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Mojo Monday: Becoming Mentally Fit - Part 2A with Carly and Paul Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Kelly Taylor here for this week's Mojo Monday.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So last week was part two of the Becoming Mentally
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Fit series and we talked about mindset through the lens
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of psychological flexibility, and this week is actually part two
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: A because I thought that mindset being such a huge
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: topic and having so many different theories and approaches out there,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I thought it was worth doing another mindset episode. So
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: if you have been listening to Mojo Monday right from
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the start, you will know that Paul and I used
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to do these together, so I thought it would be
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: great to get him back on as my guest on
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Mojo Monday on the Paul Taylor Podcast to talk about mindset.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So welcome Paul Taylor.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: It's nice to be here.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Thank you for inviting me on after all this time.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It has been a while, I know. And the reason
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: you stopped going It was supposed to be a temporary
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: thing is because you and knee deep in your PhD,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: weren't you and writing a book, and so that's why
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I kind of took over. And then yeah, you've just never.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Come back, that's right, other than a live back of
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: the truth been all listeners.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I am here for a guest appearance.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, banjir PhD is submitted and the book is
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: nearly done, so yes, and that's really funny.
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  Speaker 3: The book is done.
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  Speaker 4: I am just doing the edits on it now, so
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: it's gone finished.
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  Speaker 2: The manuscript that went to the editor.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: They have done the lit lelots and I'm just approving
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: the last of the edits.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: So it's yeah, yeah, it's good.
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  Speaker 3: Good get that ticked off.
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  Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, second book, that's that's an amazing achievement.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about mindset. And I thought it would
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: be good to talk to you in the looking at
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: mindset when we have big challenges, and you went through
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a challenge recently, well we all did, given i'm your wife.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It was a challenge for me as well that you
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: had open heart surgery, which is huge thing to go
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  Speaker 1: through and a lot of uncertainty in the lead up
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  Speaker 1: to it. So I thought maybe we could talk about
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: how you managed your mindset in the lead up to
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  Speaker 1: that operation.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it was really quite interesting when my cardiologist
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: told me that we'd done an assessment actually for maybe
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: just to take a step back for the people.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Who don't know. Most listeners would be familiar with it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: But I played soccer with a cardiologist, and because I
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: was in the fifties, I said to him, he amio it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: I want to get a full check to see how
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: my heart's going. So he did all sorts of difference.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: He did a stress test, he did a cardiac MRI,
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: he did a number of different things, but anyway, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: he talked about the rooms, the plumbing, and the electrics,
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: the rooms being the different chambers, the plumbing being your valves,
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: and the electrics being all your electrical activity and contractions
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: and all that sort of stuff. And it turns out
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: that he found out that I was born with a
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: dodgy valve, a die customd a ortic valve rather than
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: try cuspid.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: So he told me, as you know.
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  Speaker 4: That I needed to have open heart surgery or eventually
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: it would.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I would get heart failure or it would kill me.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: And so but said that there was no rush.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: And I remember him saying and said, you know, go
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: and chat to your family, take your time, and I said, look,
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: I want to get it done soon because my view
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: on these things, probably with my ex military bent, is
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: that when you're going in for a contest or you're
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: going to war, you do it on your terms and
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: when you're strong and your opponent's weaker. And I knew
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: if I weighed, I was going to be older, and
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: my heart was going to be weaker, you know. And
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: some people were like, why are you doing it now
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  Speaker 4: if you don't absolutely have to, But that's really why
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  Speaker 4: I did it.
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  Speaker 3: But I remember walking out.
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  Speaker 4: Of the surgery and the words of Seneca just rang
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  Speaker 4: in my head. The stoic philosopher I pitied the man
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  Speaker 4: who has not faced adversity because he has not faced
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  Speaker 4: an opponent, and nobody, not even him, knows what he
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  Speaker 4: is capable of. And I actually thought that this is
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: my worthy opponent. And I went straight in to a
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  Speaker 4: challenge orientation. And probably just because I've read so much stoicism.
