Latest / The You Project / #1782 What I Know vs. What I Think - Harps
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good whatever time
- 0:04Speaker 1: it is for you, it's me. It's the You Project.
- 0:09Speaker 1: So yesterday, team, I was in the thriving metropolis of
- 0:14Speaker 1: Ballarats side note I was born in Ballarat, lived there
- 0:18Speaker 1: for the first two years of my life. Got to say,
- 0:20Speaker 1: can't remember a lot. Anyway, I was doing a gig
- 0:24Speaker 1: with Lara Secondary College. A bunch of kids and teachers,
- 0:29Speaker 1: the boys and girls, the young men and women about
- 0:32Speaker 1: to head into you while just starting year twelve, Day
- 0:34Speaker 1: one of Year twelve. Imagine day one of Year twelve.
- 0:39Speaker 1: Jumbo rocks up, Fatty Harps rocks up to talk to you,
- 0:42Speaker 1: to give you the lowdown on what's coming up in
- 0:47Speaker 1: the next world, the world's worst Year twelve student. How
- 0:51Speaker 1: ironic turning up to talk to a bunch of year
- 0:54Speaker 1: twelve students about how to navigate the next kind of
- 0:58Speaker 1: nine slash ten months of academ and personal survival. Anyway,
- 1:03Speaker 1: it was fun. They were good. Shout out to the team,
- 1:07Speaker 1: all the teachers and all the kids. They were fun.
- 1:11Speaker 1: You know what I love about what I love about
- 1:13Speaker 1: working with that age. They're not children, but they're not
- 1:19Speaker 1: really kind of adults. They're in that they've got kind
- 1:22Speaker 1: of one foot on each side of that line. And
- 1:27Speaker 1: they they are still at school, so they haven't begun work.
- 1:33Speaker 1: And you think they're either going to step out of
- 1:35Speaker 1: school this year and into university or into work. But
- 1:38Speaker 1: they're definitely stepping out of being a teenager, although they're
- 1:44Speaker 1: still a teenager at eighteen, aren't they, but out of
- 1:46Speaker 1: being a child technically to being an adult. And so
- 1:49Speaker 1: it's a whole new world. And I don't need to
- 1:51Speaker 1: tell you that, but you know, now you can drive,
- 1:53Speaker 1: and now you can vote, and now you can drink,
- 1:55Speaker 1: and although we don't want you to do all of
- 1:57Speaker 1: those things at the same time. But it was really
- 2:00Speaker 1: interesting to talk to them about, you know, talk to
- 2:04Speaker 1: them about a bunch of things, but interestingly, we open
- 2:07Speaker 1: the metacognition door, and I spoke to them about how
- 2:10Speaker 1: they think and why they think, and how they see
- 2:14Speaker 1: the world and why they see the world the way
- 2:16Speaker 1: that they do, and how they see themselves in the world,
- 2:20Speaker 1: and why they think about themselves for better or worse
- 2:23Speaker 1: the way that they do, and the way that we
- 2:25Speaker 1: navigate and negotiate the different components of our life at
- 2:30Speaker 1: school away from school with family with friends, with work eventually,
- 2:33Speaker 1: and you know how the way that we think impacts
- 2:39Speaker 1: that for better or worse. And I was talking to
- 2:44Speaker 1: them a bit about self doubt and self limitation, and
- 2:48Speaker 1: I mentioned that, you know, there are times when so
- 2:55Speaker 1: even after thirty five years of being paid to speak
- 2:59Speaker 1: to groups so professional speaking, thirty five years, you know,
- 3:03Speaker 1: probably only really the last twenty years only I would
- 3:08Speaker 1: say that I've been somewhere between not terrible and recently
- 3:12Speaker 1: good at it. But you know, doing lots and lots
- 3:15Speaker 1: of that, and I've done I don't know how many
- 3:17Speaker 1: I've done, but in the thousands thousands of professional gigs
- 3:20Speaker 1: this year, i'll do around one hundred. I've already got
- 3:23Speaker 1: a lot of work book, which is great. But anyway,
- 3:26Speaker 1: that's not the point. The point is I was talking
- 3:28Speaker 1: to a kid came up in the break, a young
- 3:34Speaker 1: a young man, and we're talking about self doubt and
- 3:36Speaker 1: how we think, like what is what do I think of?
