Latest / The You Project / #2007 Brain Food - Bobby Cappuccio

Transcript

#2007 Brain Food - Bobby Cappuccio · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get it, Sam, it's your project. Of course, it
0:02
Speaker 1: is Bobby Capuco on the other side of the world,
0:03
Speaker 1: Craig Kappa on this side of the world, or perhaps
0:06
Speaker 1: if you're listening from the States, I am on the
0:08
Speaker 1: other side of the world. Good morning, what's morning here?
0:11
Speaker 1: Hi made?
0:12
Speaker 2: How are you doing good? I'm filled with optimism, You
0:17
Speaker 2: filled with.
0:17
Speaker 1: How are you really?
0:18
Speaker 2: Or you just filled with a chicken sandwich and a
0:21
Speaker 2: chocolate milk. I might be sending down, but I'm standing
0:25
Speaker 2: up inside myself.
0:26
Speaker 1: I've never asked you this, so this is completely irrelevant, redundant, probably,
0:30
Speaker 1: but I want to ask you just quickly before we
0:32
Speaker 1: dive into what we want to talk about. Could you
0:34
Speaker 1: tell me what you eat typically in a day? This
0:37
Speaker 1: is a question I get asked, what do you eat?
0:39
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what you eat? What do you
0:41
Speaker 1: eat in a day? Like typically, what's your breakfast?
0:45
Speaker 2: My typical days are a plant based actually, so I'll
0:48
Speaker 2: have I'm not meaning that I'm a vegan or a vegetarian.
0:52
Speaker 2: It's just the base of my diet is plants because
0:55
Speaker 2: I feel I run well on that, my mental clarity
1:00
Speaker 2: more sustainable energy. So on the morning I'll have like
1:03
Speaker 2: some spinach, I'll have some kaloe, some broccoli, whatever assortment
1:07
Speaker 2: of etch I have inside my fridge. I'll throw some
1:10
Speaker 2: eggs on that, hard boiled, sometimes fried. I prefer hard boiled.
1:15
Speaker 2: They're just like easier. And Yeah, throughout the day, I'll
1:18
Speaker 2: just have like an assortment of meats, vedge and nuts, berries,
1:23
Speaker 2: a lot of blueberries, things like that. Some days I'll
1:28
Speaker 2: make myself an avocado on toast with. This is a
1:33
Speaker 2: conversation I've literally never had with anyone before.
1:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, I like it. I may ask me, Well,
1:39
Speaker 1: I just think it's interesting because I've never asked you
1:42
Speaker 1: what you I mean. I've been around you a bit,
1:44
Speaker 1: and I say a bit what you eat? But I
1:45
Speaker 1: don't know because you're still like, you're fifty iss, you're
1:48
Speaker 1: in good shape, you're strongly lean. I've never asked you
1:51
Speaker 1: actually what a dia eating looks like for you.
1:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep going so most days, yeah, it's just like
1:57
Speaker 2: nuts and berries and a little bit of fre roots,
2:00
Speaker 2: but mostly plants, eggs, meats. But when I go off
2:06
Speaker 2: the rails, I go completely off the rails. What you'll
2:10
Speaker 2: go to when when you lose your shit? What you'll
2:13
Speaker 2: go to crunchy shit pretzels. Popcorn really, I mean, if
2:19
Speaker 2: you got crisps. No, no, I don't like crisps. Really,
2:23
Speaker 2: I don't like them at all. No, I like popcorn.
2:26
Speaker 2: I like pretzels. That's really good. It's not even ice
2:30
Speaker 2: cream anymore. I used to love ice cream. I don't
2:31
Speaker 2: like that. I don't know why.
2:32
Speaker 1: When you say pretzels, you may note a little hard,
2:35
Speaker 1: crunchy things, not like the warm, big pretzels.
2:40
Speaker 2: No, no, I usually eat the crunchy ones. Really funny.
2:44
Speaker 2: When I was living in New York City, coming back
2:47
Speaker 2: over wow, like it's gotta be three years ago, give
2:51
Speaker 2: or take, I would get work in the evening, but
2:55
Speaker 2: then I'd have to take a bus across town and
2:58
Speaker 2: go back to work another location. So I used to
3:02
Speaker 2: buy those big, giant pretzels. And the reason for this
3:06
Speaker 2: is you, for like one dollar, us used to be
3:09
Speaker 2: able to get these incredibly massive, smoked, delicious pretzels. They
3:15
Speaker 2: were so good, so bad for you, but so good. Yeah,
3:18
Speaker 2: And literally five minutes after I ate one, yeah, I
3:22
Speaker 2: would get dizzy. I put my head back on the bus,
3:24
Speaker 2: and when I opened my eyes, I'd be at my
3:26
Speaker 2: destination and that was a built in nap and then
3:29
Speaker 2: I go work for the rest of the evening. So
3:31
Speaker 2: that was like a giant sleeping pill for me.
3:33
Speaker 1: Delicious hell that is. I wouldn't be recommending that now.
3:39
Speaker 1: What is I've never had one of those? What is?
3:41
Speaker 1: That's just you said, smokey, what it's bread? Isn't it?
3:44
Speaker 1: Isn't it just bread?
3:46
Speaker 2: Yeah? And it put but on the bottom. It had
3:48
Speaker 2: this charcoal burnt smoke. It. It was so good the
3:55
Speaker 2: food that you used to be able to get well again.
3:58
Speaker 2: Not not for you, It's probably the worst thing you
4:00
Speaker 2: could eat. But for me, like anything I eat, it
4:04
Speaker 2: didn't matter at that age. I mean it mattered energetically,
4:07
Speaker 2: it didn't matter for me esthetically. And it was a
4:10
Speaker 2: great way for me to just knock myself out on
4:12
Speaker 2: the bus. I'd wake up and gone, I'm going to
4:13
Speaker 2: go to work for a few more hours. So that
4:16
Speaker 2: was kind of weird. I don't know why we're going
4:17
Speaker 2: into that, but yeah.
4:19
Speaker 1: I did, I do. I do. I've got another question
4:21
Speaker 1: for you, which a lot of people wouldn't think about.
4:23
Speaker 1: So when you are when you've got to stand in
4:27
Speaker 1: front of groups like you do and I do, and
4:28
Speaker 1: even like for now, doing a podcast where you've got
4:30
Speaker 1: to talk for whatever forty five sixty minutes and be
4:33
Speaker 1: hopefully be somewhat interesting and articulate, and you know, makes
4:40
Speaker 1: sense to be able to think clearly and express things.
4:43
Speaker 1: I can't eat. I can't eat much food within proximity
4:49
Speaker 1: of needing to use my brain and stand in front
4:52
Speaker 1: of group, even if it's a group on a podcast,
4:54
Speaker 1: but especially if, like I'd say, I'm presenting in the
4:58
Speaker 1: morning from to eleven at a conference, I will not
5:03
Speaker 1: eat anything until after the thing after eleven o'clock. And
5:09
Speaker 1: if I'm presenting at night, same thing, I can't. I
5:13
Speaker 1: need my stomach to be almost empty because that's when
5:15
Speaker 1: my brain works best. If I've just eaten a normal meal,
5:19
Speaker 1: Like if I eat my dinner at seven o'clock seven
5:22
Speaker 1: point thirty, I've got the IQ of a wombat. Can't
5:24
Speaker 1: string words together, like it's just everything just my body's like, okay,
5:29
Speaker 1: everything's just slowing down. But that's the way that it
5:33
Speaker 1: works for me. What about you eating? What's the correlation
5:37
Speaker 1: between eating food and cognitive function for you and doing
5:41
Speaker 1: your job on.
