Latest / The You Project / #1887 All Or Nothing - Bobby Cappuccio

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#1887 All Or Nothing - Bobby Cappuccio · The You Project

0:01
Speaker 1: I get a team.
0:02
Speaker 2: Bobby Capuccio is well's it's my little brother. He's a wido,
0:08
Speaker 2: his brother from another mother. He's here every week. He's
0:11
Speaker 2: part of the fabric of typ Of course, he has
0:15
Speaker 2: all of his own things going on. We'll explore those later.
0:18
Speaker 2: But hi, mate, welcome back, Good.
0:19
Speaker 1: To see you.
0:21
Speaker 3: Good to see you again. Greg.
0:24
Speaker 2: What's the it's ten thirty seven here? What does that
0:27
Speaker 2: make it in the AM here? So five thirty seven
0:30
Speaker 2: in the PM?
0:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly exactly what it is. You
0:36
Speaker 3: know your time zones. We talked about this last time.
0:40
Speaker 1: Today.
0:41
Speaker 2: I thought, well, I didn't think taken no credit for that.
0:45
Speaker 2: You have the idea of talking about failure, and I
0:51
Speaker 2: think it's a good chat. But let's start with like
0:56
Speaker 2: a definite a definition. Do you think what is failure
0:59
Speaker 2: if you or what is when we're talking good? Is
1:02
Speaker 2: it just like because my failure could be your lesson
1:06
Speaker 2: right or vice versa. So is it really just a
1:09
Speaker 2: subjective label we give stuff or is it an absolute.
1:14
Speaker 3: I mean, I could talk from my own perspective. I
1:15
Speaker 3: think failure means different things based on different interpretations. But
1:20
Speaker 3: for me, it's just to have an expectation about how
1:22
Speaker 3: something's going to work out, and it doesn't work out
1:25
Speaker 3: that way, and sometimes it's quite shocking, So not really
1:29
Speaker 3: a failure at all. But one of the things that
1:32
Speaker 3: happened earlier is I was reading the evows from a
1:35
Speaker 3: presentation that I had given turned out to be pretty
1:38
Speaker 3: large presentation, and one of the comments about the presentation
1:45
Speaker 3: was disrespectful and completely distasteful, and I thought, oh, wow,
1:54
Speaker 3: that's that's kind of interesting. And as I as I
1:57
Speaker 3: was reading through it, it's like, this was despicable, this
2:01
Speaker 3: was offensive, was this was done in extremely poor taste.
2:06
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, Like did my mom
2:08
Speaker 3: like write this? This is like kind of weird. And
2:11
Speaker 3: then it turns out that I had utilized the story
2:14
Speaker 3: or an example that I had pulled from research Christakis
2:19
Speaker 3: and Fowler's book Connected, which I've used one hundred times,
2:23
Speaker 3: and the person was really offended to the point they
2:28
Speaker 3: thought I was making, which I was absolutely not making,
2:31
Speaker 3: and they were offended that I even use that example
2:34
Speaker 3: because it was not positive and there are positive examples
2:38
Speaker 3: that you can use, and that's not like that's not
2:41
Speaker 3: like I'm a traditional failure, but a lot of people
2:43
Speaker 3: would look at that as a failure because it's not
2:46
Speaker 3: the feedback I wanted. It's not what I expected, and
2:50
Speaker 3: it was quite shocking, like I had no way, shape
2:52
Speaker 3: or form expected this, and I so that's one thing
2:57
Speaker 3: that happened. But like I think data day, it's it's
3:01
Speaker 3: these little failures that we don't examine that are probably
3:06
Speaker 3: more valuable over time than our successes. I could just
3:10
Speaker 3: be completely reframing that because I have so many more
3:13
Speaker 3: failures than successes and I'm just like trying to make
3:16
Speaker 3: myself feel bad about it, but I think that they're
3:18
Speaker 3: they're extremely valuable. And I think if you're not constantly
3:24
Speaker 3: falling on your face and doing something where it's like, damn,
3:27
Speaker 3: that was stupid, I kind of wonder how much you're
3:33
Speaker 3: putting yourself out there.
3:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's when you get feedback.
3:37
Speaker 2: That's one of the you know, I heard a guy
3:40
Speaker 2: talking this morning and he said, you know, the number one.
3:44
Speaker 2: I don't know if it really is, but it's I
3:45
Speaker 2: guess it's up there. The number one fear is public speaking,
3:48
Speaker 2: and he said, but it's not. It's not really like
3:52
Speaker 2: the fear is not so much public speaking as it
3:54
Speaker 2: is rejection and judgment, you know. And that's the thing
3:59
Speaker 2: because the moment that you're on stage, like it or not,
4:02
Speaker 2: you're being evaluated by whoever's looking at you, and even
4:06
Speaker 2: the people who are not an inverted commas judgmental. Like,
4:10
Speaker 2: it's virtually impossible to not judge things because we spend
4:14
Speaker 2: our life evaluating, which is another word for judging or
4:17
Speaker 2: labeling or ascertaining safety or you know, it's what we
4:21
Speaker 2: do all the time. But the word judgment has a
4:24
Speaker 2: negative connotation, you know. But you know, when you're crossing
4:27
Speaker 2: the road, you're trying to judge when it's safe to go.
4:30
Speaker 2: In that context, we don't care. And you know, if
4:33
Speaker 2: you're looking at the fruit, you go, these bananas look
4:35
Speaker 2: better than those that's a judgment call, right, But I
4:39
Speaker 2: think it's hard when like, in your situation, let's say
4:44
Speaker 2: you've got one hundred people and one person's like your shit,
4:47
Speaker 2: ninety nine people are somewhere between. That was pretty good
4:49
Speaker 2: and really good to not invest your energy or to
4:54
Speaker 2: not go down the rabbit hole of the one.
4:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's how we evaluate it. If that's how
4:59
Speaker 3: I have evaluated, they're like, oh, that was amazing, Well
5:02
Speaker 3: that was the presentation that was disgraceful. Well that's me,
5:07
Speaker 3: that's personal. I mean, for the most part, the rest
5:10
Speaker 3: of the evils were really good, you know. I mean
5:12
Speaker 3: you get like, oh, could have been you know, love
5:15
Speaker 3: the stories, could have got more takeaways around soft skills.