- 3:39Speaker 1: What do I feel versus what is real? Like what's
- 3:42Speaker 1: my thought? But what's the data? What's the evidence? And
- 3:45Speaker 1: I was telling him about even though I've done this
- 3:47Speaker 1: thing lots of times, and I know, just from experience,
- 3:53Speaker 1: and evidence and data and feedback. I objectively know that
- 3:58Speaker 1: I'm quite good at my job. I don't think I'm
- 4:01Speaker 1: a superstar. I don't think I'm the best in the business,
- 4:04Speaker 1: but I think I think the fact that I get
- 4:07Speaker 1: repeat work and companies asked me to come back, and
- 4:09Speaker 1: I get paid reasonly well, and I'm represented by quite
- 4:12Speaker 1: a few speaking agencies, and people often not always, but
- 4:16Speaker 1: often say really good things. And so there's that. But
- 4:20Speaker 1: at the same time, I have this ability, as I'm
- 4:24Speaker 1: guessing to you, to have evidence or data or proof
- 4:29Speaker 1: that I'm quite good at something while also feeling I'm
- 4:33Speaker 1: not good enough. Or Today's the day, and I've said
- 4:38Speaker 1: this before, Today's the day I'm going to go in
- 4:39Speaker 1: front of an audience of corporate audience and everybody's going
- 4:43Speaker 1: to realize, you know, this is what's going on in
- 4:46Speaker 1: my mind. Everybody's going to realize that I'm not good
- 4:48Speaker 1: at all. I've just been really fucking lucky for thirty
- 4:50Speaker 1: five years. I've just been getting away with it. Today's
- 4:53Speaker 1: the day that people will discover I'm pretty stupid. I
- 4:59Speaker 1: can string a few words together, but if you scrape
- 5:01Speaker 1: below the surface, there's not a lot of depth. Sure
- 5:04Speaker 1: he can remember a few big terms and it can
- 5:07Speaker 1: sound smart, but in truth he is not actually smart.
- 5:11Speaker 1: And today's going to be the day where that gets
- 5:13Speaker 1: publicly revealed. And of course that's going to be the
- 5:16Speaker 1: beginning of the capitulation of me and my brand and
- 5:19Speaker 1: my business and my income. Pretty soon I'm going to
- 5:22Speaker 1: be fucking broken. I'm gonna and so on. Now, that
- 5:27Speaker 1: might not be you, but it might be a version
- 5:29Speaker 1: of you at some times or at various times. So
- 5:32Speaker 1: my thoughts and my feelings have been you know, like
- 5:37Speaker 1: your ideas and your thoughts and your feelings can be
- 5:41Speaker 1: almost it can be something that's very positive or something
- 5:43Speaker 1: that's very negative. Your mind can be a prison or
- 5:46Speaker 1: your mind can be a launching pad for amazing stuff.
- 5:49Speaker 1: So I've always had when I say chronic self doubt,
- 5:56Speaker 1: I'm not going to say overwhelming, paralyzing, crypto self doubt.
- 6:01Speaker 1: But I've always had a low hum. There's always been
- 6:05Speaker 1: a low hum of insecurity and fear and self limiting
- 6:11Speaker 1: thinking and self limiting beliefs and self doubt. And despite
- 6:16Speaker 1: the fact, despite the fact that I've done quite well
- 6:21Speaker 1: with some things, obviously, I've done many things that didn't
- 6:24Speaker 1: go great, and that didn't work. And from an outcome
- 6:28Speaker 1: point of view, not from an experience or a learning
- 6:30Speaker 1: point of view, but purely from a result point of view,
- 6:33Speaker 1: you go, well, that didn't work or that was a failure.
