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#1635 The Happiness Guru - Andrew Mathews · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I get its Welcome to another installment of You Project.
0:03
Speaker 1: This is about take four.
0:05
Speaker 2: Not really.
0:06
Speaker 1: We've had a We've had an interesting start to the
0:09
Speaker 1: the morning we let down our guest. We were tardy,
0:12
Speaker 1: we were late. We were late to our own show.
0:14
Speaker 2: Tiff was going to be it may as well we are, say, yeah.
0:20
Speaker 1: It might as well be. Andrew Matthews, Welcome to the
0:22
Speaker 1: You Project. Quick, let's get this bloody thing started. How
0:25
Speaker 1: are you well, Craig. Nice to be here, Thanks Tiff.
0:30
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for agreeing to join us. Where are you?
0:33
Speaker 2: Are you in the Sunshine State Now?
0:37
Speaker 3: I'm in the Sunshine State, Trinity Beach in far North Queensland,
0:40
Speaker 3: between Cans and Poor Douglas.
0:43
Speaker 2: That must be tough for you. Are you okay? Get that?
0:47
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful part of the world. It's just spectacular.
0:51
Speaker 2: We're on the big record here.
0:53
Speaker 1: I reckon when your your thing is well, amongst other things.
0:56
Speaker 1: But one of your core focuses and talking points is
1:00
Speaker 1: happiness that you have a geographical advantage where you are.
1:04
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure that that's fair.
1:06
Speaker 3: Well, we created it. We came from Adelaide, which was
1:10
Speaker 3: also delightful. But because I'm spending my life writing books,
1:17
Speaker 3: and I travel a lot. So my wife Julie and
1:20
Speaker 3: I decided perhaps we could have a nice, beautiful place
1:25
Speaker 3: to come back to when we're not traveling, and we
1:28
Speaker 3: found this little beach called Trinity Beach, which is about
1:31
Speaker 3: twenty minutes north of Cairns.
1:35
Speaker 2: Before you were.
1:36
Speaker 1: An international speaker and author and all things happiness, man,
1:40
Speaker 1: what did you do? What did you do before all
1:42
Speaker 1: of this blug buddy megastart and time and the money?
1:46
Speaker 1: By the way, do you need a hand with the money?
1:47
Speaker 1: Is it burdensome?
1:50
Speaker 3: We'll get to that later. I began a law degree
1:56
Speaker 3: because I thought that was the responsible thing to do.
1:59
Speaker 3: But I didn't like that. And my passion was always
2:03
Speaker 3: drawing and drawing portraits, painting, and so I studied art
2:10
Speaker 3: then about and I was an artist. I used to
2:13
Speaker 3: paint portraits. I did some cartooning for international magazines that
2:18
Speaker 3: you may have heard of. Used to do some work
2:20
Speaker 3: for Playboy when I was a late nineteen year old. Wow,
2:25
Speaker 3: I did the clean cartoons.
2:30
Speaker 2: Allegedly your honor.
2:33
Speaker 3: When I was twenty five, I made a shocking discovery,
2:36
Speaker 3: and that was that the happiest people I knew had
2:40
Speaker 3: bigger problems than me, and that made no sense. I
2:43
Speaker 3: was trying to figure out what is it with happy people?
2:48
Speaker 3: How do they think? How do they deal with challenges?
2:51
Speaker 3: And what is it that they do that I don't?
2:55
Speaker 3: And I began to read a lot and study a
2:58
Speaker 3: lot and do a lot of s m and rs.
3:00
Speaker 3: And that eventually led to my first book, Being Happy,
3:05
Speaker 3: And that's where it all began.
3:08
Speaker 1: Wow, what's the intersection, Andrew or the relationship between and
3:15
Speaker 1: I know there's a million kind of variables around happiness,
3:18
Speaker 1: but happiness and say contentment the absence of anxiety, Like
3:25
Speaker 1: how do we is one person's personal understanding of happiness
3:29
Speaker 1: someone else's calm, Like sometimes I feel really content and
3:36
Speaker 1: I feel very like just where I'm meant to be,
3:40
Speaker 1: but I might not feel that giddy you for it
3:43
Speaker 1: kind of happiness vibe.
3:45
Speaker 3: You know, happiness is a difficult way because it really
3:51
Speaker 3: doesn't cover everything we wanted to cover. But if you
3:54
Speaker 3: talk about contentment, then that perhaps implies that you know,
3:57
Speaker 3: we're not leading a very act of life. Or if
4:00
Speaker 3: we talk about joy, then no one's going to be
4:04
Speaker 3: joyful all the time. And so when people might say, well,
4:08
Speaker 3: is happiness really the goal. It's more than that. It's
4:12
Speaker 3: about finding meaning in life. It's about feeling that we
4:16
Speaker 3: can't wait to get out of bed in the morning,
4:18
Speaker 3: which is more than just a superficial happiness. It might
4:22
Speaker 3: be about feeling that we're doing something to make the
4:28
Speaker 3: world a better place. And so I find that all
4:31
Speaker 3: of those things contribute to what one person is going
4:34
Speaker 3: to say, well, that represents happiness, and another person will say, well,
4:38
Speaker 3: happiness is just sort of a superficial thing. So what
4:42
Speaker 3: I like to do, Craig is look at things that
4:46
Speaker 3: we can do, strategies that we can have that can
4:49
Speaker 3: make our life better.
4:51
Speaker 2: And that may.
4:54
Speaker 3: Involve looking at things we're grateful for. It might involve
5:00
Speaker 3: doing some things that we find that we really love,
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Speaker 3: even if we can't be doing everything we love because
5:06
Speaker 3: we've got to pay the rent and have a job.
5:11
Speaker 3: It might mean that we're dedicated to raising extraordinary children.
5:17
Speaker 3: So there can be a whole lot of things that
5:19
Speaker 3: contribute to saying my life has meaning and I'm happy
5:24
Speaker 3: to be who I am. I don't want to be
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Speaker 3: anyone else. And so what I seek to do in
5:32
Speaker 3: my books, what I write from my first book, Being
5:35
Speaker 3: Happy Right through to my latest book, which bouncing back
5:40
Speaker 3: Looking at Resilience, is to come up with very simple strategies,
5:47
Speaker 3: things that we can bear in mind that can make
5:50
Speaker 3: us stronger, more resilient, and happier each day.
5:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I love that.
5:59
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about trying to create any outcome for
6:02
Speaker 1: any person is like if somebody you know me as
6:06
Speaker 1: an excise scientist, like somebody you know, ten people come
6:10
Speaker 1: to me and say I want to be stronger. You know,
6:14
Speaker 1: they've all got the same goal. Well, they're all going
6:17
Speaker 1: to need a different approach or a different program, or
6:19
Speaker 1: a different protocol because they're all in different places. They've
6:22
Speaker 1: all got different physiology, they've all got different issues medically perhaps,
6:28
Speaker 1: and so even though they all want the same outcome,
6:31
Speaker 1: they're all going to have to take a different path.
