Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Facing Mortality and Rediscovering Life's Purpose with Dr. Stan Beecham

Transcript

Facing Mortality and Rediscovering Life's Purpose with Dr. Stan Beecham · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Doctor Stanley Beacham, welcome back to the podcast for a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: third time.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Paul. It's good to see you again. Yeah,
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I like your haircut.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It's it's particularly good to say you because, well, we've
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: both been through a little bump in the last few
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: years since we last talked, haven't we. My listeners are
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: very familiar with my little heck up kid.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Just talk our listeners through years.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: So in July of twenty twenty three, I was diagnosed
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: with acute probalystic leukemia. It's a type of leukemia that's
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: a it's a genetic transformation. They don't even know what
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: causes it, so it's not like you've got exposed to something.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It's just one of these random acts of the universe.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: About four people and a million get it. Anyway. I got. Yeah,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I was getting kind of My health was deteriorate and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I couldn't figure out what was going on. I thought
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I had brian kitis because I was having trouble in
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: my chest and you know, breathing. So I called the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: doctor about getting an inhaler and she said, well, when
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: you come in, we'll check your blood. And so at
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: ten thirty at night, I get a call from the
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: doctor's office telling me to go to the emergency room shits.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I'll go in the morning, you know,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: and they're like, you know, I told the nurses, said
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: just tell the doctor. I'll go in the morning. She said,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: let me call the doctor back. So she calls me
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: about fifty minutes later and she says, no, you don't
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: have that kind of time. You need to go tonight.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So I found out about seven o'clock the next morning
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: that I had leukemia, which explained why I you know,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: it felt so bad, you know, for the last several weeks,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and I got to stay in the ICU for twenty
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: five days. She and they started my chemo, which lasted
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: one hundred rounds of chemo. So I started chemo in
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: July of twenty three and I finished it in February
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: of last year. And you know, it was sitting in
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the hospital for twenty five days with kind of nothing
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: to do. Yeah, you know, that was that was actually
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: really interesting just to observe how I was experiencing that,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and it was it was interesting because it was really
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: clear to me that I might die and that I was,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: you know, close to the edge. Yes, and after I
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: got over the surprise of that and realized, yeah, I'm
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm in a really vulnerable place right now,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I kind of went straight into like, Okay, what do
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I want to do with this? And so I kind
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: of made a promise to myself that I wouldn't be
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: become a victim of it all, you know, and feel
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: like I got a bad shake, if you will. And
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: so I did things like when I got up in
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the morning, I would get out of the bed and
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't get back in my bed. I would you know,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: sit in the chair. And I even walked around some
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: after I got feeling better. And I never wore the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: hospital clothes. I had my own clothes and I wore
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: my own clothes. And so I found you know that,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you know, just like in any life situation, there's some
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: things you have no control over, which can be a
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: lot of things, but there's always one or two things
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: that you can take ownership of. And I knew this
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: from my own work and my own study, and that
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: you focus on the things you have control over, not
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the things that you don't have control over.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, And.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: So you know, wearing my own clothes and really the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: only other decision I got to make was, you know,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: what I had to eat. You know, they would come
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: around in the morning with the menu and I could
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: pick my food. Of course, I was limited on the
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: things that I could pick, but I really just got
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: focused on, you know, controlling the things that I could
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: control and accepting the fact that, you know, this may
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: not end well for me. Yeah, but I can control
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: my attitude and my approach to it, and so yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, actually I look back on it. I look
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: back on it kind of fondly because I think it
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: really informed me. I think, you know, I'm just more
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: aware of the fact that there's a randomness to the
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: universe that affects all of us, but we don't think
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: about it because the way I think most of us
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: live our lives, we act as if we have control
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: over things that we really don't. It's absolutely like we're
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: just not conscious of how vulnerable we are. That you
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: know that any moment, you know, your life can can
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: change in a significant way, and so you know, living
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: through something like that for such an extended period of time,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I just I just see that now as kind of
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the new norm, you know, Like, but it's always been
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: that way. I just didn't know it. It wasn't so
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: much that life changed, it's just my awareness and how
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I thought about it, you know. And and this the
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: concept of being vulnerable and that there's no promises and
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: no guarantees. So when I was in the hospital and
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I see you for twenty five days, I thought a
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: lot about you know, if I live, what am I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: going to do differently? Because I said, I can't just
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: go back to doing, you know, things exactly the way
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I did. And I think what I learned in that
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: time is that the things that I take the most
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: joy from and appreciate the most or actually just simple
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: basic things like you know, going for a walk, you know,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: having having a meal with some friends, that it's not
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: you know, it's not the big stuff, you know that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: most people think is what makes life great. I think
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: it's the simple day to day activities that is really
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: what it's about. I'll tell you a quick story. There
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: was a guy in the hospital with me and he
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: left and so I just I thought he was fine.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: And he came back about two weeks later, and I
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: was I could walk around on the unit, but I
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: couldn't leave the unit. It was kind of like being
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: incarcerated in prison, because you know, we have no immune system,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: so you can't leave the unit because you're too vulnerable
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: to get sick. So but you had to put a
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: mask on when you left your own room, and people
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: had to put a mask when they came into your
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: room and cover themselves up, you know, in plastic gowns
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and the whole thing. And so I remember talking to
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: this guy and I said, you know, what are you
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: back for? And he said, well, I think it was
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: either T cells or a bone marre transplant, can't remember.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: He said, I'm back to get this transplant. And I said,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: so what's that supposed to do for you? And he said,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: they tell me if I do this, I can live
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: three more months. And this is a guy that was
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: about forty and I was sixty one at the time,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and he's saying this very matter of fact, you know,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's no emotion in his voice. It's just like,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: you know, just two guys have a conversation. And I said,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: what are you going to do with your time? And
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: he's like, well, I'd like to go to the beach
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: one more time. And then he said, then I just
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: you know, I just want to sit on my back
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: porch with my dogs and watch him running around in
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the yard. And he was he was serious about this,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: and that was kind of my first cue was like, Yeah,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: that's what That's what makes life really good, you know
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and delicious. Is you enjoy you know, watching your dogs
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: play in the backyard or you know, watching your kid
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: crawl around on the floor, or you know, having a
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: meal with a friend. It's not all the big stuff.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So that's that's really stayed with me, and that's really
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: been helpful.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: That that's that's interesting.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Stand that that that was the big thing that you
