Latest / The You Project / #1648 When Failure Isn't Failure - Harps
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: I hope this finds you bloody terrific. I want to
- 0:03Speaker 1: start this little extravaganza by reading you something, Reading you
- 0:09Speaker 1: something It's about failure. Failure is often viewed as the
- 0:15Speaker 1: antithesis of success, a dreaded, shameful outcome to be avoided
- 0:23Speaker 1: at all costs. Yet in truth, failure is a normal, everyday,
- 0:29Speaker 1: integral part of the human experience, a natural companion on
- 0:33Speaker 1: the journey towards growth, towards learning, towards development, towards you
- 0:39Speaker 1: being the better version of you. To fear failure is
- 0:43Speaker 1: to fear the very process of learning, because without stumbling,
- 0:46Speaker 1: without fucking up, without falling down, you can't really grow, learn, evolve,
- 0:51Speaker 1: and move forward. At its core, failure serves as a
- 0:56Speaker 1: mirror reflecting both our limitations and our potential. It's not
- 1:03Speaker 1: a final verdict on our abilities, but rather an invitation
- 1:06Speaker 1: to assess, adapt, and improve. The most successful individuals in
- 1:11Speaker 1: any field, whether that's science or sport, or art or
- 1:15Speaker 1: business or any kind of personal endeavor, really are not
- 1:19Speaker 1: those who avoid failure because we can't, but those who
- 1:23Speaker 1: engage with it, learn from it, and use it as
- 1:27Speaker 1: fuel of future efforts. What makes failure so uncomfortable is
- 1:32Speaker 1: that it often comes with the sting of ego and
- 1:35Speaker 1: self doubt and external judgment or what we think will
- 1:40Speaker 1: be external judgment, condemnation, criticism, and so on. It forces
- 1:45Speaker 1: us to confront our vulnerability and imperfection in a society
- 1:49Speaker 1: that quite often only celebrates the polished, victorious outcome, the winner.
- 1:57Speaker 1: But the truth is that every visible success is built
- 2:00Speaker 1: on an invisible foundation of countless setbacks, missteps. As I
- 2:05Speaker 1: often say, fuck ups, failures, and rejections. Thomas Edison famously
- 2:10Speaker 1: said I've not failed, I've just found ten thousand ways
- 2:14Speaker 1: that won't work. And this perspective that, of course, was
- 2:17Speaker 1: when he was inventing the light bulb. This perspective redefines
- 2:20Speaker 1: failure as part of the creative and problem solving process,
- 2:25Speaker 1: a means to discover what works by understanding what doesn't
- 2:31Speaker 1: what doesn't work. Failure can also serve as a clarifying force.
- 2:37Speaker 1: It strips away false perceptions, superficial goals, and illusions of mastery,
- 2:42Speaker 1: leaving us with a clearer sense of who we are
- 2:46Speaker 1: and what really matters for us. When we fail, we're
- 2:50Speaker 1: compelled to ask hard questions, although some of us don't,
- 2:53Speaker 1: but It gives us the opportunity to why did this happen?
- 2:58Speaker 1: What can I learn here? Could I have done differently?
- 3:02Speaker 1: What did I do well? What did I do not
- 3:04Speaker 1: so well? What's the data telling me? What are my
- 3:06Speaker 1: results telling me? These questions, while uncomfortable, can lead to
- 3:11Speaker 1: self awareness, growth, understanding, insight, awareness, resilience, or qualities that
- 3:17Speaker 1: are important for not only eventual success, but also, broadly speaking,
- 3:23Speaker 1: for navigating life's complexities, peaks and troughs, the mayhem, the mess,
- 3:27Speaker 1: the joy of the pain, all of it. One of
- 3:31Speaker 1: the most liberating realizations about failure is that it's not personal.
- 3:38Speaker 1: It doesn't define our worth or potential, although some people
- 3:42Speaker 1: think it does, even though it often feels like it.
- 3:47Speaker 1: We're not our failures. Rather, we're defined by how we
- 3:51Speaker 1: respond to them, or we can be defined by that.