6:34
Speaker 2: Is it similar with happiness? Do you think?
6:38
Speaker 3: I think that there are some common denominators that work
6:41
Speaker 3: for each of us. When we start to say to ourselves,
6:45
Speaker 3: for example, happiness is not an accident. Happiness is something
6:49
Speaker 3: that you choose, that you look for good things. Yes,
6:55
Speaker 3: then you start to say, if if I say, what
7:01
Speaker 3: do I really love about my friend Craig, then I
7:03
Speaker 3: start to see good things in you, and our relationship
7:07
Speaker 3: gets better and I'm happier for having you in my life.
7:10
Speaker 3: It's because it's the question that I ask myself. So
7:17
Speaker 3: one of the things that I think is really clear
7:21
Speaker 3: is that happy people focus on what they have, and
7:24
Speaker 3: unhappy people focus on what's missing. And so when we
7:28
Speaker 3: make that kind of a transition that doesn't matter who
7:31
Speaker 3: we are, or whether we're weak or strong, or whether
7:34
Speaker 3: we have money or we don't, or whether we're employed
7:36
Speaker 3: or whether we're not. Suddenly we start to say, well,
7:40
Speaker 3: I'm now starting to see these things that I wasn't appreciating.
7:47
Speaker 3: So that might be one thing, or it might be,
7:50
Speaker 3: for example, that we quit criticizing ourselves. People say, do
7:55
Speaker 3: I need to like myself?
7:57
Speaker 2: And you do.
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Speaker 3: Maybe it's at the moment hard to love myself, but
8:02
Speaker 3: we create the life that we feel we deserve. So
8:05
Speaker 3: when we start to say, okay, I'm not perfect, but
8:09
Speaker 3: I've done my best with what I knew. When we
8:13
Speaker 3: forgive ourselves a little bit, then we start to allow
8:15
Speaker 3: ourselves to have a better life than before we started
8:19
Speaker 3: saying okay, I can be kinder to myself. It may
8:25
Speaker 3: be something like the people that we spend our time with,
8:27
Speaker 3: you know, we become like the people that we're around,
8:30
Speaker 3: and sometimes we need to say, Okay, my family is
8:35
Speaker 3: not that uplifting, but I need to find some people.
8:37
Speaker 3: I need to find a podcast once a day that
8:41
Speaker 3: can uplift me, and so that will make a difference.
8:43
Speaker 3: So we go looking for great Harper.
8:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm not the answer. I'm just pointing people
8:51
Speaker 1: towards the answer. I'm pointing them towards you. I think
8:54
Speaker 1: part of that too. I love what you're saying about.
8:58
Speaker 2: Like we may not in the moment.
9:00
Speaker 1: Love ourselves or feel like that, but I think it's
9:03
Speaker 1: the difference between self loathing and self awareness. Like self
9:07
Speaker 1: awareness is well I could have done that better and
9:11
Speaker 1: I'll do it better, and self loathing is I'm a
9:14
Speaker 1: fucking idiot. I always do this. I'm always a more moron, right,
9:19
Speaker 1: Where there's that kind of I'm killing myself constantly, yes,
9:24
Speaker 1: versus that recognition that all right, this is not optimal.
9:29
Speaker 1: What is optimal and leaning into it with curiosity Maybe.
9:34
Speaker 3: Yes, Craig, and that whole idea of improvement not perfection
9:38
Speaker 3: helps that we say, if I can be just a
9:41
Speaker 3: little bit better tomorrow, then I can focus on what
9:44
Speaker 3: I've done better rather than say this is where I
9:47
Speaker 3: fall short against my brother or my neighbors.
9:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think also when you're talking, you're thinking
9:54
Speaker 1: about you know, like you were. You didn't say the words,
9:58
Speaker 1: but gratitude and awareness for I have.
10:01
Speaker 2: Like one of my I guess privileges Andrew.
10:04
Speaker 1: Is that I work with a few people with different disabilities,
10:08
Speaker 1: and you know, they have actual challenges. I don't have
10:12
Speaker 1: any actual challenges, right, and when I'm around them, it
10:17
Speaker 1: just and I you know, I shouldn't need to, but
10:20
Speaker 1: sometimes I still need to be around them to appreciate
10:24
Speaker 1: what I have.
10:26
Speaker 2: And even down to I think about this a lot.
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Speaker 2: This is weird.
10:29
Speaker 1: I even think like I can get up out of
10:31
Speaker 1: this chair and I can walk down the stairs to
10:33
Speaker 1: my kitchen. Most people can't or not most, but there's
10:37
Speaker 1: a lot of people that can't do that. I can
10:38
Speaker 1: go turn on a tap and there's cold water. Billions
10:41
Speaker 1: of people can't do that.
10:42
Speaker 2: I can. I can press a button and the room
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Speaker 2: gets cool. You know. It's like just having the things.
10:49
Speaker 1: That we never think of, you know, we just take
10:52
Speaker 1: so much stuff for granted that if they were removed
10:56
Speaker 1: from our life.
10:57
Speaker 2: All we would want is to have those things back.
11:00
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it's it's a It's a fascinating insight into
11:05
Speaker 3: the human condition, isn't it?
11:09
Speaker 1: And the way that, you know, part of my research
11:11
Speaker 1: is are around a thing called metacognition, which I'm sure
11:14
Speaker 1: you know is just thinking about thinking, and it's it's
11:17
Speaker 1: interesting just just to lean into that, just that question
11:22
Speaker 1: of why do I Why do I think like this?
11:26
Speaker 1: Why do I Why am I really grateful or uncrateful?
11:29
Speaker 1: Just and not self loathing, but just curiosity. How come
11:34
Speaker 1: when I'm talking to Andrew, I'm trying to impress him
11:38
Speaker 1: what's that about?
11:40
Speaker 2: You know? Like just that.
11:41
Speaker 1: Recognition of what is happening mentally, emotionally, behaviorally.
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Speaker 2: In the moment. You know that.
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Speaker 1: I think that the whole conversation around what is happiness?
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Speaker 1: How do I create it? Or how do I create misery?
12:00
Speaker 1: It's a real deep dive into like introspection and personal reflection,
12:06
Speaker 1: I think.
12:07
Speaker 3: And what you're saying, Craig, is that happiness isn't out there,
12:10
Speaker 3: It's in here. It's in our head. Yeah, and as
12:12
Speaker 3: soon as we change, and sometimes it can be a
12:16
Speaker 3: tragedy or an almost tragedy or a disaster that makes
12:20
Speaker 3: us reassess, yes, you know how blessed we are. And
12:27
Speaker 3: as you know, as we are in our case living
12:31
Speaker 3: in Australians and many of your listeners listening around the world,
12:34
Speaker 3: we have these incredible advantages, but we take them for granted.
12:40
Speaker 3: And so happiness, I believe, becomes something where because it's
12:46
Speaker 3: not something that you find. It is something that you
12:48
Speaker 3: create by being grateful, by having a purpose, by being kind.