- 6:37Speaker 1: But I've also done things that you know. I've written books,
- 6:41Speaker 1: I've worked on television. I've worked in radio. I've got
- 6:43Speaker 1: a pretty good podcast, thanks to you for following and supporting.
- 6:47Speaker 1: I've built businesses. I've owned multiple gyms, I've employed hundreds
- 6:51Speaker 1: of humans, I've made a few dollars. So, purely, just
- 6:55Speaker 1: from that point of view, not shit. But here's one
- 6:59Speaker 1: of the amazing things is about us humans and our
- 7:01Speaker 1: mind and our emotions, and our fear and our anxiety
- 7:04Speaker 1: and our amazing capacity to fucking get in our own way,
- 7:09Speaker 1: is despite all of those wins and all of those successes,
- 7:14Speaker 1: I often feel like, or think like the opposite of that,
- 7:20Speaker 1: And it's this is and I'm sure so do you.
- 7:23Speaker 1: I'm sure that there have been times when, despite the
- 7:26Speaker 1: evidence or the data that you're not shit, that you
- 7:29Speaker 1: do in fact feel shit for a range of reasons.
- 7:32Speaker 1: So let's talk about that, and let's talk about how
- 7:36Speaker 1: we might be able to survive and thrive and have
- 7:41Speaker 1: these two things. I know I'm good enough while simultaneously
- 7:46Speaker 1: so that's evidence, that's data, that's knowledge. The reason I
- 7:49Speaker 1: know that I'm good enough is because I've done this
- 7:52Speaker 1: certain thing many many times, and I've created outcomes somewhere
- 7:56Speaker 1: between okay and brilliant. There have been a few time
- 8:00Speaker 1: times where I've fucked up, but overwhelmingly I seem to
- 8:02Speaker 1: be doing okay. Now that's started. That's evidence, But the
- 8:06Speaker 1: feeling is, as I said at the top of the show,
- 8:09Speaker 1: I'm not good enough. So I mean, there was a
- 8:12Speaker 1: time when I absolutely thought that I could never be athletic,
- 8:21Speaker 1: I could never be sporting. Now, of course I wasn't
- 8:24Speaker 1: inherently athletic or sporting. I wasn't naturally gifted genetically. I
- 8:29Speaker 1: wasn't I wasn't the guy who would just rock up
- 8:32Speaker 1: and you know, run a race and win a race
- 8:35Speaker 1: with I was never that person, right, And so I
- 8:39Speaker 1: I genuinely believed thought that I was destined to be
- 8:49Speaker 1: basically the fat, unhealthy, non sporting, unathletic person. I thought
- 8:57Speaker 1: that was just going to be me. And as you know,
- 9:01Speaker 1: I lost some weight and all of that and So
- 9:03Speaker 1: that was the starting point for me that you know,
- 9:05Speaker 1: as a teenage kid losing all of that weight. But
- 9:08Speaker 1: what happened, what happened in the middle of losing all
- 9:10Speaker 1: of that weight, and that was really that that internal shift,
- 9:15Speaker 1: that kind of swinging of the emotional and psychological and
- 9:19Speaker 1: behavioral pendulum that was precipitated by or facilitated by a
- 9:26Speaker 1: painful moment in front of hundreds of people. So this
- 9:29Speaker 1: social experience which turned into an emotional and a psychological
- 9:32Speaker 1: experience that wasn't great, but what it was what was
- 9:35Speaker 1: great was that it was a catalyst for me to
- 9:38Speaker 1: go and not get better genetics, but to optimize the
- 9:43Speaker 1: genetics that I did have. Now, as you all know,
- 9:45Speaker 1: I got in shape. As you all know, I'm in
- 9:47Speaker 1: reasonably good shape these days. I'm not missed a bloody universe,
- 9:51Speaker 1: and I'm not an international male model, never will be,
- 9:54Speaker 1: never could have been. But I'm in for my age
- 9:56Speaker 1: and all of that, I'm in pretty good shape. Nonetheless,
- 9:58Speaker 1: So that's the evidence that the data. You know, I
- 10:02Speaker 1: know what my body composition is, I know how tall
- 10:04Speaker 1: I am and how much I weigh, and I know
- 10:05Speaker 1: what I look like and for my age in genetics,
- 10:09Speaker 1: I'm in pretty good shape. Nonetheless, do I ever feel
- 10:13Speaker 1: like shit? Do I ever think? And this is going
- 10:19Speaker 1: to sound emotional and stupid, but I'm just being honest.
