Latest / The You Project / #1559 Emerging Addictions - David Gillespie

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#1559 Emerging Addictions - David Gillespie · The You Project

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Speaker 1: I tell you, welcome to another installment of your favorite show,
0:03
Speaker 1: The U Project. Craig, Anthony, Harp, Tippany and Cook's meant
0:06
Speaker 1: to be here, but selfishly is not shure. We editing
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Speaker 1: it later on behalf of David Knight if where the
0:14
Speaker 1: fuck are you? Anyway? The two important people are here, Gillaspo,
0:20
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, my friend. How are you good?
0:23
Speaker 2: How are you? Greg?
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Speaker 1: Did you grow up with a nickname? I feel like
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Speaker 1: you were probably AUSTRAIGHTI one eighty.
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Speaker 2: I probably had lots of nicknames, but I don't recall
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Speaker 2: what they were, and they probably weren't pleasant. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: Were you a I know this is not what we're
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Speaker 1: talking about, but we'll get there. Were you an academic kid,
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Speaker 1: a sporting kid? Were you intense? Were you a fucking
0:46
Speaker 1: trouble maker? You can figure out what I was, it's
0:49
Speaker 1: not hard, But what were you?
0:52
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to be fairly academically gifted to
0:58
Speaker 2: the point where I didn't really have to do much,
1:03
Speaker 2: and so I didn't really really yeah, so all the
1:10
Speaker 2: way through, and it was a rude shock when I
1:13
Speaker 2: got to university. Actually, and suddenly in university you're you're
1:17
Speaker 2: there with a whole bunch of people who are similar
1:21
Speaker 2: and suddenly you do have to do something or you're
1:25
Speaker 2: just not going to pass. That was a bit of
1:28
Speaker 2: a shock for me. And I know that sounds really
1:31
Speaker 2: like egotistical or whatever, but it just it's the way
1:34
Speaker 2: it was for me. And I was really really lucky
1:38
Speaker 2: in the teachers I had because a lot of them
1:40
Speaker 2: recognize that, and just to stop me being a pain
1:45
Speaker 2: in class, which I would tend to be if I
1:48
Speaker 2: got bored, they would find things to, you know, keep
1:53
Speaker 2: me out of everyone's way.
1:54
Speaker 1: I guess that's funny. This is I know, this wasn't
1:59
Speaker 1: where we're to go, and we might end up where
2:01
Speaker 1: we were going to go. But like, you're really involved
2:03
Speaker 1: in education with free schools, dot organ all the other stuff.
2:07
Speaker 1: You're great, other great stuff you do, and you've got
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Speaker 1: forty seven children of your own, And do you think
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Speaker 1: that being this is like almost a contrary question, but
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Speaker 1: do you think that sometimes being gifted is not the
2:24
Speaker 1: advantage that it might seem like academically, intellectually, creatively, you know,
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Speaker 1: in a sporting sense, I feel like it's an advantage,
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Speaker 1: but for some people it ends up becoming a disadvantage.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a really great quote about talent which I've
2:43
Speaker 2: completely forgotten, which basically something like what you just said there,
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Speaker 2: which is and I feel that applies in most domains.
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Speaker 2: You know, most people have something that they're naturally quite
2:54
Speaker 2: good at, or better than the average brown bear. And
3:00
Speaker 2: in that something, I guess you either learn to use
3:05
Speaker 2: that as an advantage and really excel at it's because
3:10
Speaker 2: natural talent only takes you so far, you know, if
3:12
Speaker 2: you imagine it sort of like where your talent is
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Speaker 2: at level nine and everyone else starts at level two.
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Speaker 2: Eventually they get to level nine with enough training and persistence,
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Speaker 2: and we'll go past you to level ten, eleven, and
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Speaker 2: twelve because they've had to work really really hard to
3:31
Speaker 2: get to level nine and they know how to improve
3:34
Speaker 2: from level nine, whereas you have always been at level
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Speaker 2: nine and you know nothing about getting to level ten.
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Speaker 2: So I think, yeah, it can be a distinct disadvantage
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Speaker 2: if you want to excel in the thing that you're
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Speaker 2: naturally talented at.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like like I was, I mean, I
3:55
Speaker 1: wasn't dumb, but I certainly wasn't academically gifted, right, not
3:59
Speaker 1: athleticly gifted, not physically gifted, and because I was so mediocre,
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Speaker 1: you know, fat kid morbidly ob saw that stuff because
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Speaker 1: I was so mediocre and I didn't want to be
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Speaker 1: like I took my time. But it was about fourteen
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Speaker 1: I had this epiphany, which probably had something to do
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Speaker 1: with testosterone and girls and social fucking isolation and a
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Speaker 1: whole bunch of things, and realizing that I was going
4:29
Speaker 1: to fail school if I didn't actually do so. All
4:31
Speaker 1: of these kind of things kind of intersected. But I
4:34
Speaker 1: think for me, being mediocre was highly motivating because it
4:40
Speaker 1: started with losing weight and I successfully changed my body
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Speaker 1: like dramatically in about four months. And while the physical
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Speaker 1: change was good, it kind of opened a door in
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Speaker 1: my brain that went, oh, what else could I do?
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Speaker 1: Like if I do work, make decisions, be committed, get
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Speaker 1: uncomfortable and keep getting uncomfortable, what else could I create?
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Speaker 1: So for me, it was like almost that default setting
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Speaker 1: of mediocrity was what gave me the drive to not
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Speaker 1: be mediocre. Does that make sense?
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Speaker 2: But it also taught you how to not be mediocre,
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Speaker 2: that you had to do things and get results, and
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Speaker 2: then when you want to move on from that level,
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Speaker 2: that you've achieved, then you know how to do it.
