Latest / The You Project / #2120 Can We Understand Ourselves? - Prof. Jessica Grisham

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#2120 Can We Understand Ourselves? - Prof. Jessica Grisham · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's the Youth Project, it's doctor
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: or should I say professor jess you'll come up or
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Jessica I should have found that out. I'm going to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: go with and Professor Tiff is here. How are you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: very good?
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you? Craig Harper, how are you?
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Oh look, I'm just bursting out of my bloody flannel
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: shirt and I'm in a black T shirt because it's
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: so warm in the thriving metropolis Ofthampton. If you were
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: an academic, you were a professor of something, would it
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: be punchology? Would it be punching people in the face?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Would it be pugilism? What would you have a PhD?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: And if you were heading down that route.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I am not sure. You know what's funny you say
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: that I just did a stupid post on my Instagram
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  Speaker 2: on my Facebook noting that I've just become aware how
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: often I drop my phone and I wondered what my
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: baseline was with reflexes prior to over a decade of
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: training in a sport where handie coordination and dexterity and
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: reflexes was at the really heard of what you're training.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Do you know what's funny about you is like you're
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: out and about and you're a bit of a tomboy.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We know that. And by a bit, I mean a lot,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and by a lot I mean mostly. But you know that.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you are not what people think when we go,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I'm bringing one of my friends or tiff showing up
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: to do that. She's forty, she's a lady. By lady,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I mean she'll punch you in the face nine times
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: before you know what's going on. So there's that. It's
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Professor Jessica might have her way with you.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: She could probably armbar you real naked, choke you, submit you.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I mean she role plays an academic, but she's probably
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: extremely capable in a one on one scenario, Am I right?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Prof Well, no.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling really intimidated by Tiffany right now because I have.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: A terrible hand eye coordination.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I played pickleball for the first time yesterday and was
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: pretty abysmal, though I had fun being on a giant
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: tennis table situation. But at the end my husband said, oh,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: you know, yeah, you're all right. All you have to
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: do is work on your hand eye coordination. And I
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: think if it's if I'm this old and it hasn't happened.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: That's never happening. But I also am not really ready
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: to for a hand to hand combat, so hopefully that's
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  Speaker 3: not part of the brief on this podcast.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: No, no, I think I think you'll be all right. Okay,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: last one for you, Tive before we have the proper
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: with the grown up in the room.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: Definitely, it's not one I didn't think.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So if you had had to head down a field
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of research, I know you don't want don't want to,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: but if you had to, would it be psych would
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: it be or would it be something else?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Ah, excellent question. It would be something around human behavior
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  Speaker 2: and psychology, I believe.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, endlessly fascinating specimens.
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  Speaker 4: It's hard to resist.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, you've got so much work with I mean
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: there's us two for.
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  Speaker 4: As strat that'll give me busy for years.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, speaking of issues, have you seen the profs bio?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So now, Jessica, do I call you jess or Jessica
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: fine es? Ye? Well, give you up, Thank you and welcome.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Sorry about that prelude, but that's how we roll. How
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: are you?
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I am doing it? Okay, thank you. I'm excited to
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: chat with you this morning.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are we beating the business meeting or the workman?
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: If we had some sort of offacially empty measuring smiles,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: you'd already be ahead of the curve based on a
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: very grim staff meeting.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: So yes, all good.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Don't we all get excited about a good staff meeting.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Aren't you lucky? We don't have those two?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Sure, and they would be a whirlwind Wooden.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Although do you do get a bit scared when I
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: say I want to catch up with you and I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: just want to catch up with you. You're like, what
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: what about? I'm like, yeah, it's okay, don't worry.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: You can't say that as.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: You sleep that night. Hey, doc jess all of it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Could you just tell rather than me read something that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: will do your head in? Could you just tell my
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: audience who you are and what you do and what
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  Speaker 1: you're about. Please? Thank you. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a professor of psychology and I'm at UNSW in Sydney,
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  Speaker 3: and my primary research passions that my students and I
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  Speaker 3: do some experimental and clinical research are in the area
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  Speaker 3: of obsessive compulsive disorder OCD and hoarding disorder and anxiety
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: disorders more broadly, so we do research and I also
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  Speaker 3: do some teaching and training as part of my role
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  Speaker 3: at UNSW.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Perfect what's the question that you never get asked on
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: an interview or a podcast or TV or radio that
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you thought I'd wish Because I feel like people that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I interview that are interviewed a lot, and we're other
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand interviews in write or podcast in so I
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: try not to be too boring and predictable and reparitive.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Appreciate a question that you think I wish someone would
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  Speaker 1: ask me this because this is a really interesting part
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  Speaker 1: of this area that people don't think about or don't understand.
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  Speaker 1: What might that question be?
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: All right, Oh, this might not be exactly what you're after,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: This might be a little bit of a turn, but
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: this is what I was thinking about this morning on
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: my dog walk, so you can get a little a
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: window into that. I like when people in podcasts, when
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: when I'm reading any kind of biography, or when they
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: talk about anything they've changed their mind on or something
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  Speaker 3: they've evolved or have a difference of opinion, because we
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: all get very stuck in particular viewpoints and become, as
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: you said, quite predictable.
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  Speaker 4: So I was thinking on the dog walk.
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  Speaker 3: This morning how a lot of the work I've done
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: has been in in psychology, and my training with a
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  Speaker 3: lot of the greats of this century in terms of
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: people that I've had the good fortune of working with,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: has been in cognitive behavioral versions of psychotherapy, and like
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: traditionally those versions of psychotherapy are very focused on the
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  Speaker 3: here and now, very focused on what are your patterns
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: right now that are working for you aren't How can
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  Speaker 3: we look at how you're thinking and what you're doing,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: and how can we creatively shift those in a way
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  Speaker 3: that's going to work for you and you're going to
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  Speaker 3: be feel more fulfilled in your life or less symptoms
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  Speaker 3: of whatever you're feeling right And in part like that
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  Speaker 3: whole approach is a reaction to older models of psychology
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  Speaker 3: and psychotherapy, like Freudian approaches. And you can picture, you know,
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  Speaker 3: something you'd see on TV, someone lying on a couch
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  Speaker 3: and tell me about when you were a baby and
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: how to do what was your toilet training?
