huge commitment. You've really got
13:47
Speaker 2: to immerse yourself into that endeavor to be successful at it.
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Speaker 2: But I wouldn't fault anyone for wanting to do it.
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Speaker 2: I think it is an outstanding way to lifetime learning.
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Speaker 2: But what I want to assure your listeners is that
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Speaker 2: there are many other ways you can stay actively learning
14:10
Speaker 2: kind of be a student for life without having to
14:13
Speaker 2: go back to school and get a degree, and you know,
14:18
Speaker 2: or you can investigate school's mine. For instance, Indiana University.
14:24
Speaker 2: I know that's kind of a schlep for people from Australia,
14:27
Speaker 2: but at Indiana University we have literally a program called
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Speaker 2: Lifelong Learners and it is kind of a short form
14:37
Speaker 2: university based course where people can sign up for various topics,
14:43
Speaker 2: usually during the summer, and they can attend the lectures
14:49
Speaker 2: in these like little mini courses and they can take
14:51
Speaker 2: as many as they want. I've participated in that program
14:54
Speaker 2: and it's absolutely wonderful. You know, you actually get people
14:59
Speaker 2: in your class room who are not on their phones
15:01
Speaker 2: or watching YouTube on their laptop. They're actually there because
15:04
Speaker 2: team want to learn, and they are They engage with
15:09
Speaker 2: you completely, They absorb the material, you know, like a sponge,
15:14
Speaker 2: and they have fantastic questions. So there may be something
15:18
Speaker 2: similar to that at universities around Australia or maybe independently
15:22
Speaker 2: through other organizations. So that's like going back to school
15:26
Speaker 2: and taking some classes, but without the obligation of completing
15:31
Speaker 2: a degree. That might be a good way to like
15:34
Speaker 2: baby step into it, you know, we.
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Speaker 1: Have I think it might be I'm not exactly sure
15:41
Speaker 1: what community colleges are. We don't have them here, but
15:43
Speaker 1: we have I think what is a version so government
15:47
Speaker 1: funded it's called tafe. It's almost like community college, you know,
15:52
Speaker 1: where you can do anything from like an introductory course
15:56
Speaker 1: to bookkeeping to a degree in nursing. Like that's I
16:01
Speaker 1: think about the ceiling. So they do do some degrees,
16:06
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of you know, just below kind
16:08
Speaker 1: of I guess they would call them over there diplomas
16:13
Speaker 1: or you know, certifications and qualifications in everything from you know,
16:19
Speaker 1: massage and you know, bookkeeping to introduction to mechanics to
16:25
Speaker 1: you know, there's a whole lot of that, which is
16:26
Speaker 1: a really nice kind of and they especially the lower
16:30
Speaker 1: level courses, they're they're aiming for people who aren't academics
16:34
Speaker 1: and have never been an academic, you know, So what
16:40
Speaker 1: about people who like, we all learn differently, you know,
16:46
Speaker 1: as in there's not one learning style, and what would
16:49
Speaker 1: be optimal for me? Like when I did my first degree,
16:53
Speaker 1: I was so bad by the way. I was thirty
16:55
Speaker 1: six when I started my first degree was excise physiology
17:00
Speaker 1: exoscience that I would when I was doing functional anatomy,
17:07
Speaker 1: I would read the text. I would record the text.
17:12
Speaker 1: I would record me reading it. So you know, the
17:15
Speaker 1: five abductors of the FEMA, are you know? Adductive, longest, magnus, brevis, gracillis, pectineus. Right.
17:23
Speaker 1: I literally had to. I literally had to read it
17:28
Speaker 1: out loud. I'd read the book, I'd highlight the book.
17:31
Speaker 1: Then I'd read out loud all the stuff I needed
17:33
Speaker 1: to know. And then on the way to university, I
17:36
Speaker 1: would play that in the car. I would play that
17:39
Speaker 1: when I went to bed, And for.
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Speaker 2: Me, that's good for your brain.
17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, but other people can just read it and remember it.
17:47
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I hate those kind of people.
17:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. But here's my experience. It's like when
17:52
Speaker 1: I learned something like learn, learn, learn, like the five
17:55
Speaker 1: adductors I just described, right, I didn't. I learned that
17:59
Speaker 1: quarter of a centgo, But it tends to stay. It's
18:02
Speaker 1: like locked in. Yeah, So things like that, when I
18:06
Speaker 1: truly understand and truly know something and remember something, it
18:11
Speaker 1: tends not to slip away. I tend to remember. I
18:15
Speaker 1: would think about ninety percent of those conscious learning processes
18:20
Speaker 1: I've been through, whereas it seems to me a lot
18:22
Speaker 1: of people can remember stuff for an exam or test
18:26
Speaker 1: or assignment or whatever, and then it kind of disappears.
18:31
Speaker 1: So being able to retain information over time and then
18:35
Speaker 1: to be able to do something productive with that knowledge.