12:57
Speaker 3: We notice that the kindest people are the people and
13:01
Speaker 3: so we do those things and we find that we're
13:04
Speaker 3: feeling better and more blessed. But when people talk about
13:10
Speaker 3: finding happiness, it is not something that just drops in
13:15
Speaker 3: your lap very often. I mean, perhaps there are some people,
13:19
Speaker 3: some of us who grew up with maybe parents who
13:23
Speaker 3: are wonderful role models and they did so many of
13:27
Speaker 3: the things that work, but many of us didn't. And
13:30
Speaker 3: so it comes back to what you're talking about, saying,
13:35
Speaker 3: how do I think and why do I think like that?
13:37
Speaker 3: And can I realize that there's a better way to think?
13:40
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and yeah exactly Andrew. And then what's the
13:46
Speaker 1: space between the thing that's happening and my story about
13:50
Speaker 1: the thing that's happening. So the objective reality and my
13:54
Speaker 1: subjective interpretation, you know, that's the special bit.
14:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then there's this idea that the challenge of
14:07
Speaker 3: life is to be happy with what you have while
14:11
Speaker 3: you pursue what you want and and and I think
14:16
Speaker 3: that you know, that is a big one because some
14:19
Speaker 3: people have goals, and it's great to have goals for
14:24
Speaker 3: a lot of reasons. Number one is we feel like
14:26
Speaker 3: we're taking control of our life. Even you know, you
14:29
Speaker 3: join a gym, you feel better. You haven't even done
14:31
Speaker 3: anything yet, But the reason you feel better is because
14:36
Speaker 3: you have this sense that I'm taking control of a
14:39
Speaker 3: part of my life. But we see many people who achieve,
14:46
Speaker 3: but but they're always putting such a load on themselves
14:49
Speaker 3: as I've got to achieve more and more and more,
14:51
Speaker 3: so they're never happy with where they are. And wow,
14:56
Speaker 3: so that's the challenge.
14:58
Speaker 1: That's so true, you know, I think, I mean, I
15:03
Speaker 1: can only speak for me. But in the life that
15:07
Speaker 1: I grew up in the seventies, eighties and nineties, like
15:11
Speaker 1: I was either directly or indirectly taught that success equals
15:15
Speaker 1: happiness and success equals things stuff, how much money I
15:22
Speaker 1: earn what I drive, where I live, what people think
15:26
Speaker 1: of me, my brand. You know, it's all about this
15:30
Speaker 1: external stuff that you referred to before. So if I
15:34
Speaker 1: change these things in my external world, my internal world
15:38
Speaker 1: will be great. And then I go on this endless
15:41
Speaker 1: quest for a bigger and bigger and bigger plasma TV
15:45
Speaker 1: till I've got a fucking two hundred inch TV and
15:48
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is twice the size of my last TV.
15:53
Speaker 1: Why am I not happier? Because I think we think
15:56
Speaker 1: that some kind of you know, phiz shift will create
16:02
Speaker 1: some kind feel some emotional, psychological, spiritual void.
16:07
Speaker 2: And even though we I.
16:09
Speaker 1: Think inherently I'll shut up after this, I think we
16:12
Speaker 1: inherently know that's not true, but we don't seem to
16:15
Speaker 1: learn because we keep striving for this stuff that doesn't
16:19
Speaker 1: really feel that void.
16:22
Speaker 3: One of the dangers of that is that as we
16:24
Speaker 3: get on this path to being more successful, which we
16:27
Speaker 3: think is going to make us happier, we inevitably start
16:31
Speaker 3: to gravitate and mix with people who are doing even
16:36
Speaker 3: better at what we think is what we need to
16:39
Speaker 3: do than we are. Because that's what happens, and you're
16:43
Speaker 3: around richer people with bigger mansions and more expensive cars,
16:48
Speaker 3: and so you actually get further and further behind as
16:53
Speaker 3: you come into contact with these people that you think
16:55
Speaker 3: are doing even better than you thought you needed to
16:58
Speaker 3: do so. But hopefully at some point we decide, okay,
17:05
Speaker 3: I've got that. Now, I realize what my priorities are
17:09
Speaker 3: and I can only eat so much, and I can
17:11
Speaker 3: only drive one car at a time, and people and
17:17
Speaker 3: contributing and finding meaning become more important than having the
17:22
Speaker 3: biggest whatever it is we were.
17:26
Speaker 1: After, I think like understanding that that our thoughts and
17:34
Speaker 1: what we focus on. As she spoke about before, it's
17:37
Speaker 1: like where my attention is, well, that's where you know,
17:39
Speaker 1: where my mind is, that's where my emotions are, where
17:42
Speaker 1: my emotions are, that's where my body is.
17:44
Speaker 2: And if i'm if i'm.
17:48
Speaker 1: You know, if I think that Tiff did something that
17:50
Speaker 1: she shouldn't have done, and let's say she didn't actually
17:54
Speaker 1: do anything, I just think she did, and so I'm
17:57
Speaker 1: mad at Tiff for an a row reason. And I'm
18:01
Speaker 1: telling myself a story about Tiff even though Tiff didn't
18:05
Speaker 1: do anything, but I believe that she did. And now
18:08
Speaker 1: you know, my blood pressures up my heart rates up,
18:11
Speaker 1: my breathings up, my sympathetic nervous system switched on. I'm
18:14
Speaker 1: in this state of anxiety and stress and anger and
18:17
Speaker 1: I've created it at all. I've created at all, and
18:20
Speaker 1: Tif's done nothing. So I literally am making myself stressed.
18:25
Speaker 1: It's not even about the situation. It's about a story
18:29
Speaker 1: in my head.
18:31
Speaker 3: And nothing and nothing is real. And we come back
18:34
Speaker 3: to that idea that that happiness is not out there,
18:37
Speaker 3: it's between ears. And the other thing that comes up
18:41
Speaker 3: for me Craig is that even if she did, if
18:45
Speaker 3: Tiff did do something.
18:47
Speaker 2: Which she does a lot, by the way, Okay.
18:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot, then you don't forgive people for their benefit.
18:57
Speaker 3: You forgive people for your benefit. If I work for
19:01
Speaker 3: you and you give me the sack and I say,
19:03
Speaker 3: I'm never going to forgive Craig because he's ruined my life,
19:07
Speaker 3: then I'm the one that's suffering. I'm the one that's
19:11
Speaker 3: lying awake at night. You know, you're probably at the
19:14
Speaker 3: movies or something, and I think I'm punishing you by
19:18
Speaker 3: not forgiving you. Yes, But so what we learned there
19:23
Speaker 3: is you don't forgive people for their benefit. Yeah, you
19:27
Speaker 3: forgive people for your benefit. That's when you tipped her
19:31
Speaker 3: something that's real.
19:32
Speaker 1: Oh she's problematic. I only have her on the show.
19:36
Speaker 2: She's like my.
19:37
Speaker 1: Community outreach project, you know, like you just pick one person.
19:42
Speaker 2: She's my person, so I'll just help her out.