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Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of what happened to me
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Speaker 2: with university. Like I said, when I got to first
5:31
Speaker 2: year UNI and then suddenly everyone else was as smart
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Speaker 2: as me. And you know, my undergraduate degree, my first
5:42
Speaker 2: undergraduate degree, I think I came in with a solid
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Speaker 2: four average or something like that, you know, going with
5:48
Speaker 2: the thing of four's open doors. I don't know if
5:50
Speaker 2: it's the same everywhere in Australia to four as a
5:52
Speaker 2: path here, and that was a bit of shock to
5:58
Speaker 2: the system. But by the time I went on to
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Speaker 2: do higher degrees, I'd kind of figured out what I
6:04
Speaker 2: should have known all along and what probably other people
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Speaker 2: who had to work really hard to get to that
6:09
Speaker 2: level did know, which is how you improve, how you
6:13
Speaker 2: learn more, how you do things more efficiently, how you
6:15
Speaker 2: how you get better. And so you know, by the
6:19
Speaker 2: time I did other degrees, you know, I was able
6:21
Speaker 2: to get sevens and and because I'd learned how to
6:24
Speaker 2: do that, whereas never before in my life had I
6:28
Speaker 2: had to learn that. And that's kind of what I
6:30
Speaker 2: mean is if if you start from from what you're
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Speaker 2: talking about, we start at a place where you're saying, well,
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Speaker 2: I don't think anything about the way I look or
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Speaker 2: my physique or whatever is good enough, and I'm going
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Speaker 2: to learn how to improve it. And then you do.
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Speaker 2: Then it becomes something that you become really really good
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Speaker 2: at improving, whereas someone who's born looking like an Adonis
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Speaker 2: and has to do nothing is never going to learn.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to school with some kids. Some of
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Speaker 1: them done great, have done great, But yeah, a few
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Speaker 1: that I went to school with do I bump into
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Speaker 1: every now and then? Who are these like athletic freaks?
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Speaker 1: You would not recognize them as athletic freaks now, no disrespect,
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Speaker 1: you know, And you're like, oh, because I used to
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Speaker 1: look at these guys and go, fuck, I wish I
7:21
Speaker 1: look like that, you know, or I wish I had
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Speaker 1: that sporting ability.
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Speaker 2: Or yeah, I mean you see it all the time.
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Speaker 2: You see kids who are eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old
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Speaker 2: are absolutely perfect physiques that they have done absolutely nothing
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Speaker 2: to earn. They chugged down Coca cola and Mars bars
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Speaker 2: every second minute. They you know, seem to be completely
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Speaker 2: impervious to putting on weight. They have a sculpted physique
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Speaker 2: and are actually doing nothing to achieve that, and so
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Speaker 2: when the biochemistry catches up with them and their body
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Speaker 2: metabolism stabilizers in their twenties, suddenly they have no recipes
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Speaker 2: for how to change the inevitable and fairly swift decline
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Speaker 2: that occurs. Then. So whereas someone like you, perhaps who
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Speaker 2: worked to get to that point, understands the rules and
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Speaker 2: understands how to change them, well.
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Speaker 1: I think, but for some people, like we have a
8:17
Speaker 1: lot of people who listen to this show who I think,
8:20
Speaker 1: they get a little bit inspired and motivated, and not
8:23
Speaker 1: because I'm a great communicator or brilliant, but because they go, ah,
8:27
Speaker 1: harps is normal and he failed this, and he is.
8:30
Speaker 1: You know, for all the things that I've tried, most
8:32
Speaker 1: of them didn't work. Some did you know, even with
8:35
Speaker 1: this show, I've said.
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Speaker 2: It's true, but that's true of everything. And anyone who
8:39
Speaker 2: tells your story there is they were an overnight success. Yeah,
8:44
Speaker 2: probably one lotto, because I don't know of anyone else
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Speaker 2: that's an overnight success that hasn't put in twenty work,
8:49
Speaker 2: twenty years of failure to get there. It's just it's
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Speaker 2: the persistent that succeed.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well I did six hundred fifth ten hundred, and
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Speaker 1: I think today this episode is one, five five eight.
9:05
Speaker 1: And I did at least six hundred episodes that I
9:09
Speaker 1: lost money on, even though the show was pretty good
9:12
Speaker 1: and we were getting good feedback and it was growing.
9:15
Speaker 1: But by the time I, you know, like I built
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Speaker 1: a studio at home, and I did all these things,
9:20
Speaker 1: and I paid Melissa who works with me, and Tiff,
9:22
Speaker 1: and you know, by the time we paid everything and everyone,
9:26
Speaker 1: we were still losing money for like two years, which
9:29
Speaker 1: is not the longest apprenticeship in the world. But we
9:31
Speaker 1: did three shows before the U Project that didn't work.
9:34
Speaker 1: So by the time this thing actually became sponsored and
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Speaker 1: consistently sponsored, in in the black and a consistently decent audience.
9:43
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was four years. And people say to
9:46
Speaker 1: me all the time, not all the time, but at
9:48
Speaker 1: least fifty times I've had someone say to me, oh, yeah,
9:51
Speaker 1: I tried a podcast, but you know, the market's just saturated.
9:56
Speaker 1: It wasn't going to work. And they did, like the
9:59
Speaker 1: average podcast does seven episodes. That's how long the average
10:03
Speaker 1: podcast lasts. And when I ask people how many episodes
10:08
Speaker 1: they did, it's never more than twenty or thirty. It's
10:13
Speaker 1: usually less than ten, and I go, I did, including
10:17
Speaker 1: my other you know, I did hundreds before it even
10:20
Speaker 1: and it also I'll let the audience figure out whether
10:25
Speaker 1: or not I'm any good at this. But before I
10:27
Speaker 1: got to a point where I thought, well, I'm not
10:29
Speaker 1: shit at this, it was still hundreds of episodes, you know, yeah, yeah, And.
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Speaker 2: I look, I could tell you the same story over
10:36
Speaker 2: and over again, but I'll tell you a similar story
10:38
Speaker 2: about my son James, who you've interviewed. I think, yeah, yeah, Now, James,
10:44
Speaker 2: he does that clean bill side where he's rung every
10:47
Speaker 2: doctor in Australia and every dentist in Australia, and he
10:50
Speaker 2: does it every six months. And that's you know, that's
10:52
Speaker 2: twenty thousand, thirty thousand, forty thousand people. He's paying people
10:57
Speaker 2: to ring them. He's paying it out of his own pocket.