5:19
Speaker 3: One person's like, I was in the back and you know,
5:21
Speaker 3: he whispers a lot, which I thought, do I really
5:24
Speaker 3: am I a whisperer? Because people who whisper it's a
5:27
Speaker 3: common thing lately where they're talking, like you hear it
5:31
Speaker 3: a lot, like on YouTube and someone speaking in a whisper,
5:34
Speaker 3: I'm like, you are freaking me out. I'm like, I
5:36
Speaker 3: hope I'm not turning into one of those whisper people,
5:39
Speaker 3: because I can't let myself go in that direction. That
5:41
Speaker 3: is very creepy. So I'm just wondering about that.
5:48
Speaker 2: So, I mean, like, let's just call up failure what
5:51
Speaker 2: we would typically call failure, which is, you know, we
5:53
Speaker 2: wanted something to happen, or we tried something, we didn't
5:56
Speaker 2: get the result we want. Let's not get caught up
5:58
Speaker 2: in the semantics of what is and what isn't, but
6:01
Speaker 2: in the general general understanding that we have of failing.
6:05
Speaker 2: You know, we played a game and we wanted to win,
6:07
Speaker 2: but we didn't, So we lost or we failed or
6:11
Speaker 2: and without kind of weaponizing the term too much, but
6:16
Speaker 2: what's the upside of failure?
6:18
Speaker 1: What's the like what?
6:19
Speaker 2: Because it's inevitable, like we're not going to navigate life
6:23
Speaker 2: being a constant winner. So how do we how do
6:26
Speaker 2: we lean into it, and how do we use it
6:28
Speaker 2: to our advantage?
6:30
Speaker 3: Well, one, it's an outcome. I think all outcomes are feedback.
6:34
Speaker 3: So you had something that you thought was going to happen,
6:36
Speaker 3: you expected to happen, and it either happens or it
6:40
Speaker 3: didn't happen. Both of those have a lot of information
6:43
Speaker 3: that are really useful. So if we take the emotion
6:46
Speaker 3: out of it, it's like I did something, there was
6:48
Speaker 3: an action, and that action caused a reaction. Okay, what
6:52
Speaker 3: can I readily observe? What can I take away from this?
6:55
Speaker 3: So I was on a virtual conference call this person
7:00
Speaker 3: going through like we talked about this a couple of
7:02
Speaker 3: episodes ago, and I thought, that's like, oh God, I
7:05
Speaker 3: wish we dived into this a little bit more because
7:08
Speaker 3: I feel it's really important. She was talking about complete
7:12
Speaker 3: radical accountability, and she said that she had gone in
7:18
Speaker 3: for lunch and she had chosen a burger, and because
7:22
Speaker 3: she had eaten the burger and then had the fries,
7:24
Speaker 3: She's like, well, that's a fail outright fail. And I
7:27
Speaker 3: was like, I really appreciate the accountability and the ownership,
7:32
Speaker 3: but I was like, hold on, what is she taking
7:34
Speaker 3: away from that? I feel like there when we accountability
7:40
Speaker 3: is the first step. If you're not taking accountability or
7:43
Speaker 3: you're not acknowledging what happened, well you're not observing all
7:46
Speaker 3: of the variables, you're not going to learn anything. But
7:49
Speaker 3: I thought, is that all that happened that week? Because
7:52
Speaker 3: she said, yeah, that was that was bad that week,
7:54
Speaker 3: that was a failure. I was like, Okay, let's say
7:56
Speaker 3: you had twenty one meals, three meals on average a
8:00
Speaker 3: day time. Seven and one out of twenty one was
8:06
Speaker 3: not the meal that you would planned to have, but
8:07
Speaker 3: twenty was a win.
8:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:10
Speaker 3: It was like, you know, if anyone had that level
8:13
Speaker 3: of success in anything, I wrote a book, I wanted
8:17
Speaker 3: to be a bestseller. Like you know, over ninety five
8:19
Speaker 3: percent of the time, it is like they would study you,
8:24
Speaker 3: like they wouldn't even just build statues about you, write
8:26
Speaker 3: books about you. Like you'd be walking down the street
8:29
Speaker 3: one day and they'd put a hood over your head
8:31
Speaker 3: and like next thing you know, you'd wake up in
8:33
Speaker 3: some lab like in some Marvel sci fi film and
8:36
Speaker 3: they'd run experiments on you. So it's like, what is
8:39
Speaker 3: your expectation and if it's like five percent of the time,
8:44
Speaker 3: whatever I intend to happen for a lot of different
8:47
Speaker 3: variables is not going to happen and your expectations, that's
8:50
Speaker 3: not acceptable. Man, You're gonna be really disappointed in life.
8:54
Speaker 3: You might even stop trying at some point because your
8:58
Speaker 3: barrier for success is so bloody high. But look at
9:02
Speaker 3: all the other variables there, Like what happened the rest
9:07
Speaker 3: of the week that allowed you to have twenty meals
9:10
Speaker 3: on point? What were the points of differentiation? What were
9:14
Speaker 3: like we have a lot of questions we can ask
9:17
Speaker 3: what was the environment? Were you more isolated, like working
9:21
Speaker 3: from home so you didn't have interference. Were you around
9:24
Speaker 3: people so you weren't eating out of loneliness? Did you
9:27
Speaker 3: plan your meals the day before?
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Speaker 2: Was?
9:29
Speaker 3: What was your emotional state? Were you exhausted? And when
9:34
Speaker 3: it came to discipline, you just couldn't be asked, So
9:37
Speaker 3: what were all the variables that led to twenty successes.
9:41
Speaker 3: Now you have that, what's the contrast. Let's take a
9:44
Speaker 3: look at what happened not at lunch, what happened for
9:48
Speaker 3: the time you woke up leading into lunch with environment
9:53
Speaker 3: emotional state? Right? What was the intensity of that emotional state.