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  Speaker 4: Like that kind of thing, And too much.
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  Speaker 3: Focus on the past, too much focused on the past
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  Speaker 3: and your parents and how you were raised, and not
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  Speaker 3: enough focused on what's happening for you today and how
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  Speaker 3: can we help you So I guess what's been interesting
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: in the last couple of years I've been reflecting is
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: that the way that we are evolving as a field
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  Speaker 3: in terms of CBT and the specific stuff that my
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  Speaker 3: students and I've been doing in my lab has involved
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  Speaker 3: kind of incorporating more of those stories and elements of
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: your autobiographical past, and incorporating more of your early childhood
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  Speaker 3: and what happened to you, but still keeping the focus
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  Speaker 3: on how that's impacting you today. So I think that's
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  Speaker 3: been sort of interesting. And then, you know, research is mesearch.
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  Speaker 3: I've been thinking a little bit about, you know, my
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  Speaker 3: early childhood or my past, or even my family's past,
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  Speaker 3: and how that has impact in.
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  Speaker 4: The way I live in the world today.
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  Speaker 3: So I don't feel like we've totally gone back to
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  Speaker 3: the days of Freud and really blaming all our in
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  Speaker 3: neuroses on unconscious processes.
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  Speaker 4: And our parents. But I do think that there's become.
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  Speaker 3: Greater clinical wisdom in taking some time to appreciate and
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  Speaker 3: understand some of those childhood experiences and even revisiting them
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  Speaker 3: and approaches that we're doing right now, particularly imagery based approaches,
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  Speaker 3: and really immersing ourselves in some of those very formative
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  Speaker 3: experiences and how they still impact how we're living in
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  Speaker 3: the world today.
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  Speaker 1: Love it. I love research may search too, to what
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask a few philosophical ones that are
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  Speaker 1: very self indulgent, just because these are things I think
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  Speaker 1: about and I'm interested in, to what extent can we
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  Speaker 1: understand stand ourselves when obviously the Craig experience of Craig
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  Speaker 1: is subjective, not objective, And to what extent can I
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  Speaker 1: be aware knowing that the thing I'm trying to understand
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  Speaker 1: largely my mind is the tool that I'm using for analysis.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a mind fuck, right, It's like, well,
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  Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand me using me as the revealer
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  Speaker 1: of truth and insight. Yep.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I think that is the part of the
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  Speaker 3: potential magic of therapy is that it's not you sitting
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  Speaker 3: in a room by yourself analyzing yourself, which I think
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  Speaker 3: you would be very needs or gazing very leading to rumination.
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  Speaker 3: And we all reflect a little bit on ourselves, and
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  Speaker 3: I think some of that can be healthy. But I
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  Speaker 3: think part of the magic is when you have another
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  Speaker 3: person who you trust, who has training or even sometimes
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  Speaker 3: a good friend of social support that you are able
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  Speaker 3: to integrate what their perspective is and actually receive that feedback,
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  Speaker 3: actually listen to what they say instead of just waiting
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  Speaker 3: for your turn to talk about yourself. So I think
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  Speaker 3: in genuine good friendships, relationships, and in good therapy, that's
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  Speaker 3: the only window we have outside of our own as
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: you said, Psyche, and the fact that we live in
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  Speaker 3: our own bodies, in our minds, and we're very much
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: main character energy for ourselves. But if you are able
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  Speaker 3: to genuinely have these conversations with people, I think that's
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  Speaker 3: where the shifts happen.
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  Speaker 4: That's where you can.
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  Speaker 3: Start doing things, doing experiments, trying things differently, hearing different perspectives,
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  Speaker 3: and subtly changing maybe the way you think or the
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  Speaker 3: way you view the world, which is what it's all about,
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  Speaker 3: in my opinion, is not being completely stuck in one
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  Speaker 3: way forever.
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  Speaker 1: And I think also being comfortable with the idea that
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  Speaker 1: this is what I think, but it could be wrong. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is what I believe wrong, Yeah, because I've been
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: wrong thousands of times, So why would I think that
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: today will next week, month, year. I'm not going to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: be wrong at least hundreds of times because I am
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: going today.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: And we call that cognitive flexibility, and it's one of
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: the key ingredients to being able to have.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: Change, and sometimes people don't have it.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Some of the people we work with, due to the
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: nature of their disorder, whether it's severe OCD or severe
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: boarding or severe delusion psychosis, they.
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  Speaker 4: Don't have that ability to.
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  Speaker 3: Reflect on their own thinking and go, I am not
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: always one hundred percent right, So maybe I should just
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: listen a little and think about another perspective and give
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: it some chance to change. And then the question is
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: what do you do with people who are so rigidly,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: absolutely sure that their reality, whether it's a delusion or
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: they're sure they need to save all their bodily materials,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: or they're sure that they're sink in the public toilet
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: is absolutely.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Contaminated and going to kill them.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: What creative ways can you find into someone is reality
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: is that rigid and that strong, to start to get
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: them to challenge their thought processes, like you have a
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: more healthy version of that. I recognize that I have
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: been wrong and I might be wrong again, and let
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: me listen to what other people have to.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Say, yes, yes, And I guess the other part of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: that is really genuinely being open to that versus just
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: nodding your head and going, all right, I'll go along
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: and see Jess on bloody Tuesdays. But yeah, I'm only
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: doing it because it's kind of mandated or I have to,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: or it keeps my family, you know, quiet, or I
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: think there's like a level of courage involved in to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: open the door on that fear and that anxiety and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that overthinking rumination whatever, and go what actually is that about?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Like that's almost like the symptom, not the problem, Like
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: what's driving that? What's underneath all of this behavior that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: is unhealthy for me? And I'm driving myself nuts. Probably
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I don't mean that literally but perhaps metaphor. But yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: being brave enough to go I really want to understand
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  Speaker 1: me is a little bit terrifying, perhaps.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: So cterrifying, I think, gree It takes courage and openness,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: and also for the person who's trying to help you
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: do that, it takes them not pushing you further into
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: a box.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: And then we know that if I'm saying that's.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Absolutely wrong or you need to think differently, or I'm right,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: you're just gonna get in a defensive crouch.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: And you know, maybe call Tiffany over to punch me.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: Like, it doesn't really work, It just makes people more So,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: how can you genuinely help someone in your life who
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: feels that way, or a client and not push them
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: further into a really strong version of the world. How
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: can you be curious and open minded and support them
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: enough to say, well, all right, maybe there's a small
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: chance that this isn't true, and maybe I can start
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: thinking a little bit differently.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my guy too, and I'm backed into a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: psychological corner. Or I just called tiff to bring a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: violent self over to the situation. I want to Yeah,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I think. I think also, like when what we think
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and what we think is right in our beliefs and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: our ideas are intertwined with our identity. When you question
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: my thoughts, my ideas, my reality, you're questioning who I am.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You're questioning my identity and how dare you? So fuck you?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, there's there's that. It's like it's a
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: very multi layered kind of thing to be able to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: go what if you know, Like I grew up in
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a religious house, right, so I had this whole very
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: conditioned upbringing church school, connected to the church, parents, connected
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to both friends, family, so very churchy environment. So everything
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: that I was taught in inverted commas, programmed, conditioned, you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to believe. I never really questioned that because this was
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the truth that we lived in. You know, this is
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the truth. And then you don't know any other echo chamber,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: or you don't know any other version of the truth
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: because you've never set foot in that world, so to speak,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: or you've never really lived there. And then one day
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you might go and whether or not it's with you know,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: barracking for an AFL club or religion, or being a
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: vegan or you know, whatever, it is that ideology with
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: which you are interconnected, and perhaps that represents you to go, Fuck,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: what if I've been wrong for thirty years?
