For 26 years, Tom Cronin looked like a man who had it handled. He was also having panic attacks in car parks between client lunches.
If you've ever pushed through something you should have stopped for, or held a strong face while everything underneath felt unmanageable, this one's for you.
Tom was one of Sydney's top money brokers before his nervous system finally forced the issue. In this conversation he talks about the breakdown he couldn't explain, the alpha-broker identity he had to let go of before anything could change, and how he rebuilt a life around stillness instead of chaos.
He doesn't sell a five-minute fix. He's honest that the doubt still creeps back some days. What's changed is what he does with it.
That's the part worth 40 minutes.
Top Moments
Meet the Guest
Tom Cronin
Tom Cronin spent 26 years as one of Sydney’s leading money and swap brokers before leaving finance to become a meditation teacher, speaker, coach and author. He discovered meditation while still working on the trading floor, after chronic anxiety, insomnia and panic attacks culminated in a nervous breakdown.
He has since studied advanced meditation practices in Bali, India and Australia and now teaches a mantra based technique known as Deep Meditation.
Tom is the founder of The Stillness Project, a global movement working towards inspiring one billion people to meditate daily, and the producer and co-author of The Portal, a book and documentary exploring how meditation changed his life.
He has published six books in total and works with executives, CEOs and corporate teams across Australia on stress management and leadership. His work has been featured in Vogue, The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald, and he regularly hosts meditation retreats and immersions internationally.
Learn More
-
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.140
All the Hollywood versions of that life.
2
00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:03.460
How true are they?
3
00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:04.960
If anyone's seen Wolf of Wall Street,
4
00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:06.960
other than the dwarfs, everything was pretty accurate.
5
00:00:07.220 --> 00:00:08.620
Yeah, there was a lot of drugs, a lot of drinking.
6
00:00:08.900 --> 00:00:10.640
There was a lot of partying, a lot of hedonism.
7
00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:12.240
It was pretty debauched time.
8
00:00:12.780 --> 00:00:14.740
These symptoms, which were signals for me to change,
9
00:00:14.780 --> 00:00:15.540
but I ignored them.
10
00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:17.660
So I was getting chronic insomnia,
11
00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:22.220
chronic anxiety, chronic panic attacks,
12
00:00:22.380 --> 00:00:24.320
and eventually culminated in a nervous breakdown.
13
00:00:24.940 --> 00:00:25.560
Here's the thing.
14
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:28.360
The universe is very good at guiding us
15
00:00:28.360 --> 00:00:31.720
when we are misaligned, when we're off track,
16
00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:32.840
when we're not on our path.
17
00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:35.080
For the listener who's listening, where do I start?
18
00:00:35.540 --> 00:00:36.420
I think there's two things.
19
00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:39.300
One is, where do I start as far as claiming back my life
20
00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:42.200
and finding health and happiness within inside myself?
21
00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:44.380
And then the other one is,
22
00:00:44.660 --> 00:00:46.660
where do I start if I'm gonna become a leader
23
00:00:46.660 --> 00:00:47.080
in the world?
24
00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:49.200
And just sitting in a chair with your eyes closed,
25
00:00:49.580 --> 00:00:51.180
you're gonna focus on the breath moving
26
00:00:51.180 --> 00:00:52.380
in and out of your nostrils.
27
00:00:53.480 --> 00:00:54.080
Thank you for doing that.
28
00:00:54.160 --> 00:00:55.520
It's the first time in this show we've done that.
29
00:00:55.700 --> 00:00:56.040
Beautiful.
30
00:00:56.780 --> 00:00:57.840
Tom, welcome to the podcast.
31
00:00:57.840 --> 00:00:58.660
Great to see you.
32
00:00:58.920 --> 00:00:59.420
Great to be here.
33
00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:00.420
Thanks for inviting me along today.
34
00:01:00.620 --> 00:01:01.000
You're welcome.
35
00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:04.360
Now you are an expert in podcasting
36
00:01:04.360 --> 00:01:05.880
that you've been on hundreds of them.
37
00:01:06.380 --> 00:01:08.000
And many of our listeners may well have heard you
38
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.180
before, but I suspect many of them haven't.
39
00:01:10.300 --> 00:01:12.820
You've got a fascinating life from where you were
40
00:01:12.820 --> 00:01:14.340
in stockbrooking to where you are today
41
00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:16.200
in a very different version of life.
42
00:01:16.860 --> 00:01:19.240
What will our audience get from our conversation?
43
00:01:20.520 --> 00:01:24.320
Hopefully some clarity about a way to live life
44
00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:26.580
that's in harmony, a way to live life
45
00:01:26.580 --> 00:01:29.280
that is peaceful, and a way to live life
46
00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:31.720
that reduces turbulence.
47
00:01:32.020 --> 00:01:34.160
There's a natural inclination for us
48
00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:35.960
to attract turbulence, drama,
49
00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:37.840
chaos, disorder in our lives
50
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:39.660
because of the state that we are
51
00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:40.740
inside of ourselves.
52
00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:43.280
There's a congruency with our outer world
53
00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:43.860
to our inner world.
54
00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:45.380
So hopefully they'll walk away with some insights
55
00:01:45.380 --> 00:01:47.220
around how to get an inner world
56
00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:49.360
that is harmonious and peaceful
57
00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:51.140
so that the outer world starts to follow suit.
58
00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:52.880
Sounds like Nirvana.
59
00:01:53.940 --> 00:01:56.780
Well, you know, I think there was a guy
60
00:01:56.780 --> 00:01:58.220
that walked around 2,000 years ago
61
00:01:58.220 --> 00:01:59.520
that said the kingdom of heaven,
62
00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:01.620
something about is here or within or something.
63
00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:06.880
So there is that ability to find a deep peace
64
00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:08.320
and a deep bliss within us.
65
00:02:08.460 --> 00:02:10.860
There's a beautiful quote from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
66
00:02:10.979 --> 00:02:14.100
a wonderful wise sage in the Vedic tradition
67
00:02:14.100 --> 00:02:15.960
that says no one needs to suffer
68
00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:18.080
because there's an ocean of bliss within everyone.
69
00:02:18.460 --> 00:02:21.080
It's just that we don't look inside for that bliss,
70
00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:23.200
we look outside of ourselves in our Netflix,
71
00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:25.620
in our Messina ice creams,
72
00:02:25.880 --> 00:02:27.500
in our Aperol spritzes,
73
00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.700
in our shopping malls
74
00:02:29.700 --> 00:02:32.180
and so we need to start turning our attention inward
75
00:02:32.180 --> 00:02:34.640
because there's a treasure inside.
76
00:02:36.460 --> 00:02:37.300
Before we go into all that,
77
00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:38.220
let me paint a picture.
78
00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:38.820
I thought it was over,
79
00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:39.660
we covered everything, right?
80
00:02:39.820 --> 00:02:41.460
You covered everything, that's right.
81
00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:43.500
And we're gonna come right back to that point,
82
00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:45.800
I think, several times I suspect
83
00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:46.780
over this conversation.
84
00:02:48.040 --> 00:02:50.100
Because as I said to you before we started,
85
00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:52.280
I have played with,
86
00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.040
and I've been on quite a few different
87
00:02:55.040 --> 00:02:57.320
meditation programs and retreats
88
00:02:57.320 --> 00:02:58.940
and even the Adiyoga retreat.
89
00:02:59.980 --> 00:03:02.340
And in the moment I find it extraordinarily helpful
90
00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:04.480
and I am hyper inconsistent.
91
00:03:05.640 --> 00:03:09.280
And I know that the times I play with meditation
92
00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:11.120
or any kind of meditative practices,
93
00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:13.040
doesn't have to be sitting down with your eyes closed,
94
00:03:13.640 --> 00:03:14.780
I find it extraordinarily helpful.
95
00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:18.240
And I'm sure many folks listening to this today go,
96
00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:21.020
that seems really, it's not helpful for me.
97
00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:22.180
I'd encourage you to listen
98
00:03:22.180 --> 00:03:23.680
because it can be really helpful.
99
00:03:24.220 --> 00:03:25.480
What I'm hoping to get in the conversation
100
00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:26.700
is how do I get more consistent?
101
00:03:27.220 --> 00:03:28.700
Because I know that might help me.
102
00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:30.240
But before we go into all of that,
103
00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:33.360
the first half of your life is equally interesting.
104
00:03:34.380 --> 00:03:36.000
And let me just paint a picture for the listeners.
105
00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:37.480
You wrote a book called The Portal
106
00:03:38.180 --> 00:03:40.280
and I've heard many of your interviews
107
00:03:40.280 --> 00:03:42.600
and you describe yourself sitting outside
108
00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:44.040
your stockbroking office,
109
00:03:44.540 --> 00:03:46.080
having panic attacks in the car
110
00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:47.480
and then going into work
111
00:03:47.480 --> 00:03:48.640
and doing your job.
112
00:03:49.160 --> 00:03:50.680
You're not the first man to do that.
113
00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:53.660
I just don't think you'd be the last man to do that.
114
00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:56.840
What was happening for you in the car park
115
00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.760
and what was happening to you the person
116
00:03:59.760 --> 00:04:01.620
before you went down the journey that you're now on?
117
00:04:01.980 --> 00:04:02.380
Yeah.
118
00:04:03.160 --> 00:04:03.860
I guess we'll wind back
119
00:04:03.860 --> 00:04:05.520
to why I was getting the panic attacks
120
00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:07.660
and then we'll go into what was happening in that car
121
00:04:08.140 --> 00:04:10.700
and also in the cubicle and the toilet at work
122
00:04:10.700 --> 00:04:12.580
and in the restaurant while I was at a client lunch.
123
00:04:13.700 --> 00:04:16.260
My nervous system had gotten to a point
124
00:04:16.260 --> 00:04:21.079
that was so dysregulated and so imbalanced
125
00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:23.240
and frayed, I think is the word,
126
00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:25.640
because of the lifestyle and the way I was living.
127
00:04:26.420 --> 00:04:29.380
So the day job was just yelling and screaming.
128
00:04:29.780 --> 00:04:30.960
If anyone's seen Wolf of Wall Street,
129
00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:32.760
it was pandemonium on a daily basis.
130
00:04:32.780 --> 00:04:34.540
So this was late 80s, early 90s.
131
00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:35.400
And you're on the floor?
132
00:04:35.620 --> 00:04:37.120
I was on the trading floor, that's right.
133
00:04:37.140 --> 00:04:38.200
So it was a massive trading room
134
00:04:38.200 --> 00:04:39.320
for lots of different desks.
135
00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:41.960
So you said stockbroker, we were actually money brokers.
136
00:04:42.020 --> 00:04:43.660
So we were trading money products,
137
00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:48.860
that's bank bill swaps, bonds, cash, foreign currencies.
138
00:04:50.040 --> 00:04:51.500
So we had this massive trading room full
139
00:04:51.500 --> 00:04:52.540
of all these different brokers
140
00:04:52.540 --> 00:04:53.700
trading all these different products
141
00:04:53.700 --> 00:04:55.340
for investment banks all around the world.
142
00:04:55.940 --> 00:04:58.300
And each desk had hundreds of different banks
143
00:04:58.300 --> 00:04:59.580
yelling and screaming orders
144
00:04:59.580 --> 00:05:01.180
through what we'll call squawk boxes.
145
00:05:01.300 --> 00:05:03.300
The squawk boxes where the trader
146
00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:04.760
somewhere in a bank around the world
147
00:05:04.760 --> 00:05:07.060
would be buying or selling five mil, 10 mil,
148
00:05:07.140 --> 00:05:09.600
50 mil, 100 mil, 200 million dollar tickets
149
00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:14.200
of one of those currency or cash products.
150
00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:17.480
And so the room was just this cacophony of noise
151
00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:18.780
because not only would the trader
152
00:05:18.780 --> 00:05:20.400
be yelling through the squawk box,
153
00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:24.060
buy me 10 mil of the 10 year bond, that such and such.
154
00:05:24.200 --> 00:05:27.420
Then I had to tell all of my colleagues on my desk
155
00:05:27.420 --> 00:05:28.960
who all had their own clients
156
00:05:28.960 --> 00:05:31.280
yelling prices and selling and buying.
157
00:05:31.820 --> 00:05:32.820
Then I would have to tell everyone,
158
00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.040
I'm buying 10 mil of the government bond at 4.95.
159
00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:37.600
And then they would have to go
160
00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:38.980
and then tell all of their clients
161
00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:41.100
that the 10 year bond has just been purchased at 4.95.
162
00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:43.400
And so this constant back and forth
163
00:05:43.400 --> 00:05:44.880
is happening all around the room.
164
00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:46.940
So in the daytime,
165
00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:49.160
your nervous system is just constantly on edge.
166
00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:50.140
You're constantly filled
167
00:05:50.140 --> 00:05:52.280
with adrenaline cortisol all day long.
168
00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:53.760
It never stops.
169
00:05:54.180 --> 00:05:54.980
And then-
170
00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:56.900
And you're judged by how fast you move.
171
00:05:57.120 --> 00:05:59.380
You have to move very fast and the slightest slip up.
172
00:05:59.440 --> 00:06:00.060
You get it wrong.
173
00:06:00.100 --> 00:06:01.060
You say the wrong thing.
174
00:06:01.180 --> 00:06:02.140
You miss a call.
175
00:06:02.780 --> 00:06:04.600
It's hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.
176
00:06:05.140 --> 00:06:07.280
So you have to be really so on point.
177
00:06:07.280 --> 00:06:10.120
Surprisingly, I was actually meant to be a journalist
178
00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:11.480
at Macquarie University.
179
00:06:12.300 --> 00:06:14.860
Starting journalism at Macquarie University,
180
00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:15.780
bachelor of comms.
181
00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:17.900
But I had to fill in some time
182
00:06:17.900 --> 00:06:19.240
after backpacking around the world,
183
00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:20.620
taking a gap year from school.
184
00:06:21.180 --> 00:06:22.860
And I had blown all my money
185
00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:23.880
traveling around Europe.
186
00:06:24.020 --> 00:06:26.220
You don't really want to know the story around that.
187
00:06:27.440 --> 00:06:27.860
And then-
188
00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:28.200
Different podcasts.
189
00:06:28.400 --> 00:06:29.400
Different podcasts, yeah.
190
00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:31.800
And then when I got back to Sydney,
191
00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:33.400
I needed to fill in some time.
192
00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:34.900
And so I just applied to a bunch of jobs.
193
00:06:34.900 --> 00:06:37.680
And then lo and behold, I'm on the trading room floor.
194
00:06:38.120 --> 00:06:39.600
And so it wasn't something I was expecting,
195
00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:40.700
but it was really surprising.
196
00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:41.360
I was good at it.
197
00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:44.520
I was very fast, very quick at picking up the markets.
198
00:06:44.920 --> 00:06:48.020
And so by daytime, we were doing that.
199
00:06:48.020 --> 00:06:49.480
And then nighttime was pulling out
200
00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:51.560
the corporate MX card that the company gave us.
201
00:06:51.580 --> 00:06:53.260
They gave us a corporate MX card and said,
202
00:06:53.280 --> 00:06:54.700
you know, you need to win clients' business.
203
00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:56.420
So we'd be out till two, three, four, five
204
00:06:56.420 --> 00:06:57.280
in the morning,
205
00:06:57.780 --> 00:06:58.940
wining and dining these traders
206
00:06:58.940 --> 00:07:00.040
and trying to win their business.
207
00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:01.840
So that if we spent, you know,
208
00:07:01.940 --> 00:07:03.680
a huge amount of money on them that night,
209
00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:04.700
then the next day,
210
00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:06.340
they're going to be most inclined
211
00:07:06.340 --> 00:07:07.440
to do their deals with us.
212
00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:09.680
So all the Hollywood versions of that life,
213
00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:11.160
how true are they?
214
00:07:12.380 --> 00:07:13.720
If anyone's seen Wolf of Wall Street,
215
00:07:13.820 --> 00:07:14.720
other than the dwarfs,
216
00:07:14.800 --> 00:07:15.740
everything was pretty accurate.
217
00:07:16.940 --> 00:07:19.100
And it was, look, it was,
218
00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:21.180
I won't share too many of the stories
219
00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:22.320
because it was pretty out of control.
220
00:07:22.320 --> 00:07:24.500
And there was some really wild things
221
00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:26.380
that were going on on the trading room floor
222
00:07:26.380 --> 00:07:27.680
and outside of the trading room floor.
