Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / The Most Important Psychological Characteristic You Should Develop, With PT & Harps

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The Most Important Psychological Characteristic You Should Develop, With PT & Harps · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of the podcast. Now
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this one is a little bit different. Rather than me
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: interviewing somebody, this is my omate Harps interviewing me. You
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: may remember a couple of weeks ago I interviewed him
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: on what he's doing on his PhD, and this time
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: he is interviewing me on his podcast. And I thought
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I would sure it because I've actually never talked about
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it before on my podcast and realized that I've been
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: doing you guys at the service because I believe that
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the stuff that I'm researching is the single psychological trait
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that we all need.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: So over the Craig.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Well, Tyler, welcome back to you project, your big stud
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: How are you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I'm very good. Indeed, man, it's been a while. It's
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: been a while. That's because we're two very diligent, studious,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: hard working PhD students trying to figure.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Out what the fuck we're doing. That is exactly right. Well,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: maybe I'm just talking on behalf of myself.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you'd have seen me in the last
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: week and a half, you'd be saying exactly that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: What were you? Three weeks?
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Give us the update? Now, everyone's sick of me and
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: my bullshit, Where are you up to with now? Of course,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Paul's got a master's in nutrition and a master's in
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: X FIZZ and you know a million other things. But
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: you're doing your PhD in psych What specifically is your research?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I am looking into resilience, and it's really it's kind
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of doing a deep dive into hardiness and I'm looking
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: into a psychle biological or cycle physiological resilience. So not
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: just when you says on this, a lot of people
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: think about the psychology, but for me, it's a body.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Brand connection of us.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: And then I'm now diving into the research around hardiness
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and doing an intervention. Now I'm running my second study,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: having published my first one a few months ago. So
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the second study is on a bunch of corporates in
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: New Zealand, actually in christ Church, and so we have
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a randomized control trial on this one. We got a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: control group and then the other group have had a
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: full day workshop and then they have an eight week program.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: We're looking at their levels of hardiness, which we can
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: get into that's a psychological mindset, I guess. We're also
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: looking at gratitude, We're looking at perceived stress, resilience and mood.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And from a physiology perspective, we are looking at their
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: heart rate variability, which we can get into that's a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: kind of mark of the autonomic nervous system balance and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: looking at physical activity and all those sorts of things.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Well, we'll do dive into the research and what you're
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: learning and heartiness broadly. But where are you at in
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: your in your pH D journey?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: What are you up to? Like? What when did you start?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: What year? Months give or tape fucking house, I can't
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: even remember.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: So I had you've got to be You've got to
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: be a good three years in?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Aren't you not to this one?
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: To this?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Actually I am three years into this one now, yeah yeah,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah. But I had started my PSC with donkeys ago.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I had started and I was looking at integrated well
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: being and then my PSC supervisor got very sick and
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I ended up completely pivoting actually and starting again, having
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: having passed confirmation and got halfway through, I had bloody
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: start again.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So I've done confirmation twice, which is nice. That is confirmation.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Everyone just means basically where they go, all right, we're
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: not going to kick you out.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: We're given a green light. You can continue, but.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: It is I was trying to explain to somebody or
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: not right or not or not or not. I mean
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: generally it's a green, orange, or red, but you'd have
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: to be you'd have to have pretty much done nothing
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: for twelve months to get a red light and be
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: a complete fucking idiot.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: But I was trying to explain to someone.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: So different programs work differently, but with mine, there's there's
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: a six month one, then there's a confirmation, then there's
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: a mid can, then there's a final review. And I
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: had my final review. I told you last week, and
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: I was I've never been more nervous ever for a
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: presentation to fucking seven people. You could say you're talking
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: at rod Labor Arena tonight to ten thousand. I would
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: have been way less nervous than talking to seven people.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: And really I was talking one because there's one person
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: who's the chair, who's essentially if we had to do
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: it an analogy, it would be the judge in the
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: court who decides whether or you're not you're going to
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: So you can either get kind of a green light
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: or an orange light, which says, you know years, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: you need to present this work within three months to
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: get the full tick, or you're out, which is unlikely,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: or you've got to come back again and do all
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: that again. But and I fortunately got through. But I
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: was so fucking terrified, Pete. I slept for about and
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I sleep like a fucking champion. I slept for seven
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: minutes the night before, and I jumped on a zoom
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: call at six point thirty the night before with my
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: senior supervisor, Chris, and with a guy who's helping me
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: with my stats, Campbell.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Shout out to Campbell.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: And Chris's wife who's kind of been giving me a
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: bit of advice around status and status and analysis of
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: data and all that. But anyway, we got off at
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: quarter past twelve. Wow, jump and Jehovah.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And so then I slept for rock solid seven minutes
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: and rocked up to my final thing. Anyway, it ain't
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: about me, But so what's your timeline? When do you reckon?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Hopefully you're going to be done well.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping to get in just in time.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: So I've got last weekend.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Actually know I've got a year left, you know, otherwise
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you've got to get an extension. And I reckon, I
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: should be good, because mine is slightly different. I'm doing
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a PSC by publication, so I've got to publish a
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: number of articles and make a meaningful contribution to the literature,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and then you just kind of write a thesis that
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: links them all. But it's it's it's nowhere near the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: depth of the thesis that that you're doing this kind
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of standard way where you do you know, anywhere between
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a forty and an eighty thos and then you've got
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to do a defense of your thesis and all that stuff.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, fuck all that, all right, So let's talk about hardiness.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting because you and I chatted as because
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: you and I are huge on preparation, so we did
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: a solid forty five seconds earlier, so I don't want
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the audience to think that we don't care or we're
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: not very well prepared. And we had a you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: twenty seconds each about what we're each going to chat about,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: and you said hardiness. And it's funny because that is
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: not a term that I use. Of course I know
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: what it means, but maybe I don't know what it means.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: What does hardiness mean in scientific in psychology terms? Like
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: what are we talking about?