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: took from it.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I had just mentioned to you.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Look, and all my listeners know that I went through
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: open heart surgery, which was a bit of a surprise,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: finding out from a check with my cardiologist that I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: was born with the dodgy valve that would kill me.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: And I remember.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Walking out of there and him saying to me, you
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: need to have open heart surgery and going home.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: The first thing.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: It's interesting, isn't it that that that what you expose
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: yourself to tends to come up in those moments. And
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: you've had a life of being a psychologist, working and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you've wrote a brilliant book called Elite Minds, and you've
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: worked with the lead athletes about optimizing the mind all
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: your life. You've work with business consultants. I'm in a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: similar space, but as you probably know, I'm quite into
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: stoic philosophy and awards of Seneca rung in my ears
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: as I walked out of the Earth, which was I
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: pitied the man who's not faced adversity because he's not
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: faced an opponent, and nobody, not even him, knows what
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: he's capable of. And I remember going home and I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: wrote the words worthy opponent on my bathroom mirror, and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: my whole idea was this was my worthy opponent that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: was going to test and develop me. But it's only
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: because of all the stuff that I've been exposed to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: that then kicks in right and my natural bent and
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: probably yours as well, because I'm a ridiculous optimist and
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going this is all going to be fine. But
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I actually had to remember forcing myself and going, no,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you need to find out exactly what the risks are,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and you need to prepare yourself.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: So I'm you go ahead, you go now.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I was just saying, I remember thinking to myself, I'm
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: going to find out if I'm a hypocrite because all
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the things that I've been, you know, telling other people
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you know, to think about or how to approach it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And I remember thinking, I remember asking myself the question like,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: are you going to become a hypocrite? You know, are
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: you going to become a victim of all of this
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: and feel sorry for yourself? And you know you're talking
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: about the stoics, you know, I love this saying a
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: more fate, you know, lover of faith, Yes, you know?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Of really if you here's here's the way I think
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: about it. If you can really want your life and
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: not somebody else's life, If you can want your fate
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: even if it means you die younger than you wanted to,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: or you know, you lose a loved one or whatever.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: If you can really understand the the acceptance and then
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the love of one's fate, then you have no regrets
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: and nothing bad happens to you, right. I mean you
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: can think of having leukemia or having heart surgery as
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: you know, a bad thing, and people say, I'm sorry, Well,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be that way, you know. I mean,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I talk to people in business, you know, and that
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: you know, they lose a lot of money or they
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: lose their business and you know, and they recovered from
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: it away and they look back on it and say,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: you know, thank God, I learned that lesson early on. Yeah,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm glad I went bankrupt when I was
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: thirty and you know, when I'm sixty. And I know
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: it sounds kind of trivial to you know, to say
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: that out loud, but it's really quite possible that you
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: can fall in love with your own life, in the
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: fate of your own life, even the tragedy of it.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Because I can tell you what, when I was in
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: ICU for twenty five days, you know, getting you know, leukemia,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: every day I felt more alive in that hospital room
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: than I think I ever have my entire life. I mean,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I was fully aware, my mind was you know, I
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: was paying attention to every moment, and I was really deliberate,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: intentional about simple things that, you know, simple decisions, because
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: even the simple decisions had some value to me.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And that it's really interesting that you bring
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: up amor Fatty that love of feet, because you know,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the the the thing.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I've been a big believer.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: In fact, I've got a tattoo on my arm and
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: memento Maury. So particularly Marcus Aurelius said to himself over
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and over again, remember that you are mortal, Marcus. And
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: his whole idea was to remember it, not to be morose,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: but to remind yourself that life is a precious gift.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And so when I found out, I forced myself to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: go and look at the what's the risks of death?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And then I forced myself to contemplate my own death. Now,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: my risk of dying was surprisingly low, actually less than
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: one percent fatalities on the operating table, and I thought, well,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty fit.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: I've got a good chance.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: But I actually forced myself to confront that possibility, not
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: to be negative, but from that perspective of the sort
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of Japanese psychology slant of Arugamama, with things as.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: They are, what needs to be done.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So I thought to myself, well, you need to get
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: your reffers in order, you.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Need to shoot shoot.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Some videos for your kids in case you do go.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And I actually forced myself to contemplate my own death.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: That the thing that I really got into was amor
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: fatty and and trying to go, well, fuck, if this
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: is it, right, if this is this is the big
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: step for me?
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Can you love your feet right?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Can you say, hey, this might well happen and you
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: might well go. Can you actually embrice because me, for me,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that's the last big challenge of the Stoics is to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: love your feet at even when you get a shit
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: sandwich from the universe and the thing that and everybody
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: gets one, oh yes, oh yes, we're all going to
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: get one, and some people have had, some people have
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: had their unfair share of shit sandwiches from the universe. Right,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But you know, the thing that really stuck out for me,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure about you, was just reflecting on my
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: life and going, well, if this is it, I was
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: actually I'm content, And for me, that was the big
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: take home out of that whole ordeal is that the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: goal of life should not be happiness because that's a
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: fucking fleeting emotion that people chease, and the goal in
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: life should be contentment or serenity. And I actually started
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: using this to reflect back on my life and going
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: fucking hell, I've had a good run, I've done some
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: amazing shit, I've met some awesome people, and if this
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: is fated to be it, then it is what it is.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And I was kind of at peace with it. I
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: knew that, you know, the things I would be sad
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: about was not seeing my kids grow up, not growing
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: old with my wife.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: But to your points, then what it.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Really did is it made me really be much much
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: more mindful in just daily life. I don't mean sitting
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: down and meditating. I mean smelling the roses, walking around,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: you know, with taking my dogs, are just enjoying seeing
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: my dogs run around with their tails wagging, looking at
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the colors of the sky.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Isn't it strange that we have to go through something
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: so confronting to really get to the essence of what
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: life is.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's. I think it's a realization that
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: you know, you may actually lose your life, it would
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: come to an end. And again walking right up next
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: to that and having that experience of being close to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: your own death I think can be really informative because
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: now you know it's going to happen. It didn't happen
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: that time, but but it is going to happen. You know,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I am going to die, and it's probably not going
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to be on my terms, right, it's probably not going
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: to be when I think it's going to happen, or
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: how it's going to happen. Because I remember when they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: told me I had leukemia. I was really surprised. I
