Latest / The You Project / #1869 "Just Try Harder" & Other Stupid Advice - Dr. Lillian Nejad

Transcript

#1869 "Just Try Harder" & Other Stupid Advice - Dr. Lillian Nejad · The You Project

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Get a team. Welcome to another installment the show. Doctor
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Lillian is back on deck high.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Hello, how are you so good?
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I love your voice every time you have like when
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: you and I just chatting, you're a little bit more bogan,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: am I? Yeah? A little tiny bit. Well you're not
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: bogan at all, like the I'm the ten out of ten,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: but you have this I don't know this beautiful radio voice.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Or we've spoken about it many times. But anyway, how's
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: your month been since we've spoken.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, I feel like I'm all over the place actually,
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: like not like we.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Want to hear. We hope you're doing it hard like
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: normal humans, and we hope you're fucking up and getting up.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's my life.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you what are you struggling with? Tell us what
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you struggle with? Make us feel good about ourselves?
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I think so many things. The years started out
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: pretty rough for us as a family. My mother in
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: law passed away and that was very soon after my
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: father in law passed away.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Wow, just like eleven months before.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's tough. That's tough. Yeah, what when did
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: when did you mum in law pass away? What month
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: was that in January. Yeah, yeah, that's very recent, that's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and is it hard for you in the middle of that,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: because like your first and foremost just a compassionate human,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that's that's who you are. Like psychology is not who
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you are. That's your job, right, But do people expect
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: do people expect more of you because you're you in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the middle of like really tough situation.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: It's possible. I think I put myself in that position
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Also, Oh, it's really funny because I've been around a
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: lot of people. It might be just like a function
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: of being in your fifties, like people start passing away
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: around then, and so several people have had family members
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: pass away in my kind of circle. And one of
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: them said something really interesting because it was her stepfather
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: and she was in the position of supporting her mother
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: through that, and she described it as a hierarchy of grief. Wow,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: And I thought, yes, that's what it feels like for
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: me too, because it's my mother in law and father
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: in law. Now, so even though they're like my parents
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: as well, they aren't actually my parents. They had a
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: history that's much longer with their own children. So my
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: husband and his two sisters so they kind of get
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: to grief at that highest level, you know what I mean,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Like I'm grieving just as much, but maybe you know,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know because you can't really quantify it, but
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: there's a hierarchy to it. So I need so like
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: I want to be the support, yeah, at that level.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: And then you've got like so you've got the actual
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: like immediate family, and then you've got your own children. Yeah,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: And you know, I guess also because I've had some
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: people pass away in my.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Life, but not.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: That i've been well, that I've been close to, but
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: maybe it's like proximity, Like they weren't in my vicinity,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: so I couldn't really do that much because I moved
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: here when I was pretty young. So yeah, some of
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: the people passed away, they're like, you know, in America,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: can't really do anything but feel bad, but here it's
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: like very very close. But I've been, I guess, fortunate
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: throughout my life that I haven't had a lot of
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: people pass away on me. So it's kind of like
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: in some ways a new experience doing it from this proximity,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: I suppose. And then my children.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Are having to go through their first experience is quite young.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, look at you being a mom and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: normal and a human. Yeah.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So that's been a real challenge this year. I'm challenge
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: in the way of being the support person, yeah, and
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: also being somebody who's lost.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really important people, do you.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes when like, probably very similar to
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you in that I've had what I call a second
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: mum my whole life. Who's my mum's best friend who
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: passed away, who I spoke about recently also in January.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Oh I'm sorry.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and her four daughters were like my four sisters, Yes,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: like my four sisters. And there we're still very much
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: in each other's lives. I love all the girls. We're
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: all intertwined. I know all their kids, all their partners,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Right, and so the kid, the only child,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: me who grew up in this parallel, you know, proximity
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: to this family, and we did everything together. And then
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: so when Ray, my other mom died on you know,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: just after Christmas, and I spoke at the funeral and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: all these really beautiful blessings that I had gifted to me,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I like part of me just wanted to fucking fall apart,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: because that's how I felt, but part of me is like,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: you can't fall apart. You can't fall apart because you
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: have to be this for everyone else today, especially which
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and so I felt this kind of and I know
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: everybody you know, it's such a swirling massive emotions and
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: feelings and states. But I thought, right, I can't lose
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: my shit today. I have to be strong for my mum,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to her best friend, and I need to be strong
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: for the girls. And I felt a bit guilty for
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: feeling as sad as I did, because it's like, you, yeah,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: this is their actual mom. It's not your actual mum,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: so shut the fuck up, you know. But what was
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: funny was I had this intersection of sadness and guilt
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and all of he's weird. I'm like, because grief, you
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: know this better than me. You're an actual psychologist. I'm
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: just a shitkicker who pays attention. But like, grief is
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: such a diverse response, Like, yeah, everyone grieves differently like it.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And I know this is an obvious but there's ain't
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a four step plan. And I just noticed in the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: middle of my sadness and my grief, I noticed this guilt,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: like for being such a big baby which I wasn't.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm being hard on myself, and I'm like,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you don't deserve to be as sad as they are,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: so shut the fuck up and just go and look