5:43
Speaker 2: A typical day, The less they eat, the better. So
5:46
Speaker 2: if I go into a meeting in the morning and
5:48
Speaker 2: I haven't eaten, I feel like my cognition is improved.
5:52
Speaker 2: Same thing eater in the day. I eat very little
5:55
Speaker 2: for lunch. But when I'm presenting, the amount of energy
5:57
Speaker 2: I put out, and let's be honest, I'm scared how
6:00
Speaker 2: I go to present. I would say eighty percent of
6:02
Speaker 2: the time I'm a little bit anxious about it, or
6:05
Speaker 2: at least I hope I'm going to be a little
6:07
Speaker 2: bit anxious about it. Yes, I'll eat a moderate to
6:10
Speaker 2: small sized meal, but I'll eat a lot of fat
6:13
Speaker 2: in protein, no carbohydrates or very little carps. So I
6:18
Speaker 2: mean this is probably not a small meal. But I
6:20
Speaker 2: have a little bit of avocado and I'll throw some
6:22
Speaker 2: cheese on top of my eggs, so I have protein
6:25
Speaker 2: and fat. And then when I get that adrenaline dump
6:30
Speaker 2: later on going on stage, I can kind of ride
6:33
Speaker 2: through that where if I haven't eaten anything, especially if
6:36
Speaker 2: I had a cup of coffee, that could get ugly.
6:40
Speaker 1: But also if you're eating fat and protein, you're not
6:43
Speaker 1: going to get that big kind of blood sugar spot
6:46
Speaker 1: and dump, right, You're not going to get that. You're
6:49
Speaker 1: not going to flat line where you know you've got
6:52
Speaker 1: a more consistent level of energy when you're eating some
6:54
Speaker 1: protein and fat before you present. Right.
6:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, especially and this isn't a dig on conferences,
7:01
Speaker 2: but the type of food that they serve you there.
7:04
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous because I've I've had a on days, you know,
7:09
Speaker 2: those days where you're doing the whole event, you're speaking
7:11
Speaker 2: for eight hours in the morning, I'm exhausted and I
7:15
Speaker 2: got to eat something, and then they'll bring in like
7:17
Speaker 2: pizza and these sandwiches on refined white bread. I remember
7:24
Speaker 2: I was so tired after eating lunch one session. I
7:27
Speaker 2: was standing in front of the room and I couldn't
7:29
Speaker 2: think I was having meltdown. I mean, I got through it.
7:33
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, if I could just move around
7:35
Speaker 2: a little bit and get past this first twenty minutes,
7:37
Speaker 2: but I was in so much trouble. So what you
7:39
Speaker 2: eat when you have to elicit and sustain high performance,
7:44
Speaker 2: it's critical.
7:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that also matters for people who you
7:50
Speaker 1: know at work in general, but students, like, be really
7:53
Speaker 1: careful what you feed your body when your brain's got
7:55
Speaker 1: to be optimal. Sometime in the next half hour or hour,
7:59
Speaker 1: I did a gig lass year. I'll tell you who
8:00
Speaker 1: it was four off air, but it was I can
8:03
Speaker 1: say it was a government department and it was all day.
8:09
Speaker 1: It was all day, and so I had to present
8:12
Speaker 1: from about nine o'clock to around five o'clock. Everyone got
8:16
Speaker 1: together from about eight thirty. And I can't. I would
8:21
Speaker 1: love to tell everyone who the people in the room were,
8:23
Speaker 1: but I can't because that would possibly get me in trouble.
8:26
Speaker 1: But anyway, an interesting crowd. Let's just say that when
8:30
Speaker 1: I got there in the morning, so there's all these
8:32
Speaker 1: round Is it called cabaret with all the round tables, Bobby?
8:35
Speaker 1: Is that what it's called? Cabaret? Set up? I think
8:37
Speaker 1: it is. Anyway, all these people are sitting at these tables.
8:41
Speaker 1: We're kicking off in fifteen twenty minutes. And in the
8:44
Speaker 1: middle of each table is this like looks like a
8:48
Speaker 1: gigantic champagne glass whatever that is times ten times the
8:53
Speaker 1: size full of lollies, like I would say, two three
8:57
Speaker 1: kilograms of lollies on each table. And then of course
9:02
Speaker 1: every person is at the table talking and just plucking lollies.
9:06
Speaker 1: This is eight thirty in the morning, right, so I'm
9:08
Speaker 1: assuming they've had breakfast, come to the event, and now
9:11
Speaker 1: at eight thirty we're just inhaling sugar. Then I do
9:15
Speaker 1: my first thing. I start off ten thirty. Morning tea comes.
9:21
Speaker 1: Morning tea is in an adjoining room. There is a
9:24
Speaker 1: stampede of humans like something out of a fucking wildlife
9:30
Speaker 1: documentary to the scones and the biscuits and the cake
9:34
Speaker 1: and the da da da da da da da. Right,
9:37
Speaker 1: not even two hours later after I resume I'm speaking,
9:40
Speaker 1: is lunch, which is a Smagers bought. There is a
9:44
Speaker 1: stampede to the smoketsport and I'm like, okay, we've had lollies,
9:48
Speaker 1: we've had cakes, we've had SCons, we've had muffins, and
9:52
Speaker 1: now we've got big pasta dishes and we've got all
9:55
Speaker 1: of them. I'm thinking, how are these people fucking vertical?
9:58
Speaker 1: How can they think than that? And then mid afternoon,
10:03
Speaker 1: I'm not even joking, mid afternoon another thing in the
10:06
Speaker 1: adjoining room, which was like an assortment of party pies
10:12
Speaker 1: and sausage rolls and hot little things with dips. And
10:16
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, and that was I mean, when I
10:20
Speaker 1: tell you who the group was trying to like, who
10:24
Speaker 1: thinks of this? Who thinks when you're talking to the
10:26
Speaker 1: catering people. Okay, we've got a conference today we need
10:30
Speaker 1: and we're bringing in a guy and paying him quite
10:32
Speaker 1: a lot of money to talk to the group about
10:35
Speaker 1: essentially how to think better, do better, be better, produce better.
10:38
Speaker 1: We're talking about high performance, we're talking about you know, leadership, communication,
10:42
Speaker 1: problem solving, we're talking about you know, human and corporate optimization.
10:48
Speaker 1: And let's just fill everyone with shit over the day.
10:51
Speaker 1: And I even said to the guy who was the boss,
10:55
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, this is inconsistent with performance, and he's like, yeah,
11:01
Speaker 1: and I did my best, but let's just say it wasn't.
11:05
Speaker 1: It was just really an exercise in frustration for me.
11:08
Speaker 1: You ever had anything like.
11:10
Speaker 2: That, Well, yeah, all the time. And what I'm curious
11:13
Speaker 2: about is when we have terrifying rises in the incidence
11:20
Speaker 2: of burnout and people talk about workplace toxicity and working
11:25
Speaker 2: next to people where the interpersonal dynamics elevates levels, I
11:30
Speaker 2: wonder how much of that is not created, but facilitated
11:35
Speaker 2: and deepened by the shit we eat and our lifestyle
11:38
Speaker 2: behaviors every single day. And this is coming from someone
11:41
Speaker 2: who makes questionable life decisions on a fairly consistent basis,
11:47
Speaker 2: so it's not a judgment, it's an observation. So in
11:50
Speaker 2: Paul Taylor's book Death by Comfort, really great book. If
11:53
Speaker 2: you haven't read it, go pick it up. I think
11:55
Speaker 2: he referenced the Sun Project. And the Sun Project was
11:58
Speaker 2: a study that they conducted in Spain with nearly about
12:01
Speaker 2: fifteen thousand people and they followed these people for ten
12:05
Speaker 2: years and what they found is the people with the
12:07
Speaker 2: highest incidents of their total caloric intake coming from ultra
12:11
Speaker 2: process foods had over a thirty percent increased chance of
12:15
Speaker 2: struggling with depression. And then in France they did a
12:18
Speaker 2: very similar study, but this was nearly thirty thousand double
12:23
Speaker 2: the participants, and they kind of found the same thing.