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  Speaker 1: So it is a psychological disposition, and the sort of
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: researchers are ryan hardiness describe it as the courage to
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: grow from stress. So it's love it because it's kind
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of much deeper than resilience. So resilience has got a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: number of different academic definitions, but if you ask the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: average man on the street or woman on the street,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: they would say resilience is about bouncing back from stress
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: or trauma, whereas hardiness is deeper and it's more aligned
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: with growth, whether it's post traumatic growth or just growth
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  Speaker 1: from stress. And it's that whole idea of you become
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: better because of exposure to stress, but it's also a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: psychological disposition that enables that as well.
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  Speaker 2: And so for me, I kind of use the term.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, the term hardiness has been around for geez,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: well over thirty years, and I first came across across
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it fifteen years ago, talked about it and talks and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: then kind of forgot about it and then sort of
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: rediscovered it reasonably recently. And it's quite a line with
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: mental toughness as well. So as you know, Craig, there
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: are there are many different flavors when you get into
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: psychology that people will take a bit of research and
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: tweak it and make it their own and stuff like that.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So mental toughness, which I've had the guys on my podcast,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you had, but that's very prevalent
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: in sport, and they're basically taking hardiness and added.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Confidence onto it.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So hardiness is basically the three c's they call it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And before we get into defining it, there is literally
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: when you look in the literature, there's well over one
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  Speaker 1: hundred published papers on hardiness and the benefits of hardiness,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: everything from school kids who score higher and hardiness do
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: better at school, University students do better at university. Also,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: people going through basic military training, if they score higher
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  Speaker 1: and hardiness, they're more likely to pass, They're more likely
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  Speaker 1: to stay longer in the military, they're more likely to
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  Speaker 1: be better leaders in the military, and they're more likely
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  Speaker 1: to pass special forces selection in the military, and the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: In the workplace, hardiness is linked to the ability to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: endure stress, to grow from stress, to be a better
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: leader as well, and it's also linked to better life
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: satisfaction and better coping skills, the ability to grow from stress.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's just there's there's so much stuff that
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  Speaker 1: when you look at the less of publications, you go,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: who would not want to have hardiness?
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: It's such a you thing. And I did a quick
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: squizz and it also which you will talk about this,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: but there's a relationship between hardiness and our ability to
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: tolerate uncertainty. Yes, talks about the intolerance of uncertainty. There
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: was a study which I just had a quick squizz
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: of the abstract and yeah, that makes sense too. It's
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: like you think about if there's one thing that we
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: typically like, it's certainty, predictability, familiarity, comfort, like we like
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  Speaker 3: to know what's coming when it's coming, you know, don't
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: make it fuck, don't surprise me. And so that kind
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: of makes sense that that ability to be able to
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: deal with the unknown and the uncertain the unfamiliar would
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: also correlate in some way with hardiness.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And in fact that's one of the three seas.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So the three seas of hardiness are challenge orientation, control orientation,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: and commitment orientation. And what you're talking about there is
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: challenge orientation. So people who score high in challenge orientation,
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  Speaker 1: they tend to see change and novelty and uncertainty as
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: opportunities to grow, so they tend to be class half
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: full in the fierce of uncertainty and novelty.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: But it goes deeper than that.