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: after everyone.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: That's really interesting too, because I feel like guilt plays
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: a big part in it. I think because it's not
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: only like what you're saying, which is really interesting, but
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: also when you have to just get on with your life.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: That's hard too, Like.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Life just goes on and there's like nothing that you
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: can do about that. And also like obviously I haven't
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: talked to that much because I'm clearly having break.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Down right now. You know what, doctor Lillian's getting therapy
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm not a good job. I'm not even going
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to charge it. That's what a good black client. You're
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the best, thank you.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: But like you know, if you've got like if my husband,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: my husband's been obviously struggling. He lost both his parents
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: in the last year. So if I'm struggling, like I
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: don't feel guilty about that like you do, but I
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: also don't want to bring it up because I don't
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: want him to struggle. If he's having a moment where
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: he's feeling. Okay, I'm not going to like spoil it
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: by bringing it up. But then I'm like, well then
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not acknowledging it at all, And so that carries
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: with it some guilt, sorry.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like knowing what to say and what not to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: say and when, because like I know, with the four girls, right,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the daughters, I could say one thing to one of
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the girls and they laugh their ass off because we're
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: having a fond, funny memory of their mum and what
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: about when she did this fucking stupid yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And you'd say that to one of the other daughters
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and it might be a full breakdown. So so you know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: what would make somebody smile and laugh reflecting on this
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: silly thing that their mom did might evoke like a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: really different response in somebody else. But it's the exact
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: same stimulus, you know. And you're like just trying to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: navigate the fucking mindfield of emotions around all of this
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: when you want to, I mean, your intention is I
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: just want to be whatever you need. Yeah, but they
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: don't even know what they need.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And you won't know necessarily until you cross a line, right.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, in some ways, yeah, I think it's it's
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: really common to cross the line, and I think you
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: would just have to, like, you know, sometimes take chances
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: and see. Like, but yeah, everyone's personality is different, everyone's
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: kind of way of grieving is different, everyone's readiness is
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: going to be different. And so you do get to
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: know like the different you know, like my husband and
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: his two sisters, you know, they're processing things in their
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: own unique personal ways, and yeah, my way would be different,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: and my kid's way is different, you know, my parents,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: my parents, you know, and their ways of reacting are
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: different as well.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's a real it's a real beast,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: I think until you really confront it yourself or like
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: have that experience, you don't really completely understand.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And nobody misses it, like nobody avoids it. Like everyone
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: is going to have to deal like something we don't
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: have to deal with in our life, right, Like some
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: people never are going to deal with poverty, They're never
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: going to deal with things, you know, physically assaulted. Perhaps
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: we know many people are. But everyone's going to deal
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: with grief. Everyone's going to deal with someone that they
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: love dying. It's an unavoidable part of the human experience.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: But yeah, even though we know that there's no training
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: for it, I don't know what training for grief would
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: look like.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, there isn't. It's like this, we have
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: this protective.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Denial I think around death in general, like our own
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and others, and I think that's a good thing. We
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: don't want to be thinking about that all the time.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, people who do get stuck in thinking about
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: death and dying can be very anxious or depressed. We
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: certainly don't want that. But at the same time, yeah,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: it's part of It's part of everyone's life. So yeah,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, it's been really interesting moving through with
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: the kids and really like helping them understand.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Out of how you move through it.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: And also it's been really different with both you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: both my mother in law and father in law. They
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: the readiness for us for them to pass away was
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: very different, right, Like they both passed away within within twelve.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Hours, like of having any.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Symptoms of like distress, which was very fast.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Twelve I was from wow.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: From yeah, it was. I mean it's so I mean,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: you don't usually hear that. I think in a lot
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: of ways that's a blessing.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Like my father in law was feeling fine, and then
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: the next day he wasn't and he went to the
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: hospital and twelve hours later he passed away with his
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: whole family around him, and it was really beautiful, except
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: unfortunately my husband had gone on a conference and wasn't there.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: He was overseas, So that was like that was the
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: hardest part of it, that he couldn't be there.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: But my father in law was, you know, more frail.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: He was just about to turn ninety one. We weren't
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: not expecting it to happen at some point soon, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: so I think there was immense grief around it. And
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: it was my kid's very first experience of that and
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: seeing someone dying, and you know, they were there when
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: he not when he passed away, but like very close
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: to that. Just see, that was quite a shock and
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: traumatic event, I think as well. But then and so
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: my role was just like okay, answering questions, you know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: the practical stuff, how do you move through it, what's
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: going to happen next, whereas my mother in law was
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: like completely unexpected. Yeah, like we expected her to live
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: for like another ten years, you know. So and that
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: happened within the same amount of time, like her back hurt.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: I thought we thought, oh, probably kidney stones or something
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: like that, and then it wasn't that, So it was
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: just like So I think that that in a lot
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: of ways has been harder to process because nobody was
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: nobody was expecting or ready for that. So not only