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: just like I remember thinking, like, I didn't see that
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: one coming, you know, heart disease. You know, I'd thought
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: about that, you know, because I've had people in my
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: family die of heart disease. But I just I just
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: remember thinking, wow, I never I never thought that's how
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I would die, and now that's might that might be
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: how I die. And I remember when I would I
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: don't know if it was the first of the second
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: as in the hospital when the nurses came around and
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: you know, they ask you all these questions and you
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: fill out these all these forms about do you want
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: to be resuscitated or not? Well, yeah, I don't know
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: if they did that with you. And I remember telling
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: her that I didn't want to be resuscitated and if
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: anything happens, just let me go. And I could see
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: that she was really surprised by that, and she said like,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I don't think you understand what I'm saying, you know,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: because evidently most people say, yeah, do everything you can
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: to keep me alive. And here's this, you know, stupid
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: souff a bit saying, no, don't try to keep me alive,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: just let me go. And so she asked me like
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: several times because you end up having to sign, and
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I said, yeah, don't, don't resuscitate me, don't do anything.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: You know, if it's if it's my time to go,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: it's my time to go. I don't want to lay
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: in the bed for months, you know, before I die.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I'd rather just you know, go right away. I don't
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: want to prolog my dying, you know, I just remembers.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Sorry, Stine was just going to ask this was that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: link to this I'm more fatty idea, this love of fear.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean it was just like if this
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: is how I'm going to go, whether I go now
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: or in a month from now, it doesn't matter, you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: not really not to me. What I didn't what I
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: didn't want to do, is be a burden, you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: because I think, you know what this what's interesting is
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: so why I was fighting for my life against leukemia.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: My father had to mention and he was progressively dying.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: In fact, he died the week before I finished my
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: chemo shit. And so that was a real irity, right
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: as I was fighting to stay alive, and you know,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: and there was nothing he could do. And so I'm
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: watching him deteriorate as I'm slowly getting better, and I
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: remember thinking, you know, that's that's a unique experience.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, sometimes the universe those two fus.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but and I remember just hoping that he
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: would go ahead and die because his quality of life
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: was so bad. You know, it's like we treat farm animals,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: you know, with more humanity than we do humans. You know,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: just people laying in the bed for months at a time.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: You know. It's just like, so I'm glad that didn't
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: happen to me, you know.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: And what did you make any deals with yourself?
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: You know, because obviously as you're going through that, there's
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a shit heap of stuff that goes through your head.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Did you make any deeds with yourself?
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: A Ryan?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: If I get through this, this is what I'm going
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to do differently.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I spent actually, when I was in
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: ICU for twenty five days, I spend a lot of
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: time thinking about that. You know, if I have a
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: little bit of time left, how do I want to
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: spend it. I was thinking about more from the standpoint.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: If I just have a couple of years left, you know,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: what will I do? And the main thing that came
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to me is I'd like to go back to Spain
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and walk the Camino to Santiago again, which I actually
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: did the month after I finished my chemo. I went
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: over and walked the whole thing again. But I remember
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: just thinking, you know, I really would like to do
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: that again. And I remember thinking, I want to keep working,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: but I don't want I don't want work, my work
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: to define me the way that it did. I think
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I think too much of my identity, and I think
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: it's true for a lot of men, you know. I
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: know it is in the US, and I would imagine
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: it is in Australia as well, that so much of
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: your identity is what you do. You know, people say,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you know, it's one of the first things we asked somebody,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: what do you do? And then you tell them what
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: your job is? Right, And I remember, you know, thinking,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't like the fact that so much
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of my identity is in my work and in my occupation,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: and that how I think about myself is so much
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: tied into how well you know business is going. You know,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: then when business is going really well, I feel better
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: about myself and that kind of thing. And I just
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: remember thinking that was it's kind of hollow, you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: like that's but now I work. I still work, but
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I work for a different reason. I work because I
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: realized I have to work because I need something to
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: focus on that's not me. I think when people don't
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: stay busy, or they don't have a job, or they
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: don't have activities, you know that. You know that when
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: people talk about I'm bored, what I think happens is
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: when you when you aren't engaged like that, there's a
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: lot of time to sit around and think about yourself, right,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that's good. I know it's not
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: good for me in my senses, it's not good for
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: most people. So I mean, one of the benefits of
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: having work or having other people in your life is
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: that you don't focus on yourself all the time and
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: you don't think about yourself. And I know that my
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: best days are when I'm busy doing other things or
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: helping other people, and I just don't think about how
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: stand doing and how's this day going. You know, those
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: truly are my best days, so I have to fill
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: them with something, and as long as I can still
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: work and be of help, I think I'll keep doing that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: But I say that because I think a lot of
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: people they don't They don't have enough going on, they
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: don't have enough activity, but challenging activity. You know what
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I'm saying. It's one thing to go and find something
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: to do. It's another thing to seek out something that's
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: really difficult, because I think we should take on as
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: much challenge, responsibility, and difficulty as we can tolerate. That
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: is really being fully alive. You know, when you have
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: a full plate and you're taking on as much as
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: you can, not more than you can handle, because now
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: you're overly stressed. But what I'm saying is I think
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of people they actually hurt themselves because they
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: don't take on as much responsibility as they actually could,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: or they don't try to do difficult things. And again
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying try to do things that you can't do.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, go right up to the edge of yourself
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: right and do as much as you can. Like that
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: really is the best life.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: That that is where you feel alive, right, and it's yes.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of things I want to unpack in
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: what you just said. The first one was around identity,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: because again that that was an interesting thing for me
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: round you know, you do a lot of self reflection
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: when you are and facing your own mortality, and you
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: certainly didn't, and I did, and I was I had
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to force myself to overcome my optimism bias because I
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to actually use this opportunity to properly meditate on
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: my death and actually stir into the abyss as you've
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: talked about and actually you know, take out the lessons
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of life and that identity thing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: You will have seen this more than me.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I've seen it a lot with business people who retire.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I've seen it with athletes who retire. You will have
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: seen it with a lot more athletes who stop playing
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that they fall into an existential crisis because their identity
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: is so wrapped up in the stuff that they do.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And I was coaching a guy who was an athlete
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: who just you know, was a big quite a big athlete,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: but then got injured career over and my coaching with
