Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Life Is A Playground - Here's How To Play Strategically, With Shannah Kennedy

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Life Is A Playground - Here's How To Play Strategically, With Shannah Kennedy · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:08
Speaker 1: Seanna Kennedy, Welcome to the podcast.
0:11
Speaker 2: Thank you, Paul. Great to be here.
0:13
Speaker 1: It's great to be here after a little bit of
0:16
Speaker 1: technical issues with the other podcast. Jesus does my head
0:20
Speaker 1: in anyway.
0:22
Speaker 2: But we adapt to change, right, We adapt.
0:24
Speaker 1: And we adopted change. We did adopt the change, We
0:27
Speaker 1: adapted and we overcame, which we're going to talk about
0:30
Speaker 1: in a little bit. Actually, So you are one of
0:33
Speaker 1: Australia's top life coatures. You also are strategic which we
0:38
Speaker 1: will jump into strategic planner. You've written eight books, all
0:44
Speaker 1: I think which will be of relevance to our listener.
0:47
Speaker 1: But I want to start with your story and how
0:51
Speaker 1: you ended up here, so just give us that.
0:55
Speaker 2: I'll give you that in a nutshell for you. So,
0:58
Speaker 2: I was raised with the old ethic of work as
1:02
Speaker 2: hard as you possibly can, and work ethic was just
1:05
Speaker 2: ground into us, like if you're going to get anywhere
1:07
Speaker 2: in life, just work as hard as you can. That
1:10
Speaker 2: Dutch European go hard or go home mentality. So you know,
1:15
Speaker 2: when I was eighteen, I thought, yeah, okay, that's a
1:17
Speaker 2: great idea. I don't want to go to UNI. I
1:20
Speaker 2: want to be a stockbroker because I'd watched Wall Street
1:23
Speaker 2: the movie, and I thought that was really cool. I
1:25
Speaker 2: like Gordon Gecko, I'm I'm going to be a stockbroker. Mom, dad,
1:30
Speaker 2: They're like, okay, that's great. So I actually rang a
1:32
Speaker 2: Melbourne stockbroking firm and this is over thirty years ago.
1:37
Speaker 2: Every day, twice a day, the hr lady twice a
1:41
Speaker 2: day until she realized I'm going to keep bringing until
1:44
Speaker 2: I get the job. So I got a job filing
1:48
Speaker 2: down in the dungeon. And this is the days when
1:51
Speaker 2: the stock exchange was still chalk on the whiteboard, people
1:55
Speaker 2: running around screaming. So I'm like, this is just the
1:57
Speaker 2: best place on earth. Woked my way out to be
2:01
Speaker 2: the first girl to sit on the trading desk there,
2:03
Speaker 2: and it was huge and I was only twenty.
2:06
Speaker 1: Wow.
2:07
Speaker 2: But I worked really hard and was one of those
2:11
Speaker 2: sponges and really adapted to anything that they would throw
2:16
Speaker 2: at me and just went in hard and so that
2:18
Speaker 2: was great. And then I realized I don't have a degree.
2:22
Speaker 2: And they said, well, you're a girl, you don't have
2:23
Speaker 2: a degree, and you're only twenty there's a bit of
2:25
Speaker 2: an issue. So I said, okay, I'll just go and
2:29
Speaker 2: get a bit older. So I just traveled the world
2:31
Speaker 2: for a couple of years as a backpacker by myself
2:33
Speaker 2: and worked overseas and did the ski season in Switzerland
2:38
Speaker 2: and all the amazing things came back, got my job back,
2:41
Speaker 2: and I said, well, you're still a girl, and you
2:43
Speaker 2: still don't have a degree. So I looked around and
2:46
Speaker 2: I really saw it was like the Wolf of Wall
2:48
Speaker 2: Street and I thought, you know, this is really no
2:50
Speaker 2: place for a girl. This is over thirty years ago.
2:52
Speaker 2: It was really bad in there. So I got a
2:56
Speaker 2: job in sport as a secretary to a lawyer who
3:00
Speaker 2: had ten of Australia's best golfers. And he said, I
3:03
Speaker 2: will teach you how to run a business from the
3:05
Speaker 2: ground up if you're really interested. And me, hell yes,
3:09
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about it, but I'm going to
3:12
Speaker 2: go in full throttle. So that's what I did. Ended
3:15
Speaker 2: up running his business and so he could go to
3:18
Speaker 2: the US with the golfers. So that was sports management
3:21
Speaker 2: and that was fantastic, negotiating contracts, going on tour with
3:25
Speaker 2: the golfers, running corporate golf days. Absolutely loved it was
3:29
Speaker 2: in heaven sounds awesome. Yes, so such a good job.
3:33
Speaker 2: And then then Ballet Sunglasses saw me at the golf
3:35
Speaker 2: and they said, we love what you do. We've got
3:38
Speaker 2: one hundred athletes in ten different sports. We need a
3:40
Speaker 2: Jerry maguire. Can you come and be the sponsorship manager.
3:44
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, hell yes, I don't know what to do,
3:46
Speaker 2: but I'll just jump in and I married that job.
3:50
Speaker 2: It was seven days a week sports on the weekend,
3:54
Speaker 2: I had ten different sports to learn. I was in
3:56
Speaker 2: charge of the pr for the company, the marketing for ski.
4:00
Speaker 2: It was enormous, but I was in heaven, like absolutely
4:03
Speaker 2: loved it. No offs which, no self care strategy, no
4:07
Speaker 2: mental health. This is you know, twenty five years ago.
4:10
Speaker 2: It was huge, just as I said, go hard or
4:13
Speaker 2: go home, and that cost me my health. So because
4:18
Speaker 2: I had no off switch and even went to every
4:20
Speaker 2: after party and traveled around to watch all of the events,
4:25
Speaker 2: that ended in chronic fatigue syndrome, which was so much
4:29
Speaker 2: burnt out that I was in bed for a year,
4:32
Speaker 2: where you know, you fry your entire nervous system. I
4:36
Speaker 2: couldn't have any lights on because it would burn my eyes.
4:39
Speaker 2: I couldn't read the newspaper because the ink would burn
4:42
Speaker 2: my nose. I still, twenty seven years later, cannot read
4:46
Speaker 2: a newspaper.
4:48
Speaker 1: Interestingly, I'll just jump in here because I've been talking
4:52
Speaker 1: about this a lot in terms of hyper cortus or ema.
4:57
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give this the geeky scientific version
5:00
Speaker 1: of what you felt. Right. Yeah, So we when we're
5:04
Speaker 1: in busy jobs, we dip into hypercordisolina on a daily basis, right,
5:08
Speaker 1: that is, producing high levels of cortisol. Then we recover
5:12
Speaker 1: and then we dip into it and then we recover.
5:14
Speaker 1: But if we don't recover effectively, we start to stay
5:18
Speaker 1: in hypercordisolemia. And that is when that cortisol really starts
5:24
Speaker 1: to attack your body. It attacks your immune system, it
5:26
Speaker 1: attacks your brain as well. And then eventually, what happens
5:32
Speaker 1: from a physiological perspective, the adrenal glands are enlarging because
5:37
Speaker 1: they're pumping out so much stress hormones, and then what
5:41
Speaker 1: we see in burnout is they shrink. And when you
5:44
Speaker 1: can't produce enough cortisol because the adrenals are shrunk, then
5:48
Speaker 1: you are absolutely goosed. That's when we get autoimmune conditions,
5:53
Speaker 1: chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, just have no energy whatsoever, because
5:59
Speaker 1: cordiso what the most people don't realize. It's cordisol that
6:02
Speaker 1: gets you up in the morning, right, our cordsol peaks
6:06
Speaker 1: around the town that we normally get up too much
6:08
Speaker 1: as bad. But if you can't produce it because you've
6:11
Speaker 1: bu't those adrenals, you are absolutely ghost fried.
6:17
Speaker 2: Where were you twenty five years ago? If that was
6:22
Speaker 2: explained twenty five years ago, my life would be quite different.
6:27
Speaker 2: So what happened was, we don't know what's wrong with you.
6:30
Speaker 2: Off you go to the Alfred. We think you've got
6:33
Speaker 2: like you've been to Africa on a holiday, and we
6:36
Speaker 2: think you know, you've got parasites in your body. We
6:39
Speaker 2: think you've got leukemia, we think you've got MS, or
6:44
Speaker 2: we think you've got lupus. So they do a process
6:47
Speaker 2: of elimination of everything, and then they say, I think
6:50
Speaker 2: you've got something called chronic fatigue, but we don't know
6:52
Speaker 2: what that is.
6:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, And particularly back then was because my
6:57
Speaker 1: mom had it as well, and they didn't know what
6:58
Speaker 1: it was, and doctors thought it was in people's heads
7:01
Speaker 1: back then.
7:02
Speaker 2: Right, which yeah, because you don't look sick.
7:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's lovely, isn't it. When somebody say, it's all
7:07
Speaker 1: in your head.
7:08
Speaker 2: So I was like, I wish I had plaster or
7:10
Speaker 2: something because then people would see. But my parents could see.
7:15
Speaker 2: It's like my eyes would just go dead and my
7:18
Speaker 2: skin would just go gray. I couldn't get up in
7:22
Speaker 2: the morning at all. Exactly what you said. It was
7:24
Speaker 2: like I had this hugest hangover, but I hadn't been out,
7:29
Speaker 2: I hadn't had any alcohol, and I was like eating.
7:33
Speaker 2: It was like totally ripped off. And so you can
7:36
Speaker 2: imagine at twenty nine, how when you're in the prime
7:39
Speaker 2: of your life. What happened was I went into such
7:43
Speaker 2: a deep depression because I'm like, I'm twenty nine. I
7:46
Speaker 2: can't go out, I can't drive my car, I can
7:49
Speaker 2: hardly shower myself, I can't get to the letterbox. What
7:52
Speaker 2: the hell is happening? And nobody could help at all.
7:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one thing just to jump in there again,
7:59
Speaker 1: sorry Seanna, is that that hyper cortus ol emia actually
8:04
Speaker 1: destroy It attacks the briand and destroys the vesicles in
8:08
Speaker 1: the brian that produce serotonin and other neural transmitters. So
8:12
Speaker 1: you go into a state of unheedle near which is
8:15
Speaker 1: an inability to feel pleasure.
8:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, one hundred percent. And so I actually
8:22
Speaker 2: employed myself a coach because I had been around high
8:27
Speaker 2: performance for so long, I thought, well, everyone's got a coach.
8:31
Speaker 2: I want to coach too, So I didn't need a counselor.
8:34
Speaker 2: I knew there was you know, I was so depressed
8:37
Speaker 2: because I actually realized I didn't know who I was
8:40
Speaker 2: without my job. Yeah, And then I thought about all
8:44
Speaker 2: of the athletes and the depressions that I had seen,
8:47
Speaker 2: the suicide, the gambling, the drug addiction after sport, because
8:51
Speaker 2: I was at the right in front of it, and
8:54
Speaker 2: I thought, they don't know who they are without their
8:56
Speaker 2: job either.
8:58
Speaker 1: And there's a great crisis.
8:59
Speaker 2: Correct. And this was happening at twenty nine. I'm like,
9:02
Speaker 2: who am I without ballet? Because when you've got free
9:05
Speaker 2: sunglasses and money to give away, you've got a lot
9:07
Speaker 2: of friends, like a lah, And all of a sudden,
9:11
Speaker 2: I had no friends, and I was like, where is everybody?
9:14
Speaker 2: You know? They've gone, oh, are you better yet? Are
9:16
Speaker 2: you better yet? And I'm like, no, I'm not, I'm not.
9:19
Speaker 2: I can't move And so it was huge. It was
9:23
Speaker 2: a mass. I call it the gift I actually call
9:26
Speaker 2: it the gift because it made me stop unpack all
9:31
Speaker 2: of that terminology around working hard. I had to learn
9:35
Speaker 2: about wellness before anybody else did. I had to work
9:38
Speaker 2: with some coaches to really repack my brain, my body,
9:43
Speaker 2: my spirit to have longevity and sustainability again. And it
9:47
Speaker 2: was a very slow build, and I had to build
9:51
Speaker 2: a whole new identity, which is who is Shanner without ballet.
9:55
Speaker 2: And that's where the life plan and planning and being
9:59
Speaker 2: strategic came into play. Because you're not your job. That's
10:03
Speaker 2: just what you do and we want to enjoy it
10:05
Speaker 2: and love it, but if it gets taken away, we
10:07
Speaker 2: need to be strong enough to feel very confident in
10:11
Speaker 2: who we are. So I started very early, and so
10:15
Speaker 2: I started to study life coaching, and nobody had heard
10:18
Speaker 2: of that, and everybody was like, what an idiot you are,
10:22
Speaker 2: Like why would you give up this Jerry maguire job
10:25
Speaker 2: to coach people? And I said, well, I've actually been
10:29
Speaker 2: listening to these athletes for the last six years in
10:31
Speaker 2: my office, actually telling me all about their lives, what's
10:36
Speaker 2: going wrong, why they were so vulnerable in front of me,
10:42
Speaker 2: and they couldn't talk to anybody else and I was
10:44
Speaker 2: their sponsor, so I thought I obviously held this incredible
10:48
Speaker 2: safe place for people. So yeah, I studied and had
10:52
Speaker 2: my coach and we very slowly rebuilt me and I
10:55
Speaker 2: opened my practice twenty two years ago to actually coach
10:59
Speaker 2: at leads into retirement and do a life plan, which
11:02
Speaker 2: is who are you without your sport and your job?
11:07
Speaker 1: So we started with athletes. That's the obvious step obviously,
11:10
Speaker 1: because you knew that thing and saw that happening.
11:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So I had an instant business because nobody
11:15
Speaker 2: knew what they would do after sport. And you have
11:17
Speaker 2: to remember twenty five years ago, nobody cared about an athlete.
11:23
Speaker 2: The business manager was like, see you later, I can't
11:25
Speaker 2: make any money out of you. There were no programs,
11:28
Speaker 2: There was no such thing as mental health at all.
11:31
Speaker 2: There was no such thing as boundaries, There was no
11:33
Speaker 2: such thing as planning post sport back then. So I
11:37
Speaker 2: actually went to sink Kilda Football Club because I baried
11:39
Speaker 2: for sink Kilda, and I spoke to them and they
11:43
Speaker 2: said go away, like we don't want anyone messing with
11:46
Speaker 2: these athletes, and it was really good.
11:48
Speaker 1: And it was it because we don't want their head
11:51
Speaker 1: space anywhere else but the GM until they're completely done.
11:56
Speaker 2: Correct, correct, right, And then it was really interesting. About
12:01
Speaker 2: ten years later, they took me out for lunch and
12:04
Speaker 2: they said, we're so sorry. You were so ahead of
12:07
Speaker 2: the game and you saw what was happening, but we
12:10
Speaker 2: didn't want to see it. But now it's really a
12:13
Speaker 2: part of their education and part of being an elite
12:16
Speaker 2: athlete is to actually have a plan during and post sport,
12:21
Speaker 2: so that they have that perspective and then they can
12:24
Speaker 2: really commit to their smart sport more because they're not
12:27
Speaker 2: so worried about well, I know that I've got a
12:29
Speaker 2: bit of a plan in the future, so it actually
12:32
Speaker 2: enhances their performance.
12:34
Speaker 1: And do you find has that I spelled out into
12:37
Speaker 1: all sports or is it just the sports where there's
12:40
Speaker 1: a bit more money involved in it?
12:43
Speaker 2: Definitely the sports with money, right. But what happened for
12:47
Speaker 2: me was I did go to some football functions trying
12:51
Speaker 2: to recruit some more players, because players would come to
12:54
Speaker 2: me but not tell the coach and said, we really
12:58
Speaker 2: worried about life after sport. And I sit sat next
13:01
Speaker 2: to one man who was in banking, and he said,
13:04
Speaker 2: you have been around high performance for so long. The
13:07
Speaker 2: last decade, come into my business. I want you to
13:11
Speaker 2: coach my leadership team on high performance and longevity. I
13:16
Speaker 2: don't want them to burn out. So instantly the whole
13:19
Speaker 2: corporate world opened up to me. There were no life coaches,
13:22
Speaker 2: and I think I was the first person on a
13:24
Speaker 2: stage at a corporate banking conference to talk about life
13:28
Speaker 2: skills and wellness skills and not be woo woo. They
13:32
Speaker 2: thought it was a bit bire and bay. You know,
13:35
Speaker 2: wellness was for hippies who smoked some dope in purple pants.
13:39
Speaker 2: That was wellness. And so I actually made it as
13:41
Speaker 2: a high performance habit and then wrote the Life Plan,
13:46
Speaker 2: which was the first simplified structure. Succeed was the first book,
13:49
Speaker 2: and it was the first book that anyone had at
13:52
Speaker 2: a conference and sold at a conference. So this is
13:55
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, so it was a long time ago,
13:58
Speaker 2: and it's been a slow burn all the way through.
14:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting, and so when did you was? Was that?