19:47
Speaker 1: I was thinking about, you know, this idea that we're
19:51
Speaker 1: talking about, how success is stuff. And I remember Andrew
19:55
Speaker 1: when I first started. So I started working in gyms
19:58
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen. I didn't go a university for
20:01
Speaker 1: the first time until I was older, but I started
20:04
Speaker 1: working in gym's at eighteen, and I'm having all of
20:06
Speaker 1: these conversations with actual grown ups.
20:09
Speaker 2: I was a teenager. And then so.
20:15
Speaker 1: I opened the first personal training center in Australia and
20:17
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But I started working as a PT
20:20
Speaker 1: as a personal trainer at twenty three, which was nineteen
20:23
Speaker 1: eighty six when there weren't any and I started to
20:27
Speaker 1: get wealthy clients, and was what I didn't expect was
20:32
Speaker 1: so so I'm still a kid and I'm talking to
20:35
Speaker 1: all of these wealthy people, you know, business owners, entrepreneurs, actors, athletes, models,
20:43
Speaker 1: all of these successful people that I would have had
20:48
Speaker 1: previously on a pedestal. And now I'm getting to know
20:52
Speaker 1: the person behind the brand or the fame or the money.
20:55
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking, oh, wow, well way more problems.
21:01
Speaker 2: Than me, Like you're like.
21:04
Speaker 1: I remember just having this like epiphany as a young man,
21:08
Speaker 1: thinking ah, and realizing that on average, the wealthier people
21:15
Speaker 1: that I dealt with. Now this is not categoric, this
21:18
Speaker 1: was just my experience and not all but on average
21:22
Speaker 1: they were more stressed and more anxious, and I would
21:25
Speaker 1: say less happy than my in inverted commas normal clients.
21:30
Speaker 1: And I went, Ah, that doesn't equal that, not necessarily anyway.
21:34
Speaker 1: So that was a moment of insight for me.
21:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. He reminds me of a friend I had, Jim,
21:44
Speaker 3: who had a very big business, and he and his
21:48
Speaker 3: wife used to take big, expensive holidays, and they had
21:51
Speaker 3: a very big, expensive art collection, and their whole life
21:55
Speaker 3: seemed very big and spectacular. And then he sold his
21:59
Speaker 3: business to a very big client or a big organization
22:06
Speaker 3: that didn't pay the second big installment, and then he
22:11
Speaker 3: went through a very big court case which was followed
22:15
Speaker 3: by a very big divorce. And I came across him
22:18
Speaker 3: in the supermarket some time after that, and he was
22:21
Speaker 3: now living in a little apartment with a little dog.
22:25
Speaker 2: Oh Wow.
22:26
Speaker 3: He said, you know, I had this big lifestyle and
22:30
Speaker 3: he said, now I'm back to I just was left
22:35
Speaker 3: with enough after the court case and the divorce and
22:37
Speaker 3: everything else. I've just got a little apartment and a
22:41
Speaker 3: little dog. And he said, you know, I've never been
22:44
Speaker 3: happier in my life. It's so simplified. And you know,
22:52
Speaker 3: so it's not about having all the big, expensive stuff.
22:57
Speaker 3: And I suppose, although we see it from a distance
23:01
Speaker 3: and it's a generalization, Hollywood is kind of the the
23:06
Speaker 3: illustration of the craziness of you can have a whole
23:11
Speaker 3: lot and appearances can be wonderful, but it can be
23:14
Speaker 3: a little bit shaky underneath.
23:18
Speaker 1: It's very I mean that that whole idea of you know,
23:22
Speaker 1: I remember growing up in rural Victoria and do you
23:27
Speaker 1: know what a bogan is, right I do. Yeah, So
23:31
Speaker 1: lots of Bogans Bogan Central where I grew up. God
23:33
Speaker 1: bless everyone in La tri Valley. Not all Bogans, but
23:36
Speaker 1: a fair few. And there used to be a lot
23:38
Speaker 1: of panel vans and utes back in the seventies and eighties,
23:42
Speaker 1: and they had this sticker on the back and it
23:45
Speaker 1: said he who dies with the most toys wins right,
23:49
Speaker 1: And I kind of grew up in that, Oh well,
23:52
Speaker 1: if some stuff is good, then more stuff is better
23:55
Speaker 1: and the most stuff is best.
23:58
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, yeah.
24:00
Speaker 1: I remember when my business took off in you know,
24:06
Speaker 1: when I was in my late twenties and I started.
24:08
Speaker 1: I opened a gym, and I opened another gym and
24:10
Speaker 1: another gym. I ended up I had four gyms and
24:13
Speaker 1: lots of employees, and things were, you know, And I
24:16
Speaker 1: always liked cars, and I always had shitty cars because
24:20
Speaker 1: I had no money. Then I got my first decent car,
24:23
Speaker 1: which was nice, and it was nice and I kind.
24:25
Speaker 2: Of enjoyed it.
24:26
Speaker 1: But then I got another car, which was super nice.
24:31
Speaker 1: And then that car gave me so much anxiety because well,
24:36
Speaker 1: I should say more accurately, I gave myself so much anxiety.
24:41
Speaker 2: I didn't want to drive it anywhere. I didn't want
24:42
Speaker 2: to leave it anywhere.
24:44
Speaker 1: Before i'd go in anywhere, i'd walk around it, I'd
24:47
Speaker 1: do a bloody scratch check.
24:49
Speaker 2: Then i'd come out.
24:50
Speaker 1: I'd look out the window of wherever I was thirteen
24:52
Speaker 1: times an hour to make sure no one would Oh God,
24:56
Speaker 1: it just I was the problem, not the car. I
25:00
Speaker 1: was the problem. But I remember again having another epiphany.
25:04
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what I buy if at best it's
25:09
Speaker 1: going to have a short term impact on my emotional state,
25:12
Speaker 1: and over the long term, if it's something that can
25:15
Speaker 1: be damaged by others, it's probably going to give me
25:18
Speaker 1: more grief than joy.
25:20
Speaker 2: So I stopped doing that quite a long time ago.
25:23
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because it is.
25:27
Speaker 3: I think. I remember Robert Kiyosaki is saying once that,
25:31
Speaker 3: and he's a he's a money guy, and he was
25:34
Speaker 3: saying something about the first Porsche he bought, and he said,
25:37
Speaker 3: I loved that car unconditionally for a week.
25:43
Speaker 2: So true.
25:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, so it's not it's not about the stuff.
25:49
Speaker 3: It's about if, if, if we if we look for
25:52
Speaker 3: good things in people and we believe that life will
25:55
Speaker 3: turn out well, and we we live life as best
25:58
Speaker 3: we can one day at a time, which I think
26:01
Speaker 3: helps a lot, then then regardless of how much stuff
26:06
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, you know, people say money doesn't matter,
26:09
Speaker 3: but there is a you've got to have the money
26:12
Speaker 3: to pay the rent, and we know what it's like
26:14
Speaker 3: when you don't, of course, but once once you have
26:19
Speaker 3: the essentials taken care of, an exponential increase in money
26:23
Speaker 3: doesn't make a lot of difference to our peace of mind.