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  Speaker 4: I'm writing a book on hardiness. One of it is
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  Speaker 4: around challenge orientation, and I've read a lot about this
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  Speaker 4: whole idea of challenge and threat. So maybe i'll explain
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  Speaker 4: that a little bit and explain my kind of mindset
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  Speaker 4: because the research, and I was very familiar with this
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  Speaker 4: is that if you view adversity as a threat, it
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  Speaker 4: has a very different impact on your physiology and how
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  Speaker 4: you deal with that. Then if you view it as
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  Speaker 4: a challenge. So when you view something as a threat,
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  Speaker 4: it basically eroade your motivation. And I think to take
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  Speaker 4: a step back here, this has to be something that
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  Speaker 4: you care about and that you're interested in, right, And
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: then we tend to quickly evaluate stuff when it comes
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  Speaker 4: up and we decide in our brain subconsciously or consciously
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  Speaker 4: whether that's a challenge or a threat. And if you
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: decide that it is a threat and start focusing on
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  Speaker 4: the bad stuff that could happen, it actually activates cortisol,
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  Speaker 4: the major stress hormone. If you view it as a challenge,
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  Speaker 4: it activates the or flight nervous system fight flight freeze.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: They're called the SAM axis. But the fight part the
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  Speaker 4: engage part. Now that's important for two reasons. Number One,
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  Speaker 4: when you view it as a challenge, then you have
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: motivation to actually lean into that challenge.
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  Speaker 2: It affects your.
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  Speaker 4: Motivation to do stuff. It affects your engagement level. But
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  Speaker 4: it also affects your hormones, so it activates adrenaline and
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  Speaker 4: nora adrenaline. Whereas when you view it as a threat,
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  Speaker 4: you tend to have avoidance behaviors, right, So you either
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: procrastinate or you try and hide from that thing. You
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: try to avoid it, so it affects your motivation, it
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: affects whether or not you engage with this particular piece
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  Speaker 4: of adversity, and then it drives cortisol. Now this is
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: important for people to understand because the challenge response adrenaline
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  Speaker 4: and nora adrenaline, and the half life of those chemicals
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: is around one to two minutes, so that means one
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: or two minutes after that event, those chemicals have dropped
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  Speaker 4: in half in your body. So after four or five
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  Speaker 4: six minutes, your body is back to what we call homeostasis,
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  Speaker 4: whereas if you're in a threat response, cortisol is released
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  Speaker 4: and the half life of cortisol is an r to
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  Speaker 4: two hours, so that means that ours later, there's still
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: significant amount of stress hormones running through your body, even
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  Speaker 4: if you're not thinking about it right, which then has
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: knock on effects because it can then affect your sleep
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  Speaker 4: that night, particularly if this is something that you've been
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  Speaker 4: thinking about later in the evening, it's going to affect
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  Speaker 4: your sleep, and then your sleep then effects your physiology
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  Speaker 4: the next day and all sorts of knock on effects. Right,
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  Speaker 4: So that's one thing, the physiology, but then it's about
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: your level of motivation, and you're in gagement with this thing,
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  Speaker 4: and with that challenge orientation, that's when you get on
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  Speaker 4: the front foot and you lean in and you're highly
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  Speaker 4: motivated to deal with it, whereas with the threat, you're
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  Speaker 4: not motivated at all. You tend to procrastit it, you
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  Speaker 4: tend to avoid, you tend to height And.
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  Speaker 1: I know, I walked into the bathroom and you'd written
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  Speaker 1: up on the bathroom mirror are worthy opponents. And this
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: is before you'd even had a conversation with me about
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that Seneca saying, and so I was like, what the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: hell is this? And then you explained it to me.
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  Speaker 1: And then even in the process of leading up to
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  Speaker 1: the operation, you were trying to get as fit as possible,
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  Speaker 1: as strong as possible. You were meditating every night. And
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  Speaker 1: so I guess that's where that challenge orientation comes in,
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  Speaker 1: where you're motivated to you were motivated to be in
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  Speaker 1: the best shape that you would be for the operation
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  Speaker 1: and for the recovery afterwards.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely, and that's why I wrote worthy opponent on my
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  Speaker 4: bathroom Mrror.
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  Speaker 3: I'd actually remembered a conversation.
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  Speaker 4: That I'd had with the made of mine, reg who
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  Speaker 4: was an ex Lieutenant colonel Special Forces to the Australian
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  Speaker 4: military and he led the special forces into Iraq said
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  Speaker 4: it was Kuwait in the first in the first golf War.
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  Speaker 4: And I'd asked him one day we were having coffee
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  Speaker 4: and I said, you know, how did you feel when you.
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  Speaker 2: Were going to war?
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  Speaker 4: Because I was in the military but I never went
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  Speaker 4: to war. And he said to me, he said it
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  Speaker 4: was it was interesting. He said I obviously had a
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  Speaker 4: bit of nerves going in, but he said the overwhelming
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  Speaker 4: feeling was a perverse sense of excitement because this is
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  Speaker 4: what we had trained for. And I actually thought, when
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  Speaker 4: I was driving home, I'm going to borrow that attitude
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  Speaker 4: because we get to choose how we respond. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: you talk about this a lot. We do get to
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  Speaker 4: choose our attitude. And I actually, as I was driving home, went,
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  Speaker 4: this is what it's all been for all.