14:04
Speaker 1: Really the transition from just athletes to into business was
14:10
Speaker 1: from that? Okay? And it's interesting that you talk about
14:16
Speaker 1: couching it in terms of performance, because all the stuff
14:19
Speaker 1: that I do around well being, I couch in terms
14:22
Speaker 1: of performance because that's what often with high performance, that's
14:26
Speaker 1: what pushes the buttons right, and it's about sustainable high performance,
14:30
Speaker 1: like how do we keep you? And for me, the analogy,
14:35
Speaker 1: the perfect analogy is athlete over training. And you know,
14:38
Speaker 1: the research shows that athlete over training syndrome and corporate
14:43
Speaker 1: burnout have exactly the same physiology. It is just too
14:49
Speaker 1: much stress hormones in the athlete. It is mostly physical,
14:53
Speaker 1: but a fur bit of psychological. I think a lot
14:54
Speaker 1: of people don't realize how much psychological stress around, particularly
14:57
Speaker 1: if they're an athlete who has a high pro but
15:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of physical stress on them. And there's
15:04
Speaker 1: a tight rope, as you will well know, between optimal
15:08
Speaker 1: performance and overtraining syndrome. And it's exactly the same in
15:12
Speaker 1: the corporate world. And when we look at those two conditions,
15:16
Speaker 1: you know, both of them are characterized by impacts on mood,
15:21
Speaker 1: impacts on sleep, and sensitivity to infections, cardiovascular changes, hormonal changes,
15:29
Speaker 1: cellular inflammation. Like it is exactly the same, but it's
15:33
Speaker 1: two different cohorts with slightly different stressors. And I think
15:39
Speaker 1: then corporates tend to make it worse because they come
15:42
Speaker 1: home on a Friday and go fucking hell, that was
15:44
Speaker 1: a hard way. I need a bottle of wine.
15:46
Speaker 2: Yeah every night.
15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, not just a Friday.
15:50
Speaker 2: So I call all of my clients athletes. So you
15:54
Speaker 2: could be a stay at home as a client of mine,
15:56
Speaker 2: you could be a CEO. So I coach a lot
15:58
Speaker 2: of ceo. It's a lot of olympias, a lot of
16:01
Speaker 2: business owners, etc. And I call them all an athlete.
16:04
Speaker 2: And I said, you have to think of yourself as
16:06
Speaker 2: an athlete, an athlete of life, and you're an athlete
16:09
Speaker 2: of business, and you need to respect recovery as much
16:12
Speaker 2: as performance. And what happens is none of them respect recovery. Oh,
16:18
Speaker 2: I feel guilty, the mum, I feel so guilty if
16:21
Speaker 2: I go and have a massage or a power and
16:24
Speaker 2: app or you know, the CEO says, oh no, no,
16:27
Speaker 2: I don't have time. I'm like, well, then you're the
16:29
Speaker 2: athlete that never leaves the track. I want you to
16:31
Speaker 2: think of yourself as the Roger Federer who never recovers.
16:36
Speaker 2: And you just keep hitting balls and you don't do
16:38
Speaker 2: the iceparthing, and you don't do the nutrition, and you
16:40
Speaker 2: don't do the hydration, and you don't do the massage
16:43
Speaker 2: and you don't do the sleep, He's not going to
16:47
Speaker 2: keep performing. So you need Once I get them to
16:49
Speaker 2: think like an athlete, they can easily give themselves some boundary.
16:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, we are so aligned on this, and I
16:58
Speaker 1: know and you know, there's been zero power operation for
17:00
Speaker 1: this podcast, right, we just jumped into it. But I
17:05
Speaker 1: talked to corps about being an executive athlete exactly the
17:08
Speaker 1: same thing, and say, most of the performance improvements in
17:12
Speaker 1: the world of sport in the last five to ten
17:15
Speaker 1: years have been through recovery methods, not through training. Right,
17:19
Speaker 1: They've had that mostly neiled. Right, And you look as
17:22
Speaker 1: exactly as you said, what are these athletes doing to recover.
17:25
Speaker 1: They're doing ice bas They're doing contrast hot and cold, right,
17:29
Speaker 1: They're doing mass size, They're all doing prigging, breath work
17:33
Speaker 1: and meditation. They are are very very serious around their
17:37
Speaker 1: sleep hygiene. Right, They're not just coming home eating shit food,
17:41
Speaker 1: drinking alcohol and fucking up their sleep.
17:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know what, I think that
17:48
Speaker 2: people like you and people like me actually do it.
17:52
Speaker 2: We're high performing humans and we actually do it. And
17:55
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people in corporate are listening
17:59
Speaker 2: to people who don't do it, and I think that's
18:01
Speaker 2: a You know, I have a hot tub. Every single
18:05
Speaker 2: night after dinner, I get in my pool, which is
18:07
Speaker 2: like an ice bath every single night, get up at
18:10
Speaker 2: six some of my body can raise the family, written
18:15
Speaker 2: eight books, never burnt out again, super fit. You know,
18:19
Speaker 2: you've got to listen to the right people. I think
18:22
Speaker 2: you are actually practical and doing this kind of stuff
18:25
Speaker 2: and helping them be very strategic about how they warm
18:29
Speaker 2: up for the day, how they pace the race of
18:31
Speaker 2: the day, and how they cool down for the day.
18:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that, the strategic stuff. Yeah, it is
18:37
Speaker 1: so important. And I will often say to corporates, when
18:41
Speaker 1: you're telling me that you do not have time for exercise,
18:44
Speaker 1: that is when you absolutely have to make time for exercise.
18:49
Speaker 1: And it's not just exercise, it's all those recovery things. Right,
18:51
Speaker 1: you don't have time for it, You freaking have to
18:54
Speaker 1: carve ote the time otherwise you are headed towards bonotte.
18:57
Speaker 1: And it is nasty shit, right people.
19:00
Speaker 2: I still live with it. I still live with chronic
19:03
Speaker 2: fatigue and depression, so it is Unfortunately, it was a
19:07
Speaker 2: burn so bad that it did change my whole body.
19:12
Speaker 2: So you know, the sensitivity in my ears still, like
19:15
Speaker 2: if my husband starts whistling, like I want to kill him,
19:18
Speaker 2: like like my ear, like it's like my ear. The
19:23
Speaker 2: senses in there have been burnt. As I said, I
19:26
Speaker 2: still can't read a newspaper. Like this is life long damage.
19:32
Speaker 2: I do have to take a bit of medication for depression,
19:35
Speaker 2: just a very mild dose, because there's something damaged up
19:38
Speaker 2: there chemically. But we can do all the affirmation work
19:42
Speaker 2: and the vision boards everywhere everything's happening, but it's still
19:46
Speaker 2: something is damaged in there from such severe burnout. And
19:50
Speaker 2: I really feel for people who can't catch it early enough.
19:54
Speaker 2: And it just wasn't spoken about then. It was like,
19:57
Speaker 2: oh you feel shocking, go to work. Oh you've got
19:59
Speaker 2: a headache, go to work. Oh you've got the flu,
20:01
Speaker 2: go to work. There was no boundary.
20:06
Speaker 1: Interesting, so you're talking about those long term consequences and
20:11
Speaker 1: this really so I'm very over over a lot of
20:14
Speaker 1: this have been for years, but it really landed in
20:18
Speaker 1: our house about eighteen months two years ago with my
20:22
Speaker 1: little thirteen year old he was twelve at the time,
20:24
Speaker 1: got diagnosed with Cushing's disease. Which is a tumor on
20:28
Speaker 1: the petitary gland that hyper secretes cortisol. Right, and he
20:32
Speaker 1: had fifteen times the normal amount of cortisol. And just
20:37
Speaker 1: seeing over the period of a couple of months, seeing
20:42
Speaker 1: the rapid decline in his mental health from a kid
20:46
Speaker 1: who was so engaged in life, total social withdrawal. And
20:51
Speaker 1: then he started to put on a little bit of
20:53
Speaker 1: weight and I thought maybe he was just it was
20:56
Speaker 1: a bit of overtraining or stuff. It might have been puberty.
20:58
Speaker 1: Then he developed the moon face. And that's when I
21:01
Speaker 1: went ship when my wife showed me photographs of him
21:04
Speaker 1: three months previously, like in that three months boom, but
21:09
Speaker 1: the the anhead only like the impact on mood was ridiculous,
21:16
Speaker 1: absu It was the worst thing. But here's the thing
21:19
Speaker 1: that I want to make people aware of. If people
21:23
Speaker 1: are not treated with Cushing's disease, their average life expectancy
21:28
Speaker 1: is five years. So that's five years of hyper cortisolma,
21:34
Speaker 1: like a ridiculous amount kills people, right, and they become
21:39
Speaker 1: massively overwegh the vast majority of them become really overweighted.
21:43
Speaker 1: They're in a deep, deep depressive hole. They've got no energy.
21:47
Speaker 1: It just impacts every facet of their life. Right, So
21:52
Speaker 1: that is what that court because there's no feedback loop
21:55
Speaker 1: with Cushing's disease, right, there's no off switch because they
22:00
Speaker 1: tree is just stimulating the adrenals to keep pushing it,
22:02
Speaker 1: keep pushing it, keep pushing it. So when we take
22:05
Speaker 1: that extreme, it's not hard to see how the next
22:10
Speaker 1: step dying of that, which is that bonot and HW
22:15
Speaker 1: that creates fibromles chronic fatigue syndrome, but long, long, long
22:21
Speaker 1: lasting impacts on the Brian throughout the central nervous system,
22:25
Speaker 1: so at the body, because like unregulated long term cortisoll
22:29
Speaker 1: is ragging bad jut.