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: is it the other parent, but it's also what the
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: hell like she was meant to be around for ages longer.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So I think there's a real relationship between. It's funny
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: because expectations, right, you know, when you like you kind
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of expected your father in law because he was old
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and his life, but probably not as quick as it happened, right,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: But with your mom, you're thinking your belief, your expectation
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: was or your mum in law should be around for
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: ten years, right. And I feel like that in life,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: our expectations often set us up for pain based on
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: or depending on what we're expecting. It's like when someone
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: says to me, I really expect my partner to do
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: this or be that, or what has he done the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: last time? What has he done the last hundred times?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: That's probably the best predictor of future behavior. And so yeah,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm kind of digressing a little bit, but it is.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It's when it comes from nowhere or seemingly comes from nowhere,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it's tough. But I remember I was spoken about this
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: once on the show. But a friend of mine's dad
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: passed away. Loved his dad and got through the whole
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the funeral, the everything the family was, you know, obviously stated.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: And I saw him about I mean I saw him,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I was at the funeral, and I saw
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: him regularly. And then we sat down about four, I
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: don't know, four or five weeks later, and I'm like,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: how are you going? And he's like, yep. And he
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: had had a blue with his sister, not a blue,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: but an issue with his sister, who was mad at him.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Listen to this. She was mad at him because he
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't grieving enough or grieving properly like she. He hadn't
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: grieved the way she thought he should be grieving, right,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, what, okay, what are you doing wrong?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And because he hadn't had and I don't mean this
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: as an insult into anyone, and no one knows what
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about, because she had a full on, understandable
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: emotional breakdown. She was devastating all of that which is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: completely understandable and not a bad response. It's just a response, right,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: he didn't have that, like he's devastated and I know, yeah,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: but he just didn't have the tears and snot and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the on the ground and the why why and the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: out of control emotion. And I'm like, wow, isn't it
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: like you're dealing with that and then you're getting hate
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: from your sister because you're not doing it the right way?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you said, people express their their emotions differently,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: and it's not always something you can see. Yeah, yeah,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: And that's for any anything, not necessarily you know, grief,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: but anxiety and depression and you know, stress for some
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: people is very obvious and you can see it and
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: others can't see it at all.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: It's all inside.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And we always look at others' behavior, obviously because there's
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: no other way. But we look at how they behave
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: through the way, through the lens of our behavior or
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: what we think is good, right or appropriate, Like we're
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: judging their behavior through our lens.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: That's right, because if.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I responded that way, well, I'd be an uncaring sociopath.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: So therefore you're not grieving enough. For Dad. You know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, maybe I'm just not like you.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm more devastated by you. But it it manifests
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: itself differently, you know. Yeah, it's I don't know if
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: this is good or bad. And my mum hates it,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and Melissa, who you know, she hates it. But I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I kind of make obviously not when people that I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: love have just died, but I kind of make a
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: little bit light of death, like you know. It's like
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I'll say to Melissa, well, like the other day she
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: was she was cloning my voice on AI.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I saw that that post about that.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so she literally could and I said, well, look,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: this is good because I mean I could be dead
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: soon and it means you can carry on with the show.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I said, you just need to and she's stop it,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: stop it. I'm like, well, why else would you be
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: doing this because you could literally do another two thousand
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: episodes just using my voice. And and she does not
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: like it. She knows I'm joking, I'm fucking right, but
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: she does not like it. And even like, Mum's fucking
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: eighty five, right, and I drive up on the weekend
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: and she's like, drive carefully because it's very busy. It's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Hans act that to that today it says lots of
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: people out, and it's also it's a bit slippy on it,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: like this is my eighty five year old mum telling
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: me how the fuck to drive to her house? Right,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And I go and I go, mum, and she's like, well,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I go, listen to me. I'm not going to take
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: care at all. I'm going to be reckless. I'm going
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to drive way too. And she knows I'm kidding, but
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: she hates right. But I think with me, that's because
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I've had a bunch of people that I really loved die,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: like a bunch of a bunch of people, you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: like starting starting early. You know, my first ever, my
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: first ever employee in Harper's, my gym's. His name was
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Mattie Matthew and we work together all day, every day,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: three years. Breakfast together, lunch together, trained together, hung out together,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: socialized together. And he died when he was twenty four,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: my goodness. And then the next day at work he
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't there. And then when you're I think I was
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: twenty six and you're twenty six and you're carrying your
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: mate's coffin at his funeral, and then you're you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: this is just not what you're meant to be doing
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: when you're twenty six, you know. And it kind of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: went from there, and I was clearly not prepared, but
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I just had to. And the other thing was and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: this ain't about me, but it is on topic. So
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Matey passed away, and then there was about I don't
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: know however many days later his funeral, but the day
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that he passed away, you know, I had to turn
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: up the next day and train a bunch of clients
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: all day because that was my business, yea. And we
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: were and I had other trainers working for me, and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you know, we were doing I can't even remember, but
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: at that stage's probably a couple of hundred appointments a week,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: two or three hundred appointments a week between me and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the rest of the crew, and so we couldn't just