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  Speaker 1: They are also much more likely to see mistakes as
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to learn. So anybody's familiar with psychology can
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: see how growth mindset from Carol Dweck actually plays into
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: hardiness as well as does grit that plays into hardiness
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: as well. And and and really it's about as well
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  Speaker 1: as that people who are high and challenge tend to
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: lean into discomfort and and it's really about how you
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: show up in the face of stressful situations and and
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: then when you dig deeper into it, when when you
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: when you really get into the nitty gritty around that.
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  Speaker 1: And it's really a psychological orientation around stress and challenge
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and and and then there's been a whole heap of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: research that that that is kind of parallel to this,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: were looks at the physical logical responses. So basically, let's
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: say me and you are in a workplace and we're
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: in the same department, and they come in and they
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: announced there's a massive workplace change program going and my
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: reaction is, holy shit, this is going to be a disaster.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Right here we go again. We had one years ago,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: we just sorted it out, and now these decades are
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: coming in, they're running another thing. This is just going
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to be just shit. Am I even going to have
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a job about this?
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  Speaker 2: You know?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: How Am I going to get my team on board
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: all of this? So I'm basically having a threat response.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: So what we know physiologically is that damages me from
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: a cardiovascular perspective, and it's activating cortisol and that's part
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of the damage. No, Greig, because he's higher in hardiness, goes, okay,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: it is what it is and asked about you know
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: why we need to do this, and he goes, all right,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: well this is going to be uncomfortable for a while,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: but there's clearly a benefit from that. And you look
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: for the opportunity, right, And you also go and brief
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: your team and you say, you know, this is probably
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: going to be quite challenging, but we need to lean
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: into this. What we know is that activates your fight
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: or flight response. So when you see that as a
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: challenge and the when you dive really deep into this,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: For me, this place and this is where I'm connecting dots.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So I'm a big fan of the.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Research that has come out of the Hanoi Hilton prison camp,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and particularly a guy called Jim stock Deal. And I
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: actually interviewed a guy on my podcast called Leelis who
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: spent five years in that nice stock Deal and he
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: was the senior officer.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And the day that he got.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Captured, he got shot down and he got captured and
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: he got put in that prison camp. He realized that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: he was the senior officer, and he gathered the men
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: together and he said to them, gentlemen, yourselves five years.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: At least, that's how long I think we will be here.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: This is going to be more horrendous than any of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: us can imagine.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: He said. Nobody will make it through this alone. No one.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: He said, However, if we are united behind a common mission,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: if we back each other relentlessly, then not only will
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: we get through this, but we will return home with
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: our honor intact. Now that sort of a statement is
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: very high challenge, and it's actually been called after him's
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: called the Stockdale paradox. That what researchers have realized from
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: interviewing him, the other prisoners of war, Holocaust survivors, victims
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of nine to eleven and other victims of trauma, is
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that when you're faced with big challenges, in order to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: get through them, you must hold two seemingly opposable things
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: in your mind at the same time. One is an
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: unswerving bel if that you will prevail in the end
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: no matter what your circumstances. And at the same time,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you must confront the most brutal aspects of your reality,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: whatever they might be right. And this is called the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: stock Deal paradox. It's realistic optimism. What they realized from
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: from from that and from other research as well as
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the Hanoi Hilton, is that Pollyanna optimism, you know, the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: old Dossie She'll be right, mare bury your head. Not good,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: not good, not helpful in really tough situations. Obviously, lack
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of optimism is really not healthy as well. But you
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: need that challenge orientation, that realistic optimism, and that's you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: when when you really get into the pressure cooker, this
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: is where challenge orientation comes to.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: The four mmm.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Well, it's I mean, you know, that's right up there
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: with the Pollyanna optimism. It's right up there with you know,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: you can be whatever you want, you can be anything,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: if you can conceive that you can, if you can
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: conceive that you can fuck off. Like it's just that
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: that whole you know, I think that people confuse realism
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: with pessimism. You know, there's certain things that that very
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: few people can do, which is not say that the
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: average punts are listening to this doesn't have lots of
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: potential that they can tap into, yes, or power or
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: possibilities or you know, we can all do more, create more,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: be more, learn more in some way, shape or form.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: But also it's good to go, well, you know, Paul
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Taylor and Craig Harper probably not going to run one
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: hundred and nine point five seconds, Neither of us are
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: probably going to bench five hundred. We're probably not going
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to be billionaires before we die, probably not going to
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: join the space program, you know, like, and that's all okay,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: it's it's you know, I think that that, yeah, you
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: can hold that space of being both ambitious, hopeful, optimistic,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: but also a pragmatist also realistic, and go you know, well,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: you're an endomorph and you're sixty.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: So with that in mind, with those two awesome variables
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: in mind, you know, let's start with jogging two k's
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: you old can't and try not to fall over, you know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: it's like, let's start there, you know.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And I think that.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: But you know, funny when you were talking about almost
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: like the consequences of our thinking, Like a thought, which
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: is a non physiological thing, has a physiological outcome or
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: can you know my thinking, that non body thing has
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: a consequence in my body, And it's almost like what
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: is the physical cost or benefit of what's going on
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: in my mind?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: And what is that?