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: What if I was that moment for you? With your
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: religious upbringing.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean I went on a bit of a journey.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: So I was just raised in Catholicism, which is pretty boring,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: but it's also it's kind of shout out to my
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Catholic friends that I meant to I love you, but
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: it's pretty arrogant. It's like where right, everyone else is wrong.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But then a lot of churches and a lot of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: religions like that. And by the way, I don't believe
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: whatever anyone else says, you know, da da da. And
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: so I went to Basically it's a you know, it's
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a pretty boring assembly of people every Sunday at this time,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and then you go to school, you know. So it
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't particularly inspiring, but it was indoctrinating. And so I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: believed if I did this, if I died with a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: mortal sin on my soul, for example, I'm going to
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: burn in an eternal lake and fire forever. And I'm
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: fucking ten. I'm like, this is fucking terrifying. And this
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: isn't a thought or an idea, this is an inverted
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: comma's truth. And then I came out of that, and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: then I you know, I didn't go to church for
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a while, and then I met some people. Anyway, I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: ended up being all me because I was kind of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: god curious, like I didn't know what was what, if
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: anything was what, right, But then I went down an
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: evangelical Christian path, as you been from the States would
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: have I'm sure been very aware of, right, Yeah, and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: then that's a whole different world, and it's like, oh no,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: this is, this is amazing, this is and.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Then I rude a joy in it and a lot
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: of connection.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: It's very subdountable then, and so a lot of things
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: that weren't in Catholicism were in where I was anyway.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: There was joy, there was connection, there was love, there
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: was compassion, there was understanding, you know, but also there
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: was very much indoctrination too, where hey, it's not okay
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you can't go see your parents in the country on
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Sunday because you need to be here. I'm like, but
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I'm the only kid and they're my only parents, and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: they're not super young, so I need to know, like,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: you need to be faithful, you need to be all
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: this stuff. And then you're like, oh, So by the
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: time I really really started to think, oh maybe some
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: or all of this is bullshit, I was probably thirty Wow,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and then a sort.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: Of single moment or just overtime skepticism.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I just saw, I feel like I'm being psychoanalyzed if
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't I couldn't be happier, I couldn't be
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: hang on, can I lie down? Yeah? So I mean,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: for me, there was just a lot of inconsistency between
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: what got taught on the poolpit and what I saw,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: like the words and the actions of the people who
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: were sharing the words weren't aligned. I'm like, hey, bro,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you say this, but you do that. And I was
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: ultra respectful. I was just I was a good little boy,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: like I was at church all the time. I preached
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: at church. I preached from when I was twenty three.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I ran how I did a whole lot of stuff.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I was in boots and all right, and I believe.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I believe that I was in the right place, doing
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the right thing, and the things that were being taught
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: were true. And upon reflection, a lot of that's changed.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Some of it's changed. Not everything that I experienced was
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: bad or good, but yeah, where you're almost guilted into
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: like we don't want you to think, we want you
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to believe. And if you think critically, you're a backslater
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: or that's the devil, that's the enemy. That's all these
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: words that were used around my curiosity and me going hey,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: like I see we're saying this, but we're doing that,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And it's basically a told don't worry. Yeah, you're not
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: spiritually evolved enough or you're not you know, so all
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: of that and then for me to actually step away
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: from that and go, what if all of this or
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: some of this my experience anyway. I'm not saying the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Bible per se, but what if some of this is bullshit?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And that was terrifying for me to know if that
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: was oh yeah, if that was true, and I went
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this could be bullshit or some of it could be,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: then maybe I'll spend eternity in a lake of fire
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: or all of these fear based controlling kind of how
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: do we control people while we help.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: You lose your community? WHI should become story too.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, exactly exactly. So I think that whole thing
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: of being able to truly figure out what you think
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: in the middle of what you truly actually think and believe,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: in the middle of what you've been taught to think
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and taught to believe, because we're not taught, even in schools,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: we're not really taught how to think, how to critic
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: analyze things, how to independently come to our own conclusions.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe they are now, I'm not sure. When I went
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to school, we'll just told this is what it is,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this is how it is, don't ask any questions. There'll
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: be an exam on Friday.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's going to be such a more important
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: school skill than ever I know. With the I volunteered
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: taught ethics at my daughter's school in primary school. They
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: have a program that that's one of the main focus
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: moment if they aims the program is to teach little
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: kids to critically think about their own philosophy and how
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: to examine their own worldview and how to talk to people.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: And it seems really valuable. But you're right, in general,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: that's going to be what's left when all the other
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: kinds of tasks are done by AI is some critical
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: analysis and finding truth and finding your own truth and
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: a mid a very confusing, rapidly changing reality.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, March.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Curiosity is the other thing. That's another thing I've been
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: really interested in lately. When I was in the States
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: on sabbatical last year, I saw a neuroscientist from Oregon
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Prison and he was talking about how novelty is such
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: an important feature for learning in the human brain, and
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: that when things are novel it actually encourages neuroplastic plasticity
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: and you learn more rapidly. And a similar paper about
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: how curiosity is so important in terms of those kinds
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: of levels of change and how your brain functions. And
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I've been thinking about that in terms of therapy, but
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: also more broadly, as you're saying about how important it
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: is to engage people's curiosity and have some novelty and
