Latest / The You Project / #2022 WTF is Hardiness? - Dr. Paul Taylor

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#2022 WTF is Hardiness? - Dr. Paul Taylor · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I get eight champions. It's the You Project? What else
0:02
Speaker 1: would it be? Craig Anthony Harper reporting for Judy, know,
0:05
Speaker 1: Tiffany and Cook. It's just me all by myself.
0:08
Speaker 2: Fuck.
0:08
Speaker 1: I hope I can manage it. Paul Taylor and I've
0:10
Speaker 1: been friends for years. Nothing's changed. He's been a bloody
0:15
Speaker 1: a mainstay on the Australian fitness and health landscape for
0:19
Speaker 1: fucking decades. Now he's an immigrant. Don't hold that against him.
0:23
Speaker 1: You probably won't understand him. But if I do need
0:25
Speaker 1: to decode anything, I will. Great Champ, how are you?
0:30
Speaker 2: I'm bloody awesome?
0:31
Speaker 1: How did w are you? Sounding like an Aussie? More
0:35
Speaker 1: and more? How long have you? Is it? Two decades?
0:40
Speaker 2: Hello you? It is. This is my twenty first year.
0:44
Speaker 2: It's going to be my twenty first anniversary here on
0:47
Speaker 2: the fourteenth of December.
0:49
Speaker 1: Well, happy anniversary. It feels like five minutes ago that
0:52
Speaker 1: you stumbled in like a tall leopard corn into my
0:57
Speaker 1: facility at six four three in Apan Highway, which was
1:02
Speaker 1: then called Harper's is now the Woodshed with Sam Wood.
1:06
Speaker 1: But how long? What year did you come in? What
1:09
Speaker 1: year did we meet?
1:11
Speaker 2: We went a matt at two thousand and five, because
1:13
Speaker 2: I got here the end of two thousand and four
1:16
Speaker 2: and probably walked into your office I would say January
1:19
Speaker 2: or February of two thousand and five. Ah, there you go.
1:22
Speaker 1: For those who don't know, Paul, of course is an
1:24
Speaker 1: excise physiologists, got a master's in X fears and nutrition,
1:29
Speaker 1: and now a PhD in psychology. He's a straight up
1:32
Speaker 1: smarty pants. He's not got a new book. We'll explore
1:35
Speaker 1: that and more. But yeah, we worked, We worked together,
1:40
Speaker 1: we worked in the same facility, We worked side by
1:43
Speaker 1: side for quite a long time, and we've still been
1:45
Speaker 1: collaborating over the years ever since. For those who don't
1:50
Speaker 1: know you, who are meeting you for the first time,
1:52
Speaker 1: give everyone a little bit of a because we have
1:55
Speaker 1: a turnover of listeners and we constantly have new listeners.
1:58
Speaker 1: So give us a little bit of it. Rather than
2:00
Speaker 1: me reading some bio, give us a bit of a
2:03
Speaker 1: snapshot of you.
2:05
Speaker 2: So look, my background is pretty eclectic and born and
2:10
Speaker 2: reised in Belfast from a mixed marriage, which has a
2:13
Speaker 2: different connotation there and then everywhere else. Went to UNI,
2:18
Speaker 2: studied information management, then did a master's sports science, then
2:22
Speaker 2: joined the British military as an Arist Catholic, not many
2:25
Speaker 2: of us. Spent eight years flying in helicopters, doing anti
2:31
Speaker 2: submarine more for helicopters, starch and rescue, went through combat survival,
2:36
Speaker 2: resistance to interrogation training, did another master's part time, and
2:41
Speaker 2: then moved over to the Australia as an exercise physiologist
2:44
Speaker 2: nutrition has set up in your business, and then started
2:47
Speaker 2: doing corporate speaking, and then realized that it wasn't about
2:53
Speaker 2: telling people what to do, it was about behavior changing
2:55
Speaker 2: me and you had many conversations about that. So I
2:57
Speaker 2: went and studied neuroscience and the last bit of the
3:03
Speaker 2: puzzle for me was doing the pH d in psychology,
3:06
Speaker 2: where I explored cognitive fitness, which is performance under pressure
3:11
Speaker 2: and hardiness psychological hardiness, which is the topic of my
3:15
Speaker 2: new book. So now me and Gig is I'm a
3:19
Speaker 2: corporate speaker. I've also got a podcast like yours and
3:24
Speaker 2: an author as well. So following in your footsteps, Graig.
3:29
Speaker 1: Well, you're definitely not. You've taken mom just in your dust.
3:32
Speaker 1: I'm just wearing fucking goggles so I don't get all
3:34
Speaker 1: the bloody debris in my face from just charging ahead
3:38
Speaker 1: like a fucking ripper that you are. Do you know
3:42
Speaker 1: what I mean? I have congratulated you, but let's congratulate
3:45
Speaker 1: your fish officially, so doctor Paul Taylor for the first
3:49
Speaker 1: time on this podcast anyway, Doctor Paul Taylor. Mate, really,
3:53
Speaker 1: and it sounds silly something coming from me, who it's
3:56
Speaker 1: funny how much our kind of lives parallel. But as
4:00
Speaker 1: the guy who is not a doctor of psychology to
4:03
Speaker 1: the guy who is a doctor of psychology, congratulations, sincerely.
4:09
Speaker 1: I'm obviously I'm personally interested to know what's the feeling like.
4:14
Speaker 1: Is that relief? Is that joy is at fucking pride?
4:18
Speaker 1: I don't know because it's in years.
4:21
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think it's a little bit of everything.
4:26
Speaker 2: I think the first one I prayers submit is just
4:29
Speaker 2: massive relief that fucking hell, this is finally done and
4:34
Speaker 2: dusted and in.
4:37
Speaker 1: And then you sent me a screenshot of that. I
4:41
Speaker 1: was I was equally proud and resentful. I'm like, ah,
4:43
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Fuck him. I'm like, oh, I couldn't be
4:48
Speaker 1: proud of fuck off.
4:49
Speaker 2: That's right. I see you were the first person to
4:51
Speaker 2: you find eating before my parents, because I clicked because
4:55
Speaker 2: we are sort of running in parallel and you're a
4:57
Speaker 2: better ahead of me. And then I was a better
4:58
Speaker 2: ahead of you. And then luckily I had luckily I
5:01
Speaker 2: had opened heart surgery which put me in hospital, and
5:05
Speaker 2: the accelerated the finishing of my PhD because i'd probably
5:09
Speaker 2: still be on it. So yeah, relief. And then and
5:13
Speaker 2: then when I reflected, I remember actually I went in
5:17
Speaker 2: the day after I went in to Carly maybe I
5:22
Speaker 2: get up in the morning and I was saying, you know,
5:25
Speaker 2: I was. I was sitting there and I was I
5:27
Speaker 2: was going through my miner right right, what's the next
5:29
Speaker 2: one we're doing next? And then I said to Carley,
5:32
Speaker 2: I think I just need to slow down and take
5:35
Speaker 2: a bit of a break for a while. And she
5:38
Speaker 2: laughed at when she went, Paul, it's been less than
5:40
Speaker 2: twenty four hours for God's sick.
5:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But then you know, then when people start
5:48
Speaker 2: calling you doctor when you're doing a talk doctor Paul,
5:52
Speaker 2: first of all, I was like, fucking hell, who's that.
5:56
Speaker 2: So now I'm starting to get a little bit more
5:58
Speaker 2: comfortable with it. Just presented at the Melbourne Business School
6:01
Speaker 2: actually to the CEOs program, and it's it's nice because
6:06
Speaker 2: it gives you, particularly when you're talking at that level.
6:10
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's just that that kind of sense
6:14
Speaker 2: of you know, you deserve to be there. It's the
6:18
Speaker 2: I think it's probably the best thing is it's killed
6:21
Speaker 2: that little residual thing that's in the back of your mind,
6:27
Speaker 2: you know, that that whole imposter syndrome that has been
6:31
Speaker 2: around for a long time, and I think it's now
6:34
Speaker 2: finally Dad.