- 10:22Speaker 1: I'm being honest, and this might be this might get
- 10:26Speaker 1: me some ridicule, but I'm just going to say it.
- 10:28Speaker 1: Do I ever feel that? Do I ever think I'm
- 10:30Speaker 1: out of shape? Do I think I look like rubbish?
- 10:34Speaker 1: I do? I still do, and that comes from a
- 10:37Speaker 1: bunch of places, but not all the time, by the way.
- 10:40Speaker 1: But do I ever do I have a look at
- 10:42Speaker 1: myself in a mirror? Do I ever get out of
- 10:44Speaker 1: the shower and go, I look fucking terrible? I'm I'm
- 10:49Speaker 1: now I know objectively that isn't true. Neither do I
- 10:53Speaker 1: think I look brilliant, by the way, or that I
- 10:56Speaker 1: am in magnificent shape. I'm not. I'm just talking about
- 10:59Speaker 1: the relationship that we can have with how we look,
- 11:01Speaker 1: with how we feel with our body, that whole body
- 11:04Speaker 1: dysmorphia thing. And I think I suffer from a smidgeon
- 11:07Speaker 1: of body dysmorphia. I find it hard, which is understandable,
- 11:14Speaker 1: to be objective about how I look. But as objective
- 11:19Speaker 1: as I can be I know, like the evidence, the
- 11:22Speaker 1: data says I'm not in bad shape. Like, for example, yesterday,
- 11:29Speaker 1: at the aforementioned gig I did with these kids, I
- 11:32Speaker 1: had a photo taken with a young man called Declan.
- 11:36Speaker 1: By the way, if you haven't seen that, fucking hell,
- 11:39Speaker 1: go and have a look at Declan. Here's a unit
- 11:41Speaker 1: he's going to be. He might be the next big thing.
- 11:45Speaker 1: Great kid, nice young man, six ' five six ' five,
- 11:52Speaker 1: and a budding athletic superstar. Perhaps we'll see what he
- 11:57Speaker 1: does with it all, but definitely got a running start.
- 11:59Speaker 1: Good genetics. Anyway, we were chatting and we got a
- 12:02Speaker 1: photo taken and I'm standing next to the seventeen year
- 12:06Speaker 1: old giant, and for a moment I looked at myself
- 12:09Speaker 1: and I went apart from the fact that I looked tiny,
- 12:13Speaker 1: I went, ah, I don't look terrible. I don't look
- 12:17Speaker 1: And because I was just looking at a picture, I
- 12:20Speaker 1: was just looking at a photo, and I went oh,
- 12:22Speaker 1: And for a moment I could objectively, objectively realize that,
- 12:29Speaker 1: you know, and so this this propensity that we have
- 12:34Speaker 1: to let our thinking and our feeling get in the way.
- 12:39Speaker 1: I think I'm this, or I think I'm not. I
- 12:41Speaker 1: think I'm too old. I think I can't do this.
- 12:44Speaker 1: I feel like nobody would want to hear this or that.
- 12:48Speaker 1: You know. When I started my PhD, I was fifty six,
- 12:53Speaker 1: and of course part of me felt like I'm too
- 12:58Speaker 1: old to do this. And then on my first day,
- 13:02Speaker 1: which was November one, twenty nineteen, I was at union.
- 13:05Speaker 1: I was sitting in a room with a bunch of
- 13:07Speaker 1: other PhD students and I think there was about six
- 13:12Speaker 1: people in the room that I was in, six or seven.