12:25
Speaker 2: But there's a meta analysis that was done through multico
12:30
Speaker 2: multico multiple countries in the European Union, and by the
12:35
Speaker 2: time you added up, it was over one hundred thousand
12:39
Speaker 2: people that they looked at and they found a forty
12:42
Speaker 2: four percent increase in the risk of depression for people
12:45
Speaker 2: who have the highest number of calories coming from ultra
12:50
Speaker 2: process foods. So your hippocampus does not work very well
12:55
Speaker 2: when you're struggling with systemic inflammation. Neither does the executive
13:00
Speaker 2: enters your brain, so you think about every attribute that
13:02
Speaker 2: you need. Like if you went into any CEO and said,
13:05
Speaker 2: who are the best hires in your organization? Who are
13:09
Speaker 2: the up and coming leaders that if you had a
13:11
Speaker 2: chance to go and hire them again, you would make
13:13
Speaker 2: the same decision, like point them out? Why? Why them?
13:17
Speaker 2: Every single attribute that they name is negatively impacted by
13:23
Speaker 2: a consumption of a diet that is high in ultra
13:26
Speaker 2: process foods. And I'm not saying like, if you want
13:28
Speaker 2: to eat a cake on a Thursday night, don't eat
13:30
Speaker 2: a cake. Eat a cake, eat.
13:31
Speaker 1: An ice cream.
13:32
Speaker 2: But if that's where your calaries are coming from every
13:36
Speaker 2: single day, breakfast and lunch and probably dinner as well,
13:40
Speaker 2: don't be surprised when it's like, God, it's hard for
13:43
Speaker 2: me to function. I'm so tired. I have to drag
13:46
Speaker 2: myself from bed in the morning back to sleep at night.
13:52
Speaker 1: And also think about, you know, what's happening to you
13:54
Speaker 1: got buy on what's happening on a cellular level with
13:57
Speaker 1: all that inflammatory food, what's happening on an hormonal level?
14:02
Speaker 1: You know, like your body is, your body is trying,
14:06
Speaker 1: it's getting calories, but it's not getting nutrition, you know,
14:10
Speaker 1: and trying to fuel your body optimally, you know, so
14:14
Speaker 1: that it can work at its very best. Yeah, we're
14:17
Speaker 1: kind of ticking the caloric or the energy box kind of,
14:21
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, kind of, but we're not ticking the
14:26
Speaker 1: nutrition box or the quality of food box. Talk to
14:30
Speaker 1: us and keep in mind everyone, Bobby is not a dietitian.
14:33
Speaker 1: Neither am I. This is not our areas of expertise.
14:37
Speaker 1: But talk to our audience a little bit about the
14:39
Speaker 1: relationship between say, processed food and inflammation and cognitive function
14:49
Speaker 1: and energy levels, and as much as you understand it,
14:52
Speaker 1: how that.
14:53
Speaker 2: Works when you're eating highly processed foods. Because of a
14:58
Speaker 2: lot of reasons you talked about, your body responds through
15:03
Speaker 2: chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation interferes with mood, right, anytime you
15:12
Speaker 2: have inflammation and the gut, anytime you're talking about messing
15:15
Speaker 2: with your gut biome, you're negatively impacting serotonin production throughout
15:21
Speaker 2: the day. So your executive centers are crashed. So there
15:25
Speaker 2: goes planning and reasoning and discipline. There goes articulation and communication.
15:32
Speaker 2: And when you do that, you ever have that experience
15:36
Speaker 2: where you're so angry or you're so anxious, but you're
15:40
Speaker 2: in a high state of emotional arousal, and because you
15:43
Speaker 2: cannot communicate properly and articulate, because your left temporal lobes
15:48
Speaker 2: are offline, you get even more angry, and then it
15:53
Speaker 2: kind of devolves into this anger fueled conversation simply because
15:58
Speaker 2: you can't find the words to proper express yourself in
16:02
Speaker 2: the heat of the moment. Well, critical conversations are something
16:05
Speaker 2: that we have to do every single day at work,
16:08
Speaker 2: so that's impaired. Working memory is impaired. Long term potentiation
16:13
Speaker 2: or the storage of long term memories, that's impaired. So
16:16
Speaker 2: diet affects everything. And I'm not saying be super strict,
16:23
Speaker 2: and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there
16:24
Speaker 2: that can make a very good argument for why you
16:26
Speaker 2: might need to be. I just don't think that's sustainable.
16:29
Speaker 2: I don't think that's necessary. But when you're talking about burnout,
16:33
Speaker 2: when you're talking about I am so stressed every single day,
16:37
Speaker 2: what you're eating through the majority of calories you take
16:41
Speaker 2: in matters significantly, and maybe being overly stressed and burnt
16:48
Speaker 2: out isn't a result of what's eating at you every day,
16:52
Speaker 2: but what your in turn eating. It's probably a combination
16:55
Speaker 2: of both and ten other variables that we haven't mentioned,
16:59
Speaker 2: but it definitely does matter.
17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. I think another really interesting thing about you know,
17:05
Speaker 1: the way that our brain works, the way that our
17:08
Speaker 1: mind works, you know, mental acuity or vagueness, you know,
17:11
Speaker 1: cognitive performance for one of another term is that a
17:16
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize that this is not the
17:19
Speaker 1: right term, but it'll do for now. That functional IQ
17:23
Speaker 1: is fluid.
17:24
Speaker 2: You know.
17:25
Speaker 1: It's like I can literally be smarter in the morning
17:29
Speaker 1: on a practical level, on an operational level than I
17:32
Speaker 1: am after lunch, or I'm better hydra everything else is
17:36
Speaker 1: the same, but I'm more hydrated, my brain works better,
17:40
Speaker 1: everything else is the same on this Thursday that I'm
17:42
Speaker 1: recording this, But I had an amazing sleep. So today
17:47
Speaker 1: at ten thirty, my brain's working better than it did
17:49
Speaker 1: yesterday at ten thirty, when my sleep was shit the
17:52
Speaker 1: night before. So it's understanding that not only energy and
17:57
Speaker 1: physiological performance from a strength or flexibility or movement or
18:00
Speaker 1: cardiovascular kind of perspective varies, but so does how well
18:06
Speaker 1: the brain works. You know, which is you. And I
18:09
Speaker 1: know sometimes you will get up to do your job,
18:13
Speaker 1: so will I, and it's like it's like you're throwing
18:17
Speaker 1: baskets in a three point basket and the basket is
18:20
Speaker 1: like ten feet wide you cannot miss, Like everything's going
18:23
Speaker 1: in nothing but net. This is I'm in the zone.
18:27
Speaker 1: And you've had those moments. I've had a few of them,
18:29
Speaker 1: not too many, but where I'm just like my brain
18:32
Speaker 1: is just through the roof. And there are other days
18:35
Speaker 1: when I can't remember my name and I'm standing in
18:38
Speaker 1: front of the audience, and you're the same person with
18:40
Speaker 1: the same brain, but not the same person with the
18:43
Speaker 1: same level of performance on a given day, depending on
18:46
Speaker 1: the way that we manage these variables. I don't think
18:51
Speaker 1: we think enough about how do I make my brain work? Well,
18:56
Speaker 1: what are all the things I can do so that
18:58
Speaker 1: my brain work some way close to what is optimal
19:02
Speaker 1: for me.