- 3:55Speaker 1: Some of the world's most transformative leaders, thinkers, creators, it's
- 4:00Speaker 1: monumental failures before they achieve their breakthrough. Steve Jobs after
- 4:05Speaker 1: he got the boot from Apple? Did you know that
- 4:07Speaker 1: he got the boot from Apple? The very company that
- 4:10Speaker 1: he founded. He went on to innovate and eventually come
- 4:13Speaker 1: back to Apple and lead them to unprecedented heights. His
- 4:18Speaker 1: failure became a catalyst for his latest success, refining his
- 4:23Speaker 1: vision and resilience. In the end, failure is not something
- 4:27Speaker 1: to be feared or shunned, but rather embraced as part
- 4:29Speaker 1: of the process of becoming. It's a teacher, it's a guide,
- 4:37Speaker 1: it's feedback, it's understanding, and sometimes it's a wake up call.
- 4:43Speaker 1: When we redefine failure as something else rather than a defeat,
- 4:50Speaker 1: as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, you know, as
- 4:56Speaker 1: a lesson, not a problem, then we unlock its potential
- 4:59Speaker 1: to propel us forward, to make a stronger, wiser, more effective,
- 5:04Speaker 1: more productive, more empowered. The paths of success is not
- 5:08Speaker 1: a straight line, but a winding road marked by detours
- 5:12Speaker 1: and setbacks. Each failure along the way is not the
- 5:14Speaker 1: end of the journey, but a step closer to understanding, mastery,
- 5:18Speaker 1: and growth. When we learn to see failure through this lens,
- 5:22Speaker 1: we can approach life with greater courage, knowing that it's
- 5:25Speaker 1: not the failing that matters, it's the getting back up
- 5:29Speaker 1: end of reading right. So, I've been fascinated with the
- 5:34Speaker 1: idea of failure, which is seems like an ironic statement
- 5:38Speaker 1: coming from someone who teaches people, or tries to teach
- 5:44Speaker 1: people how to operationalize their talent and maximize their time
- 5:50Speaker 1: and potential and to in general terms, to be successful.
- 5:56Speaker 1: But I think that failure is in many ways an idea,
- 6:02Speaker 1: not a It's a subjective idea or interpretation. It's not
- 6:07Speaker 1: so much a universal objective fact. And so if you
- 6:13Speaker 1: think about, for example, let's let's say you and I.
- 6:19Speaker 1: Let's say we both go for different times, not necessarily
- 6:23Speaker 1: running together. Now let's say we do run together. So
- 6:28Speaker 1: and you and I run, Let's say we run ten
- 6:34Speaker 1: kilometers side by side. So we run ten k's and
- 6:38Speaker 1: we run in fifty two minutes. And for you, running
- 6:44Speaker 1: ten kilometers right next to me in fifty two minutes
- 6:47Speaker 1: is a failure. You're disappointed, You're frustrated. You may be
- 6:52Speaker 1: even a little bit angry because you wanted to rub
- 6:55Speaker 1: run a sub fifty minute time because you've done that before,
- 6:59Speaker 1: and today next to me, you ran fifty two minutes.
- 7:04Speaker 1: And so your story is I failed, and accordingly you
- 7:09Speaker 1: feel like you literally feel like a failure. Your feeling
- 7:14Speaker 1: is real, and as a result, your literal experience is disappointment, sadness, frustration,
- 7:20Speaker 1: and like I said, maybe you're even a little bit grumpy.
- 7:22Speaker 1: And all of those feelings, all of those emotions disappoint
- 7:26Speaker 1: thess sadness, frustration, anger, they're real. They're real. On the
- 7:31Speaker 1: other hand, conversely, at the same time you and I
- 7:34Speaker 1: crossed the metaphoric finish line, at the same time, we
- 7:40Speaker 1: run fifty two minutes, I do the same time as you,
- 7:42Speaker 1: and I feel fucking amazing because the best I've ever
- 7:46Speaker 1: run is fifty four minutes. So I've just beaten my
- 7:49Speaker 1: PB by two minutes. I feel like a rock star.
- 7:52Speaker 1: It's my best time ever. And while you and I
- 7:54Speaker 1: had the same outcome in terms of time, we have
- 8:00Speaker 1: a totally different outcome in terms of experience. So we
- 8:05Speaker 1: ran the same time, but we had different thinking. We
- 8:09Speaker 1: ran the same time, but we told ourselves a different story.