6:36
Speaker 1: So well, I reckon with you know, multiple books are
6:40
Speaker 1: very and internationally successful, podcast two masters a PhD. You're
6:46
Speaker 1: probably going, okay, you can probably say I'm not a
6:49
Speaker 1: complete fucking fraud, But that whole, I mean, what is
6:53
Speaker 1: interesting is it almost doesn't matter what you do. Like
6:56
Speaker 1: I've done a few good things as well, you know,
6:58
Speaker 1: I worked with e late Sporting Class, I've spoken all
7:00
Speaker 1: over the world all that shit, and yeah, for me,
7:04
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if for a PhD
7:06
Speaker 1: is going to get rid of it, but I'll let
7:09
Speaker 1: you know when the time comes. But yeah, that whole
7:12
Speaker 1: I don't feel worthy. I don't feel good enough. I
7:15
Speaker 1: don't feel whatever enough. Whether it's pretty enough, funny enough,
7:19
Speaker 1: you know, clever enough, talented enough, skilled enough, it's almost
7:25
Speaker 1: it's almost unavoidable for human beings some version of.
7:28
Speaker 2: That, right, yeah, and look it can't be It actually
7:32
Speaker 2: can be very useful. And I find that Maine was
7:35
Speaker 2: very useful. For some people, it's not useful, but for
7:39
Speaker 2: other people it sort of drives them on. So for me,
7:44
Speaker 2: I talk about functional and dysfunctional imposter syndrome. It's just
7:49
Speaker 2: like it's like narcissistic tendencies. There are some functional narcissistic
7:53
Speaker 2: tendencies and some dysfunctional narcissistic tendencies.
7:57
Speaker 1: That's so good. I love that. I like for me,
8:00
Speaker 1: my kind of my analogy is I tell people that
8:03
Speaker 1: mediocrity is my superpower because I'm so fucking average at
8:07
Speaker 1: so many things. I'm really inspired and motivated to overcome,
8:12
Speaker 1: like because I know that, you know, nothing has come
8:15
Speaker 1: super easy for me. Probably the one thing that I
8:17
Speaker 1: am naturally good at. But the only thing is communication,
8:21
Speaker 1: building rapport connection, which is not a bad thing to
8:23
Speaker 1: be naturally that good at, right, But other than that,
8:26
Speaker 1: you know, building businesses, academia, you know, creativity, writing books.
8:32
Speaker 1: All of those things were definitely not impossible, but it's
8:36
Speaker 1: not it's not like, oh yeah, crag, you just are
8:38
Speaker 1: natural at that shit. And so for me, that underlying
8:42
Speaker 1: self doubt, and that not even just self doubt, but
8:45
Speaker 1: self awareness around my own ability and lack of ability
8:50
Speaker 1: in certain spaces. It kind of kept me motivated and
8:54
Speaker 1: inspired because I knew if if I didn't fucking work hard,
8:58
Speaker 1: and if I wasn't resilient, and if I didn't have
9:01
Speaker 1: some hardiness beautiful segue harps, if I didn't have that,
9:07
Speaker 1: I wouldn't fucking succeed. I just knew that I wouldn't.
9:10
Speaker 1: And so it's almost that cliche of out workout perform, outlast.
9:15
Speaker 1: It's like, for me, literally true.
9:17
Speaker 2: And when you're on your death bed, you're going to
9:20
Speaker 2: be looking back and going that was a life that
9:24
Speaker 2: I could be proud of.
9:26
Speaker 1: Yeh.
9:26
Speaker 2: It's much better than looking back and going, hey, that
9:30
Speaker 2: was an easy life because I was so fucking talented.
9:33
Speaker 1: M Well, congrats on the book, dude. Let's dive in.
9:38
Speaker 1: Let's have a chat about all things related to that,
9:41
Speaker 1: because it's not one thing, it's many things. And I
9:43
Speaker 1: love I love that there's a lot of intersecting variables
9:47
Speaker 1: around this and a lot of factors, and I love
9:49
Speaker 1: that you've chosen something which is pretty much relevant to
9:53
Speaker 1: every human you know, when I mean, sometimes I'm interviewing
9:56
Speaker 1: someone about their book and it's like, well, six of
9:59
Speaker 1: my listeners will to this because you know what it's
10:03
Speaker 1: like really really specific and not not broadly kind of representative.
10:08
Speaker 1: But this is broadly representative. So the book was called
10:11
Speaker 1: The Hardiness Effect, Growth from Stress, Optimized Health, Live Longer.
10:15
Speaker 1: Doctor Paul Taylor, congrats on that. Give us the synopsis,
10:21
Speaker 1: give us like and then I want to dive in.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, So resilience hardiness is a close cousin to resilience,
10:28
Speaker 2: but there are distinct differences. Resilience is more of an outcome.
10:33
Speaker 2: It doesn't tell you how to get there, whereas hardiness does.
10:36
Speaker 2: And even in the if you look at the academic
10:39
Speaker 2: literature when I was doing my literature review, so much
10:41
Speaker 2: to be in an academic circles is resilience? Is it
10:44
Speaker 2: a state? Is it a treit? Is it a process?
10:47
Speaker 2: Is it an outcome? If? Is it something you're born with,
10:49
Speaker 2: something you have, something you develop, and there's so much
10:53
Speaker 2: to be at about it. Hardiness is it actually tells
10:59
Speaker 2: you how to get there. It's called the courage to
11:01
Speaker 2: grow from stress. So the early research, particularly in the
11:06
Speaker 2: US military, there was a bunch of it by a
11:08
Speaker 2: guy called Paul Bartone who was a bit of a
11:10
Speaker 2: mentor of me in this area doing my PhD. He
11:15
Speaker 2: when they screened recruits going into military training, they did
11:19
Speaker 2: a whole heap of psychometric assessments on them. And the
11:22
Speaker 2: one thing that they find at the end when they
11:25
Speaker 2: saw who passed and who field, and they went back
11:27
Speaker 2: and looked at it to say, was there anything predictive?
11:30
Speaker 2: The one thing that was predictive of passing and field
11:32
Speaker 2: was hardiness. They then found that hardiness predict who passed
11:36
Speaker 2: and who field. Special Forces selection training the toughest course
11:40
Speaker 2: you could possibly imagine that's been found in different militaries
11:44
Speaker 2: around the world. It also predicts who passes police special operations.
11:48
Speaker 2: It predicts career longevity and high pressure environments. This is
11:52
Speaker 2: the military, police first responders. It's been called the greatest,
11:56
Speaker 2: the trade, the key trade of fifty of the world's
11:59
Speaker 2: greatest leaders. And it also impacts our health. People who
12:02
Speaker 2: are hiring hardiness and have better overall well being. Their
12:06
Speaker 2: immune systems respond better to stress, they recover quicker from
12:10
Speaker 2: serious illness, and even school kids who are hiring hardiness
12:13
Speaker 2: are much more likely to go to university than those
12:16
Speaker 2: who are lower independent of socioeconomic status. So I love
12:20
Speaker 2: it because there's so many real world outcomes. What I
12:24
Speaker 2: added into it, and this was part of my PhD
12:28
Speaker 2: as well, was physiological hardiness because all the research is
12:32
Speaker 2: about psychology. But for me, as a psychophysiologist, I believe
12:38
Speaker 2: anybody who tells you that you can optimize for mental
12:42
Speaker 2: health and cognitive health just with thinking skills is fucking
12:46
Speaker 2: batshit crazy because your physiology has this huge impact on
12:52
Speaker 2: your biology. So part one of the group of the books, sorry,
12:55
Speaker 2: it was all about psychological hardiness, where I unpack the
13:00
Speaker 2: three c's and I've added a fourth. We can jump
13:03
Speaker 2: into that if you want. And then the second part
13:05
Speaker 2: of the book is all the physiological heartiness, and it
13:08
Speaker 2: turns out that nature has actually designed certain things to
13:15
Speaker 2: make us heartier, which I'm sure we'll unpark as we
13:17
Speaker 2: go through.
13:18
Speaker 1: It's funny because really, the only the only place in
13:22
Speaker 1: inverted commas that psychology and emotion and even sociology, biology, physiology,
13:30
Speaker 1: the only place they all operate in isolation is in
13:33
Speaker 1: research exactly. It's like in the in the real fucking world.