19:05
Speaker 2: I believe that even even the act of being discerning
19:12
Speaker 2: about what you're doing within we'll call them lifestyle decisions, sleep, hygiene, exercise, diet,
19:21
Speaker 2: even if there was no benefit, even if decisions you
19:24
Speaker 2: were making were not benefiting you on a practical biological level,
19:28
Speaker 2: I think psychologically, it would be very useful because one
19:32
Speaker 2: of the things that elevate the adverse impact of stress
19:36
Speaker 2: is directly in correspondence with our perceived locus of control.
19:40
Speaker 2: How much choice and autonomy and agency I have to
19:44
Speaker 2: affect outcomes in my life, dictate in stressful situations, how
19:50
Speaker 2: much of that stress is going to impact me. So
19:52
Speaker 2: someone is like, oh, my goodness, well I've chose this.
19:55
Speaker 2: I wanted to tackle this problem. Oh and when I
19:57
Speaker 2: feel stressed it lights me up. I'm ready to go.
20:01
Speaker 2: That person's probably not going to struggle with stress as
20:04
Speaker 2: badly as Oh my god, I fall apart under stress
20:07
Speaker 2: and no matter what I do, nothing's ever going to change.
20:11
Speaker 2: So I think we talked about this. I'm talking to
20:14
Speaker 2: a friend of mine who is a top doctor at
20:16
Speaker 2: the university, and he was talking about how agency and
20:20
Speaker 2: learn helplessness, the opposite of any sense of agency, is
20:24
Speaker 2: a major driver to when it comes to burnout. That's
20:29
Speaker 2: why I like creating habits, like setting a goal, identifying
20:34
Speaker 2: a behavior that if it were automatic, it would move
20:37
Speaker 2: me towards where I want to be or help me
20:40
Speaker 2: become who I want to be. Just doing that in
20:42
Speaker 2: and of itself can address burnout because it establishes a
20:47
Speaker 2: future state on the horizon that's clear, and I'm taking
20:51
Speaker 2: steps every single day and there's no discernment between the
20:55
Speaker 2: steps I'm taking and the result I'm witnessing. I will
20:58
Speaker 2: eat this and then I'm eating it. Can't say oh,
21:00
Speaker 2: no matter how much I try, nothing ever changes. Nope,
21:03
Speaker 2: there is there is a one to one immediate correlation
21:06
Speaker 2: between the intention I have and the behavior I'm engaging in.
21:10
Speaker 2: So I think that matters just having a clear intentionality
21:15
Speaker 2: around smaller things in your day, even just saying I'm
21:19
Speaker 2: choosing this thing and doing that.
21:24
Speaker 1: Imagine if we had, you know, the same attitude and
21:29
Speaker 1: approach to managing our body on how our brain is
21:33
Speaker 1: part of our body. But let's just from a health fitness,
21:36
Speaker 1: wellness point of view in general, where you go, all right, well,
21:39
Speaker 1: and you'll sit down with a trainer or a coach,
21:41
Speaker 1: or a doctor or a dietitian or a whoever you know,
21:43
Speaker 1: integrative medicine specialist, whoever it is you know, and you go,
21:46
Speaker 1: all right, let's look at all these things and how
21:49
Speaker 1: much running or walking or stretching or how much you
21:52
Speaker 1: know strength training, and you tell us about your workstation,
21:55
Speaker 1: are you standing, are you're sitting? How much time do
21:58
Speaker 1: you spend in inflection? Tell me about you diet. What
22:00
Speaker 1: time do you get out of bed, go to bed?
22:02
Speaker 1: How much water? Coffee, tea? You know, we analyze all
22:05
Speaker 1: of these things that affect, you know, the kind of
22:09
Speaker 1: the performance of our body. But imagine if we did
22:12
Speaker 1: a version of that just for our brain. We went,
22:16
Speaker 1: all right, let's look at all of that. And I
22:18
Speaker 1: know that's integrated into the stuff I just said. Also,
22:21
Speaker 1: but where you went? All right, how's my brain going?
22:25
Speaker 1: What's my what's the data telling me about my brain?
22:29
Speaker 1: Let's say my brain's potential is ten for me? My ten?
22:34
Speaker 1: Where am I at? Now? I know this is a
22:36
Speaker 1: very kind of messy thing to try and conceptualize, but
22:41
Speaker 1: you know where you go? All right, Well, I know
22:43
Speaker 1: that my brain works better. It's like you and I
22:45
Speaker 1: both know that eating a cheeseburger and a plate of
22:49
Speaker 1: chips and some cheesecake before we go and present is
22:53
Speaker 1: far less than optimal, right, so we don't do it.
22:55
Speaker 1: We also know that you know you buy, don't drink,
22:57
Speaker 1: so but you probably know that having to beer before
23:00
Speaker 1: you get on stage while but fun probably not optimal
23:03
Speaker 1: for the crowd. Or so, just if we had this
23:07
Speaker 1: where everybody's always talking about their body. I'm going to
23:10
Speaker 1: go on a diet, I'm going to join a gym.
23:12
Speaker 1: I've got a New Year's resolution. Imagine if we had
23:15
Speaker 1: the same level of awareness and not concern but enthusiasm
23:22
Speaker 1: around optimizing our brain. And I don't just mean for
23:26
Speaker 1: work performance and memory and academic performance, but for longevity
23:31
Speaker 1: and health span. Like, I've never been more aware of
23:35
Speaker 1: brain function than I am now. With eighty five year
23:38
Speaker 1: old parents, God bless them, and you're just like, oh, yeah,
23:41
Speaker 1: this is and they're fine. They're fine, but they're eighty five.
23:46
Speaker 1: And the more that I spend time with mom and
23:48
Speaker 1: dad at eighty five, I'm like, oh, yeah, crag, you
23:51
Speaker 1: really need to you really need to make sure that
23:54
Speaker 1: you are doing fucking everything that you can so that
23:59
Speaker 1: when you're eighty five, if you make it eighty five,
24:03
Speaker 1: that's the big asterisk. But yeah, that your brain's working
24:07
Speaker 1: as well as it can, you know. And I just
24:09
Speaker 1: don't think we think about it enough. I think we
24:11
Speaker 1: just kind of accept what it is.
24:15
Speaker 2: I think there are three things that could kind of
24:18
Speaker 2: put us on the side of the angels. Again not
24:20
Speaker 2: my expert opinion, but I think it's curiosity, it's meaningful
24:27
Speaker 2: relationships with other people, like time spent, and intentionality around
24:33
Speaker 2: our behaviors. I think those three things would keep us
24:36
Speaker 2: in a state of consistent growth, engagement, exploration, and be
24:42
Speaker 2: very good for our brain.
24:45
Speaker 1: Do you think that like there's in Australia anyway. I'm
24:49
Speaker 1: sure in America, like there's a real and I don't
24:54
Speaker 1: think it's necessarily been created with ill will, but it's
24:59
Speaker 1: like there is very much an age just kind of
25:03
Speaker 1: group think and that yeah, well, I mean, what do
25:05
Speaker 1: you expect you're fifty five, what do you expect of course? Ye,
25:09
Speaker 1: or you're sixty or you're like, there's we rationalize why
25:13
Speaker 1: something is happening purely out of well, that's because you're
25:18
Speaker 1: this old, and that's what happens when you're this old.