22:33
Speaker 2: I often have conversations with Alis dea Lynch, who was
22:36
Speaker 2: the first footballer AFL footballer who was diagnosed with chronic fatigue,
22:40
Speaker 2: and he sort of made it known to the public,
22:43
Speaker 2: I suppose, because he was a personality. And we often
22:47
Speaker 2: say we're ninety five percent cured, but there's five percent
22:52
Speaker 2: and it's right there, like in the morning if you
22:54
Speaker 2: have one late night. So if I have one late night,
22:57
Speaker 2: I will wake up with that hangover and it takes
23:00
Speaker 2: me a while to get moving. I mean every morning
23:03
Speaker 2: I wake up feeling like I have a hangover. That's
23:05
Speaker 2: why I have to get out into the cold and
23:07
Speaker 2: walk for an hour and then it's gone, and then
23:10
Speaker 2: it's gone. But never do I wake up feeling good.
23:14
Speaker 2: But the brain training that I do, the mindset training
23:18
Speaker 2: that I do what I tell myself to feel how
23:21
Speaker 2: I need to feel, that's just that's been built over
23:24
Speaker 2: twenty years and it's still here. There's sticky notes everywhere,
23:29
Speaker 2: training my brain to really help the body feel how
23:33
Speaker 2: I need it to feel, which is joyful and light
23:36
Speaker 2: and energetic, and I love myself and I love my life,
23:40
Speaker 2: and I have to let today be effortless and easy.
23:43
Speaker 2: You know. All of these wording is actually a really
23:47
Speaker 2: big part of retraining the body and keeping it at
23:51
Speaker 2: the ninety five percent.
23:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting because there's an analogy which I
23:57
Speaker 1: think most people will get. Right. So, if you have
23:59
Speaker 1: a car and you are constantly reving your car right
24:05
Speaker 1: super high revs, you are going to burn out that engine, right,
24:09
Speaker 1: You're going to completely destroy that engine. Right. So here's
24:13
Speaker 1: the analogy. You have one engine, right, and people are
24:17
Speaker 1: running that engine so so hot, and then what they're
24:21
Speaker 1: going to do is are going to screw the engine,
24:23
Speaker 1: and then you're not loading new engine. All you can
24:26
Speaker 1: do is bring a mechanic in to do what they
24:28
Speaker 1: can do to try and keep that engine going. But
24:31
Speaker 1: there's no way that engine is ever going to perform again.
24:34
Speaker 1: Once you go past a certain threshold, you just can't
24:38
Speaker 1: get it back right.
24:39
Speaker 2: Well, I always say I'm still a Ferrari, but I'm
24:41
Speaker 2: a Ferrari with a crack in the engine, you go right.
24:45
Speaker 2: So I'm still a high performer, very much a high performer,
24:51
Speaker 2: but there's a little crack in the engine that I
24:53
Speaker 2: if I push that little bit, that rev that litle bit,
24:55
Speaker 2: the crack will come open.
24:57
Speaker 1: So very interesting.
24:59
Speaker 2: I still feel all like I'm a Ferrari. I still
25:01
Speaker 2: operate my life. My life is outstanding, but there's a
25:05
Speaker 2: little crack that you know, I'm the first to leave
25:07
Speaker 2: the party. I hardly drink any alcohol because that would
25:10
Speaker 2: just open the crack. So it's all about managing that
25:13
Speaker 2: little hairline fracture that's always there.
25:16
Speaker 1: Interesting, So let's lie, let's let's have a little flip
25:19
Speaker 1: chain to pierce and talk then about the lessons that
25:23
Speaker 1: you've learned over the years, books from yourself and then
25:27
Speaker 1: from coaching many many people over the years. Let's talk
25:31
Speaker 1: about life planning, right, because there's lots of people who
25:35
Speaker 1: just frigging me under through through life right when I
25:39
Speaker 1: do workshops. When I do I much prefer doing longer
25:42
Speaker 1: workshops than keynotes, and often will talk about purpose in life.
25:47
Speaker 1: And so many people, I say, who's got a clearly
25:50
Speaker 1: defined purpose in life? It's generally less than five percent
25:53
Speaker 1: of the room. And then you know how many people
25:56
Speaker 1: have wrestled with it quite a lot. And I say,
25:59
Speaker 1: how many people are like, what fuck are you talking about? Purpose?
26:01
Speaker 1: And quite a few ants go up? Right, So, but
26:06
Speaker 1: we need to have plans. That's just for everything. You
26:10
Speaker 1: got to have plans. So let's talk give us the
26:12
Speaker 1: basics first of all about life planning, and then we
26:16
Speaker 1: can dive into what I'm really keen to get your
26:20
Speaker 1: insights are, is life planning? Is it different strategically from
26:26
Speaker 1: when you're young to middle age doing that juggle right
26:31
Speaker 1: with the kids, the older parents who are getting sick,
26:35
Speaker 1: you know, hormones are fucking with you, both female and meal,
26:39
Speaker 1: which we don't talk about a lot, right, And then
26:42
Speaker 1: is there a difference then when you are an older
26:44
Speaker 1: adult in the twilight of your life.
26:47
Speaker 2: Okay, well, first of all, plans, why are they important?
26:52
Speaker 2: And I think it's about we live in Melbourne and
26:56
Speaker 2: I say to people, what are you doing next year
26:57
Speaker 2: and the year after and in five years? They go off,
27:00
Speaker 2: I have no idea, Like seriously, I don't know what
27:02
Speaker 2: I'm doing next week. I'm surviving. So I'm like, oh, right,
27:05
Speaker 2: so you're driving around the roundabout. That's where you're going
27:07
Speaker 2: around the roundabout. But what if I said that we
27:10
Speaker 2: could go to Sydney and then Brisbane and then Darwin
27:13
Speaker 2: and Perth and we could finish in the mold Ives.
27:16
Speaker 2: What just happened to your brain? And they go oh,
27:19
Speaker 2: I instantly saw a map and I could feel myself
27:22
Speaker 2: going down the slide into the water in the mold
27:23
Speaker 2: Ives brain. Okay, now we have a plan. Now you
27:27
Speaker 2: know a direction to going. Now we plan in pencil,
27:30
Speaker 2: because you could change your mind and we get curveballs
27:32
Speaker 2: and there might be some detours and we might have
27:34
Speaker 2: to change the route or you might change your mind.
27:36
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter. But the brain needs a roadmap, and without
27:40
Speaker 2: the roadmap, you are just driving going. It's like the
27:44
Speaker 2: GPS in the car. If we don't plot that GPS
27:47
Speaker 2: in the car. You are driving nervous, I've got to
27:50
Speaker 2: look for the signs and am I going the right way?
27:53
Speaker 2: And how long will it take? But when we plot
27:55
Speaker 2: the GPS in the car, now, oh my god, maps
27:59
Speaker 2: just took all the stress away, right. We just follow
28:02
Speaker 2: the map. It's exactly the same. So when we say
28:05
Speaker 2: where do you want to be in five years, they go,
28:07
Speaker 2: I don't know. The first thing to do is say, okay,
28:11
Speaker 2: how old will you be in five years? How old
28:14
Speaker 2: will your child be in five years? How old will
28:17
Speaker 2: your grandparents be in five years? How old will the
28:21
Speaker 2: dog be in five years? And you'll see a landscape
28:24
Speaker 2: change instantly. And then when you do it for ten years,
28:27
Speaker 2: in ten years, I'll have no kids at home. In
28:30
Speaker 2: ten years, I'll have no parents. You know, in ten years,
28:33
Speaker 2: I won't have a dog. Like my life in ten
28:35
Speaker 2: year is going to be completely different. Oh okay. Then
28:38
Speaker 2: all of a sudden they get it instantly. So I'm like, okay, yeah,
28:42
Speaker 2: you do need a map. Yeah, Like, keep going the same,
28:46
Speaker 2: you'll be burnt out, you won't be where you want
28:48
Speaker 2: you Financially, you wouldn't have done the right savings and
28:51
Speaker 2: you'll be in the shit.
28:52
Speaker 1: Basically an interesting us to analysy of the GPS. So
28:58
Speaker 1: I used to flying helicopters, right, and so we if
29:03
Speaker 1: we were going from point A to point B, Yes,
29:05
Speaker 1: you draw your line on the map, but you have
29:07
Speaker 1: way points. We always had way points, which was a
29:11
Speaker 1: place where you could check in to see if you
29:13
Speaker 1: are on track. Right, and before the GPS, we had
29:17
Speaker 1: to do what's called dead reckoning before GPS was involved.