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: How does my thinking affect not only my physiology, nervous system, etc.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: But also how does it affect my energy and my
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: overall state and my decision making and my action taking
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: and my outcomes? And like I feel like same with
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: you know, Victor Frankel's book Man Search for Meaning, as
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you've read and many of our listeners have read.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: You know, it's just like I think, in many instances,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: it's almost like how well can you manage your mind
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: or maybe more specifically your thoughts. And there's a lot
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: more to it than that, But can I manage my
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: mind in the middle of all of the other shit that.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I can't manage? Right now? Yeah?
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: You know, what's in my control what's not and what
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: am I doing about what is in my control?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: So this is where you then move into the second sea,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: which is control orientation. Right, So you've made the obvious
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: leap right there. So the three c's are intimately interconnected,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and that control orientation. People high in control orientation, particularly
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: when they're fierced with challenges, is they focus on what
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: they can control, right. And the first advice that I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: have found on record of this came from the Stoic
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: philosopher Epictetus just under two thousand years ago when he
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: said that every single thing in your life is in
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: two zones, zone one and zone two. And according to Epictetus,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: he said, zone one is the stuff that's within our
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: will or our power.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And actually, if you look at Epictetus is encredy On,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: which I have a copy of right behind me. It
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: translates from the Greek as a manual for life. The
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: very first line of the en credy On says of
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: things summer up to us and others are not RIGHTO.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And then it goes on encredy On five goes on
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to unpack that and basically he says, and I'm paraphrasing Epictetus.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: But the stuff that's within our control are the things
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that we choose to be afraid of, the thoughts that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: we choose to linger on. But most importantly, our behaviors
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: are actions and above all else, how we choose to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: react to our circumstances. He said, no one can ever
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: take that from you. And it's very very similar to
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Victor Frankel's thinking and that whole stuff about the choice
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: point and we all get to choose how we react.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: And so people who are high in control orientation when
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: they're faced with challenges, and there's an exercise that people
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: can do. You know, you think of something that's challenging.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: You can take something in your personal life and something
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in your work life and just draw two columns, zone
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: one and zone two. So of all of this stuff,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: what is zone one and what is zone two? So
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you know you talked about it. Let's bring this back
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to the example you made about you know, people having
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: all of these goals and stuff like that. Well, with
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: zone one, this stuff is you know, how much you work,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: maybe some of your natural talents, your you know, those
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: are the things your attitude and how you react to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: your circumstances. These are all zone one, but there's a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: whole heap of stuff that is zone two right genetics
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that you're given whether or not an accident happens to you, right,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: whether or not there's a an earthquake around you. You know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: there's there's so many things and other people that the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: thoughts that the deeds of other people are all things
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that are outside of our control. What people think about you,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: what they say about you, all of this stuff is
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: outside of our control. So I in workshops get people
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to take a personal problem and a work problem, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: they do two columns and they go through all the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: stuff that's within their control and the stuff that's with
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: outside of their control. And then the key thing here
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: is to then focus on the stuff that is within
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: your control. And ultimately, if there's very very little that's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in your control, what is still up to you is
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: how you choose to react to your circumstances. And we
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: have all heard of stories of peopleeople who get a
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: really rough ride, a shit sandwich from the universe. Some
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: people react to those circumstances by collapsing, and some people
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: react to those circumstances by leaning in and fighting like
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: mart right, And that is really key in that control orientation.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: I want to know, so back specifically to heartiness and you.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I'm sure the answer is a bit of both. But
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: what's your feeling around how much of that is? Like
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I meet, like I went to school with kids who
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: are just incredibly fucking resilient and hardy. And it's not
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: like they'd done a workshop with Paul Taylor, right, that's
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: just them. They were robust and other kids who we know,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: for whatever reason, were really quite fragile and really needed
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: to be looked after.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And I was maybe somewhere in the middle.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I would think, one, how much of it is about
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: exposing our self to things that you know, help us
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: become more robust, resilient, hardy? Is it therese a multiple questions?