9:58
Speaker 3: All of these things are teaching you what happens when
10:01
Speaker 3: you do really, really well, what happens when you miss
10:05
Speaker 3: the mark, and that gives you preparatory strategies. It's like
10:10
Speaker 3: I would have asked myself, you know what percentage of
10:13
Speaker 3: success and this is completely subjective, would I give myself
10:16
Speaker 3: in a week like that? And it doesn't matter because
10:20
Speaker 3: if things are like I succeeded or I failed, and
10:23
Speaker 3: there's no information, there's no learning. Like We've also talked
10:27
Speaker 3: about flow states where skill and challenge are at equal measure,
10:32
Speaker 3: where if your skills far above your challenge, I'm bored,
10:36
Speaker 3: like I can't do this, But if the challenge is
10:39
Speaker 3: too far above your skill, I'm frustrated, I'm overwhelmed. Eventually,
10:43
Speaker 3: I'm probably not going to engage in this. What can
10:46
Speaker 3: I do to level out those two variables to keep
10:50
Speaker 3: me engaged in moving and a lot of times I
10:53
Speaker 3: could get overwhelmed if I don't have information that comes
10:58
Speaker 3: to me as feed back. So once I have what
11:01
Speaker 3: happened on my worst day, what happened on my best day,
11:04
Speaker 3: and what about everything in between? If I have a
11:07
Speaker 3: percentage of success, I can go okay, well, arbitrarily, why okay,
11:12
Speaker 3: that was a Let's say that was a ninety percent
11:14
Speaker 3: success rate, or in a different week it's twenty percent.
11:17
Speaker 3: What would twenty five percent look like? Not like one
11:19
Speaker 3: hundred percent, but if that was twenty five percent, what
11:23
Speaker 3: would what would thirty percent look like? And now I
11:26
Speaker 3: have a gauge, and I keep pushing that and making
11:29
Speaker 3: micromodifications as I go, getting better and better and better,
11:34
Speaker 3: or until I level out where what I'm putting in
11:37
Speaker 3: and what I'm getting in return, even if it's like
11:40
Speaker 3: consistently eighty percent success, that's where I want to be
11:43
Speaker 3: right now. So it was kind of interesting how when
11:48
Speaker 3: we internalize failure, you know, not as a single isolated event,
11:52
Speaker 3: but as a reflection of who we are as a
11:54
Speaker 3: person's an identity it I think it contributes in a
12:01
Speaker 3: lot of ways to how we rationalize or talk ourselves
12:06
Speaker 3: out of things that would otherwise engage us and help
12:09
Speaker 3: us grap.
12:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love that reframe on the one out
12:14
Speaker 2: of twenty one meals. I did not see that coming
12:17
Speaker 2: and I was starting to think, yeah, well, is it
12:20
Speaker 2: a failure or is it a choice? I mean, you
12:22
Speaker 2: chose the burger, you know, and then you fucking opened
12:24
Speaker 2: the twenty and I went, that is such a good
12:28
Speaker 2: that is such a good point. And what if the
12:29
Speaker 2: same person who ate twenty one meals twenty of them
12:32
Speaker 2: were how they should be or how they would hope
12:36
Speaker 2: to be healthy and tick all the micro and macro
12:39
Speaker 2: boxes or whatever, And what if they they what if
12:42
Speaker 2: their protocol or their story is well, one meal a week,
12:48
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna eat whatever the fuck I want.
12:49
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let my hair down, and it's.
12:51
Speaker 2: Not going to be healthy, and it's not going to
12:53
Speaker 2: be you know, it's but that's what I'm doing because
12:57
Speaker 2: it tastes fucking great and I'm going to let my
12:59
Speaker 2: head down and that's okay. So this is not a failure.
13:03
Speaker 2: This is actually part of my plan. And for me,
13:06
Speaker 2: I'm not suggesting everyone does it, but for me to
13:09
Speaker 2: have that one cheeseburger and some chips and a coke
13:12
Speaker 2: once a week for me, I fucking love it and
13:16
Speaker 2: bibby Bobby boot that's it.
13:18
Speaker 1: Then there's no failure at all.
13:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I found this out. I don't know if you
13:26
Speaker 3: if you've experienced this, but we're a couple of reform
13:31
Speaker 3: meatheads and pack in my youth, I would just be
13:37
Speaker 3: on this all or nothing like that is it? I am?
13:41
Speaker 3: I am done, Like I am eating this, I am
13:44
Speaker 3: never eating that. And what I started to notice, because
13:48
Speaker 3: I made such a big deal with food, I started
13:51
Speaker 3: having kind of like a weird relationship with it. And
13:54
Speaker 3: I noticed like one day where it's like, no matter
13:58
Speaker 3: what conversation I was in, I was trying to somehow
14:03
Speaker 3: cleverly integrate the subject of bagels into it. And I
14:08
Speaker 3: was like, what's wrong with me? Like all day, like
14:10
Speaker 3: one of my team would come in, it's like I
14:12
Speaker 3: got to talk to you, and at some point in
14:14
Speaker 3: the conversation we'd be talking about bagels, and then like
14:18
Speaker 3: I'd be chatting with my girlfriend and like bagels would
14:21
Speaker 3: come up, and then my ball, I'm like, Okay, what's
14:25
Speaker 3: going on? This is kind of weird. And I started
14:28
Speaker 3: to realize that the less of a big deal I
14:31
Speaker 3: made about food, like letting myself have it within measured amounts,
14:36
Speaker 3: especially when you're planning so you don't fall prey to
14:39
Speaker 3: what happens when there's no space between stimulus and response.
14:44
Speaker 3: It wasn't that big of a deal. It was in
14:46
Speaker 3: that like, this is like a completely forbidden food for me.
14:51
Speaker 3: It became so enormous in my mind that all I
14:54
Speaker 3: was doing was thinking about it. It's like trying to
14:56
Speaker 3: not think about like a polka dot pink and bla
15:00
Speaker 3: flying elephant. The more you try to not think about it,
15:02
Speaker 3: the more it appears in your head, and it's like, God,
15:05
Speaker 3: it's not it's not that big a deal. If you
15:11
Speaker 3: step back and say, Okay, there are going to be
15:13
Speaker 3: certain behaviors and outcomes, and I'm capable of getting better.