223
00:07:28.340 --> 00:07:31.100
But, you know, just, yeah,
224
00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:32.380
there was a lot of drugs, a lot of drinking.
225
00:07:32.380 --> 00:07:34.340
There was a lot of partying, a lot of hedonism.
226
00:07:34.440 --> 00:07:35.960
It was pretty debauched time.
227
00:07:36.540 --> 00:07:37.700
But here's the thing.
228
00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:40.760
The universe is very good at guiding us
229
00:07:40.760 --> 00:07:43.080
when we are misaligned,
230
00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:43.960
when we're off track,
231
00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:45.200
when we're not on our path.
232
00:07:45.500 --> 00:07:48.060
And so what started to emerge coming back to the car
233
00:07:48.060 --> 00:07:50.660
was I started getting these symptoms.
234
00:07:50.820 --> 00:07:52.560
And symptoms are like a red light on the dashboard.
235
00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:54.840
And I started getting these symptoms,
236
00:07:54.960 --> 00:07:56.240
which were signals for me to change,
237
00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:57.140
but I ignored them.
238
00:07:57.300 --> 00:07:59.660
So those signals or symptoms get worse.
239
00:07:59.660 --> 00:08:02.080
And so I was getting chronic insomnia,
240
00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:06.400
chronic anxiety, chronic panic attacks,
241
00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:07.520
which I didn't know what they were.
242
00:08:07.540 --> 00:08:09.360
I just had these waves of fear and dread
243
00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:11.700
where I just had a dry mouth, sharp pain in my heart.
244
00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:12.500
I couldn't see.
245
00:08:13.080 --> 00:08:14.460
I had these cold, clammy sweats
246
00:08:14.460 --> 00:08:16.760
and I'd have to just retreat somewhere
247
00:08:16.760 --> 00:08:19.120
to just get away from the current environment.
248
00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:21.520
So I'd go up to the cubicle or my car
249
00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:24.020
or be curled up in my bedroom in a ball
250
00:08:24.020 --> 00:08:26.360
and just wait for these waves to dissipate.
251
00:08:26.400 --> 00:08:27.720
But it was just crushing
252
00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:30.360
and it was getting worse and worse as time went on
253
00:08:31.100 --> 00:08:33.539
and eventually culminated in a nervous breakdown.
254
00:08:34.740 --> 00:08:37.940
There's a silence that surrounds high-performing men.
255
00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:40.679
It's not unique to high-performing men,
256
00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:41.820
but it's I think men in general
257
00:08:41.820 --> 00:08:44.620
where we get very focused on what we have to do.
258
00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:46.780
Our identity often wraps around what we're doing.
259
00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:48.260
And particularly if we're good at it.
260
00:08:48.940 --> 00:08:51.160
And the fear of not being good at it
261
00:08:51.160 --> 00:08:54.740
gets us even more focused and the potential,
262
00:08:55.780 --> 00:08:56.600
let's use the word shame.
263
00:08:56.620 --> 00:08:57.480
I'm not sure if it's always shame
264
00:08:57.480 --> 00:08:58.720
but the potential embarrassment
265
00:08:59.300 --> 00:09:01.580
that comes with, hey, put my hand up,
266
00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:03.660
often prevents us doing so.
267
00:09:04.220 --> 00:09:06.620
It sounds like you are wrapped up in that space too.
268
00:09:06.780 --> 00:09:09.160
How does silence affect you?
269
00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:12.420
Well, it was such a difficult environment
270
00:09:12.420 --> 00:09:15.360
to communicate what I was going through,
271
00:09:15.560 --> 00:09:16.520
even with my partner,
272
00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:19.060
because you don't want to be showing to people
273
00:09:19.060 --> 00:09:21.140
that you're not capable, that you're not strong,
274
00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:24.480
that you're not the man that everyone thinks you are.
275
00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:25.540
And so,
276
00:09:27.780 --> 00:09:29.120
it would have been better
277
00:09:29.120 --> 00:09:30.980
if I was more communicative about this
278
00:09:30.980 --> 00:09:31.960
and I'd sought out help,
279
00:09:32.820 --> 00:09:37.540
but I just shut down and I just turned up every day
280
00:09:38.500 --> 00:09:40.520
showing everyone what I'm good at.
281
00:09:40.580 --> 00:09:42.020
And that was a really big thing for me
282
00:09:42.020 --> 00:09:44.700
was showing face and being presented
283
00:09:44.700 --> 00:09:46.800
as someone that was that strong alpha male
284
00:09:46.800 --> 00:09:48.860
and able to be really holding my space.
285
00:09:49.640 --> 00:09:51.940
And of course that came with a massive price at the time.
286
00:09:52.660 --> 00:09:53.280
Massive price.
287
00:09:53.280 --> 00:09:54.520
Which is the breakdown.
288
00:09:55.060 --> 00:09:55.400
Yeah, absolutely.
289
00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:57.820
On the other side of that,
290
00:09:57.980 --> 00:10:00.300
you had to almost dismantle the identity
291
00:10:00.300 --> 00:10:01.620
in order to rebuild a new one.
292
00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:02.720
And that's the whole classic,
293
00:10:02.800 --> 00:10:04.740
going into the hero's journey.
294
00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:06.680
You gotta go into the dark, come out the other side.
295
00:10:07.260 --> 00:10:10.500
This whole podcast is designed to help listeners
296
00:10:11.260 --> 00:10:14.100
and myself appreciate that the second half of life
297
00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:15.840
can be the best second in life,
298
00:10:16.300 --> 00:10:18.360
but you have to purposefully engineer it.
299
00:10:18.580 --> 00:10:22.180
How did you let go the version of yourself
300
00:10:22.180 --> 00:10:24.820
in order to make space for whatever emerged afterwards?
301
00:10:25.380 --> 00:10:26.580
Yeah, it was really difficult
302
00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:29.660
because the personality profile that I'd created
303
00:10:29.660 --> 00:10:33.240
was this crazy, wild gun of a broker
304
00:10:34.220 --> 00:10:35.960
to then shifting into,
305
00:10:36.180 --> 00:10:37.080
hey everyone, just to let you all know
306
00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:38.080
I'm a meditation teacher now.
307
00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:40.960
I was like, no, I remember doing Coke with you.
308
00:10:41.020 --> 00:10:41.940
Like, what are you talking about?
309
00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:44.640
That doesn't, there's a-
310
00:10:44.640 --> 00:10:45.520
You were relaxed afterwards,
311
00:10:45.680 --> 00:10:47.100
but it was for meditation reasons.
312
00:10:47.620 --> 00:10:49.840
So it took a while to really just
313
00:10:51.180 --> 00:10:53.780
really step into that new identity
314
00:10:54.300 --> 00:10:55.220
and that new character.
315
00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:58.740
And there's a lot of still, for me in the early days
316
00:10:58.740 --> 00:11:02.080
of that transition, a lot of unworthiness,
317
00:11:02.160 --> 00:11:03.340
a lot of imposter syndrome.
318
00:11:03.500 --> 00:11:05.100
I really struggled to own that.
319
00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:06.780
And even still to this day,
320
00:11:06.860 --> 00:11:07.840
some days I still like,
321
00:11:08.460 --> 00:11:09.520
are you really qualified?
322
00:11:09.540 --> 00:11:10.320
Are you really capable?
323
00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:12.480
Like there's still a little gnawing doubt
324
00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:13.760
sometimes will seep in.
325
00:11:13.780 --> 00:11:15.140
So it was a big transition.
326
00:11:15.980 --> 00:11:17.400
But one thing that really helped me
327
00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:20.460
was diving deep into Anthony Robin's six human needs
328
00:11:20.460 --> 00:11:22.280
and looking at the six human needs
329
00:11:22.280 --> 00:11:26.400
that each one person needs to have in equal portion
330
00:11:26.400 --> 00:11:29.160
to live a fulfilling life of mastery.
331
00:11:29.940 --> 00:11:32.100
And if you want me to just share very briefly,
332
00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:35.140
we need to have certainty,
333
00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:37.400
which means our relationships, our money,
334
00:11:37.560 --> 00:11:38.400
our house we're living in
335
00:11:38.400 --> 00:11:40.460
is a really important foundation
336
00:11:40.460 --> 00:11:41.860
for one of the six human needs.
337
00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:43.360
We need to have some uncertainty,
338
00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:44.940
which makes life interesting and colorful.
339
00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:46.760
Too much certainty makes life very boring.
340
00:11:47.980 --> 00:11:49.360
You know, if you just live in a monastery every day,
341
00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:51.340
it's just gonna eventually be
342
00:11:51.340 --> 00:11:53.520
not enough uncertainty in that situation.
343
00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:56.900
We need to have connection.
344
00:11:57.740 --> 00:11:59.160
They love slash connections.
345
00:11:59.280 --> 00:12:00.680
That's relationships that are meaningful.
346
00:12:01.300 --> 00:12:02.060
And it can be a dog,
347
00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:02.840
it can be a goldfish,
348
00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:03.780
it can be another human,
349
00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:06.080
but we do definitely need community and connection.
350
00:12:07.180 --> 00:12:10.160
We need to have a sense of contribution.
351
00:12:10.260 --> 00:12:12.960
We talked before about V1G1 and charities.
352
00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.340
And for me, that was a big part of how do I contribute.
353
00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:17.920
So I started doing charity work
354
00:12:17.920 --> 00:12:19.840
and that's when I was working up a Wayside Chapel
355
00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:21.740
every Saturday morning as a broker.
356
00:12:21.800 --> 00:12:23.940
I started to develop a sense of I need to contribute
357
00:12:23.940 --> 00:12:25.140
to the world in a way
358
00:12:25.140 --> 00:12:28.420
that's just not this hedonistic lifestyle of me
359
00:12:28.420 --> 00:12:30.500
trying to exploit and extract everything I can
360
00:12:30.500 --> 00:12:31.660
out of my own needs.
361
00:12:33.660 --> 00:12:36.080
We need to have some sense of significance.
362
00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:39.880
And that is, it's relevance slash significance.
363
00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:42.300
So that's how am I significant in the world.
364
00:12:42.300 --> 00:12:44.120
And this is more than contribution.
365
00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:45.380
Contribution is just like,
366
00:12:45.540 --> 00:12:47.660
I just take some of my money and I give it to World Vision.
367
00:12:48.340 --> 00:12:51.040
But significance is like how am I meaningful,
368
00:12:51.040 --> 00:12:52.880
significant and relevant to humanity.
369
00:12:52.900 --> 00:12:55.080
And that was one that really landed for me.
370
00:12:55.460 --> 00:12:58.040
And so I started to look at what can I do
371
00:12:58.040 --> 00:12:59.080
to be more significant.
372
00:12:59.180 --> 00:13:00.580
And for me, the thing that I really wanted
373
00:13:00.580 --> 00:13:02.580
to bring to the world in significance
374
00:13:02.580 --> 00:13:04.460
was teaching meditation.
375
00:13:04.460 --> 00:13:06.300
And then that led to mentoring and speaking.
376
00:13:06.760 --> 00:13:07.980
And the final one is growth.
377
00:13:08.140 --> 00:13:08.900
We need to keep growing.
378
00:13:09.300 --> 00:13:10.680
And so anyone listening to this podcast,
379
00:13:10.680 --> 00:13:12.880
that box is getting ticked right now
380
00:13:12.880 --> 00:13:14.020
because they're learning things.
381
00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:14.600
They're growing.
382
00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:18.040
They're moving beyond the familiar into the unfamiliar.
383
00:13:18.220 --> 00:13:19.760
And we have to keep doing that as humans.
384
00:13:19.900 --> 00:13:20.400
It never stops.
385
00:13:20.400 --> 00:13:21.960
I thought I'd get to an end point where I'm done.
386
00:13:22.060 --> 00:13:22.720
It's like, oh, I'm enlightened.
387
00:13:22.820 --> 00:13:23.660
I don't have to go any further.
388
00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:26.860
But I've realized that that is an ongoing process
389
00:13:26.860 --> 00:13:28.260
of always growing and evolving.
390
00:13:28.940 --> 00:13:30.680
There's two that really jump out at me there
391
00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:32.780
that we have come back to
392
00:13:32.780 --> 00:13:34.900
in several different conversations in this podcast.
393
00:13:36.260 --> 00:13:38.640
The contribution and the significance part.
394
00:13:39.900 --> 00:13:42.620
Certainly you can't get to those parts
395
00:13:42.620 --> 00:13:44.000
if your life is completely uncertain.
396
00:13:44.900 --> 00:13:46.080
As you said, you have to have certainty.
397
00:13:46.300 --> 00:13:47.260
You have to have a degree of foundations.
398
00:13:47.300 --> 00:13:48.660
You have to have a degree of stability.
399
00:13:49.340 --> 00:13:50.700
Like you can't be waking up at three in the morning
400
00:13:50.700 --> 00:13:52.780
wondering, am I eating tomorrow or am I my kids safe?
401
00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:54.860
So you have to take care of all of those for us.
402
00:13:55.380 --> 00:13:56.900
Bit like Maslow's hierarchy of needs
403
00:13:56.900 --> 00:13:58.280
is to take care of those.
404
00:13:59.860 --> 00:14:01.220
But the contribution part,
405
00:14:01.420 --> 00:14:03.220
I have often recommended to people
406
00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:04.560
who are really wondering about,
407
00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:05.880
hey, I've been doing this for 25 years,
408
00:14:05.920 --> 00:14:07.320
like you were, very successfully.
409
00:14:08.140 --> 00:14:10.680
I'm bored by it or I'm exhausted by it
410
00:14:10.680 --> 00:14:12.060
or I'm overwhelmed by it.
411
00:14:12.500 --> 00:14:15.400
But the idea of leaving my banking job
412
00:14:15.400 --> 00:14:17.040
and opening up a cafe, that's a big leap.
413
00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.560
And I always recommend don't do the big leap.
414
00:14:20.180 --> 00:14:22.580
But start small, and start small means volunteering.
415
00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:27.680
Volunteer somewhere and see where you enjoy that.
416
00:14:27.780 --> 00:14:29.240
In fact, my business partner, Steven,
417
00:14:29.380 --> 00:14:30.800
when he went through a similar process,
418
00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:33.520
he started volunteering in a soup kitchen, making soup.
419
00:14:34.640 --> 00:14:36.280
Extraordinary impactful for him
420
00:14:36.900 --> 00:14:38.760
and impactful for the people who got the soup, right?
421
00:14:38.800 --> 00:14:39.980
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
422
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:41.840
And it gave him a place to go every Saturday morning
423
00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:42.240
like you did.
424
00:14:42.440 --> 00:14:44.480
Yeah, look, I see most likely
425
00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:45.740
for a lot of people listening to this,
426
00:14:45.880 --> 00:14:47.740
that type of audience, a lot of men,
427
00:14:48.520 --> 00:14:50.760
they get to sort of the ages of 40, 50.
428
00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:52.680
And we've been working hard
429
00:14:52.680 --> 00:14:54.560
and it could be family, mortgages, career.
430
00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:56.520
And then we get to a particular point,
431
00:14:56.700 --> 00:14:59.960
particularly around 50, where it's like, what next?
432
00:15:00.260 --> 00:15:02.740
And the ones that take that path of significance
433
00:15:02.740 --> 00:15:05.380
and contribution, they have a really rich,
434
00:15:05.380 --> 00:15:09.000
meaningful life and testimony to you doing a podcast
435
00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.080
because that's all about significance and contribution.
436
00:15:11.260 --> 00:15:12.460
Two boxes ticked in one.
437
00:15:13.280 --> 00:15:14.360
And also probably growth
438
00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:15.280
because you're probably growing
439
00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:16.340
while you're creating this, right?
440
00:15:17.660 --> 00:15:19.440
But the people that I see don't
441
00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:20.560
and they're the ones that you see,
442
00:15:20.680 --> 00:15:22.540
unfortunately, sitting at the poker machine
443
00:15:22.540 --> 00:15:24.580
in the RSL all day long,
444
00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:26.360
just smoking cigarettes, drinking beer.
445
00:15:26.740 --> 00:15:29.080
And there's this sense of, man,
446
00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:31.260
you have such great masculine qualities
447
00:15:31.260 --> 00:15:32.780
that are like untapped
448
00:15:32.780 --> 00:15:34.940
and sitting there as pure potential
449
00:15:34.940 --> 00:15:37.240
just lying dormantly and not being utilised.
450
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:38.880
Yeah, you're 100% right, 100% right.
451
00:15:41.900 --> 00:15:43.140
This guy called Marty Seligman,
452
00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:46.180
who's famous in the positive psychology kind of world.