- 8:12Speaker 1: We ran the same time, and we had different self
- 8:15Speaker 1: created experiences. Your story was I'm a failure. My story
- 8:20Speaker 1: was I'm a winner. Maybe I should have put this
- 8:23Speaker 1: the other way around to make you the winner in
- 8:25Speaker 1: the story, but anyway, you know what I'm saying. And
- 8:29Speaker 1: as a result, you genuinely feel like a failure, and
- 8:32Speaker 1: as a result, I genuinely feel like a winner. You
- 8:35Speaker 1: have the experience of failure. I have the experience of
- 8:40Speaker 1: minor rock star. And that is because I tell myself
- 8:44Speaker 1: a story about an outcome that means absolutely nothing until
- 8:49Speaker 1: I give it meaning. And the meaning I gave it
- 8:52Speaker 1: is that I am a winner. I beat my PB
- 8:56Speaker 1: by two minutes. I'm fucking amazing. This is a great
- 9:00Speaker 1: Your story is the opposite of that. But both of
- 9:03Speaker 1: our stories are just manufactured constructs that have very real
- 9:10Speaker 1: consequences and emotional, psychological, and physiological even ramifications. So failure
- 9:18Speaker 1: is an interesting thing because what is failure. It is
- 9:23Speaker 1: an idea. It's an idea. It's an idea that we
- 9:28Speaker 1: have in our head about what are particular stimulus or
- 9:32Speaker 1: event or outcome means. Let's say you and I are students.
- 9:39Speaker 1: I'll make you the winner in this case. You and
- 9:41Speaker 1: I are students, and you get your report card. We're
- 9:47Speaker 1: doing grade six. I'm doing it for the third time.
- 9:49Speaker 1: You get your report card and there's eight subjects and
- 9:53Speaker 1: you get eight bes, you get eight bees, and you
- 9:58Speaker 1: feel dis pointed because you wanted eight a's or a pluses,
- 10:06Speaker 1: because you're smart, you got eight bs. I've never even
- 10:11Speaker 1: been close to a fucking B. You got eight bs,
- 10:16Speaker 1: and by my standards, that's an amazing outcome, but you
- 10:20Speaker 1: were I'm also not making you the winner again, am I? Anyway?
- 10:27Speaker 1: And in this scenario, you get eight bes and you're
- 10:30Speaker 1: disappointed because you wanted eight d's. I conversely, I passed
- 10:35Speaker 1: every subject, which I've never done before. I got eight ds. Sure,
- 10:40Speaker 1: that's way worse than what you got, but for me
- 10:43Speaker 1: it's fucking winning because I've never passed all of my
- 10:47Speaker 1: subjects ever. And even though it's a scraping through pass,
- 10:52Speaker 1: it's just a pass. My average mark was fifty three
- 10:56Speaker 1: or whatever. In this story, Nonetheless, I feel great, Why
- 11:00Speaker 1: because I have a different story about the outcome. I
- 11:02Speaker 1: have a different story about what a D means. You
- 11:04Speaker 1: have a different story about what a B means. Once again,
- 11:08Speaker 1: Once again, this is another clear example of when I
- 11:12Speaker 1: tell my story about something that is meaningless until I
- 11:15Speaker 1: give it meaning. When I tell myself a story and
- 11:18Speaker 1: I believe the story, then that story becomes my literal experience.
- 11:23Speaker 1: I am a failure, I am a winner. And sometimes
- 11:31Speaker 1: and while I understand all of this, and I'm not
- 11:33Speaker 1: saying therefore you should do this, therefore, I'm not saying
- 11:36Speaker 1: what you should or shouldn't do. What I'm trying to
- 11:39Speaker 1: do is open the door on this kind of level
- 11:41Speaker 1: of awareness here that well, maybe in the middle of
- 11:45Speaker 1: maybe in the middle of the failures, you know there,
- 11:48Speaker 1: Like I said a minute ago when I was reading
- 11:49Speaker 1: that piece, maybe there are some stories, there are some lessons,
- 11:52Speaker 1: there's some growth, there's some development, there's some insight, there's
- 11:55Speaker 1: some understanding. So in a way I didn't get the
- 11:59Speaker 1: result that I want or expected or hopeful, but nonetheless
- 12:02Speaker 1: growth came out of it, or growth can come out
- 12:05Speaker 1: of it. Therefore, maybe maybe it's okay. I don't want
- 12:09Speaker 1: to bore you with the story about the development of
- 12:11Speaker 1: this show, but most of you know, before the U Project,
- 12:14Speaker 1: I did three other podcasts. They didn't work in inverted comments,
- 12:18Speaker 1: and by it didn't work, I mean commercially. So we
- 12:23Speaker 1: had an audience. It wasn't huge, but it was okay.