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: How much of it is innate? And then I guess,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: more specifically, is it trainable?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: And this is the thing that I love about hardiness
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is it's absolutely coachable.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: It's malleable, and all of the research shows it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Now, I've seen some research around genetics involved in resilience,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and we know there's certain genes. Dennis Charning has done
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: a huge amount of workingness and I haven't seen it
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: specifically applied to hardiness.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: But I would.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Imagine that there's a very strong crossover between genetics involved
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in resilience and genetics involved in hardiness. But genes interact
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: with the environment, right, So genetics loads the gun, environment
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: pulls the trigger. So, for instance, with resilience, which I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: think would play it into hardiness, there's no reason why
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: when there's certain gene variants that if you are exposed
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to traumatic experiences early in life, and certain people with
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: one variant actually end up more resilient later in life. Right,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So that's early stress brings out the resilience in there.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But we know that in the resilient research, it is
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: not the major thing. The major thing is basically how
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: you're brought up and what you're exposed to whenever.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: You're brought up.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And yes, there are other personality elements that play into
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to it, but what we have seen is that it
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: is trainable. And a guy called Paul Barton talked to.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Paul Barton is one of the lead researchers on hardiness,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and the reason I love it is he's American military.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: He is as American military psychologist and has done a
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: bucket load of studies on hardiness. In the American military
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and run programs that actually tree and hardiness show the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: improve hardiness and shows that it has real, tangible, real
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: world outcomes in dealing with stressful situations. So this, for
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: me is why I love heartiness because the research is
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: so robust and it is trainable. So, for for instance,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: constantly doing that exercise about what zone one and what
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: zone two is a way that you can enhance your
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: control orientation. You can hance your challenge orientation by deliberately
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: getting uncomfortable right and bye, by doing new things and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: deliberately and sitting with the discomfort, but also with control
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and challenge orientation together. I think exposure yourself to stressful
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: situations and both physic physical stress and psychological stress and
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: creates a bit of a heartiness sheet. So you know,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I'm a massive fan of cultures, I spaths. You know,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: they are things that will increase your heartiness because they
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: actually cause you psychologically to lean in. But there is
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a little practice that you can do is that when
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: you have got through a situation, is you've got to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: reflect on it, and you've got to actually savor it
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and actually note dyning other things that you can do
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: is actually note dying when in the past, and did
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you have to overcome a really hard challenge and what
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: characteristics and did you actually show up with then? Right,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: So reflecting on that actually build your confidence to be
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: able to do these things. But then we need to
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: run those things out in the in the test tube
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of life.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So he actually got to do the stuff.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You got to do the actual work in order to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: build your challenge orientation, your control orientation, and your commitment orientation.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And one other things.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Sorry Greek that a great thing that people can do
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: around challenge orientation is thinking about something that was that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: they would say is a bad experience that happened in
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: their life. And even you know, you can take stuff
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: in your childhood. And James Gross, Professor James Gross has
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: done to work a lot of work on this that
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: often when people think about stuff that was really bad,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: they suppress it, they don't want to think about it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: But he then teaches them skills around reappraisal and finding
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the silver lining and actually saying, yes, that was bad,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: but what good came out of that down the track? Right,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And they those people who do that, they score much
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: better in life satisfaction, in optimism, and in resilience. So
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: actually just reflecting back on bad events, acknowledging the bad shit,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: but actually going, okay, well, what was the good that
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: came out of that?
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Down the track?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: And sometimes you have to a silver lining hunter and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you have to hunt for it. But what it does
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: is it starts to change the way that your brain
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: perceives things that you can actually use this to you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: or advantage. And again it plays in the stoic philosophy,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that whole concept that the obstacle is the way and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: that when you're faced with huge challenges they just become
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to test your character or to practice a virtue.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: You know, as you're saying, there's some thinking, and I'm
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: sure everyone, if not nearly everyone is nodding the head
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: going makes sense, right, But it's kind of counterculture. And
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the reason I say that is because we live in
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: a culture that is pretty much obsessed with the opposite.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Like as as you know, as your book fucking Death
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: by Discomfort, Death by Comfort, fucking great title, I knew
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: that that book would kill. When you told me that,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: I'm fucking I was proud of you and jealous fifty
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: to fifty because I wish I thought of that fucking title.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: But we are a nation.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: I'm well, that's I'm generalizing my opinion everyone is that,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: you know, for the most part, we are obsessed with
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: comfort convenience. Since your gratification quick fixes if you don't
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: want to sell anything, you know, fucking have have some
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: elements of instant gratification or quick quick fix or you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: magic pill, silver bullet, whatever metaphor you want to use.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: But you know, people want the destination without the journey
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: of the reward, without the work whatever, you know, and