13:39
Speaker 1: All of that ship's intertwined and interconnected and interacting all
13:44
Speaker 1: of the time. And when you probably say the same thing.
13:48
Speaker 1: And I say that to you know, people in suits
13:51
Speaker 1: as part of my job, and I say, even when,
13:54
Speaker 1: and to demonstrate it, I say, you know, and you've
13:56
Speaker 1: heard this old chestnut from me, and you probably use
13:59
Speaker 1: a version of it. All Right, Let's say, right now,
14:01
Speaker 1: you have a thought, and the thought right now is
14:04
Speaker 1: that you're in danger. And let's say you believe that thought,
14:07
Speaker 1: and then we talk about, you know, the cascade of
14:09
Speaker 1: physiological consequences as a byproduct of that thought, right, And
14:15
Speaker 1: then people go, oh yeah, And then I say, and
14:16
Speaker 1: also what's happening emotionally, and what's happening to your blood
14:19
Speaker 1: pressure and to your nervous system? And then and what's
14:21
Speaker 1: happening you know, all of these things are happening, but
14:25
Speaker 1: it happens kind of both ways too. Something happens to
14:27
Speaker 1: us physically, then there's a psychological consequence to that physical experience,
14:32
Speaker 1: and that Yeah, I think the idea that heartiness or
14:37
Speaker 1: resilience or navigating life or trying to increase your capacity
14:43
Speaker 1: to poor form under pressure is purely a psychological you
14:48
Speaker 1: know process or cognitive process. Yeah, is as you said,
14:52
Speaker 1: fucking ridiculous.
14:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's complete and utter horseshit. And I love what
14:58
Speaker 2: you said. The only place that they exist separately in research,
15:00
Speaker 2: and that is absolutely true. You know, anybody who's ever
15:05
Speaker 2: been chronically stressed knows that it can affect their gut health,
15:10
Speaker 2: they get irdable ball syndrome. It affects their mood as well.
15:15
Speaker 2: But your physiology has a huge impact on your psychology,
15:21
Speaker 2: absolutely huge, right. Your brian completely depends on the health
15:28
Speaker 2: of your body in order for it to function well,
15:32
Speaker 2: and the same with mood. And I always say to people,
15:34
Speaker 2: if you know, we're in this mental health crisis as
15:38
Speaker 2: they talk about and lots of people, you know, it's
15:42
Speaker 2: all about the solutions are all about psychology or medication
15:46
Speaker 2: any like, if you're not moving and you are not
15:51
Speaker 2: looking after your sleep and you're eating your crappy diet,
15:54
Speaker 2: which is the average Australian lifestyle, good luck with your
15:57
Speaker 2: mental health because you are swimming up stream massively against
16:02
Speaker 2: a huge tighte, right, a huge tighte. And you know,
16:08
Speaker 2: part of but my sort of mission is to bring
16:10
Speaker 2: that awareness to people, but also give them that integrated
16:15
Speaker 2: solution of how they can improve their lives.
16:18
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, I had a meeting yesday, which you have
16:21
Speaker 1: these meetings all the time. So we've got to go
16:23
Speaker 1: up to doesn't worry, it doesn't matter. I've got to
16:25
Speaker 1: go in the state next week, and I can probably
16:28
Speaker 1: say this bit. I've got to talk to a bunch
16:30
Speaker 1: of lawyers, like a whole lot of lawyers, and we're
16:32
Speaker 1: talking around the person, and I that we're chatting about
16:37
Speaker 1: the event. We're talking about the issues and challenges, you know,
16:41
Speaker 1: cultural practical, kind of all the dynamics within the organization.
16:46
Speaker 1: Da da da da da. You know, we're talking about
16:47
Speaker 1: all that stuff that needs to be in some way
16:50
Speaker 1: kind of improved or addressed or spoken about. And I'm like, yeah,
16:56
Speaker 1: all of that's good, and we'll do that. We'll talk
16:59
Speaker 1: about that. But how about we talk about like, let's
17:02
Speaker 1: step back a few steps and let's talk about how's
17:06
Speaker 1: Dave when he gets out of bed? Is David two
17:08
Speaker 1: out of ten? Or is David nine out of ten?
17:11
Speaker 1: You know? How's Sally? How's her nervous system when she
17:14
Speaker 1: starts checking shit on her phone at four forty five
17:18
Speaker 1: and she gets out of bed at five forty five,
17:20
Speaker 1: and she's already fried she's already stressed. And I said,
17:23
Speaker 1: you know, if we've got people who are mentally, emotionally
17:27
Speaker 1: and physiologically fucked before they get to work, good luck
17:31
Speaker 1: being a good communicator or problem solver or conflict resolver
17:36
Speaker 1: or negotiator or team leader or lawyer or anything. Because
17:42
Speaker 1: if you show.
17:43
Speaker 3: Up whatever your job is, whether you're Paul Taylor and
17:46
Speaker 3: you're about to do a full day fucking conference, if
17:50
Speaker 3: Paul Taylor shows up at two out of ten, like
17:53
Speaker 3: because you haven't slept and you've been eating shits and
17:55
Speaker 3: you're like, you can't be a nine out of ten
17:58
Speaker 3: or an eight out of ten you on stage. So
18:00
Speaker 3: you need to manage you before you manage your tasks
18:04
Speaker 3: or you manage your responsibilities.
18:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, it does start with the morning. Actually,
18:10
Speaker 2: it starts with the night before and all of your
18:13
Speaker 2: preparation around your sleep, and then it's about the morning.
18:17
Speaker 2: And as I said to these bunch of CEOs this
18:20
Speaker 2: morning that we were dealing with was if you're if
18:26
Speaker 2: you touch your phone before your feet hit the floor
18:30
Speaker 2: in the morning, your life is fucked. And how many people.
18:36
Speaker 1: I love it when you speak scientifically, but think about it,
18:42
Speaker 1: how many people The first thing they do is they
18:46
Speaker 1: check a goddamn phone, and it's just mental.
18:50
Speaker 2: You're getting inputs, you're being switched on, You're upregulating your
18:54
Speaker 2: nervous system before you even get out of bed. So,
18:57
Speaker 2: as I was saying to these guys, how about we
18:59
Speaker 2: wake up and we think, who do I want to
19:01
Speaker 2: be today? You know, what what values and virtues do
19:04
Speaker 2: I want to exhibit today? What challenges might I go
19:07
Speaker 2: through today? How am I going to deal with this? Right?
19:10
Speaker 2: And just do five minutes of mental preparation met just
19:14
Speaker 2: like every world class athlete does before performance. How about
19:17
Speaker 2: we start the day like that, right, and then we
19:20
Speaker 2: continue today operating in peak performance mode. You know that's
19:26
Speaker 2: that's really key. There's so many things that are out
19:30
Speaker 2: there that steal our attention. And you know, me and
19:35
Speaker 2: you were both involved in that DELFI study around the
19:39
Speaker 2: cognitors drive cognitive drivers of peak performance. And I don't
19:43
Speaker 2: know if you talk about that, but I actually realized
19:46
Speaker 2: when you look look at that the number one thing
19:50
Speaker 2: there was sixty four of us experts around the world,
19:52
Speaker 2: or sixty two plus me and U squeezed in, but
19:56
Speaker 2: all business psychologists and military psychologist, sports psychologists, and we
20:01
Speaker 2: were all asked to rea it the cognitive drivers of
20:06
Speaker 2: performance under pressure, and the thing that everybody said was
20:10
Speaker 2: number one was attentional control. And our attention is being
20:15
Speaker 2: stolen left, right and center, and then it drags our
20:20
Speaker 2: nervous system with it. That's the key thing.
20:24
Speaker 1: If it's got your attention, it's got you. It's got you,
20:26
Speaker 1: it's got your body, it's got your nervous system, it's
20:29
Speaker 1: got your time. Yeah, that's I say to people. You
20:33
Speaker 1: and I have very similar processes. You know, when I
20:37
Speaker 1: get up each morning, I essentially ask my well, I
20:39
Speaker 1: get out of bed, I don't look at my phone.