- 13:14Speaker 1: I was in my cubicle. I had my own cubicle.
- 13:16Speaker 1: I looked around and they were all amazing, and they
- 13:18Speaker 1: were nice. Everybody welcomed me, everybody was gorgeous. But the
- 13:21Speaker 1: bottom line was the average age was probably twenty four
- 13:25Speaker 1: or twenty five, and at this point I'm fifty six,
- 13:28Speaker 1: so I'm more than double the average age. And overwhelmingly
- 13:32Speaker 1: I was thinking, what the fuck am I doing? I
- 13:34Speaker 1: can't do this, I'm too old. This was a dumb idea.
- 13:39Speaker 1: You know, I'm not them. I don't have the skills
- 13:42Speaker 1: I don't have. I don't understand all the tech like
- 13:44Speaker 1: they do. I don't know. There was so many thoughts
- 13:47Speaker 1: and feelings going through my mind. Well, the evidence is
- 13:52Speaker 1: five years later, I'm still doing it. I'm still hanging
- 13:57Speaker 1: in there. I did the work. I'm still doing the work.
- 14:01Speaker 1: Hopefully I'll be finished in the middle of the year.
- 14:04Speaker 1: Am I a great student? No? Am I the best student?
- 14:07Speaker 1: No Am I gifted at that? No? Am I a natural? No?
- 14:11Speaker 1: But was my thinking wrong? I can't do a PhD?
- 14:14Speaker 1: It was was my emotional state driven by fear. Yes,
- 14:23Speaker 1: it was also totally understandable. But am I too old? Well?
- 14:29Speaker 1: Apparently not, because I'm doing it. You know, I think
- 14:34Speaker 1: about one of the kids said to me yesterday, how
- 14:38Speaker 1: old are you? When I said sixty one. It's funny
- 14:40Speaker 1: how kids don't have a filter, right, I don't mind anyway,
- 14:44Speaker 1: And I won't say what he said exactly, but it
- 14:47Speaker 1: involved the EF word. There were no teachers around, and
- 14:50Speaker 1: he's like, you know, he was really complementary about what
- 14:54Speaker 1: shape I'm in. You know, you're in good shape, and
- 14:56Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And it's interesting because where typically at
- 15:02Speaker 1: and again remember there's there's no or I intend, no
- 15:05Speaker 1: ego to be in this, but at sixty one, most
- 15:08Speaker 1: people are really on the slide. Cognitively, brain stops working
- 15:12Speaker 1: as well as it did. Physiological decline, you know, bone
- 15:16Speaker 1: density drops, muscle drops, balanced speed, coordination, cardiovascular fitness, strength,
- 15:22Speaker 1: you know, body composition. All of these things naturally start
- 15:25Speaker 1: to happen. And it's very easy to buy into that
- 15:35Speaker 1: that thinking. Is it well, of course, of course? But
- 15:39Speaker 1: what happens when you change your thinking and you think
- 15:44Speaker 1: rather than I'm too old or I can't or typically
- 15:47Speaker 1: people my age are doing this and not doing that,
- 15:51Speaker 1: what if you, even if you acknowledge all of that,
- 15:53Speaker 1: but you say, yeah, that's cool, But what would happen
- 15:56Speaker 1: if I did these things? What would happen if I
- 16:00Speaker 1: took a chance. What would happen if if I'm not
- 16:03Speaker 1: talking about me now, I'm talking about potentially you. What
- 16:05Speaker 1: if I enrolled in a course. What if I started
- 16:07Speaker 1: a small business. What if I went traveling by myself?
- 16:10Speaker 1: What if I for the first time? What if I
- 16:14Speaker 1: got stronger and fitter now at my age, whatever age
- 16:18Speaker 1: you are, than I've ever been, even when I was
- 16:19Speaker 1: in my twenties. What if I explore my talent, my
- 16:24Speaker 1: potential and my possibilities. What if I optimize what I have?