453
00:15:47.560 --> 00:15:48.980
It's a bit ironic, because if you ever meet him,
454
00:15:49.040 --> 00:15:50.740
he's one of the most grumpiest people you'll ever meet.
455
00:15:51.960 --> 00:15:53.720
He's a genius, the one he does.
456
00:15:54.460 --> 00:15:55.060
But he has a whole thing.
457
00:15:55.060 --> 00:15:56.080
Does it say no? Does it do?
458
00:15:56.300 --> 00:15:57.400
Correct, correct.
459
00:15:57.480 --> 00:15:59.840
He did change the world in terms of the impact he has had.
460
00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:02.440
But he talks about character strengths.
461
00:16:02.660 --> 00:16:04.680
And he says, the strength that you have
462
00:16:05.080 --> 00:16:09.180
in one part of your life, like a trading floor,
463
00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:11.520
they're the same strengths that can help you
464
00:16:11.520 --> 00:16:12.880
move to the second part of your life
465
00:16:12.880 --> 00:16:15.300
if you think about it and use them.
466
00:16:16.260 --> 00:16:17.940
And this is where I think a lot of us men get stuck.
467
00:16:18.060 --> 00:16:20.740
We think, hey, I'm really, really good at being X,
468
00:16:21.280 --> 00:16:22.400
and that's all I've ever done,
469
00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:24.080
that's all I ever do, and now I don't want to do it.
470
00:16:24.700 --> 00:16:27.000
Well, actually, X is made up of a lot of other things.
471
00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:28.380
So how do you take some of those?
472
00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:31.860
When you think about where you've come to
473
00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:32.820
and the books you've written
474
00:16:32.820 --> 00:16:34.300
and the documentary you've done
475
00:16:34.300 --> 00:16:37.740
and the goal of one billion people which we've come to,
476
00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:39.820
I'm imagining some of the strengths you had
477
00:16:39.820 --> 00:16:42.000
in your early career have really helped you
478
00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:42.620
where you are now.
479
00:16:42.900 --> 00:16:43.580
Yeah, for sure.
480
00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:47.560
As a broker, we had to have an insatiable appetite
481
00:16:47.560 --> 00:16:50.040
to win business, to secure deals,
482
00:16:50.420 --> 00:16:53.060
and to not only win business to secure deals,
483
00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:54.160
but the process to do that
484
00:16:54.160 --> 00:16:56.520
was to develop really strong relationships.
485
00:16:57.040 --> 00:16:59.620
You can't win deals and secure business
486
00:16:59.620 --> 00:17:01.760
if you're an asshole and the people don't like you.
487
00:17:01.780 --> 00:17:02.600
They don't want to deal with you.
488
00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:04.339
So a big part of that was twofold,
489
00:17:04.520 --> 00:17:07.319
which was charming, palatable,
490
00:17:08.200 --> 00:17:09.099
not palatable, what's the word,
491
00:17:09.859 --> 00:17:12.180
amicable and friendly and warm
492
00:17:13.220 --> 00:17:15.200
and interesting and insightful.
493
00:17:15.940 --> 00:17:18.940
So that developing relationships really played a big part
494
00:17:18.940 --> 00:17:20.660
in what I'm doing in our world today.
495
00:17:20.780 --> 00:17:22.319
And obviously a big part of my business
496
00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:26.680
is also to generate, I guess,
497
00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:28.800
transformation through people's lives.
498
00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:30.960
But to do that, I need to have people come
499
00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:32.640
into my containers, coaching containers,
500
00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:34.620
retreats, meditation courses.
501
00:17:35.320 --> 00:17:36.720
So like you said exactly that,
502
00:17:36.780 --> 00:17:39.120
a lot of my qualities as a good broker
503
00:17:39.120 --> 00:17:41.720
have overlaid quite nicely into my business now
504
00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:43.220
as a coach and a meditation teacher.
505
00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:45.580
Do you think they would be started?
506
00:17:45.800 --> 00:17:46.780
You don't, you know,
507
00:17:46.860 --> 00:17:49.800
because you think that you're focused on the work
508
00:17:49.800 --> 00:17:51.140
that you do, which is teaching meditation.
509
00:17:51.280 --> 00:17:52.820
And a big part of my work these days
510
00:17:52.820 --> 00:17:54.900
is working with other meditation teachers
511
00:17:54.900 --> 00:17:57.140
and yoga teachers and breath workers,
512
00:17:57.140 --> 00:17:59.960
coaches, helping them grow their businesses.
513
00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:04.580
And what I'm teaching them is what I had to learn myself
514
00:18:04.580 --> 00:18:07.160
is that your skillset as a coach or a yoga teacher
515
00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:09.380
or speaker is only one component
516
00:18:09.380 --> 00:18:11.140
of the success that you're gonna have.
517
00:18:11.760 --> 00:18:13.100
The next component you're gonna need
518
00:18:13.100 --> 00:18:14.460
is how to market yourself,
519
00:18:14.780 --> 00:18:15.800
how to develop connection,
520
00:18:16.040 --> 00:18:18.580
how to develop positioning yourself
521
00:18:18.580 --> 00:18:19.780
as an authority in this space.
522
00:18:19.800 --> 00:18:22.360
And that takes a lot of time, a lot of attention
523
00:18:22.360 --> 00:18:24.840
and getting on podcasts and social media and blogs
524
00:18:24.840 --> 00:18:27.680
and all sorts of strategies to position them
525
00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.480
in a way that has a diverse and successful business.
526
00:18:31.160 --> 00:18:32.780
You see, you and I met originally
527
00:18:32.780 --> 00:18:37.380
through a podcast network referral type platform.
528
00:18:38.140 --> 00:18:39.500
And just going back to your point
529
00:18:39.500 --> 00:18:42.220
about your history in business and stuff,
530
00:18:43.080 --> 00:18:45.920
you're the first person to actually reply.
531
00:18:47.420 --> 00:18:48.660
And here we are now, right?
532
00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:48.940
Yeah.
533
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.060
And I think I've reached out to maybe 100.
534
00:18:52.360 --> 00:18:52.720
Wow.
535
00:18:53.380 --> 00:18:54.420
What are they doing on there?
536
00:18:54.420 --> 00:18:55.080
Don't know.
537
00:18:56.740 --> 00:18:57.440
Don't know.
538
00:18:57.900 --> 00:18:59.680
But it just shows the skills you had
539
00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:01.600
in terms of relationship building, building a business.
540
00:19:01.820 --> 00:19:02.940
And then you and I jumped on a few calls
541
00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:03.820
and got to know each other.
542
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:06.420
But the starting point was you actually reached out
543
00:19:06.420 --> 00:19:07.340
and had a conversation.
544
00:19:07.540 --> 00:19:08.320
Yeah, absolutely.
545
00:19:08.580 --> 00:19:10.240
Skills that you're very, very good at.
546
00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:10.880
Yeah.
547
00:19:11.460 --> 00:19:12.940
I say to all of my clients that I'm mentoring
548
00:19:12.940 --> 00:19:14.100
in my Zen Academy is that
549
00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:16.540
it could be a conversation in a lift.
550
00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:19.180
It could be someone that you're helping carry
551
00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:20.340
their bags across the street.
552
00:19:20.740 --> 00:19:24.240
Everyone is potentially a client or a customer
553
00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:26.880
or a connection or someone that leads to something else.
554
00:19:27.300 --> 00:19:29.380
So I always say to them, just be amiable,
555
00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:31.400
be amicable, be charming,
556
00:19:31.580 --> 00:19:32.820
and to see where that goes
557
00:19:32.820 --> 00:19:34.080
and be open to the possibilities.
558
00:19:35.040 --> 00:19:37.060
Well, it goes back to contribution significance.
559
00:19:37.360 --> 00:19:39.940
And another word in that is how do you matter?
560
00:19:40.460 --> 00:19:42.720
And that's the word I just used was the same idea.
561
00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:45.600
And if you're able to matter to your barista
562
00:19:45.600 --> 00:19:47.160
or to the guy carrying the bags,
563
00:19:47.360 --> 00:19:48.640
then you're gonna matter to a lot of people
564
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:49.760
just by that nature.
565
00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:51.980
I always come back to this is that
566
00:19:51.980 --> 00:19:54.140
we think of things in the world of denseness.
567
00:19:56.640 --> 00:19:59.320
We don't realize the way I see it anyway
568
00:19:59.320 --> 00:20:01.580
is that the universe is watching me.
569
00:20:02.420 --> 00:20:05.120
And the way I respond in every single situation
570
00:20:05.120 --> 00:20:07.480
will determine what the universe feels
571
00:20:07.480 --> 00:20:08.740
I'm worthy of receiving.
572
00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:11.340
And that it's not just about
573
00:20:11.340 --> 00:20:12.920
what humans are seeing of me,
574
00:20:13.320 --> 00:20:15.140
it's about the way the universe is seeing me.
575
00:20:15.140 --> 00:20:16.800
Now this might be a bit woo-woo for some people,
576
00:20:16.900 --> 00:20:19.480
but I really feel deeply that
577
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:21.580
I have to start really thinking
578
00:20:22.050 --> 00:20:23.700
that it's not about what I'm doing
579
00:20:23.700 --> 00:20:25.400
when I'm being seen by people,
580
00:20:25.560 --> 00:20:27.100
it's what I'm doing all the time.
581
00:20:27.220 --> 00:20:28.920
What I'm thinking, what I'm saying,
582
00:20:29.040 --> 00:20:30.440
what I'm reading, what I'm doing.
583
00:20:31.800 --> 00:20:34.440
I believe the universe responds in accordance with that.
584
00:20:34.900 --> 00:20:36.600
So let's just jump right there.
585
00:20:36.760 --> 00:20:38.360
So maybe some listeners right now are going
586
00:20:38.360 --> 00:20:41.180
that is too far out from my mind.
587
00:20:41.820 --> 00:20:42.520
There'll be other people going
588
00:20:42.520 --> 00:20:44.320
yeah, that's metaphysics in action.
589
00:20:44.860 --> 00:20:46.500
Other people going that's energy flowing.
590
00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:49.660
And there's a whole range of views there.
591
00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:53.180
How do you talk to the 45 year old
592
00:20:53.180 --> 00:20:56.380
or 50 year old man who has never engaged in meditation,
593
00:20:56.560 --> 00:21:00.360
who doesn't understand that according to your book,
594
00:21:00.500 --> 00:21:03.200
you describe demeditation as genuinely transformative.
595
00:21:04.020 --> 00:21:07.780
And I think my own experience has helped me for sure.
596
00:21:08.320 --> 00:21:10.640
So the person who's never engaged, how do you start?
597
00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:14.260
Firstly, you can lead a horse to water
598
00:21:14.260 --> 00:21:15.620
if you've got to inspire it to drink.
599
00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:19.060
And so we can show them in a moment
600
00:21:19.060 --> 00:21:20.160
some meditation techniques
601
00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:21.400
that they can walk away with today.
602
00:21:21.400 --> 00:21:24.840
But more importantly is them understanding why it works
603
00:21:24.840 --> 00:21:25.980
and why it's so important.
604
00:21:25.980 --> 00:21:27.400
And it comes down to science.
605
00:21:27.520 --> 00:21:30.020
It comes down to biology, comes down to biochemistry.
606
00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.160
So if we're in a sympathetic nervous system state,
607
00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:35.580
that's S for sympathetic,
608
00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:37.260
which means S for stress response,
609
00:21:37.360 --> 00:21:38.660
which means we're in fire flight.
610
00:21:39.220 --> 00:21:40.420
And if we're in fire flight,
611
00:21:40.560 --> 00:21:43.440
your body is changing quite significantly.
612
00:21:44.520 --> 00:21:47.020
Your biochemistry means you're producing adrenaline
613
00:21:47.020 --> 00:21:49.420
and cortisol, and you're gonna reduce
614
00:21:49.420 --> 00:21:50.800
if not completely shut down,
615
00:21:50.900 --> 00:21:53.820
the biochemicals of oxytocin, serotonin, and melatonin,
616
00:21:53.840 --> 00:21:56.080
the biochemicals for love, happiness, and sleep.
617
00:21:56.580 --> 00:21:58.080
So the reason why we have a lot of insomnia,
618
00:21:58.180 --> 00:21:59.280
a lot of unhappy people,
619
00:21:59.760 --> 00:22:01.220
and a lot of poor relationships
620
00:22:01.220 --> 00:22:03.820
is because people are simply producing adrenaline
621
00:22:03.820 --> 00:22:05.340
and cortisol because they're in fire flight
622
00:22:05.340 --> 00:22:06.500
in the sympathetic nervous system.
623
00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:10.380
And that simply can come down to walking down a street
624
00:22:10.380 --> 00:22:12.440
and trying to respond to emails or text messages
625
00:22:12.440 --> 00:22:14.440
because your body's then very unsafe.
626
00:22:15.060 --> 00:22:16.300
It's not watching what it's doing.
627
00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:17.740
It's not taking in all the information.
628
00:22:17.740 --> 00:22:19.440
And there's a sense of trepidation,
629
00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:21.340
and it doesn't feel safe because of what you're doing,
630
00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:23.840
simply doing that or checking your phone
631
00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:24.440
while you're driving.
632
00:22:25.240 --> 00:22:28.720
All these things, being on emails till midnight
633
00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:30.180
or all the things that we're doing
634
00:22:30.180 --> 00:22:31.340
that are really putting us
635
00:22:31.340 --> 00:22:32.840
into the sympathetic nervous system.
636
00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:36.000
And so that means we're devoid of the biochemical
637
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:37.240
for having healthy relationships,
638
00:22:37.300 --> 00:22:39.160
which is love, compassion, tenderness, and kindness.
639
00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:41.600
We're devoid of being able to be happy and jovial
640
00:22:41.600 --> 00:22:44.000
and laughing because we don't produce serotonin,
641
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:45.580
and we're devoid of being able to sleep well
642
00:22:45.580 --> 00:22:47.440
because we're not producing melatonin.
643
00:22:48.080 --> 00:22:50.380
So when we go into meditative states,
644
00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:53.160
we switch very quickly into a peace response,
645
00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:55.120
which is the parasympathetic nervous system.
646
00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:56.860
And all of that imbalance
647
00:22:56.860 --> 00:22:58.900
just simply shifts very, very quickly.
648
00:22:59.060 --> 00:23:01.020
It's a body's design to be able to fight
649
00:23:01.020 --> 00:23:02.620
when it needs to fight or flee,
650
00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:05.700
and to also recover, rest, and repair.
651
00:23:06.200 --> 00:23:08.120
And so we have fight, flight, rest, and repair.
652
00:23:08.360 --> 00:23:11.140
Now, we wanna be able to sustain consistently,
653
00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:13.920
not just in a 10, 15, 20-minute meditation,
654
00:23:14.620 --> 00:23:16.060
that we talked about before,
655
00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:17.420
you being in a meditative state.
656
00:23:17.620 --> 00:23:21.660
Meditation helps us get into a consistent meditative state,
657
00:23:21.900 --> 00:23:25.220
which means that I wanna be in the most intense situations
658
00:23:25.220 --> 00:23:27.300
and still be in rest and repair,
659
00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:29.140
still be in the parasympathetic,
660
00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:30.780
because a few things happen
661
00:23:30.780 --> 00:23:32.300
when I'm operating from that space.
662
00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:34.220
And Oprah Winfrey does this meditation
663
00:23:34.700 --> 00:23:36.380
that I teach, Vedic meditation.
664
00:23:36.800 --> 00:23:39.880
And she says, the consistency of stillness,
665
00:23:40.140 --> 00:23:42.180
word for word, it is only from that space
666
00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:45.060
can you create your best work and your best life.
667
00:23:45.500 --> 00:23:46.980
Because if you're in fight, flight,
668
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:48.060
and you're trying to have a relationship,
669
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:48.960
if you're in fight, flight,
670
00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:50.340
and you're trying to make a business decision,
671
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:51.380
if you're in fight, flight,
672
00:23:51.380 --> 00:23:53.600
and you're trying to be at a work function,
673
00:23:54.220 --> 00:23:55.440
you're not gonna be your best.
674
00:23:55.640 --> 00:23:58.060
Your brain is impaired, your body's impaired,
675
00:23:58.200 --> 00:23:59.400
there's so many things happening
676
00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:01.880
on a physiological, mental, and biochemical level
677
00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:03.740
that is detrimental to your well-being.