29:20
Speaker 1: And even with GPS, you know, we do all our
29:24
Speaker 1: training where you've got to do dead reckoning where you
29:26
Speaker 1: have that line on the map and then you are
29:28
Speaker 1: plotting where you are on the map because wind is
29:31
Speaker 1: going to change and it's going to drift you off
29:33
Speaker 1: the map, and you need to know how far away
29:35
Speaker 1: you are from the map. And then that way point
29:38
Speaker 1: that you've done, that becomes an opportunity for you to
29:42
Speaker 1: reset everything in order to get to the next way point.
29:45
Speaker 1: So I love your five year and ten year analogy
29:49
Speaker 1: because that's a way of then checking in, because you
29:52
Speaker 1: don't just get a plan and then just go off
29:54
Speaker 1: willy nilly right.
29:55
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no. So this is what I do
29:58
Speaker 2: with my clients, is we do a twenty year plan.
30:02
Speaker 2: And it started with you know Matthew McConaughey's amazing Oscar
30:06
Speaker 2: speech where he says his role model is his ten
30:09
Speaker 2: year old a self. So you are constantly chasing your
30:12
Speaker 2: ten year older self. If you're eighteen, you're chasing a
30:15
Speaker 2: twenty eight year old self, and if you're twenty eight,
30:17
Speaker 2: you're thirty eight year And that's the bigger, better version
30:19
Speaker 2: of you who's evolved, and that's your role model. And
30:22
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be exciting your life. You want to
30:26
Speaker 2: be in the driver's seat. So I get my clients
30:29
Speaker 2: to get excited about this is your life. And if
30:32
Speaker 2: you're not planning your life, you'll be living someone else's
30:35
Speaker 2: plan at the end of the day. So let's get
30:38
Speaker 2: your plan going. Let's get excited. Life is an adventure.
30:41
Speaker 2: Let's plot some amazing points over the next ten years.
30:46
Speaker 2: So we do a twenty year plan where basically you
30:48
Speaker 2: write your age down for the next twenty years. In
30:51
Speaker 2: the next column you would be writing down your kids
30:54
Speaker 2: ages and then some other So my twenty year plan,
30:58
Speaker 2: which lives right here next to me, is twenty years
31:01
Speaker 2: old now and it's full, and it is the gift
31:05
Speaker 2: to my children. It's a full run sheet of when
31:08
Speaker 2: they broke their arm and every holiday they went on,
31:11
Speaker 2: and where we lived, and it's got you know what
31:14
Speaker 2: mum was doing and what Dad was doing, and when
31:16
Speaker 2: you've got your braces on, and when you had your
31:17
Speaker 2: best girlfriend, and what you were doing at school and
31:20
Speaker 2: what you're after school activities were. So I'm on my
31:23
Speaker 2: second one, my midlife plan.
31:25
Speaker 1: So that plan then becomes a history, right.
31:28
Speaker 2: It's a full run sheet.
31:29
Speaker 1: Very cool.
31:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's the statistics of where we drove from,
31:33
Speaker 2: how we got from Melbourne to Sydney, and all the
31:36
Speaker 2: towns we stopped at and all the highlights along the way.
31:40
Speaker 2: It's all there for them. So I'm on my second plan,
31:43
Speaker 2: which is my midlife plan, which is fifty to seventy.
31:47
Speaker 2: So that's the midlife plan and then there'll be the
31:49
Speaker 2: seventy to ninety plans. You've really got three twenty year
31:52
Speaker 2: plans that you could be working with for your life.
31:56
Speaker 2: I think where you strategically plot well by the time
31:59
Speaker 2: I'm fifty eat, where do I want to be financially,
32:03
Speaker 2: where do I need my health to be, How do
32:06
Speaker 2: I want to start my fifties, How do I want
32:08
Speaker 2: to start my sixties? What is my what are all
32:13
Speaker 2: the things I need to do for my four buckets
32:15
Speaker 2: of health, which is physical health how I eat, move, sleep,
32:19
Speaker 2: and breathe. And my mental health, which is you know,
32:22
Speaker 2: where do I want to be mentally and what is
32:24
Speaker 2: the training that I want to do, and how do
32:26
Speaker 2: I want to feel? Where do I want to be
32:29
Speaker 2: with my emotional health which is the heart space, which
32:32
Speaker 2: is the kindness and gratitude and compassion. You can't give
32:35
Speaker 2: it if you don't have any for yourself, So this
32:38
Speaker 2: is self mastery. And then there's spiritual health. Where do
32:40
Speaker 2: I want to be with my spiritual health journey, which
32:43
Speaker 2: is my perspective, my feeling of belonging to something bigger
32:46
Speaker 2: than myself, which becomes more and more important in the
32:50
Speaker 2: second midlife plan, and then definitely the last plan.
32:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, Jesus has so much stuff to unpack. You
32:57
Speaker 1: But I was actually talking to Kylie last night we
33:02
Speaker 1: just didn't having a chat, and I was just, you know,
33:06
Speaker 1: I'm it just it frustraates me, and it concerns me
33:12
Speaker 1: about the amount of people who come home and they
33:16
Speaker 1: just plunk themselves either in front of a TV or
33:20
Speaker 1: on a screen on fucking social media, and they are
33:25
Speaker 1: living a life within four walls and generally through a screen.
33:29
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, I'd love to, and I
33:33
Speaker 1: think we need to. We need to get to our
33:35
Speaker 1: kids and really drill into them that you know, the
33:40
Speaker 1: secret to a good life is being fucking engaged in life,
33:45
Speaker 1: awe and wonder and going out and meeting people and
33:48
Speaker 1: exploring and being interested in shit and like getting your
33:53
Speaker 1: brillin stimulated by stuff, not sitting on your fucking arse
33:57
Speaker 1: looking at a screen, either passively absorbing Netflix and shit
34:04
Speaker 1: reality TV shows or just living vicariously through social media.
34:10
Speaker 1: It's like, that is no way. But the point I
34:13
Speaker 1: think I want to get to is your whole idea
34:18
Speaker 1: around those life stages and having all of these goals
34:21
Speaker 1: and stuff. Because we now know that the brain releases
34:27
Speaker 1: dopamine when it knows you're in forwards motion towards your goal, right,
34:31
Speaker 1: And all these people are sitting waiting for the fucking
34:33
Speaker 1: motivation Faerry to come along and give them some motivation
34:37
Speaker 1: to go and do stuff or sort their shit out.
34:39
Speaker 1: And the way you call forward the Ferry is that
34:44
Speaker 1: you take positive action towards your goal. And if you
34:46
Speaker 1: don't have a goal and they have a plan, then
34:49
Speaker 1: we're the very incommon, the very incommon. It's as simple
34:52
Speaker 1: as that.
34:53
Speaker 2: So my fine rings because people say I'm at a crossroads,
34:58
Speaker 2: I'm stuck, I don't have a plan, and I'm like, yeah,
35:01
Speaker 2: you're driving around the roundabout. So until you decide, And
35:05
Speaker 2: the plan is really based on for me personally, how
35:08
Speaker 2: do you want to feel and what life experiences do
35:11
Speaker 2: you want? Not your job?
35:12
Speaker 1: Not your job, love it, love it.
35:14
Speaker 2: So my twenty year plan is all based around how
35:17
Speaker 2: do I want to feel? What life experiences do I want?
35:20
Speaker 2: With my kids who are now eighteen and twenty, so
35:24
Speaker 2: we had the six months sabbatical living in the RV,
35:27
Speaker 2: going around the national parks and exploring in the US
35:30
Speaker 2: for six months and living in Colorado and hiking and
35:33
Speaker 2: biking and fishing and outdoors and no screens and no
35:36
Speaker 2: homework and nothing, just living. And all the different experiences
35:41
Speaker 2: that we've had were planned and they were real, and
35:44
Speaker 2: there was lots of spontaneity coming in as well, which
35:47
Speaker 2: was awesome. But to get to eighteen and twenty to
35:52
Speaker 2: sit here and say I have no regrets, like we've
35:56
Speaker 2: had the most incredible family experiences where you know, we
36:00
Speaker 2: just chucked our jobs in and when this is more important,
36:04
Speaker 2: it is life experiences. So when you do a plan,
36:08
Speaker 2: don't think about your job, that's just what you do.
36:11
Speaker 2: Think about how do you want to feel when you're
36:13
Speaker 2: driving the car, Like how do you want to show up?
36:17
Speaker 2: And what amazing things do you want to learn? And
36:20
Speaker 2: what's going to excite you? And where's your bucket list?
36:23
Speaker 2: And what are the words that excite you? Could they
36:25
Speaker 2: should be up on your wall, and let's create something
36:28
Speaker 2: that is so exciting for you because it's all about self,
36:32
Speaker 2: self awareness, self management, self leadership. It all starts with self.
36:37
Speaker 2: So I don't go looking at anyone else. Let's create you,
36:41
Speaker 2: you the person, and most importantly, how do you want
36:43
Speaker 2: to feel during the day, because that's all that matters.