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: him was to try to get his identity around his
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: character and his values rather than his job. Because when
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: we connect our identity to what we do, fucking hell,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: we're on thin ice, aren't they.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't. It won't sustain you the
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: way I think people think. Again, it's a societal message, right,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: you know, go to school, study hard, get a good job,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: you know, get promoted, move up the food chain, and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: then you'll have a good life. That's I mean, that's
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the story we're told, right and versus you know, do
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: something that you really enjoy doing, that you're passionate about,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: that you care about, that you can you know, throw
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: yourself into so you know, they talk about, you know
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: in the research. You know when people get into a
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: flow state or in the zone, you know that there's
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: no sense of self like, there's no doing. It become
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I become the activity to that I'm doing. It's not
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: that I'm doing the activity, it's that the activity and
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I are one thing you can think about. You know.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Musicians talk about this, right, you know when they're having
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: a jam session. Artists will do that. I mean it's
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: hard for corporate people to get into it, but but
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you can. But that's really what we should be seeking
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: is this experience of being one with what you're doing
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: because you're you're you're so engrossed in it and you're
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: so focused on it and versus thinking about what I'm doing.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Am I making any sense? When you're when you're really
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: doing it, you're you're not thinking about how well you're
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: doing it, that all goes away, you know, as well
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: as distortions and time. And then the other thing you
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: see when we get in these flow stakes is even
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: when we're doing things really difficult, we experience them as effortless.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: So what that tells me is is the problem is
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: not doing the difficult task. The problem is is becoming
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: too aware of oneself or judging oneself when you do
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the task. Like, if you can just do the hard
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: thing without judging yourself, you'll find that you can actually
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: do a lot more difficult things at a higher level
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: than you ever thought. So the problem isn't really doing
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the task. The problem is the self doubt and the
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: self judgment that you have in the process of doing
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: the task.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I want to connect that flow stit, which is the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: optimal state, and anybody who's ever been in it knows
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it is an awesome state.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: You know, if they're if they're in business in life,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: you know, they could probably relate to that in a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: time in sport or something where they were doing something
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: challenge where they were immersed in it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: But for me, the next step.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Because we can't be and flow twenty four to seven, right,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: but the next step to flow or are cloas to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: flow for me is this idea of being fully engaged
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in life. And this comes from the research around hardiness.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're familiar with the hardiness research
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: around control orientation, challenge orientation, and commitment orientation. And part
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: of that commitment orientation is that people who are highly
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: committed are fully engaged in their activities of life, like
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: they're curious about life. And you know, these people, they
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: just they seem to have that zest for life. No
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: matter what they're doing, they're in it. They're completely in it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Whether there's a lot of people who are just fucking
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: blah and who are half doing stuff.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: And I always and.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: That's why I have that Memento Mority tattoo on my arm,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: is to just look at it and remind myself, fucking hell,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: this day could be here, last why not just be
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: into shit rather than just go through the motions?
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what other.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Lessons or reflections and did you come up as I
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: think there was two that you talked about to start,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and I want to make them obvert for listeners. That
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the idea of what you said without saying it was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and that stoic idea of player given roles, well that
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: epic Tata said, we are all actors in the play
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and at base sometimes we get a part that we
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: don't want and he's basically talking about the universe and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the ship Sandwich from the universe, but that our focus
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in life should be to play our given roles well.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And you clearly stepped into that where it was like, well,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: if I'm fated to have leukemia, how do I do
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: this well? And that was the same with me with
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: my heart surgery. If if that's my feet, how do
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I play this role? Well, that's one that I want
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to highlight and we can dive into that a little
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: bit deeper, but that whole idea of focusing on what
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: you can control is really important. You talked about your
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: little routines and what you did. I actually did, and
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think i've told anybody this before, but CARDI
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. In ICU, when I first woke up
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: from heart surgery, I got out of bed and did
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: ten squats because I just wanted to focus on something
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that I could and I wanted to lean into this.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't for it was more for the point
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of doing the action and getting out of bed and saying,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I ain't taking a shit lying down, I'm just going
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to focus on something that I can achieve here. Just
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: for that that sort of self mastery, I think. So
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: is there anything else that you want to unpack around
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: those two things before we talk about all the lessons
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that you or I may have learned from this that
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: could be useful.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to that point, Paul, I think just
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a focus on the fact that whatever situation you find
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: yourself in, you always have a choice. And you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: there's there's interesting research done on people who are in
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: survival situations right where some people, you know, get lost
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: in the woods and die and other people live. And
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: you know what the research says is the people that die,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: they get really mad that they're in the situation and
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: they say things like I can't believe this happened to me.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: This shouldn't happen to me, and they stay really angry
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: at the situation. They never accept you know, that there
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: you know, that their ship is capsized in the ocean,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: or that they're lost in the middle of the you know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the woods or the desert or the jungle, and because
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: their mind is focused on this shouldn't have happened to me,
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: So those people die. The people that live in survival situations,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: they think, Okay, well, this is not how I think
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: ought today was going to go. But what's the single
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: best decision that I can make right now to help myself?
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: And so they think about that is it, you know,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: try to find water or shelter or some way to signal.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And so you you focus on what's the single best
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: thing I can do to help myself survive or what's
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the single best decision I can make right now? And
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: then you do that. And then after you do that,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: then uk, what's the next thing I can do?
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Right, and you just you just keep your mind consumed
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: with what's the next best choice I can make? And
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: what you see is that those people tend to survive
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: in these survivor you know situations, But So if you
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: don't go back to a more effect, if you don't
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: accept your situation and you're angry that you're in the
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: situation that you're in, you will you will undoubtedly do
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: two things. You will do harm to yourself and you
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: will do harm to everyone around you because you simply
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: didn't have the ability to accept that it's my turn.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And I remember saying that to myself when I was
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: in the hospital, you know, because everybody knows somebody who
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: had cancer, and I remember just thinking, it's my turn.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: And I didn't think it was going to happen this way.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't think it was gonna happen at all. But
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: this is my turn, and so what am I going
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: to do with my turn?