678
00:24:03.780 --> 00:24:04.640
And the problem with this
679
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:06.160
is that we're staying in fight, flight,
680
00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:09.040
for some people 24-7, which is what happened to me,
681
00:24:09.060 --> 00:24:11.460
and your body can only take that state for so long
682
00:24:11.460 --> 00:24:13.280
before it starts to break down.
683
00:24:16.280 --> 00:24:17.400
Now you've said a load of things there
684
00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:19.120
I don't want to double-click on.
685
00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:21.020
So you're talking about various hormones,
686
00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:23.120
cortisol, melatonin, serotonin, adrenaline.
687
00:24:24.160 --> 00:24:25.520
So these are naturally occurring hormones.
688
00:24:25.820 --> 00:24:26.560
They're part of our body.
689
00:24:28.760 --> 00:24:30.980
Cortisol, a lot of people think they misunderstand cortisol.
690
00:24:31.160 --> 00:24:33.020
Cortisol has a key role to play.
691
00:24:33.280 --> 00:24:34.600
First thing in the morning, it rises
692
00:24:34.600 --> 00:24:36.040
in order to help us wake up,
693
00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:38.000
as its purpose is to get us out of bed.
694
00:24:38.180 --> 00:24:40.200
Melatonin drops, cortisol rises, that's right.
695
00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:42.740
And I think, correct me if I'm wrong,
696
00:24:42.940 --> 00:24:45.460
I think it's designed to stay elevated,
697
00:24:45.500 --> 00:24:46.640
I throw out the day to keep it,
698
00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:48.780
but it's designed to start tapering off.
699
00:24:49.340 --> 00:24:51.300
If we're stimulating it ourselves,
700
00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:52.760
we're keeping it elevated.
701
00:24:53.300 --> 00:24:53.800
Is that correct?
702
00:24:53.940 --> 00:24:55.260
Yeah, so unfortunately what's happening,
703
00:24:55.360 --> 00:24:58.300
we do actually wake with a little burst of cortisol,
704
00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:00.000
and that's so that traditionally our body,
705
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:01.460
being homo sapiens,
706
00:25:01.900 --> 00:25:04.320
was that we could wake up, chop wood, light the fire,
707
00:25:04.700 --> 00:25:06.360
go get some water, round up the cows,
708
00:25:06.580 --> 00:25:09.080
check the fort, protect the family.
709
00:25:09.560 --> 00:25:12.180
There's a lot of things we had to physically do initially,
710
00:25:12.180 --> 00:25:14.140
and we needed that, we didn't want melatonin
711
00:25:14.140 --> 00:25:15.100
while we're trying to do that.
712
00:25:15.340 --> 00:25:17.500
We needed the melatonin to drop at a certain time,
713
00:25:17.520 --> 00:25:19.000
and then the cortisol to kick in.
714
00:25:19.980 --> 00:25:21.240
Now what's happening for us unfortunately,
715
00:25:21.820 --> 00:25:23.860
most of us aren't doing physical exercise,
716
00:25:23.880 --> 00:25:25.080
so every morning when I wake up,
717
00:25:25.120 --> 00:25:26.520
the first thing I do is put on my joggers
718
00:25:26.520 --> 00:25:28.460
and I go for a run, or a gym workout.
719
00:25:28.520 --> 00:25:30.160
So this morning at five a.m. I'm at the gym.
720
00:25:30.700 --> 00:25:32.240
Because I want to burn off that cortisol
721
00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:33.760
and use it to my potential,
722
00:25:34.140 --> 00:25:35.700
and do the things that I would have done
723
00:25:35.700 --> 00:25:38.420
5,000 years ago, but I'm doing today in a gym instead.
724
00:25:39.040 --> 00:25:40.120
But what a lot of people are doing
725
00:25:40.120 --> 00:25:41.000
is they're checking their emails,
726
00:25:41.020 --> 00:25:42.000
scrolling through their Instagram,
727
00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:44.260
and having a double shot macchiato,
728
00:25:44.560 --> 00:25:45.880
double dipping on the cortisol
729
00:25:45.880 --> 00:25:47.520
by putting caffeine on top of that.
730
00:25:47.560 --> 00:25:48.780
And then they're sitting in a chair,
731
00:25:48.840 --> 00:25:50.700
or on the train, in the office,
732
00:25:51.040 --> 00:25:52.460
and then they're just going into emails.
733
00:25:52.520 --> 00:25:53.820
We're not doing the physical things
734
00:25:53.820 --> 00:25:54.460
that we should be doing.
735
00:25:54.620 --> 00:25:57.940
And any men, I believe, from the age of 40 onwards,
736
00:25:58.260 --> 00:26:00.660
should be actually going into cardio
737
00:26:00.660 --> 00:26:03.280
and strength training at least four or five times a week.
738
00:26:03.280 --> 00:26:05.200
And ideally first thing in the morning?
739
00:26:05.780 --> 00:26:07.280
Ideally first thing in the morning, absolutely.
740
00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:09.940
There's a great book called The 5 a.m. Club
741
00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:11.540
by Robert Sharma, and he talks a lot
742
00:26:11.540 --> 00:26:13.040
about that first morning routine.
743
00:26:13.840 --> 00:26:16.160
So my morning routine has seven steps in it,
744
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:17.760
and it usually goes, ideally,
745
00:26:18.120 --> 00:26:19.340
most mornings from five till eight.
746
00:26:19.820 --> 00:26:21.260
Okay, I want to come back to that.
747
00:26:22.280 --> 00:26:24.000
The parasympathetic nervous system,
748
00:26:24.280 --> 00:26:26.060
the idea as the mitigation
749
00:26:26.060 --> 00:26:27.880
against the sympathetic nervous system,
750
00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:31.600
all of us clearly have the system,
751
00:26:31.600 --> 00:26:33.160
but it doesn't always work for us
752
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:36.860
in the sense that folks who have insomnia
753
00:26:36.860 --> 00:26:37.980
as an ongoing piece,
754
00:26:38.040 --> 00:26:39.640
sometimes it's the parasympathetic nervous system
755
00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:40.580
is just not quite working.
756
00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:42.980
Do you do anything with the vagal nervous system
757
00:26:42.980 --> 00:26:43.880
and the vagus nerve?
758
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:45.300
Do you do anything around that
759
00:26:45.300 --> 00:26:48.140
in terms of stimulation to help that click in?
760
00:26:48.340 --> 00:26:49.720
Look, it's a really good question.
761
00:26:50.020 --> 00:26:53.120
I believe that we need to take a very holistic approach
762
00:26:53.120 --> 00:26:56.120
to health and wellness and optimizing the human state.
763
00:26:56.280 --> 00:26:58.300
So it really is not a matter of health and wellness.
764
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:00.700
It's like just realizing your true potential.
765
00:27:02.140 --> 00:27:04.880
And meditation plays a part in many respects,
766
00:27:05.100 --> 00:27:05.920
but it's not enough.
767
00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:08.740
So for me, the core components
768
00:27:08.740 --> 00:27:12.000
to my overall optimization of my human experience,
769
00:27:12.020 --> 00:27:14.900
so I'm 58, but my biological age is around 40, 42,
770
00:27:15.260 --> 00:27:17.660
but there's a number of different steps and processes
771
00:27:17.660 --> 00:27:19.680
and protocols that I use for that.
772
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:21.860
And so strength training is one of them.
773
00:27:21.860 --> 00:27:23.900
And there's a great book by Deepak Chopra,
774
00:27:24.120 --> 00:27:25.360
"'Live Longer, Grow Younger."
775
00:27:25.360 --> 00:27:27.220
And he talks a lot about strength training
776
00:27:27.220 --> 00:27:28.240
because we develop muscle,
777
00:27:28.240 --> 00:27:30.660
which means we need to then develop the bones
778
00:27:30.660 --> 00:27:33.580
to carry the muscle, which prevents osteoporosis.
779
00:27:34.360 --> 00:27:37.780
So strength training, cardio, stretching, meditation,
780
00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:40.740
and then obviously hydration, really good hydration.
781
00:27:40.860 --> 00:27:42.240
That doesn't mean four cups of coffee
782
00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:43.980
and then a glass of wine.
783
00:27:44.280 --> 00:27:45.860
It means really good fluids
784
00:27:45.860 --> 00:27:48.280
and then obviously eating well.
785
00:27:48.500 --> 00:27:50.600
And then beyond that, we've got our wonderful families
786
00:27:50.600 --> 00:27:52.060
contribution to six human needs.
787
00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:53.680
Okay, so that's what you rely on.
788
00:27:54.680 --> 00:27:55.980
But then within that,
789
00:27:55.980 --> 00:27:57.960
I also add for the vagus nerve,
790
00:27:58.220 --> 00:27:59.640
ice bars, hot and cold therapy.
791
00:27:59.720 --> 00:28:02.540
So I do saunas and ice bars once or twice a week as well.
792
00:28:03.220 --> 00:28:07.580
Okay, I've just recently invested in a sauna
793
00:28:07.580 --> 00:28:09.920
and I'm doing it three nights a week.
794
00:28:09.920 --> 00:28:12.440
And I am shocked at how well I'm sleeping.
795
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:13.120
So good, right?
796
00:28:13.540 --> 00:28:15.460
Yeah, 12 minutes, 15 minutes max,
797
00:28:15.820 --> 00:28:17.500
85 degrees or something like that.
798
00:28:17.700 --> 00:28:20.320
Takes me an hour to plug it in, just let it heat up.
799
00:28:20.940 --> 00:28:23.180
It's extraordinary, really, really helpful.
800
00:28:23.180 --> 00:28:25.300
We had Katherine Ball on here.
801
00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:28.100
She is a specialist in sleep.
802
00:28:28.700 --> 00:28:31.840
And she talked about some new technologies
803
00:28:31.840 --> 00:28:34.640
that literally clip on to your earlobe
804
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:36.640
to help stimulate the vagus nerve
805
00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:41.400
for those people who seem to be continually stimulated
806
00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:43.360
beyond the parasympathetic nervous system's
807
00:28:43.360 --> 00:28:44.840
ability to kick in.
808
00:28:45.740 --> 00:28:47.960
And before these new technologies,
809
00:28:48.980 --> 00:28:53.060
there was a device that was implanted around your carotid
810
00:28:53.060 --> 00:28:55.660
to do that, but now they've discovered
811
00:28:55.660 --> 00:28:57.300
that if you do it on the earlobe,
812
00:28:57.300 --> 00:28:58.520
it actually works equally well.
813
00:28:58.800 --> 00:29:00.680
So it's for a tiny number of the population,
814
00:29:01.100 --> 00:29:03.380
but the purpose is just to stimulate the vagus nerve,
815
00:29:03.940 --> 00:29:04.880
to calm you down,
816
00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:07.100
and then the parasympathetic nervous system just kicks in
817
00:29:07.100 --> 00:29:08.340
and it's pretty quite effective.
818
00:29:08.360 --> 00:29:11.100
Had so many clients that have had chronic insomnia,
819
00:29:11.140 --> 00:29:12.460
which was the case for me as well.
820
00:29:12.500 --> 00:29:13.880
I mean, I just couldn't fall asleep
821
00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:14.960
and then I'd always be waking up
822
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:15.760
at two or three in the morning
823
00:29:15.760 --> 00:29:17.240
like most people with insomnia.
824
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.660
But what we found is that sleep has to carry
825
00:29:20.660 --> 00:29:23.060
a very heavy load if there's a lot of stress in the system
826
00:29:23.060 --> 00:29:26.720
and that load is too heavy to bear for sleep.
827
00:29:26.840 --> 00:29:28.580
And so that's why sleep gets compromised.
828
00:29:29.100 --> 00:29:30.660
But what we found is that meditation,
829
00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:32.520
particularly something like Vedic meditation
830
00:29:32.520 --> 00:29:33.920
or deeper meditation or TM,
831
00:29:34.900 --> 00:29:37.120
it releases a lot of that stress load.
832
00:29:37.260 --> 00:29:38.620
We call it the allostatic load,
833
00:29:38.820 --> 00:29:40.220
the load of wear and tear on the body
834
00:29:40.220 --> 00:29:41.040
and the nervous system.
835
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:43.140
And in the meditations,
836
00:29:43.780 --> 00:29:45.800
the clearing of that allostatic load,
837
00:29:45.840 --> 00:29:46.880
morning and afternoon,
838
00:29:47.260 --> 00:29:49.380
that allows sleep to then do what it does.
839
00:29:49.800 --> 00:29:53.800
And the body is much more open to the sleep experience
840
00:29:53.800 --> 00:29:56.480
because it's already had a lot of reprieve
841
00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:57.540
before we get to sleep.
842
00:29:57.900 --> 00:29:58.860
So we're finding meditation
843
00:29:58.860 --> 00:30:00.260
to be one of the most effective tools
844
00:30:00.260 --> 00:30:03.240
for getting the sleep onset happening.
845
00:30:03.600 --> 00:30:04.060
Okay.
846
00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:05.800
I want to bring you back to the moment
847
00:30:05.800 --> 00:30:08.140
of you being exposed to meditation
848
00:30:08.140 --> 00:30:09.480
because you seem to have jumped very quickly
849
00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:11.480
from a left financial services
850
00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:13.280
to, hey, I'm coming back as a meditation teacher.
851
00:30:13.880 --> 00:30:15.100
Something happened in between.
852
00:30:15.540 --> 00:30:17.940
And I'm just thinking of the moment where,
853
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:19.480
and I'm not sure if it was desperation or not,
854
00:30:19.540 --> 00:30:21.320
but whatever the moment was where you,
855
00:30:21.400 --> 00:30:22.600
okay, I'm gonna try this.
856
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:24.780
You got some immediate satisfaction.
857
00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:26.480
You go, okay, I'm gonna go back to this.
858
00:30:26.540 --> 00:30:27.360
I'm gonna go back to this.
859
00:30:28.180 --> 00:30:30.700
In that moment, a lot of us go back to coffee
860
00:30:30.700 --> 00:30:32.720
or alcohol or whatever it is.
861
00:30:32.780 --> 00:30:34.640
You chose something different in that moment.
862
00:30:35.060 --> 00:30:35.920
Talk to us about that
863
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:37.720
and what was it that you initially got
864
00:30:37.720 --> 00:30:39.560
that kind of, I want more of whatever that is.
865
00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:41.680
Yeah, and just to give some context
866
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:43.460
around the storyline and the sequencing
867
00:30:43.460 --> 00:30:44.880
is that when I learned to meditate,
868
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:47.380
it was another 16 years before I left finance
869
00:30:47.380 --> 00:30:49.980
to actually then go and become a teacher.
870
00:30:50.820 --> 00:30:52.140
So exactly like you said,
871
00:30:52.580 --> 00:30:53.720
when I learned to meditate,
872
00:30:54.500 --> 00:30:56.780
the Vedic meditation or TM as well,
873
00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:59.480
it might be known as, it was so palpable.
874
00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:03.380
It was so impacting and definitive
875
00:31:03.380 --> 00:31:05.560
as to the benefits I was getting from it
876
00:31:05.560 --> 00:31:09.580
that it was completely superseded by caffeine,
877
00:31:10.320 --> 00:31:11.640
by drugs, by drinking.
878
00:31:11.960 --> 00:31:14.160
Those three things just dropped away very quickly
879
00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:14.740
the late nights.
880
00:31:14.820 --> 00:31:17.900
Everything was replaced by this thing
881
00:31:17.900 --> 00:31:19.620
that was simply much more effective
882
00:31:19.620 --> 00:31:21.080
than anything else that I was using.
883
00:31:21.840 --> 00:31:23.080
And one thing I always come back to,
884
00:31:23.300 --> 00:31:26.820
which I teach, is that everything every human
885
00:31:26.820 --> 00:31:30.900
is doing right now, every single person on the planet
886
00:31:30.900 --> 00:31:32.320
is doing only one thing.
887
00:31:32.860 --> 00:31:35.880
We're all trying to find fulfillment from an action.
888
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:38.220
And that's whether we're cleaning the bathroom floor,
889
00:31:38.280 --> 00:31:39.480
whether we're doing a lot of coke,
890
00:31:39.620 --> 00:31:41.640
whether we're working on a podcast,
891
00:31:41.800 --> 00:31:43.660
whether we're going to a monastery in Tibet.
892
00:31:44.800 --> 00:31:46.440
Everyone believes that that action
893
00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:48.220
will bring them some degree of fulfillment.