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: cancel three hundred. So I remember turning up the next
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: day and I didn't want to talk about it. I
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: didn't want to talk to the team, I didn't want
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to talk to my clients, and I remember just turning
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: up and just faking it and just just trying to
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: find a way to literally like twelve hours ago one
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of my best friends in the world died or whatever
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: it was, you know, yeah, eighteen hours and thinking and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a few people said, why don't you just take the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: week off? And I'm like, because I'll sit at home
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and I'll be worse, and I don't think there's a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: great option in the middle of that. But I remember
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: dealing with that and just trying to just trying to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: survive and just trying to you know, just wait for
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: enough time elapse, time to elapse, so it wasn't so
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: fucking painful to them.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, distraction can be really helpful, and you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: like throwing yourself into doing things or like you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: you're doing things that involve training and helping other people too,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: that can be really really helpful.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that sometimes you do need to do that.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Look, and sometimes people don't have a choice, Like sometimes
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: they just have they like don't have a choice.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: They can't just take a week off or two weeks off.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: They have to do something.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: To make money or you know, for whatever reason. So
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: that can be really tough because then you are like
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: you are putting like this professional stance on closing closing
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: part of your like compartmentalizing your emotions so that you
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: can get something done, and again that that's perfectly reasonable
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: to do sometimes too. I don't think there's necessarily anything
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: wrong with that unless that's your like go to all
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: the time, you know, like to avoid painful emotions, that
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: that doesn't work as as your always strategy to distract,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: but it can absolutely work as a sometimes.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I was thinking now, just as like all of the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: really tough emotional things that people deal with, then also psychological, practical,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: physic you know, people that are in abusive relationships and
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the kind of the ongoing trauma that they deal with
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in the middle of that, you know, they've got to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: pay the bills or after the kids, or turn up
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to work or go out in public and look like
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: everything's okay or whatever it is that they've got to do.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, I'm like, what what I'm talking
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: about was, you know, thankfully you know, temporary albeit horrible
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and painful. But for other people, like their life is
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: for some people, their life is kind of all part
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of their life is ongoing trauma, ongoing grief.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Because that's very true.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: It's not a short thing. It's it's a permanent part
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of their existence with no clear easy path out. I
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: mean I think about I Mean, the obvious one that
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: comes to me is, you know, women in abusive relationships
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, man, imagine dealing with that imagine And
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be you know, I don't want
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: to make it down, but it's just true. It's like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that that's reality for some people. Is is that every
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: day you're going to be sad or anxious or scared
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: or all of that, and there's no silver lining that
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you can see. Yeah, and then you've got to walk
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: out of the house, you know, and do whatever you've
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: got to function. You've got to operate. You've got to
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: in some cases protect and feed and cloth of your
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: kids and do your thing and go to work and
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: make some bucks or whatever it is that you've got
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, that's really true. And I think that.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: When sometimes you see people emphasize mindset as like.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: The thing that you need to.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Help everything in your life, like you just don't have
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the right mindset. It's like, you know what, that's mindset's
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: so important. I'm not saying it isn't, but there are
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: circumstances that people are going through that you have no
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: idea about. And there are real actual obstacles getting in
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the way of someone maybe reaching their goals or having
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: a healthy lifestyle, or being able to regulate their emotions
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: or have you know, sustained their relationships or whatever, do
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: a good job at work, that they might actually.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Have no power to do anything about.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, correct, And we I think really need to be
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: more mindful of the messages you know, that are out
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: there or are put out there, or that we put
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: out there. That you know that there's just like one
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: key like to life like and if there is one,
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: it's it's mindset. Well there isn't and mindset is, like
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I said, important, but there's like so many other things
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: that are important.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I agree with you and the whole you know, I
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: can imagine how fucking frustrating it must be for people
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: who are really in extremely complicated even dangerous situations where
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: when when people are going just.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Try harder, Yeah, email was brilliant.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just pick up your bottom lip and soldier on.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, that is that must drive them nuts. And
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: there's you know, and such a lack of awareness even
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: for me, I realize, I don't there's so much I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: don't understand because I haven't been in the middle of it,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: but I do. I do know that there are people
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: in those situations, and I've worked with some of them,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: and I've worked with that X and alcoholics are in
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: extreme pain, and so I have a little bit of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: an insight. But when I then I revert back to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: my life and my situation, I'm like, shut the fuck up.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: You have nothing to complain about. What totally privileged. Your
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: life is a fucking Disney movie compared to many people.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: So I don't feel sorry for yourself ever, So that
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: that kind of keeps me in check, you know.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's Yeah, I think that's important.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: I mean that's like, yeah, it keeps us in check,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: but also helps us to be grateful, but also helps
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: us be really empathic.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I think even going through this experience, like any painful
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: experience you go through, the if you're paying attention to
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: you know the things that the good things that could