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: That, and I think the folk you've really highlighted for me,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and I kind of knew it, but it wasn't that
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: overt that. The precursor, I think to focusing on what
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: you can control is acceptance.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: That that is the enabler of focusing on what you
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: can control.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Because if we think about this from a broader perspective,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you mentioned I didn't want to be a victim. There's
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who are victims. Are
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: fucking professional victims. And you will know some of these
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: people stand that that you know, this person's got it
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: better than me, that person's got it better than me,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and they they are angry, but it's not just the anger.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: It's where their energy goes. It's the flashlight of their
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: attention is shown on them being a victim.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: And I think the other thing that.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Is really becomes their identity too.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it becomes they're.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: The defining thing about themselves as I'm the person who's
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: had all these terrible things happen to me, and then
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: you're supposed to feel sorry for me, and you're supposed
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: to treat me in some preferential way because of how
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: difficult I've had it. Of course, if you actually did
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: that to the person, you would do them a disservice.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: And I think the thing that I often say, and
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's happening more and more as well as
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a victim mentality is an entitlement mentality, that that people
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: feel like they are entitled to having a good life
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and entitled to whether it's not be offended or any
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, this is fucking wrong.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: This is completely the wrong way to approach life, because
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: it just puts people in a tailspin and all of
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: their attention and therefore their energy is focused on negative
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and war is me and and they're just it's it's
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that it's that vacuum of war that energy could be.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: It's not just the damaging effect, you know, It's that
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it's that double thing. It's like if you have a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: shit diet, it's not just the fact that you're eating
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: shit food that's causing you damage. It's also the fact
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: that you've crowded out of your diet a lot of
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: good nourishing food, so you actually end up with a
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: double one.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Any thoughts on that.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: And that you don't value yourself enough to take care
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: of you And so I think, you know, in our
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Western society, if we encounter someone who doesn't value and
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: take care of themselves, it's very difficult for us to
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: value them too. Like when you run into someone who's
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: given up on themselves, it's really hard, you know, especially
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: in the business world, in competitive environments, when you run
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: into people who've given up on themselves, it's highly unlikely
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: that the people around you are going to want to
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: take you on as a project because it takes a
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: lot of energy, you know. I mean you can do
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: it if it's a family member or a close friend perhaps,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: but we don't normally do that in you know, competitive
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: environments and business environments. When we see people who've already
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: given up on themselves, we tend to steer around them
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: because it's it can be exhausting to be in a
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: relationship with someone like that.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, what I really struggle is done.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: And it's funny you mentioned that when I people who've
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: given up on themselves. When I see friends who whether
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: they've been through a marriage breakup and they're being a victim,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I find it really hard not to have contempt for them.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: That's something and it's interesting you mentioned that we tend
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: to stay around them, because that's something that I really
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: struggle with, is when I see someone who's not helping themselves.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And maybe this is a personal fault of mine, but
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I have to force myself not to be contemptuous around
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: those people. How do you, as a coach and get
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: around that? Because you have seen and dealt with these people.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I need some tools here for me to deal with
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: people who've given up on themselves.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I think it's possible to have compassion
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: for people who are suffering, and that is a form
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: of suffering and insisting. Like when I run into an
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: angry person, Now, what I tell to myself is is
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: that person is hurt, because you don't become angry unless
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: you're hurt first. And so when I see an angry person,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: I just tell myself, this person is hurting, okay, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: don't pay attention to the anger. Look look for the hurt,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: and see the hurt beneath the anger. So there are
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: things like that that we can do. I think. The
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: other thing I sometimes say to people is, you know,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: do you want my help or do you want my
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: advice on what's going on with you? And if you
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: ask them, a lot of times they'll say yes, but
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: they really don't want it. And I'll say, well, if
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: if my advice were to actually, in the short term,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: make you feel worse, would you want to hear it? Right?
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes the thing that the person needs to hear
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: is not what they want to hear. You know, it's
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: not the oh, it's it's going to be okay, honey,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: It's going to be all right. And so I find
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: it helpful to say you know, I'll talk to you
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: about this, and I'll be honest with you, but I
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: need to let you know that it's likely that I
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: might say something that you know you don't like or
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: is upsetting to you. But I also realize that there
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: are probably some truths that other people haven't told them right. Yes,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: And you know, there's an interesting thomasoul saying that says,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: if you want to help someone, tell them the truth,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: if you want to help yourself, tell them what they
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: want to hear. And I think we do that a lot.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: But I think so there's what I'm getting to is,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: I think the probably the best thing that you can
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: do for a friend or a loved one is tell
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: them the truth. And sometimes the truth is is how
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: you feel when you're in their presence, or the fact
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: that you find yourself not wanting to be around them
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: anymore in your trouble by that. But that's the reality. Yeah,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: it's you know, it's a risk to speak the truth.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I think telling the truth is probably one of the
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: most dangerous things that we do. I mean, if you
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: really are, you know, in fully transparent and candid way
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: telling the truth, I think it's I think it's very risky,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: and it's dangerous because there are people that if you
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: tell them the truth, they're they're going to write you
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: off for it, or they're not going to ever want
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: to be in relationship with you again. You know. I
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: see it in the workplace all the time, where people
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: are really won't tell their boss what they really think,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: or you know, like couples where they really won't tell
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: their partner what they really think because they're afraid that,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: you know, something bad will come of it, you know,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: And so we just we estab we create all these
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: relationships where we just tiptoe around each other as if
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: telling the truth is a terrible thing. But the fact
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: of the matter is the truth. The truth can be painful,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't damage you. And this is what a
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: lot of people don't understand about the truth. It doesn't damage.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like getting a shot. When you get
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: a shot, there's pain when the needle goes in, so
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: you feel pain, but it's not harming you. It's just painful.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: And people need to understand that there's something that can
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: be painful, but you're not being harmed by it. And
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, conversation with someone who will really
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: tell you the truth would be that way, you know,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: where it would be painful. And so that's what I
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: try to do with people, to say, you know, there,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I got something I want to tell you, Paul, but
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of reluctant to do it because I feel
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: like if I say this to you, you know, you
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: might be mad at me and it might damage our friendship.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: And then I'll say, so, you know that said, do
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: you want me to tell you? And almost always they say, yeah,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: tell me. So now you're asking me for it, you see.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: So that's the permission.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: That's kind of a nice yeah, yeah, so that's back
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: to answer your question. That's a nice tactic. If you
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: have some really hard, you know, difficult things to say
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: to someone you know, ask them for permission and just
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: say I'm reluctant to tell you this because I'm afraid
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: you're going to be hurt by it or angry and
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: I don't want I don't want that to go there,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: but at the same time, I don't want to be disingenuous.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And then once they ask you, they'll say, yeah, I
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: want you to tell me that, right there changes their
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: response because now they've asked.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: For Yeah, now that that is gold advice.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: And actually the other bit of advice that I liked
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: from that is to look what's behind their behavior too.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know the.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Old saying, you know, never judge somebody until you've walked
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: them mile in their shoes. So from the anger, understanding
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that there's hurt behind the anger and to look for that.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And one one thing I wanted to talk about you
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: kind of meant you touched on it a little bit earlier,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: But I'm becoming more and more focused on this idea
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of your flashlight of your attention. And it's something that
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I got from my wife from Japanese psychology where they
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: they talk about the flashlight of your attention is the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: most important thing in your life because and when you
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: think about it from a neuroscience perspective, Stein, I think
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you'll agree that attention is a precursor for everything in
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the pream It's a precursor for.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: Emotions and feelings, it's a precursor for auction.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Has this experience changed Were you direct the flashlight of
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: your attention or were that flashlight lingers longer?