894
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:49.640
Even if we're cleaning the bathroom floor,
895
00:31:49.940 --> 00:31:51.380
we feel better when our floor is clean,
896
00:31:51.560 --> 00:31:53.160
putting bottle tops on bottles in a factory.
897
00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:54.940
We feel better when we pay our rent.
898
00:31:55.500 --> 00:31:58.100
And so what I found through not only the knowledge
899
00:31:58.100 --> 00:31:59.960
of the Vedas and the Vedic tradition,
900
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:01.880
but also through the technique itself,
901
00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:03.440
which was validated very quickly,
902
00:32:04.080 --> 00:32:07.300
was that it shifted from outcome-oriented fulfillment
903
00:32:07.300 --> 00:32:08.720
to self-referred fulfillment.
904
00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:10.680
And self-referred fulfillment is a state
905
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:13.160
that is independent of any outcomes and circumstances.
906
00:32:13.740 --> 00:32:15.380
And I was living my entire life
907
00:32:15.380 --> 00:32:16.480
in outcome-oriented fulfillment,
908
00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:18.680
which drove the drugs, the drinking, the partying.
909
00:32:19.080 --> 00:32:21.920
But what we wanna start to reclaim as humans
910
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:24.180
is a self-referred state of fulfillment.
911
00:32:24.300 --> 00:32:26.740
It's a fulfillment that is scientifically verified
912
00:32:26.740 --> 00:32:29.520
through the increase of oxytocin and serotonin,
913
00:32:29.520 --> 00:32:32.600
which are the biochemicals of love and happiness.
914
00:32:32.760 --> 00:32:35.000
And I was addicted to MDMA or ecstasy
915
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:37.640
because I wanted simply the MDMA
916
00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:39.540
to trigger more oxytocin and serotonin.
917
00:32:39.540 --> 00:32:40.700
Here I found in meditation,
918
00:32:40.740 --> 00:32:42.820
the same thing was happening by doing that twice a day.
919
00:32:42.820 --> 00:32:43.500
With no cost.
920
00:32:43.760 --> 00:32:44.480
With no cost.
921
00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:45.060
And no hangover.
922
00:32:45.260 --> 00:32:48.080
And no massive detrimental side effects,
923
00:32:48.100 --> 00:32:50.340
which was what was happening with the drugs.
924
00:32:53.530 --> 00:32:54.870
What I'm interested in is,
925
00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:56.970
it was a period of 16 years.
926
00:32:58.310 --> 00:33:01.110
You were in an industry that expected
927
00:33:01.110 --> 00:33:03.550
and rewarded, in your words,
928
00:33:03.690 --> 00:33:04.730
hedonistic-type behavior.
929
00:33:04.890 --> 00:33:06.390
And that's not the only industry, right?
930
00:33:06.570 --> 00:33:07.830
But that's the one you were in.
931
00:33:08.250 --> 00:33:10.690
But you still stayed while you were moving away
932
00:33:10.690 --> 00:33:13.470
from that behavior and getting the same outcome
933
00:33:13.470 --> 00:33:14.170
for yourself.
934
00:33:14.750 --> 00:33:15.850
What were people around you thinking?
935
00:33:16.430 --> 00:33:18.110
Yeah, look, it was definitely a challenge.
936
00:33:18.150 --> 00:33:19.590
And this is something for everyone listening in.
937
00:33:19.590 --> 00:33:20.490
If you are going to make
938
00:33:20.490 --> 00:33:22.010
that healthy lifestyle transition,
939
00:33:22.230 --> 00:33:25.830
you may be the abnormal, weird one, right?
940
00:33:26.110 --> 00:33:27.950
And I was definitely the weird one
941
00:33:27.950 --> 00:33:29.870
because no one else was doing what I was doing.
942
00:33:29.870 --> 00:33:32.210
So the big part of the culture
943
00:33:32.210 --> 00:33:33.930
was to widen dying clients,
944
00:33:33.930 --> 00:33:36.190
and that always revolved predominantly drinking,
945
00:33:36.250 --> 00:33:37.490
but sometimes it was the drugs.
946
00:33:37.990 --> 00:33:39.650
And so I had to find a pathway
947
00:33:39.650 --> 00:33:42.090
that was going to sustain me in that industry
948
00:33:42.090 --> 00:33:44.730
because I still had mortgage and family to feed
949
00:33:44.730 --> 00:33:46.510
and a lot of financial commitments.
950
00:33:46.590 --> 00:33:48.010
And being a meditation teacher
951
00:33:48.010 --> 00:33:51.230
was not a big career move financially.
952
00:33:51.470 --> 00:33:53.910
So I had to still walk that path
953
00:33:53.910 --> 00:33:55.930
and find a way to navigate that.
954
00:33:56.150 --> 00:33:56.770
And if you're okay,
955
00:33:56.790 --> 00:33:58.150
I'll share a little anecdote
956
00:33:58.150 --> 00:34:00.470
that my meditation teacher shared with me
957
00:34:00.470 --> 00:34:02.130
when I asked him, how am I going to do this?
958
00:34:03.170 --> 00:34:04.310
And I think a lot of the men listening
959
00:34:04.310 --> 00:34:06.070
will get a lot of merit out of this,
960
00:34:06.330 --> 00:34:07.270
a lot of value out of it.
961
00:34:07.930 --> 00:34:09.889
He said, look, at the end of the day of war,
962
00:34:10.330 --> 00:34:12.389
back in World War I, World War II,
963
00:34:12.690 --> 00:34:14.790
the men, when the sun would set,
964
00:34:15.429 --> 00:34:17.409
they didn't have night goggles and night vision.
965
00:34:17.469 --> 00:34:19.350
So they would just put down their arms
966
00:34:19.350 --> 00:34:20.870
and then they would go back to the mess hall.
967
00:34:20.909 --> 00:34:22.090
And they walked into the mess hall
968
00:34:22.090 --> 00:34:23.690
covered in grime and blood and sweat.
969
00:34:24.070 --> 00:34:25.850
And then they would start whooping it up
970
00:34:25.850 --> 00:34:28.510
with shots of whiskey and bourbon and beers.
971
00:34:28.929 --> 00:34:30.650
And then the general would walk in
972
00:34:31.170 --> 00:34:32.630
to acknowledge and honor the men.
973
00:34:32.690 --> 00:34:35.090
And he'd walk in in his beautiful outfit
974
00:34:35.090 --> 00:34:36.750
with his wonderful badges of honor.
975
00:34:36.870 --> 00:34:38.210
And there'd be a hush around the room
976
00:34:38.210 --> 00:34:40.110
because the general has walked into the room.
977
00:34:40.250 --> 00:34:41.750
Like, hey, the general's here, the general's here.
978
00:34:42.250 --> 00:34:43.590
And they were all deeply honored
979
00:34:43.590 --> 00:34:44.989
that the general would walk in
980
00:34:44.989 --> 00:34:46.510
and come and pay them all a visit.
981
00:34:46.570 --> 00:34:48.350
And he would sit down on one of the bar stools
982
00:34:48.350 --> 00:34:49.409
and say, hey, fellas, you know,
983
00:34:49.530 --> 00:34:50.889
great work today, fantastic.
984
00:34:51.510 --> 00:34:52.510
And they would like, hey, general,
985
00:34:52.670 --> 00:34:54.010
do you want us to get me cranberry juice?
986
00:34:54.070 --> 00:34:55.650
Or do you want me to get you a mineral water or something?
987
00:34:55.650 --> 00:34:57.290
Because they knew he was not gonna get wasted.
988
00:34:57.550 --> 00:34:59.390
This was the general and he's got his wits together
989
00:34:59.390 --> 00:35:01.290
and he holds space for everyone.
990
00:35:02.230 --> 00:35:04.310
And the general would drink a cranberry juice
991
00:35:04.310 --> 00:35:06.390
and chat with the guys and just check in with everyone.
992
00:35:06.530 --> 00:35:07.910
And then after about an hour or so,
993
00:35:07.990 --> 00:35:09.550
he'd say, hey, fellas, well, it's time for me to go.
994
00:35:09.570 --> 00:35:11.630
I'll let you have your night and have fun.
995
00:35:11.710 --> 00:35:12.850
We'll see you all back in the trenches.
996
00:35:12.950 --> 00:35:14.270
And the men would get completely wasted
997
00:35:14.270 --> 00:35:16.570
dancing and vomiting and falling over.
998
00:35:17.450 --> 00:35:19.530
And then my teacher just looked me right into the eye.
999
00:35:20.190 --> 00:35:21.870
And he said, you're just gonna have to ask yourself
1000
00:35:21.870 --> 00:35:23.770
at this point now, do you wanna be a general
1001
00:35:23.770 --> 00:35:24.750
or do you wanna be a soldier?
1002
00:35:24.750 --> 00:35:26.230
Because the choice is yours.
1003
00:35:26.910 --> 00:35:29.170
And at that point, I knew to really honor that
1004
00:35:29.170 --> 00:35:32.390
and step into leadership and step into a space
1005
00:35:33.330 --> 00:35:36.190
that took me a long time to really,
1006
00:35:36.770 --> 00:35:38.250
to earn the stripes of.
1007
00:35:38.410 --> 00:35:40.150
You don't just get qualified as a general,
1008
00:35:40.150 --> 00:35:42.090
you have to earn the stripes with the universe
1009
00:35:42.090 --> 00:35:43.190
of coming back to that thing.
1010
00:35:43.670 --> 00:35:45.450
And the universe will put you in positions
1011
00:35:45.450 --> 00:35:47.070
when it feels you're capable.
1012
00:35:48.130 --> 00:35:49.870
And I had to get myself capable
1013
00:35:50.390 --> 00:35:52.070
and then the position started to come.
1014
00:35:55.760 --> 00:35:57.140
I'm gonna interrupt you for a second
1015
00:35:57.140 --> 00:35:59.900
just to let you know we have some amazing guests
1016
00:35:59.900 --> 00:36:02.060
coming on this show over the next couple of weeks.
1017
00:36:02.540 --> 00:36:04.600
We have a doctor of positive psychology
1018
00:36:04.600 --> 00:36:06.940
who's gonna share with us some really cool ideas
1019
00:36:06.940 --> 00:36:09.240
on how to stay happy and aligned
1020
00:36:09.240 --> 00:36:10.440
with your sense of purpose.
1021
00:36:10.980 --> 00:36:12.500
We have the mindset coach
1022
00:36:12.500 --> 00:36:14.600
for one of the world's top sporting teams
1023
00:36:14.600 --> 00:36:17.740
on how to optimize our own sense of capacity.
1024
00:36:18.280 --> 00:36:21.440
And we have a global expert on imposter syndrome.
1025
00:36:22.040 --> 00:36:23.420
All in the next couple of weeks.
1026
00:36:23.780 --> 00:36:25.900
So stay tuned, stay subscribed.
1027
00:36:26.460 --> 00:36:27.620
Now back to the show.
1028
00:36:28.080 --> 00:36:28.800
I love that idea.
1029
00:36:29.540 --> 00:36:32.200
Like you, I did a lot of work in corporates
1030
00:36:32.200 --> 00:36:32.960
in the leadership space
1031
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:34.700
and I work with a lot of senior execs
1032
00:36:35.200 --> 00:36:38.780
and the people who are consistently more successful.
1033
00:36:38.840 --> 00:36:40.480
Because you can be successful for a while.
1034
00:36:40.780 --> 00:36:41.960
You can have a really great flush,
1035
00:36:42.120 --> 00:36:44.320
you can ride the wave and everyone's riding the wave,
1036
00:36:44.380 --> 00:36:45.800
you just be on a slightly bigger wave.
1037
00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:48.560
But to do that consistently over time
1038
00:36:49.160 --> 00:36:50.480
requires a level of,
1039
00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:51.920
do I want to be the general or the soldier
1040
00:36:51.920 --> 00:36:52.840
to use a metaphor?
1041
00:36:53.180 --> 00:36:55.020
And I'm thinking specifically of a meeting
1042
00:36:55.020 --> 00:36:56.200
I was in recently with a leader
1043
00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:59.240
who's internationally recognized CEO,
1044
00:37:00.180 --> 00:37:01.020
means a few different organizations
1045
00:37:01.020 --> 00:37:02.340
where they've led really well, et cetera.
1046
00:37:03.180 --> 00:37:04.340
And the conversation about burnout
1047
00:37:04.340 --> 00:37:05.740
comes up in the wider conversation.
1048
00:37:06.560 --> 00:37:07.580
And a little bit controversially,
1049
00:37:07.660 --> 00:37:10.860
but I think general-esque-like to your metaphor.
1050
00:37:11.360 --> 00:37:13.440
He said, I've never ever burnt out in my whole life.
1051
00:37:13.900 --> 00:37:16.040
And I've led far bigger businesses than this
1052
00:37:16.040 --> 00:37:17.220
and you know that, right?
1053
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:19.320
He said, but what I do every single week,
1054
00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:20.840
I look at my diary and I look at going,
1055
00:37:20.900 --> 00:37:21.940
okay, I've got all this stuff going on,
1056
00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:22.920
where are my swims?
1057
00:37:23.660 --> 00:37:25.820
Because if I don't have enough swims in my diary,
1058
00:37:26.120 --> 00:37:27.440
I can't do all those meetings.
1059
00:37:27.640 --> 00:37:29.780
And I'll take that out and I'll put in my swim.
1060
00:37:30.080 --> 00:37:32.740
Because I've learned that's what works.
1061
00:37:34.060 --> 00:37:37.480
And anyone who swims knows swimming is very meditative.
1062
00:37:37.640 --> 00:37:39.280
So it's his version of meditation.
1063
00:37:40.120 --> 00:37:43.320
But without that, I can't lead effectively.
1064
00:37:43.540 --> 00:37:45.180
And it was a real challenge to the room.
1065
00:37:46.420 --> 00:37:47.620
And he wasn't saying to anybody,
1066
00:37:48.040 --> 00:37:50.180
if you feel burned out, you're not.
1067
00:37:50.200 --> 00:37:51.160
That's not what he was saying.
1068
00:37:51.160 --> 00:37:53.940
What he's saying is I'm taking responsibility for myself.
1069
00:37:54.060 --> 00:37:54.680
What are you doing?
1070
00:37:55.920 --> 00:37:59.420
Look, my day, the primary focus of my day
1071
00:37:59.420 --> 00:38:01.020
is what state I'm in.
1072
00:38:01.660 --> 00:38:03.200
Because I know the state I'm in
1073
00:38:03.200 --> 00:38:05.480
will determine so much about the outcome of my day.
1074
00:38:05.560 --> 00:38:07.920
So I prioritize throughout the day
1075
00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:10.900
and that's my morning routine, my midday routine,
1076
00:38:11.060 --> 00:38:13.500
and then my evening before bed routine.
1077
00:38:13.660 --> 00:38:15.640
Those things are critical for me
1078
00:38:15.640 --> 00:38:17.580
to have peak performance throughout the day.
1079
00:38:17.980 --> 00:38:20.920
So peak performance, doesn't matter who you are
1080
00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:22.500
or what you're doing, you don't have to be a CEO.
1081
00:38:23.120 --> 00:38:24.900
Peak performance is literally realizing
1082
00:38:24.900 --> 00:38:26.220
your true potential as a human.
1083
00:38:26.740 --> 00:38:27.900
And we should all be operating
1084
00:38:27.900 --> 00:38:29.440
from a state of peak performance.
1085
00:38:29.900 --> 00:38:30.820
It's our right.
1086
00:38:31.740 --> 00:38:35.100
But it requires not doing what is being done by the norm.
1087
00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:37.160
It requires doing what is true for you.
1088
00:38:37.160 --> 00:38:38.140
Otherwise it wouldn't be peak.
1089
00:38:38.220 --> 00:38:39.420
Exactly, it wouldn't be peak, right?
1090
00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:43.940
And so, for me, the primary focus of my day
1091
00:38:43.940 --> 00:38:46.380
is what state I'm in throughout the day.
1092
00:38:46.460 --> 00:38:48.560
And what do I need to do to stay in that state?
1093
00:38:48.980 --> 00:38:50.200
So peak performance, the way I see it,
1094
00:38:50.200 --> 00:38:52.920
is what we do when we're not performing
1095
00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:54.260
will lead to peak performance.
1096
00:38:55.040 --> 00:38:56.560
Let's take two aspects to that.
1097
00:38:56.700 --> 00:38:58.800
Let's talk your morning routine and your nighttime routine.
1098
00:38:58.820 --> 00:38:59.700
I wanna talk about those.