- 12:26Speaker 1: And one of my goals was for it to become
- 12:30Speaker 1: at the very least self sustaining financially, so it wasn't
- 12:33Speaker 1: costing me money. I wasn't going backwards on every episode
- 12:37Speaker 1: because I was paying for it to be edited and
- 12:40Speaker 1: so on, and for all three of those. I'm not
- 12:43Speaker 1: talking about episodes. I'm talking about shows with multiple episodes
- 12:46Speaker 1: under the banner of each show, maybe two hundred episodes
- 12:49Speaker 1: over time. They didn't work in inverted commers, and by
- 12:53Speaker 1: that I just mean it wasn't a commercial success. And
- 12:56Speaker 1: what's interesting for me is maybe maybe because I'm dumb,
- 13:02Speaker 1: But in the middle of all of that, I never thought, fuck,
- 13:05Speaker 1: I'm a failure. I didn't think I'm failing. I was frustrated.
- 13:10Speaker 1: I was never really angry. I was frustrated, but at
- 13:13Speaker 1: the same time, I kind of had an awareness that
- 13:15Speaker 1: I'm figuring out what doesn't work. So for me, it
- 13:18Speaker 1: was research and development. For me, it was insight and awareness.
- 13:22Speaker 1: It was trying to understand the art and the science
- 13:24Speaker 1: and the skill of podcasting. And I kept getting better.
- 13:29Speaker 1: I went from a one out of ten to a
- 13:31Speaker 1: four or a three, you know, but I was improving,
- 13:34Speaker 1: I was learning. I was evolving right even though and then,
- 13:37Speaker 1: and as you know most of you know, then the
- 13:40Speaker 1: U projects started six or so years ago, and again
- 13:44Speaker 1: it was like it was just an uphill battle. And
- 13:47Speaker 1: if my objective was to make money, and that's winning
- 13:52Speaker 1: and not making money as losing or failing. Then I
- 13:57Speaker 1: was losing for the first three shows that I did,
- 14:01Speaker 1: and then I was losing for that two hundred episodes
- 14:04Speaker 1: or something, and then I was losing for the first
- 14:06Speaker 1: six hundred or so episodes of the You Project, which
- 14:10Speaker 1: in total all of that stuff was probably four years
- 14:13Speaker 1: and probably collectively about eight hundred episodes. But at no
- 14:16Speaker 1: time did I feel like a failure, because even though
- 14:20Speaker 1: I wasn't making money, and even though the show wasn't
- 14:24Speaker 1: breaking even I still felt like I was producing something good.
- 14:30Speaker 1: I still felt like I was getting better and so.
- 14:34Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm not saying, you know that
- 14:39Speaker 1: another person who went through the same I guess outcome
- 14:44Speaker 1: or the same result would feel the same as me.
- 14:47Speaker 1: Some people like the reality is too is that I
- 14:50Speaker 1: think I can't remember if it's three or seven, but
- 14:52Speaker 1: it's a very low number. The amount of people who
- 14:55Speaker 1: start a new show, the amount of actual episodes that
- 14:58Speaker 1: they do you can google. I think it's below ten.
- 15:02Speaker 1: It's definitely below ten. It's either three or seven, I think.