20:41
Speaker 1: I get out of bed, I walk to the I
20:44
Speaker 1: do what I need to do, clem Mattie, splash my face,
20:46
Speaker 1: walk to the cafe. And I literally asked myself this
20:49
Speaker 1: question or a version is that is, in terms of
20:52
Speaker 1: who I want to be, how I want to be,
20:53
Speaker 1: and what I need to get done today, what's the
20:56
Speaker 1: best use of my time, energy, and attention, Like, what's
20:59
Speaker 1: the optimal use of me? You know, because it is
21:04
Speaker 1: you think about people whose brain or attention is hijacked
21:08
Speaker 1: by their phone and the people who you are, you know,
21:11
Speaker 1: talking about whose list. Fucks they're looking at their phone
21:13
Speaker 1: before their feet hit the ground. They're almost doing if not,
21:17
Speaker 1: they are doing that on autopilot, like they don't wake
21:21
Speaker 1: up and go, you know what I think I should do.
21:22
Speaker 1: I should reach from my phone, I'll grab my phone,
21:25
Speaker 1: I'll have it, Like they're just doing that before their
21:27
Speaker 1: brain is really like this is this is an addiction,
21:31
Speaker 1: This is a this is a groundhog day that is destructive, Like,
21:35
Speaker 1: this is a this is now a habit that's actually
21:38
Speaker 1: derailing your fucking everything from your potential and talent to
21:43
Speaker 1: your energy and your physical health.
21:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and is it's it's a key part of heidiness.
21:48
Speaker 2: It's commitment to orientation, which is being fully engaged. High
21:53
Speaker 2: heiding people are fully engaged at life. They're engaged that work,
21:57
Speaker 2: but they're also engaged in their free time. They're fully engaged.
22:01
Speaker 2: And as I say, there are an increasing amount of
22:04
Speaker 2: people who are spending an increasing amount of their spur
22:08
Speaker 2: time with their heads buried on a fucking screen looking
22:13
Speaker 2: to be entertained, whether it's on social media or on
22:16
Speaker 2: Netflix or whatever your streaming platform is. And I don't
22:20
Speaker 2: remember Aristotle or Socrates or the Buddha saying that the
22:24
Speaker 2: purpose in life is to be entertained. Right. It's about
22:30
Speaker 2: being engaged in life, being curious about life, right, and
22:35
Speaker 2: actually just wanting to immerse yourself in it. And it's
22:39
Speaker 2: also you know, commitment orientation. When you're fully engaged in life,
22:42
Speaker 2: that's when you can find a sense of purpose and meaning.
22:46
Speaker 2: And life has no meaning other than what we give it.
22:49
Speaker 2: That's the key thing, right, there's no fucking purpose. Very
22:52
Speaker 2: it's going to come along and show you what your
22:54
Speaker 2: purpose is. We actually have to find it through meaningful
22:58
Speaker 2: engagement in life, and that's hugely important, and that's commitment orientation,
23:04
Speaker 2: but also then being committed to your own well being.
23:09
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a quote that I show today, I
23:11
Speaker 2: show all the time, so I say, my favorite quote.
23:14
Speaker 2: It's from Seneca, and it's kind of paraphrasing his stuff, right,
23:17
Speaker 2: But here's what it is. Every individual burs the responsibility
23:22
Speaker 2: to be of value to humanity, if possible, to benefit
23:27
Speaker 2: a large number, if not, to benefit a smaller group,
23:31
Speaker 2: If that too seems unattainable, then to benefit their immediate community.
23:36
Speaker 2: But above all else, they must prioritize self growth and
23:41
Speaker 2: personal well being. And I love that statement because it
23:44
Speaker 2: encapsulates everything about hardiness. It encapsulates that sense of meaning
23:48
Speaker 2: and purpose, but gives people a clear path that it's
23:51
Speaker 2: about engagement with others, it's about being useful to your community,
23:55
Speaker 2: about being a member of a tribe. All the research
23:57
Speaker 2: and human flourishing points as this where and you will
24:00
Speaker 2: know that. But then it's about being committed to your
24:04
Speaker 2: well being because if you look after yourself, you're going
24:07
Speaker 2: to be much more effective at whatever your meaning and
24:11
Speaker 2: purpose is. If it's to be the best mom or
24:14
Speaker 2: dad that you can be, if you short your shit out,
24:16
Speaker 2: you will be a much better parent. Right, Seemen work
24:20
Speaker 2: all of those things, and that really encapsulates hardiness. Commitment,
24:26
Speaker 2: which is one of the key season hardiness.
24:32
Speaker 1: So I've got a few questions. Here's my first one.
24:37
Speaker 1: You've never been asked this question. I'm going to ask
24:39
Speaker 1: you this question. I want you to finish this sentence.
24:42
Speaker 1: Hardiness is the antidote to what.
24:48
Speaker 2: All of the distractions and stressors of modern life and
24:53
Speaker 2: the inevitable shit sandwiches that you will have to fierce.
24:57
Speaker 1: Again, folks, science, you heard it here. Science. He's a doctor.
25:02
Speaker 1: He's a doctor. Now, all right, beautiful I love that.
25:07
Speaker 1: I thought I would get something like that, beautiful. I
25:11
Speaker 1: want you to you kind of did it before. But
25:15
Speaker 1: just as we are finding our kind of feet of
25:18
Speaker 1: understanding in this space of trying to differentiate between resilience
25:23
Speaker 1: and hardiness and all of that, just give us a definition.
25:26
Speaker 1: It can be appalled definition. It doesn't need to be official.
25:30
Speaker 1: A definition of hardiness versus a definition of resilience. And
25:35
Speaker 1: what's the overlap and what's the difference.
25:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, so resilience is an outcome. It doesn't tell you
25:40
Speaker 2: how to get there. Hardiness does. Resilience is backwards looking,
25:44
Speaker 2: hardiness is forwards looking. So hardiness is about a say,
25:50
Speaker 2: set of psychological orientations that help you to prepare and
25:56
Speaker 2: deal with stress and grow from stress in and of
25:59
Speaker 2: the moment, whereas resilience is about picking yourself up when
26:03
Speaker 2: you've been battered. Right. So there's a distinct difference between
26:08
Speaker 2: the two. But there is an overlap as well. And
26:12
Speaker 2: this and and here's the other thing. Hardiness can be learned,
26:17
Speaker 2: whereas resilience is a lot harder to learn. That that's
26:22
Speaker 2: the key thing. A lot of things will say resilience
26:25
Speaker 2: is is is a is a treit it's something you have,
26:28
Speaker 2: and the other people are arguing, is it a state,
26:30
Speaker 2: is it something you do? All of this, but hardiness
26:34
Speaker 2: is very clearly a process, a set of psychological orientations
26:39
Speaker 2: that anybody can learn. So I often have people in
26:44
Speaker 2: workshops create their own personal tombstone statement in three minutes flat,
26:51
Speaker 2: and I give them a few little a few little prompts,
26:54
Speaker 2: but get them to create a tombstone statement, something which
26:58
Speaker 2: they would like to be remembered for that sums up
27:01
Speaker 2: their commitment. And I often talk about mine. I talk
27:05
Speaker 2: about it in the book, and it happened. The trigger
27:08
Speaker 2: for this was eight friends of mine getting killed in
27:10
Speaker 2: a helicopter crash two of my best meets, and I
27:12
Speaker 2: was pretty lucky not to be in one of those helicopters.
27:15
Speaker 2: And anyway, through a series of events, I ended up
27:17
Speaker 2: deciding to leave the military and go down this path.