1099
00:39:00.100 --> 00:39:01.320
But then I wanna talk about
1100
00:39:01.320 --> 00:39:04.720
how do you get back to performance?
1101
00:39:04.980 --> 00:39:06.820
Because you're not a robot, you're a human being,
1102
00:39:06.840 --> 00:39:08.820
which means you're never always at peak performance.
1103
00:39:09.440 --> 00:39:10.180
No one ever is.
1104
00:39:12.020 --> 00:39:13.640
But Dalai Lama had a great story
1105
00:39:13.640 --> 00:39:16.260
where he was doing a piece
1106
00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:18.680
and someone goes, how do you stay focused?
1107
00:39:18.680 --> 00:39:20.780
And Dalai Lama said to the guys,
1108
00:39:21.600 --> 00:39:22.980
what distracts you in your meditation?
1109
00:39:23.120 --> 00:39:24.760
He said, hamburgers.
1110
00:39:25.640 --> 00:39:26.640
And Dalai Lama said,
1111
00:39:27.080 --> 00:39:29.020
I get distracted by hamburgers as well.
1112
00:39:29.940 --> 00:39:32.300
The difference is I catch myself being distracted
1113
00:39:32.300 --> 00:39:34.320
and I come back quicker than you.
1114
00:39:34.760 --> 00:39:35.860
That's the difference, right?
1115
00:39:35.860 --> 00:39:37.060
So he was just recognizing,
1116
00:39:37.560 --> 00:39:38.820
I'm not a robot, I'm a human,
1117
00:39:38.900 --> 00:39:40.180
but I'm managing myself.
1118
00:39:40.260 --> 00:39:41.300
So I wanna come back to one of those.
1119
00:39:41.800 --> 00:39:43.380
Tell me, you said you had seven steps routine.
1120
00:39:43.660 --> 00:39:44.360
What's your seven steps?
1121
00:39:44.680 --> 00:39:45.960
So first thing I do before anything,
1122
00:39:46.080 --> 00:39:47.780
when I get out of bed, I go to the bathroom
1123
00:39:47.780 --> 00:39:49.960
and I pull out my tongue scraper,
1124
00:39:50.020 --> 00:39:51.720
which is a stainless steel device
1125
00:39:51.720 --> 00:39:53.480
that you can buy on Amazon for $20.
1126
00:39:54.220 --> 00:39:55.980
And you can get copper or stainless steel.
1127
00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:58.260
I use stainless steel because it stops rusting.
1128
00:39:59.140 --> 00:40:00.840
And then you stick your tongue out and you scrape
1129
00:40:00.840 --> 00:40:02.640
what's called ARMA, A-M-A.
1130
00:40:02.660 --> 00:40:04.740
It's a brownish-white sticky bacteria
1131
00:40:04.740 --> 00:40:08.400
and the body's trying to expel toxic stuff
1132
00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:09.740
from the body through the night,
1133
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:10.640
which is why we're sleeping.
1134
00:40:11.060 --> 00:40:13.560
That's why we wanna cough or go to the toilet.
1135
00:40:14.140 --> 00:40:15.520
So ARMA is on our tongue.
1136
00:40:15.520 --> 00:40:18.180
Always in an ancient Ayurvedic tradition,
1137
00:40:18.320 --> 00:40:20.480
for 5,000 years, people will scrape their tongue.
1138
00:40:21.340 --> 00:40:21.660
I never knew that.
1139
00:40:22.140 --> 00:40:23.940
I do that maybe once a week,
1140
00:40:24.980 --> 00:40:26.520
and I had no idea that was a thing.
1141
00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:28.240
Yeah, so once you start scraping,
1142
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:30.960
every day you should scrape before you drink anything
1143
00:40:30.960 --> 00:40:31.660
and do anything.
1144
00:40:32.180 --> 00:40:34.780
So once I scrape, then the next thing I will do,
1145
00:40:34.840 --> 00:40:36.220
not every day, but I do this sort of
1146
00:40:36.220 --> 00:40:37.340
two or three times a week,
1147
00:40:37.460 --> 00:40:39.820
will be what's called oil pulling or oil swilling.
1148
00:40:40.340 --> 00:40:42.160
And you'll get organic sesame oil
1149
00:40:42.160 --> 00:40:44.660
or organic coconut oil, always organic,
1150
00:40:44.660 --> 00:40:46.240
and then you're gonna swill it in your mouth
1151
00:40:46.240 --> 00:40:47.620
for 10 to 15 minutes.
1152
00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:51.480
And that swilling is, again, extracting bacteria.
1153
00:40:52.260 --> 00:40:54.720
So a lot of what we wanna do for peak performance
1154
00:40:54.720 --> 00:40:56.380
and optimizing the human state
1155
00:40:56.380 --> 00:40:58.160
is actually what we're clearing out of the body.
1156
00:40:58.760 --> 00:41:01.360
And that can be mental, physical, emotional,
1157
00:41:01.820 --> 00:41:04.040
and so, which is where your saunas
1158
00:41:04.040 --> 00:41:05.000
and sweating comes in.
1159
00:41:05.540 --> 00:41:07.580
And so oil swilling is about pulling out
1160
00:41:07.580 --> 00:41:08.160
a lot of toxicity.
1161
00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:10.040
They're finding a lot of illness in the body
1162
00:41:10.040 --> 00:41:12.060
is coming from poor hygiene in the mouth.
1163
00:41:12.080 --> 00:41:13.120
So we're clearing a lot of bacteria.
1164
00:41:13.120 --> 00:41:14.840
And then after 10, 15 minutes,
1165
00:41:14.860 --> 00:41:16.360
you'll spit that out, not in the sink,
1166
00:41:16.360 --> 00:41:18.020
because it will clog up your drains.
1167
00:41:18.160 --> 00:41:20.120
You put it in a paper towel and in the bin.
1168
00:41:21.060 --> 00:41:22.640
So then the third step after that
1169
00:41:22.640 --> 00:41:24.740
is to drink a large amount of liquid.
1170
00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:27.480
So that's purified water with something in it.
1171
00:41:27.480 --> 00:41:29.640
So I always put either some Hydrolyte
1172
00:41:30.660 --> 00:41:32.400
or some apple cider vinegar.
1173
00:41:32.740 --> 00:41:35.160
Maybe it might be, I'm a big fan of creatine,
1174
00:41:35.180 --> 00:41:36.380
so I have creatine every day.
1175
00:41:37.680 --> 00:41:39.380
Magnesium's a good one, but I have that before bed.
1176
00:41:40.160 --> 00:41:41.180
But something in your water,
1177
00:41:41.260 --> 00:41:42.580
it could be green smoothie, green powder,
1178
00:41:42.580 --> 00:41:45.380
just to hydrate the body, but also alkalize the body.
1179
00:41:45.540 --> 00:41:48.000
We get very acidic, even when we're sleeping.
1180
00:41:48.300 --> 00:41:49.980
So alkalizing the body first thing in the morning,
1181
00:41:50.060 --> 00:41:52.320
lots of fluids to hydrate the body.
1182
00:41:53.220 --> 00:41:54.660
And then from there, while I'm swilling,
1183
00:41:54.780 --> 00:41:55.540
I'll do some stretching.
1184
00:41:55.580 --> 00:41:57.300
If I'm not stretching and swilling,
1185
00:41:57.380 --> 00:41:59.020
then I'll go to the gym and do some stretching there.
1186
00:41:59.120 --> 00:42:01.220
But stretching every morning is really important,
1187
00:42:01.580 --> 00:42:04.460
particularly when we're lying quite rigidly all night.
1188
00:42:04.900 --> 00:42:05.920
And so as we get older-
1189
00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:07.840
Do you use a roller or?
1190
00:42:07.840 --> 00:42:08.800
I do lots of things.
1191
00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:10.580
I'll use devices, rollers,
1192
00:42:11.080 --> 00:42:13.600
little massage balls and sorts of things.
1193
00:42:13.900 --> 00:42:14.640
Lots of different things.
1194
00:42:14.780 --> 00:42:16.300
My house is kind of like a health lab.
1195
00:42:16.300 --> 00:42:16.700
A collection.
1196
00:42:17.360 --> 00:42:18.120
Yeah, different things.
1197
00:42:18.700 --> 00:42:20.000
But stretching is a big one that I do.
1198
00:42:20.040 --> 00:42:21.300
And then I like to do strength training.
1199
00:42:21.420 --> 00:42:23.320
So I'll like to do weights probably
1200
00:42:23.320 --> 00:42:24.960
four or five times a week in the morning.
1201
00:42:25.860 --> 00:42:27.160
Do you have a specific weights routine?
1202
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:28.500
Like is that upper body, lower body?
1203
00:42:28.560 --> 00:42:28.780
I just change.
1204
00:42:29.120 --> 00:42:31.980
I'll do back and chest one day,
1205
00:42:31.980 --> 00:42:33.580
then I'll do arms and shoulders another day,
1206
00:42:33.580 --> 00:42:34.760
then I'll do legs another day.
1207
00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:36.320
And then every day I do abs,
1208
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:37.360
just to really work on the core.
1209
00:42:37.360 --> 00:42:39.360
And are you aiming to increase strength
1210
00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:40.960
versus to really maintain strength?
1211
00:42:41.200 --> 00:42:41.800
Or what's your purpose?
1212
00:42:41.800 --> 00:42:42.260
Definitely increase strength.
1213
00:42:42.560 --> 00:42:43.560
Yeah, definitely wanting to increase.
1214
00:42:43.740 --> 00:42:45.420
So pushing the weights to the point of breaking point.
1215
00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:48.780
And surprisingly I'm stronger and fitter now
1216
00:42:48.780 --> 00:42:50.420
as a 58-year-old than I've ever been.
1217
00:42:50.620 --> 00:42:51.600
And that's just, I think,
1218
00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:54.840
this idea of us getting older is a psychological thing
1219
00:42:54.840 --> 00:42:56.200
that a lot of men have to overcome.
1220
00:42:57.600 --> 00:42:58.240
And then cardio.
1221
00:42:58.340 --> 00:42:59.420
So I do cardio every day,
1222
00:42:59.460 --> 00:43:01.280
20 minutes of any different things
1223
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:03.040
from the bike or the treadmill
1224
00:43:03.040 --> 00:43:05.300
or the ski machine or a rower.
1225
00:43:05.420 --> 00:43:06.080
Today I was a rower.
1226
00:43:06.580 --> 00:43:07.200
Is that always at home?
1227
00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:07.800
Or do you go to the gym for that?
1228
00:43:07.800 --> 00:43:08.540
I go to the gym for that.
1229
00:43:08.540 --> 00:43:10.580
I find psychologically just putting on some techno
1230
00:43:10.580 --> 00:43:11.880
and being in a gym,
1231
00:43:12.160 --> 00:43:13.600
there's something really inspiring about that.
1232
00:43:13.700 --> 00:43:16.080
I find it hard to work out on my own at home.
1233
00:43:16.620 --> 00:43:18.000
Plus I'm an extrovert,
1234
00:43:18.020 --> 00:43:21.020
so I get energy from being around people.
1235
00:43:21.500 --> 00:43:23.140
So I like the environment of going to a gym.
1236
00:43:23.820 --> 00:43:25.720
And then from there I like to journal and meditate.
1237
00:43:26.840 --> 00:43:27.880
So it's a long process.
1238
00:43:28.040 --> 00:43:29.120
If I haven't got time,
1239
00:43:29.640 --> 00:43:30.740
I'll condense that down.
1240
00:43:30.760 --> 00:43:32.260
Not every day I'll get to the gym.
1241
00:43:32.580 --> 00:43:34.920
But I always have meditation and the oil,
1242
00:43:35.140 --> 00:43:36.680
not the oil pulling, the tongue scraping,
1243
00:43:36.920 --> 00:43:37.760
and then the hydration.
1244
00:43:38.300 --> 00:43:40.920
The big four or three that start my day.
1245
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:43.700
I have never heard anyone say tongue scraping
1246
00:43:43.700 --> 00:43:44.660
is a daily routine.
1247
00:43:45.080 --> 00:43:45.600
Absolutely, yeah.
1248
00:43:46.480 --> 00:43:48.220
All my students will tongue scrape every day now.
1249
00:43:48.220 --> 00:43:48.820
Wow, that's extraordinary.
1250
00:43:50.260 --> 00:43:52.340
So the days that you are, say,
1251
00:43:52.460 --> 00:43:54.020
flying to do a talk or a keynote
1252
00:43:54.020 --> 00:43:55.800
or an engagement somewhere,
1253
00:43:57.160 --> 00:43:58.400
you can't do all of that.
1254
00:43:58.720 --> 00:43:59.840
Which ones do you prioritize?
1255
00:44:00.540 --> 00:44:02.320
Definitely the hydration and tongue scraping.
1256
00:44:02.540 --> 00:44:04.160
And then if I'm traveling,
1257
00:44:04.320 --> 00:44:05.200
so if I'm in an Uber
1258
00:44:05.200 --> 00:44:06.720
because I've got to go somewhere or a flight,
1259
00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:08.880
then I'll just meditate when I get those times.
1260
00:44:09.040 --> 00:44:11.180
You'll always find time for 15, 20 minutes
1261
00:44:11.180 --> 00:44:12.460
to close your eyes and meditate.
1262
00:44:13.160 --> 00:44:15.720
So that always fits into my day unconditionally.
1263
00:44:16.440 --> 00:44:17.760
Pretty much morning and afternoon.
1264
00:44:17.860 --> 00:44:19.480
But I'll just have to adapt to wherever
1265
00:44:19.480 --> 00:44:21.200
it's going to fit in that's the best time.
1266
00:44:22.520 --> 00:44:24.880
So the journaling and the oil pulling
1267
00:44:24.880 --> 00:44:26.300
and the stretching and the gym,
1268
00:44:26.520 --> 00:44:27.980
they'll be the ones that will have to drop away.
1269
00:44:28.240 --> 00:44:28.520
Okay.
1270
00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:31.700
A lot of people say that they do journaling
1271
00:44:31.700 --> 00:44:32.740
right after do weights
1272
00:44:32.740 --> 00:44:34.360
because they're using the weight session
1273
00:44:34.360 --> 00:44:38.560
just to ruminate on a particular question.
1274
00:44:38.640 --> 00:44:39.980
Do you have a process that you use?
1275
00:44:40.540 --> 00:44:42.960
Yeah, look, I like to put it towards the back end
1276
00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:44.000
of my morning routine
1277
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:46.120
when I've kind of cleared all the noise
1278
00:44:46.120 --> 00:44:47.600
and the clutter and everything out.
1279
00:44:47.780 --> 00:44:50.180
I find that the mind is much more expansive.
1280
00:44:50.720 --> 00:44:51.580
And with journaling,
1281
00:44:51.700 --> 00:44:53.340
we can do a couple of different things
1282
00:44:53.340 --> 00:44:55.520
and it could be gratitude for what is.
1283
00:44:55.580 --> 00:44:56.740
So you're looking at your current life
1284
00:44:56.740 --> 00:44:58.060
and being really deeply grateful.
1285
00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:00.340
I prefer to do gratitude at the end of the day.
1286
00:45:00.340 --> 00:45:04.520
And I did this blog with a tip
1287
00:45:04.520 --> 00:45:06.460
that if you were to get a notebook
1288
00:45:06.460 --> 00:45:07.960
by the side of your bed,
1289
00:45:08.420 --> 00:45:10.020
gosh, I'm reminding myself to do this now.
1290
00:45:10.300 --> 00:45:11.780
So many times we'll have a good strategy
1291
00:45:11.780 --> 00:45:13.120
and then we'll drop it after a while.
1292
00:45:14.300 --> 00:45:16.540
But if you can write 10 things every night
1293
00:45:16.540 --> 00:45:18.420
before you close your eyes and go to sleep
1294
00:45:18.420 --> 00:45:20.240
that you're grateful for that day,
1295
00:45:20.480 --> 00:45:22.380
that day, things that have happened,
1296
00:45:22.480 --> 00:45:23.620
things that you've had in your life,
1297
00:45:23.800 --> 00:45:25.520
fresh running water, food in your pantry
1298
00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:27.540
and your dog licking your face,
1299
00:45:27.660 --> 00:45:28.980
whatever it is that happened that day
1300
00:45:28.980 --> 00:45:29.960
and be grateful for that
1301
00:45:29.960 --> 00:45:31.680
and close your day out with gratitude,
1302
00:45:32.140 --> 00:45:34.760
the next day will be phenomenally successful.
1303
00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:35.660
It's quite amazing.