15:15
Speaker 3: I have evidence of that, but if something happens, I
15:18
Speaker 3: don't tell myself. This is what we were talking about with
15:21
Speaker 3: Kristin Neff's work with self compassion, because if it's like,
15:26
Speaker 3: oh my god, you bagel eating disgusting cow, and I
15:31
Speaker 3: say that to myself, not saying I would, not saying
15:35
Speaker 3: I haven't, but well, I start to reinforce a pattern
15:41
Speaker 3: of beliefs that perpetuates that behavior pattern rather than looking
15:48
Speaker 3: back and curiosity and going, well, what happened there? Was
15:51
Speaker 3: that a choice. It could have been a deliberate choice,
15:54
Speaker 3: like right there was like okay, yeah, I want that,
15:57
Speaker 3: or it could have been I was solo in blood sugar.
16:00
Speaker 3: I had zero, zero discipline mechanisms at work. Did you
16:06
Speaker 3: ever read Bowmster's research on the cookies versus the radishes? No, oh,
16:12
Speaker 3: it's it's fascinating. So Bowmeister brought in the radishes, by
16:18
Speaker 3: the way, Oh it's disgusting, but listen to what happened.
16:22
Speaker 3: So he brought all these students in and they were
16:26
Speaker 3: doing an experiment and they thought they were doing an
16:28
Speaker 3: experiment on food memorization and how like tactile texture of
16:34
Speaker 3: different foods affected like what you remember about the food.
16:38
Speaker 3: And one group was divided into the cookie people, where
16:43
Speaker 3: it's like, all right, go over to that table, and
16:45
Speaker 3: what we have for you is freshly baked, hot piping
16:50
Speaker 3: chocolate chip cookies. So they got to just like and
16:54
Speaker 3: it was like, just just take your time, eat slowly,
16:57
Speaker 3: but you can eat as many biscuits as you want.
17:00
Speaker 3: So these people are like, wow, glad I signed up
17:02
Speaker 3: for this the other people. It's like, Okay, radishes have
17:05
Speaker 3: a very distinct texture. So your job is you can
17:09
Speaker 3: eat as many of these cold, disgusting, bland radishes as
17:12
Speaker 3: you want, but you're not allowed to have any cookies.
17:15
Speaker 3: We just need you to stick with one type of food.
17:17
Speaker 3: So like, right now, I think like the radish people
17:19
Speaker 3: are regretting their decision not to mention they hate the
17:22
Speaker 3: cookie people. And at the end of that, it was like, well,
17:26
Speaker 3: you know, since you're already here, we're running another experiment,
17:31
Speaker 3: would you mind solving some some like mathematical problems or
17:37
Speaker 3: I think there were word problems. Anyway, solving some problems
17:40
Speaker 3: and they were extremely difficult to solve.
17:43
Speaker 2: Well, what's happening is something that required a high ish
17:46
Speaker 2: level of cognitive function.
17:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, and not only cognitive function, but you had to
17:54
Speaker 3: have enough discipline and stick to itiveness. The people who
17:59
Speaker 3: were eating the cookies worked on these problems over twice
18:04
Speaker 3: as long as the people who were eating the radishes,
18:08
Speaker 3: because they had to utilize so much glucose and discipline
18:12
Speaker 3: to not just rock up to the cookie table. The
18:15
Speaker 3: other people didn't have to use anything. So it was
18:18
Speaker 3: kind of interesting because let's say I'm walking home from
18:21
Speaker 3: work and I've made a series of decisions. I've been
18:24
Speaker 3: in like really difficult meetings all day, and oh my goodness,
18:28
Speaker 3: there's a bake shop and normally I don't do that,
18:30
Speaker 3: and I pop into that bake shop and I get,
18:33
Speaker 3: you know whatever, let's say a couple of cookies. If
18:37
Speaker 3: I don't have any self compassion, and it's like, no,
18:39
Speaker 3: you don't do that normally, and no, you're not an
18:42
Speaker 3: undisciplined person, you just happen to be. Really, I'm not
18:47
Speaker 3: likely to engage in the reflection that would teach me
18:51
Speaker 3: the lessons that would mitigate the occurrences of that type
18:56
Speaker 3: of thing in the future. And that's the problem that
18:59
Speaker 3: I have with not examining what didn't go the way
19:03
Speaker 3: you expected, because it's like, oh my goodness, one I'm
19:05
Speaker 3: like really spent I fall prey to at the behaviors
19:10
Speaker 3: I can't even walk past that big shop. Or maybe
19:13
Speaker 3: I need to bring healthier snacks into the office. Let's
19:17
Speaker 3: get to the root cause of the problem. But if
19:19
Speaker 3: I don't have self compassion, I'm not going to evaluate failure.
19:21
Speaker 3: If I don't evaluate failure, I'm not going to learn
19:23
Speaker 3: anything from it. If I'm not going to learn anything
19:25
Speaker 3: from it, I'm going to perpetuate the same mistakes that
19:29
Speaker 3: are avoidable.
19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think when you get an outcome that you
19:35
Speaker 2: don't want, it's it's easy to default to the emotional
19:43
Speaker 2: kind of system of disappointment or frustration or anger or
19:47
Speaker 2: embarrassment or anything in that kind of spectrum. Like when
19:51
Speaker 2: I I recently did a gig and it went pretty well,
19:56
Speaker 2: and the people that I did it for didn't know
19:59
Speaker 2: that I had an issue. But I have this thing,
20:02
Speaker 2: you station tube dysfunction ETD, right, where sometimes one of
20:06
Speaker 2: my ears just blocks, and it is it sounds like
20:12
Speaker 2: not a problem, it's like and there's no pain or anything.
20:14
Speaker 2: It's just that one ear blocks, and it's like somebody
20:19
Speaker 2: has walked up to me and put an aluminum can
20:22
Speaker 2: or a steel can over my head and it's so
20:28
Speaker 2: distracting that I can't think clearly. And for the last
20:34
Speaker 2: ten minutes of this presentation, I have this bin over
20:36
Speaker 2: my head in inverted commas.
20:39
Speaker 1: And they didn't know.