18:38
Speaker 1: So talk to me about learning styles or the way
18:42
Speaker 1: to figure out your style of learning and to build
18:46
Speaker 1: a model that works for you know that.
18:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like you said, It really does need to
18:52
Speaker 2: be tailored. And this is a constant challenge that educators
18:56
Speaker 2: like myself, you know, have to raise to because every
19:00
Speaker 2: student learns differently and at a different pace, and they
19:04
Speaker 2: use different methods. So what schools have gravitated to more
19:09
Speaker 2: recently rather than in the past where it was just
19:13
Speaker 2: it's one size fits all and if you don't like it,
19:16
Speaker 2: then you don't belong here. We try to accommodate all
19:19
Speaker 2: the different, you know, varieties of learning that are out there,
19:25
Speaker 2: and online courses and online exercises have really allowed us
19:30
Speaker 2: to take this to a whole new level because people
19:34
Speaker 2: can then learn on their own time, at their own speed.
19:38
Speaker 2: They can back up the video, you know, as opposed
19:40
Speaker 2: to in a lecture you can't keep asking the person
19:43
Speaker 2: to repeat themselves. If you're learning online, you can just
19:47
Speaker 2: back up the video and go over it again, try
19:49
Speaker 2: to learn it. If you don't understand it, you can
19:51
Speaker 2: google it real quick, fill in that hole, and then
19:54
Speaker 2: resume the lesson. So I think these days it is
19:59
Speaker 2: a lot easier to jump back into the fray and
20:02
Speaker 2: begin learning things again. And there's no shortage of evidence
20:06
Speaker 2: that says this is really good for your cognitive health.
20:11
Speaker 2: This is great for brain health. The more active you
20:15
Speaker 2: keep using your mind, the better you're going to age,
20:19
Speaker 2: the better you will retain those faculties when you're older.
20:23
Speaker 2: Exercise does the same thing working with your brain, and
20:27
Speaker 2: I liken this fact to working a particular muscle in
20:33
Speaker 2: the gym. Okay, your brain kind of works the same way,
20:37
Speaker 2: and it takes some discipline to nurture it correctly and
20:42
Speaker 2: to build up that muscle. So I think it's a
20:45
Speaker 2: really worthwhile endeavor, especially for folks who are reaching ages
20:50
Speaker 2: beyond thirty five. And you know, when you can do
20:55
Speaker 2: lifelong learning. Some people do it specifically, Craig to help
21:00
Speaker 2: with their career. You know, they want to gain new
21:03
Speaker 2: skill sets in order to further their career. That's fine
21:06
Speaker 2: and good, that's great. But even if you're like retired
21:10
Speaker 2: and you want to engage in lifelong learning, this is
21:13
Speaker 2: going to assist you in understanding the world better, relating
21:19
Speaker 2: to other people, understanding the news. I can't speak for everybody,
21:25
Speaker 2: but it seems to me that a lot of people
21:27
Speaker 2: who learn stuff. You know, when you learn something new,
21:30
Speaker 2: dopamine goes off in your brain. That's a measurable effect.
21:34
Speaker 2: So it's a pleasurable experience to find something out. So
21:37
Speaker 2: I think it can lead to a more happier and
21:42
Speaker 2: fulfilling life. And if you I mean this isn't true
21:47
Speaker 2: for like people who learn strictly online, But if you
21:49
Speaker 2: can get back into a classroom, or join a book club,
21:52
Speaker 2: or get into some other academic club where there's people
21:57
Speaker 2: that you get to interact with on a face to
21:58
Speaker 2: face basis, science has also shown that those interactions in
22:04
Speaker 2: person are really good for your brain's health, and in fact,
22:09
Speaker 2: longevity studies almost consistently identify being a part of a
22:17
Speaker 2: community as one of the key proponents of a long,
22:22
Speaker 2: happy life.
22:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I when I did my first degree, I started
22:27
Speaker 1: in two thousand and it was right at the kind
22:29
Speaker 1: of the threshold of the introduction of online learning, you know,
22:34
Speaker 1: where you could do it was just before that. So
22:37
Speaker 1: the notion of hybrid learning of some online and some
22:41
Speaker 1: in a classroom, you know, in a three dimensional world
22:44
Speaker 1: with other humans. It wasn't one or the other. It
22:47
Speaker 1: was just that. And if it was one or the other,
22:50
Speaker 1: I definitely would have picked the stay at home option,
22:54
Speaker 1: which I'm so glad I didn't have that option, because
22:59
Speaker 1: I would have expect I did not expect this, but
23:03
Speaker 1: so day one I rocked up. I was thirty six
23:07
Speaker 1: years old. Everyone else in the room except for a
23:09
Speaker 1: few were eighteen or nineteen, so I literally could have been,
23:15
Speaker 1: you know, technically their dad in terms of age gap, right,
23:19
Speaker 1: I would be young father though, feel weird, yeah weird.