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: then when you go, hey, what we want you to do, though,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: is not do that. What we want you to do
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: is actually go get into this cold fucking water and
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: that shit that you normally eat every night, don't eat that.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: And also if you can get to bed by this time, also,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: you know, here's five other hard things that you can
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: do that could revolutionize you and your life. You know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: it's like people like, yeah, I get it, but like
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: we are very comfort obsessed. And you know, I'm not
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: trying to cast aspersions, but it's it's like that this
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: is it is a hard it is true, but it
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: is a hard sell, and especially I think in twenty
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: twenty four.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: When you know any everybody gets offended by everything.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: You know, like, fuck I can if you're offended by
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: the word elbow and I say elbow, well, I'm a
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: prick and you're offended.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: It's like, and you know my attitude on that when
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: people are offended, be fucking offended. You're choosing. You're choosing
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to be offended. Can I sum all of that up?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: That that you said in less than ten words? Again,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: about two thousand years ago, Seneca, the Stoic philosopher unimperred.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Good fortune cannot withstand a single blow. And when we
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: think about that, right, if you're brought up with a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: silver spoon in your life, nothing bad happens. Yes, you
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: cannot withstand a single blow. And this is what we're seeing.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And we're not seeing everybody brought up with a complete
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: silver spoon in your life, but we're seeing people being
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: brought up in an environment. We're well intentioned people, including
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: helicopter parents and right from school, are trying to make
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: people as comfortable as possible and everything equitable and making
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: people feel comfortable. There's actually a new legislation coming into
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the workplace that we have to make people feel as
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: comfortable as possible, And.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I'm just thinking, do you legislate someone's feelings?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, can we not go back to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the ancient philosophers who studied life when it was really
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: frigging hard and learn some lessons. And another quote that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I like to throw out here is from Epictetus, and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: he says, we must all undergo a hard winter training
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: and not enter into lightly that for which we have
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: not prepared.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And he was talking about life.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: You know, it is very, very very clear in the
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: literature that actually being brought up in challenging environments makes
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: people much more resilience. And you know how many times
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: have you heard people say, well, I was brought up
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: in a school of hard knocks, Like really successful people
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: they have done well, but had a challenging upbringing. And
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: there is a bucketload of evidence about post traumatic growth,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: like even when you go to the extreme and go
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: to trauma, that lots of people, if they don't get
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: broken by it, actually grow from it. Now we're not
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: suggesting that you go out and expose yourself deliberately to trauma,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: but we need to have friggin discomfort. And you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I think a really good litmus test for this is
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to ask people to have the audience think about the
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: biggest achievement in their life, like the stuff that they
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: are most proud of, and did it involve stress and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: being out of your comfort zone? And the answer is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: almost always yes, And and so people get it when
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: when you think about it like that, and and and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: there's a guy who you have interviewed on your podcast
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: several times, and I have interviewed on my podcast Stand
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: the Man right and and and he who's a clinical
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: psychologist and a sports psychologist think and he said that
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that you've got to think about when you're looking back
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: on your life. Do you want to look back on
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: life and say that was a life that was very
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: comfortable or do you want to look back and say
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that was a life that I could be proud of?
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Because he says, if it's the latter, you need to
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: take on as much responsibility and challenge as you can tolerate.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Do you know? Do you know what I think is
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: ironic about personal development as an industry, as a whatever
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: the facult is right, it's a product, it's it's programs,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: it's you know, is that for the most part, personal
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: development self help focuses on It focuses on building external
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: stuff like situation, circumstance, money, career, you know. And none
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: of that is bad, of course, but you know, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: I know that you can. You can be in the
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: best house, in the best job, in the best situation,
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: maybe even in a great relate, all of these things awesome,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: body blah blah blah. But if you're not working on you, like,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: there's a big difference between your life situation and your
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: life experience, you know. And I remember when I was young,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: I was so obsessed with building, with succeeding, with business,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: with money, with brand, with things right. And I did
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: all right at that. But in the middle of all
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: of that, because I didn't really directly work on me
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: or my bullshit, of which there was much, I woke
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: up one day kind of and I went, Wow, I've
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: got I've got lots of nice things. I've got multiple businesses,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I've got lots of employees. They're all making money. I'm
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: making money. It's all good. And I'm scared of everything.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: And I'm not that resilient, and i don't sleep well,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: and I'm stressed, and I'm anxious and from the outside
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: looking in my life is awesome, but the inside out
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: because I was scared of being people figuring out how
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: stupid I was when an impost. I was, you know,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: like all of this shit because I really didn't focus
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: on other than my body, which again was ego driven,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: but I didn't really focus on my own bullshit like
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: how do I build mental and emotional resilience? Or how
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: do I become more hearty? How do I build heartiness?