11:01
Speaker 2: He's been doing it for four or five years and
11:05
Speaker 2: losing money hand over fist. No one's getting him to
11:08
Speaker 2: do it. He's basically providing a public service. And yet
11:11
Speaker 2: suddenly people are asking him can they purchase his data
11:17
Speaker 2: and can they purchase subscriptions to his data? And in
11:21
Speaker 2: the last few months he started getting serious orders for
11:26
Speaker 2: something that for the last four or five years, he
11:29
Speaker 2: was losing serious amounts of his own hobby money in
11:33
Speaker 2: essence running and it was just out of sheer persistence
11:37
Speaker 2: of knowing that this is something that had value, knowing
11:40
Speaker 2: that it needed to be done, and just persisting. That
11:45
Speaker 2: got him to a point where now when his siblings
11:47
Speaker 2: hear about him making yet another sale and you know,
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Speaker 2: making more in a sale than he makes than they
11:52
Speaker 2: make in a year, you know, they're they're regarding him
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Speaker 2: as an overnight success when he's anything but because you've
12:01
Speaker 2: had to really really grind and just like you with
12:06
Speaker 2: the podcast, do that for so long. And the same
12:10
Speaker 2: thing happened with me with the Sweet Poison books, which
12:13
Speaker 2: were the first thing that sort of got me the
12:14
Speaker 2: publishing deals and so on. Is for the first two
12:18
Speaker 2: years of Sweet Poison being out there, I think they
12:20
Speaker 2: sold maybe two thousand books. You know, there was word
12:24
Speaker 2: of mouth, I guess, going around it. There was no
12:27
Speaker 2: real evidence that anyone cared. And then suddenly, all of
12:32
Speaker 2: a sudden it just took off and people would look
12:37
Speaker 2: at that and say, overnight success. Sure, but what about
12:40
Speaker 2: the three or four years you pore that?
12:42
Speaker 1: What why do you I mean just specific to that.
12:47
Speaker 1: What do you think that was about? Like? Why did
12:49
Speaker 1: that catch fire when it had been, you know, in
12:52
Speaker 1: a holding pattern for so long. I think that there's
12:56
Speaker 1: things going on under the surface that you can't see,
13:00
Speaker 1: that you don't feel like. All I did was go
13:03
Speaker 1: out and do every radio spot I could possibly think of,
13:06
Speaker 1: you know, I'd pitch things left, right and center.
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Speaker 2: Every day. I got told told no more times than
13:12
Speaker 2: you've had hot dinners, and it didn't stop me continuing
13:15
Speaker 2: to ask. I'd write something about sugar, There'd be a
13:18
Speaker 2: story in the media, there'd be something about something in
13:20
Speaker 2: a canteen, people you know, eating this, that or the other,
13:24
Speaker 2: and I'd pitch it at everyone I could think of,
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Speaker 2: and sometimes they do an interview with me, and there'd
13:29
Speaker 2: be no obvious effect of that, because how would you know.
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Speaker 2: But I think what happens is under the surface enough
13:36
Speaker 2: people here at enough times, from enough different people that
13:41
Speaker 2: it suddenly translates into an obvious movement.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, it's funny how you think. I mean,
13:52
Speaker 1: we have these I know we're not talking about our
13:54
Speaker 1: intended topic. Fuck it, it's funny how you have these
13:58
Speaker 1: ideas of what will work and what won't and how
14:00
Speaker 1: things might transpire. I did a I was like fifteen
14:06
Speaker 1: years ago. Now I did a maybe twelve years ago.
14:08
Speaker 1: I've done a few random interviews, probably like yourself on TV.
14:13
Speaker 1: I've worked in radio a lot, but bits and pieces
14:15
Speaker 1: of Telly. And I got interviewed on Channel ten on
14:18
Speaker 1: the morning show with David and Kim. It was it
14:21
Speaker 1: was a national show. I think I got into. I
14:23
Speaker 1: don't even know what the topic was, but it was,
14:25
Speaker 1: you know my at that stage. It was very health fitness,
14:28
Speaker 1: exercise based. I did that and then after I did
14:33
Speaker 1: the interview, I got called up to the executive producers.
14:35
Speaker 1: One of the people on the floor with a clipboard
14:37
Speaker 1: and the fucking microphone like the Hungry Jack's headset came
14:41
Speaker 1: and said, oh, the executive producer once talked to you,
14:44
Speaker 1: and I go, that sounds terrifying. Anyway, I went. It
14:48
Speaker 1: was a lady called Sandy.
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Speaker 2: I met her.
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Speaker 1: She goes, what Telly have you done?
14:51
Speaker 2: Like?
14:51
Speaker 1: What have you done? And I said none, really, like
14:54
Speaker 1: nothing other than just random interviews. And she goes, oh,
14:59
Speaker 1: she goes, would you would you like to come back
15:01
Speaker 1: next week and do another spot? And I went sure,
15:03
Speaker 1: which I didn't really know was an audition, and I
15:06
Speaker 1: came back and did another spot and then she asked
15:08
Speaker 1: me if I want to be a regular, right, But
15:10
Speaker 1: my long winded point is I went, fuck, this is it.
15:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to kill now. I'm on National Telly. I'm
15:16
Speaker 1: a big deal. Now. It didn't change one thing. Like
15:20
Speaker 1: it didn't like I thought, I'm going to be so
15:23
Speaker 1: big in about two weeks. And I mean, you know
15:27
Speaker 1: a few people like it had.
15:29
Speaker 2: That's what I thought when you started having me on
15:32
Speaker 2: the You project.
15:32
Speaker 1: Great, No, it's.
15:34
Speaker 2: It's a Maine shade. I'm set now, Bloody Craig half
15:39
Speaker 2: was talking to me.
15:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not happening, but it is. I wanted
15:42
Speaker 1: to ask you back to the back to the you
15:46
Speaker 1: know you coming up being a gifted academic or at
15:50
Speaker 1: least you know, having that intellectual advantage, which is that's
15:53
Speaker 1: just what you're born with.
15:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't anything I did. And that's the only
15:58
Speaker 2: thing is is you know, you say something like that
16:01
Speaker 2: and people think you're big, noting yourself, and it's kind
16:03
Speaker 2: of the opposite because I didn't do anything for that.
16:07
Speaker 2: I got born. I mean, if we look at a
16:11
Speaker 2: biological example, Actually it was my mother who did it,
16:14
Speaker 2: because she stored enough of the right kind of fat
16:18
Speaker 2: in her buttocks to give me a brain capable of
16:23
Speaker 2: doing those things that higher speeds. And you know, that's
16:28
Speaker 2: the biochemistry of it all and worth knowing. By the way,
16:32
Speaker 2: if you're number two child in a rush or number
16:34
Speaker 2: three child in a rush, is it all the good
16:36
Speaker 2: stuff might have been used up on the first child.
16:38
Speaker 2: I am an eldest child, by the way.
16:40
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. So it's all about your mum's buttocks everyone,
16:44
Speaker 1: it is.
16:44
Speaker 2: Yep, that's what kind of fat she stores in a bum.
16:50
Speaker 1: Wow, that is just all kinds of weird. But I
16:54
Speaker 1: was thinking about, Look, you're exactly right, and it's like,
16:57
Speaker 1: there are some things that like, I think I'm natural.
17:02
Speaker 1: I'm a reasonably articulate, I'm reasonally good communicator, And even
17:05
Speaker 1: when I was a young fat kid, I was probably
17:08
Speaker 1: a better communicator than most of my peers in terms
17:12
Speaker 1: of I could hold conversations with grown ups and you know,
17:15
Speaker 1: and kind of be right there in the middle of
17:17
Speaker 1: it and have been needed to be, didn't you because
17:22
Speaker 1: you know it was going to be all to otherwise.
17:24
Speaker 2: That's reminds you of something that a mate said to
17:26
Speaker 2: me when we were, you know, eighteen year olds. And
17:28
Speaker 2: he was a fairly wealthy family and his parents bought
17:31
Speaker 2: him a pretty flash car when he was an eighteen
17:33
Speaker 2: year old. And I managed to buy my own Hold
17:36
Speaker 2: and Gemini out of my earnings at working at the
17:39
Speaker 2: sports store, and no one was was a secondhand blue
17:45
Speaker 2: nurse's car, you know, one of those really nice pale
17:47
Speaker 2: blue Hold Geminis. And he used to say, have a
17:53
Speaker 2: go at me and say, you know you're never going
17:55
Speaker 2: to pick up in that car, right, And I said
17:58
Speaker 2: to him, mate, if a girl interested in me when
18:01
Speaker 2: I'm driving this car, then she's interested in me, not
18:03
Speaker 2: the car.
18:05
Speaker 1: That is. That is very good retort and true that is.
18:09
Speaker 2: Whereas with him lingering down, is it the Ferrari or
18:12
Speaker 2: is it the guy driving the Ferrari?
18:14
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, well yeah, did he literally have a Ferrari?
18:20
Speaker 2: Yes, he did literally had a Ferrari?
18:22
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh my god. That that's I mean,
18:24
Speaker 1: there's wealthy and then they're stupid wealthy or maybe stupid debt,
18:29
Speaker 1: who knows. I was going to ask you, though, do
18:31
Speaker 1: you think that like we're talking about kids or we
18:34
Speaker 1: do talk a little bit about kids being you know,
18:37
Speaker 1: resilient and like, because I mean my mum and dad
18:41
Speaker 1: I had a great childhood. But I certainly wasn't molly
18:44
Speaker 1: coddled on any level. You know, I was an only kid,
18:48
Speaker 1: but Mum and dad worked all the time. I let
18:51
Speaker 1: myself in at four o'clock when I got home, or
18:54
Speaker 1: three forty five when I got home. Mom and Dad
18:56
Speaker 1: got home at six. And in the country kid, I
19:01
Speaker 1: was one of them. Yeah yeah, And I mean like
19:04
Speaker 1: I had everything I needed. I didn't live in a
19:06
Speaker 1: house with any violence or any alcoholism or any abuse.
19:09
Speaker 1: So I was very fortunate. But you know that, like
19:16
Speaker 1: there wasn't any kind of doting, so to speak. And
19:19
Speaker 1: so when by the time when I was doing Year twelve,
19:24
Speaker 1: like a couple of months in, Mom and Dad sat
19:26
Speaker 1: me down because we moved a lot. I thought Dad
19:28
Speaker 1: was a drug dealer, but he wasn't. But we moved
19:30
Speaker 1: a lot. No, he worked in retail. Then he got
19:32
Speaker 1: off at a job in Tasmania, a state manager for
19:36
Speaker 1: an organization called Brashes, which you might remember Brashes Yeah
19:39
Speaker 1: still yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, they moved. I was seventeen,
19:44
Speaker 1: so I stayed and that was the last time I
19:46
Speaker 1: lived with him. I was seventeen years old, and I
19:49
Speaker 1: lived essentially, I boarded with a family, but essentially lived
19:52
Speaker 1: by myself. But so when I came out and I
19:54
Speaker 1: started working, I was already resilient. I was already making decisions,
19:58
Speaker 1: I was already sustaining, and I was seventeen years old.
20:03
Speaker 1: Then at eighteen, I moved to Western Australia by myself.
20:06
Speaker 1: Worked on a construction site through the day and worked
20:10
Speaker 1: in gyms at night, and then worked in pubs three
20:12
Speaker 1: nights a week. After that, I had three jobs when
20:15
Speaker 1: I was eighteen. And not saying that's good or bad,
20:19
Speaker 1: but I feel like sometimes now maybe where over I
20:26
Speaker 1: don't know, over molly coddling or protecting our kids to
20:29
Speaker 1: the point where when they do leave the nest, maybe
20:33
Speaker 1: they don't have the resourcefulness and resilience that's going to
20:37
Speaker 1: hold them in good stead.