23:23
Speaker 1: And I remember sitting in what was then basically an
23:26
Speaker 1: introduction to statistics lab and no idea about computers. And
23:34
Speaker 1: he's like, the teacher said, you know, just use your
23:38
Speaker 1: student ID to log on and blah blah blah blah blah.
23:43
Speaker 1: And I had no idea what that meant, use your
23:47
Speaker 1: student ID to log on. I was not computer literate
23:50
Speaker 1: at all, which is bad, I know, but you know,
23:53
Speaker 1: I owned gyms. I wasn't sitting on a computer. I
23:56
Speaker 1: was on the floor just training people to be strong
23:59
Speaker 1: and shit. So I said to this. She was literally seventeen.
24:05
Speaker 1: Her name is Bianca Morasco. Shout out to Bianca. She
24:11
Speaker 1: helped me a lot in the early days because I
24:14
Speaker 1: was just you know, she was the genius. I was
24:17
Speaker 1: the dumbass. But she goes, well, just click click your curt.
24:22
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's a cursor? I didn't know what a
24:24
Speaker 1: cursor was, right, And so that's where I started. I
24:29
Speaker 1: was literally not just in terms of being you know,
24:33
Speaker 1: a science student in that capacity and at that level
24:38
Speaker 1: when I hadn't been to school for eighteen years, right, so,
24:43
Speaker 1: and back when I finished school, it certainly wasn't anywhere
24:47
Speaker 1: in the the ballpark of what I went into. But
24:52
Speaker 1: over three years, semester one, it was a fucking nightmare experientially,
25:00
Speaker 1: but they were very supportive and helpful. Semester two, so
25:03
Speaker 1: two semesters a year in that system, then I kind
25:07
Speaker 1: of found my feet and I started to enjoy it.
25:10
Speaker 1: And then from then it was great because I knew
25:15
Speaker 1: what I was doing. I spoke the language, I understood
25:17
Speaker 1: the environment, and the culture, and I became friends with
25:20
Speaker 1: all these nineteen nineteen twenty twenty one year olds, and
25:25
Speaker 1: I would sit in the cafe or the cafeteria and
25:29
Speaker 1: have lunch with them, and I'm like, this is so
25:32
Speaker 1: much better than hanging out with my friends. Better like not,
25:36
Speaker 1: you know, we were no but it was such fun
25:41
Speaker 1: and like this stuff.
25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it.
25:44
Speaker 1: I owned three gyms, I had a lot of responsibility.
25:47
Speaker 1: I had one hundred staff, I had a couple of
25:48
Speaker 1: other businesses, and my life was very grown up in
25:53
Speaker 1: that sense. But sitting hanging out with these young students
25:57
Speaker 1: who like they were just for positivity, energy and fun
26:02
Speaker 1: and they're working. Do you know do you have the
26:05
Speaker 1: term bottle shop, which is people drive through and buy alcohol.
26:11
Speaker 1: It's called a bottle shop, so where you buy booze?
26:13
Speaker 2: I think certain states have that, but most yeah, you
26:17
Speaker 2: got to go.
26:17
Speaker 1: So we have. Obviously booze is a big thing in
26:20
Speaker 1: Australian culture, so you can just drive through. There's a
26:23
Speaker 1: lot of drive throughs, and half of them are working
26:26
Speaker 1: in drive through bottle shops, so they're working in macas
26:29
Speaker 1: or whatever. And the big drama of the day was
26:32
Speaker 1: that Sally and John broke up and oh my god,
26:35
Speaker 1: have you seen Sally? You know, and I know it
26:37
Speaker 1: sounds trivial, but it was such a beautiful escape for me.
26:41
Speaker 1: So I stepped out of this very grown up, high pressure,
26:44
Speaker 1: responsible kind of world. And then I'd go to UNI
26:48
Speaker 1: and I'd sit with all these kids and the biggest
26:51
Speaker 1: problem is, you know where they were going to go
26:53
Speaker 1: on Friday nights to get to get whatever they get
26:57
Speaker 1: on Friday nights. So yeah, I actually where most people
27:00
Speaker 1: would think. I couldn't think of anything worse than sitting
27:04
Speaker 1: with a bunch of I loved it. It gave me
27:06
Speaker 1: energy years a little bit. Yeah.
27:10
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think that's part of the draw for a
27:13
Speaker 2: lot of faculty. You get to interact with students, and
27:17
Speaker 2: as you get older, you know they're always the same age.
27:20
Speaker 2: For the most part. You do get what we call
27:22
Speaker 2: non traditional students who are older, but interacting with them
27:27
Speaker 2: is always rewarding. That is one of the best parts
27:30
Speaker 2: of my job is to be able to interact with students.
27:34
Speaker 2: And I'd like to hear your opinion on this, Craig,
27:38
Speaker 2: since you have done the same, I find that I
27:41
Speaker 2: learned from them as well, and I'm willing to bet
27:45
Speaker 2: when you hung out with those students at the union
27:48
Speaker 2: or whatever you called it, I bet they learned something
27:51
Speaker 2: from you too.