1304
00:45:35.780 --> 00:45:37.480
So many people messaged me after that blog
1305
00:45:37.480 --> 00:45:40.000
and said that has been a game changer for me
1306
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:41.400
more than anything else in my life.
1307
00:45:41.880 --> 00:45:43.840
I have coached, I think it's about,
1308
00:45:43.980 --> 00:45:46.860
I'm gonna say 1,500, maybe 2,000 executives
1309
00:45:46.860 --> 00:45:47.980
over a long period of time.
1310
00:45:49.120 --> 00:45:53.140
And the one thing I literally prescribe everybody,
1311
00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:54.620
I actually, I give them two things,
1312
00:45:54.740 --> 00:45:55.400
but the one thing I said,
1313
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:57.380
obviously if you're not gonna do one, do this one,
1314
00:45:58.240 --> 00:46:01.000
is to do a gratitude journal at the end of the day,
1315
00:46:01.040 --> 00:46:01.840
like you just said.
1316
00:46:02.940 --> 00:46:04.280
And what I say to people is,
1317
00:46:04.280 --> 00:46:05.720
even the days that you've had
1318
00:46:05.720 --> 00:46:07.900
the absolute worst day of your life,
1319
00:46:08.420 --> 00:46:09.800
you've been fired from work,
1320
00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:11.040
you've lost your million dollars,
1321
00:46:11.160 --> 00:46:12.360
your wife no longer wants to talk to you,
1322
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:13.020
kids think you're terrible,
1323
00:46:13.200 --> 00:46:14.660
like the worst possible day,
1324
00:46:15.660 --> 00:46:16.860
are you happy to still be alive?
1325
00:46:17.040 --> 00:46:18.960
If you are, then write that down, right?
1326
00:46:19.200 --> 00:46:21.340
Well, to take it even further for those listening,
1327
00:46:21.720 --> 00:46:23.800
which has been a big shift for me as well,
1328
00:46:23.980 --> 00:46:24.840
big shift this one,
1329
00:46:25.080 --> 00:46:26.320
particularly when we wake up during the night
1330
00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:27.280
with that sense of dread
1331
00:46:27.280 --> 00:46:28.900
that things aren't working out for you.
1332
00:46:29.460 --> 00:46:31.640
And this is what I got from David Giehm,
1333
00:46:31.700 --> 00:46:33.240
I always like to acknowledge and credit people
1334
00:46:33.240 --> 00:46:34.260
where I get these insights from,
1335
00:46:34.340 --> 00:46:36.720
but David Giehm is a phenomenal leader
1336
00:46:36.720 --> 00:46:37.720
in the world at the moment.
1337
00:46:38.160 --> 00:46:39.800
A lot of his work is around the Kabbalah,
1338
00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:40.640
but he said,
1339
00:46:40.780 --> 00:46:43.560
if you can have gratitude for your current challenge,
1340
00:46:44.300 --> 00:46:45.540
and know that the creator
1341
00:46:46.260 --> 00:46:48.560
has somehow created this situation
1342
00:46:48.560 --> 00:46:50.820
in some way shape or form for you
1343
00:46:50.820 --> 00:46:52.700
in an advantageous way,
1344
00:46:53.320 --> 00:46:55.620
that by having gratitude for this experience
1345
00:46:55.620 --> 00:46:56.940
and the lesson that you're learning from this,
1346
00:46:57.140 --> 00:46:58.540
the knowledge that you're acquiring through this,
1347
00:46:58.660 --> 00:47:00.360
the things that you're gaining through this,
1348
00:47:01.020 --> 00:47:02.700
will make a phenomenal shift down the track
1349
00:47:02.700 --> 00:47:03.640
as a result of that.
1350
00:47:06.830 --> 00:47:07.990
Yeah, one of my mentors said to me once,
1351
00:47:08.150 --> 00:47:09.650
it's not the same words you've just said,
1352
00:47:10.230 --> 00:47:11.490
but when the challenge is there
1353
00:47:11.490 --> 00:47:12.750
and you're dreading it,
1354
00:47:12.950 --> 00:47:14.870
just, I'm looking forward for the lesson
1355
00:47:14.870 --> 00:47:15.830
I'm about to learn.
1356
00:47:16.850 --> 00:47:18.290
Let me look for this lesson.
1357
00:47:18.730 --> 00:47:19.010
Yeah, absolutely.
1358
00:47:19.050 --> 00:47:20.670
Unfortunately, sometimes the lesson is you,
1359
00:47:20.790 --> 00:47:21.610
but you know that.
1360
00:47:21.750 --> 00:47:22.850
That's right, totally.
1361
00:47:24.170 --> 00:47:25.750
Okay, so journey at the end of the day
1362
00:47:25.750 --> 00:47:27.050
is one of your key things.
1363
00:47:27.550 --> 00:47:29.590
You talked about the end of day routine.
1364
00:47:30.150 --> 00:47:31.430
Journey is part of it.
1365
00:47:31.610 --> 00:47:32.730
So yeah, actually just to clarify,
1366
00:47:33.190 --> 00:47:33.930
I'd started on gratitude.
1367
00:47:34.030 --> 00:47:35.190
The other one was visualization.
1368
00:47:35.890 --> 00:47:37.750
So gratitude is where we are and what we've got.
1369
00:47:38.090 --> 00:47:39.110
Visualization is where we're going
1370
00:47:39.110 --> 00:47:39.990
and what does that look like?
1371
00:47:40.010 --> 00:47:42.310
And I always say that the captain of the ship
1372
00:47:42.310 --> 00:47:44.630
cannot get to the port of destination
1373
00:47:44.630 --> 00:47:46.450
unless they know where that port is.
1374
00:47:46.910 --> 00:47:49.330
And the navigational route will come
1375
00:47:49.330 --> 00:47:51.050
only once you know what the destination is.
1376
00:47:51.270 --> 00:47:53.190
So a lot of us are just sort of floundering in life
1377
00:47:53.190 --> 00:47:54.290
and hoping things work out,
1378
00:47:54.290 --> 00:47:56.410
but if we get very clear about where we're going,
1379
00:47:56.410 --> 00:47:57.690
what we're doing, what it looks like,
1380
00:47:57.930 --> 00:48:00.830
and who are you when you get there,
1381
00:48:00.830 --> 00:48:02.950
what does it feel like for you to be actually
1382
00:48:02.950 --> 00:48:05.530
in that location from this current version of yourself
1383
00:48:05.530 --> 00:48:07.430
in the future version of yourself,
1384
00:48:08.190 --> 00:48:10.930
then what we find is that the manifestation of that
1385
00:48:10.930 --> 00:48:12.170
over time will play out.
1386
00:48:12.270 --> 00:48:14.090
And I've seen it happen so many times in my life
1387
00:48:14.090 --> 00:48:15.530
with things that I was visualizing,
1388
00:48:16.090 --> 00:48:18.170
intending, mapping out,
1389
00:48:18.390 --> 00:48:19.310
actually came to fruition.
1390
00:48:19.330 --> 00:48:20.110
It was quite phenomenal.
1391
00:48:20.410 --> 00:48:23.510
Do you visualize with respect to all of the exact details
1392
00:48:23.510 --> 00:48:26.090
relative to the essence of what I want to come up?
1393
00:48:26.670 --> 00:48:27.850
They might be the same thing,
1394
00:48:27.850 --> 00:48:28.630
but they might not be the same thing.
1395
00:48:28.650 --> 00:48:30.130
Yeah, I'll get you into the granule
1396
00:48:30.130 --> 00:48:31.210
of how detailed I get.
1397
00:48:31.250 --> 00:48:34.270
There was one situation where I'd never spoken on stage
1398
00:48:34.270 --> 00:48:36.690
in front of anyone as a broker,
1399
00:48:36.810 --> 00:48:38.150
but when I left being a broker
1400
00:48:38.150 --> 00:48:39.810
to become a meditation teacher,
1401
00:48:39.810 --> 00:48:41.090
I wanted to really impact the world
1402
00:48:41.090 --> 00:48:43.110
with my vision of inspiring a billion people
1403
00:48:43.110 --> 00:48:43.970
to meditate daily.
1404
00:48:44.030 --> 00:48:45.530
So I knew I had to learn how to speak
1405
00:48:45.530 --> 00:48:46.230
in front of people.
1406
00:48:48.970 --> 00:48:50.390
I visualized standing,
1407
00:48:50.390 --> 00:48:52.010
this was when we had the entertainment center,
1408
00:48:52.230 --> 00:48:53.950
which is now the ICC in Sydney.
1409
00:48:53.950 --> 00:48:56.190
The entertainment center used to hold 10,000 people.
1410
00:48:56.210 --> 00:48:57.710
It was the biggest auditorium in Australia.
1411
00:48:58.410 --> 00:48:59.930
I used to visualize walking on stage
1412
00:48:59.930 --> 00:49:00.710
at the entertainment center.
1413
00:49:00.730 --> 00:49:03.290
I visualized walking through the purple drapes,
1414
00:49:03.770 --> 00:49:04.810
bright lights in my eyes,
1415
00:49:04.990 --> 00:49:07.750
one microphone stand on a massive stage,
1416
00:49:08.130 --> 00:49:10.670
10,000 people in the auditorium listening,
1417
00:49:10.850 --> 00:49:12.830
being moved, inspired,
1418
00:49:12.890 --> 00:49:14.630
even laughing if I cracked a funny joke,
1419
00:49:15.050 --> 00:49:17.490
and really get into the tangible,
1420
00:49:17.790 --> 00:49:19.250
measurable vibrational resonance
1421
00:49:19.250 --> 00:49:21.230
of me being there in that situation.
1422
00:49:22.030 --> 00:49:23.390
Now fast forward many years,
1423
00:49:23.390 --> 00:49:25.710
I got invited only six months ago
1424
00:49:25.710 --> 00:49:28.250
to speak on stage at the ICC,
1425
00:49:28.390 --> 00:49:30.270
which is where the entertainment center used to be.
1426
00:49:30.330 --> 00:49:34.290
I opened up an event for Wanderlust with Jane Fonda,
1427
00:49:34.790 --> 00:49:36.270
and I had 5,000 people
1428
00:49:36.270 --> 00:49:37.650
had bought tickets to that event.
1429
00:49:38.090 --> 00:49:39.350
Now that was on the Sunday night.
1430
00:49:39.490 --> 00:49:40.130
Now interestingly,
1431
00:49:41.710 --> 00:49:44.170
there was the same event they ran in Melbourne
1432
00:49:44.170 --> 00:49:46.010
at the plenary for 5,000 people,
1433
00:49:46.050 --> 00:49:47.530
and I opened that one as well.
1434
00:49:48.230 --> 00:49:49.810
So there was a space of four days,
1435
00:49:49.890 --> 00:49:51.050
there was 10,000 people,
1436
00:49:51.050 --> 00:49:52.270
and one of the venues
1437
00:49:52.270 --> 00:49:54.090
was where the entertainment center used to be,
1438
00:49:54.090 --> 00:49:55.710
and I've seen so many of those situations
1439
00:49:55.710 --> 00:49:56.770
being on national TV,
1440
00:49:57.110 --> 00:49:58.350
doing a book signing in New York.
1441
00:49:58.530 --> 00:49:59.550
I visualized all of those,
1442
00:49:59.590 --> 00:50:00.610
and the book signing in New York,
1443
00:50:00.690 --> 00:50:02.650
I went to Google Street View.
1444
00:50:02.930 --> 00:50:05.390
I Googled a bookstore on Broadway, New York.
1445
00:50:05.690 --> 00:50:06.430
I only chose Broadway
1446
00:50:06.430 --> 00:50:07.410
because it was one of the only streets
1447
00:50:07.410 --> 00:50:08.110
I knew in New York.
1448
00:50:08.670 --> 00:50:09.930
It must be a bookstore in Broadway.
1449
00:50:10.030 --> 00:50:11.030
I want to have a book published.
1450
00:50:11.290 --> 00:50:12.290
I never even read a book.
1451
00:50:13.330 --> 00:50:16.370
I Googled bookstores, New York, Broadway.
1452
00:50:16.470 --> 00:50:18.230
There was one called Strand Bookstore,
1453
00:50:18.730 --> 00:50:20.610
and I went to Google Street View,
1454
00:50:20.610 --> 00:50:24.110
and I looked at the street vision of that bookstore,
1455
00:50:24.210 --> 00:50:26.310
and I visualized me being in that bookstore,
1456
00:50:26.790 --> 00:50:28.750
signing my book that I'd never written,
1457
00:50:29.590 --> 00:50:31.990
and people queuing up out the door
1458
00:50:31.990 --> 00:50:34.090
and down the street holding my book,
1459
00:50:34.430 --> 00:50:35.770
waiting for me to sign it.
1460
00:50:36.930 --> 00:50:39.270
Years forward, we did a screening of my film
1461
00:50:39.270 --> 00:50:40.790
across the US 20 cities.
1462
00:50:40.990 --> 00:50:42.830
We went from LA, worked all the way across
1463
00:50:42.830 --> 00:50:44.550
to get to New York and finish there,
1464
00:50:44.850 --> 00:50:47.330
and I was there in East Village in New York,
1465
00:50:47.890 --> 00:50:50.370
and at the end of each screening of our film,
1466
00:50:50.610 --> 00:50:52.770
we would have people buying our books
1467
00:50:52.770 --> 00:50:55.330
and wanting me to sign as the producer of the film
1468
00:50:55.330 --> 00:50:57.830
the copy of the book, which I co-wrote with Jackie,
1469
00:50:58.430 --> 00:50:59.490
and there I was.
1470
00:50:59.490 --> 00:51:01.630
I looked down the line, sitting at the desk,
1471
00:51:01.650 --> 00:51:02.650
signing copies of the book.
1472
00:51:02.770 --> 00:51:04.510
I'm in New York signing,
1473
00:51:04.590 --> 00:51:06.150
and there was 40 people in the queue,
1474
00:51:06.530 --> 00:51:08.130
and look, it wasn't Strand Bookstore,
1475
00:51:08.190 --> 00:51:11.410
it wasn't Broadway, but it was pretty darn close.
1476
00:51:11.490 --> 00:51:13.130
So it's amazing how-
1477
00:51:13.130 --> 00:51:14.350
How do you think that works,
1478
00:51:14.430 --> 00:51:16.030
like from a metaphysics perspective,
1479
00:51:16.050 --> 00:51:18.770
or I know this might be a whole other tangent.
1480
00:51:18.790 --> 00:51:20.030
If anyone can answer that question,
1481
00:51:20.030 --> 00:51:20.710
please let me know.
1482
00:51:21.150 --> 00:51:21.870
But Joda Spencer's doing a-
1483
00:51:21.870 --> 00:51:23.830
But there will be some people who listen to you going,
1484
00:51:24.190 --> 00:51:26.030
I just don't believe that and that kind of crap.
1485
00:51:26.530 --> 00:51:28.270
And Joda Spencer, as you call it,
1486
00:51:28.550 --> 00:51:29.990
and Anthony Robbins, a whole lot of people go,
1487
00:51:30.270 --> 00:51:31.150
now this is how you do life.
1488
00:51:31.190 --> 00:51:31.630
There's a science.
1489
00:51:31.790 --> 00:51:33.090
And there's the whole thing, the secret,
1490
00:51:33.350 --> 00:51:34.810
which goes, Rhonda, what's her name,
1491
00:51:34.930 --> 00:51:36.990
who did the secret, goes, yeah, this is how you do it.
1492
00:51:36.990 --> 00:51:39.410
And there's massive arguments about
1493
00:51:39.410 --> 00:51:40.670
that's just Robbins versus actually,
1494
00:51:40.730 --> 00:51:41.550
this is really, really works.
1495
00:51:42.010 --> 00:51:42.930
What's your perspective?
1496
00:51:44.430 --> 00:51:45.710
I think as humans,
1497
00:51:46.030 --> 00:51:49.410
what we currently know is only what we've learned.
1498
00:51:50.030 --> 00:51:53.130
And what we don't know is what we will learn.
1499
00:51:53.790 --> 00:51:55.990
And that is the unknown at this point.
1500
00:51:56.250 --> 00:51:59.370
So science can only validate what we've currently learned.
1501
00:52:00.070 --> 00:52:03.470
Okay, so we can scientifically say how Google Maps works.
1502
00:52:04.210 --> 00:52:06.630
Okay, now 50 years ago,
1503
00:52:06.650 --> 00:52:09.150
they couldn't scientifically say
1504
00:52:09.150 --> 00:52:11.950
how something like Google Maps could work.