25:21
Speaker 1: It's almost like, oh, we have no control, No, that's
25:25
Speaker 1: just what happens at sixty and that you know, It's
25:29
Speaker 1: like I've told this story ten times on this show.
25:31
Speaker 1: But when I first started my PhD, somebody said to me,
25:35
Speaker 1: you're going to be sixty one or two when you finish,
25:38
Speaker 1: Like and they were kind of going, you know, they
25:41
Speaker 1: weren't trying to be a prick, but they were kind
25:44
Speaker 1: of being a prick. They're like, why would you start.
25:45
Speaker 1: You're going to be sixty ish when you finish. And
25:49
Speaker 1: I said, well, in five years, I'm going to be
25:50
Speaker 1: sixty anyway, I'm going to be sixty with a PhD
25:54
Speaker 1: or sixty without a PhD. So I you know, it's like,
25:58
Speaker 1: that's okay, but we don't have to go, oh right,
26:02
Speaker 1: so how old are you? All right, well, oh you're seventy,
26:05
Speaker 1: all right, you should be sitting in a circle with
26:07
Speaker 1: other seventy year olds kicking balloons to each other, because
26:11
Speaker 1: that's what seventy year olds do or seventy five year
26:13
Speaker 1: olds do. Like, definitely, don't go surfing. Definitely, don't go
26:16
Speaker 1: into the gym and do fucking dead lift. Definitely, don't
26:20
Speaker 1: climb a mountain. Also, don't learn anything new because you've
26:23
Speaker 1: got a seventy year old brain. It's almost like this
26:27
Speaker 1: is the unspoken philosophy around aging.
26:31
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of unspoken philosophies that are
26:36
Speaker 2: either incomplete or completely ludicrous. But because there's this shared
26:40
Speaker 2: illusion we all agree upon and I'm not trashing social media.
26:44
Speaker 2: Social media has brought a lot of good into the
26:46
Speaker 2: world that's got a lot of great things that can
26:48
Speaker 2: do for someone. But also it's no secret it's had
26:51
Speaker 2: a negative impact on our society. I think part of
26:54
Speaker 2: that is you go into these threads that are not
26:57
Speaker 2: an invitation to exchange ideas. What they're demanding is consensus.
27:02
Speaker 2: And there's an idea like let's say around agism, and
27:06
Speaker 2: everyone who agrees with that idea is in that thread
27:10
Speaker 2: and they agree wholeheartedly. There's this incredible emotional intensity around
27:16
Speaker 2: this agreement and mutual validation, and if anybody tries to
27:20
Speaker 2: get into that thread and even ask a question or
27:23
Speaker 2: present a different opinion, they're pushed out of that thread
27:28
Speaker 2: or they're mocked until they just like are stamped down
27:33
Speaker 2: and leave. And we have all these belief systems about
27:37
Speaker 2: what an old persons supposed to be right or why
27:40
Speaker 2: you're supposed to go about, Like we were talking about
27:42
Speaker 2: last week, goal setting not on the show, but you
27:45
Speaker 2: and I and even the way we look at goal
27:49
Speaker 2: setting holds us back from learning, growth and development. So
27:54
Speaker 2: Heidi Grant Halveston, she's brilliant, and she wrote the book Succeed,
27:58
Speaker 2: and it talks about all of these types of goal
28:00
Speaker 2: setting and how people approach it. And one way to
28:05
Speaker 2: decrease how much you learn and grow over time is
28:08
Speaker 2: to set a goal around wanting to do good. Now,
28:12
Speaker 2: people listening to this is like, well, why would you
28:14
Speaker 2: not want to do good? Because if I set a
28:16
Speaker 2: goal where Okay, I'm going to do good at this
28:19
Speaker 2: meeting so I can get this promotion and in and
28:23
Speaker 2: of itself, there's nothing wrong with that. But if it's
28:24
Speaker 2: always about the performance and the outcome versus I want
28:29
Speaker 2: to do better, I want to set this goal like
28:32
Speaker 2: I want to go get my PhD, not so I
28:34
Speaker 2: can be called doctor Capuccio or doctor Harper. But what
28:38
Speaker 2: about the experience. If that's your thing of going through
28:41
Speaker 2: the learning process of getting better, regardless of where you're
28:45
Speaker 2: going to end up at the end, you're getting better
28:47
Speaker 2: all through it. So when you're going through that, I
28:49
Speaker 2: would imagine I've never gone through my PhD program. There
28:51
Speaker 2: are some pretty challenging moments that everybody, no matter how
28:54
Speaker 2: smart you are, is confronted with somebody's like, well, I
28:58
Speaker 2: want to do good. When they get hit all these
29:00
Speaker 2: confronting challenges, they start to lose motivation, they start to
29:05
Speaker 2: lose confidence, and they tend to quit because it's highly discouraging.
29:09
Speaker 2: If this happens, this is a stumbling block. I'm not
29:12
Speaker 2: going to get to do good. Well, what does that
29:14
Speaker 2: say about me? Oh? My goodness, Dad was right. I'll
29:17
Speaker 2: never amount to anything, and that whole storyline versus if
29:20
Speaker 2: I want to get better. There's two things that are
29:23
Speaker 2: going to happen to me when I'm confronted with challenges.
29:26
Speaker 2: One neutral, it doesn't affect me because I'm just trying
29:29
Speaker 2: to extract what I can learn. And when I do well,
29:33
Speaker 2: I learn something. When I make a mistake, something doesn't
29:36
Speaker 2: go well, I just learned something. The other thing that
29:39
Speaker 2: happens to a different type of person who is trying
29:41
Speaker 2: to do better is they get motivated because learning curiosity
29:45
Speaker 2: is such an important fundamental value to them when they
29:49
Speaker 2: run into challenges. That is the very evidence that this
29:53
Speaker 2: is the point where I am really going to learn. So,
29:56
Speaker 2: in the face of adversity, people are trying to do better,
29:59
Speaker 2: a growth in learning based mentality around goal setting have
30:04
Speaker 2: much greater sustainability and motivation than people who are trying
30:07
Speaker 2: to do good. But if you're setting a goal, why
30:10
Speaker 2: because you want to have something in the future. I
30:12
Speaker 2: want to get this, so I need to do this. Rather,
30:15
Speaker 2: I want to do this so I could become that,
30:17
Speaker 2: not necessarily necessarily have that. We just have all of
30:21
Speaker 2: these beliefs. I'm not going to blame self help, but
30:25
Speaker 2: a lot of them either come from self help or
30:28
Speaker 2: they were perpetuated through self help. A lot of great
30:30
Speaker 2: shits was perpetuated through self help. Just want to check myself.
30:35
Speaker 2: But it's the way we have these shared illusions that
30:39
Speaker 2: I think is a self imposed limitation we place simply
30:47
Speaker 2: because we're not challenging dogma, Like is that true? How
30:52
Speaker 2: do I know that's true? Do I know anybody who
30:56
Speaker 2: defies this? Do I know two people, three people?
30:58
Speaker 1: You know?
30:59
Speaker 2: Is there like a million in people? It just does
31:01
Speaker 2: It just doesn't make sense sometimes.
31:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think too, that you know, challenging
31:08
Speaker 1: that that dogma, like you said, of challenging that, you
31:13
Speaker 1: know that self help gospel that if you do this
31:16
Speaker 1: or get that, then you will become that or you
31:18
Speaker 1: will like if I get to the top of the
31:20
Speaker 1: mountain then and as we all know, you know, maybe
31:23
Speaker 1: it's about the climate. It's not about the destination and
31:25
Speaker 1: all those things. But we I don't know that we
31:30
Speaker 1: really really self reflect and and I know for myself
31:35
Speaker 1: when I was young and I was building businesses and
31:37
Speaker 1: employing people and you know, kind of pioneering in this
31:41
Speaker 1: thing called personal training and figuring shit out and pushing
31:46
Speaker 1: back and fucking up and falling down and getting back
31:48
Speaker 1: up and getting embarrassed and winning a few times and
31:51
Speaker 1: breakthroughs and breakdowns and breakups and all of those things.
31:55
Speaker 1: You you get Sometimes you get to a point where
31:58
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I've achieved my goal, so I've ticked
32:00
Speaker 1: the box. I've done the thing. I've got money an now,
32:05
Speaker 1: or I've got a business now, or I'm in good
32:07
Speaker 1: shape now or I've got a partner now, or I
32:09
Speaker 1: look good now or I'm whatever, And you're like, ah,
32:13
Speaker 1: why am I still sad? Or why am I still insecure?
32:17
Speaker 1: Or why am I still overthinking the shit out of everything?
32:20
Speaker 1: Why do I still feel like a fraud? What? You know,
32:22
Speaker 1: It's like we have this idea that if I get
32:24
Speaker 1: that external thing, that will result in this internal thing,
32:28
Speaker 1: you know, And so that's where you kind of differentiate
32:31
Speaker 1: between the what and the why, Like, what's the thing
32:33
Speaker 1: that you want? Oh? I want to do be create,
32:35
Speaker 1: have own earned b look like you know, I want that?
32:39
Speaker 1: And then you go cool, oh great, why because that's
32:43
Speaker 1: that's really what we want, isn't it. It's like what
32:46
Speaker 1: is the driver? What is the reason behind? Okay, you
32:50
Speaker 1: want to earn three hundred grand a year. I'm not
32:52
Speaker 1: saying that's a bad goal. I'm not saying you shouldn't.
32:56
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to change? Like, what
32:58
Speaker 1: do you hope that three hundred thousand, that's six thousand
33:01
Speaker 1: dollars a week? What is that going to do? And
33:04
Speaker 1: then when we dig into that, of course, well I
33:06
Speaker 1: just I actually just want to be less stressed. I
33:09
Speaker 1: actually just want to be able to put my kids
33:11
Speaker 1: in a better school because that'll be well, whatever the
33:14
Speaker 1: thing is. And these are not bad correlations necessarily, but
33:18
Speaker 1: my experience is that achieving the one often doesn't equate
33:23
Speaker 1: to the other. But nonetheless we just keep moving forward
33:27
Speaker 1: in this collective mindset in our culture anyway, in Australia,
33:31
Speaker 1: which is very much success is about what everyone can
33:35
Speaker 1: see that is success.
33:38
Speaker 2: Could you really say yourself? I mean, and if you
33:40
Speaker 2: arrive there right you've got the income, you've got the
33:42
Speaker 2: call of the house, the partner, and you are happy
33:45
Speaker 2: and this is everything you've hoped for. Oh that's amazing.
33:49
Speaker 2: But yeah, if you were pursuing a value and you
33:53
Speaker 2: didn't do that route cause analysis that peeling away the
33:58
Speaker 2: layers of why why why and realizing it wasn't the house,
34:02
Speaker 2: right it was, It wasn't the car. There was something else.
34:08
Speaker 2: Maybe you just wanted to feel safe, you and your family.
34:11
Speaker 2: You wanted to provide. If you're not happy, could you
34:15
Speaker 2: say you're successful? I mean, wow, look at Bill. He's
34:19
Speaker 2: so miserable that man, is he successful? That's not success.
34:24
Speaker 2: Have you ever found it curious that when people talk
34:26
Speaker 2: about the good old days when things were amazing, very
34:30
Speaker 2: often they talk about the times that they were striving,
34:33
Speaker 2: not necessarily arriving. Like we were living in that one
34:36
Speaker 2: bedroom flat and we were struggling. We were working so hard,
34:40
Speaker 2: and we were eating takeaway like out of the cotton,
34:42
Speaker 2: which sounds amazing actually, and oh we were so happy.
34:46
Speaker 2: You know. Our furniture was like donated by like you know,
34:49
Speaker 2: mates who just didn't want to take it to like
34:53
Speaker 2: a consignment shop. And it's always it's always when you're
34:56
Speaker 2: on the way and you're building something. I think there's
34:59
Speaker 2: something about creativity that really matters for people. That's why
35:04
Speaker 2: I say curiosity. What am I curious about? And what
35:07
Speaker 2: do I want to share with people? Like when my
35:10
Speaker 2: internal curiosity impacts you, it touches you and I'm like, oh, my, Craig,
35:15
Speaker 2: I read a book today and well not in one day,
35:19
Speaker 2: but I just finished the book. I think you'd love
35:21
Speaker 2: it because and I'm sharing this with you and like, oh, wow,
35:25
Speaker 2: you know what I am curious about that I'm living
35:28
Speaker 2: my purpose because I just made a contribution to you.
35:31
Speaker 2: I was reading something interesting about virtuous contribution and take
35:36
Speaker 2: on virtue, Like what is virtue and virtue is when
35:40
Speaker 2: you are expressing your core values in a way that
35:44
Speaker 2: contributes to others and elevates their well being. So if
35:51
Speaker 2: the impact you're having on peoples more well being in theirs,
35:56
Speaker 2: you're probably living virtuously. I thought, wow, that's brilliant because
36:00
Speaker 2: there's so many beliefs we have about virtue. But any belief,
36:05
Speaker 2: any value, taken to the other extreme can be highly negative.
36:11
Speaker 2: There's a shadow aspect of it. If I'm engaging in
36:14
Speaker 2: a belief or a way of life that makes me unwell.
36:17
Speaker 2: At some point, I'm fighting nature. And whether you believe
36:21
Speaker 2: in millions of years of evolution or you believe in
36:25
Speaker 2: God and creation, the chances that nature got something wrong
36:31
Speaker 2: that you think you've figured out and you've improved upon it,
36:36
Speaker 2: it's probably silent to none. If something's wrong, it's probably you,
36:40
Speaker 2: not nature. So I think that's a really good litmus
36:43
Speaker 2: test for the goals that we set for ourselves and
36:46
Speaker 2: the goals that we pursue. Is this making me more well,
36:52
Speaker 2: enhancing my well being and others? Or is it having
36:55
Speaker 2: the opposite effect?
36:57
Speaker 1: Can That's a tricky question, right to talk about virtue?
37:01
Speaker 1: And I think one of the one of the reoccurring
37:07
Speaker 1: themes on this show and many shows like this, is
37:10
Speaker 1: we you know, we want to be virtuous. We want
37:13
Speaker 1: to be you know, moral, We want to be ethical.
37:16
Speaker 1: We want to we want to have empathy. We want
37:18
Speaker 1: to be loving, kind, compassionate, We want to purpose bigger
37:21
Speaker 1: than ourselves, right, And I think everyone, including me, likes
37:25
Speaker 1: to be seen like this. I think this is hard
37:28
Speaker 1: to say, right, but I feel like the natural state
37:32
Speaker 1: of most of us, me included, the default setting is selfish,
37:38
Speaker 1: The default setting is not generous. The default setting is me, me, me,
37:43
Speaker 1: got to look after me, protect me, And I get
37:46
Speaker 1: that from an evolutionary and a survival point of view.