20:39
Speaker 2: Well, there's quite a lot written about this, and I
20:41
Speaker 2: think I probably went over some of it in the
20:44
Speaker 2: teen Brain book. That adolescence has been extended. So it's
20:54
Speaker 2: probably a result of the extension in first age of
21:00
Speaker 2: first birth. So age of first birth for females in
21:04
Speaker 2: Australia has massively increased in the last twenty or thirty years.
21:10
Speaker 2: So when Lizzie, my wife, and I had our first
21:15
Speaker 2: child at I think she was twenty five, that was
21:20
Speaker 2: relatively late for our generation. So that was, you know,
21:23
Speaker 2: in the nineties, and that was relatively late. You know,
21:27
Speaker 2: a lot of her friends had already had their first child,
21:29
Speaker 2: you know, twenty three, twenty four years old. You say
21:32
Speaker 2: that to a twenty three or twenty four year old
21:34
Speaker 2: now and they will think you're insane. They do not
21:39
Speaker 2: have an expectation that they will be having children until
21:41
Speaker 2: their mid thirties if then, And that reflects what's going
21:47
Speaker 2: on in the population in general. According to the ABS statistics,
21:50
Speaker 2: at least when I wrote teen Brain, which is a
21:52
Speaker 2: few years ago now this is probably much higher than this,
21:55
Speaker 2: But when I wrote that, I think was something like
21:57
Speaker 2: thirty three point five. So is the average age of
22:03
Speaker 2: the mother at their first child. So it's that extension
22:08
Speaker 2: of childhood from on average mothers having their first child
22:15
Speaker 2: in their low twenties to their low to mid thirties
22:19
Speaker 2: means that there's an extended period where the child is
22:24
Speaker 2: probably effectively being looked after by their parents, and probably
22:29
Speaker 2: having their housing provided by their parents. And that's a
22:32
Speaker 2: consequence of the economy that's been built by honest so
22:37
Speaker 2: quite honestly quite weird tax policy where we subsidize the
22:42
Speaker 2: investment in property, and all of that added together means
22:48
Speaker 2: that adolescence doesn't finish at eighteen or anything like it,
22:52
Speaker 2: or seventeen in your case, it's more normal to be
22:55
Speaker 2: thinking about a thirty year old as what you were
22:58
Speaker 2: at seventeen.
23:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was eight or eighteen and a half,
23:04
Speaker 1: this is not a good childhood, but I mean it
23:07
Speaker 1: just was mine. Like I was quite big, I was
23:09
Speaker 1: a bodybuilder. I was working in gyms, I was working
23:11
Speaker 1: on construction all day. When I was eighteen and a half,
23:14
Speaker 1: I was working in pubs three nights a week getting
23:16
Speaker 1: punched in the face like, which is no surprise at
23:20
Speaker 1: the job.
23:20
Speaker 2: They said that our craig, listen, we just want to
23:22
Speaker 2: stand over there and get punched in the face.
23:24
Speaker 1: Well, we want you to stand over there and be
23:26
Speaker 1: large and intimidating and don't let dickheads in. I mean
23:29
Speaker 1: that was my brief, right, or get rid of dickheads, right, whatever,
23:33
Speaker 1: But you think about putting a teenager in that position
23:37
Speaker 1: now like you wouldn't even you wouldn't dream of it.
23:40
Speaker 2: Do you think that?
23:41
Speaker 1: Okay, So I just want to talk for a moment
23:45
Speaker 1: about potential and with children, helping them develop their potential,
23:52
Speaker 1: whether that's academic, whether that's you know, a commercial potential,
23:59
Speaker 1: physical potential, you know, relationships, communication. I feel like, you know,
24:05
Speaker 1: if we're we're delaying their development so to speak, or
24:09
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're basically becoming twenty five year old teenagers,
24:14
Speaker 1: what's that doing to their capacity for growth and learning
24:17
Speaker 1: and optimizing their either intellectual potential or whatever.
24:24
Speaker 2: It's It's probably not doing much if you consider that
24:30
Speaker 2: the generation that that is happening to, and this, you know,
24:33
Speaker 2: we are going to work our way back around to
24:35
Speaker 2: a bit of a topic here that the generation that
24:38
Speaker 2: that is happening to are not like any other generation,
24:42
Speaker 2: and they're not like their parents either, And there's a
24:44
Speaker 2: tendency for parents these days to think that criticism of
24:50
Speaker 2: you know, kids that age is just the usual you
24:54
Speaker 2: know kids these days type criticism you know that you
24:56
Speaker 2: get from every older generation is ah, these rat bag
25:00
Speaker 2: you know, you got it in the sixties and the
25:01
Speaker 2: seventies and the eighties and so on. But there is
25:03
Speaker 2: a fundamental difference with this generation, and it started thirteen
25:08
Speaker 2: years ago and we are just now starting to see
25:15
Speaker 2: it make a difference. And the thing that happened thirteen
25:20
Speaker 2: years ago is the iPad was released. And this is
25:23
Speaker 2: not to say that, you know, Apple is the enemy
25:25
Speaker 2: of the universe, it's just that they were the first.
25:28
Speaker 2: And why it mattered that the iPad was released is
25:31
Speaker 2: suddenly you had Internet on a stick, in the sense
25:35
Speaker 2: that prior to that, if you wanted to access the Internet,
25:39
Speaker 2: you really had to be somewhere near a computer, which
25:42
Speaker 2: had to be somewhere near a PowerPoint, and somewhere near
25:45
Speaker 2: an Internet connection, usually a cable. And what the iPad
25:51
Speaker 2: and a few years before the iPhone had done is
25:55
Speaker 2: unshackle all of that, so that suddenly you had the
25:58
Speaker 2: Internet twenty four seven heaven, anywhere you were. And that's
26:04
Speaker 2: a very, very big change if it's coupled with some
26:07
Speaker 2: other things that happened around about the same time, which
26:10
Speaker 2: is the invention of or at least the getting big
26:13
Speaker 2: of things like Facebook, Instagram, first person shooter gaming, online gambling,
26:20
Speaker 2: and a high resolution free pornography. Now old fellas like
26:28
Speaker 2: us will remember Craig that it wasn't that long ago
26:32
Speaker 2: that if you wanted to engage in the looking at
26:35
Speaker 2: nude young ladies, you would have to make a trip
26:38
Speaker 2: to your local newsagent.