27:53
Speaker 1: It was definitely a two way benefit and two way exchange.
27:56
Speaker 1: But what I loved was probably after about four months,
28:00
Speaker 1: they forgot that I was thirty six and I was
28:03
Speaker 1: just one of them. And it wasn't there trying to
28:05
Speaker 1: make me feel included. No, it was ex They're like, hey, Harps,
28:10
Speaker 1: are you doing this on a we Do you want
28:13
Speaker 1: to study on the weekend? Do you want to do this?
28:15
Speaker 1: Do you want to Hey, Harps, what about But at
28:17
Speaker 1: the first, at the beginning, they're almost scared of me,
28:20
Speaker 1: because you know, I was one hundred kilo body built,
28:23
Speaker 1: a buff ed thirty six riding a motorbike. You know,
28:27
Speaker 1: they're all a bit like, oh fuck, who's this big
28:29
Speaker 1: scary guy. Then they forgot about that in ten minutes
28:32
Speaker 1: and then I was just one of their friends. And
28:35
Speaker 1: I loved that experience as well as I loved as
28:38
Speaker 1: much as I loved the experience of learning, you know,
28:42
Speaker 1: how to be an academic coming from absolutely nowhere.
28:46
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic testimonial that you just did. You could
28:50
Speaker 2: be the poster child for people to go back to
28:52
Speaker 2: school and you know, hang out with people of a
28:56
Speaker 2: younger age learn new things. Everybody wins. But you bring
29:01
Speaker 2: up some good points, and kudos to you for sticking
29:03
Speaker 2: with it, because it can be uncomfortable first, especially if
29:06
Speaker 2: it's a brand new environment. You don't know any of
29:09
Speaker 2: these people, and in addition to the social element, you're
29:13
Speaker 2: worried about actually learning this stuff, and you can get
29:16
Speaker 2: distracted by one or the other. So your story of
29:19
Speaker 2: firms that you know, just stick with it. People are
29:23
Speaker 2: going to be more friendly and approachable than you imagine,
29:26
Speaker 2: and some of them are going to be very happy
29:28
Speaker 2: to help you, like Bianca did, and you will also
29:32
Speaker 2: find that you have something to teach the younger crowd
29:34
Speaker 2: as well. So I think for all those reasons, people
29:39
Speaker 2: should not hesitate to jump back into this pool. You know,
29:45
Speaker 2: it's great to it's a great thing for your health,
29:50
Speaker 2: both psychologically as well as physically.
29:54
Speaker 1: And also I think a lot of us may include it,
29:58
Speaker 1: especially may we have this tendency to pigeonhole ourselves and go, oh, yeah,
30:07
Speaker 1: but I'm not an academic person or I'm not a
30:09
Speaker 1: gym person. The amount of people that have said to me, ah, yeah,
30:14
Speaker 1: but I'm not a gym person, and they've never been
30:18
Speaker 1: they've never been to a gym, but they know that
30:20
Speaker 1: they're not a gym person. So yeah, and I would say,
30:24
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, come up to my gym. It'll
30:26
Speaker 1: costume I thing come and just work out ten times.
30:30
Speaker 1: And then they would come to an environment where everyone
30:33
Speaker 1: said hello to them. My team were amazing, it was fun,
30:37
Speaker 1: it was social. Their body was shifting, they were getting
30:42
Speaker 1: more energy, they were building self esteem. And those people
30:46
Speaker 1: who were scared to come to the gym, overwhelmingly a
30:51
Speaker 1: high percentage of them ended up loving the gym, loving
30:55
Speaker 1: the environment, loving the experience, loving what was happening with
30:58
Speaker 1: their body and their brain and their energy and their
31:01
Speaker 1: cognitive capacity. And they wouldn't say it like that, but
31:05
Speaker 1: you know, because it isn't about you know, the bench
31:09
Speaker 1: press and the treadmill and the bike. It's about the
31:12
Speaker 1: other humans. It's about the interaction. It's about the learning.
31:16
Speaker 1: It's about the growth and the adaptation and the evolution
31:20
Speaker 1: not just of your body but also you. And now
31:22
Speaker 1: you are in an environment that scared you, and not
31:25
Speaker 1: only does it not scare you, now it brings joy
31:29
Speaker 1: into your life. But the truth is you had this
31:31
Speaker 1: perspective based on nothing but an idea, like no actual data,
31:37
Speaker 1: because you'd never been there. Polish everyone. Yeah, everyone that
31:41
Speaker 1: goes to a gym's a meaththead and a buffhead anyway,
31:44
Speaker 1: and I'm not that night to go. We'll come up
31:46
Speaker 1: to my gym because eighty percent of our clients and
31:49
Speaker 1: females eighty percent, and of them almost zero of them
31:55
Speaker 1: are athletes, so they're just like you, you know, and
32:01
Speaker 1: people would be yeah, And I think that where I've gone,
32:05
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not smart enough to do this.