- 16:29Speaker 1: You know, there were times when when I wrote my
- 16:31Speaker 1: first book, for example, I didn't I had not a
- 16:36Speaker 1: lot of faith that I would ever finish that book,
- 16:38Speaker 1: or that I would ever publish that book, or that
- 16:39Speaker 1: anyone would want to read that book or recommend that book,
- 16:42Speaker 1: or that I would make one dollar from that book.
- 16:45Speaker 1: They are all the things that I thought. But I
- 16:48Speaker 1: also thought, well, what if I just write it. What
- 16:53Speaker 1: if I just write the book, and at the very least,
- 16:56Speaker 1: I'm going to have an experience, At the very least,
- 16:58Speaker 1: I'm going to put some thoughts and ideas. I was
- 17:00Speaker 1: working in a gym at the time. I didn't even
- 17:02Speaker 1: own my own gym when I first started writing that.
- 17:06Speaker 1: But what I thought was, at the very least, I'm
- 17:09Speaker 1: going to have some thoughts and ideas and stories and
- 17:12Speaker 1: strategies that might be valuable or of interest to my clients.
- 17:17Speaker 1: At the very least, I put it all down. I
- 17:21Speaker 1: wrote it down, I rewrote it, I showed it to
- 17:23Speaker 1: a few people, I edited it, I refined it, and
- 17:28Speaker 1: eventually it got published. And then eventually I wrote another book,
- 17:32Speaker 1: and that got published, and eventually a big publisher hit
- 17:35Speaker 1: me up and asked me to write a book for
- 17:38Speaker 1: them and paid me in advance and then another publisher
- 17:41Speaker 1: did the same thing, and so on, and then I
- 17:43Speaker 1: after that I self published. Am I brilliant writer? Probably not?
- 17:48Speaker 1: Would anyone have Would anyone have been able to derail
- 17:53Speaker 1: me doing that? Probably if I had have listened to them.
- 17:58Speaker 1: But here's the thing in the mid the self doubt,
- 18:02Speaker 1: in the middle of the well, you've never written a book,
- 18:04Speaker 1: and you're not a writer, and no one's you know,
- 18:06Speaker 1: you've never had anything published, that kind of thinking. And
- 18:09Speaker 1: by the way, of course every author wrote a first book.
- 18:13Speaker 1: But in the middle of all of that, I can
- 18:17Speaker 1: still find a way. You can still find a way
- 18:19Speaker 1: to say, all right, well, I'm going to try, despite
- 18:22Speaker 1: my self doubt, despite the negative thinking, despite the disempowering beliefs.
- 18:27Speaker 1: What would happen if I try? I don't know, but
- 18:29Speaker 1: I'm going to try. I for a very long time
- 18:32Speaker 1: thought that while I thought, maybe this is arrogance, but
- 18:38Speaker 1: I thought some of the things that ruminated in my
- 18:42Speaker 1: head about training and about change and about growth, and
- 18:45Speaker 1: about human potential and about the way that the mind works,
- 18:48Speaker 1: and about communication and connection and happiness and joy and
- 18:53Speaker 1: purpose and fulfillment and life and lifestyle and all of
- 18:57Speaker 1: these fucking amazing variables that make up the human experience.
- 19:00Speaker 1: I thought the shit that I thought about was interesting,
- 19:03Speaker 1: and I thought maybe some other people would want to
- 19:06Speaker 1: hear about how I see it, or how I work
- 19:10Speaker 1: through it, or how I navigate it and how I
- 19:13Speaker 1: help others. But at the same time, at the same time,
- 19:17Speaker 1: there was a lack of self belief. At the same time,
- 19:22Speaker 1: there was doubt, at the same time, there was fear.
- 19:25Speaker 1: At the same time, there was a parallel story saying,
- 19:28Speaker 1: who the fuck wants to hear or read what you think?
- 19:32Speaker 1: And so I think sometimes, clearly I haven't planned this well.