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: get them to think about things in a slightly different way.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: And I think that's one of our biggest.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Weapons as humans, is to is to have curiosity and
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: to notice discrepancies and be interested in other people's perspectives.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: And when you're not interested and you're not curious, it
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: can leave you very stock.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I agree, And I think sometimes
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: we get into a like an operational kind of personal
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: operational groundhog Day, where we just do what we've always done.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: It's not amazing, but it's less terrifying than doing something
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: where there's uncertainty and unfamiliarity. So it's a three out
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of ten over here, but I know what's coming, so
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'll stay in the three rather than strive for the nine,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, or whatever that is. And yeah, like that,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I think that's a little bit personality or genetically dependent.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but like I've realized at twenty two,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't want a job. I wanted to work, but
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't want a boss. I didn't want to work
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: for an organization. And I started my own company at
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: twenty six and I've not had a job since. But
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: then I look at other people and it's not that
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: they're lazy or worse or it's.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: Just that risk diverse.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this would be the worst. Like my
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: life where you know, it's like I don't know how
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: much money I'll make this week or this month. I
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: never know that because I don't have a wage, I
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: don't have sick pay, I don't have a holiday pay.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I don't you know. And that's cool. I chose that,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and I thrive in this kind of slightly unknown space,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: you know. But for men.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: Tolerance of uncertainty, we would.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Say, well, yeah, and I think we are in many
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: ways many of us probably me with other things too,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: but we are somewhat addicted to comfort and familiarity and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: certainty and predictability because we like to know what's coming.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: But that's not consistent with life or the world, because
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the world is not comfortable or consistent or predictable or
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: familiar or the events exactly like. So we live in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a dynamic world where shit's happening and evolving and changing
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: all the time, and if we can't adapt, that's problematic.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: That's definitely problematic.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: And part of what we do is try and for
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: generally speaking, for anxiety disorders across the board, cultivate a
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: different attitude towards uncertainty. Like if you feel a little
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: uncertain or a little unsure, sometimes that's a sign of excitement.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Do you want to know the holding of every movie
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: that you're watching? Do you want to know how your
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: life's going to turn out if you could know? Isn't
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: there something about roller coasters and scary movies and going
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: on a first date that's thrilling to not knowing everything
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: so instead of just everything I don't know and I
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: can't predict is very bad and scary. Like you said,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I think you have more of a temperamental tolerance of that,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: so you naturally are more open to experience and.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: Those kinds of novelty.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: But for other people, kind of encouraging them to not
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: need everything to be predictable.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: But beyond anxiety disorders.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I think you can kind of stunt to yourself, you know,
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: like not reach your full potential because you are so
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: afraid of taking some risks or dealing with some uncertainty,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: or putting yourself out there in some kind of way.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I mean that's something that I try and work on
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: as well. It's very easy to stay put, but there's
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: a cost to that too, right, Yeah, one what is.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Do you spoke before? I think you said something like
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: reflection and rumination? What is the I'm sure there's no
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: clear line, but the space or the difference between healthy
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: reflection and unhealthy or obsessive rumination. What's that scale look like?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think you underestimate the nerdiness and precision
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: of psychology researchers, because indeed they have operationalized that and
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: discriminated behind by that and created two different measurement scales
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: to try and tease it apart. But basically they try
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: and look at the difference between brooding rumination that is
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: focused on like why did that happen to me?
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: What's wrong with me?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Why have I not got promoted? Why am I still
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: meeting duds on my dating app?
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: What's wrong? Why didn't have such bad luck in this game?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: So that's brooding and the kind of reflection that can
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: actually be good and that would be more a little
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: bit along the lines of what we're talking about, like
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: what did I bring to that relationship in the past,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: What could I do a little bit differently? What is
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: my strongest features? And what kinds of things tend to
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: go wrong? Have I noticed any patterns in my life?
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: So that kind of you don't want to just be
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: an unexamined life where you don't do any reflection. But
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: you notice that line, which again is on a measure
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: of self report measure where you're not doing anything constructive.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: You're not reflecting in a way that's constructive. You're reflecting
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: in a way that's just repetitive. It's focused on the past,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and it tends to be very negative kind of just
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: without answers analyzing why me is the very the very
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: basic version of that.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: So, how can we as.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Humans not get too preoccupied with the past and too
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: stuck in a rut and particularly feeling sorry for ourselves
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: and brooding, but you know, continue to have some reflections
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: on what we're doing. And I think part of that
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: is also combining it with action. How do you have
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: that where you can you have these great conversations and
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: have some reflections with people that you care about trust,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: and then also you go for a run, you try
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: a new sport, you put yourself out there in a
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: new book, report book, project. Whatever your passions are, you
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: actually do them, and you're living your life consistent with
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: your fat flat values, not just.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: Yapping about it.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: You applied pickable, that's what you do.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, and you hope not to break your
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: leg and have a middle aged injury.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: But so far, so good.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't tell you on my psychology researcher, and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I'm submitting my pH day in a few weeks, so
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: forget all of that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Wait, I think I did see that. Actually, yeah, well
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I must have blocked it out. No, no, no, allowed
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: to ask you your thesis topic?