37:49
Speaker 1: I get that, but I'm not talking so much about
37:52
Speaker 1: evolutionary survival. It is this being virtuous, being kind, being
37:59
Speaker 1: aware of having having an awareness bigger than you. This
38:04
Speaker 1: is a This is a I think this is a
38:08
Speaker 1: spiritual process. I think where for me anyway? Where? Because
38:13
Speaker 1: I know how fucking self absorbed I can be. Just
38:16
Speaker 1: ask some of the people in my world how selfish
38:20
Speaker 1: I can be. And I think it's very easy to
38:23
Speaker 1: get on podcasts and say all these things but not
38:26
Speaker 1: be the things. And I think, I'm not talking about you.
38:30
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about me necessarily, but I can only
38:32
Speaker 1: speak on my behalf. But that when we talk about,
38:35
Speaker 1: you know, be virtuous, be this, be that, and figure
38:38
Speaker 1: out your purpose and live in alignment with your values,
38:41
Speaker 1: and it is it is. I think it's not the
38:46
Speaker 1: worst advice in the world, and I definitely think there's
38:48
Speaker 1: a lot in it, But fucking hell, the human experience
38:52
Speaker 1: is not that simple, is it. It's like I'm a clumsy, selfish,
38:57
Speaker 1: fucking critical sometimes a bit smart. Sometimes are more unfucking
39:04
Speaker 1: just human just stumbling through life sometimes and it's like
39:08
Speaker 1: we hold up all these beautiful words virtue, and it's like,
39:11
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's just this, it's just this kind of
39:14
Speaker 1: story unfolding, and you're the author of your story. Now.
39:18
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're the dumbass in the middle of shit that's
39:21
Speaker 1: out of control. You know.
39:24
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting when you say that, I think
39:27
Speaker 2: you're speaking to the core of my belief systems. Human
39:31
Speaker 2: beings are very complicated, and some of the most kind
39:35
Speaker 2: or quote unquote virtuous people I have ever met are
39:39
Speaker 2: the ones that are the most flawed and dysfunctional and
39:45
Speaker 2: completely rough around the edges, like people cross to the
39:50
Speaker 2: other side of the street when they're walking down the road,
39:53
Speaker 2: and when you get to know them, they're amazing. I
39:57
Speaker 2: think semantics matter a lot when you say virtuous, like
40:03
Speaker 2: what are we talking about? Because I think sometimes we
40:06
Speaker 2: confuse piety for virtue, or we have these moralizations. So
40:13
Speaker 2: if it's like, hey, I'm playing this game where look
40:15
Speaker 2: at me, I'm good, you're bad. First of all, you're
40:19
Speaker 2: being dishonest and you're definitely not being virtuous. And I
40:24
Speaker 2: think anything that is worth doing is worth doing imperfectly,
40:29
Speaker 2: even if you are off the mark of where you
40:33
Speaker 2: want to be. More of the time, just trying to
40:37
Speaker 2: move that needle is very good for you. And when
40:41
Speaker 2: I think about virtue, I don't think about somebody being
40:45
Speaker 2: moral and perfect and good. That's not my fucking business
40:49
Speaker 2: to be fair, unless, of course their behaviors are infringing
40:53
Speaker 2: upon somebody else. What I'm talking about, like it goes
40:59
Speaker 2: back into meditations with Marcusuralius, like what does it mean
41:03
Speaker 2: to live a life of greatness? You know that that
41:05
Speaker 2: stuff always bothers me, Like what you're talk about, what's
41:08
Speaker 2: what's a life of greatness? It's like with human beings.
41:12
Speaker 2: And here's this guy who is probably one of arguably
41:16
Speaker 2: the most powerful person who has ever lived, or in
41:19
Speaker 2: a small group of that class, and he's struggling with
41:24
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to abuse his power. He truly wants
41:27
Speaker 2: to lead well. And he says that greatness and I
41:31
Speaker 2: think this is in line with virtue is trying to
41:35
Speaker 2: bring about the greatest amount of good where you are
41:39
Speaker 2: in the moment. And that's going to be different when
41:42
Speaker 2: you're having the worst moment of your life or a
41:44
Speaker 2: really bad day versus.
41:46
Speaker 1: A good day.
41:47
Speaker 2: You know, there are going to be times where you
41:49
Speaker 2: go out and you know, last night was a train wreck,
41:53
Speaker 2: and then there's times where oh wow, I feel like
41:56
Speaker 2: a more in alignment of who I want to be.
41:58
Speaker 2: It's on that scale and having grace with yourself and
42:02
Speaker 2: having grace with others, because if you have zero grace
42:05
Speaker 2: with others and you are the virtue police nothing like,
42:10
Speaker 2: what's that saying virtue can never survive the virtuous? You're
42:15
Speaker 2: not acting virtuously because virtue would would imply a moment
42:20
Speaker 2: of care. Are you elevating that person's sense of wellbeing?
42:25
Speaker 2: Are you elevating yourself? Like those people walk around and
42:27
Speaker 2: talk about how everyone's so fucked up and they're doing
42:30
Speaker 2: all these behaviors and look at what they do and
42:33
Speaker 2: how they dress, Like, is that elevating your well being?
42:36
Speaker 2: You are miserable, Like I'm miserable just listening to you,
42:40
Speaker 2: being inside your head must be a nightmare. So it's
42:44
Speaker 2: not about perfection, and it's about what brings you closer
42:49
Speaker 2: to well being, what brings you closer to other And
42:51
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sure from a religious sense, you can
42:55
Speaker 2: have a conversation about morality but you could probably make
43:01
Speaker 2: the same case that if you think about people who
43:04
Speaker 2: are rooted in in morality. M hm, there's a lot
43:09
Speaker 2: of there's there's a lot of intersection with the definition
43:15
Speaker 2: of virtue that I said I read about, because someone
43:18
Speaker 2: who is acting quote unquote moral will probably be focused
43:26
Speaker 2: on bringing about higher levels of well being in themselves
43:29
Speaker 2: and others, but they might not have the same idea
43:33
Speaker 2: about how that shows up, right, Like some things might
43:36
Speaker 2: not be an issue for them, that might be an
43:38
Speaker 2: issue for other people. And then I mean, we can
43:40
Speaker 2: get into a whole conversation about that, but it's like, Okay,
43:45
Speaker 2: is what I'm doing supporting my well being and others?
43:48
Speaker 2: Or is it not not as a standard of perfection
43:52
Speaker 2: but kind of like a compass. I think I think,
43:56
Speaker 2: I think it's helpful.
43:57
Speaker 1: Do you know One of the r andies is I
44:01
Speaker 1: think this sounds completely contrary and contradictory, but I think
44:06
Speaker 1: there's almost a kind of generosity and selflessness to a
44:13
Speaker 1: point which can come out of being selfish. My quick
44:19
Speaker 1: story about that is when I used to be primarily
44:23
Speaker 1: me focused, I was consistently less happy than when I started.
44:30
Speaker 1: When I started to realize, oh, I'm doing all this stuff.