- 15:06Speaker 1: But so many people could build a world class podcast
- 15:10Speaker 1: if they worked, if they persevered, if they did more
- 15:13Speaker 1: than three episodes or ten episodes or in my case
- 15:16Speaker 1: eight hundred and now we're in the sixteen hundreds and
- 15:20Speaker 1: it's a week the best podcast in the world. No,
- 15:23Speaker 1: but we going okay? And do I understand podcasting? And
- 15:27Speaker 1: do I understand the audience? And do I understand distribution
- 15:29Speaker 1: and production and brand? And do I understand building a
- 15:33Speaker 1: tribe around? Well? I have a way to go, but
- 15:35Speaker 1: I know so much more. And now I have a
- 15:39Speaker 1: thing that is, you know, partner with a really big
- 15:42Speaker 1: organization in Australia and over entertainment. We have, you know,
- 15:47Speaker 1: better and worse months financially, but we're never going backwards,
- 15:50Speaker 1: which is good. Some months it's really lucrads, some months
- 15:55Speaker 1: not so much. But the bottom line is it's commercially viable.
- 15:59Speaker 1: But I had to go through all of that learning
- 16:01Speaker 1: and growing and evolving. I don't ever think to myself, fuck,
- 16:05Speaker 1: I've failed for four years. I don't think like that now.
- 16:11Speaker 1: And I think it's important to just be conscious of
- 16:15Speaker 1: the way that we label our outcomes. Having said that,
- 16:21Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that we should pretend that we're going
- 16:27Speaker 1: great when we're not. I think we also need to
- 16:29Speaker 1: be practical and realistic and there will be times when
- 16:32Speaker 1: you know, we do have to pull the pin or
- 16:34Speaker 1: there will be and obviously you know you will figure out,
- 16:39Speaker 1: you'll figure out when that is. But I know that
- 16:43Speaker 1: I know that for many people that I've worked with
- 16:46Speaker 1: who are now what we would call, I guess in
- 16:49Speaker 1: their field success stories, I know that for some of
- 16:53Speaker 1: those people that the success they now enjoy was preceded
- 16:58Speaker 1: by ten, fifteen, in even twenty years of just fucking
- 17:02Speaker 1: grinding and slogging and doing the work and showing up
- 17:05Speaker 1: and then sometimes not so long, of course, but then
- 17:09Speaker 1: eventually their product or their service, or their music or
- 17:13Speaker 1: their restaurant or their podcast or their whatever it was
- 17:17Speaker 1: caught fire and they build something amazing. But it's you know,
- 17:24Speaker 1: to me, it's analogous to the martial artist who goes
- 17:28Speaker 1: to the dojo or to the jiu jitsu academy and
- 17:31Speaker 1: gets his ass handed to him for five years before
- 17:34Speaker 1: he's got any significant level of competence or skill or
- 17:39Speaker 1: understanding or proficiency at one of the hardest things that
- 17:43Speaker 1: you can become, which is a black belt in jiu jitsu,
- 17:45Speaker 1: for example. So sometimes it's just about showing up. Sometimes
- 17:53Speaker 1: it's about reframing, you know. Sometimes it's about going, Okay,
- 17:58Speaker 1: I got eight d's. That's pretty good for me. And
- 18:02Speaker 1: I'm not trying to undersell obviously, this is a story.
- 18:05Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say so set or for a crap,
- 18:07Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. But depending on what's in your
- 18:11Speaker 1: rearview mirror, for some people passing eight subjects, even if
- 18:15Speaker 1: they're all these, it's an amazing fucking outcome and they
- 18:19Speaker 1: should be proud while still being ambitious and perhaps wanting
- 18:24Speaker 1: to do better and be better moving forward. But right now,
- 18:27Speaker 1: for that kid, right now that gets that report card
- 18:31Speaker 1: with eight passes on eight subjects and they've never done that,
- 18:33Speaker 1: that's a fucking amazing achievement and for them, literally, that
- 18:38Speaker 1: is a version of success. While for somebody else, dependent
- 18:41Speaker 1: on their expectations and what's in their rearview mirror, their
- 18:46Speaker 1: story might understandably be this is a dismal failure either way.