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I think I'm more intentional about how I spend my
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: time just because I feel like I have less of it.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: There's a there's an urgency that I that I feel
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: so for like, let for example, last weekend, I went
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: down to Guadalajara, Mexico to visit a friend, and I
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: think probably normally I wouldn't have done that, but I
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: remember thinking to myself, this might be my only chance
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: ants to go. And when I said that to myself,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: this is this will probably be my only chance. Then
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I went versus I think if you talked to me
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: five years ago, my response would have been, Oh, there'll
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: be another chance, There'll be another opportunity, yes, yes, right,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: And now I realize, no, there's there's like a lot
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: of things that you're going to do one last time
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: or or you're only going to have one opportunity in
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: your whole life to do it. And what are you
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: going to say? You know, you're going to say yes
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: or no. So I think I've been more open to
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: doing some things that maybe you call it spontaneous. But
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I'll give you another just simple example. So I travel
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: a good bit for work. And one of the things
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: that I realized when I was in the hospital for
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: so long is I don't mind the business travel and
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: the and the work what I really dislike is the
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: hotel room, you know, you know, the isolation of it.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: So I thought, well, if I can, if I can
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: stay with friends instead, that would make it better. So,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: you know, I reached out to some friends and like
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: they're like, there's a company I work with in Dallas,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: and one of the guys, who's a senior guy with
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: the company, I've known for a long time. And I
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: told him, I said, look, let me, let me just
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: tell you what's going on. It's like, I don't want
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: to stay in a hotel anymore. You know, I want
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: to stay at somebody's house and his kids are grown
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: like mine. And I was like, you know, if you
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: and your wife are comfortable, I would like love to
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: stay with you guys, and you know, and find a
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: way to reciprocate, like you know, take them out to
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: and whatnot. And so I've been doing that for a
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: year now and it's been wonderful, and you know, I
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: really enjoy being there and they enjoy having me, at
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: least they act like they enjoy having me, and so
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: it's just kind of a win win thing. And so
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I think about that, you know, of the things that
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: you don't enjoy but yet are still necessary find a
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: way to make it more fulfilling. Yeah, and that sometimes
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: and that sometimes means asking someone to help you. And
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I realized one of the things I realized being in
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: the hospital is I don't mind it at all if
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: people ask me for help, but I really have a
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: hard time doing that. And I think I have this
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: concern of I don't want to be a burden or
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: a problem to someone. And I know there's kind of
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: a womb there, you know that that's about because it
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: doesn't bother me when people ask for help. But for
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: some reason, I've really struggled to do that myself. And
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: you know, I remember thinking, I've got to I've got
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: to work on that. I've got to be willing to
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: ask for help or ask for what I need. The
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: person can always say no, but you know if you
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: don't ask, But what you you know, people who freely give,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: they'll tell you they get something out of.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Giving, right, Yes, yes, so mean it.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Works both ways. So I was I was unbalanced in
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: that way.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Mm hm.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: The the urgency thing is is really interesting and similar
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: to your story about going down to I can't remember
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: what he said, it was Mexico or whatever to visit
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: someone might be that did you get Because I was
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: hymning and haying about going back to the UK before
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: my operation, and then I actually thought to myself, fucking hell,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I need to go just in case. And I called
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: it my just in case visit, right, and everything was
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: so I'd go, I'd visit my navy mats. I visited
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: my mates from UNI and I was like, We're going
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: out to have a just in case party, just in
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: case I didn't make it. On the other side, because
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I actually I thought about it and I thought, well,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: what would I regret if I did die on the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: operating table? What would I regret not having done? And
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: And that's the the attitude that I had in facing
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: my mortality was was not to be negative, but to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: go I've got a shot here to do stuff or
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: to to not have any regrets, and so focusing that
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: potential negative outcome on well, what needs to be done right?
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: If you're going to cark it on the operating table,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: what would you have regretted not doing? And they were
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the things that I made myself do right. But it
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: then spills over, doesn't it to your point that you
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: start to live more in the moment and have more
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of that sense of urgency because we actually are. When
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you're confronted with your own death, you realize, fucking hell, Hi,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: just high, not only precious, but just hi.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: What's the word I'm looking for?
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Hi?
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Easily it can be gone life.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know. The other thing that came to me
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: in all this is, you know, when someone has a
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: family member or friend that dies, you know, we say
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. In other words, we think of death as
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: a bad thing, as an unfortunate thing. And kind of
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: where I'm at with right now is it's the next thing.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: I don't have to think of my death or anyone's
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: death as a bad thing. I can think of it
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: as that's the next thing that happens, right It is
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: like you weren't alive, and you know, then you got born,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: and then you lived, then you died, and then whatever
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: happens after that. Of course, you know, there's a lot
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: of theories on what happens when the physical body dies,
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: and I'm no expert, but some of the things that
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: people believe I kind of have to chuckle at. But
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: you know, I think what happens when when we die
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: is that there's a handful of people who really loved
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: us and they miss us and they and they grieve
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: and they feel bad for a while. Like that's what
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: I think happens when we die, is the people who
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: love us hurt, but we don't hurt. The person that
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: died doesn't hurt. There's no pain, you know what I'm saying.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: If I'm the dead guy, there's no pain for me,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: but my loved ones there is. And but anyway, what
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: I'm getting to is is like do we have to
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: think of death as this bad thing that we should
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: all try to avoid at all costs? Like how's that
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: serving us? And again, I'm not saying like I want
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: to die, but I'm just saying it's like it's it's
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: it's you know, it's okay, you know, it's all right.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: You know it's the next thing. And I don't know
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: what it's going to be like. But you know, I'm
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: kind of curious. Yes, yes, I'd love to be an expert.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: I'd love to be with these guys who you know,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I died and came back and I
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: can tell you.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: But I am where I've landed with this. And again,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I think I think it's such a good exercise to
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: really confront your own mortality. And unfortunately, you know, for
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: most of us, we are forced into it from that situation.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: But it's I think it's an opportunity deny to many
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to confront your own mortality. And the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: conclusion that I came to is that death is when
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: I go to die. By my numbers up, I'm entering
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: into life's last great adventure.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: That's it. It's the last adventure.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And we go into it and we'll either know or
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: we won't know. But it's life's last great adventure. And
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: it's as you said, it's just the next step.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: And I think the dead guy is not the one suffering.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: It's the loved ones of the dead guys suffer. The
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: dead person's free.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: So is there something stand that you would having gone
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: through that experience, that you would like your eighteen year
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: old self to know, or some of the young people
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: out there to know, or even anybody just in terms
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: of lessons, But what's the poignant ones.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: That you come come through with this?