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: How do I be more cognitively flexible and adaptable? How
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: do I be the calm and the chaos? How do
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: I I didn't really. I thought I was working on me,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: but I wasn't. Really I was working on all the
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: things that people could see stuff. Yeah, I was working
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: on what people could see because I was worried about
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: what people could see of me. You know, that external world,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: the scene, the physical, But for me it's really oh,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: it's actually about the unseen, It's about the it's about
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: the non physical. It's about that internal world. And while
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with building wealth and commercial success, of course,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: like there's that that deep dark still place where you go,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: all right, no one's looking, no one's cheering me on,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: no one's criticizing me. It's just me and me. What
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: the fuck am I really about? What is my life about?
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: What am I about? Why do I? I know this
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: is deep and philosophical, But why do I think the
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: way that I do? Why do I react the way
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: that I do?
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: Where?
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Where does this story come from? Why am I choosing
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: A when I know I should choose B?
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: What like trying to understand the self at the middle
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: of me?
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: And I think this is this quest for heartiness and
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: for I guess, competence in a messy world that gives
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: no fuck about you or me, and neither should it.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: That's just the reality of life. Yeah, I think it's
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: it's like a deep dive, you know, of trying to
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: figure out who I am and how I am and
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: that self awareness piece without self loathing or judgment, but
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: just awareness.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Oh right.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: I always react this way because I'm insecure, or I
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: do that because I'm fucking lazy. But I don't want
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: people to know I'm lazy, so I pretend.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not like that.
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: You know, it's a harddoor to open. Like to be
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: truly aware, self aware, and truly honest with yourself is
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: painful and we don't want pain.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's interesting somebody, anybody would think that we
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: had actually prepared this because that old stuff that you
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: were talking about leads beautifully into commitment orientation, right, and
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: commitment to an intention. From the outside, people would think, oh,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that's about being committed to your goals, right, But it's
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: actually much deeper than that. It's about people who are
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: fully engaged in life, in the activities that they have
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: of life, and that they have a strong sense of
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: meaning and purpose. They believe that life is meaningful and
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that there is a purpose in life, right. And that
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: actually Victor Frankel, who you mentioned earlier, he said something
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that I can't remember the exact quote. Somebody can dig
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: it out, but it's basically, when people don't have meaning,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: then they cheers pleasure, right. And that's the key thing.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: And that's what this world does for us very well.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Is it gives us all of those opportunities for pleasure.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: But when I run rock shops and I ask people about,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you know, who's got a strong sense of meaning and
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: purpose in their life? Typically, I kid you, not less
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: than ten percent and often less than five percent of
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: people would actually say yes, and that they have a
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: strong sense meaning and I think that that's that's a
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: huge gaping hole and a lot of it is driven
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: by this world that we inhabit, right, and that commitment
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: orientation is very very important, and you can see how
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: challenge and control play into commitment as well. But it
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: is also about people then actively pursuing their goals because
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: they're interested in them, not because it's it's about external
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: trappings of those sorts of things. So for me, this
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: plays into something that I've been thinking a lot about lately,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: and it's just it was thinking about a couple of
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: minutes too. I really like and a guy that I've
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: met really quite recently over in New Zealand that I
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoy his company. And you know the reason it
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: just it just hit me a couple of weeks ago
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: is he has a huge curiosity about life that will
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: just be well and just do a deep dive conversation
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: into to anything. And it's that is that being totally
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: engaged and immersed in the idea of living and your
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: daily activities. And when people are engaged in that and
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: they find meaning in purpose, you know that not only
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: gives them that whole sense of contentment and which really
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: helps people's mental health, but it enables them to lean
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: into challenges and really really well. And Frankel, you know,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: he discovered that in ouse Fits and that when you're
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: going through really hard stuff, if you don't have a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: deep sense of meaning and purpose, you're pretty screwed. So
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: it all plays in very, very nicely. But it just
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: reinforces what you were just talking about your own experience there.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And the analogy that you and I have spoken
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: about many too many times, probably too many, but fuck
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: it is, you know, is when we go to the
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: gym and we do something hard, you know, we work
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: against resistance, resistance training or progressive overload, and the byproduct
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: is our body adapts, you know, and then all of
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: a sudden, ten kilos is not heavy, when in reality
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: ten kilos is still ten kilos. But you're different, so
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: the experience of ten kilos is different, you know, So
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: that when I change me, then my life is different.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: Well it's not really. It's the same, maybe, but your
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: interpretation or relationship with that environmental situation or challenge is
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: different now because you're processing it different, You're experiencing and
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: interacting with it differently. You know this is not hard. Well,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: actually it's not hard or easy. It's just what it is.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: But your interpretation has shifted, you know, so that it's