- 18:53Speaker 1: Either way it is a subjective interpretation of some numbers
- 18:59Speaker 1: or or an objective outcome. There is here, are these
- 19:04Speaker 1: things written on this paper. It has what or this
- 19:06Speaker 1: report card or this email or whatever it is, it
- 19:10Speaker 1: has the meaning and influence and power in your life,
- 19:13Speaker 1: particularly that you give it. And I think you know
- 19:19Speaker 1: that when we reframe this stuff, we don't pretend we're
- 19:22Speaker 1: going great when we're not. We're not delusional, we don't
- 19:24Speaker 1: have our head in the sand. We go. I did
- 19:26Speaker 1: fuck that up. That was no good, you know. And
- 19:28Speaker 1: there are lots of times where I've fucked up, lots
- 19:30Speaker 1: of things I've done, speaking gigs that were terrible. You know,
- 19:35Speaker 1: I've I spent you know what's interesting. When I was
- 19:37Speaker 1: the morbidly OBEs kid, I went to a school in
- 19:41Speaker 1: La Trovali called Saint Paul's College, which later became Catholic
- 19:45Speaker 1: Regional College. Shout outs all the homies from down there.
- 19:49Speaker 1: And by the way, there was no horrible hardship for me.
- 19:52Speaker 1: I actually quite enjoyed school, despite being but the fattest
- 19:56Speaker 1: kid for most of my school or for a lot
- 19:59Speaker 1: of my early school there. But you know, one of
- 20:02Speaker 1: my stories or one of my experiences was cross country
- 20:06Speaker 1: runs every week or a lot of weeks in year seven,
- 20:09Speaker 1: in year eight, when I was morbid obese and one
- 20:12Speaker 1: hundred plus kids, and every week I would come last
- 20:16Speaker 1: or pretty much last, generally last, because I couldn't run
- 20:20Speaker 1: because I was too heavy. I was too big, I
- 20:23Speaker 1: had no fitness, and I came. If there was generally
- 20:26Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty kids, I would come one hundred
- 20:28Speaker 1: and thirtieth. And whatever the distance was, I think it
- 20:32Speaker 1: was somewhere around three to five k's. I think it
- 20:34Speaker 1: was more like five. I would walk and I would walk,
- 20:36Speaker 1: and I would get back in an hour later, which
- 20:39Speaker 1: would be forty minutes after the first kids got back,
- 20:42Speaker 1: and so on. But what was interesting was, while you know,
- 20:48Speaker 1: I guess I wasn't proud of my result, I didn't
- 20:52Speaker 1: really I didn't feel like a failure. Maybe I should have,
- 20:57Speaker 1: I don't know, but I didn't fit. So know, there
- 21:00Speaker 1: was a bit of embarrassment around my weight and all
- 21:02Speaker 1: of those things. But you know, I just knew that
- 21:07Speaker 1: I knew why that was happening. You know, I knew
- 21:11Speaker 1: why I was walking not running, and I knew why
- 21:14Speaker 1: I was up the back. And you know, for better
- 21:17Speaker 1: or worse, I didn't beat myself. I didn't go home
- 21:21Speaker 1: going fucking hell, I'm a loser, I'm a failure. To me,
- 21:24Speaker 1: it was just an outcome. It was just a result.
- 21:27Speaker 1: And I guess, deep down I knew that if I
- 21:30Speaker 1: ever really wanted to apply myself and get fit and
- 21:33Speaker 1: lose weight that I could change that, which eventually I did.
- 21:38Speaker 1: You know so, And I mean think about, oh yeah,
- 21:43Speaker 1: I just thought of this. What about think about and
- 21:46Speaker 1: I don't I'm not making any judgment here, but think
- 21:50Speaker 1: about what was her name? What was her name? Reygun? Reagun?
- 21:54Speaker 1: Is her name Reygun? From the Olympics? You know. So
- 21:59Speaker 1: there's no aspersions here, there's no judgment here. But objectively,
- 22:05Speaker 1: I think she got zero points, and I think her
- 22:08Speaker 1: the person she was competing against, got fifty something points
- 22:13Speaker 1: or whatever. Let's not get into the the judgment of
- 22:17Speaker 1: her performance as a as an expression of breakdancing or whatever.
- 22:22Speaker 1: I'm sure she's way better than I would ever be, right. Nonetheless,
- 22:26Speaker 1: what I found interesting was like just the forget the feelings,
- 22:32Speaker 1: the opinions, none of that, no opinion, no feeling, just
- 22:34Speaker 1: the objective result was I think it was like fifty
- 22:37Speaker 1: something points to zero. Well as as measurable outcome, she
- 22:45Speaker 1: got fucking smashed. Nonetheless, I don't think and good on her.