26:43
Speaker 1: By a periodical called Mayfair.
26:45
Speaker 2: That's right, or Playboy even And you know, have you
26:49
Speaker 2: raised ready to undo the CNS house, right? And you
26:55
Speaker 2: compare that to what the average seventeen, sixteen, fifteen year
26:58
Speaker 2: old boy has access to today twenty four to seven
27:01
Speaker 2: in their pocket. And it's just not even on the
27:05
Speaker 2: same planet. And I'm not wanting to target pornography. It's
27:10
Speaker 2: just that pornography is a terrific example to the people
27:12
Speaker 2: who say simulation can't be addictive. So often when I
27:18
Speaker 2: talk about addiction to groups, people you know, are quite
27:21
Speaker 2: clear on the fact that you know, obviously nicotine is addictive,
27:24
Speaker 2: and alcohol is addictive, and cocaine's addictive, and heroin's addictive.
27:27
Speaker 2: That's all very clear. These are substances clear as But
27:31
Speaker 2: often people will say when I say, okay, well yeah,
27:33
Speaker 2: but so gaming apps, and they'll say, oh, yeah, but
27:37
Speaker 2: that's that's just a simulation. You know, that's that's not
27:40
Speaker 2: real and it's not a substance. No one's injecting that
27:43
Speaker 2: into your veins. And pornography is a great example of
27:47
Speaker 2: a simulation that is quite addictive. You know, it's got
27:52
Speaker 2: a syndrome that we know is related to high levels
27:56
Speaker 2: of addiction. And then as people say, oh, that's a
28:00
Speaker 2: bit of a stretch, I don't know any porn addicts, well,
28:02
Speaker 2: you know, you might be mixing with the wrong crowd,
28:06
Speaker 2: because we certainly know about gambling addicts, which is yet
28:09
Speaker 2: another simulation addiction. And so it shows that it's possible
28:15
Speaker 2: to addict the human brain by simply running a simulation
28:18
Speaker 2: that stimulates dopamine, which both of those things do. And
28:21
Speaker 2: what we did in twenty eleven is distribute a device,
28:26
Speaker 2: a delivery platform which allowed simulations of dopamine stimulation to
28:32
Speaker 2: be distributed, so not just pornography, not just gambling, but
28:36
Speaker 2: some new fangled ones like the one that simulates oxytocin stimulation,
28:39
Speaker 2: which we call social media, or the one that O
28:43
Speaker 2: you know, that simulates dopamine stimulation from fear, which is
28:48
Speaker 2: what we call gaming. So we did that thirteen years ago.
28:54
Speaker 2: So no parent today can say they know what it's
28:59
Speaker 2: like to be a teenager today. Because no parent today
29:03
Speaker 2: grew up surrounded by addiction. No parent today grew up
29:09
Speaker 2: with addiction available twenty four to seven, and that's very,
29:15
Speaker 2: very different. And remembering that the only time you can
29:19
Speaker 2: really become addicted as a human is those ten years
29:23
Speaker 2: between the start of puberty and your early twenties, because
29:28
Speaker 2: that's the only time the brains defenses against addiction are down,
29:33
Speaker 2: then no parent of life today can understand what it's
29:37
Speaker 2: like to have grown up in an age where addiction
29:40
Speaker 2: was available for all of those ten years. So we've
29:44
Speaker 2: gone from a situation where in our day as teenagers,
29:48
Speaker 2: if you wanted to get addicted to something, you had
29:50
Speaker 2: to be pretty damn risk, high risk taker. You to
29:54
Speaker 2: you had to find a way to get access to
29:57
Speaker 2: something that was potentially addictive, and you had to be
30:00
Speaker 2: able to do it regularly, so adventurous and the high
30:04
Speaker 2: risk takers were the ones who became addicts, which was
30:06
Speaker 2: very very small percentage of the population. Now, if you
30:09
Speaker 2: want to become an addict, and even if you don't,
30:11
Speaker 2: all you have to do is turn on your phone
30:15
Speaker 2: and you have total privacy to do that anywhere, anyhow, anytime. Now,
30:21
Speaker 2: the kids these days aren't kids these days. They are
30:24
Speaker 2: a completely different beast because they're the first humans where
30:28
Speaker 2: every single one of them has been exposed twenty four
30:31
Speaker 2: to seven to addiction. Now, the interesting thing is it's
30:33
Speaker 2: taken us thirteen years, but we are finally seeing every
30:37
Speaker 2: single day in the paper. Every day, every time I
30:40
Speaker 2: pick up the paper, I see yet another story about
30:42
Speaker 2: social media addiction and how the government wants to limit
30:46
Speaker 2: the age of access and all that good stuff. Well,
30:49
Speaker 2: that's all really fabulous. None of it will have any
30:52
Speaker 2: effect because that is not the primary source of addiction
30:55
Speaker 2: and it's not going to change anything making a rule
30:58
Speaker 2: about whether someone has to be seen in order to
31:01
Speaker 2: access it. But the good news is at least they're
31:04
Speaker 2: acknowledging that there's a problem.
31:08
Speaker 1: So if social media is not what are you saying
31:11
Speaker 1: when you say it's not the source of.
31:12
Speaker 2: Addiction, Well, it is a source of addiction, but it's
31:15
Speaker 2: it's It would be sort of like saying, you know
31:19
Speaker 2: what we're going to do. We're going to go into
31:22
Speaker 2: this room full of alcoholics and cocaine addicts and we're
31:26
Speaker 2: going to stop them smoking. Okay, good, that's a good thing.
31:31
Speaker 2: And yes, you are removing an addiction. But is it
31:34
Speaker 2: the primary problem?
31:36
Speaker 1: No, it isn't.
31:38
Speaker 2: Is it a pathway to the problem, Yes it is,
31:41
Speaker 2: And yes it's great that we're talking about it. And
31:43
Speaker 2: yes it's great that we're recognizing that it's possible to
31:46
Speaker 2: create addiction using something as innocuous as a social media app.