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: come out of it. I think one of the main
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: ones is empathy and compassion because now you've got it
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: from a lived experience place, but not only necessarily for
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: your specific situation, but just.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Knowing that.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Other people are probably going through stuff that you don't
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: know anything about. So if you see somebody who's having
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: a bad day you know, or you know, says something
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: what are inappropriate or is a bit irritable or you know,
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: all sorts of things that we see when we're out
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: and about right that you know, with people that we
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: don't know, or even people that we do, it's like, well,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: do we actually know the whole story, like what's actually
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: going on for this person? And we might never know
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: what that is, but we could be more I guess
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: or less judgmental when we're seeing these behaviors that other
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: people might display from time to time.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that's just having empathy and kindness
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and realizing that even with you know, like my mum.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I love my mum. Of course everyone knows that, but
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: like for Mum, a little, a very little thing can
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: produce like a one out of one problem can be
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a fifteen out of ten problem for mom. And it's
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: like part of me wants to go, M'm literally creating
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a fucking problem settled down, But that doesn't help, right,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of course that doesn't help, And of course that's not
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the right thing to say. So I I just I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: listen to her, I talk about it. I understand her
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: level of emotion and I understand her state. Like part
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of me wants to just fucking fix it. That's not
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: going to help it. Part of me wants to explain
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to her why she's wrong a disproportionate response. Right, I
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: know that's stupid and I know that's me getting in
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the way, But like, the loving thing to do is
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: just listen and just then move towards a solution with
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: her and then tell her, yeah, it's it's going to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: be all right. I'll fix it or we'll fix it,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and and then she's okay. But you have to let
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: her voice her fear, yeah, and not you know, just
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: even if it's even if the fear is completely irrational
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and disproportionate, Yeah, it doesn't matter because to her it's
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: neither of those things. To her, it's one hundred percent
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: legitimate and real.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: So what I'm doing is I'm judging her reality with
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: my reality and telling her to be more like me
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: or how fucking arrogant? Hey mom, I think I'm better,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I think like really really, So yeah, that's that's been
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and as you I mean, you know that. But yeah,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: my dad eighty six in a minute, and I did it.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I took up some stuff the other day to do
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: a basic workout with him, So we're recording this Monday Saturday.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I was up there and I did a workout with
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: him in his chair. I got him up on his
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: feet and did a few things. But his level of
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: function at the minute's pretty low physiologically. And yeah, he
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: like the things that I tell him to do that
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: he could do that are pretty easy to do. Most
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of the things he won't do, Like he'll tell me
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: he's going to do him and then he doesn't. And
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: part of me wants to go, listen, cham you're going
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to die three years before you need to, so fucking
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: do this stuff on you know, Like I took him
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: equipment and yeah, so it's but I just I don't
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: do any of that. I just love him, just support him,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and I just I try to be which I'm not always,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: but I'm pretty good. I think I try to just
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: be compassionate with both of them without time.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's a real exercise. And I think
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: patience and but you know what, the story about your
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: mother made me think of a couple of things. One
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: was there's a really great video. You can find it
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: on YouTube. I'm happy to send it to you or
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: post it if you want. It's called It's not about
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: the nail.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I've used it.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Have you seen it? Isn't it so good?
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I used to actually use that in lectures.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, say I do too.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, well, explain, No, don't explain. It's just
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: it's not about the nile. It's on YouTube.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's basically, like I mean, what it explains
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: is why why validation works so well? So instead of
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: being the problem solver, fix it solution focused person, when
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: someone tells comes to you with a problem, no matter
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: how you think about it, whether you think it's rational
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: or irrational, the most the most helpful thing to do
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: is to validate that person's experience and then you might
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: get somewhere.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: So that it made me think of that.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: The other thing it made me think of was when
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I was working in public mental health. I used to
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: work on the inpatient psychiatric wards and the crisis assessment
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: teams and early psychosis and things like that, and we
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: had a lot of clients or who had schizophrenia, and
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: so you know, one of the main symptoms of that
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: is that they have delusions, which are strongly held beliefs.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: That are not based in reality. Right.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: So one of the things that we learned as clinicians
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: was how you talk to people who have strongly held
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: beliefs that are not based in reality, and also teach
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: families how to talk to their loved one because the
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: instinct is to correct them, to say that they're wrong, right,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: to show.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Them that they're wrong. You know, see there's no cameras.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: And that have the light bulber, or no one's spying
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: on you, or you know, whatever the delusion might be.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: They're really common ones. A lot of them are more
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: paranoid in nature. But what we teach families is, like
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: you said, you listen, you validate not the belief. You're
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: not wanting to validate something that's not valid, but you
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: validate their emotions. Yeah, so you pay attention to what
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: you don't have to pay attention to the content. I
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: think we get so caught up in the content of
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: what people say and then how we can help them
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: with the content, rather than what's the emotion underlying? What
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: are they actually worried about, what's making Are they feeling anxious?