- 19:36Speaker 1: So I apologize if this sounds clunky. This is one
- 19:39Speaker 1: of the dangers of just doing lots and lots of
- 19:41Speaker 1: these monologues. But I think sometimes our ability to feel
- 19:46Speaker 1: that fear, or feel that self doubt, or recognize the
- 19:51Speaker 1: thought or the voice or the self doubt for what
- 19:54Speaker 1: it is, which is just generally a fear based I've
- 20:03Speaker 1: said many times on this that you know, I've been
- 20:10Speaker 1: for much of my life driven to I think part
- 20:16Speaker 1: of my drive, part of my moderate success, part of
- 20:19Speaker 1: my development, and part of my building of a brand
- 20:22Speaker 1: and awareness and hopefully a little bit of respect you know,
- 20:26Speaker 1: broadly has been driven by the fact that I don't
- 20:30Speaker 1: think much of me. Now. I don't think I immersed
- 20:34Speaker 1: myself in self loathing, but I definitely, you know, there's
- 20:38Speaker 1: definitely been self limitation and self doubt and you know,
- 20:41Speaker 1: self sabotage. I don't think I'm a piece of shit.
- 20:45Speaker 1: I don't think I'm worthless. But at the same time,
- 20:49Speaker 1: I've for a very long time thought, you don't have
- 20:52Speaker 1: a whole lot going for you up, so you better
- 20:55Speaker 1: do the very fucking best with what you've got. And so,
- 20:59Speaker 1: as I've said a few times here, you know, for me,
- 21:01Speaker 1: that mediocrity, that that not being innately gifted. For me,
- 21:07Speaker 1: that was something of almost like a personal superpower, you know,
- 21:13Speaker 1: because I knew that if I wanted to do well,
- 21:16Speaker 1: I just had to work hard. I knew I wouldn't
- 21:19Speaker 1: fall on my feet. I knew I wouldn't accidentally succeed.
- 21:24Speaker 1: And you know, and now at sixty one, you know
- 21:28Speaker 1: that that thinking, that self doubt thinking, that self sabotaging thinking,
- 21:33Speaker 1: that that fear based thinking, and those feelings and those
- 21:37Speaker 1: ideas they still slide into my consciousness and awareness. But
- 21:42Speaker 1: I think now I'm more able to recognize them for
- 21:45Speaker 1: what they are and what they're not. And what they
- 21:49Speaker 1: are is theoretical somethings floating in my head that are
- 21:53Speaker 1: probably being generated through fear and self doubt, which is intertwined.
- 22:00Speaker 1: But what my feelings and thoughts aren't is that they're
- 22:04Speaker 1: not facts, they're not data, they're not evidence. And so
- 22:09Speaker 1: there are times when you know, I need to look
- 22:13Speaker 1: out in front of me, like I for a long
- 22:16Speaker 1: time had a feeling that that if I stood in
- 22:23Speaker 1: front of an audience, I would probably be boring. And
- 22:27Speaker 1: I was terrified of being boring. I knew that I
- 22:30Speaker 1: could talk, but there's a difference between being able to
- 22:33Speaker 1: talk to a group of people and being engaging and
- 22:36Speaker 1: funny and interesting and captivating and inspiring. And I didn't
- 22:41Speaker 1: know if I could do that. And then over time
- 22:45Speaker 1: that was somewhat alleviated. But I had I had an
- 22:51Speaker 1: epiphany about six or seven years ago and I was
- 22:55Speaker 1: at Deacon and I was doing a half day. I
- 22:59Speaker 1: was a open to the public. Was using Deacon as
- 23:03Speaker 1: a university in Melbourne for those of you who don't know,
- 23:05Speaker 1: and I was using their biggest lecture theater, which is
- 23:08Speaker 1: six hundred and seventy people. It was full, so just
- 23:12Speaker 1: under seven hundred people, and I was talking for three hours,
- 23:16Speaker 1: and we were maybe a couple of hours. In three and
- 23:18Speaker 1: a half hours, I think maybe we had a fifteen
- 23:20Speaker 1: minute break. But I remember looking out at one stage,
- 23:24Speaker 1: and as best as I could see, I had six
- 23:28Speaker 1: hundred and seventy people sitting there fully focused. Maybe there
- 23:34Speaker 1: was a couple that weren't, but I had an entire
- 23:37Speaker 1: auditorium full of people either smiling, laughing, nodding, looking engaged, connected,
- 23:47Speaker 1: And my overwhelming feeling was gratitude. It was gratitude. But
- 23:53Speaker 1: I remember in that moment thinking to myself, don't forget this,
- 23:58Speaker 1: mister self doubt, Mister I'm boring, mister I'm not good enough,
- 24:01Speaker 1: mister overthinker, you know, mister inherent hardwired underachiever, don't forget this. Like,
- 24:08Speaker 1: look at is what? At what's going on right now?