20:40
Speaker 2: And I finished it and I got good feedback, but
20:43
Speaker 2: I know I could have done better. I was so
20:46
Speaker 2: angry at my body. I was so angry at myself
20:50
Speaker 2: for letting myself get angry, and I'm like, and it's
20:54
Speaker 2: so funny with all of my alleged fucking whatever, right,
20:59
Speaker 2: I just I didn't capitulate, which was good, but yeah,
21:04
Speaker 2: I get part of me felt like it was a
21:07
Speaker 2: failure and it wasn't really, but I felt like it
21:10
Speaker 2: and in that moment, so this is my humanity, this
21:14
Speaker 2: is my flaw, one of my many flaws. But yeah,
21:17
Speaker 2: I find it in that immediate, you know, aftermath, whether
21:22
Speaker 2: or not that's five or ten minutes. I find it
21:25
Speaker 2: extremely challenging when I feel like I have failed or
21:31
Speaker 2: fucked up. I find it really challenging not to hate
21:34
Speaker 2: myself for five or ten minutes. And I know that's
21:37
Speaker 2: bad and I understand it, but I just do and
21:40
Speaker 2: I get so fucking angry at myself because I want
21:45
Speaker 2: to be great for them. I want it to be great.
21:49
Speaker 2: I want it to be a great experience. And yeah,
21:54
Speaker 2: in that moment, there's no logic going on. I know
21:56
Speaker 2: it's not my fault. I didn't create it. They probably did,
22:00
Speaker 2: they even notice, but yeah, I find it hard not
22:03
Speaker 2: to go down that emotional rabbit hole. But then I
22:07
Speaker 2: guess conversely, when other things happen. I get outcomes I
22:10
Speaker 2: didn't want, maybe because my identity isn't so intertwined with
22:16
Speaker 2: what I think that outcome is. I can dissect it
22:21
Speaker 2: a little bit more logically and go, you know, well,
22:24
Speaker 2: what can I learn? But yeah, I don't know.
22:29
Speaker 3: I did a seminar for just local government here not
22:35
Speaker 3: too long ago, and we were talking about negative emotions,
22:41
Speaker 3: and my position was, there is no such thing as
22:45
Speaker 3: a negative emotion. There are negative responses, interpretations, and enduring
22:51
Speaker 3: patterns to emotions, but there are no negative emotions. Now,
22:57
Speaker 3: I know what that feels like. And I'm very hesitant
23:00
Speaker 3: to say I know exactly how you feel. I'm not you.
23:04
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly how. But I do the same thing.
23:07
Speaker 3: And if I feel like I have, and it's not
23:10
Speaker 3: a matter of failure. If it's a personal failure, it's
23:13
Speaker 3: one thing. If I feel like I have failed a
23:16
Speaker 3: group of people or another person, yes, sim I don't.
23:20
Speaker 3: I don't deal with that very well. And I'm Bernie
23:25
Speaker 3: Siegel had the phrase name to tame, and it's it's
23:30
Speaker 3: since you know, it's known, you know a few different ways.
23:34
Speaker 3: But you can call it affective labeling. And what I
23:37
Speaker 3: find is emotions are kind of like that bake shop.
23:42
Speaker 3: It's okay to go there, Yeah, don't don't live there,
23:46
Speaker 3: don't make it a thing, and don't hang out in
23:48
Speaker 3: their old day. And the premise is for for a
23:51
Speaker 3: lot of reasons, neurobiologically as well as psychologically, When you
23:57
Speaker 3: lean into that pain, it becomes really valuable. One, it
24:03
Speaker 3: stops you from engaging in dysfunctional behavior patterns like I'm
24:07
Speaker 3: just gonna repress it. I'm just going to ignore it,
24:09
Speaker 3: and then it resurfaces in non constructive ways, or one
24:14
Speaker 3: of the things I do is I browt about it.
24:15
Speaker 3: I think about it forever, like Okay, I'm having this
24:19
Speaker 3: really bad experience in twenty fifteen, I'll be thinking about
24:22
Speaker 3: this in like twenty twenty two. Still, that's not really constructive.
24:26
Speaker 3: But when you lean into it, it's like, Okay, how
24:28
Speaker 3: do I feel? Am I angry? Or is it something else?
24:33
Speaker 3: Am I? Do I feel betrayed by my body? Or
24:38
Speaker 3: like what exactly is the nuance of that emotion? It
24:42
Speaker 3: decreases the intensity, And once it decreases the intensity, you
24:47
Speaker 3: can evaluate it because for you, there's a value there,
24:52
Speaker 3: like you wouldn't get so angry about that if it
24:56
Speaker 3: wasn't threatening something that you valued deeply, and for you
25:02
Speaker 3: being on stage in front of people doing that thing,
25:07
Speaker 3: it probably it's connected to your highest values.
25:11
Speaker 1: Yeah that's true.
25:12
Speaker 2: Yeah it's not making sense, but I mean okay, so
25:16
Speaker 2: just unpack this with me, Like to understand the emotion
25:22
Speaker 2: and to understand my emotional response to that outcome or
25:28
Speaker 2: that experience is one thing. How do we how do
25:33
Speaker 2: we change that emotion? How do we you know, it's like,
25:38
Speaker 2: you know, when people are worried and someone says to them,
25:40
Speaker 2: don't worry, Well, that's not at all helpful.
25:44
Speaker 3: No, I can't stand I can't stand those people. It's
25:47
Speaker 3: like talk about things that make you angry right there.
25:51
Speaker 3: You know, there's there's a few things. One affect of
25:54
Speaker 3: labeling in and of itself is a strategy because we
25:57
Speaker 3: so explain that like effectively. Is weird?
26:02
Speaker 1: Practical example for someone.
26:04
Speaker 3: Okay, you just gave a presentation and something was not
26:11
Speaker 3: at your standard for what you want to deliver, and
26:14
Speaker 3: it could be because of a physical impediment or anything,
26:18
Speaker 3: and you're really angry. Name it. Okay, I am angry
26:24
Speaker 3: right now, but go deeper. It's not just like I'm angry.
26:29
Speaker 3: I feel I betrayed myself and my audience, which in
26:33
Speaker 3: your case in this story is not like appropriate. It
26:36
Speaker 3: could be your body betrayed you, or you know, I
26:39
Speaker 3: feel I feel resentful because I was up late last
26:43
Speaker 3: night working on a project that I didn't need to
26:46
Speaker 3: be on and I didn't sleep, and now I delivered
26:49
Speaker 3: in a way that is not my standard of what
26:53
Speaker 3: those people deserve. Like really get into that. When you
26:55
Speaker 3: start to get into that, a couple of things start
26:57
Speaker 3: to happen in your brain that mitigate the entity that
27:00
Speaker 3: emotional state where you start telling yourself stories about how
27:04
Speaker 3: horrible you are and things that are not true, not constructive.