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: Are they feeling guilty, they're feeling sad, are they're feeling overwhelmed,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: and then talk to them about that.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: So you can validate emotions even if you don't agree
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: with what they're.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Saying, even if you don't think they're appropriate. Appropriate emotions
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: for the level of dry or lack of drama.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Well, see, the emotions probably appropriate. The intensity of the
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: emotion isn't. So you can still validate the emotion without
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: validating the intensity of the emotion, right.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: But what you can do is validate the emotion but
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: also understand, not agree or align with, but understand the
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: intensity of the emotion. It's like there are certain people
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that you know, like, for example, for some people, walking
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: on stage and talking to a group of people is
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: pretty much the scariest thing for them that they do.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of people like for.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of people, And through my highs, I'm like,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: that's Tuesday, right, That's just you know, like tomorrow I've
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: got a half day gig in the city, and then
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the next morning I've got a half day gig on
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the Gold Coast. Tonight I've got my you know, MYNU
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: mentoring groups that's kicking off, and it's like these not
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: things on any level that I worry about, Like there's
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: zero fear, but there's significant excitement and anticipation.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: That I'm better or worse, or right or wrong. It's
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: just that my reaction around that particular stimulus is very
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: different from a lot of people. Yeah, and so to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: try to understand when I'm talking to someone who's literally
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: got to get on stage for twenty five seconds and
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: introduce someone, and they worry about that for two weeks, right,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Like they're going to get up on stage introduce someone
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that's doing something and they don't Like I've literally had
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: people who hardly slept for the three nights leading up
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to that twenty five second.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not surprised at all. Yeah, No, totally. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: you're right, like, we're all different.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: So, and we're different from a brain based level, like
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: a biological level, but also our personalities are different, our
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: experiences are different. We are going to have different reactions
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: and responses to different situations.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: If you rocked up at my house tomorrow and you said, Craig,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I know this is short notice, but here's my one
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: year old. I need you to look after him until tonight.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I'll be I'd be terrified, do you know what I mean?
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Like something that the majority of the world could do
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: without thinking, which is looking after a kid. You know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know that's true, but I mean there are
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that are very good at it,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: you know, like a lot of amazing women and some men,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: of course, but it tends to be women that are
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: more the caregivers and looking after the one year olds.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I guess. But if you if you gave me that responsibility,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I'd be fucking terrified because I've done I've never done it.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And so my point is for what many people would
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: be not effortless, but certainly not fear producer.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Like you know.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: So I guess it's just context dependent, situation dependent, task dependent.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: There are so many things that I'm scared of that
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: other people wouldn't be scared of at all, you know.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: So it ain't right or wrong, good or bad, it's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: just oh well, of course, you know. So when I
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: talk to people who are or terrified of that twenty
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: five seconds, I totally understand I'm not.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, like you've told me this before,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: that they're almost one hundred percent of the time you're
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: comfortable talking in front of people.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: But if you were put in a situation where you had.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: To do a stand up comedy routine other people, you
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to cope with that. Well, you say
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: you want I don't know if I believe that, But
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: that's scared. That's something that scares you one hundred percent.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: And I tell you what else scares me, and I'm
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: no good at it is standing in front of four
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: or five professors at university. Oh yes, who are doing
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: you know one of my kind of progress checks? You
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: know they're called academic milestones, right, and in my course
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: or in my program, there's four of them. Fortunately I'm
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: through or four. But if you ever want to see
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: me look inept, uncomfortable, stupid, because I realize, because I'm
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: so dependent on my ability to talk about pretty much
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: what I want in front of and go where I
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: want and run the show and be funny and tell
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: a story and be cheeky and use my charisma and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: read the room and be freestyle, well all of that
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: goes out the window in that particular setting and that context.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: They don't give a fuck about. They don't even know
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: that they need to know, because I'm not anyone but
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: they don't know who Craig Harper is. They just know
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I'm a student doing a PhD. Yeah, so you rock
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: up and you go, oh, this is my research, this
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: is what I've done, and then they grill you lock motherfuckers. Yeah,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I don't care if feel comfortable or uncomfortable if you
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: file or well that might be care and they're not bad.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: That's just their job.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's for me.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one context where speaking publicly I can terrifying.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, context dependent.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Right, totally. I remember having to do that. I remember
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: in my during.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: My PhD, I had to we had to present at
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: several times, not just in front of the professors who
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: were involved in our research, but like all the whole
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: faculty and students were invited to hear our presentation and
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: ask questions. Oh my gosh, and like you don't know
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: what people are going to ask, and so because you
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: don't know what they're going to ask, you can't prepare for.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Like I'm such a preparer, So like I want to know.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: I want to know what's going to be asked, how
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: I'm going to answer it, like literally word for word,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: how I'm going to answer something. And so I remember