31:50
Speaker 2: But there's a long pathway to go there.
31:53
Speaker 1: And and interestingly, while obviously you know, booze and drugs
32:01
Speaker 1: create you know, where we're putting a physical thing in
32:03
Speaker 1: our physical body and creating a physiological response, we're still
32:09
Speaker 1: creating a physiological response even with a virtual stimulus.
32:13
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, you know, it's still like it's.
32:16
Speaker 1: Like oxytocin and or dopamine is what people are addicted to.
32:21
Speaker 1: It's just that the pathway is different.
32:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I look, I mean not to get too
32:27
Speaker 2: graphic for your audience, but looking at pornography generally creates
32:31
Speaker 2: a real world physiological response. So that's an example of
32:38
Speaker 2: having nothing other than your imagination essentially, Yes, you know,
32:42
Speaker 2: with some visual aids getting a real world biochemical response.
32:50
Speaker 1: Who's there's there's a new term for pornography. Okay, kids,
32:53
Speaker 1: we're going to call these everyone jrop this down. Visual aids.
32:59
Speaker 1: There's a physical logical response boys and girls, and the same.
33:02
Speaker 2: Thing happens less obviously. I guess every time you stimulate dopamine,
33:07
Speaker 2: and it's relatively easy to stimulate dopamine, all you've got
33:10
Speaker 2: to do is simulate something that stimulates don't mean in
33:14
Speaker 2: the real world, but do it a lot more quickly
33:17
Speaker 2: and a lot more frequently. And so when you play
33:20
Speaker 2: a first person shooter game, that's simulating what it's like
33:24
Speaker 2: to be an armed combat in the real world, which
33:26
Speaker 2: believe me, would stimulate dopamine. But you get to do
33:31
Speaker 2: it a thousand times a day rather than once in
33:34
Speaker 2: your lifetime.
33:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also the downside of first person shooter games
33:41
Speaker 1: is not just dopamine, but you know, adrenaline and cortisol,
33:45
Speaker 1: which you know enough of that over a long enough
33:47
Speaker 1: time is shit.
33:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look there are downsides to all of this stuff.
33:53
Speaker 2: I mean to the substances. There are you know, lots
33:55
Speaker 2: of downsides because they will have side effects. And people say, oh,
33:58
Speaker 2: but hold on, isn't isn't say something like social media,
34:01
Speaker 2: which also gives a dopamine stimulation, and the real world
34:04
Speaker 2: example that it's simulating is what happens in the real world,
34:08
Speaker 2: when we do something and somebody tells us they like
34:10
Speaker 2: what we're doing, which is our social glue, the thing
34:13
Speaker 2: that binds us together. We feel good when people in
34:15
Speaker 2: our group tell us they like what we're doing. So
34:19
Speaker 2: that's the oxytocin which generates the dopamine stimulation. Social media
34:23
Speaker 2: multiplies that by factors of a thousand, because all you've
34:26
Speaker 2: got to do is put a picture up and see alike,
34:28
Speaker 2: and every time you see that like, you get the
34:30
Speaker 2: little oxotocin hit. So these simulators, when you do them
34:36
Speaker 2: frequently enough, generate lots of dophin. Now, as you say,
34:39
Speaker 2: some of them have other side effects. So for example,
34:42
Speaker 2: that one, the one that's created by first person shooter,
34:46
Speaker 2: you're getting testosterone stimulation, you're getting adrenaline stimulation, and they
34:50
Speaker 2: all have their own side effects. But people would say, okay,
34:52
Speaker 2: but let's pull back from that. Is there any real
34:55
Speaker 2: problem of people being addicts? Yes, there is. Yeah, if
34:59
Speaker 2: you look at people being addicts to substances, you'd say, sure,
35:03
Speaker 2: there's a real problem, but they're the problems associated with
35:05
Speaker 2: the side effects. So if you say the problem with
35:07
Speaker 2: people being alcoholics is that they're drunk, So if you
35:12
Speaker 2: could be an alcoholic without being drunk, would there be
35:15
Speaker 2: a problem. You'd be feeling good most of the time,
35:19
Speaker 2: no one else would notice, and it wouldn't affect the
35:21
Speaker 2: way you worked. You're still an addict. But it's the
35:25
Speaker 2: side effect that causes people to be concerned about addiction.
35:28
Speaker 2: And so they would say, Okay, well, this electronic addiction
35:31
Speaker 2: we're talking about here, if it weren't for the fact
35:34
Speaker 2: that you lose money by gambling, would having a gambling
35:40
Speaker 2: problem be a problem? The answer is yes, it is
35:43
Speaker 2: because the biochemistry that creates the addiction, and I know
35:46
Speaker 2: we've talked about this before, perverts the way our brain
35:50
Speaker 2: perceives risk and creates anxiety, depression ADHD, ultimately psychosis and schizophrenia.
35:58
Speaker 2: So it puts our brain on a pathway to in essence,
36:02
Speaker 2: insanity and depression. And so the downside to addiction shouldn't
36:07
Speaker 2: be confused with the downsides of the side effects, which
36:10
Speaker 2: is what everyone focuses on. Ie, if you're an alcoholic,
36:13
Speaker 2: you're drunk all the time, that's a downside. The much
36:16
Speaker 2: worse downside to addiction is not the side effect of
36:19
Speaker 2: a substance. Because we're now talking increasingly about addictions which
36:23
Speaker 2: aren't substance based. The downside to the addiction is what
36:27
Speaker 2: it does to the human brain, which is why we
36:30
Speaker 2: are seeing teen anxiety, teen depression, teen ADHD, teen suicide
36:36
Speaker 2: at levels we have never seen it before, because we
36:40
Speaker 2: are exposing that entire population to addiction.
36:45
Speaker 1: Wow. I was chatting, we'll wind up. But I was
36:49
Speaker 1: chatting to a guy recently who drinks and smokes, and
36:52
Speaker 1: he was asking me some stuff. I said, how much
36:55
Speaker 1: do you smoke? And he said a pack a day
36:58
Speaker 1: And I don't even know what's in a and I
37:00
Speaker 1: can't remember if you said thirty or thirty five. And
37:03
Speaker 1: I said how much is that? And he's like sixty.