32:07
Speaker 1: I always thought I didn't. I didn't think I was stupid,
32:10
Speaker 1: but I doubted my capacity to do something like that.
32:15
Speaker 1: And because which is nobody's fault, but I was never
32:17
Speaker 1: really and I know it's up to me nobody else,
32:20
Speaker 1: but I was never really encouraged in that way at all.
32:23
Speaker 1: Where I grew up in the country, virtually nobody went
32:26
Speaker 1: to university. You either worked on a farm or you
32:30
Speaker 1: became a tradeer, tradesperson or whatever. You worked at the bank,
32:34
Speaker 1: or you worked in retail or whatever. But I think
32:37
Speaker 1: in after year twelve, I think there was eighty in
32:41
Speaker 1: our year that probably five went to university and that
32:45
Speaker 1: was in nineteen eighty two, so wow, Yeah, it's just different.
32:49
Speaker 2: It's astonishing when you think about the inertia we have
32:52
Speaker 2: to overcome to try something new. And it's kind of
32:57
Speaker 2: sad to think that we might have a lot of
33:01
Speaker 2: regrets when we get older because we deprived ourselves of
33:05
Speaker 2: trying something brand new when we were younger, because we
33:09
Speaker 2: were worried about this, that or the other thing. There's
33:12
Speaker 2: a wonderful song by Jeffrey Gaines, a songwriter I knew
33:17
Speaker 2: when I lived in Philadelphia, called Scares Me More, and
33:23
Speaker 2: simply put, the song says, you know, you can be.
33:28
Speaker 2: You can be scared of failing, you can be scared of,
33:32
Speaker 2: you know, not doing well, But what scares me more
33:36
Speaker 2: is not even trying in the first place. And I
33:40
Speaker 2: think that is a really important message because humans do
33:43
Speaker 2: have a tendency to get in a comfort zone, pigeonhole themselves,
33:49
Speaker 2: like you said, and describe their identity as kind of singular,
33:55
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm not anything else but that, And
34:01
Speaker 2: that's that's you can be whatever you want. Just go
34:05
Speaker 2: give it a try. You only live once. We're not
34:08
Speaker 2: going to be able to do this again. So yeah,
34:11
Speaker 2: don't hesitate. Go give it a world. Even if you
34:14
Speaker 2: don't like it or or you fail at it, who cares.
34:18
Speaker 2: You gave it a try, and that's a victory in
34:20
Speaker 2: and of itself.
34:22
Speaker 1: And also, being scared is being human. I'm scared. I'm like, yeah,
34:27
Speaker 1: may too, And they're like, oh, as if you'd be
34:29
Speaker 1: scared of anything. Oh fuck, I'm scared of four hundred
34:33
Speaker 1: things every day.
34:34
Speaker 2: But weed, we're wired to be like that, you know,
34:39
Speaker 2: we're very We're very frightful, very conservative because it was
34:45
Speaker 2: a survival advantage way back in the day for our ancestors.
34:49
Speaker 2: But in today's world, the things we worry about are
34:52
Speaker 2: very different than the real concerns that they had. You know,
34:55
Speaker 2: being devoured by a cheetah, for example, is very is
35:01
Speaker 2: a very different stress than I'm worried about what people
35:03
Speaker 2: are going to think of me if I do this.
35:06
Speaker 2: Who gives a rats ask what they think about you?
35:08
Speaker 2: You know, this is your life. You know, also, you're
35:11
Speaker 2: going to live your life by what others think about you.
35:14
Speaker 2: You're not living your.
35:15
Speaker 1: Life one hundred percent. Like you're the author of your story,
35:20
Speaker 1: and if you're not writing it, somebody else will write
35:23
Speaker 1: it for you, and you won't like the final chapter
35:26
Speaker 1: because you haven't been You've been a passenger on your
35:28
Speaker 1: own bus. You haven't been the driver.
35:31
Speaker 2: You know, but yeah, you're behind the wheel.
35:35
Speaker 1: But you think about humans in general, and this is
35:37
Speaker 1: very kind of dumbed down, but like where do we
35:42
Speaker 1: grow and where do we learn? And where do we adapt?