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Or is that I've got the old plights on I'm
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: standing at the I'm standing in front of you, impressed. Yes,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: some mine is around medea, perception and meta accuracy.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: Across the nerdiness of psychologists.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pretty much like I'm not as a cross
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: as you are, of course, but understanding. Yeah, like I've
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: always been fascinated with this is a weird story, but
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you the story. So I've been
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: riding motorbikes my whole life since I was five and five,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: six seven, and started riding on the road at eighteen.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So I ride well, I drive a bit more now,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: but I'd ride a lot, and as does tiff Is,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a fellow motorcyclist. Of course she is. She rides bikes
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and punches people, and she does a lot more than
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that everyone else. But I remember prof in the early days,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: when someone would come for a ride on the back
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of the bike, I would take them on a ride.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't do anything silly. We just you know, would
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: go out for twenty minutes, thirty minutes, if you know,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: if I had lived in the country for a while.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: So I take them down a country road, or I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: live now near the beach, or take them along the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: beach and as pleasant as I could make it. And
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: some people would get back and they are like, oh
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: my god, that is the best fucking thing I've ever done.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And their brains lit up like a Christmas tree, the
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: biochemistries going nuts. Their mind is racing. They absolutely we
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: get back and they go, can we go again? Right?
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Yep?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: At the other end of the scale, you know what
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say, I'd do the exact same thing
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: with a different person, just as safe, just as beautiful scenery,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: just as careful. They'd get back, safe and sound, they'd
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: get off, they'd go, that's the most terrifying shit I've
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: ever done. Don't get that motorbike near me ever again.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I will never do that again. It's like, oh, they
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: just went through the same activity, but they had a
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: completely different self created experience. And that used to that
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: was almost like the genesis for me, wondering about how
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: we can do the same thing, or be in the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: same room, or be in the same conversation, or have
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: what looks to be the same experience but on a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: personal level is completely different. Like that, understanding how we
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: create our own experiences, you know, like with your person
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: with anxiety washing their hands in a public bath, you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: sink or whatever, and it's like their story is I'm
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: going to get this and that, and then someone else
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: washes their hand, walks out, washes their hands on their
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: genes and doesn't give a shit. Like, try to comprehend
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the minds of others is such a challenge.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: It's such a challenge theory of mind and understanding other people. Yeah,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: and I was thinking I feel like I'm kind of
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: I was imagining being taken on this bike ride, and
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I was thinking, I think it's both my downfall and
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: my superpower. Then I'm always in the middle with these things,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: like I feel like I would, not knowing myself, think
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: oh now I need to, you know, ride motorcycles. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: need to be like, sign me up. But I also
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: would enjoy it and think that was really beautiful and
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: interesting and fun. I'm glad I tried that, and now
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to move on with my next thing.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: And I come from I'm, you know, like a fairly
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: standard upper middle class background in the States, but I
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: have very my my two grandfathers were both criminals and
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: had a lot of really impulsive, terrible behavior.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: And so I think about how now I'm such a
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: middle of.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: The road person in my personal life with that kind
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: of thing, like always the voice of moderation, which you know, no,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: it's like it's useful. It's useful as a psychologist, and
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: it's useful in terms of talking to people, but it's
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: also yeah, I don't identify with either of those extremes
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: that you were describing of your your people on the bike.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: I think I would love the bike ride.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: And also I know I'm not cut out to be
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: a motorcycle rider like you and Tiff.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: She doesn't know, does she diff miking an assumption based
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: on zero experience.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Right, you're right, I did pose with the motorcycle when
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I was little. My uncle had one. But yeah, I've
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: never really written one properly.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Having two grandfathers that were criminals and knowing that, like
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: has that, has that influenced you in any way to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: think or behave or choose going, Oh, did you subconsciously
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: or date down think? I don't want to become that.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's genetic. I wonder if did you
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: ever go I definitely don't want to be a crook.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: So there's that.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I definitely think about it, not just
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: in terms of myself, but in terms of my whole
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: you know, family history, and more recently because I uncovered
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: more information about one of my grandfathers and it is
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: kind of disturbing, And you're right, you do try and
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: because as you said, we all have this identity that's
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: core to ourselves and then influenced by all these features.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: So I do feel like this shifting puzzle in my
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: mind always trying to reconcile the different bits and how
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: they landed, how they did, and seeing different bits of
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: impulsivity in myself or my sister. But that is very
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: tame compared to, you know, historical factors.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: So I do think it's interesting.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: And I'm thinking about, you know, kind of a book
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: project working on some of some of these ideas of identity,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: not just your own identity, but that kind of epigenetics,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: bigger identity of your family and what parts of that
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: form you're what you're fighting against, or what you've ignored.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know that sounded a bit like gibberish. Obviously
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: still in the brainstorming phase.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Now, if I don't at least talk a bit, or
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: we don't at least talk a bit about OCD hoarding
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and anxiety, all of my listeners who tuned in and like,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: get to the fucking topic.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: See, I think have been all along. But that's a
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: metal level. You can put that in your PhD.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: On a metal level.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: We have been we have. We've been circling around it,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: we've been hovering above it. Firstly, did you fall into
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: this because an opportunity, this kind of area of research,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: there was an opportunity. It was already existing, and they went, hey,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: would you like to be involved in this? And you
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: went yep, or did something like what was the stimulus
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: for you to become the world renowned researcher that you are,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: which you are in this space? Like what started?
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: I think there's a clinical story here and I'll also
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: maybe a personal story.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: So the clinical story is my very.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: First client who I was assigned at this famous anxiety
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: clinic I worked in in Boston. So I was, you know,
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: only would I have been like twenty three or twenty
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: four maybe at the time, and my very first client,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: and she had a severe OCD And as soon as
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: I was assigned her, I called her to make a
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: first appointment.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: I was very proud of myself. I hung up the phone.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Then the nurse administrator who ran the program came over
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: and said, she doesn't want you as as a therapist,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: so that was not a win. But anyways, she did
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: come in and see me and we had this amazing
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: transformative therapy experience and the nature of her psychopathology, the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: nature for OCD, plus the huge immense benefit I saw
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: on doing exposure and response prevention, which is the gold
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: standard treatment for OCD.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was pretty hooked at that point.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: So from then on I was very interested in OCD,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: and also then began working on hoarding disorder, which was
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: considered at the time to be related. And I had
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: amazing mentors who wrote the manual literally on hoarding disorder
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: and ran group treatment programs where the hoarding clients that
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: I saw were just extremely quirky, and I'm kind of
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: a quirky person. They were just a little bit different,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: a little bit interesting, very curious, kind of unusual. It's
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: a hard disorder to work with in some ways, but
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: it's really also quite rewarding and interesting to me. So
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: I find those two disorders did fit with me in
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: terms of my personality and what I liked, I mean, depression, anxiety.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: They're all interesting and hugely burdens them in today's society,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: so very important.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: But I think I found my niche.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: But then from another perspective, thinking about like I almost
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: was an English professor. I love literature. I still do.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: I read like a book a week in three different
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: book clubs. I'm obsessed with fiction, and I think, well,
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: I feel like I kind of picked a version of
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: psychology where there is this story and the story about
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: the person, and that is centered in a way that
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: is still all very cohesive.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: With who I am.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: So those are my two different kinds of maybe related
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: things of why I ended up doing being an OCD
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: and hoarding researcher, and I love it. It's just always
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: the most incredible interesting clients and the research is really interesting.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: I have wonderful students who have very clever ideas, and
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: so it's it's fantastic.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: If you had to profile you or assess you or
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: evaluate you, what would you say about you?