27:20
Speaker 2: And so my tombstone statement is military man turned educator
27:24
Speaker 2: to help others be better versions of themselves. So I
27:28
Speaker 2: encourage everybody to write a tombstone statement about how you
27:32
Speaker 2: would like to be remembered and what your contribution would be,
27:35
Speaker 2: and remembering what Seneca said, you know, it can be
27:38
Speaker 2: many people. It can be a small group or it
27:40
Speaker 2: can be just your immediate community. So it can be
27:44
Speaker 2: about being the best mom or dad, or son or
27:46
Speaker 2: daughter whatever that you can be. But once you've written
27:50
Speaker 2: down a rough draft, I like to get people to
27:53
Speaker 2: spend ten minutes a day deliberately acting on that purpose,
27:58
Speaker 2: because then your attention is on it, and then you
28:02
Speaker 2: start to become more aware of it, you start to
28:04
Speaker 2: think about it more, and it starts to develop. So
28:07
Speaker 2: you don't need perfect, don't let don't let perfect be
28:11
Speaker 2: the enemy of goot. You know, just get some sort
28:14
Speaker 2: of a tombstone statement dying, spend ten minutes a day
28:17
Speaker 2: working on it, and it will start to become clearer
28:20
Speaker 2: and clearer as you go.
28:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting how how much we invest into
28:28
Speaker 1: you know, our career or you know, make and dough,
28:31
Speaker 1: not that they're bad things or you know whatever. Whatever
28:34
Speaker 1: It is like time, effort, energy, focus, attention on external things,
28:38
Speaker 1: but not really I'm building ourselves. You know. It's like,
28:42
Speaker 1: how much time do I spend like trying to be
28:46
Speaker 1: to build, you know, to develop hard in us or
28:49
Speaker 1: to be developed, in my instance, self awareness, or to
28:52
Speaker 1: even think about my fucking thinking that metacognitive door that
28:55
Speaker 1: I like opening, or more specific than my research, trying
28:59
Speaker 1: to understand how other people think one and two how
29:02
Speaker 1: they think about me. Like these kind of internal processes
29:06
Speaker 1: that really make life, communication, problem solving, teaching, leading better,
29:12
Speaker 1: we don't really. I feel like, despite all of the
29:16
Speaker 1: psychology and all of the research and all of the
29:18
Speaker 1: for one of a better term, self help personal development,
29:21
Speaker 1: we still don't truly work on ourselves much. And we
29:26
Speaker 1: kind of you know, you, if you meet Dave today
29:29
Speaker 1: and then you see Dave in ten years, even if
29:32
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of shit that Dave wants to
29:34
Speaker 1: change and needs to change today, a fair chance is
29:38
Speaker 1: just going to be a ten year old version of
29:40
Speaker 1: the same bloke in ten years, unless I feel like,
29:44
Speaker 1: unless there's some kind of almost fucking revolutional internal revelation
29:49
Speaker 1: that switches something.
29:52
Speaker 2: Do you know what I would do if I was
29:54
Speaker 2: tizarre of the universe? I would make every man, woman
29:58
Speaker 2: and child do one hour a week of a deep
30:03
Speaker 2: dive into philosophy. Yeah, and the Stoics used to say
30:08
Speaker 2: that philosophy is the doctor's office for the mind, and
30:14
Speaker 2: it is. It's all of that stuff about thinking, who
30:17
Speaker 2: am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose? All
30:20
Speaker 2: of that? And and it's through an exploration of philosophy,
30:24
Speaker 2: which I kind of started when I was a teenager
30:26
Speaker 2: and then dropped and ain't got back into it. But
30:30
Speaker 2: but that's the stuff where you do create meaning and
30:34
Speaker 2: purpose in life with those philosophical questions. And there's a
30:37
Speaker 2: there's a brilliant book that I actually got and that
30:40
Speaker 2: we were then sitting with our kids at dinner and
30:43
Speaker 2: would read it. I think it's called thirty second Philosophy,
30:47
Speaker 2: and it's basically taken some of the big philosophical thinking
30:51
Speaker 2: and having a story in a way that that that
30:53
Speaker 2: everybody can understand, and then imposing some questions. And actually,
30:58
Speaker 2: my you know what, I knew that this was all
31:00
Speaker 2: worth it. So my daughter Kira made it's going to
31:03
Speaker 2: blow your mind. She's at UNI. She's at Melbourne UNI.
31:06
Speaker 2: Now you remember her when she was a little baby,
31:11
Speaker 2: So she is. She's studying biomedicine at UNI. And she
31:15
Speaker 2: was to take a broadening subject this year and she
31:18
Speaker 2: came back and said, I'm studying philosophy as a broaden
31:21
Speaker 2: I'm like that.
31:22
Speaker 1: Did you share a tea? Stoic shared a tea.
31:25
Speaker 2: I did a little bit. And that's that's the misunderstand
31:29
Speaker 2: that's this little stoic stuff. Upper lip a big stoic.
31:34
Speaker 2: The Stoics they actually had emotions and and and they
31:38
Speaker 2: explored their emotions, but they just they just said, don't
31:41
Speaker 2: be a slave to your emotions. Don't be a slave
31:44
Speaker 2: to the passions.
31:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a misconception. I think that like people correlate, Oh,
31:51
Speaker 1: they go, oh, he's very stoic. He's standing there with
31:55
Speaker 1: a stern face at the funeral, not shitting a tea
31:59
Speaker 1: and being a fucking pillar of strength. I'm like, nah,
32:03
Speaker 1: that's not stoic.
32:04
Speaker 2: That's that's little s stoic. It's different to capitalists, which
32:08
Speaker 2: describes the Stoic philosophers. So yes, it's a it's a
32:12
Speaker 2: complete misunderstanding.
32:16
Speaker 1: Is is hardiness? Can we measure it? Can we have
32:20
Speaker 1: value at it?
32:21
Speaker 2: We can? We can? Yeah, and I did. There was
32:24
Speaker 2: a number of validated tools. I used one in my
32:28
Speaker 2: research and so we recently my last published paper for
32:32
Speaker 2: part of my PhD, we did an intervention in New
32:36
Speaker 2: Zealand with two different companies, one law firm, the other
32:40
Speaker 2: was a fast pierced startup. So these guys are all
32:43
Speaker 2: massively under pressure. We did a survey on hardiness. We
32:47
Speaker 2: used the Hardiness Resilience Gage, we used a brief resilience scale,
32:51
Speaker 2: the WHO five on mental well being, and we did
32:55
Speaker 2: a gratitude survey. And we also did cognitive testing that
32:59
Speaker 2: was thelloped in at Britain Park where you're doing your PhD.
33:05
Speaker 2: And so these cognitive assessments were part of the whole
33:08
Speaker 2: cognitive fitness program that measure performance under pressure. And what
33:12
Speaker 2: we found is statistically significant improvements in hardiness, in resilience,
33:18
Speaker 2: in mood, in gratitude, in perceptions of stress, in inhibitory control,
33:24
Speaker 2: and attentional control. The only one that didn't move the
33:29
Speaker 2: needle on was working memory, and we think probably because
33:33
Speaker 2: that takes longer to change. So and the research shows
33:37
Speaker 2: that hardiness can actually be learned. And that's why I
33:41
Speaker 2: love it because there's that clear process. And this is
33:44
Speaker 2: what I explore in the book. You know, the four
33:46
Speaker 2: season things that you can do to enhance your level
33:51
Speaker 2: amongst all of those things.
33:53
Speaker 1: Do you think, sorry, I'm jumping around a little bit,
33:56
Speaker 1: but as you're talking about you know what largely what
33:59
Speaker 1: is and in well correlates with an internal state like mindset,
34:04
Speaker 1: and do you think living in twenty twenty five when
34:08
Speaker 1: there's an overwhelm of drugs to treat every emotional and
34:13
Speaker 1: psychological conditional issue. But we know not, we think, But
34:20
Speaker 1: we know that you know, changing diet, We know that exercise,
34:25
Speaker 1: certain kinds of exercise at certain levels. We know that sleep,
34:28
Speaker 1: We know that lifestyle. We know that being around people
34:31
Speaker 1: that you love, the way that we socialize. We know
34:34
Speaker 1: that lying on the floor with your fucking golden retriever,
34:36
Speaker 1: if you love a golden retriever. We know that all
34:39
Speaker 1: of these things can change what's going on in our body.
34:43
Speaker 1: But it seems are the breaks coming on a little bit?
34:47
Speaker 1: Do you think with this over medication of fucking throwing
34:51
Speaker 1: pills at everything, like, are we starting to learn that
34:55
Speaker 1: lifestyle and exercise and food and movement and who we
34:59
Speaker 1: hug or don't hug is as powerful or more powerful
35:03
Speaker 1: than drugs.