27:07
Speaker 3: One is the upregulation of the prefrontal lobes when you
27:11
Speaker 3: start leaning into analysis, like what exactly am I feeling
27:15
Speaker 3: right now? And why, your prefrontal lobes increase in activity,
27:21
Speaker 3: which lowers the activity in the AMIG deals just modulating
27:24
Speaker 3: that emotional state. Two, you're starting to put words and
27:28
Speaker 3: language to a feeling. When that starts to happen, you're
27:32
Speaker 3: bringing in your left temporal lobes, so you're getting more
27:35
Speaker 3: whole brain integration. Because if you're thinking about when I'm
27:39
Speaker 3: really angry. You're going to have a disproportionate amount of
27:44
Speaker 3: activity in the right prefrontal cortex and the right side
27:48
Speaker 3: of the brain overall. So now you're starting to integrate
27:51
Speaker 3: those hemispheres by bringing in your language center because they
27:55
Speaker 3: reside in the left temporal lobes. So biologically you're starting
28:01
Speaker 3: to reduce that intensity. So step number one is name it,
28:06
Speaker 3: like what exactly am I faan? And you don't have
28:08
Speaker 3: to be accurate, You just have to lean in and
28:12
Speaker 3: ask the question and pursue the answer. What do you
28:16
Speaker 3: think caused that? Right? And then once that emotion subsides,
28:22
Speaker 3: what's the value that this is threatening? Because now you
28:25
Speaker 3: start to learn more about what drives you. Because if
28:28
Speaker 3: you were standing up in front of a room and
28:30
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, like you got this incredible mental clarity,
28:34
Speaker 3: like your brain just had a cup of coffee, you
28:36
Speaker 3: wouldn't walk out of that room. And I'm so angry
28:38
Speaker 3: right now because nothing you cared about was threatened. As
28:42
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, something aligned with one of your values,
28:45
Speaker 3: you might walk out of them. I don't know what happened.
28:47
Speaker 3: I was feeling okay, but halfway through, like the lights
28:50
Speaker 3: went on, and I feel I really connected with the audience.
28:54
Speaker 3: Another question is what human need? Is this threatening or
29:04
Speaker 3: is going unmet? Because maybe maybe the reason why you're
29:08
Speaker 3: angry is I need appreciation, I need acceptance. I don't
29:13
Speaker 3: think I got it from my audience. Okay, everybody needs
29:16
Speaker 3: appreciation and acceptance. Could that possibly be getting in the
29:20
Speaker 3: way of how I deal with problems when they occur
29:24
Speaker 3: on stage? Could my motivation in the moment be something
29:28
Speaker 3: that's creating a blind spot that's causing me a respond
29:31
Speaker 3: this way? So you're learning more about yourself, and the
29:33
Speaker 3: more you're learning about like where you are and where
29:36
Speaker 3: you want to be, you have you have greater possibilities
29:39
Speaker 3: around strategies and ways to prepare or ways to adapt,
29:44
Speaker 3: so that becomes highly constructive. I mean, that's that's one
29:49
Speaker 3: area where having Taret's helps me. Is like a turning turning,
29:53
Speaker 3: turning rumination into constant reflection.
29:58
Speaker 2: I feel for me, like and maybe for a lot
30:01
Speaker 2: of people, but for me, you know that, And that's
30:05
Speaker 2: not like I'm angry as in fucked off at the world.
30:07
Speaker 2: I'm angry at myself right and I'm frustrated and all
30:10
Speaker 2: of these things periodically not. I think for the most part,
30:13
Speaker 2: I don't go there too often, but when I do,
30:16
Speaker 2: and as you're talking about it there, I'm thinking.
30:18
Speaker 1: Okay, so.
30:21
Speaker 2: What what's driving that emotional response to that particular not
30:26
Speaker 2: not great outcome on or not great outcome as.
30:29
Speaker 1: Perceived by me? Right?
30:31
Speaker 2: And I think it's fear. I think all of those
30:33
Speaker 2: emotions come back to fear. It's like, oh, I fear.
30:36
Speaker 2: I'm fearful that I won't be able to do this anymore.
30:39
Speaker 2: I won't get any more work, they won't think I
30:41
Speaker 2: was any good, they won't love me, they'll say bad
30:44
Speaker 2: shit about me, They'll like all of these insecure, fear
30:47
Speaker 2: based fucking emotions, you know.
30:51
Speaker 1: And it's it's, yeah, where you're trying to.
30:55
Speaker 2: Trying to understand the the you know, they're not particularly
31:01
Speaker 2: desirable emotional response that I'm having to this, and to
31:06
Speaker 2: be it's so funny to realize, I don't know for me,
31:10
Speaker 2: like I still sometimes have this moment of awareness that
31:15
Speaker 2: isn't a good moment of awareness, but it's awareness nonetheless,
31:18
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, I'm actually still quite insecure. I'm like,
31:24
Speaker 2: I'm I'm really about three percent better than I was
31:28
Speaker 2: thirty years ago. You know, it's like I'm not a
31:33
Speaker 2: work in progress. I'm pretty much a work in stagnation.
31:37
Speaker 1: You know. It's like I'm fucking.
31:39
Speaker 2: Treading water in an emotional sea of fucking mediocrity.
31:45
Speaker 3: Not to be one of these people. But I think
31:51
Speaker 3: a useful questions like what is good about that? You know,
31:56
Speaker 3: like what's good about that? Because we know what can
31:58
Speaker 3: be bad about that? And there could be a lot
32:01
Speaker 3: of maladaptive behaviors associated to that one. There's there's honesty there,
32:09
Speaker 3: there's openness because you're not only self aware and honest
32:13
Speaker 3: enough with yourself to say that, but you're vulnerable enough
32:16
Speaker 3: to say that, like on a podcast talking to countless
32:21
Speaker 3: numbers of people. So just even that conversation reveals a
32:25
Speaker 3: lot of attributes that you have that could be leveraged.
32:29
Speaker 3: But what is good about that feeling of insecurity? Because again,
32:34
Speaker 3: I think everything has a light in a dark side,
32:37
Speaker 3: depending on what dose you're taking at it.