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: I would say, probably.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: In terms of psychopathology or in terms of personality or both.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Like I would say, I'm, you know, an introverted person
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: but also a very people oriented social person, and so
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: it's kind of on that border there, being quite chatty
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: and extrovert as you can see, but also known as
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: being a bit shy. I would say in terms of
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: disorders I identify with and not that I'm diagnosed with anything,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: and I don't think that I am, but I identify
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: again with like a little bit more of that chaotic
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: kind of excited ady HD type profile and being really
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: interested in lots of things, not always the most super
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: organized person. Although I end up getting things done that
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: are important to me and doing them very well, it's
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: just more of a I have a lot of colleagues
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: who are extremely organized and perfectionistic, and that is not
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: my jam really, So that would be my general representation
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: of myself.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Have you got advice for I feel like this is
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: for Tiff and I and three million other Australians to
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: be able to focus better on things that we have
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: to do but don't really want to do. If you know,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: when you've got to prep for stuff, how you'll sit
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: down and then you get distracted four times in seven minutes. Yes,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I can go down a rabbit hole
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: prof with stuff that I can look up, and it's
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: three hours, and I've been writing something that I'm all
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: about and I'm so into it, and I'm disappointed that
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I've got to stop. Yep, even now with my own research,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: like I've I'm submitting papers and doing all the stuff right,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and I sit down I read my own paper. I
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: want to punch myself in the face, like totally, I'm like,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you know, and something you've read so
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: much and so you're not really reading it. You're just
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: looking at it, and yeah, how do we I think
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: all of us struggle to focus with things that we
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: need to focus on or with sometimes.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and I of course have many of my
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: own struggles with that, and my boarding clients.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: In particular are known to have struggles with that.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: So my favorite fun new thing that we've been doing
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: is looking at imagery based approaches, and particularly one that
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: one of my PhD students that I've been looking at
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: called process imagery, which is kind of using imagery a
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: little bit as a stronger and more powerful emotionally enhancing
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: tool for motivation.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: So, for example, if you're working on I don't know,
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: like you have to.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Clean your room or you have to write your chapter
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: for your PhD, you actually visualize yourself in that present,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: in that future moment, a week from now, a year
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: from now, whatever it is, and think about it really
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: in detail, what does it look like, what does it
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: feel like, what's around you, and pre experience the reward
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: as much as you can.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: Really savor it, lean into.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: It, feel it, and then working backwards, have someone interview you.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: All right, Craig, I'm interviewing you. Now it's a year
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: from now, and you've submitted your PhD, You've finished. How
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: does that feel? Imagine yourself getting your diploma, meeting with
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: your supervisor, partying like having such a great time. Now,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: want to know, Craig, what did you do and the
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: intervening year since since our podcast together to get you
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to that point? And you would tell me now, like
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: what you think happened in that intervening year. Well, I
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: scheduled time, I got a coach, I blocked this off,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: I quit this thing.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: What did you do?
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: Because you probably know.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: The steps involved, but allowing yourself to feel and immerse
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: yourself in that idea what it would be like, and
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: then working backwards to get the steps. It has been
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: sort of interesting and some preliminarily cool data around that idea.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: And people are using it in other disorders as well.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Instead of just that slog of beating yourself up and
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: you know, I should be doing this and I should
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: be doing that and getting ruminating about it, trying to
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: shift into that more proactive visualizing moode. I mean, some
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: people aren't visual imagers, they have a fantasia or they're
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: just not into it, so there may not work for you.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: But that's one tip I have.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Can I ask you what sem thank you? That was amazing?
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: What sayings to be a random question, but I want
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: to bring it back. Do you think the idea of
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: tol poppy syndrome, which aust Australia talks about a lot,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: do you think that's one? Is it a real phenomena?
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: And is it more prevalent here than in the stites?