35:45
Speaker 1: And where do we build resilience and where do we
35:47
Speaker 1: build insight and understanding and awareness and capacity in the
35:51
Speaker 1: hard stuff like how do you build muscle? Will you
35:54
Speaker 1: go and get uncomfortable and you literally work against resistance
35:58
Speaker 1: to build strength to be able to do more and
36:00
Speaker 1: have a high level of function so to you know, cognitively,
36:04
Speaker 1: so to socially, Like you can't build social confidence by
36:08
Speaker 1: staying at home. You know, you can't get good at
36:11
Speaker 1: the thing that you won't do because you're scared. And
36:15
Speaker 1: it's not about being fearless. It's about being brave in
36:18
Speaker 1: the middle of the fear, which is human. And then
36:22
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, well not all of a sudden,
36:24
Speaker 1: but then one day the thing that terrified you doesn't
36:28
Speaker 1: bother you at all. In fact, you might the thing
36:30
Speaker 1: that you know, like the amount of people that I've
36:32
Speaker 1: coached over the years in public speaking who part of
36:37
Speaker 1: their job require them to do, say a report once
36:40
Speaker 1: a month in a boardroom or you know, they had
36:42
Speaker 1: to talk for eight minutes, and for the week leading
36:45
Speaker 1: up to that eight minutes, they did not sleep. They
36:48
Speaker 1: were terrified, and so they would do a bit of
36:51
Speaker 1: work to me with me to overcome that or address
36:54
Speaker 1: that or mitigate that. And then a very high percentage
36:59
Speaker 1: down the track actually enjoyed it. Not only were they
37:04
Speaker 1: not terrified, and it's not like they were kind of ambivalent, Ah, yeah,
37:08
Speaker 1: I can do it or not do it. They actually
37:10
Speaker 1: looked forward to it because it became a positive experience
37:15
Speaker 1: because that'd learned and that built skill, and they could
37:17
Speaker 1: read the room and they had situational awareness and that
37:21
Speaker 1: get a bit of a laugh or they'd get some
37:23
Speaker 1: head nodding, and all of a sudden, Now this thing
37:26
Speaker 1: that scared you is a positive experience that you're in
37:29
Speaker 1: the middle of. And you're like, oh, like, public speaking
37:33
Speaker 1: isn't the issue. My fear is the issue. So I
37:36
Speaker 1: need to build some skill, learn some things. I mean,
37:40
Speaker 1: all of my growth has been in the middle of
37:42
Speaker 1: hard stuff. None of it when I'm comfortable.
37:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what you're talking about with respect to you know,
37:50
Speaker 2: if you want to get more fit, you're going to
37:53
Speaker 2: have to push yourself. You're going to have to lift
37:55
Speaker 2: weights that are beyond what you currently can do. You're
37:58
Speaker 2: going to have to run further faster than what you
38:00
Speaker 2: currently can do. Intellectual rules apply the same way. You
38:04
Speaker 2: want to challenge yourself with more and more difficult material,
38:09
Speaker 2: and you know, don't rush into like doing like the
38:14
Speaker 2: extreme difficult crossword puzzle. If that's something you want to
38:17
Speaker 2: start getting into, build up slow, start with the easier ones,
38:20
Speaker 2: then progress the medium. You can kind of desensitize yourself
38:25
Speaker 2: to some of the things you're afraid of by taking
38:28
Speaker 2: baby steps, and that's a perfectly viable route to reach
38:33
Speaker 2: a goal. You can't do everything all in one day,
38:38
Speaker 2: you know. It's funny the example you gave. I think
38:42
Speaker 2: there's an actual study out there that showed people are
38:45
Speaker 2: more afraid of public speaking than they are of death,
38:50
Speaker 2: which is pretty you know, which speaks volumes, so so
38:55
Speaker 2: people who are afraid of public speaking certainly aren't alone.
38:58
Speaker 2: That's a very common thing. But I've read also similar
39:01
Speaker 2: things that and I've experienced it myself. After you do it,
39:07
Speaker 2: you know, you usually look forward to the next time,
39:11
Speaker 2: you know, because you realize it was just a fear
39:15
Speaker 2: and that was the only thing blocking you from performing.
39:21
Speaker 2: So you just got to circumvent that fear. Your mind
39:24
Speaker 2: can be your own worst enemy sometimes, so you have
39:27
Speaker 2: to train yourself to have better internal monologues. And if
39:31
Speaker 2: you can do that, you can circumvent a lot of
39:34
Speaker 2: the obstacles that keep you from reaching a goal or
39:37
Speaker 2: doing something in life that you always wanted to do.
39:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting. One of the challenges. I'm working
39:45
Speaker 1: with a guard at the moment, and his he's kind
39:50
Speaker 1: of at the very very beginning, so we're trying to
39:53
Speaker 1: figure out kind of everything, you know, what he's going
39:55
Speaker 1: to talk about. He's got a very interesting background, but
39:58
Speaker 1: just themes and ideas. And yesterday morning, Melbourne time, he
40:04
Speaker 1: did his first ever presentation in front of me. Right
40:08
Speaker 1: we did it on zoom, So his homework was he
40:11
Speaker 1: had to prep a fifteen minute presentation. I didn't care
40:14
Speaker 1: what it was on. I gave him some guidelines and
40:19
Speaker 1: he you know, and it's almost more scary when it's
40:22
Speaker 1: your coach and it's one on one and you're doing
40:26
Speaker 1: it to be essentially evaluated and critiqued, and he went,
40:30
Speaker 1: he went fine. But one of the things that people
40:33
Speaker 1: don't think about with say public speaking, for example, and
40:37
Speaker 1: this correlates with many other skills or tasks, is being
40:42
Speaker 1: in an abnormal situation or environment, like standing in front
40:47
Speaker 1: of one hundred people or one thousand people or twenty people,
40:50
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what it is, one that generally for the
40:53
Speaker 1: average person lends itself to something between discomfort and extreme anxiety.