35:05
Speaker 2: Look, I write about this quite a lot in the book.
35:08
Speaker 2: I give alternative prescriptions for mental health. But I start
35:12
Speaker 2: the book with, you know, probably the greatest philosophical story
35:19
Speaker 2: that one of Hercules who and this is the Greek version,
35:22
Speaker 2: So Hercules are Heracles in the Greek, but let's just
35:26
Speaker 2: go with the Roman. Hercules comes to a fork in
35:28
Speaker 2: the road and he sees two women, one on each fork,
35:33
Speaker 2: and the first woman approaches him and tells him that
35:36
Speaker 2: her name is judate Mania, which is is true happiness,
35:40
Speaker 2: but her name is actually Kakia, which is vice. And
35:44
Speaker 2: he says to him, come this way, you will have
35:47
Speaker 2: an easy life. You will have a life of all
35:50
Speaker 2: of the comforts and indulgences and and all of that
35:53
Speaker 2: will be the expense of others, and it will be
35:56
Speaker 2: such a good, enjoyable life. And then then Araty that
36:02
Speaker 2: that basically translates his character, approaches him, and she's much
36:05
Speaker 2: plainer looking, but has this natural beauty, and she says, well,
36:09
Speaker 2: if you follow my path, this is the path to
36:12
Speaker 2: true happiness. But it is the hard path. You will
36:16
Speaker 2: have to undergo severe challenges that will test and develop
36:20
Speaker 2: your character. But all and this is not easy, but
36:24
Speaker 2: ultimately this is the true path to fulfillment. And Hercules,
36:29
Speaker 2: as we all know, chooses the hard path of arity
36:33
Speaker 2: and has to go through the twelve trials of Hercules,
36:37
Speaker 2: and eventually he gets killed. But Zeus is the the
36:42
Speaker 2: the ultimate god, is so impressed with his character that
36:45
Speaker 2: he deifies him right, he makes them, he makes him
36:48
Speaker 2: a demigod because of what he's actually done. And I
36:52
Speaker 2: think we are not at a crossroads. That that is
36:54
Speaker 2: how I set up the book. We are at the
36:56
Speaker 2: crossroads where we have comfort all around us. We have
37:02
Speaker 2: food at the tip of our fingertips, we don't have
37:05
Speaker 2: to move, we don't have to go through physical discomfort.
37:07
Speaker 2: We're in climate controlled environments. And if you've got an issue,
37:11
Speaker 2: where we have a pill for that, and it's the
37:13
Speaker 2: path of Kakia. It's the easy path that seems to
37:18
Speaker 2: be the path that we should go down, but ultimately
37:23
Speaker 2: the true path is taking the path of ouritay and
37:28
Speaker 2: taking the path where you deliberately actually encounter hardships and
37:34
Speaker 2: you approach them with the right character. And that's the
37:39
Speaker 2: stuff that drives you on and gives you a life
37:42
Speaker 2: that you could be proud of.
37:43
Speaker 1: And I actually talk.
37:44
Speaker 2: About the book, you know, when you mentioned that, I said, hey, well,
37:47
Speaker 2: you know your end of your life. You're looking back
37:49
Speaker 2: in your life, what do you want to say that
37:52
Speaker 2: was an easy life, a life of comfort or jeez,
37:55
Speaker 2: that was hard, but that was a life that I
37:56
Speaker 2: could be proud of I fascinate the people. I read
37:59
Speaker 2: the end of chapter. If you want the former, throw
38:02
Speaker 2: this book away because it's not for you.
38:05
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, And it's funny. I feel like your
38:09
Speaker 1: message in my message with many things anyway, you know
38:11
Speaker 1: that parallel And I often say to an audience, I
38:15
Speaker 1: can tell you what you want to hear or what
38:17
Speaker 1: you need to hear. What do you prefer like, I can.
38:20
Speaker 1: I can be fucking hilarious and Mormon fuzzy and tell
38:22
Speaker 1: you you're all ace but you're not right. Yeah, and
38:25
Speaker 1: I can. I can. We can just have this delusional
38:28
Speaker 1: kind of experience for an hour, or I can tell
38:31
Speaker 1: you shit that will actually if you do the work
38:33
Speaker 1: and if you apply the information, potentially change what's going
38:37
Speaker 1: on in your life now and forever. But you might
38:40
Speaker 1: not love it. You might not love the presentation, you know.
38:43
Speaker 1: And then and it's it's a bit of a it's
38:46
Speaker 1: complicated because they're like, well, you know, and of course
38:50
Speaker 1: they normally choose the latter, but it's that, you know,
38:54
Speaker 1: that that obsession that we seem to have. And I'm
38:58
Speaker 1: using the global w and of course listeners, this is
39:00
Speaker 1: not everyone. It may not be you. But the addiction
39:04
Speaker 1: that we have to instant gratification, and whether that's whatever, drugs, booze, food, sex, comfort,
39:11
Speaker 1: you know, lying down whatever it is, like, what is
39:15
Speaker 1: the apart from telling me delaying gratification, what's the antidote
39:20
Speaker 1: to instant gratification? Because it feels like, and I'll shut
39:25
Speaker 1: up after this. It feels like where many of us
39:28
Speaker 1: anyway are perpetually starting on Monday. Right it's not yeah,
39:32
Speaker 1: but it's because we love saying look not now for
39:34
Speaker 1: these reasons. And the reasons generally are not reasons by
39:37
Speaker 1: the way their excuses dressed up as reasons. But we
39:41
Speaker 1: always have this listen Monday or you know a similar
39:45
Speaker 1: version of Monday, because and then we wake up and
39:47
Speaker 1: it's fucking two thousand and thirty.
39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think the key to understand here is
39:53
Speaker 2: that we are wired to go down the path of
39:57
Speaker 2: Kakia because if you think of our our evolutionary history,
40:03
Speaker 2: you know, as cavan, as hunter gatherers, life was fucking hard.
40:07
Speaker 2: So we have all of these things in our you
40:11
Speaker 2: know that to activate our brain that give us those
40:14
Speaker 2: dopamine hits, right, you know, the social interaction with people
40:17
Speaker 2: sitting around the campfire right, which has now been hijacked
40:20
Speaker 2: by social media. Right, the eating of food, the tasting
40:24
Speaker 2: of honey or fat, right, is actually rewarding. It's the
40:28
Speaker 2: neurobiology of preference because fat is energy dense, honey is
40:33
Speaker 2: is quick, glue, quick sugar. Right, it's good, good for
40:36
Speaker 2: you in the in nature, but that has been hijacked
40:40
Speaker 2: by these food companies and ultra processed foods that give
40:44
Speaker 2: our brains a hit of dopamine that we were never
40:47
Speaker 2: designed to hold, right. And and all of these, all
40:50
Speaker 2: of the recreational drugs, they all act on neurotransmitters in
40:54
Speaker 2: the brain. If we didn't have the neurotransmitter, if we
40:56
Speaker 2: didn't have an opioid receptor, heroin would do call for you, right,
41:01
Speaker 2: If we didn't have a serotonin receptor, Ecstasy wouldn't feel good.
41:06
Speaker 2: If we didn't have dopamine receptors, Cocaine wouldn't feel good. Right.
41:09
Speaker 2: So we have all of these things that have been
41:12
Speaker 2: created on our environment that hijack these natural systems that
41:16
Speaker 2: motivate us to do stuff. And so what we've got
41:21
Speaker 2: to do for me really is making that choice about
41:25
Speaker 2: what path we go down, and choosing the hard path
41:29
Speaker 2: and that really that brings us into challenge orientation. Right.