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Because I'm going somewhere with it.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's real. Yes, I think it's more
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: prevalent than in the States. And I don't think it's
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: all bad. I think there's something about the modesty and
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: the community or to nature of it that I've grown
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: to like and appreciate versus the grandstanding that can be
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: encouraged in the US and the very egocentric individualistic I mean,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: it's still a Western individualistic nation here, obviously, but I
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: think there's a little bit more community and don't big
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: note yourself, which I've come to notice. I feel like
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: I got pulled up once at the at of a
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: book club meeting saying something that sound a little show offye,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: and I got kind of put in my box and
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: I didn't feel good about it.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: But afterwards, I'm sort of like.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe we could all do it a little bit
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: less of that mmm.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: And also your intention with what you're saying, where you're
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: coming from, that's not necessarily going to be their experience, right.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: You know? What's that? The false consensus effect where we
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: think that people think like us, and so I got well,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I think I'm giving tips, some like advice or some
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: helpful advice or support or guidance, but her experience is
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: unwanted criticism, and you know, and and I'm like then
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, how on earth did you get? You know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: It's like then there's this whole thing between what I
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: think is happening in my mind, what I think I'm giving,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and what you are actually getting. You know, yeah, exactly.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: You would have with Tiff, given the relationship you seem
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: to have, would be make all the difference between completely
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: continuing to misunderstand if you could hash it out with her,
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: that's the magic.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had our moments, We've never have we.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: Turned into like team counseling, couples counseling from our original
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: on the couch therapy for you.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Only well, well, she's got a boy who's much better
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: than me. So it's definitely not couples. He's a nine,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I'm a four. I'm I'm working up the difference between
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: like this, you know, tap puppy stuff. But I always
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm a bit self loathing, and when I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: do something well, I don't want to say to the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: world world I did something well, because I think when
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I was young, I got shut down a lot, right,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: so I recognized that I did a good thing or
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: that was a good outcome, you know, But it's almost
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: like I don't want to tell anyone if people find
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: out that's cool, And because we can be so critical
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of others. And I when I was young, like in
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: my twenties, I built a company and it did quite well,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and that seemed to bother a lot of people, Like
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: you know how everyone cheers you on in Australia, some
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: people till you succeed. They fucking I'm like, okay, sorry,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: it did well. You know, I'll keep it to myself.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: More So, there's that, you know, like not wanting to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: be the self loaver, of course, or not wanting to
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: self sabotage, but at the same time being aware what's
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: that other thing as it shout and freuden that where
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: people want to see you fail. They celebrate failia and
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: your pipe like that's real, that's real, that's real.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: And I don't think that's any worse in Australia than
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: anywhere else in the world. But I get your point
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: about how do we find a way that we can
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: share our successes in a way that's genuine and authentic
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: and not feeling like we have to hide our another
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: whatever the other class she is, hide our light under
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: a bushel or whatever. But also not feel that there's
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: this constant rates towards self promotion because I feel like,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you, but this self promotion that
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: is now required on social.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: Media, it makes me feel very h It's just.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: People constantly like and thank you everyone for this comment,
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: and I feel pressed to do it because we're encouraged
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: to do it professionally promote our stuff and promote our students' work.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: But I feel like, ifever I look on LinkedIn, it
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: just is too much.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: So what's the balance between people being so self you know,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: so self aware and constantly promoting their new business and
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: we're so great and look at how we did our
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: remodeling and we're so amazing, versus being able to genuinely
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: say this was a success and I'm proud of this
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: thing that I built, and not have people be negative.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's some negativity that's going to come from comparison.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Right If you did well with your business, some people
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: read that as.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: And I didn't do well enough with mine. I am
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: not a success.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: And there's part of that that you have to just
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: let go because you can't control other people's reactions to you.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: You just have to have your own authentic reactions of
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: what you did and let go of the fact that people,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: as you said, evaluating through their own prism and particularly
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: through own prism of how they feel.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: You'll probably notice that the people who.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: Are most encouraging our people themselves are pretty confident and
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: happy where they are, and they're like, great job, Greg,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: that's really cool. And people who are a little more
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: insecure tend to feel like, oh, this is a real
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: indictment of me and what I haven't done, so that's
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: not cool and shut up about it. So I think
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: to some extent, you let that process go and know
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: that everyone has their own things that are working through.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: But yet it is unfortunate if you feel like you
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: can do something and be not want to be excited
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: about it because you feel that everyone's going to be
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: really negatively, negatively react to that.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, having said that, I have a lot of
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: support now and I'm very grateful. But I think what
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: is funny what you're talking about people basically beating their
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: chest on social media is the irony is that trying
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: to impress people is wildly unimpressive. It's like, I know
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: what you think, you think you're doing, but you're not
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: the opposite.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: So people are out there just doing their thing and
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: not beating their chest as much.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Right. I always say to people, don't tell me, show
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: me if you're awesome, we'll figure it out.
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: We'll figure it out, we'll see it do awesome things.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: I know there's people in my school and friends that
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: I am wildly impressed with and are very little chest beating.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: So also, I see you're the editor in chief of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the British Journal of Clinical Psychology. Is that still you?
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: You still doing that?
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: Nope?
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: I finished that up last year and now another Australian,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: Bethany Wooton, is the editor and cheap so that was
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: a fantastic opportunity.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: I did that for six years and now it's kind
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: of it's kind of cool.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to see, like what's filling the gap, What
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: new things am I getting involved with which has been fun?
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: How good are you relaxing?
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty good.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm not I'm not the worst at
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: it relative to some of my peers. Yeah, I really
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: like just like lying on the floor and reading my books,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: So I'm not too bad at it.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I want to finish with just a chat around anxiety.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: I don't want to ask you a specific question. I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: just want you to riff on anxiety for me, because
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's it's it's a thing, but it's
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: kind of a lot of things, and I think we
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: all experience it to some level, you know, from you know,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: minor discomfort or distraction to complete overwhelming dysfunction. Could you just,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know, talk to us about it for a
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: minute or two.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a very very general opener.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: I guess I'm thinking of I don't know if you
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: came across this in your studies, but the York's Dodson
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: curve and not being afraid of anxiety, knowing that a
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: little bit of anxiety can motivate you and kind of
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: allowing yourself to feel a little bit anxious and know
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: that that's also excitement and novelty and interest. And also
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: then when it gets too overwhelming, that you know you
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: don't have to manage everything on your own. That we
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: have community and connection. That's how humans have always operated.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: It's not a failing to talk to your friends, to
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: seek out social connection, to seek out therapy if it's
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: really bad.
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I would I would say that that's for me.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: The main things is and knowing that there's a normal
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: level that it's an evolutionarily evolved emotion that keeps us
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: protected and allows us to register novelty and try new things.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: And learn things and notice big threats in our environment.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: And so that's the balance, is noticing when it's just
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: the anxiety is tough living as a human in the
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: world today and adulting and all those things.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: So it's okay to feel some levels of that and just.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Accepting that, and it's just are you feeling that anxiety
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: and still doing what you want to do?
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: Are you paralyzed by it?