36:48
Speaker 1: Do you know one reason that's important for so many reasons,
36:53
Speaker 1: a bit off piece that a lot of people don't
36:56
Speaker 1: think about is abide. In Japanese psychology, they say the
37:00
Speaker 1: most important thing in your life is the flashlight of
37:02
Speaker 1: your attention, right, And if people don't have those plans
37:06
Speaker 1: and have those excitements and as you say those words
37:08
Speaker 1: on their walls and the vision boards. That is actually
37:11
Speaker 1: putting their attention on those things and how they can
37:14
Speaker 1: feel it is then giving them motivation to do it.
37:17
Speaker 1: Often what happens is people shine the flashlight of attention
37:20
Speaker 1: in their own fucking heads, right, and you're just thinking
37:23
Speaker 1: about woe is me? And then there's all of this
37:26
Speaker 1: talk about mental health issues and psychological safety. And whilst
37:34
Speaker 1: that is important, I think we run the risk of
37:38
Speaker 1: when we do that too much and people shine a
37:42
Speaker 1: light on it, and when you sign a light on it,
37:44
Speaker 1: your brain commits sales to it. So it's the inputs
37:48
Speaker 1: that are going into your brain are really important. Like
37:51
Speaker 1: talk therapy can be really useful for some people, but
37:54
Speaker 1: it can be really shit for other people because they're
37:57
Speaker 1: just talking about their problems and that often and it
38:00
Speaker 1: is facilitated by a psychologist going oh, yeah, this person's
38:03
Speaker 1: not good and awards you and all of that stuff.
38:06
Speaker 1: But I love this idea that we have to have
38:10
Speaker 1: are bringing engaged in the future in positive stuff. And actually,
38:14
Speaker 1: what we know about older people is when they stop
38:18
Speaker 1: talking about the future, that is when their health really
38:21
Speaker 1: starts to deteriorate and You'll notice there are some older
38:24
Speaker 1: people and they talk about the past all the time,
38:26
Speaker 1: and they talk about their ailments, and they're not talking
38:29
Speaker 1: about the future. We know that people in their nineties
38:32
Speaker 1: who have plans for the future live significantly longer. So
38:37
Speaker 1: the impact on the brain, which then can influence all
38:42
Speaker 1: your physiology, I think, is the great on said in
38:46
Speaker 1: all of this stuff.
38:47
Speaker 2: It's huge. Like, we lost my mum last year. So
38:50
Speaker 2: my dad's eighty four and he was her care and
38:54
Speaker 2: I said, right, Dad, what's the plan And he goes,
38:56
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm like, right, well, you're going to
38:58
Speaker 2: get the fittest you've ever been. It was a laborer.
39:01
Speaker 2: So he's at eighty four joined the gym for the
39:03
Speaker 2: first time in his life, and he's so excited. He's like,
39:06
Speaker 2: do you know that there's machines in the gym and
39:09
Speaker 2: can you get me some protein powder? I need to bulk.
39:11
Speaker 2: And I'm like, this is so excited about movement, and
39:15
Speaker 2: I said, you have to walk every day every day.
39:18
Speaker 2: So he's found in McDonald's. It's about four kilometers away
39:22
Speaker 2: because seniors get free coffee at McDonald's. So he's got this.
39:27
Speaker 2: So he walks to McDonald's for his coffee, and then
39:29
Speaker 2: he walks home and he meets all these other sceniors
39:31
Speaker 2: there and then walks home. So it's all about purpose
39:34
Speaker 2: and you need a map and you need a plan,
39:36
Speaker 2: and I really invite people to think about if you
39:39
Speaker 2: haven't put a roadmap in here, you will feel shit,
39:43
Speaker 2: and you will watch breaking news and you will think
39:46
Speaker 2: the world is doom and gloom and you will hate winter.
39:48
Speaker 2: Whereas I'm just freaking excited because I got plans.
39:52
Speaker 1: I love it, I love it. Yes, it's about just
39:55
Speaker 1: be excited, like there's so much cool shit.
39:58
Speaker 2: And even in even in midlife, which is called the chrysalis,
40:02
Speaker 2: as you know, where we've been a caterpillar the whole time,
40:04
Speaker 2: and then we have to dissolve a big part of
40:07
Speaker 2: ourself to turn into the butterfly. The chrysalis is shit
40:10
Speaker 2: because you've got menopause, manopause. You know, I'm losing a parent.
40:16
Speaker 2: My kids at eighteen, they've both got their license, they're
40:19
Speaker 2: just driving off. You know. It's like this whole shift,
40:23
Speaker 2: it's called the chrysalis, where we need to dissolve. We
40:25
Speaker 2: are no longer a manager of people. We are a
40:28
Speaker 2: consultant to our children. You know, we don't manage them anymore.
40:32
Speaker 2: We're a consultant. They will ring when we are needed.
40:35
Speaker 2: And that's before you become the friend. So when you've
40:38
Speaker 2: done the roadmap and the plan, you know what stage
40:41
Speaker 2: you're in. You can prepare for it. You could say, okay,
40:43
Speaker 2: well this stage is actually I need to focus on
40:45
Speaker 2: myself and I need to change with the way I'm thinking,
40:50
Speaker 2: and I need to change away our structure my day
40:51
Speaker 2: because I am not needed at this minute.
40:54
Speaker 1: And there's an interesting thing about work as well. I
40:58
Speaker 1: can't remember his name's just to escape me for a second,
41:01
Speaker 1: but there's a brilliant among the Arthur Seedbrooks or am
41:05
Speaker 1: I confusing with? There's a brilliant book called The Second
41:08
Speaker 1: Curve where he talks about the second fears of your
41:13
Speaker 1: life post fifties, and but specifically there's a really co
41:17
Speaker 1: bit on work, and it's like, you need to change
41:21
Speaker 1: how you view your work because as you get older
41:24
Speaker 1: and all the young bucks come through, like you're no
41:28
Speaker 1: longer right on the bleeding edge of stuff, you don't
41:31
Speaker 1: have as much energy and stuff like that. But he
41:33
Speaker 1: says we need to shift our thinking to now it's
41:36
Speaker 1: about howdy I spread my knowledge, right, how doy I
41:41
Speaker 1: inspire the younger generation, right, give them, give them my knowledge,
41:45
Speaker 1: give them a steer all of those things, because we
41:47
Speaker 1: have to accept that our role is changing. And so
41:51
Speaker 1: just like you said about the Christmas that just popped
41:53
Speaker 1: that up on the top of my head, and I
41:56
Speaker 1: want to talk now about so in the military, we
41:59
Speaker 1: were always told no battle plan ever survives first contact
42:03
Speaker 1: with the enemy, right, And you've written a book called
42:07
Speaker 1: Plan B, which I love, right, because you can have
42:11
Speaker 1: all these plans, but the enemy in this case is
42:14
Speaker 1: just the universe. Right, that shit sandwiches will be lobbed
42:18
Speaker 1: at you, stuff will happen, there'll be health issues, there'll
42:21
Speaker 1: be just all of these sidebars. So talk us through
42:28
Speaker 1: this whole idea of a Plan B and of accepting change,
42:32
Speaker 1: because actually change is the only constant in the universe,
42:36
Speaker 1: and so many people it just screws them up.
42:40
Speaker 2: Well. Interesting, that was a Jerry Maguire moment for me
42:43
Speaker 2: where I woke up in the middle of COVID in lockdown,
42:47
Speaker 2: in a like full sweat at three in the morning,
42:50
Speaker 2: and I saw a whole book flash into my brain,
42:53
Speaker 2: and so I got up in the dark, and I
42:56
Speaker 2: just typed furiously the title, the introduction, and the chapter headings,
43:04
Speaker 2: and I sent it to Penguin and my husband said,
43:07
Speaker 2: you're a complete idiot, and you didn't think it through,
43:10
Speaker 2: and you know, you didn't even spell check their spelling
43:14
Speaker 2: mistakes everywhere, And I said I had to. I just
43:16
Speaker 2: had to do it. And what it was was, I
43:19
Speaker 2: know exactly what's going through people's minds because I've been
43:22
Speaker 2: coaching for twenty years and I know how people think
43:27
Speaker 2: about change and how they resist change, and they don't
43:30
Speaker 2: embrace it, and they don't navigate it, and they don't
43:33
Speaker 2: their car just stops at the roadworks and they just
43:36
Speaker 2: are stuck and then they all their plans go to shit,
43:40
Speaker 2: Whereas what we need to do is create a nice
43:43
Speaker 2: detour to get back on track. So I wrote the
43:46
Speaker 2: book with four headings, which was, we need to respond
43:51
Speaker 2: to the change. You fell off your bike. The first
43:54
Speaker 2: thing you do is take a breath. Don't try and
43:57
Speaker 2: fix it. You have to respond. You have to take
44:00
Speaker 2: for breath, You have to tap into your emotions. Okay,
44:03
Speaker 2: how does this make me feel? This is all the
44:05
Speaker 2: things I went through with chronic fatigue. How does it
44:07
Speaker 2: make me feel? How can I reframe the story so
44:11
Speaker 2: it becomes the gift. So you need to spend a
44:15
Speaker 2: lot of time in the response, whereas people go straight
44:18
Speaker 2: to I just need to fix it quickly with band aids, tablets, alcohol, whatever.