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Because I'm sure you analyze that that whole experience, given
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: what you actually do, right, it's hard not to analyze
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: and watch your own journey through that.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember when I was in the hospital and
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: my son and one of his best friends came to
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: visit me one evening and his his my son's friend
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: is a really inquisitive, inquisitive, bright kid, and he was
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: asking me about, you know, what I've learned from all
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: this and what's changed, And I said, and what advice
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: that I have, you know? And I said to him,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: I said, you know, just get on with your life.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: If there's something that you really want to do, don't
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: don't wait around for the right time of the perfect situation.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: You know, Uh, live your life with a sense of urgency.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: And because if you don't, then you're then you're waiting
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: to start your life. Yes, and that's terrible. So anyway,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't know it at the time, and I found
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: out later. But this kid, he went to his job
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: the next day or that week and he quit his
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: job and he started his own business that he was
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: wanting to do. And he told me about it later.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: I said, well, thank god it's working out for you.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Otherwise I would have felt like an ass, you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: but in just that sense of like, you know, what
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: do you want to do with this one wild and
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: precious life that you have because you're not going to
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: have it for much longer. Yes, you know, and so
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: the thing that you've been thinking about doing that you
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: haven't had the courage to do. You know, when you're dead,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: you're going to have the courage because you're not going
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: to be afraid anymore. But you don't have but you
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: ran out of time.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because I had written Dyne the thing for
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: me to coach myself or others, seize opportunities, seize them,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: And it's a lie with there's I'm not sure if
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: you're familiar with this research from Richard Wiseman, who's a
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: British psychologist and a very very good one, but has
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: studied lucky people in the UK. Right, And he did
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: this massive study where he advertised and he's been on
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: TV and all sorts of stuff. Right, So he designed
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: this study where he advertised he wanted people who were
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: unlucky and people who were lucky, and and so he
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: got a whole heap of volunteers and being in the UK,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: there was clearly more people who felt they were unlucky
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: than the way they were lucky.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: But he basically did a series.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Of experiments and analysis of these people and found that
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: lucky people are actually no luckier than unlucky people. They
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: just take their opportunities because when an opportunity comes, they
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: have an optimism bias and they actually go, I'm going
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: to go and do this, whereas the un lucky people,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: because of their filter, they still have opportunities, but they
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: either don't see the opportunities or they don't take them
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: because they go that will not walk out for me,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: or the time isn't right. And and to your point, Stein,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: and if the time isn't right, it might be your
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: only time.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: You might not get another shot.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard a really interesting thing the other day.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: It was actually it was on a TV show called Landman.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Billy Bob Thornton plays a oil guy in West Texas
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: and he's and he's given advice to his teenage daughter
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: who has a boyfriend at the time, and he says,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: every relationship that you have is going to fail except
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: for the last one, you know, and the kids like seventeen.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: So if this relationship that you have, the boyfriend, if
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: this isn't the last one, it's going to fail, you know.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: And I wish someone had said that to me when
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: I was young, Like, you know, every relationship you have
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: is going to fail. It's going to end. There's going
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: to be a break up, you know, and there'll probably
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: be some heartache. But if you're lucky the last one,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: there won't be the I mean, it still might be difficult,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: but you know, I think about that same you know
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: thought process applies to a lot of things, like sometimes
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: you have to take a job that you don't want
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: so that you can get the job that you do want. Yes, right,
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: And I mean that was one of the pieces of
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: advice I gave my son when he's came along. It's like,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: you know, take this job not because you want it,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: but take this job because it's going to help you
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: get the job that you want. And I see a
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: lot of people they're really reluctant to do that, like,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't want.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: To do that.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: But if you understood that, it was you know, it's
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: like it's part of your path, and it's a you know,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: on your journey, there's uphill, right, and there's days where
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: you walk in the rain, and that's all part of
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: the journey. It's not you know, slightly downhill with the
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: wind at your back. That's not that's not what anyone gets.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: But I think a lot of people don't understand that
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: doing the difficult thing or the thing that you initially
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: don't want in that moment is act. See what's going
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: to make you become the person that you want to be.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: You know, it's that saying of you know, hard times
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: make strong men, strong men make good times. Good times
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: make weak men. Weak men make hard times. I thought
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: about that a lot as well. You know, It's like,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: so the question is do you want to be a
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: strong person? Yes, okay, then you must embrace the hard times.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Right, And that's the back to where we started where
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: It's like, I think most people, if you ask them
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: what they really want, what they'll tell you is they
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: want their life to be you whan they say they
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: want to be happy or whatever. They want their life
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: to be easier. They don't want to struggle as much
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: as they are. But I think the struggle is absolutely necessary.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: So I would say, is you want to if your
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: life is not going well or if you feel stuck,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Chances are you're not struggling enough. You're not taking on
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: them enough difficulty, and you're not taking on enough responsibility.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: You actually have to make things more difficult and challenging
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: for yourself. That's how you get unstuck.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to get into the contest of life,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I think is the key thing is you've got to
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: be in it and you've got to look at it
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: that life is a contest. I think that's one that
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: the Stoics really imprinted upon me is.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, and the competitions with yourself.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and he said the Olympic Games are upon us.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: There is no time to waste, right, which is that
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: sense of urgency Again? The thing that are one of
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the things that really landed for me in that what
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: advice would I give myself or my younger self, or
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: would I give or have I given my kids?