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  Speaker 2: Of my training.
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  Speaker 4: I remember at university playing soccer, doing pre season training,
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  Speaker 4: running up hill, doing hill sprints and running till I
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  Speaker 4: threw up, and then getting up and running again.
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  Speaker 2: And I used to pride myself on that.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, my military training when me and a
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  Speaker 4: bunch of unhinged meates who you know, quite a few
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  Speaker 4: of them, used to get up in the morning and
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  Speaker 4: do voluntary log runs up and down the hills, you know,
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  Speaker 4: my combat survival training. I started to think, the everything
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  Speaker 4: here has been to train me for my worthy opponent,
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  Speaker 4: all my ice baths, the CrossFit stuff, and so I
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  Speaker 4: decided I was going to embrace my open heart surgery
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  Speaker 4: as a worthy opponent. And I actually got to choose
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  Speaker 4: the arena and got to choose when it was going
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  Speaker 4: to happen, and critically had some time to prepare myself
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  Speaker 4: to be the best that I could possibly be. So
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  Speaker 4: I actually viewed this as an opportunity to bring out the.
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  Speaker 2: Best in myself.
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  Speaker 4: And actually I actually hit the fifty to fifty to
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  Speaker 4: fifty challenge, which I'd been flirting around a little bit,
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  Speaker 4: but because I really dug into my training, really cut
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: back on my alcohol, I hit that fifty to fifty
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  Speaker 4: to fifty. I don't know if you have even told
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  Speaker 4: you about this. So that's in your fifties to have
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  Speaker 4: a VEO two max over fifty, to have your heart
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  Speaker 4: rate variability over fifty, and to have your resting heart
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  Speaker 4: rate below fifty and if you do that, you're in
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: pretty exceptional shape. And that actually got me over the line.
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  Speaker 4: And as you know, on my bathroom murror, I wrote
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  Speaker 4: my training program so that every morning I actually saw
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  Speaker 4: this and Epictetus, you know, his words in my mind,
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  Speaker 4: even though when I first knew it was it was
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: going to be probably six or eight months before it
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  Speaker 4: was going to have the operation. Epicititus is the Olympi
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Games are upon us. We do not have a day
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  Speaker 4: to waste. So for me, it was like every day
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  Speaker 4: is training day.
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  Speaker 1: And I just I love that and this is just
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  Speaker 1: this is so, this is what mental fitness is about.
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  Speaker 1: It's like we are training when the big challenges hit.
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  Speaker 1: And even before you knew about your heart surgery, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this is laying those foundations of exercise, mindset, nutrition, slight connection,
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  Speaker 1: all that stuff is laying that foundation so when life
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: does throw us those curve balls, we are better prepared
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  Speaker 1: for them.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Look, one of my favorite quotes, as you well know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: is from Apictitis, historic philosopher who said, we must all
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: undergo a hard winter training and not enter into lately
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  Speaker 4: that for which we have not prepared and he was
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: talking about life.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, the storics knew that life.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: Is whole, so you need to train for it. Now,
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: this brings us back to the challenge orientation. So what's
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: critical in challenge orientation is that you can.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Only really, you know, fully be.
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  Speaker 4: In that challenge orientation if you believe that you have
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: the resources to deal with the threat.
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  Speaker 2: Right. So this is really critical.
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  Speaker 4: And how do you know that you have the resources
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: because you've done stuff before that's hard, right. And this
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: is I think hugely important for parents to understand. I
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: think we're coddling our kids far too much. You know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: as you will know, my biggest issue whenever we had
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: kids was, you know, being brought up in Belfast in
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: the nineteen seventies in a mixed marriage, as a Catholic
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  Speaker 4: living in a Protestant neighborhood was really reasonably resilience building.
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  Speaker 4: And we're bringing our kids in a bubble within a
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: bubble within a bubble.
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  Speaker 3: All right, And I was like, how do you bring
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: up resilient kids? And that's where.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I think we both agree.
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  Speaker 4: I think you've told my first suggestion, which was to
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: take them through a kiddie version of combat survival it
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: was just interrogation training.