41:32
Speaker 2: So challenge orientation is people high in hardiness challenge they
41:38
Speaker 2: view both change and adversity as opportunities for them to
41:41
Speaker 2: grow and develop, right, Whereas people low in heartiness challenge
41:46
Speaker 2: actually view these things as things to shy away from
41:49
Speaker 2: and they get in a threat response. So and let me,
41:52
Speaker 2: let me explain how this works for people. So it's said, great,
41:55
Speaker 2: let's sake me and you are presented with the same
41:58
Speaker 2: potential stress or don't matter what that is if you
42:02
Speaker 2: view it as a challenge and I view it as
42:04
Speaker 2: a threat, and this happens instantaneously in your brain very quickly,
42:08
Speaker 2: you make a decision whether this is a challenge or
42:10
Speaker 2: a threat. With you viewing it as a challenge, you
42:13
Speaker 2: go into what we call approach mode in psychology. So you know,
42:16
Speaker 2: you know about for our listeners, this is you lean in.
42:19
Speaker 2: You're motivated to actually engage with me with threat. I'm
42:23
Speaker 2: in the runaway mode, the flight part of fighter flight.
42:28
Speaker 2: You're in fight part. I'm in flight or freeze. I procrastinate,
42:33
Speaker 2: I delay, I bury my head in the sand, I
42:35
Speaker 2: run away, I avoid. We go to avoidance mode and
42:39
Speaker 2: then with the physiology, with a challenge response, you activate
42:43
Speaker 2: Mark series showed this at Buffalo University. You activate the
42:47
Speaker 2: sympathetic adrenal modulary access the fight part of the fighter
42:52
Speaker 2: flight which involves the chemicals adrenaline and no adrenaline. That
42:56
Speaker 2: means that your cardiovascular system prepares for action. Your blood
43:00
Speaker 2: vessels dilate, blood flow gets more, it's more, cardiac output increases,
43:06
Speaker 2: oxygen uptake increases. It prepars your body to deal with things.
43:10
Speaker 2: Whereas may with a threat response, I go into HPI axis,
43:14
Speaker 2: Cordisole comes over the top. That means that my blood
43:18
Speaker 2: vessels become constricted. Blood flow is less, blood flow to
43:22
Speaker 2: the brain is less. We go in, I go into
43:24
Speaker 2: shutdown mode. Now, the half life of those chemicals are
43:28
Speaker 2: very different. Adrenaline a new adrenaline. The half life is
43:31
Speaker 2: one to two minutes, and within about four half lives
43:34
Speaker 2: that chemical is back to base level. So within five
43:38
Speaker 2: minutes of this stressor you are back to homeostasis. Cordisole
43:43
Speaker 2: has a half life of about an hour an hour
43:45
Speaker 2: and a half. That means that five hours later, I
43:49
Speaker 2: still have significant amount of stress hormones running through my
43:52
Speaker 2: body attacking my organs impacting upon my brain, affecting my
43:56
Speaker 2: ability to get to sleep right. These are the people
43:58
Speaker 2: who go to bed in their brain on fire. So
44:02
Speaker 2: and that's that can be a choice though, that challenge orientation. Yes,
44:08
Speaker 2: and I'll give you I'll give you an example. So
44:10
Speaker 2: you know some of the listeners who knows know that.
44:13
Speaker 2: Last year I went to see a made a Man
44:15
Speaker 2: of carreologist just to get a check up on my health.
44:19
Speaker 2: Came in to get the results. He said, Hey, good news,
44:21
Speaker 2: your feller's a fiddle. Bad news. You were born with
44:24
Speaker 2: a dodgy aortic valve and you need open heart surgery.
44:27
Speaker 2: At some stage, I remember walking out of there and
44:31
Speaker 2: the words of Seneca hit me like a slap across
44:34
Speaker 2: the face. I pitied the man who has not faced adversity,
44:38
Speaker 2: because he has not faced a worthy opponent, and no one,
44:41
Speaker 2: not even him, knows what he is capable of. So
44:45
Speaker 2: in that moment, I choose to And because I've learned
44:49
Speaker 2: this from reading all the hardiness research, reading Victor Frankel,
44:52
Speaker 2: reading the Stoics, we don't get to choose our circumstances,
44:55
Speaker 2: but we always get to choose how we respond. Now
44:58
Speaker 2: I embraced my open hearts as a worthy opponent, something
45:02
Speaker 2: that would test and develop me. And I knew I
45:06
Speaker 2: have six months to prepare myself for my worthy opponent,
45:09
Speaker 2: and I actually embraced the open heart surgery, fully embraced
45:14
Speaker 2: it as a challenge to actually make me better and
45:17
Speaker 2: make me optimal. And we all have the opportunity about
45:21
Speaker 2: how we choose to face adversity and challenge. I was
45:26
Speaker 2: talking to Aunt Middleton the other day, you know Aunt
45:27
Speaker 2: Middleton from says You're tough enough. It was on his
45:30
Speaker 2: podcast and we were talking about this thing about life
45:33
Speaker 2: and we have very similar views but slightly different. So
45:37
Speaker 2: for him, everything in life is a game. It's always
45:40
Speaker 2: a game, and the challenge comes up. This is a game,
45:42
Speaker 2: right I because I've been influenced by the stoic life
45:46
Speaker 2: is a contest and Epiciteta says, the Olympic Games are
45:49
Speaker 2: upon us. There is no time to waste, and so
45:53
Speaker 2: you've got to be in the fucking contest. That's the thing, right,
45:57
Speaker 2: And you've got to welcome adversity that comes up, because
46:02
Speaker 2: it's just a shit sandwich from the universe, and you
46:05
Speaker 2: can play the victim and moesmy or you can go, Okay,
46:09
Speaker 2: this is a test, right, Yes, it's the Olympic Games
46:12
Speaker 2: of life. What am I going to do about this?
46:15
Speaker 2: And that leaning in and viewing as a challenge means
46:19
Speaker 2: that you're much more likely, number one, to engage and
46:23
Speaker 2: be proactive about it. But secondly, it massively changes your
46:28
Speaker 2: physiology hugely. So someone is constantly in threat mode, they're
46:34
Speaker 2: just they've got corse all coursing around their friggin body.
46:38
Speaker 2: And this sorry, it's great just to add on this,
46:41
Speaker 2: to expand on it. This is where I think we're
46:43
Speaker 2: going wrong because in schools they talk way too much
46:49
Speaker 2: about mental health conditions, and they're making all the kids
46:52
Speaker 2: aware of what anxiety is and what depression is, and
46:55
Speaker 2: the research is showing that it's making kids mental health
46:58
Speaker 2: worse because it's suggestible, oh fuck, maybe I do have anxiety,
47:04
Speaker 2: maybe I do have to pressure. And then their social
47:08
Speaker 2: development stuff is about peers and acceptance. And so if
47:12
Speaker 2: I'm a group of friends and some of them have anxiety,
47:15
Speaker 2: oh I want to have anxiety so that I can
47:17
Speaker 2: fit in. And this this is this is evidence, bas
47:21
Speaker 2: this is this is not me, This is evidence, bast
47:24
Speaker 2: So what happens is that because this is the unintended
47:30
Speaker 2: consequence of well intentioned interventions. Right, and in the workplace,
47:35
Speaker 2: there's so much talk about psychological safety. Amy Edmundson created
47:39
Speaker 2: psychological safety. Psychological safety is not about the right not
47:43
Speaker 2: to be fucking offended. That's horseshit. Psychological safety is feeling
47:48
Speaker 2: that I can speak up and give my views without
47:52
Speaker 2: fear of reprisal. Right, It's not that I feel a
47:56
Speaker 2: little bit off today. I'm on because somebody's spoken badly
48:03
Speaker 2: to me, So I'm going to have a fucking day off.
48:05
Speaker 2: That's not what it's about. So we have gone and
48:08
Speaker 2: again well intentioned, but we've gone too far, and everything
48:13
Speaker 2: is threat threat threat threat threat out there.
48:16
Speaker 1: And we got in the words, in the words of
48:18
Speaker 1: that great academic Ricky Gervais, your feelings are not my responsibility.
48:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know that, Like like, so you offended? Fucking
48:30
Speaker 2: so what? Yeah? Right, all right? And you know the
48:34
Speaker 2: universe things that we're guaranteed three things, death taxes, ship
48:40
Speaker 2: chandwiches from the universe.
48:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is that is all right. We've got you've
48:46
Speaker 1: got an appointment in seven minutes, so have I quick? Okay,
48:50
Speaker 1: so quick? Why do we wait for shit to fall apart.