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: once at one of the presentations, I actually planted a
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: question with.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: One of one of my friends who was in the courts. Yeah,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: and like, ask this question, I can answer it.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: But she was such a bad actor, like you could
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: totally tell she wasn't actually answered, like asking the question genuinely.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: It was like she was reading it off the script.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: So the whole place was like, Haha, that's hilarious little question.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's what anxiety can do to you. To
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: try to control it as much as possible. But yeah,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: it's good, it's good for you. I've noticed since COVID
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: because I haven't done as many in person things. I
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: used to do in person things all the time. I
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: used to run workshops, i used to run groups, like all.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: It was like part of my job.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I used to do it all the time.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: And since COVID, it's been like most of the stuff
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: that I've done has been online. So I'm happy, Like
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: I'm really happy to present things, but it's been almost
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: exclusively online for like the last five years, so I
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: know that i'll be if I'm doing I've had an
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: experience fairly recently where I've gone in and done something
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: in person and I really challenged myself too, because I
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: didn't I didn't do the whole prep that I normally do,
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: and the slides and the everything was you know, I know,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: it was like, what am I doing? I shouldn't be doing.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: What's like I was?
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I was so nicured.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Did you take your favorite video it's not about the Nile?
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Did you take that?
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: No, all I took was one It was one slide
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: with a drawing on it and then a worksheet and
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: I got people to analyze the drawing and then answer
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: questions and then we just had a discussion about it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: And so I had no way of knowing what people
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: were going to think about it, how they were going
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: to interpret it, what questions they were going to ask,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: where the discussion was going to go.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I had some ideas about where I wanted it to go.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I couldn't control any of those variables,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: and so yeah, I was superner.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I probably didn't sleep that.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Night, That's hilarious. I didn't.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I did a gig recently. Oh, I think their name
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: was Violine. I should give them a shout out. I apologize.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's byline anyway, This company was like
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: two or three weeks ago, and it was mainly dudes.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: It was mainly blokes and a relatively new company and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: all the blokes kind of blokey blokes who tradees and
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: install stuff. And the owners of the company were great
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: husband and wife, but everyone else in the room was
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: just dudes and they've never done a professional development day. Wow,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And oh my god, it was so funny. I rocked
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: in there and they're like, what's this fucking bullshit? Like like,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: what is this dicka going to psychoanalysis or something? Is he?
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Or you know? And it's funny because you I said
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to Melissa when I finished, if that was a like
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of speakers would have really struggled because they
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: go in with a prepared thing, right where basically it's
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: scripted and there's whatever. They've got their fifty slides and
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: we start at slide one, then we end up a
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: slight fifty and there's no deviating. There's no freestyling, there's
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: no interactivity or very little, there's no ad libbing, and
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: there's no just kind of figuring it out as you
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: go because it's all me scripted. I said, if I
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: had that, I would have been fucked ten minutes in
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: because you just had to be in the moment. Like
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: my plan was, my loose plan was, I'm talking from
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: eight thirty to one, right, so I'm going to talk
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: from eight thirty to ten ninety minutes straight up while
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: they're fresh. Right, So by nine point thirty, they're all
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: just ready to you know, fucking mess up or whatever
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: because they're not used to just listening to someone talk.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: But they were great. But everything in the room told me,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: all right, this is good time to have a break.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: So we just had a break and then they got
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: back and they're all good. And then so instead of
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: these pre set breaks at these pre ordained times, I
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: would talk for forty forty five and go, let's have
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: five minutes. And that way it kind of kept them in,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: you know, present. At the end of the day, I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: got overwhelmingly good feedback from a bunch of blokes that
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: initially were not at all enthusiastic. And it's not I
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: don't think I was brilliant, but I just found a
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: way to connect with them. Yeah, And I said to
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the bosses, I go, is swearing okay, And they're like,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's looking compulsory. You better swear right, and
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: you better and so yeah, but it's like that. But
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: here's the thing with that, right, you can't go learn
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: that in a course. You know, you can't do a
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: three day workshop that you could talk about the idea
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: of being adaptable and flexible and in the moment. But
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: you just need and I'm not saying I'm the high watermark.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not, but you just need runs on the board.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: You need this experience.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: You just need a lot of experience to go all right,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: well this is And by the way, they were actually
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: a good group and I love it. I loved it
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: because there was no pretentiousness at all. They didn't feel
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: compelled to participate or be politically correct or if they're interested,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you knew if they weren't, you knew. Yeah they had
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: a question that go, yeah, but what about blah blah blah,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: not going that's a good question. You know. It was
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: all just organic and raw.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: But anyway, great, that's great that they had.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: You as a first experience because I think that you, yeah,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: that you would have been the perfect person. I can't
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: believe that for a first experience it was like three
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: and a half hours.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Oh more more like, why were they why were they
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: doing that? That's crazy?