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  Speaker 1: I think there are a few things I said no
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to with our kids that are from a very young age.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I think he had them in stress positions at one point.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It was a very It was all supervising.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: It's okay, that was Oscar.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: He wanted to know what it was like when I
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: went through interrogation training, so I put him through a
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: little bit of it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It's just quite funny. Anyway. We probably shouldn't talk about it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: No, we shouldn't.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: But but this, this is the thing, is to understand,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: whether you're a leader, or you're a parent, or you're
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: a coach of of of kids doing sport or whatever,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: is to give them challenge. Is that just stretched them
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: right that are within their capabilities or just outside of
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: their capabilities. They are a push they could then achieve
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: it because this is the stuff that builds what I
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: call the challenge muscle. Right, we have to deliberately work
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: on our challenge muscle so that we build our faith
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: in ourselves that we can actually confront or deal with stuff.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Whenever the big shit sandwich comes in and it's linked
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: to the stocktaal paradox, which you know, I'm a massive
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: fan of and when Oscar went through his Cushing's disease,
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: he had it on his bathroom mirror. You know, the
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: stocktail paradox is from Jim Stocktaal who spent seven and
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: a half years in the Hanoi hilt in prison camp.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Was brutally tortured I think.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Eighteen times, spent four years in solitary confinement because they
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: were trying to break him. But he used actually Epictetus's
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: teachings to get him through. But the Stocktail paradox is
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: that you need to that you need to hold two
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: seemingly opposable things in your mind at the same time. Firstly,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: you need to retain the faith that you will prevail
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: in the end, regardless of your circumstances. And at the
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: same time, you have to confront the most brutal aspects
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: of your reality, whatever.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: They might be.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: So as you know, I didn't bury my head in
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: the sand.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: You know, the second thing that I did after I
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: wrote my training program on my bathroom mirror is that
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: I went and researched the heart surgery because we talked
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: about the different options for me. So I researched the
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: options and then you know, we decided on something called
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: the Ross procedure where they take your pulmonary valve out
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: and they use it as the donor valve, and then
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: they get a separate donor and put that in your
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: palmary valve. And it's a bit more complicated, but a
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: lot better outcomes. So I wanted to know all the outcomes.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: I wanted to know the death rates on the table
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: so that I was fully prepared, but not to dwell
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: on it. Just saw that I could then go into
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: action to mitigate that. Yeah, and that's part of the
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: stock deal paraduct. You can't just bury your hand in
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: the sound and go She'll be right. You've got to
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: actually look at what are all the risks here, what's
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: the chances of it happening, and how do I mitigate
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: for those risks.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you also had momento Mauri in mind as well,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: which is remember you can you will die, or remember
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you can die because you you actually went over to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the UK to go and see your family and your friends,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And that would have been a hard decision to make
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: because it was based on that, well, if this happens,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: then I want to go and see all my mates.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I called it mate, just in Case visit.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: That's I'm sure I love that.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Oh my minutes thought it was hilarious, but it was
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: it was a you know what, I actually thought about it,
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: and I thought, I knew the chances were pretty slimy, right,
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: yeah it's less.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Than one percent, but it was just in case.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah it's less than one percent, And I thought, well,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: I actually back myself because it's one percent.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Of all people going through that surgery.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're so freaking good at it now.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: And I thought, well, look, I'm pretty fit, I'm pretty
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: healthy compared to the average person with open heart surgery,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: just because I was born with it. And then I thought,
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: well I can. I can improve my odds by getting
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: myself in.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: The best shit possible.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: But there's still a slight chance. And so what would
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I regret if just In kis right? And so that's
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: why I went and had my just In Kis visit
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: in the UK.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So what would you say to those people who they
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: might look at you and kind of go, well, yeah,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you've got this history of being in the military, You've
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: gone through some pretty challenging comeback survival, you know, living
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in Belfast, and you know you've had a few hardships
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: there what about a people who may not necessarily have
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: a challenge orientation now it's more around threat, but they
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: want to change, It's like how would they go about that?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: Well, look, look, I think the first thing is to
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: create your best self or you know the concept of
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: the seeds that we talk about, so actually to write
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: down the character traits that you know that you have
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: when you're at your down best. And the best way
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: to do that is think about your biggest achievements in
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: your life, write them down, and then write down what
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: character traits did you have to exhibit to get through
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: that stuff. So the more you reflect on having gone
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: through difficulties and then and then you create this best
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: version of you. So my best version is called JEV.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: As you know, J for Jim Stock, deal E for Epictetus,
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: V for Victor Frankel. And often I asked myself, and
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: that was actually the first question I asked myself on
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: the way home, was what would JEV do? You know