26:27
Speaker 1: Hundred Hey, you and I are both similar in that
26:30
Speaker 1: we stand in front of audiences a lot.
26:33
Speaker 2: And I watched some of you doing your thing on stage.
26:37
Speaker 2: I'm amazing.
26:38
Speaker 1: I love watching other speakers because it's so you know,
26:42
Speaker 1: there are so many ways to do the same thing,
26:45
Speaker 1: which has build an audience, connect with an audience, develop, rapport, trust, respect, entertain,
26:50
Speaker 1: educate and inspire all that stuff.
26:52
Speaker 2: There's so many there's no set path, but you you
26:57
Speaker 2: if you.
26:58
Speaker 1: Haven't seen it, everyone, you need to go and have
27:01
Speaker 1: just go on to Andrews Andrew Matthew's website, have a
27:04
Speaker 1: look at him doing his thing where he's talking and
27:07
Speaker 1: drawing at the same and it's like that amalgamation, that
27:13
Speaker 1: synergy of the visual stuff that you draw while delivering
27:18
Speaker 1: this flawless presentation that is amazing. How long did it
27:24
Speaker 1: take you to get good at that?
27:28
Speaker 2: Well?
27:28
Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean maybe that was just your natural thing,
27:30
Speaker 1: because you're an illustrator and an artist anyway, right, so
27:33
Speaker 1: maybe that does having a pen or a marker or
27:36
Speaker 1: something in your hand give you comfort.
27:40
Speaker 3: I've been drawing since I was five, and I say
27:44
Speaker 3: to the when I speak, I say, people wonder where
27:48
Speaker 3: I learned to draw. I learned to draw in school
27:51
Speaker 3: during mathematics, but so my training is in classical drawing.
27:57
Speaker 3: But at the same time I was doing cartooning. And
28:00
Speaker 3: what I found was when I first started giving presentations
28:04
Speaker 3: on happiness, and I would draw a little cartoon here
28:07
Speaker 3: or there, and of course what I didn't know was
28:11
Speaker 3: that people were transfixed because I'd be facing the flip chart,
28:16
Speaker 3: I wouldn't see it, and I'd turn around they were
28:18
Speaker 3: back to normal. Then on occasions I would see video
28:23
Speaker 3: of the faces of the people, and my wife, Julie,
28:26
Speaker 3: who's my publisher, she would say, you need to do
28:28
Speaker 3: more of this because people really like it. And so
28:32
Speaker 3: it evolved where when I give presentations, I draw cartoons
28:38
Speaker 3: throughout my presentation, and I use cartoons through my presentations.
28:42
Speaker 3: And see, what I noticed is that whether you're talking
28:45
Speaker 3: to brain surgeons or prisoners, and I speak to both,
28:51
Speaker 3: they're so relieved when the message is simple and easy
28:54
Speaker 3: to get, and pictures help us not only to understand
28:59
Speaker 3: the message, but to remember it. So it's been my
29:02
Speaker 3: joy to incorporate cartoons throughout and I guess it's become
29:10
Speaker 3: my signature. But people also like it because they see
29:13
Speaker 3: the cartoons in my books, so and maybe maybe they think, well,
29:22
Speaker 3: if there's cartoons in there, he can't be a total
29:24
Speaker 3: wanker or something. I don't know. I mean people people
29:29
Speaker 3: like to see to see something that's not so serious.
29:34
Speaker 1: And also it's it's organic, right, and it's you in
29:37
Speaker 1: real time. It's not you bringing up a slide of
29:40
Speaker 1: something that you drew a year ago.
29:42
Speaker 2: It's like, this is you on stage creating.
29:45
Speaker 1: This is you with a blank piece of paper creating
29:48
Speaker 1: something in real time while fucking talking to a thousand people.
29:53
Speaker 3: That's quite the skill it takes. Yeah, it takes some
29:58
Speaker 3: practice to do that. But you bring up an interesting point.
30:02
Speaker 3: I can bring up the best cartoon that I've ever done,
30:05
Speaker 3: that I created last year, and it won't get nearly
30:09
Speaker 3: nearly the reaction of something that I create in the
30:14
Speaker 3: next minute, where people just see it evolved. But I
30:17
Speaker 3: also when I draw or that I start at the
30:20
Speaker 3: at the like the wrong place, so that people aren't
30:27
Speaker 3: even sure where I'm going.
30:29
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, you know that.
30:30
Speaker 1: That is like if I went to see I don't know,
30:34
Speaker 1: bloody Bruce Springsteen and he's out on stage and he
30:37
Speaker 1: presses a button and then the recording of his voice
30:40
Speaker 1: comes on. You know, it's I don't want that. I
30:43
Speaker 1: want to hear seventy five year old Bruce sing.
30:47
Speaker 2: Right.
30:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah, that's so so interesting.
30:52
Speaker 2: How much I don't know about this?
30:54
Speaker 1: Is this is an in house question, right, So it
30:59
Speaker 1: depends on my week. But I do about one hundred
31:01
Speaker 1: and twenty presentations a year, and they vary from thirty
31:07
Speaker 1: forty five sixty minute keno through to full day workshops
31:10
Speaker 1: and stuff. And this is just my personality in the
31:16
Speaker 1: way that I work best. But I've got to be
31:19
Speaker 1: structured and planned to a point. But you know, I'm
31:24
Speaker 1: very much probably more way more than most and probably
31:28
Speaker 1: to my own detriment sometimes, but.
31:32
Speaker 2: I like to go in.
31:35
Speaker 1: With some prep, you know, but more I want to
31:38
Speaker 1: build a connection with the audience. Do you how much
31:41
Speaker 1: of you yours? Is Is it like the same every time?
31:45
Speaker 2: Do you ever get.
31:46
Speaker 1: Halfway through and go I'm going to turn left instead
31:49
Speaker 1: of right? Like?
31:51
Speaker 2: Is it performative? Is it?
31:53
Speaker 1: You know, not that it's right or wrong, But I'm
31:55
Speaker 1: just interested in the different styles that presenters. Tiff by
31:59
Speaker 1: the way, it has just started presenting career. She did
32:02
Speaker 1: one yesterday and killed didn't you?
32:03
Speaker 2: Tiff had a wonderful time. Thank you. Are we allowed
32:09
Speaker 2: to say who with? Yeah? Yeah, Victoria's Victoria Police.
32:14
Speaker 1: Yeah She's So she's just getting her speaking career underway.
32:18
Speaker 1: So I'm interested in your kind of method if you'd
32:21
Speaker 1: like to share.
32:23
Speaker 3: Sure. A lot of what I speak about and I
32:28
Speaker 3: will speak to computer companies and I will speak to
32:31
Speaker 3: you know, maybe Honda or Shell or or Intel or
32:36
Speaker 3: and then I will speak to banks and in high schools.