32:41
Speaker 2: Right, I actually quite I like that question. I've thought
32:46
Speaker 2: about that, I've this is this is my explanation. But
32:51
Speaker 2: the insecurity and fear and all of the you know,
32:55
Speaker 2: like there's not generally speaking, there's not much self life loathing.
33:00
Speaker 2: I don't, you know, I don't think I'm a piece
33:02
Speaker 2: of worthless shit, none of that. But I don't think
33:06
Speaker 2: highly of myself. And I'm definitely not saying that to
33:09
Speaker 2: garner any praise or whatever. But what I do like,
33:14
Speaker 2: for me, the upside of insecurity is that it makes
33:18
Speaker 2: me keep working hard, it makes me keep trying it.
33:23
Speaker 2: Kind of It's like I never you know, people might
33:28
Speaker 2: not believe this, depending on how they perceive me, but
33:31
Speaker 2: I never think, fuck, I'm amazing at this.
33:34
Speaker 1: I never have that.
33:36
Speaker 3: You know.
33:37
Speaker 2: It's like when people comfortably call themselves an expert, I'm
33:42
Speaker 2: I'm simultaneously impressed with them and curious because I go.
33:48
Speaker 3: How how do you say that?
33:50
Speaker 2: So like, and I don't think they necessarily should or shouldn't,
33:55
Speaker 2: but I feel too embarrassed, too insecure to tell the world, Ah,
34:02
Speaker 2: listen to me, I'm an expert, right, and I think
34:05
Speaker 2: I've got as much knowledge and experience as many of
34:08
Speaker 2: the people who say that. But nonetheless, on no level
34:10
Speaker 2: do I feel like an expert.
34:13
Speaker 1: So I think for.
34:15
Speaker 2: Me that you know, well, you don't want it to
34:18
Speaker 2: be debilitating or controlling or overwhelming, but me feeling while
34:25
Speaker 2: knowing that I have potential and I have some skills,
34:27
Speaker 2: and I can string a few words together, and I
34:29
Speaker 2: have a you know, like, I've got evidence to tell
34:32
Speaker 2: me that I'm not terrible at what I do. I've
34:33
Speaker 2: got data, I've got outcomes. Right, So that's nice, that's
34:36
Speaker 2: just logic, but also that underlying insecurity for me anyway,
34:45
Speaker 2: I think it keeps me grounded, and it keeps me hungry,
34:48
Speaker 2: and it keeps me curious, and it keeps me. I
34:51
Speaker 2: think it keeps me relatable. I think it keeps me
34:56
Speaker 2: so people go, ah, he's a bit like he's a
34:57
Speaker 2: bit fucked up, like me, cool, you know.
35:00
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's a bad thing.
35:04
Speaker 3: So there are a lot of benefits to something that
35:08
Speaker 3: because I mean, I think when it comes to collective truths,
35:15
Speaker 3: we double down way too much on our collective illusions
35:19
Speaker 3: as a society about like this is good, that's bad.
35:22
Speaker 3: I mean, there are some things that are just like okay,
35:25
Speaker 3: just really bad, and then there are some things that
35:28
Speaker 3: are obviously really good. But it's like, oh, you should
35:31
Speaker 3: always feel really good about yourself. Well, what if I
35:33
Speaker 3: feel so good about myself that I'm always certain so
35:37
Speaker 3: I have zero self awareness, zero self reflection. I don't
35:41
Speaker 3: modify my behaviors. I do tons of damage to people,
35:45
Speaker 3: but don't give a shit about that. It has to
35:48
Speaker 3: be them, can't be me, And I never honestly evaluate myself.
35:54
Speaker 3: It's like I was in I was in a situation
35:58
Speaker 3: probably a year ago, where I'm leading this team of
36:01
Speaker 3: people and it's not working out very well. Now my identity.
36:05
Speaker 3: It's like some of the people that I have loved
36:07
Speaker 3: the most, that have been closest to me, that have
36:10
Speaker 3: added so much of my world are people that I've
36:13
Speaker 3: worked with and people that have been on my teams
36:16
Speaker 3: reporting into me, because like, if you report into me,
36:21
Speaker 3: my job is to serve you. Not at the expense
36:24
Speaker 3: of the mission, but my job is to serve you. Yeah,
36:28
Speaker 3: And I was just allowing a lot of things, and
36:32
Speaker 3: it was just evolving and evolving and evolving, and it's
36:36
Speaker 3: like what if I would have been like, well, it's
36:38
Speaker 3: not me, it's them. And I was so sure myself.
36:42
Speaker 3: I kept asking myself, Okay, what am I doing here?
36:46
Speaker 3: It's got to be It's not totally my fault, obviously,
36:50
Speaker 3: because there's a lot of factors in a team dynamic,
36:56
Speaker 3: but I'm leading the team. This is overall my response.
37:00
Speaker 3: The responsibilities on me too. There has to be things
37:04
Speaker 3: that I am doing to create this, and I cared
37:09
Speaker 3: enormously about the people on the team, So there were
37:13
Speaker 3: certain actions I should have taken, but I didn't take
37:18
Speaker 3: them because I was like, I'm doing something and there's
37:21
Speaker 3: something that I don't know, like something you know, like
37:25
Speaker 3: where you're like, something just doesn't feel right. And then
37:27
Speaker 3: I find out, you know, after the fact, I'm a
37:30
Speaker 3: no longer like on this team anymore, that there were
37:33
Speaker 3: things that I absolutely did not know, and it's like, oh,
37:38
Speaker 3: that doesn't completely explain it, but that makes a lot
37:42
Speaker 3: more sense. And had I handled it a different way,
37:48
Speaker 3: I might have injured somebody that I really cared about,
37:52
Speaker 3: And that, to me, is a lot worse than being
37:56
Speaker 3: in a managerial position and kind of not being a
38:01
Speaker 3: great fit. I can live with that. I don't look
38:03
Speaker 3: at myself as a manager, never have. To me, leadership
38:07
Speaker 3: is far more important for me, not not saying leadership
38:11
Speaker 3: is more important than management, I don't think it is.