44:25
Speaker 2: We need to sit in the stench of at first
44:28
Speaker 2: and feel it. We need to feel it. We need
44:30
Speaker 2: to feel the pain of losing your job or losing
44:33
Speaker 2: your partner, or you had to work from home. I mean,
44:37
Speaker 2: it took people two years to adapt to working from home.
44:40
Speaker 2: If you remember in the beginning, everyone was freaking out.
44:43
Speaker 2: I hate working from home. I can't concentrate. It's awful.
44:47
Speaker 2: I want to go to the office. Now we can't
44:48
Speaker 2: get them back right. It takes people a long time.
44:51
Speaker 2: So the first stage is respond, breathe, think up through,
44:56
Speaker 2: sit in the stench, and then create a narrative.
45:00
Speaker 1: Can I just add to that a brilliant quote from
45:03
Speaker 1: Stam Beacham, who's been on my podcast, said that, you know,
45:07
Speaker 1: sometimes we need to walk right to the edge of
45:09
Speaker 1: ourselves and stir into the abyss. Right now, this isn't
45:13
Speaker 1: a deliberate walk, but you're right at the edge of
45:16
Speaker 1: yourself right when there's plans going to rutch it. But
45:18
Speaker 1: the said you need to stir into the abyss long
45:22
Speaker 1: enough to find out what it's telling you, and then
45:25
Speaker 1: you need to walk back and use that information. It's
45:27
Speaker 1: just like you've got to sit in the stench.
45:29
Speaker 2: And I call it the stench, like you know when
45:33
Speaker 2: you get the phone call that you know your kid
45:35
Speaker 2: might be expelled because they've been really naughty. And I
45:38
Speaker 2: just would sit there in the stench of it going.
45:41
Speaker 2: I actually feel voment, like I could vomit, like like
45:44
Speaker 2: when you get things that you hate, or you have
45:46
Speaker 2: to call the ambulance, like I've had to call Mani
45:48
Speaker 2: ambulances for my mum. I would I wouldn't even jump
45:51
Speaker 2: in my card. Sit in the stench first and breathe,
45:54
Speaker 2: take a breath first, Sit in it. Okay, now be
45:59
Speaker 2: calm and confident. Aren't moving forward. So the second stage
46:02
Speaker 2: is you need to allow recovery, which nobody allows that recovery,
46:08
Speaker 2: which is actually I feel a bit wounded, you know,
46:11
Speaker 2: I feel mentally wounded or emotionally wounded. So I actually
46:16
Speaker 2: need to do some loving kindness to myself and just
46:19
Speaker 2: you know, pat myself and give myself a hug and
46:23
Speaker 2: do some breathing and some meditation, and to heal with
46:26
Speaker 2: my diet and really think about the food that I'm eating,
46:30
Speaker 2: and maybe get my sleep routine right and really heal.
46:34
Speaker 2: Now we can reset and get on that map again.
46:37
Speaker 2: But no one does. The first two stages an big,
46:40
Speaker 2: big issue. So for twenty years I've been coaching people like, Okay,
46:44
Speaker 2: you've done your ACL and your sport stop, Just let's
46:49
Speaker 2: take a sit in a stench of the ACL and
46:52
Speaker 2: how shitty that is and how unfair that is, and
46:56
Speaker 2: because if you don't feel it, it'll come and haunt
46:59
Speaker 2: you for the next ten years, you know, and you'll
47:01
Speaker 2: be competing and all you'll be doing is thinking about
47:03
Speaker 2: that a c L. We want it, we want to
47:05
Speaker 2: steal it so we can get rid of it. That's
47:08
Speaker 2: what I want you to know.
47:09
Speaker 1: I'm laughing because I entered my a CL recently and
47:12
Speaker 1: then I went back to sport and now I've got
47:14
Speaker 1: a secondary injury that's just derailing me. So I'm sitting
47:19
Speaker 1: in the stage right now.
47:22
Speaker 2: And maybe maybe you need to heal properly.
47:24
Speaker 1: Right, I'm not a good healer, then that's right.
47:29
Speaker 2: So then you then you then you get to the
47:30
Speaker 2: third stage, which is reset. Let's go back to your values.
47:34
Speaker 2: Let's go back to what's most important to you. Let's
47:37
Speaker 2: reset the map, and let's start getting excited and let's
47:41
Speaker 2: start moving forward. And then the fourth part, which people
47:44
Speaker 2: forget is we need to allow ourself to radiate again.
47:48
Speaker 2: We need to not bring that story into the future.
47:52
Speaker 2: That's a past that was like roadworks back there. Let's
47:55
Speaker 2: talk about that anymore. Let's just keep looking forward and radiate.
47:59
Speaker 2: So it was respondcover was that radiate and I could
48:02
Speaker 2: really see the people who for me, chronic fatigue is
48:05
Speaker 2: just the gift. I live with it today and it's again, you.
48:09
Speaker 1: Know what I love about that, And you're talking about
48:10
Speaker 1: the gift is E's and GM's gross Grosses work on
48:14
Speaker 1: reappris on people who've been through and this is real
48:18
Speaker 1: serious trauma as he gets them after a while and
48:22
Speaker 1: they're comfortable with them to talk talk about it, but
48:26
Speaker 1: through the lens of what was the silver lining that
48:31
Speaker 1: came from that BART event? And then every time that
48:34
Speaker 1: thing pops up, you go, yeah, that was shit, but
48:36
Speaker 1: here's the silver lining, and you focus on the silver
48:39
Speaker 1: lining and what it can do for you. So it's about,
48:41
Speaker 1: as you said, finding the gift. That's very cool.
48:45
Speaker 2: And the radiating, the radiating just to finish is about
48:48
Speaker 2: saying yes again to things, and it's about celebrating the
48:51
Speaker 2: small wins along the way. Like we see football is
48:54
Speaker 2: high fiving ourselves. No one goes to the mirror. No
48:57
Speaker 2: one high fives themselves and no one, no one starts
49:01
Speaker 2: this incredible relationship with themselves. And that's what I coach
49:05
Speaker 2: is You've only got one relationship with your life, and
49:08
Speaker 2: that's with yourself and really getting into self love, self acceptance,
49:14
Speaker 2: self celebration, because you are stuck with yourself twenty four
49:19
Speaker 2: hours a day, seven days a week, every minute of
49:22
Speaker 2: the day. Other people come and go, but you're stuck here.
49:24
Speaker 2: So let's make this relationship a really healthy one with
49:28
Speaker 2: the inner critic, you know, being able to master that
49:31
Speaker 2: a little bit, with really focusing on having the tools
49:35
Speaker 2: which people don't have, of visual stimulation around you to
49:39
Speaker 2: keep you in that. You know, my mirror in the
49:41
Speaker 2: bathroom is full of words, full of words, and you
49:45
Speaker 2: can hardly see yourself. And my husband's like, is this
49:48
Speaker 2: ever going? I'm like, no, that my whole mental health
49:50
Speaker 2: is right there because I need to keep looking forward
49:53
Speaker 2: and I to keep training my brain.
49:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, very awesome. And I'm a big fan of stuff
49:58
Speaker 1: on the mirror and a line last significant thing it
50:01
Speaker 1: was written on my mirror is no longer my mirror
50:03
Speaker 1: because I've got a tattooed on my arm because it
50:06
Speaker 1: had such an impact. It was mementom moory remember that
50:10
Speaker 1: that remember death? Basically, how fucking lucky are you to
50:13
Speaker 1: be alive every single day? Right? Yeah, but it's taking
50:17
Speaker 1: that positive slant and and just with with the stoics.
50:21
Speaker 1: So so they story philosophers were big on and this
50:27
Speaker 1: idea of of of yes, you you set out your
50:30
Speaker 1: day and you visualize stuff, and you visualize who you
50:32
Speaker 1: want to be and what values and all of this.
50:35
Speaker 1: But they were also fans of actually thinking about all
50:40
Speaker 1: the ship that could go wrong and what they call
50:42
Speaker 1: it pre morty something or other I can't remember, but
50:45
Speaker 1: thinking about the ship that could go wrong, the bad
50:48
Speaker 1: people that you were going to meet. That's that you
50:50
Speaker 1: know all of these curveballs, so that you would be
50:53
Speaker 1: prepared for that, right is there? Do you do you
50:57
Speaker 1: get into that or do you just have people focusing
51:00
Speaker 1: on the plan and then when shit happens, then they
51:04
Speaker 1: do plan B. Or is there a little bit of
51:07
Speaker 1: kind of fortune telling about here's what could go wrong,
51:10
Speaker 1: and here's what I will think about them exactly what
51:13
Speaker 1: I think? Does that detract from the focus.