48:56
Speaker 1: I know we don't all, but it seems like we
48:58
Speaker 1: wait till shit implodes and then we go off. Then
49:00
Speaker 1: we have a revelation, then we might In other words,
49:02
Speaker 1: why are we so reactive? Is it because being proactive
49:05
Speaker 1: is hard?
49:06
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is
49:08
Speaker 2: that being proactive is hard. And again, hunter gatherer stuff.
49:13
Speaker 2: We are programmed to want the easy path. And that's
49:16
Speaker 2: fine if your life is really hard, like a hunter gatherer,
49:19
Speaker 2: but if it's not that hard, and then it becomes
49:22
Speaker 2: a problem. And I think people, we have so many
49:28
Speaker 2: things out there that are are lovely, right, and all
49:31
Speaker 2: the food and the drugs and stuff, it's stuff that
49:35
Speaker 2: gives that hijacks our brains. It's not the reward we're
49:40
Speaker 2: meant to have. And so I feel a huge amount
49:44
Speaker 2: of sympathy for people who are like that. We now
49:47
Speaker 2: have to definitely choose the hard path, right, and we
49:52
Speaker 2: have to have this also, I'll throw in the last one,
49:55
Speaker 2: the control orientation, which is a deep belief that I
50:01
Speaker 2: control or heavily influence my environment and my destiny. And
50:05
Speaker 2: I focus on what I can control and don't put
50:09
Speaker 2: my energy in the stuff that I can't control and
50:12
Speaker 2: look for me, it's that whole existential crisis, right. And
50:17
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not religious at all, but I actually
50:20
Speaker 2: think society has suffered from the breakdown of religion because
50:23
Speaker 2: religion give people a set of values and behaviors and
50:28
Speaker 2: a group to connect in with U and ways to
50:33
Speaker 2: actually behave and integrate. And now without that, lots of
50:37
Speaker 2: people are in an existential vacuum where they don't have
50:40
Speaker 2: that sense of meaning and purpose. They've never actually sat
50:42
Speaker 2: down and gone, fuck, what are my values? Right? What
50:46
Speaker 2: are the key things that I want to live my
50:50
Speaker 2: life by? What's my compass? So for me, you know,
50:55
Speaker 2: they're things like like curiosity, gratitude, equanimity, and also just
51:03
Speaker 2: wanting to test myself. And so when you have that,
51:07
Speaker 2: authenticity is another one of mine. So this is the
51:09
Speaker 2: reason you know I'm irison ex military. I like a
51:12
Speaker 2: tipple as much as anybody else. The reason I'm not
51:14
Speaker 2: an absolute piss head is the value of authenticity because
51:20
Speaker 2: I can't stand up and talk about peak performance if
51:23
Speaker 2: I'm drinking four or five nights a week, right, So
51:26
Speaker 2: we have to really find out what are our core values,
51:30
Speaker 2: what's our meaning and purpose in life, because that becomes
51:33
Speaker 2: the north star to guide us around behaviors and to
51:37
Speaker 2: help us to make the harder choices in life.
51:41
Speaker 1: Love you, and I've got so much stuff I want
51:45
Speaker 1: to talk to you about. We might have to do
51:46
Speaker 1: another one. I just I have so many things to
51:49
Speaker 1: talk to you about which I think are relevant and interesting.
51:52
Speaker 1: But I'm going to finish with this and then we're
51:54
Speaker 1: going to plug the book. Here's one of the bits
51:57
Speaker 1: of feedback. I get this is going to sound stupid,
52:01
Speaker 1: but I'm not lying people. Many people have said to
52:04
Speaker 1: me a version of this. It's easy for you. You're
52:06
Speaker 1: Craig Harper like to do right. It's easy for you right.
52:13
Speaker 1: And I feel like some people would listen to you
52:15
Speaker 1: and go, well, he's a fucking genius. He's smart, he's articulate,
52:18
Speaker 1: he's a weapon, he's got this background that he's all
52:21
Speaker 1: these things. I'm not that I'm a pile of shit
52:25
Speaker 1: with no fucking potential and no you know, and not
52:28
Speaker 1: that any of our listeners are. But I know that
52:30
Speaker 1: people feel like that. I feel like it's easy to
52:33
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. I feel this, but I also know
52:36
Speaker 1: this because I get told and it's almost overwhelming, Like,
52:41
Speaker 1: where do I start? So somebody's listening to this, I
52:44
Speaker 1: would suggest probably lots of people are listening to this,
52:46
Speaker 1: and they go, Craig Paul, all makes sense. Nonetheless, I'm overwhelmed.
52:53
Speaker 1: I'm fucking overwhelmed mentally, emotionally, financially, I'm fucking terrified out
53:00
Speaker 1: of every second thing. I live in fucking upper wherever.
53:04
Speaker 1: And it's all well and good, and I love you both,
53:07
Speaker 1: and it makes sense. But where the fuck do I start?
53:10
Speaker 1: How can I open the door and create a little
53:13
Speaker 1: bit of momentum?
53:15
Speaker 2: So start with this. Scientists reckon that our chances odds
53:20
Speaker 2: of ever having been born as us are about one
53:22
Speaker 2: in four hundred trillion. Wow, right, we have won the
53:27
Speaker 2: greatest ever lottery. How about we start fucking acting like
53:32
Speaker 2: it and every morning just wake up your gremlin I
53:37
Speaker 2: talk about gremlin sees my gremlin when I wake up
53:39
Speaker 2: in the morning, goes press news, have a lie in,
53:43
Speaker 2: and my see it goes. Fuck that one in four
53:45
Speaker 2: hundred trillion, motherfucker. Let's get up and do something right.
53:50
Speaker 2: So if you start the day like that and do
53:54
Speaker 2: some work, do some get your get, do your tombstone statement,
53:58
Speaker 2: work out your values. You can just google a list
54:01
Speaker 2: of values to give you a bit of a guide
54:02
Speaker 2: around it. Right, So get clear on what you want
54:06
Speaker 2: to be remembered for, how you want to contribute, and
54:12
Speaker 2: get clear on your values, and then do an audit
54:14
Speaker 2: of your life. You know, how am I doing in
54:17
Speaker 2: my exercise, my food, my recovery, my family, all of
54:25
Speaker 2: those things. Do a little bit of an order on
54:26
Speaker 2: your life, and pick with the low hanging fruit that
54:30
Speaker 2: you can get a small win. Set yourself some goals right,
54:33
Speaker 2: and get a process and just see if you can
54:36
Speaker 2: achieve something right and then take the next step. Because
54:41
Speaker 2: self efficacy for people who really struggle, they need some
54:44
Speaker 2: self efficacy, the belief that what they can do makes
54:47
Speaker 2: the difference. And it's so hard when you're in that hole.
54:50
Speaker 2: You have to get clear on purpose and values and
54:53
Speaker 2: use those as a guide to help you to do
54:55
Speaker 2: the behaviors when it's hard, and then over time what
54:58
Speaker 2: you're doing is your devel up being disciplined. This is
55:01
Speaker 2: the big thing that people don't talk about. Why is
55:04
Speaker 2: it easy for Craig Harper, Why is it easy for
55:06
Speaker 2: Paul Dealer, Why is it easy for Aunt Middleton? Because
55:08
Speaker 2: we've all developed discipline from doing the stuff that we
55:12
Speaker 2: need to do even when the motivation for area is
55:15
Speaker 2: fucked off for a holiday.
55:18
Speaker 1: The book is called The Hardiness Effect. Doctor Paul Taylor
55:21
Speaker 1: is the author Growth from Stress Up to Myself, Live Longer. Mate,
55:25
Speaker 1: you're again, Congrats on the book, Congrats on the PhD.
55:29
Speaker 1: I'm always super happy for you and proud of you.
55:33
Speaker 1: I'll see you soon.
55:34
Speaker 2: I'll see you when you are. Next time I see you,
55:37
Speaker 2: I reckon you'll be doctor Craig fucking who knows? Who knows?
55:42
Speaker 1: Who knows?
55:44
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone, cheers, mate,