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: So that's the question I'll be asking, is like, it's
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: okay to feel anxious.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: You're about to give a big.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Speech, you're doing a podcast or whatever, you feel anxious.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: I'm learning piggleball.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm doing, but as soon as
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: it prevents me from doing things that I want to do,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: and I'm not going for a run and I'm not
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: doing a podcast and I'm not doing things, and it's
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: a problem, and it's like really getting some support around that.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: One of the things I do a bit is over
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the last twenty years, because I do a lot of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: corporate speaking, is help speakers, I guess, coach speakers. But
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: what's the biggest tip for me as as a Yeah,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: it's really sure. Yeah, Like I think one of the
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not putting you in this pigeon hole because you've
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: proven to be otherwise. But academics can struggle because they
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: feel like everything that's coming out of their mouth has
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: got to be research based, They've got to reference. It's
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: and it's very very they speak a language that most
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: audiences don't speak. So I say, before we even think
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: about your data, your slides, your content, your messaging, think
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: about how do I build rapport, connection, understanding and respect
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: with this group of humans who aren't me, who don't
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: think like me, who don't have my background.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: That's great advice.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like if your content is awesome, but you, as
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: a human on the stage are unrelatable and you can't
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: tell a story and you can't be a bit a
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: little bit. You don't need to be a stand up comic.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: But you know, like I'll walk up to a room
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: and I've literally just been introduced, and the first thing
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I might say is put up your hand if you're
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: an overthinker, and everyone goes, oh god, they put up
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: their hand, and I go, how's that going for you?
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Shit house? Right? And they laugh. Now I've got everyone
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: putting up their hand, I've got people reflecting on how
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: they are, and I've got them committing and admitting something
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and then we just go from there. So being able
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to build rapport and trust quickly really matters. And like
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: it's not like in academia where it's all about the information,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the data, the evidence. Of course, how well you present
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: that is secondary. But in a corporate environment or where
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you're getting paid, let's be honest, a shitload of money
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: to have an impact and then bug her off, like
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: you need to be able to. I call it edutainment,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: where you need to be able at the end of
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the day. If I was coaching you, I would hope
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: that you would walk off stage and they would say,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: she's amazing. Can we get her back? Like it doesn't
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: need to be too complicated? Yeah, you know so, And
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I mean I started. I did my first paid I
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: wrote about this recently, my first paid speaking gig at
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: twenty six, which was thirty six years ago. I'm sixty
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: two and I got paid fifty bucks. I talked to
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: twenty blokes in the timbiard in their lunch room. I
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: spoke for thirty minutes. I prepared for three weeks. I
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: was fucking horrible. They hated me, and I.
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: Loved it, And I'm.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Like, I know I can do this right, But whatever
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: it is, whether it's research.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Very resilient response, I love that.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I loved it and I went because I knew that
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I could do it. I knew I couldn't do it
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: tomorrow or next month.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: But you had a vision where you would get there.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and to be able to you know, go
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: all right, well, I'm crap at this. But whenever we
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: start something new, where crap. Where the white belt? Where
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the metaphoric white belt in the room, you know, in
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: a martial arts kind of metaphor, and so how do
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I It's like when I started my research, I hadn't
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: studied for twenty five years or no, about twenty years,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: and I was terrified. I was inept. I was terrified.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I couldn't understand what I was reading. I didn't understand
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: the language. I was sitting in a room at Monash.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I was sitting in my cubicle with about fifteen bloody,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: uh genius twenty three year olds. It was like bring
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: your fucking granddad to work day. I couldn't have been
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: less suited, right, But you go, well, this is the
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: worst I'll be. Yeah, that's the worst I'll be. You know.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: That's how it's so nice to be able to start
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: something new.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: There's something so good about something brand new, and if
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: you cannot let your fear or negativity stop you, and
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: you can just see it like as you said, this
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: is the worst I'm ever going to be, And good
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: on me for trying something new. I don't care if
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: I'm good at it yet, I just amn't getting out there.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: And I think for people from say TIFF's age forty
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: ish onwards, especially fifty and sixty, I'm not telling any
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: of them what to do, But I think it's highly
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: advantageous to put yourself in situations where you have to learn,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: you have to evolve, you need to adapt and develop
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: new skills and understanding and insight and self awareness, like
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: because it's so fucking important for your brain. And as
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: I've watch so many people age unnecessarily. My undergrad is
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: in exercise physiology, right, so as I watch so many
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: people age biologically, cognitively and behaviorally and at a rate that.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: They don't need to, yeah, exactly, I mean I also
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: feel like just that feeling of being incompetence and getting
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: comfortable with it. The other thing I do is I
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: do surf life saving and I'm not a particularly good
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: life saver, but I did the course and now I
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: go out on the beaches and I patrol. And I've
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: only done a few patrols, and I feel like I
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: never know what the hell I'm doing, And how do
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: we watch these radios?
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to make the radio calls. I'm
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: trying to learn.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: But I've met really lovely people, and I feel like
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: each time I go a couple new things and I'm
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: still those shittiest life saver probably there, and luckily there's
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: a team of amazing people, so if something happens, I
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: don't feel nervous.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: But it's been good. I just kind of sitting with.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: That feeling of oh, I feel it pretty competent most
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: of the time at work, or at least respect it
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: or whatever, and then to go in this other context
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: where just lowman on the totem pole.
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: So I think you're right.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: It's good for you in terms of you know, aging
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: and your brain, but also socially. I think I would
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: never talk to this random bloke who's doing on my
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: shift on the patrol, but it's great to talk to him,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: and he's really interesting. So I'm meeting people all the time,
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: which I wouldn't do otherwise.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: And how many people do you meet that you're like, Oh,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: you are so interesting, you are so smart, you know
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: so many things I don't know. Yeah, let's chat, I Jess.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: Is there anything you want to publish or publish anything
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: you want to promote or share with our audience? Website, books,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: anything like that, social media?
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, not particularly.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: You can google me and OC and I do have
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: a website with some resources.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: If there's something concerning you, it.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: Will have links to other places with vetted information for
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: OCD and and things that are going on.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: If you're a therapist to treat so OCD and you.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: Want to get in touch, we do have a website
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: that helps connect people who are looking for treatment with therapists.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: So feel free to google my name, Jessica Grisham and
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: OCD and you and s W and you'll and you'll
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: pull up my page and you can email me.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: You're the best. I absolutely love that.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: That was so fun and I appreciate your advice.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: I'm going to take on toward all your public speaking
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: advice too for my next my next talk.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll kill it. We'll saygodbarfair. But did you enjoy
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: that tip?
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: Loved it? Loved it?
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Smarty pants, smarty pants with charisma. That's a unicorn right there. Hi, folks,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that. Appreciate you. Don't forget. Go
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: to the project Facebook page if you want feedback, small
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: little community of about four thousand people there who interact
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and have fun and ask questions. If you want to
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: suggest a guest, do that. See you later,