51:17
Speaker 2: I think we're naturally built to think negatively anyway, Right,
51:21
Speaker 2: so I don't dwell very much. It might be five
51:23
Speaker 2: percent where well, if that happens, we'll deal with that then.
51:27
Speaker 2: But really we want to really wire that brain to
51:31
Speaker 2: move forward, to be excited that life is a playground
51:34
Speaker 2: that we get to play on the planet today, like
51:37
Speaker 2: we get to play today. So I always say to
51:40
Speaker 2: my clients life is a playground we get to play
51:44
Speaker 2: again today in the playground. Your job is the fairest wheel,
51:48
Speaker 2: the ride you get on and off. But it's how
51:51
Speaker 2: you want to feel when you're running around the playground
51:53
Speaker 2: collecting incredible, colorful life experiences. And that could be tasting
51:57
Speaker 2: your copy. So when you have a plan, have a
52:00
Speaker 2: map exactly the same as driving, and you've got a
52:04
Speaker 2: bit of a plan B, you know how to respond.
52:06
Speaker 2: If something happens, you can sit back and enjoy the drive, right,
52:12
Speaker 2: so you're not worried about the next sign you're taking
52:14
Speaker 2: in the scenery, and I call that mindful mindfulness. It's
52:18
Speaker 2: about I've got a plan. I've got my to do list,
52:21
Speaker 2: which I get to do, not my to do list
52:23
Speaker 2: I get to do Otherwise it's boring. I say, I
52:25
Speaker 2: get to do this, I get to unstack the dishwasher,
52:28
Speaker 2: I get to put the washing on. Is that I
52:31
Speaker 2: can now really go into the moment of I'm talking
52:36
Speaker 2: to you. This is an adventure, this is exciting. I've
52:38
Speaker 2: never had this conversation with you before. I've never had
52:42
Speaker 2: this coffee before that the brewster made this morning. Like
52:45
Speaker 2: everything is an adventure, and when you have a mindset
52:48
Speaker 2: like that, you're really open to opportunity and you really
52:53
Speaker 2: can enjoy the day on the planet. And really that's
52:55
Speaker 2: what it's all about. Yeah, oh, No one cares how
52:58
Speaker 2: many books we've sold. No one cares how many stages
53:01
Speaker 2: we've been on. And I used to pick the kids
53:04
Speaker 2: up from school and go They absolutely don't give a
53:07
Speaker 2: shit that I was just on TV. They want to
53:09
Speaker 2: note and they want to cuddle and they know them.
53:12
Speaker 2: You know, I sat one hundred thousand visual kids in
53:15
Speaker 2: Big w at Christmas. Do you think my kids have
53:17
Speaker 2: even opened a box. So you've got to remember that
53:23
Speaker 2: the only person you're trying to impress here is yourself,
53:27
Speaker 2: and so you may as well just high five yourself
53:29
Speaker 2: and move on.
53:30
Speaker 1: I love it, and I love the high fiving yourself
53:34
Speaker 1: actually because I can't remember who was the author of
53:37
Speaker 1: the paper at the research study that showed that actually
53:41
Speaker 1: you need to saver things, saver your wins for about
53:45
Speaker 1: twelve seconds in order for them to get picked into
53:48
Speaker 1: your brain and then spur further motivation. So I love
53:51
Speaker 1: that idea of high fiving yourself. That is very cool.
53:53
Speaker 1: Now we are kind of getting right to the end
53:56
Speaker 1: because and I don't want to end this because it's
53:58
Speaker 1: so cool. But you've all I've written a book on
54:03
Speaker 1: secrets to a happy life. Just give us your top
54:06
Speaker 1: two or three. I think a lot of them have
54:08
Speaker 1: already come out. But what's a couple that we haven't
54:11
Speaker 1: talked about so far.
54:14
Speaker 2: I think that you need to know your own set
54:16
Speaker 2: of values to be happy, I really do. I think
54:20
Speaker 2: you need to have a very strong foundation of what's
54:23
Speaker 2: most important to you so you can put your focus
54:25
Speaker 2: there and that becomes your purpose for life, is to
54:28
Speaker 2: serve your own set of value. So mine is health,
54:31
Speaker 2: which is the four buckets. Every day you've got to
54:33
Speaker 2: put deposits in family, how do I want to show
54:36
Speaker 2: up as an inspiring human and be the role model?
54:40
Speaker 2: And third for me as achievement. I'm an achievement junkie,
54:43
Speaker 2: but a healthy version of that. So an achievement is
54:46
Speaker 2: washing my hands and doing three breaths and high fiving
54:49
Speaker 2: myself every time I'm in the bathroom. So that's six
54:51
Speaker 2: times a day, plenty of join right, happy life. So
54:55
Speaker 2: the other thing is I think it's about really shining
54:58
Speaker 2: a light on your habits. Because happiness, as we know,
55:02
Speaker 2: is fifty percent genetic, where you're a glass half full
55:05
Speaker 2: or a glass half empty. Ten percent is your online
55:08
Speaker 2: shopping and your job and your car. Forty percent of
55:11
Speaker 2: your happiness is about your rhythm, ritual and routine. So
55:14
Speaker 2: your habits need to make you happy. Whether it's how
55:17
Speaker 2: you make you a cup of tea or your gratitude journal,
55:20
Speaker 2: or for me, walking in the morning for an hour
55:22
Speaker 2: in the freezing cold dark and getting a coffee is
55:25
Speaker 2: usually the highlight of my day. It's so beautiful. So
55:29
Speaker 2: it's the small things, and when we shine a light
55:32
Speaker 2: on the small things. Our happiness comes up because everything
55:35
Speaker 2: else is fleeting, and happiness is fleeting, as we know,
55:38
Speaker 2: it doesn't last. And then I think, really, it's about
55:43
Speaker 2: having visual stimulation that makes you happy. So I've got
55:48
Speaker 2: butterflies here because I'm in the chrysalis. I'm in midlife,
55:51
Speaker 2: so I'm thinking the butterfly. I'm turning into a butterfly.
55:54
Speaker 2: I'm getting rid of the caterpillar. We don't have visual
55:57
Speaker 2: stimulate stimuli like I've got this lilady with the balloons.
56:00
Speaker 2: I'm in the playground collecting colorful experiences. When people put
56:06
Speaker 2: things up vision or great screen savers or whatever it
56:11
Speaker 2: might be, I think naturally, our mood lifts and we
56:15
Speaker 2: need color, and we need to find excitement and stimulation
56:20
Speaker 2: because everything else that's external is negative, the news that's rolling,
56:27
Speaker 2: the comparison itis. So to really be happy and stay
56:31
Speaker 2: on track, we need to learn to breathe and to
56:33
Speaker 2: be home in this body of self that we have
56:38
Speaker 2: strategically set up like a tomato plant. We've got all
56:42
Speaker 2: the steaks in place so we don't fall over. So
56:45
Speaker 2: we need to strategically think about what do I need
56:49
Speaker 2: to do for myself that brings me joy and holds
56:52
Speaker 2: me up and catches me when up for awesome.
56:56
Speaker 1: Love it and I love comparisonitis. That's so cool. I
57:00
Speaker 1: love the way it's a disease.
57:01
Speaker 2: It's just a disease.
57:02
Speaker 1: Oh it is. It's the big disease of this century.
57:05
Speaker 1: I can tell you, Shandon, this has been friggin awesome.
57:10
Speaker 1: So now where can people go if they want to
57:13
Speaker 1: buy one of your awesome books? B want to book
57:16
Speaker 1: you as a corporate speaker, or C want to book
57:19
Speaker 1: you as a life coach? And I can imagine that
57:22
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people here listening getting quite excited.
57:25
Speaker 1: If you're not getting excited about this, you've been frigging
57:28
Speaker 1: the bottomized as mine, right, So I would expect that
57:32
Speaker 1: there are a number of people who would love to
57:34
Speaker 1: reach out and get coature back. So where do we
57:36
Speaker 1: go for all of that?
57:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, just one place. Just hit Shanna Kennedy dot com.
57:42
Speaker 2: S h A W nah Shanne Kennedy dot com. There's
57:45
Speaker 2: free stuff on there too, free vision board kids, there's
57:48
Speaker 2: free screen savers on there to train the brain. And yeah,
57:53
Speaker 2: reach out. I'm here, I'm in my midlife. I've got
57:56
Speaker 2: a lot of wisdom to share as you said, and
57:59
Speaker 2: I want to add I want to get out there
58:00
Speaker 2: and share it more.
58:02
Speaker 1: Awesome, Channa, This has been friggin awesome, inspiring and a
58:07
Speaker 1: direction for people, which is very very cool. Thanks for
58:10
Speaker 1: having me, Thank you, and thank you for sharing your
58:14
Speaker 1: gift as well.
58:15
Speaker 2: My pleasure