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: like I said to you, Pep, so many people said
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: to me about my review last week, you would have
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: killed it because that's that's what you do. That's your job,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: you talk to people. I'm like, yeah, no, I'm not
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: the same. No, it's just fucking terrified, you know. But
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: if I had to do that review once a month,
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: I would be less terrified. Absolutely, But we're going to
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: wind up. But my last one is I don't have
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: a specific question, but just talk to me for a
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: moment around kids and heartiness, Like, yeah, talk to me,
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: because I know you have a certain protocol and a
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: somewhat military approaching your house.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Fucking there's a shop everyone.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Tell us about because we don't want, you know, mums
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: and dads throwing their seven year olds in fucking ice
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: bars like you do.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: But talk to us a bit about kids. Yeah, look,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I think I mean it. It really does start with
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: early childhood, and it starts from and when you see
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: a kid fall over, right, I can almost tell straight
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: away whether they're they're parents are and bringing them up
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: for hardiness or bringing them up for a lack of heartiness.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: The parents who run over and go, oh my god,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: you can't pick.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Them up, and you will see that that kid will
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: then start to cry, whereas other parents who just go, oh,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: you're right, get up right. That sort of thing that
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: starts that young for me. And then when they really
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: develop language, it is about doing the hard work as
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: a parent and being uncomfortable as a parent, letting your
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: kid get in uncomfortable situations, not saving them all the time,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: but being around to kind of pick them up and
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: help them work through the lessons. And it's also about
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: preparing them to actually go into challenging situations. And then
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: when they do stuff or even when they attempt it
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: is to talk to them about how pride you are
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: about the work that they put in right and praising
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the work, praising them for being breeve and getting in
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the arena even if it's a bad result, is going
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: to start to wire that kid's bring for those for
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: and for doing that stuff, for leaning into discomfort. And
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: then it's also when they've been through hard stuff like
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: like I did with Oscar and quite recently when he
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: you know, had come through cushion's disease. Is to sit
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: down and go, admit, what's the silver linings that come
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: out of that bad experience, right, and just let them
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: come up with it, and then praise them when they when.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: They get it right.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: But it's also then about sitting down with them and
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: getting them to focus on the stuff that they can
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: control and to do the zone one in the zone
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: two thring and to focus on what they can control,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and to focus on being a good person because ultimately
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: that was the big thing about stoicism was arata.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Good character is all you need.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: So not praising your kids for winning and all of that,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: but praising them for the character and how they actually
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: behave I think that that is really key. And then
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: for me, around commitment orientation, it's about encouraging them to
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: persist in to have grit and passion for long term
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: goals and then again praising that behavior whenever they do that,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: but also to open doors for them around curiosity, right,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and they actually spend time with them going, look how
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: col that stuff is like running water? Have you ever
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: thought what's behind running water?
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Because gratitude plays in really really well, because gratitude can
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: connected with curiosity. I think then really helps with that
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: commitment orientation. So there are a number of things just
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: off the top of my head that parents can do
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: to help their kids to develop that challenge, that control,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and that commitment orientation. But the worst thing that they
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: can do is that when they feel discomfort, is that
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: they help them, help to remove them from the situation.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: You've got to let them feel that discomfort, however painful
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: it is as a parent. But you got to give
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: them the courage to grow from stress because ultimately that's
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: what hardiness is about. So the odd ice bath and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: beep test won't go a.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Mess well, you know, and then you're basically training kids
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: to be courageous, adaptable, decent you know, grown ups. You
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: know when they when they fly out of the nest
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: whenever that is these days, it's at about thirty eight,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: and you know, they can they can survive and thrive,
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: you know, and there and if shit doesn't work out,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: they're okay. I don't need mommy and daddy to run
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: interference constantly. Yeah, And I think that's come and save
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: them and solve them.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I think the key thing great for me, the biggest responsibility,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing as a parent is that you need
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to prepare your kids for life, and you need to
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: prepare them for a vocal world, a volatile world that
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: that is also uncertain and it's ambiguous as well. We
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: have to prepare them for that voker world because it
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: is getting more and more Voka.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Paul Tayler from the Paul Taylor Podcast, fucking superstar. How
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: can people connect with you, follow you and pay you
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: an obscene amount of money to work with their team is?
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The website would be Paul Taylor dot beast. That's probably
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the best place. Instagram. I'm at Paul Taylor bis. I
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: think you can tell her I'm on social media social right.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: But the podcast, the Paul Taylor Podcast, and the website,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: they would be the two main things.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Hey t superstar, thank you, carry on
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Good chat, Thanks Harps, good luck for the PhD.