41:00
Speaker 1: But one of your goals or one of the requirements
41:02
Speaker 1: over time is that you are up there and you
41:05
Speaker 1: are calm. You are calm, because if you're up there
41:09
Speaker 1: and you're anxious and you're fearful and you're overthinking, then
41:13
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, your skill and your awareness and
41:16
Speaker 1: your performance go downhill. So it's trying to trying to
41:20
Speaker 1: train yourself over time to be in this this situation
41:25
Speaker 1: or context which you know normally would just send your
41:29
Speaker 1: physiology you know, rocketing and then but to not be that,
41:34
Speaker 1: and you can only get that with reps. You know,
41:37
Speaker 1: you've just got to keep doing it and go. You know,
41:40
Speaker 1: my martial arts analogies that you know everyone's going to
41:44
Speaker 1: be a white belt, like nobody starts at black and
41:48
Speaker 1: so like in Brazilian jiu jitsu, which generally is ten
41:52
Speaker 1: to twelve years to get a black belt if done
41:55
Speaker 1: properly in an actual b JJ academy, Yeah, you're going
42:01
Speaker 1: to get the shit kicked out of you for at
42:03
Speaker 1: least the first year or two before you've even got
42:06
Speaker 1: you know. And that's okay, and we're you know, but
42:09
Speaker 1: that's how you get good is by first not being good.
42:13
Speaker 1: Well I'm not good, then of course you're not.
42:15
Speaker 2: You haven't done it, that's right.
42:17
Speaker 1: You can't build skill unless you're doing it.
42:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a saying in Buddhism that you should
42:25
Speaker 2: always thank your opponent or thank anyone who defeated you.
42:31
Speaker 1: Why.
42:32
Speaker 2: You know, that sounds very unintuitive, but it's because they
42:35
Speaker 2: gave you a challenge that you couldn't meet, and they
42:38
Speaker 2: thus gave you a goal to now strive for. And
42:41
Speaker 2: it is that individual who is actually going to spark
42:45
Speaker 2: you to self improvement. So I've found that a very
42:49
Speaker 2: interesting perspective. You know, don't necessarily be angry at people
42:55
Speaker 2: or events that have kind of you know, spurned you
43:01
Speaker 2: in some way or kept you down. Those are exactly
43:05
Speaker 2: the people are situations that you need to get better.
43:08
Speaker 2: So embrace it, learn to enjoy it, learn to recognize
43:12
Speaker 2: that when you're being challenged, the outcome of that is
43:15
Speaker 2: you've gotten better.
43:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, the outcome is growth is experience understanding. All right,
43:22
Speaker 1: So just for one moment and we're going to wrap up,
43:26
Speaker 1: But let's just go back to the people who are
43:29
Speaker 1: thinking about forget all the other things, but going back
43:32
Speaker 1: to university or going to university for the first time
43:36
Speaker 1: as an adult, maybe even an older adult. So people
43:40
Speaker 1: that are thinking about that and they want to enter
43:45
Speaker 1: that system and complete an undergrad degree, what advice if
43:50
Speaker 1: you could give us like four or five pieces of
43:53
Speaker 1: just general advice, that might be helpful for people listening
43:57
Speaker 1: to this, because I think sometimes just the idea or
44:02
Speaker 1: just the thought where people go, oh, well, Craig did
44:06
Speaker 1: it at thirty six and he's not a journius and
44:09
Speaker 1: he got through and now he's doing all this other
44:12
Speaker 1: stuff's And I'm not being self deprecating there, but I
44:16
Speaker 1: just think to help people have maybe a tiny bit
44:20
Speaker 1: of self belief or curiosity around this, what are five
44:23
Speaker 1: ideas or thoughts that you have for them.
44:27
Speaker 2: I guess the first the first one will be go
44:30
Speaker 2: for it. I mean, you only live once. You don't
44:33
Speaker 2: want to have a regret you know years down the
44:37
Speaker 2: road that you never took action today. So just get
44:42
Speaker 2: over that inertia and get out there and do it.
44:46
Speaker 2: If there is a fear that is preventing you from
44:50
Speaker 2: getting out there and doing it, there are ways to
44:52
Speaker 2: combat that. You can talk to a therapist, you can
44:56
Speaker 2: take baby steps. You can go into a new endeavor
45:00
Speaker 2: with a friend or two. You know that sometimes just
45:03
Speaker 2: having a friend alongside you can help you reach various
45:08
Speaker 2: goals you could. You know, if your fear is so intense,
45:13
Speaker 2: there are medications, anti anxiety medications that can help quell
45:18
Speaker 2: that fear so that you can get to where you
45:20
Speaker 2: want to go. But most people, I would hope could
45:23
Speaker 2: just restructure their internal monologue to get over those fears.