37:07
Speaker 1: I go, you spend sixty dollars a day on cigarettes?
37:10
Speaker 1: And he goes, yep, I go, that's four hundred and
37:13
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a week. That's twenty one thousand dollars a year.
37:17
Speaker 1: That's twenty one k a year on cigarettes before he
37:21
Speaker 1: eats a sandwich or has a beer, or pays a
37:24
Speaker 1: bill or puts gas in his car. I'm like fuck.
37:27
Speaker 1: I mean, apart from all the horrible consequences of smoking,
37:32
Speaker 1: you need to be rich to smoke.
37:35
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is that if you were to
37:37
Speaker 2: ask him, why don't you stop, he would say, I
37:40
Speaker 2: want to stop, I just can't. Yeah, every addict wants
37:44
Speaker 2: to stop. Every addict knows they're an addict. Every teenager
37:48
Speaker 2: who can't get off social media knows they're addicted to
37:51
Speaker 2: social media. They want to get off it just as
37:53
Speaker 2: much as your friend wants to get off smoking. But
37:56
Speaker 2: that's the definition of addiction. If you could stop, you
37:59
Speaker 2: wouldn't be an addict. And that's the interesting point that
38:02
Speaker 2: everyone forgets when they start making moral judgments about addiction.
38:08
Speaker 1: Hey, let's wind up, but before we do, has your
38:11
Speaker 1: new fiction book that's in the pipeline. You've been a
38:16
Speaker 1: non fiction man, but now you're opening the door on
38:19
Speaker 1: storytelling of sorts.
38:23
Speaker 2: I'm still playing around with stuff, you know. The interesting
38:26
Speaker 2: thing is I'm finding AI really helpful for this sort
38:28
Speaker 2: of thing. Yeah. No, not meaning that I'm having AI
38:32
Speaker 2: write a book for me, but it's really interesting to
38:35
Speaker 2: do some stuff like I find playing with the style
38:38
Speaker 2: in AI really really interesting. So if you write something,
38:42
Speaker 2: just write it how you'd write it, and then say,
38:45
Speaker 2: rewrite this in the style of a certain author and
38:50
Speaker 2: It's incredible what a job it does on replicating that,
38:55
Speaker 2: and I find it fascinating. I also find it fascinating
38:59
Speaker 2: if you are ask it to say, look at a
39:02
Speaker 2: narrative arc that you've created. You know, so what the
39:04
Speaker 2: storyline is going to be. You say, this is going
39:06
Speaker 2: to happen, and then that's going to happen, and this
39:07
Speaker 2: character is going to have that happen to them, etc.
39:10
Speaker 2: You give it that narrative arc, and then you say, right,
39:12
Speaker 2: I want you to line this up with narrative arcs
39:15
Speaker 2: typically used by this or that author, and it'll come
39:19
Speaker 2: back with adjustments to the narrative arc which we'll say
39:23
Speaker 2: things like, well, what about if we kill this character
39:26
Speaker 2: off here, or if we impose risk on this character here?
39:31
Speaker 2: And I find that's an interesting use of the technology
39:35
Speaker 2: as well.
39:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had two interesting experiences lately. One is someone
39:42
Speaker 1: said to me, I've been doing this deep dive on
39:46
Speaker 1: you know, the way that our thoughts can impact our body.
39:48
Speaker 1: And somebody said to me, you need to read the
39:51
Speaker 1: Biology of Belief by doctor Bruce Lipton, which you'd be
39:55
Speaker 1: fascinated in. And I think I started it fifteen years ago,
39:59
Speaker 1: but I and finish it. So I just typed in
40:02
Speaker 1: chatter GPT can you give me a synopsis of the book,
40:06
Speaker 1: And it just gave me this fucking amazing one page overview,
40:11
Speaker 1: like like, so, I mean, I know it's not you know,
40:15
Speaker 1: it's concise, but I'm like, I've got a reasonably good
40:18
Speaker 1: understanding of the core messages and key messages in three
40:21
Speaker 1: or four minutes, which doesn't replace reading it. But then
40:24
Speaker 1: the other day I was often when I I'm doing something,
40:28
Speaker 1: I don't type it in. I just talk into my phone.
40:30
Speaker 1: I go, you know, what are the what's the you know,
40:33
Speaker 1: at what age does the average Australian give birth for
40:37
Speaker 1: the first time or something? You know? And I said,
40:41
Speaker 1: I said to it, how trainable like this is? I said,
40:44
Speaker 1: to chat to you, how trainable are you? I said,
40:47
Speaker 1: can you use my name when we talk? Goes sure, Craig.
40:51
Speaker 1: Would you like me to use it at the start
40:53
Speaker 1: of the conversation or would you like me to weave
40:55
Speaker 1: it through our conversations? And I didn't tell it my name.
40:58
Speaker 1: Obviously it has acts as to that information. But it
41:02
Speaker 1: was creepy how quick it went Sure Craig and then
41:05
Speaker 1: just started talking to me like we were on the phone. Yep,
41:09
Speaker 1: it is fucking amazing.
41:11
Speaker 2: Well, they do remarkable simulations of human interaction now, but
41:15
Speaker 2: the problem, the problem is remembering that it's not a human.
41:19
Speaker 2: And that's what most of us have difficulty with, is
41:23
Speaker 2: remembering we're not talking to a human. We're just talking
41:26
Speaker 2: to something that's doing a really good imitation of a human.
41:30
Speaker 1: My nervous system and my body. It's one of my
41:33
Speaker 1: best friends right now, it's in my top five friends.
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Speaker 2: So hey, we appreciate you, sir, and that probably we
41:41
Speaker 2: didn't get to talk about the thing we were supposed
41:43
Speaker 2: to talk about.
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Speaker 1: We'll talk about it another time, doesn't matter, we'll say affair.
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Speaker 1: But for the moment, thanks mate
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Speaker 2: See you, Greg,