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well what we did do though, like and to
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: their credit, the guys who the owners, they were great.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I said, at about I don't know, maybe eleven, so
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: maybe two two and a half hours in, I went,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: I reckon we should. I said, look, I'm happy to
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: go to one o'clock. But I said, I think what's
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: going to be more impactful and more productive for them
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: as if we pull the pin around twelve, Because I
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: think their attention threshold and their curiosity and interest threshold,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we're approaching it. And that's not a judgment
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: of them. It's like when you don't like I remember
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: when I started my PhD, My attention span was so
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: short when I was reading journal articles and listening to lectures,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: and like I'm like, oh my, it's like being out
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: of shape. It's like you go for your first run.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Used to run ten k's in forty five. Now you
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: run two k's and you're fucked. It's kind of like
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: there's a kind of conditioning that comes with you know,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: whether or not it's being in an audience, being in lectures,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: you know, reading papers, or trying to focus and study. Anyway,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like we've digressed. I need you to tell
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: people where they can find you and follow you and
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: experience the UNUS.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Can I tell your listeners about something exciting in my
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: business world? Of course, we might have mentioned in a
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: past episode Contain your Brain, which is an app I
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: created to help people worry less and worry better, and
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: we've made it free. So I wanted to let everybody
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: know that there's a free resource out there if you're
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: in a or thinker, or you are worried you know
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: ninety nine percent of the time or even twenty percent
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: of the time, and you want to learn how to
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: manage your problems more effectively.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: It can be a really helpful place to go. So
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: you can just download.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: That from the app store, or you can go to
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: contain your brain dot com and you can click on
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: the website and go to the app store from there
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: as well. And the other thing is I would love
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: I know that your listeners are in a Facebook group
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: and I've just you said you like my voice. So
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: I've been recording relaxation and mindfulness exercises specifically for three areas.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: So there's going to be three albums that come out.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: One is.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: About anger and frustration, one is about sleep, and one
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: is about anxiety and worry and stress, let's say. And
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: I'm just in the process of editing it. So if
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: people want to be guinea pigs for me and listen
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: to some of these finished exercises and give me feedback,
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: just so I know, like im, you know that they're helpful,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: they're on the right track. If people have any issues
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: with frustration, stress, anger or sleep or yeah, anything really
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: you know, related to those issues, I can just let
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: me know. Get in touch with me and I will
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: send you some of the latest recordings and you can
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: you can.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Be my pesters.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: That's a great idea. I've got one quick story, but
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: before that, so get in contact with you how like?
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, okay, So the best way is on my website
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: doctor Lilliannajad dot com. If you go to the contact page,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: you can you can get in touch with me that way,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: and if you if you're okay with it, I can
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: post something in your Facebook group as well, so they
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: can comfort me via Facebook as well.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do that. That's really good. That's a good idea.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: I did a similar thing. My last book is called
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Twenty Questions for Humans, which is clearly just based around
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: twenty questions that I've been asked a lot or people
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: are curious about, you know, like what's the meaning of
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: life and all that? You know, that easy stuff, right.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: But when I finished the book, like draft one, a
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: couple of people read it. And then I thought, what
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: if I got a bunch of my readers, my listeners,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: followers and readers to read this before we publish it, right,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: not after? And so I just put up a thing
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and said, I need twenty five people to come to
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: my office. At this stage, I had an office and
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a lecture theater up in Arabin. This is just just
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: pre COVID, just sneaking into COVID. And I got twenty
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: five people who came very generously on a Saturday morning.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: I gave everyone a manuscript and a red pen, and
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I said, everything that you think is good or shit,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: or you might even find some grammatical errors. Like I
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: don't want to give you too many guidelines. I just
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: want I want you to write all over it. And
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: you might just go, yeah, that's pretty good, or you
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: might go it's complete dogshit if it's dogshit, rite why
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: you think it's dogshit? If you know? And I had
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: twenty five editors, and so I had the book literally
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: edited twenty five times in a morning, and it took
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: me about a week to go through all the you know,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: just looking at it. But it just helped immeasurably. And
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: people love the fact that they were involved in that
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: little process. And yeah, so I think your idea is
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: a good one. So let's get people involved. Awesome love
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: having you on the show. I love, I guess more accurately,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I love that you comfortable enough to be you and be,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you know, be vulnerable with us. So thank you very much.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. And of course I know you're human
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: and of course you know you have feelings. But it's
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: good to see people like you who help people for
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: a living. It's good for us normal people. Am I
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: normal to you know, see your humanity. So and thanks
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: so much. We'll see you next time. Doc.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks Craig,