45:29
Speaker 2: The third thing I would recommend is investigate the options
45:33
Speaker 2: because you may, like like we spoke about earlier, if
45:36
Speaker 2: you want to engage in something like lifelong learning or
45:39
Speaker 2: even going to develop a new workout regimen. Investigate all
45:44
Speaker 2: the various possibilities because there's probably more approaches than you're
45:49
Speaker 2: aware of, and you can find one that is more
45:52
Speaker 2: or less custom built to your needs and where you
45:55
Speaker 2: are in the process. I think those top three things
46:02
Speaker 2: should help motivate people to do that, And maybe the
46:08
Speaker 2: fourth one is remind yourself that when you are engaged
46:11
Speaker 2: in a challenging endeavor that is almost always going to
46:17
Speaker 2: be better for your mental health. You know, your brain
46:21
Speaker 2: actually does crave and grow from new experiences, and if
46:27
Speaker 2: you deprive your mind of that, you're not really giving
46:32
Speaker 2: yourself the optimum cognitive health that you can achieve.
46:38
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm just looking up here. Sorry, I wasn't being rude.
46:42
Speaker 1: I was listening to you. University preparation courses or bridging courses,
46:48
Speaker 1: and in Australia everyone we're talking about type so type
46:54
Speaker 1: off of them. I'm pretty sure they're free or next
46:57
Speaker 1: to free, so that it's on for people who have
46:59
Speaker 1: been out of education for years, don't have the required
47:02
Speaker 1: ATA or EQUIP or equivalent. That's like the what's the
47:06
Speaker 1: number you have GDP? What is that that? What's the
47:10
Speaker 1: score that they get when they leave high school?
47:15
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I forget what it's called myself.
47:17
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter people who are changing. Yeah,
47:24
Speaker 1: And these courses cover academic writing, critical thinking, research skills, referencing,
47:29
Speaker 1: basic basic maths and stats. I wish I did that before,
47:33
Speaker 1: time management and study skills. And most people in Australia
47:38
Speaker 1: begin with a certificate for or a diploma or an
47:42
Speaker 1: advanced diplomber and these often provide direct entry or credit
47:47
Speaker 1: into a university degree. So if what we've spoken about
47:54
Speaker 1: raises a little bit of curiosity or excitement or inspiration,
48:01
Speaker 1: I'm just ready. Yeah, then that's a really good starting
48:03
Speaker 1: point if you're over twenty one. Many universities have alternate
48:08
Speaker 1: entry pathways that place less emphasis on school results and
48:12
Speaker 1: more on previous study work, experience, APTIT tests, bridging programs, interviews. Yeah,
48:19
Speaker 1: so there's that, and that's I mean, you might do
48:22
Speaker 1: that bridging course or that preparatory course and go no,
48:26
Speaker 1: it's not for me, or you might go, oh, now,
48:29
Speaker 1: I know how to reference and cite, and I know
48:32
Speaker 1: how to speak a bit of academia and write a
48:35
Speaker 1: bit of academia, and I know how to read an
48:38
Speaker 1: academic journal and understand it. And I'm learning a little
48:43
Speaker 1: about statistics and advanced maths and so there's that Doctor Bill.
48:50
Speaker 2: That sounds like a great summary. But yeah, might just
48:54
Speaker 2: go remember what my songwriter friend said. You know, you
48:59
Speaker 2: can be scared of that's going to happen. That's perfectly natural.
49:02
Speaker 2: Sometimes you can argue it's unusual to not be scared.
49:06
Speaker 2: There's going to be some trepidation. But what should scare
49:08
Speaker 2: you more is not having the nerve to try in
49:12
Speaker 2: the first place.
49:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that scares me. That does. Like the thought
49:18
Speaker 1: of getting to a point in my life where I
49:21
Speaker 1: think I've wasted lots of talent and potential or opportunities.
49:27
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that drives me. Obviously, there's
49:30
Speaker 1: more to life than ticking boxes and being successful. I
49:33
Speaker 1: understand that, but in the context of work and you know,
49:38
Speaker 1: learning and education and yeah, it's been a blessing for
49:43
Speaker 1: me anyway. Now, everyone, don't forget please to meet me.
49:48
Speaker 1: Jean's Germs and the Curious Forces that make Us who
49:51
Speaker 1: we are is Doctor Bill's best selling Global phenomenon book.
49:57
Speaker 1: And you can buy that at good bookstores and shit ones,
50:01
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you can get it online as well. Mate.
50:04
Speaker 1: I love talking to you. I couldn't have more respect
50:08
Speaker 1: for you. Such a good bloke, such a smart bloke.
50:11
Speaker 1: But yeah, thanks for spending time with us again.
50:15
Speaker 2: Oh Harps, the feelings mutual. Thanks for having me back.
50:19
Speaker 1: Thanks buddy,