32:41
Speaker 3: A lot of the concepts are similar, yep. But the
32:45
Speaker 3: examples that perhaps somebody like last week I spoke to
32:50
Speaker 3: her a group of they run service stations in New Zealand,
32:57
Speaker 3: so they came to Brisbane and they had me speak
33:00
Speaker 3: to speak about enjoying work particularly. So a lot of
33:06
Speaker 3: the principles are similar. But the examples, I mean, you know,
33:09
Speaker 3: these are guys. They're dealing with leaking petrol tanks and
33:14
Speaker 3: competition from unmanned service stations and staff that don't show up.
33:19
Speaker 3: So I'm drawing on examples that they relate to. So
33:22
Speaker 3: I do my research, yes, but the principles of enjoying
33:27
Speaker 3: your work still come back to things like, well, you
33:30
Speaker 3: want a you want to do your best because that's
33:32
Speaker 3: how you feel best about you, That's how you get
33:36
Speaker 3: a reputation. Don't complain because people want to be and
33:41
Speaker 3: so on.
33:42
Speaker 2: So it's.
33:46
Speaker 3: The framework is similar, but the examples will be different.
33:49
Speaker 3: And usually I will just do an hour presentation. Sometimes
33:55
Speaker 3: I will do day presentations. But my experience is people
33:58
Speaker 3: are always most sided in the first hour, and I
34:02
Speaker 3: like to leave them that they wish I'd stayed longer.
34:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not the worst plan. What's one thing that
34:11
Speaker 2: you've over the last however.
34:13
Speaker 1: Long, ten twenty years, something.
34:16
Speaker 2: That you.
34:18
Speaker 1: Were wrong about. I like this idea. So I talk
34:23
Speaker 1: about learning. I'm an educator, but I also talk about unlearning.
34:28
Speaker 1: And you know, there's I've gotten a million things wrong
34:31
Speaker 1: in the last thirty years, and for me, I always
34:34
Speaker 1: like to share that with people because people think you know,
34:37
Speaker 1: you get everything right, or you know everything. Well, I'm
34:40
Speaker 1: fucking up thirteen times a day, So don't look to
34:42
Speaker 1: me as the high water mark.
34:43
Speaker 2: But something that.
34:44
Speaker 1: You've got wrong or maybe and or changed your mind
34:48
Speaker 1: about over the last while.
34:52
Speaker 3: I think about I don't have to be perfect and
34:57
Speaker 3: I don't have to know it all. When I wrote
35:00
Speaker 3: my first book, Being Happy, I was thirty and I
35:05
Speaker 3: was younger than a lot of my readers, and I'm
35:08
Speaker 3: not a psychologist, so I thought I had to work
35:12
Speaker 3: really hard to appear like I was an expert. And
35:16
Speaker 3: the more I did that, the more people questioned my authority,
35:20
Speaker 3: and the more even though my book kept selling, but
35:24
Speaker 3: if I was maybe giving a presentation or maybe chatting
35:28
Speaker 3: with someone like you. The more that I tried to
35:34
Speaker 3: have all the answers and be really smooth and make
35:37
Speaker 3: everything perfect, the less I found that people I guess
35:45
Speaker 3: warm to me, maybe because I thought I had to
35:49
Speaker 3: be clever, And now I realized that everything doesn't if
35:53
Speaker 3: people can see my faults and my frailties and I
35:59
Speaker 3: can share things that I got wrong and all the books,
36:02
Speaker 3: that the manuscripts I sent to publishers that didn't get published,
36:06
Speaker 3: and that people just want People want us to be
36:15
Speaker 3: real and people. People don't want anything that's that's especially polished.
36:22
Speaker 3: And I think evidence of that now can be seen
36:25
Speaker 3: on social media, where many of the clips that go viral,
36:32
Speaker 3: almost all of them, they're not highly polished. They're just
36:35
Speaker 3: where someone happens to be either real or funny or
36:38
Speaker 3: surprisingly witty, and it's not super prepared. So I think
36:44
Speaker 3: that that I would I would have done differently. Also,
36:47
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have worked so hard. Yeah, wow, I've worked
36:50
Speaker 3: too hard. But you know, yeah, I'm sure you do.
36:55
Speaker 3: You know what I What I like is so as
36:59
Speaker 3: I said to you before we started rolling, So I'm
37:03
Speaker 3: doing my PhD in neuropsychology and I'm five years in
37:06
Speaker 3: and I'm near the finish line and blah blah blah.
37:09
Speaker 3: But like, I value your insights maybe more right, because
37:16
Speaker 3: you've got all this lived experience. And which is not
37:18
Speaker 3: to say that you don't understand psychology or physiology or
37:22
Speaker 3: neuroscience to a level anyway, it's not about that. But
37:25
Speaker 3: it's like sometimes a couple of things. Sometimes I'm talking
37:30
Speaker 3: to somebody who's an academic or an intellectual genius who
37:34
Speaker 3: just might know all this stuff about the neurochemistry of
37:38
Speaker 3: the brain and happiness and the reward system and all
37:40
Speaker 3: this stuff, and I look at him and I go,
37:43
Speaker 3: you're fucking miserable. So I'm not listening to you, right,
37:46
Speaker 3: I'm not listening to you because you might understand the
37:49
Speaker 3: theory of happiness, but you're not living it, so I'm
37:51
Speaker 3: not interested. And then the other thing is, you know,
37:55
Speaker 3: when it comes to the brain and the mind and
38:01
Speaker 3: the complicity the complexity of happiness and joy and hormones
38:08
Speaker 3: and biochemistry and sociology, and it's just there's no three
38:15
Speaker 3: step plan. It's like the more that, like my PhD
38:20
Speaker 3: is in a thing called meta perception, which is about
38:23
Speaker 3: your ability to understand the Andrew experience for others. So
38:29
Speaker 3: the core question at the middle of my research is
38:31
Speaker 3: what's it like being around me for the rest of
38:33
Speaker 3: the world.
38:35
Speaker 2: And I could unpack that with you, but I won't
38:37
Speaker 2: bore you. But you know, I'm driving.
38:41
Speaker 1: I'm studying like a drop of water in an ocean
38:44
Speaker 1: of psychology and science and research, you know. And even
38:50
Speaker 1: though I'll come out with a doctorate in psychology, you're
38:54
Speaker 1: not really broadly studying anything. You're very very specifically studying
38:59
Speaker 1: a one construct, like I said, in this ocean.
39:03
Speaker 2: Of ideas and stuff, you know.
39:06
Speaker 1: And then it bugs me when people discount stuff that's
39:15
Speaker 1: I guess just learned experience or anecdotal or like all
39:20
Speaker 1: of the stuff that you've been through. And I'm sure
39:22
Speaker 1: you've done your own research research as well, but like
39:26
Speaker 1: your life is your classroom, you know, the research that
39:30
Speaker 1: you've done working with real humans in real time and
39:33
Speaker 1: creating real outcomes, that's more valuable research, I think in
39:38
Speaker 1: many ways. When you're connecting with a general public audience.
39:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, more people like simple things that they can understand. Yeah,
39:49
Speaker 3: what I seek to do is I always felt that
39:54
Speaker 3: my advantage was that I didn't have an academic background,
39:58
Speaker 3: so I didn't have to be true to any particular methodology,
40:01
Speaker 3: or I didn't have to introduce things that I thought
40:05
Speaker 3: my peers thought that I should substantiate so true. So
40:10
Speaker 3: I could just grab any story or any example from anybody,
40:14
Speaker 3: and I could maybe put it into two paragraphs and
40:18
Speaker 3: with a cartoon and then and then. One of the
40:23
Speaker 3: joys for me of writing is is using as simple
40:28
Speaker 3: language as I can. When I teach or workshops on writing,
40:34
Speaker 3: I say, imagine that you're writing for a twelve year
40:38
Speaker 3: old girl in Singapore, for whom English is her second language,
40:42
Speaker 3: then you're going to write better. So that's that's what
40:45
Speaker 3: I seek to do. So for me, it is about simple,
40:52
Speaker 3: simple ideas, simple language that anyone can understand and at
40:57
Speaker 3: the same time what you're doing obviously you're fascinated at
41:04
Speaker 3: getting to understand all of this about how it is
41:09
Speaker 3: for other people being around Craig Harper, and so that
41:12
Speaker 3: is that is fueling your joyous life and your experience.
41:16
Speaker 3: You know enough that you're not doing it to impress anyone.
41:19
Speaker 3: You're doing it because this is this is something that
41:21
Speaker 3: you want to get to the bottom of. So that
41:26
Speaker 3: can be a great thing for you. But then when
41:28
Speaker 3: you take that the messages that you've gotten hold of
41:31
Speaker 3: to your audience, obviously you simplify them or you take
41:36
Speaker 3: the special little bits that anybody can relate to.
41:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the skill. Yeah.
41:43
Speaker 1: And it's like even with this with this show, you know,
41:46
Speaker 1: we have thousands of listeners every day, and I mean,
41:51
Speaker 1: you're I don't need to with you, but sometimes because
41:54
Speaker 1: you're a very good communicator and you understand exactly what
41:58
Speaker 1: we're talking about. But sometimes I'm like, if I've got
42:01
Speaker 1: someone on who's they're good, their knowledge is good, but
42:04
Speaker 1: I'm like, we need to change the language of what's
42:06
Speaker 1: going on right now because nobody fuck understands this bloke
42:10
Speaker 1: or this lady. You know, so like the information is
42:13
Speaker 1: good but the delivery or the language is inappropriate.
42:17
Speaker 2: And it's not that I have a dumb audience. I
42:19
Speaker 2: have an educated audience.
42:21
Speaker 1: But when you have a really big cross section of people,
42:24
Speaker 1: you need to cater to, you know, the lowest common
42:28
Speaker 1: denominator in terms of understandability of terms and language. So yeah,
42:35
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. So you've got a new book out
42:38
Speaker 1: which is called Bouncing Back, which is is that focus
42:42
Speaker 1: on resilience or very coming?
42:46
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, very much resilience. I mean, we're all bouncing
42:51
Speaker 3: back from something, Craig. We're bouncing back from a relationship
42:54
Speaker 3: that could have been better, or a job that we
42:56
Speaker 3: lost or a job that we applied for or we
42:58
Speaker 3: didn't get, or we're bouncing back often from loss or
43:03
Speaker 3: tragedy people that we loved. And I thought the COVID
43:09
Speaker 3: experience triggered it a little bit, but it was also
43:13
Speaker 3: we're all going to be bouncing back from things almost
43:17
Speaker 3: every day, little things, ben So I wanted to ask
43:21
Speaker 3: the question what is it that resilient people do? And basically,
43:29
Speaker 3: there's about seven things that resilient and happy people do
43:34
Speaker 3: better than people who are not resilient. And I created
43:41
Speaker 3: like a lot of little stories and cartoons in Bouncing Back,
43:47
Speaker 3: and basically we go through the things that and you
43:50
Speaker 3: don't have to learn them all, you don't have to
43:53
Speaker 3: do them in any particular order. For example, number one
43:57
Speaker 3: is that resilient people find purpose in whatever they're going through.
44:02
Speaker 3: They don't say, why does everything happen to me? Often
44:09
Speaker 3: what we thought was breaking us is actually making us. Yes,
44:13
Speaker 3: and resilient people understand that. So true, that's number one.
44:19
Speaker 3: Number two is we accept what we can't change. I mean,
44:25
Speaker 3: there's a lot of things that we can change. We
44:27
Speaker 3: can change our attitude, we can change our work rate,
44:30
Speaker 3: we can change where we live, we can change our friends.
44:32
Speaker 3: But there are things that you can't change your parents,
44:36
Speaker 3: for example. So some people live their life saying, well,
44:43
Speaker 3: if I refuse to accept this, then I won't be
44:46
Speaker 3: stuck with it. There is the reverse is true. As
44:50
Speaker 3: soon as you embrace something that you didn't want, then
44:53
Speaker 3: you can move on. So acceptance is power. And so
44:58
Speaker 3: those are two of the things that I that I
45:01
Speaker 3: looked at in Bouncing Back.
45:04
Speaker 2: I love it. We waste sorry to interrupt, we waste
45:07
Speaker 2: a lot.
45:07
Speaker 1: We do seem to waste a lot of time and energy,
45:10
Speaker 1: Andrew on things we can't change or undo. You know, like,
45:14
Speaker 1: how many of us ruminate about things that happened five
45:17
Speaker 1: years ago and we're still like our mind in the
45:21
Speaker 1: present is trapped in that thing five years ago that
45:25
Speaker 1: you know, putting aside traumatic events. But you know, it's like,
45:28
Speaker 1: we do have this propensity to overthink and ruminate on
45:32
Speaker 1: things we can't change or control.
45:37
Speaker 3: You're a sports guy and in one of my books,
45:42
Speaker 3: I think it was Following your Heart. It brings up
45:45
Speaker 3: for me because you're talking about living in the present,
45:47
Speaker 3: and everyone says and it's kind of it's just a cliche,
45:49
Speaker 3: live in the present. One of the beautiful things about
45:52
Speaker 3: sport is that you learn to live in the present
45:57
Speaker 3: and let go of stuff. You lost the last set,
45:59
Speaker 3: then get on with the next set. You know, yes
46:02
Speaker 3: they kicked a goal, now it's your turn to kick
46:04
Speaker 3: the next goal. And so letting go of things. Sport
46:11
Speaker 3: is a wonderful educator in how to live a better
46:14
Speaker 3: life in in so many things. You know, when you relax,
46:19
Speaker 3: you perform better. You know, you run faster, you don't
46:23
Speaker 3: get hurt.
46:24
Speaker 1: Yea.
46:25
Speaker 3: So that whole idea of being able to let go
46:28
Speaker 3: of things and move on. We see and so many
46:35
Speaker 3: things in the sporting experience we see a parallel.
46:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
46:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that I'm doing a workshop this
46:44
Speaker 1: Sunday in Melbourne. Get along everyone. If you're not coming,
46:48
Speaker 1: it's that deacon, go to my website. But it's called
46:52
Speaker 1: understanding you. Do you like that little plug that I
46:55
Speaker 1: just shoved in there, It's called understanding you. And that's
46:59
Speaker 1: the the whole like part of a big part of
47:03
Speaker 1: kind of my journey now and also with people that
47:06
Speaker 1: I work with and teams and athletes and businesses. Is yeah,
47:09
Speaker 1: just that like what actually makes me happy, what makes
47:13
Speaker 1: me stressed? How do I manage my mind? What impact
47:18
Speaker 1: does my mind have on my emotions and vice versa?
47:20
Speaker 1: What impact does my emotions and my mind have on
47:23
Speaker 1: my body and vice versa. You know, because we're this
47:26
Speaker 1: kind of integrated system, we're not one thing where all
47:29
Speaker 1: the things. Yeah, and I just think being able to
47:36
Speaker 1: open that door on self awareness how I am and
47:39
Speaker 1: why I am the way I am, but at the
47:42
Speaker 1: same time not overthinking the shit out of everything, right,
47:46
Speaker 1: because then we wake up and it's five years later
47:48
Speaker 1: and we're still on this deep journey of introspection that
47:54
Speaker 1: really doesn't help too much.
47:55
Speaker 3: Sometimes, well maybe so, maybe it's from the point of
48:00
Speaker 3: view of how we're affecting and either enriching the people
48:04
Speaker 3: around us, rather than this is all about me, which
48:07
Speaker 3: is which is what I think you're saying.
48:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll wind up, but just quickly before we go.
48:14
Speaker 1: You spoke about purpose a minute ago when we were
48:17
Speaker 1: talking about in new book, Bouncing Back.
48:21
Speaker 2: By the way, everyone, so go and get nine copies
48:23
Speaker 2: that it's.
48:25
Speaker 3: Only on Amazon at the moment. It's well, where are
48:28
Speaker 3: all your listeners?
48:29
Speaker 1: Great, so eighty percent you or take Australia and the
48:33
Speaker 1: rest around the world.
48:35
Speaker 3: Okay, so Bouncing Back we'll be in bookstores from January,
48:39
Speaker 3: but it's already available on Amazon as an ebook or
48:45
Speaker 3: as a printed book or as an audible perfect perfect.
48:50
Speaker 2: Did you do the audio? I did the audio.
48:54
Speaker 3: So if you're listening and you think my voice works okay,
48:58
Speaker 3: then to me do the audio.
49:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
49:01
Speaker 1: I don't like it when authors get other people to
49:04
Speaker 1: do that, especially when I know the author and then
49:06
Speaker 1: I listen to the book.
49:07
Speaker 2: I'm like, I wanted to hear him or her just quickly.
49:11
Speaker 1: I want to talk for a moment about purpose, and
49:13
Speaker 1: then we'll wind up. So one of the things that
49:17
Speaker 1: people have said to me over the years is something like,
49:19
Speaker 1: how do I find my purpose? And my general answer is, well,
49:24
Speaker 1: why don't you just choose it? It's not under some
49:26
Speaker 1: ethereal rock or some there's not going to be an
49:29
Speaker 1: angeld descend on your window with a little scroll, just
49:33
Speaker 1: giving you the inside. What are your thoughts around purpose?
49:40
Speaker 3: I think, do whatever is in front of you, do
49:44
Speaker 3: what do the things you love where possible, but whatever
49:50
Speaker 3: is under your nose, do it the best that you
49:53
Speaker 3: can do it, and watch it lead you toward other opportunities.
49:58
Speaker 3: And so our purpose evolves as we put our heart
50:04
Speaker 3: and soul into our life and work, and sometimes someone
50:09
Speaker 3: will notice us and pluck us from where we are,
50:14
Speaker 3: and so that's how our career moves. Sometimes we develop
50:20
Speaker 3: our skills and our confidence and we go and do
50:24
Speaker 3: that thing ourselves. But my thought is that you give
50:30
Speaker 3: your heart and soul to whatever is in front of you,
50:33
Speaker 3: even if it isn't ideal. If you're sweeping a shopping center,
50:37
Speaker 3: do it your best and watch it lead you to
50:40
Speaker 3: something better. And similarly, with relationships, you don't worry about
50:46
Speaker 3: whether well Okay, you know you're on a new date
50:52
Speaker 3: and you say, well, I just don't know that Mary
50:54
Speaker 3: is the one. That is not the problem. The issue
50:57
Speaker 3: is that you give your best who having a joyous
51:01
Speaker 3: time with Mary, and it goes for as long as
51:04
Speaker 3: it goes, and maybe Mary will be the one, or
51:07
Speaker 3: maybe she won't. But you put your your best into
51:12
Speaker 3: whatever is in front of you and it leads you
51:15
Speaker 3: somewhere better.
51:17
Speaker 1: My dad did exactly what you said with a Mary
51:20
Speaker 1: who happens to be my mum, and it worked out
51:22
Speaker 1: for him.
51:22
Speaker 2: So there you go, everyone now.
51:25
Speaker 1: Being happy, follow your Heart and How Life Works are
51:28
Speaker 1: some of Andrew's books. He's only sold eight million copies,
51:32
Speaker 1: So Andrew try harder eight.
51:34
Speaker 2: Million copies in forty eight languages.
51:36
Speaker 1: All right, He's got me covered everyone, and his latest
51:40
Speaker 1: book is called Bouncing Back.
51:42
Speaker 2: Mate.
51:42
Speaker 1: Do you want to steer our audience towards anything, any
51:46
Speaker 1: products or website or where do you want to tell
51:48
Speaker 1: people to go?
51:50
Speaker 3: Thank you, Craig. So my website is Andrewmatthews dot com.
51:56
Speaker 3: Andrew Matthews is all one word and to teaser the Matthews.
52:01
Speaker 3: So you can join my newsletter. I do a newsletter
52:05
Speaker 3: every two weeks and it's a cartoon and maybe a
52:10
Speaker 3: few sentences. I don't want to burden you. I also
52:14
Speaker 3: have a lot of videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
52:20
Speaker 3: You can join me on Facebook Andrew Matthews author and
52:26
Speaker 3: join me contact me, let me know how you found
52:29
Speaker 3: this chat with Craig, and let Craig know how you
52:32
Speaker 3: found it. Maybe we can do this again.
52:35
Speaker 2: I'd love to you're a gun.
52:38
Speaker 1: There's about five percent of people I get on who
52:40
Speaker 1: are well, most of good, but there's five percent that
52:44
Speaker 1: make my job very, very easy, and you're in the
52:46
Speaker 1: top one cent.
52:46
Speaker 2: So thank you, sir. I appreciate you.
52:50
Speaker 1: Well, say goodbye off air, but for the moment officially, Andrew,
52:53
Speaker 1: thanks for having a chat.
52:54
Speaker 2: It's been really nice. I appreciate you.
52:57
Speaker 3: Thank you, Craig. My pleasure.