44:34
Speaker 1: I'm now I've created all these things. And I don't
44:37
Speaker 1: think I was a wildly selfish, ignorant person. I was,
44:43
Speaker 1: to a degree aware and kind, but I was more
44:48
Speaker 1: selfish than I would like to have been. But the
44:51
Speaker 1: moment that I recognized the outcome of my selfishness, like emotionally, mentally, socially,
44:56
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, even analytically, I can realize this doesn't work,
45:01
Speaker 1: like selfishness. Whatever the goal or whatever the underlying reasons
45:05
Speaker 1: are for my it doesn't work. And then you go
45:08
Speaker 1: and as cheesy as it sounds, when I do and
45:11
Speaker 1: I don't always, but when I have a purpose bigger
45:15
Speaker 1: than me, or an awareness bigger than me, or where
45:18
Speaker 1: I'm doing things where there is no agenda or hook
45:21
Speaker 1: or catch, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, there is. There's
45:24
Speaker 1: another principle at work here. This is not a ledger,
45:28
Speaker 1: This is not you know, zeros and ones, This is
45:30
Speaker 1: not dollars and cents, This is not you know, red
45:34
Speaker 1: and black. This is you know, this is there's something
45:37
Speaker 1: else operating here. And that so I think even if
45:41
Speaker 1: you can, just from an intellectual point of view, understand that,
45:46
Speaker 1: just just have a look at the data, have a
45:48
Speaker 1: look at all the selfish, self centered people that you know,
45:52
Speaker 1: and have a look at the byproduct, have a look
45:54
Speaker 1: at the psychological emotional byproduct of that. It doesn't work.
45:59
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't work. Not that that's a reason necessarily
46:02
Speaker 1: to be more generous, but it definitely there's evidence to
46:06
Speaker 1: say that these things that some people might call spiritual
46:10
Speaker 1: principles of being more, caring, more empathetic, more or maybe
46:14
Speaker 1: just human values, whatever you want to call them, there's
46:17
Speaker 1: clear evidence that not only do they work on that level,
46:21
Speaker 1: but they also work on a mental and emotional level
46:25
Speaker 1: too for the individual. Like I'm so much calmer, so
46:31
Speaker 1: much less anxious, so much more I think grounded and content.
46:37
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say happy, I would just say content because
46:42
Speaker 1: I've shifted and I continue to try to shift my focus.
46:48
Speaker 2: Yeap. Just as a thought exercise, what if there was
46:52
Speaker 2: something or someone out there that was trying to tell us, hey,
46:57
Speaker 2: if you behave in certain ways, you carry certain intentions,
47:03
Speaker 2: you are going to produce a lot of pain for
47:05
Speaker 2: yourself and other people unnecessarily. It's not like a pain
47:09
Speaker 2: is part and suffering is part of the process, and
47:11
Speaker 2: the sacrifice to get something. This is going to be
47:15
Speaker 2: needless amounts of pain and suffering, and you will ultimately
47:19
Speaker 2: bring about the very things that you are trying to avoid. Now,
47:24
Speaker 2: if you do this and you engage on this level,
47:28
Speaker 2: and you care about people, you break and you make
47:31
Speaker 2: bridges with people, you are going to avert a lot.
47:38
Speaker 2: You are going to avoid a lot more problems in
47:40
Speaker 2: your life, and you are going to be more fulfilled.
47:44
Speaker 2: Maybe not happier, but you will be more fulfilled. You
47:48
Speaker 2: will be more at peace, Things will have meaning for
47:51
Speaker 2: you because based on what you just said, it's almost
47:57
Speaker 2: like this was set up by society, someone something somewhere
48:02
Speaker 2: say hey, just trust us on this or trust the meanlesness.
48:07
Speaker 2: You think, you think you're going down a good path,
48:10
Speaker 2: but you're really not.
48:12
Speaker 1: And what's I've got a question for you. What's at
48:18
Speaker 1: one end of the scale, we've got complete self obsession selfishness,
48:22
Speaker 1: and then at the other end of the scale, maybe
48:24
Speaker 1: we've got selflessness. I don't think selflessness works. I don't
48:29
Speaker 1: think selfishness works. What's that middle spot. What's what's somewhere
48:34
Speaker 1: along the scale there that's good for us and good
48:37
Speaker 1: for them? So to speak. I don't know. I.
48:40
Speaker 2: I would imagine that that is different for everyone. I
48:45
Speaker 2: would imagine that place depends on intention. Like I'm let's
48:51
Speaker 2: say I'm a person who behaves selflessly, if that's even possible,
48:57
Speaker 2: because if I care about you, the second I can
49:00
Speaker 2: with you, I get something emotionally. But let's say the
49:03
Speaker 2: intention is not there regardless of the unavoidable consequence. Is
49:09
Speaker 2: that because seeing you happy and helping you is super
49:14
Speaker 2: important to me? Or is it because I lack a
49:19
Speaker 2: level of self worth and I need that validation. Oh,
49:22
Speaker 2: Bobby's such a good guy, isn't he? Look at how
49:25
Speaker 2: he helped Paul Craig like sot out sought out that outfit.
49:29
Speaker 2: You know, Craig was going to walk out there and
49:31
Speaker 2: just in a complete state, and just Bobby took him
49:35
Speaker 2: shopping and Craig looks amazing. Now like what, yeah, you're welcome.
49:41
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. It was a good day out. What
49:43
Speaker 2: is your intention behind that? And it's not to say,
49:48
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, you're so duplicitous you say you want
49:51
Speaker 2: it's like, why do I need that? What need is
49:55
Speaker 2: that trying to fulfill in me? Because I believe we're
49:59
Speaker 2: sometimes stress and fear by sometimes, I mean a lot
50:03
Speaker 2: of times bring out the worst of us, Like what
50:06
Speaker 2: am I needing right now? Because I think we're not
50:10
Speaker 2: taught to think, We're not taught to think about our
50:12
Speaker 2: motivations and do self reflection, and heaven forbid we do
50:17
Speaker 2: that on behalf of somebody else. We arrive at an immediate,
50:21
Speaker 2: definite conclusion about why that person behaves in the way
50:25
Speaker 2: they do, even though we have very little information to
50:28
Speaker 2: make that determination. And if you go out and you
50:30
Speaker 2: find like I don't know a few people that agree
50:32
Speaker 2: with you, you can't possibly be wrong. But understanding yourself,
50:36
Speaker 2: I think, and I think that middle line it kind
50:40
Speaker 2: of moves. There are some times where if you're not
50:43
Speaker 2: more focused on yourself, you're going to be so depleted
50:47
Speaker 2: you're not going to be good for anybody. Or you're
50:49
Speaker 2: going to get so depleted you might actually be detrimental
50:53
Speaker 2: to people. So maybe sometimes going hey, I'm going to
50:58
Speaker 2: be a little bit more selfish because I may not
51:02
Speaker 2: have that impact, you know.
51:04
Speaker 1: I think it's just self care. It's like I know this.
51:07
Speaker 1: If I don't eat well, sleep well, manage me well,
51:10
Speaker 1: then I'm not good for others. And that's just an awareness.
51:13
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a selfishness thing. Mate, We've got
51:16
Speaker 1: to go. That was good. I really enjoyed that much
51:20
Speaker 1: better than the other stupid topic we were going to
51:22
Speaker 1: talk about. How can people find you and follow you?
51:27
Speaker 1: Young Robert?
51:30
Speaker 2: You can go to Robert Caapuccio dot com, the self
51:33
Speaker 2: helpanta dot com. I am on LinkedIn, so hope to
51:38
Speaker 2: see that.
51:40
Speaker 1: And also Bobby is available for work too in he's alway,
51:45
Speaker 1: he's got a job, but he does some coaching, he
51:47
Speaker 1: does some consulting, he does some other corporate work on Zoom.
51:51
Speaker 1: So if you live in Australia and you think I
51:53
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind doing a coaching session with him, hit him up.
51:56
Speaker 1: And if you've got you might need to sell a kidney,
51:58
Speaker 1: possibly your spleen, maybe one or two year vehicles, but
52:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure you can organize something.
52:04
Speaker 2: With him if you come to appendix you're not using. Yeah,
52:08
Speaker 2: that's such a copy as well.
52:10
Speaker 1: Thanks mate,