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: he would he would see this as a worthy opponent.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: He would lean into it, right, And then it's it's
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: about building your capability to deal with stress. So you know,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: this is things like doing exercise that makes you uncomfortable
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: because you're actually going I'm actually doing this to build
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: my challenge muscle, to build my capability to deal with
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: the inevitable shit sandwich that's.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's around the corner.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: You know, three three things you can guarantee death taxes
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: and shit sandwiches from the universe. So it's about building
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: that through hard exercise, coal shars, ice baths, psychologically doing
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: stuff that makes you uncomfortable. I think you know one
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: of your clients you talked about that she went into
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: public speaking because she was shit scared of public speaking,
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: so she went and actually joined groups and and did that,
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: which I thought was just absolutely brilliant. You know, you've
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: got to do stuff that gets you out of your
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: comfort zone.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: That's key.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: And I think the words of Stan Beacham, who's been
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: on my podcast a couple of times, and I love this.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: He says, every nine and men, So this isn't a daily,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: weekly thing, but every nine and Anne, you need to
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: walk right to the edge of yourself and you need
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: to stir into the abyss and work out what the
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: abyss tells you, and then you walk back and you
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: take it on board. And every nine and then you
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: learn the lessons in every nine and then you walk
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: back to the edge and you find that over time
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: you have to walk further to get to the edge.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: I think everybody understands what that means, but it is
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: it's this hard winter training.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: That the Stoic's talked about.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: So if you're somebody who is easily stressed, you know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: it's a combination of in in the moment when you're stressed,
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: doing your breathing, you know, getting control of your physiology,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: and then shifting it into a challenge orientation like what
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: would your best self do or what would somebody who
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: you admire do, Because we can choose how we respond,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: we can choose how we react to our circumstances. But
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: I think it's that combination of the thinking about it,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: the visualization, the reframing stuff as challenges, but also then
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: training yourself so you get that heartiness edge over time
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: that you're doing hard stuff that's physically and psychologically hard,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: so you build that challenge muscle, so you then eat
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: it's easier for you to slip into the challenge orientation.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's great, and I think
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that's that's something that I have done personally, because as
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, like you know, public speaking is when I
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: first started doing talks, I was a wreck, a wreck,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: but I was Yeah, you probably could describe it as that.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I mean it.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Certainly having that feeling made me. It motivated me to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: work harder and be prepared. Sometimes that can be a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: bit of a perfectionist tendency is to over prepare. But
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: it certainly motivated me. But I know the more that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I do talks now and go through that, the easier
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: it has become. And that's not to say that I
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: don't still get nervous, but I approach the nerves as
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a positive thing because I need them to prepare, I
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: need them to motivate me, So they're not something that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I shy away from now. So I think that acceptance
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: as well. It is like this is my body preparing me. Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, And you've built your challenge mussel all the time,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Like you could have from that first talk when it
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: was highly stressed. You could have just gone, I'm not
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: going to do it, and you could have walked away.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: And how different would it be if you had have
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: done that? Right, And there's a lot of people who
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: do do that. But if they can just find that
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: ten seconds of courage to actually lean in and go right,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: I'm doing it, and then they get that little bit
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: of fierce as long as they don't completely and utterly
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: fuck it up and make it an abomination, because that
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: will then weaken your challenge muscle.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: And this is the point that if.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: You're a teacher a culture parent, is not to throw
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: people in the deep end too much, to do something
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: that completely overwhelms them, because that can then send them
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: into that threat response.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that then goes into a skill, doesn't it.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So you have to be realistic about what you are
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: about to do and do you have the resources and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the skill. Have you done the work to actually do it?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: And that's the other thing that plays into challenge orientation is.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Knowing that you've done the work.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: You know, most athletes, and I work with quite a
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: lot of karate athletes, a lead athletes, the biggest.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Thing that athletes want is confidence.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: And any sports or any sports psych worth their salt
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: will tell you the best way to build confidence is competence,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: is to do the work, to know that you've done
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: the work, and to actually have that progressive overload where
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: you stretch yourself, right, So if you've never lifted weeds before,
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: you don't go in and try and do two hundred
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: kilo deadlift. You start little, and then you progressively overload
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: the system as you go.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that competence, and you also need courage.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's like I'm looking at that equation courage
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: plus competence equals confidence.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: All right, well, I think that's been really useful. Thank
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you for coming on right Jo on Monday for this week.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: Hopefully I get back on at some stage within the
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: next couple of years.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: We'll say all right, well, thanks everyone for listening. I
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: hope you've got value out of that, and I'll catch
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you next week.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So yeah bye,