- 22:56Speaker 1: I don't think she felt like a failure, and I
- 23:01Speaker 1: don't think. I'm not suggesting she should have either, By
- 23:04Speaker 1: the way, I'm just interested in the psychology around that
- 23:08Speaker 1: outcome for her and what was And I don't know.
- 23:12Speaker 1: I haven't spoken to her, and I've only watched as
- 23:14Speaker 1: much as you've watched, probably maybe less, but I'm just
- 23:17Speaker 1: fascinated with wow. So this is what we objectively know.
- 23:20Speaker 1: She went to the Olympics. She didn't get a great result, clearly,
- 23:24Speaker 1: and there's been international whatever around that. Let's not make
- 23:28Speaker 1: it any better or worse, right, but just what interests
- 23:31Speaker 1: me is not whether or not she should have gone
- 23:33Speaker 1: or not gone, or heard breakdancing skills. That doesn't interest me.
- 23:36Speaker 1: What interests me is the psychology around her response. Now,
- 23:41Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, but maybe you know, it's like
- 23:45Speaker 1: maybe her mindset is I went there, I did my best,
- 23:51Speaker 1: and I got a particular outcome, and maybe she's fine
- 23:54Speaker 1: with it. I don't know. Maybe the public persona is
- 23:56Speaker 1: different to the personal reaction and experience behind closed. But
- 24:02Speaker 1: you know, whatever the outcome is, whether it's regaun, whether
- 24:05Speaker 1: it's you know, you and me going on a run,
- 24:07Speaker 1: whether or not it's a school report, whether or not
- 24:09Speaker 1: it's you know, many times early days I did speaking
- 24:13Speaker 1: gigs that if I'm you know, being as objective as
- 24:19Speaker 1: I can be, which is not very because my view
- 24:22Speaker 1: and understanding of the world is subjective because it's me,
- 24:26Speaker 1: especially when it's me assessing me. But as objective as
- 24:29Speaker 1: I can be. Some of my early days speaking performances,
- 24:34Speaker 1: corporate speaking or public speaking or paid speaking, I think
- 24:39Speaker 1: some of them were really a two or a three
- 24:41Speaker 1: out of ten, where I really I was somewhere between
- 24:45Speaker 1: fucking terrible and not very good. But you know, back
- 24:50Speaker 1: then I was a white belt. Back then I was
- 24:53Speaker 1: figuring out how do I be a professional speaker? How
- 24:56Speaker 1: do I build rapport and connection? How do I talk
- 24:58Speaker 1: to an audience, How do I understand what it is
- 25:01Speaker 1: like for an audience to be in front of me?
- 25:05Speaker 1: What is the mix of preparation and kind of intuition?
- 25:10Speaker 1: Like do I use slides? Do I use video? How
- 25:14Speaker 1: prepared should I be? And how in the moment organic
- 25:17Speaker 1: storytell a funny guy? Should I be or not be?
- 25:20Speaker 1: What's going to work? It was all of the outcomes
- 25:23Speaker 1: that I created, ranging from terrible to okay in the
- 25:29Speaker 1: early days, all of the outcomes that I created, all
- 25:32Speaker 1: of the experiences that I had in the middle of that,
- 25:36Speaker 1: all of those for me were literally training they were
- 25:40Speaker 1: going to the gym. In inverted commas, they were going
- 25:44Speaker 1: to the speaking gym and working out and learning and
- 25:48Speaker 1: growing and developing skill and understanding and strength and resilience
- 25:52Speaker 1: and insight and situational awareness and social and emotional intelligence.
- 25:58Speaker 1: And the reason that I became Hopefully, I'm not terrible. Now.
- 26:03Speaker 1: Let's I hope that I'm better than a two or three.
- 26:06Speaker 1: I don't want to give myself a number, but I
- 26:08Speaker 1: think I'm not terrible at my job anymore. But the
- 26:10Speaker 1: reason that I now do a lot of corporate speaking,
- 26:13Speaker 1: the reason that I get a lot of work in
- 26:15Speaker 1: that space, is because I spent all of those years learning,
- 26:20Speaker 1: not failing learning anyway, team there it is failure failure
- 26:28Speaker 1: lesson learning growth. You choose