38:14
Speaker 3: I think those things are both incredibly important in any organization,
38:20
Speaker 3: but you have to be careful about feeling so good
38:23
Speaker 3: about yourself that it creates devastating blind spots because you
38:29
Speaker 3: might think you're right in everything or other people of
38:32
Speaker 3: the problem. You might not work on things that need
38:35
Speaker 3: attention and that could go un check for about five
38:37
Speaker 3: years until people you really want in your life disappear
38:40
Speaker 3: from your life. And now that hurts.
38:42
Speaker 2: So yes, yeah, yeah.
38:47
Speaker 1: What what is a if there is one?
38:52
Speaker 2: A memorable for one of a better term, a memorable
38:55
Speaker 2: failure that you experienced that ended up being something more
39:00
Speaker 2: of a positive or at the very least, you know,
39:03
Speaker 2: a growth kind of experience.
39:08
Speaker 3: Oh my days. Okay, well, don't want to talk about Australia.
39:17
Speaker 3: That was big, not not like your country. Your country
39:22
Speaker 3: is great. I'm talking about a specific situation in Australia.
39:25
Speaker 3: Besides Australia wasn't my failure, So I'll talk about I'll
39:36
Speaker 3: talk about PTA Global, Sure, that was that was massive.
39:41
Speaker 3: So what had happened was I had put together this
39:48
Speaker 3: company as a co founder with people I really cared about,
39:53
Speaker 3: really respected, loved working with, and then we brought on
40:00
Speaker 3: we brought on some other people as co founders after
40:06
Speaker 3: and I think looking back, it was one of the
40:11
Speaker 3: best times in my life and then it all went away.
40:14
Speaker 3: So I had lost my place in a company that
40:18
Speaker 3: had a very large role in creating and that led
40:22
Speaker 3: to a couple of other things that happened in my
40:25
Speaker 3: life around the same time. And it was just absolutely devastating.
40:31
Speaker 3: I mean, probably the most devastating event in my adult life,
40:35
Speaker 3: not just because of the loss of what I considered
40:39
Speaker 3: my home, my girl, my company, a couple of my mates.
40:44
Speaker 3: But I think it turned out to be it turned
40:51
Speaker 3: out to be incredible for me because I learned a
40:56
Speaker 3: lot of lessons, one of about what my motivations were.
41:03
Speaker 3: I was very dishonest with myself at that period of
41:07
Speaker 3: my life about what I really wanted out of business,
41:13
Speaker 3: what I wanted out of that company. I wanted all
41:17
Speaker 3: the things you would traditionally want out of a business,
41:20
Speaker 3: you know. I wanted to make a livelihood, create something
41:23
Speaker 3: of value that endures. But I was also looking for
41:26
Speaker 3: a family.
41:28
Speaker 1: Yes, And.
41:31
Speaker 3: When you're doing that with business partners, that's kind of
41:35
Speaker 3: interesting because and we would all use the term, oh,
41:40
Speaker 3: we're brothers and everything, and to me, we were I
41:44
Speaker 3: don't want people to take this the wrong way. I
41:46
Speaker 3: think sometimes when you're on a team, there is a
41:50
Speaker 3: closeness that is greater than your family. And I'm not
41:54
Speaker 3: saying these people are more important than your family at all,
41:56
Speaker 3: But what I'm saying is you choose one another and
42:00
Speaker 3: you come together based on a common mission and values. Yeah,
42:06
Speaker 3: where with your family it's like, Okay, you're born into
42:09
Speaker 3: that or adopted into that, and you don't have to
42:12
Speaker 3: say for me, I was looking for I think that
42:17
Speaker 3: void and that's not something that is fair for people
42:25
Speaker 3: when you enter into that and they don't know that,
42:29
Speaker 3: and it's not fair for you because you'll start making
42:32
Speaker 3: decisions that are that are kind of skewed towards fulfilling
42:37
Speaker 3: an emotional need rather than what is the best decision
42:41
Speaker 3: for the business right now. And so I learned a
42:45
Speaker 3: little bit about what I need and what drives me
42:51
Speaker 3: that I that I don't think I I led with.
42:55
Speaker 3: And that level of clarity helped me structure my life
42:59
Speaker 3: quite different. And I think it kind of really helped
43:03
Speaker 3: me when I met Amy, to be fair, because I
43:11
Speaker 3: was in I was in this state where I don't
43:15
Speaker 3: I don't need relationships, relationships. I'm fine, I'm totally fine.
43:19
Speaker 3: And I had these views on dating and all that
43:22
Speaker 3: was was anger and pain. Yes, And when I met her,
43:26
Speaker 3: I was at the tail end of that, and that
43:29
Speaker 3: clarity about what I wanted, what I was looking for,
43:33
Speaker 3: allowed me to see something that I probably wouldn't have
43:37
Speaker 3: seen beforehand. So that's a very long winded answer because
43:42
Speaker 3: I just had to work that out in my head.
43:44
Speaker 3: It wasn't like right there, it was like because it
43:46
Speaker 3: was a really big question.
43:47
Speaker 2: Well, this is the beauty of an organic conversation. I
43:50
Speaker 2: might I've got to go. We've got I've got more
43:53
Speaker 2: stuff to do, and you've probably got more stuff to do.
43:55
Speaker 2: It's probably twenty past six on planet U. It's heading
43:58
Speaker 2: towards dinner time. Are you making the lovely? Are you
44:02
Speaker 2: making her dinner? Are you taking her out for dinner?
44:05
Speaker 2: Are you having dinner together?
44:08
Speaker 3: We are having dinner together. So she'll make one part
44:12
Speaker 3: of it. I'll make another part of it. We like
44:16
Speaker 3: to split the t It's a good it's a very
44:18
Speaker 3: good time to wrap this up because otherwise, like with
44:20
Speaker 3: these questions where they're going, I would have to like
44:22
Speaker 3: lay down on a sofa and continue this conversation. Greg.
44:27
Speaker 3: Always love talking to you. Thank you listeners.
44:29
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot tell everyone where they can find your
44:32
Speaker 2: mate before you go.
44:37
Speaker 3: I am currently on K Street in downtown San Diego.
44:41
Speaker 3: But if that's like too much of an ask, you
44:43
Speaker 3: can just find me at robacacuccio dot com or thesouth
44:48
Speaker 3: Albad dot com.
44:50
Speaker 1: All right, buddy, thanks Mike talk.
44:52
Speaker 3: She is met. Bye bye,