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Is to give more than you take.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: And from that I mean from an energy perspective, from
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: a relationship perspective, and any group that you're in is
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: to have the attitude to give more than you take,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: so to be a positive ball of energy. Because as
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I think about this, we're all just little little blots
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: of energy.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: If you're in a zoom out over your town and
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: my time, you see all of these little dots of
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: energy and they're just bumping into each other, right, And
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: some of them they're like, I have this kind of
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: vision of some of them are colored red and they're angry,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: and they're bouncing off all these other little balls and
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: they're making them turn more red. And that's having a
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: knock on effect. Right. And when you think about this,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: it's like you fucking you impact the energy of everybody
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that you interact with through your energy. So my thing
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: with my kids is really just you need to give
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: more than you take and not go into relationships or
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: not go into workplaces or whatever it is thinking that
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: I want to take more than I give. If we
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: can flip out of rhynd, I think that is one
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: of the keys to a life of flourishing. Not an
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: easy life, but a life of flourishing.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was in the hospital, I had my
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: girlfriend bring my little speaker and so I play music.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: And when the people would come in to clean the room,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: I would ask them what's your favorite music and they
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: would tell me, or I would just say do you
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: like this, and I'd turn it up. But when the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: people would come and clean a room, I'd turn the
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: music up really loud, you know, and kind of you know,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: dance around with them. Yes, And I remember thinking, like,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: imagine having the job of cleaning hospital rooms of people
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: that are literally dying, Like that's a shitty job. And
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: I remember thinking like, if I can, you know, give
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: this woman, you know, ten minutes of joy. And it
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: worked and it made me feel better because I could
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: see how happy they were, you know. And by the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: end of the month I was there, They're like, oh,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: I love coming to clear in your room, doctor Beacham,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: because you're gonna play good music. We're gonna have fun.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I said, yeah, why not, you know. And you know,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know how that came to me, but you know,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that it did. But I mean, it's not
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: like a difficult thing, you know. I mean it's just
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: doing a hundred of those little things to yourself and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: to other people. Yes, you know again, the you know,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: the walk Away lesson for me is that the joy
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: of life is is doing the simple things with grace.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: Like I walk every day now, for I walk an
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: hour in the morning, I walk an hour in the afternoon,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: and I look forward to it and it's you know,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: going for a walk is such a simple thing, but
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: I get such joy out of it, you know, or
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: you know, bumping into people and saying hey to them.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, that's.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: It, Yes, And I see to that point. The thing
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: that change. One of the things that changed and when
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I got is I stopped walking with my EarPods. And
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: because I used to go out and take my dogs
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: out for a walk every.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Morning and every evening when I'm around.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: And I like to do it at sunset, but sunrise
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and sunset. But I used to listen to podcasts because
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I'll kill two birds with one stone here.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: And I took my earbuds out and just have forced
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: myself to be present, to listen to the birds in
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: the morning, to look at the chains, and like to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: see my dogs and having such a great time sniffing around.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: It's those little moments, isn't it.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: And if we can and that's I guess the essence
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: of what the Buddhist talks about with mindfulness. It's not
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: sitting fucking cross legged in a lotus pose. It's actually
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: just being fully engaged in life in all that it
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: has to offer, isn't it.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's a lot that life offers us and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: we miss it, you know, because we're caught up in
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: something else. Usually ourselves are concerned for ourselves. You know,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: what would your life look like if you were free
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: from concern about how you were doing? You know, what
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: would happened to you if you didn't think about yourself
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: much anymore? You thought about other people or other things.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: The answer is your your quality of life would go
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: up significantly.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Stan, this has been as usual for the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: third time, and so much good shit to think about.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: And I mean you are the epitome of the stoic play.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: You're giving rule as well. So I tip my hat
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: to you, sir. And what's what's one thing that you
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: are very much looking forward to now that you've had
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: that second chance from the universe.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Watching my kids and my grandchild grow up and just
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: seeing you know, what they become, that's still the exciting.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: And watch another I mean, you know, where I live,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: there's kids around, and I love I love watch and
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: see how they change, you know, and just you know,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: just the day to day growth, you know, or year
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: to year growth that you see with kids. I just
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: think it's amazing. And so that's, you know, I think
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: that's probably the thing that I'm most interested and curious
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: about what's going to happen. Is you know, how are
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: these people that I know and I've watched them from
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: day one? And you know how you know when they're
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: full grown adults, what does that look like? I think
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: that's the thing I'm most interested in. And then then
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: the other thing is is I get I'm sixty three now,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: so I don't know. I lived twenty more years. I
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: don't know what it is. But you know, how how
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: do I age? Do I age gracefully? You know? Do I?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just kind of curious to see kind
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: of what's next, because there's going to be a next
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: thing and I'm really curious to see what that is
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: and how I respond to it.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I love that the curiosity be. And actually,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: what's written on my bathroom murror right now is growing
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: old is a privilege tonight.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I like that growing old as a privilege
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: of nine too many I'll remember that, Paul, Thank you
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: for that one.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Very cool. I think you need to write a book
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: on this, really.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I think there's I think there's another book of of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: what you learned, because you've just you've got not only
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: amazing insights that you've amassed over your years.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: But but you have.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Just a way of fucking delivering those insights with impact.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: And I often say the best thing that anybody ever
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: said on my podcast was you saying, in order to
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: optimize your life, you need to take on as much
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: challenges and responsibility as you can tolerate, and every now
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and then you need to walk right to the edge
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: of yourself and stir into the abyss like that, look
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: over the edge, look over the edge, take.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: On to the edge, don't jump, just look over.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: And me and you have had the benefit of actually
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: really looking into the abyss now and walking back and
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: taking on the lessons, so that actually in retrospect, and
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: I know you're the same because you said at the start,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: is actually a privilege to be able to really stir
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: into the abyss and to walk back.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: And that be and not be eternally wounded by m Yeah, yes,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: very true, Very cool.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: Doctor Stanley Beacham. You are frigging awesome.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: So work can people go to find more about you
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: and and get your awesome book Elite Minds, which they
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: have to get, and and also whether they'll be able
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: to find your next book when you've managed to write it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: Well, you buy everything on Amazon now right, so the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: book you can that's the best play to get it
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: is Amazon. And then I have a website, doctor Standbeacham
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: dot com and you can track me down that way
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: or on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah cool, excellent, Thanks Stan, I will thank you forward
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: to seeing you again.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: Cheers mate.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: Okay,