- 24:11Speaker 1: And of course the priority is not me feeling good.
- 24:13Speaker 1: The priority is that I'm helping and serving and creating
- 24:16Speaker 1: an experience for people that might translate into real world change.
- 24:19Speaker 1: I get all of that, and all of that that
- 24:22Speaker 1: is the priority, But also for me, as this insecure,
- 24:25Speaker 1: ex fat kid from the fucking country to have this
- 24:29Speaker 1: moment in real time where I'm going. I'm looking around,
- 24:32Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm not shit. I'm not shit.
- 24:38Speaker 1: I'm interesting, I'm good at what I do. I'm I'm
- 24:44Speaker 1: people pay to come and hear me. Fuck, Like, this
- 24:48Speaker 1: is evidence, this is data, And you know, I think
- 24:53Speaker 1: that we have we do have this propensity some of us.
- 24:58Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps you're not that person, but if you're a
- 25:02Speaker 1: bit like me, then it almost doesn't matter what outcomes
- 25:07Speaker 1: you get in your world. You still find a way to,
- 25:13Speaker 1: you know, locate that needle of negativity in a haystack
- 25:17Speaker 1: of hope. You know, all these things are going well,
- 25:20Speaker 1: but it's like, oh yeah, but what about this? And
- 25:22Speaker 1: then that all of these self doubt thoughts and ideas
- 25:26Speaker 1: kind of arise, and I think, you know, at the
- 25:28Speaker 1: same time, we want to keep our feet on the ground.
- 25:31Speaker 1: Humility is good, you know, staying hungry is good. But
- 25:36Speaker 1: we can acknowledge the data. We can acknowledge the evidence.
- 25:40Speaker 1: Oh I'm not shit, I'm doing okay. Even as I
- 25:46Speaker 1: do these podcasts, I'm thinking is this relevant? Like right now,
- 25:50Speaker 1: I thinking, is this relevant? Does anyone want to hear this?
- 25:54Speaker 1: You know these these things don't go away. But I
- 25:58Speaker 1: think one of our challenges is not to overcome fear,
- 26:01Speaker 1: not to overcome self doubt, not to overcome insecurity, not
- 26:06Speaker 1: to be this fucking psychological and emotional weapon that feels nothing,
- 26:10Speaker 1: but rather just to coexist with it successfully. Of course
- 26:14Speaker 1: you feel like shit sometimes that are welcome to the club.
- 26:18Speaker 1: Course you're scared, yep. But being scared gives you an
- 26:22Speaker 1: opportunity to be courageous because those things go together. Can
- 26:25Speaker 1: you be scared and brave? Of course you can. You
- 26:28Speaker 1: have to be scared to be brave. Can you do
- 26:31Speaker 1: amazing things despite the fact that you don't feel amazing?
- 26:36Speaker 1: Course you can. Can you create amazing outcomes and impact
- 26:41Speaker 1: the world or a few people, or make your own
- 26:44Speaker 1: life better and your mental and emotional health? Yeah you can.
- 26:48Speaker 1: You can. You know, perception is not potential, feelings are
- 26:54Speaker 1: not facts. And you, my friend, you've got way more
- 27:00Speaker 1: potential and way more possibilities than I think. Do you think?
- 27:06Speaker 1: See you next time?