1505
00:52:12.510 --> 00:52:15.090
No one 50 years ago, let's say 100 years ago,
1506
00:52:15.410 --> 00:52:17.030
could scientifically have said
1507
00:52:17.030 --> 00:52:19.090
how the internet would work, right?
1508
00:52:19.090 --> 00:52:22.430
That I could be in Antarctica with Starlink
1509
00:52:22.430 --> 00:52:24.210
and start watching the World Cup soccer.
1510
00:52:24.870 --> 00:52:26.210
Like no one could have possibly
1511
00:52:26.210 --> 00:52:27.970
understood the science behind that.
1512
00:52:28.310 --> 00:52:29.570
But that didn't mean it wasn't possible.
1513
00:52:30.250 --> 00:52:32.210
So where we're at now is only what we know.
1514
00:52:32.270 --> 00:52:34.390
And what we will know is what's in the future.
1515
00:52:34.670 --> 00:52:36.050
And I think that's something that
1516
00:52:36.050 --> 00:52:37.270
we're starting to grasp.
1517
00:52:37.530 --> 00:52:40.270
There's something in the subtler field of life
1518
00:52:40.930 --> 00:52:43.130
beyond the denseness, which is what AI is
1519
00:52:43.130 --> 00:52:45.990
and what crypto is and all the other things.
1520
00:52:46.430 --> 00:52:47.590
There's a subtler field,
1521
00:52:47.590 --> 00:52:49.390
the internet around this room
1522
00:52:49.390 --> 00:52:51.050
is all the information in the internet.
1523
00:52:51.390 --> 00:52:53.270
We can't see it, we can't touch it.
1524
00:52:53.490 --> 00:52:55.130
If I open up my phone as a receptor,
1525
00:52:55.190 --> 00:52:56.750
it can tune into it and pick it up
1526
00:52:56.750 --> 00:52:57.990
because the information's here.
1527
00:52:58.770 --> 00:53:00.810
So we know that there's a subtle field.
1528
00:53:00.910 --> 00:53:02.130
We know that there's an intelligence.
1529
00:53:02.310 --> 00:53:04.070
We know that this stuff is here,
1530
00:53:04.070 --> 00:53:05.310
but we're just starting to learn
1531
00:53:05.310 --> 00:53:06.230
how to play with it.
1532
00:53:06.230 --> 00:53:08.610
And the law of attraction is a phenomenon.
1533
00:53:08.670 --> 00:53:10.710
I don't understand the full science behind it.
1534
00:53:10.730 --> 00:53:11.810
I think someone like Joe Dispenza
1535
00:53:11.810 --> 00:53:13.390
might be able to explain a little bit better than me,
1536
00:53:13.390 --> 00:53:15.270
but we're definitely starting to notice
1537
00:53:15.270 --> 00:53:16.970
that our vibrational resonance
1538
00:53:17.730 --> 00:53:21.150
is like a wifi motor that sends signals out into the field
1539
00:53:21.150 --> 00:53:24.190
that then tunes in somehow to reciprocate
1540
00:53:24.190 --> 00:53:27.290
and send things in congruency
1541
00:53:27.290 --> 00:53:29.310
in alignment with that vibrational resonance.
1542
00:53:29.450 --> 00:53:30.850
I'm not sure exactly how that works, though.
1543
00:53:31.270 --> 00:53:32.510
But you experience this that it does.
1544
00:53:33.050 --> 00:53:35.150
I experience it every day, yeah, it's phenomenal.
1545
00:53:36.010 --> 00:53:36.990
It's incredible.
1546
00:53:37.730 --> 00:53:41.550
And look, even what we're starting to see in the world,
1547
00:53:41.870 --> 00:53:43.050
phenomenons are quite remarkable.
1548
00:53:43.930 --> 00:53:45.310
They're teaching this in Sydney,
1549
00:53:45.410 --> 00:53:49.130
but it's big in India at these what's called guru calls.
1550
00:53:49.630 --> 00:53:51.570
And they're teaching children at school
1551
00:53:51.570 --> 00:53:54.690
how to read with their eyes completely blindfolded.
1552
00:53:55.230 --> 00:53:57.030
I've seen it personally myself.
1553
00:53:57.970 --> 00:53:59.770
No friends of mine that can do it.
1554
00:53:59.830 --> 00:54:02.430
I actually filmed someone doing it clearly
1555
00:54:03.250 --> 00:54:05.170
with the first version of our film.
1556
00:54:05.790 --> 00:54:07.070
Not only are they learning how to read
1557
00:54:07.070 --> 00:54:08.670
completely blindfolded,
1558
00:54:08.930 --> 00:54:10.250
that's called conscious reading.
1559
00:54:11.010 --> 00:54:12.670
They're able to move objects now.
1560
00:54:12.670 --> 00:54:15.450
They're able to do all sorts of phenomenal things.
1561
00:54:16.070 --> 00:54:18.410
So it's early days as to what the human can do.
1562
00:54:18.550 --> 00:54:21.610
And I think the next 50 to 100 years
1563
00:54:22.350 --> 00:54:23.770
is gonna be quite remarkable,
1564
00:54:23.850 --> 00:54:24.270
what we can do with our minds.
1565
00:54:24.270 --> 00:54:26.170
So for the cynical people amongst us,
1566
00:54:26.490 --> 00:54:29.790
this is Wolverine and friends be normal.
1567
00:54:30.050 --> 00:54:30.710
That's right.
1568
00:54:31.150 --> 00:54:33.370
All of those innate skills are actually normal.
1569
00:54:33.490 --> 00:54:34.850
Yeah, it could be bewildering for sure,
1570
00:54:34.990 --> 00:54:36.710
and I understand skepticism.
1571
00:54:38.250 --> 00:54:41.890
But yeah, I think what we're gonna be able
1572
00:54:41.890 --> 00:54:44.270
to discover as humans is quite amazing what's ahead.
1573
00:54:47.640 --> 00:54:48.780
I said we'd come back full circle.
1574
00:54:49.120 --> 00:54:50.880
So let's bring back full circle.
1575
00:54:52.080 --> 00:54:53.960
One of the reasons why I wanted to bring you
1576
00:54:53.960 --> 00:54:56.780
onto the show was your story is one
1577
00:54:56.780 --> 00:54:58.380
that I think many people would love to hear.
1578
00:54:58.980 --> 00:55:01.560
And it's a signpost for a lot of us who are going,
1579
00:55:01.720 --> 00:55:03.020
I'm not happy where I am.
1580
00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:04.540
I don't know where to go.
1581
00:55:04.880 --> 00:55:06.780
And you've done that really, really well.
1582
00:55:06.840 --> 00:55:08.260
And you're leading a very, very different life
1583
00:55:08.260 --> 00:55:09.240
to the one you led.
1584
00:55:11.080 --> 00:55:13.100
And you seem quite happy and content
1585
00:55:13.100 --> 00:55:15.060
in this new version, which is really cool.
1586
00:55:15.980 --> 00:55:16.780
I still have struggles.
1587
00:55:17.660 --> 00:55:18.460
You're human, right?
1588
00:55:18.680 --> 00:55:21.620
So I've said you're not a robot, but you find yourself.
1589
00:55:21.820 --> 00:55:25.060
You know what good looks like for you, and you do that.
1590
00:55:25.240 --> 00:55:26.740
And you live in the life of the general,
1591
00:55:26.840 --> 00:55:27.920
not the life of the soldier.
1592
00:55:28.560 --> 00:55:30.820
But for the listener who's going, where do I start?
1593
00:55:32.460 --> 00:55:34.080
I don't think I wanna go full Zen,
1594
00:55:34.120 --> 00:55:35.260
and I don't think I wanna write a book
1595
00:55:35.260 --> 00:55:36.520
and sell it on Broadway.
1596
00:55:36.980 --> 00:55:37.800
Where do I start?
1597
00:55:38.300 --> 00:55:39.600
Yeah, I think there's two things.
1598
00:55:39.680 --> 00:55:41.920
One is where do I start as far as claiming back
1599
00:55:41.920 --> 00:55:44.180
my life and finding health and happiness
1600
00:55:44.180 --> 00:55:45.400
within inside myself?
1601
00:55:45.920 --> 00:55:47.540
And then the other one is,
1602
00:55:47.960 --> 00:55:49.520
where do I start as if I'm gonna become
1603
00:55:49.520 --> 00:55:50.320
a leader in the world?
1604
00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:51.720
So, do we start with the first one?
1605
00:55:51.720 --> 00:55:52.360
Let's start with the first one.
1606
00:55:53.120 --> 00:55:55.440
I think it's just micro steps.
1607
00:55:55.900 --> 00:55:59.080
There was a great leader of the English cycling team,
1608
00:55:59.340 --> 00:56:01.660
Sir David Braithewa, I think his name is.
1609
00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:02.600
One percenters.
1610
00:56:02.920 --> 00:56:06.600
Yeah, and you know the micro habits,
1611
00:56:07.320 --> 00:56:08.540
micro changes in our life.
1612
00:56:08.560 --> 00:56:11.320
We don't wanna have massive traumatic upheavals
1613
00:56:11.320 --> 00:56:13.720
in our life, it's just about making really small changes.
1614
00:56:14.260 --> 00:56:15.820
Like, turn your phone off at 9.30 at night
1615
00:56:16.500 --> 00:56:18.960
and prepare for bed for the next 30 minutes
1616
00:56:18.960 --> 00:56:20.640
and turn your light out at 10 o'clock.
1617
00:56:21.080 --> 00:56:23.400
In the morning, drink half a liter of water
1618
00:56:23.400 --> 00:56:24.940
and maybe do some stretching.
1619
00:56:25.980 --> 00:56:27.460
If it's something you wanna get into,
1620
00:56:27.500 --> 00:56:28.780
meditation, find a teacher,
1621
00:56:28.840 --> 00:56:30.500
we can give you a little simple meditation
1622
00:56:30.500 --> 00:56:33.380
if people wanna have a little exercise now.
1623
00:56:34.320 --> 00:56:35.400
It's very, very simple.
1624
00:56:35.460 --> 00:56:36.980
You simply just close your eyes
1625
00:56:36.980 --> 00:56:39.400
and just sitting in a chair with your eyes closed,
1626
00:56:39.400 --> 00:56:41.000
you're gonna focus on the breath
1627
00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:42.640
moving in and out of your nostrils.
1628
00:56:44.040 --> 00:56:46.140
And as you have this natural breath,
1629
00:56:46.260 --> 00:56:47.020
not a forced breath,
1630
00:56:47.120 --> 00:56:48.340
it's just your body's natural breath,
1631
00:56:48.440 --> 00:56:50.580
nothing forced, nothing controlled.
1632
00:56:51.120 --> 00:56:52.220
You just bring your awareness
1633
00:56:52.220 --> 00:56:55.180
to the cool skin around the rim of the nostril.
1634
00:56:56.720 --> 00:56:57.860
And this is where the air,
1635
00:56:57.860 --> 00:56:59.640
as it moves in and out of your nostrils,
1636
00:57:00.620 --> 00:57:02.100
it's gonna brush moisture.
1637
00:57:02.820 --> 00:57:05.220
There's a little thin film of moisture
1638
00:57:05.700 --> 00:57:07.960
inside the nostril, on the skin.
1639
00:57:08.560 --> 00:57:10.740
And as the air brushes the moisture on the skin,
1640
00:57:10.920 --> 00:57:12.700
it cools the skin ever so slightly.
1641
00:57:14.260 --> 00:57:16.080
And we're just gonna keep our attention
1642
00:57:16.080 --> 00:57:18.780
on that cool skin inside the nostril.
1643
00:57:20.440 --> 00:57:22.400
And whenever the mind drifts away, as it will do,
1644
00:57:22.460 --> 00:57:24.680
we're just gonna keep coming back to that center piece.
1645
00:57:25.880 --> 00:57:29.720
And by just simply focusing on that one point,
1646
00:57:30.160 --> 00:57:32.180
letting go of the need to think of anything else,
1647
00:57:32.940 --> 00:57:35.580
not craving dopamine from anything else,
1648
00:57:36.100 --> 00:57:37.640
just coming back to here,
1649
00:57:38.340 --> 00:57:40.760
we start regulating our nervous system,
1650
00:57:41.120 --> 00:57:43.900
quieting the body, quieting the mind,
1651
00:57:44.560 --> 00:57:47.600
reducing fluctuations, reducing stimulation.
1652
00:57:48.280 --> 00:57:50.440
And we start to very simply, very quickly,
1653
00:57:50.520 --> 00:57:51.560
within five minutes,
1654
00:57:52.120 --> 00:57:55.280
put the body into the parasympathetic nervous system,
1655
00:57:56.020 --> 00:57:58.480
and the body now starts to rest and repair,
1656
00:57:58.840 --> 00:58:01.460
and all your cortisol and adrenaline starts to drop down
1657
00:58:01.460 --> 00:58:03.320
and your body starts to regulate itself.
1658
00:58:04.300 --> 00:58:06.700
And that alone you could do for five or 10 minutes
1659
00:58:07.320 --> 00:58:11.500
is plenty if you do rebalance yourself during the day.
1660
00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:14.440
Thank you for doing that.
1661
00:58:14.440 --> 00:58:15.740
It's the first time in this show we've done that.
1662
00:58:15.980 --> 00:58:16.660
Yeah, nice.
1663
00:58:17.080 --> 00:58:17.960
Yeah, beautiful.
1664
00:58:19.280 --> 00:58:23.620
I find it extraordinary simple, sorry, profound
1665
00:58:23.620 --> 00:58:27.040
because it's so simple that just focusing on
1666
00:58:27.040 --> 00:58:29.360
breath in and skinning your nose, that's enough.
1667
00:58:29.960 --> 00:58:31.800
Yeah, you're just trying to find a center point
1668
00:58:31.800 --> 00:58:33.540
because what we wanna do is we wanna stop the mind
1669
00:58:33.540 --> 00:58:35.280
from this, this oscillation.
1670
00:58:35.760 --> 00:58:39.260
And this oscillation is happening 50, 60,000 times a day
1671
00:58:39.260 --> 00:58:40.960
and it's exhausting for the nervous system,
1672
00:58:41.460 --> 00:58:43.040
it's exhausting for the biochemistry in the body,
1673
00:58:43.180 --> 00:58:45.100
it's exhausting for the brain, exhausting for the body.
1674
00:58:45.340 --> 00:58:47.260
That's why we're ridiculously exhausted
1675
00:58:47.260 --> 00:58:49.520
because of the amount of mental activity.
1676
00:58:50.560 --> 00:58:52.840
So we use a mantra invading meditation, as you know,
1677
00:58:52.880 --> 00:58:54.140
and the mantra is the same process,
1678
00:58:54.180 --> 00:58:55.900
it's just a lot easier repeating the mantra
1679
00:58:55.900 --> 00:58:58.200
because the mind finds that quite enticing.
1680
00:58:58.600 --> 00:59:01.080
But that one there is more of a Buddhist practice,
1681
00:59:01.080 --> 00:59:03.680
more of a concentration focused meditation.
1682
00:59:04.020 --> 00:59:05.760
Again, that's a simple practice that costs you nothing,
1683
00:59:05.880 --> 00:59:07.220
you can just do that any time.
1684
00:59:08.120 --> 00:59:10.320
You have a goal of a billion people to do this.
1685
00:59:11.500 --> 00:59:12.260
That's a big number.
1686
00:59:13.360 --> 00:59:15.140
What's, well, first of all, explain to listeners
1687
00:59:15.140 --> 00:59:18.500
what is the goal and what's driving that for you?
1688
00:59:18.900 --> 00:59:20.380
Yeah, so I started the Stillness Project
1689
00:59:20.380 --> 00:59:21.700
and the Stillness Project had a vision
1690
00:59:21.700 --> 00:59:24.140
to inspire one billion people to meditate daily.
1691
00:59:24.240 --> 00:59:26.520
And one thing I knew definitively
1692
00:59:26.520 --> 00:59:28.040
through my own personal experience,
1693
00:59:28.100 --> 00:59:30.420
but also the hundreds and thousands of people
1694
00:59:30.420 --> 00:59:35.800
that I've taught this to, is that we see definitively
1695
00:59:36.220 --> 00:59:38.660
people don't become perfect, but they become better.
1696
00:59:39.460 --> 00:59:40.460
They become better.
1697
00:59:40.920 --> 00:59:41.840
And they become better.
1698
00:59:42.140 --> 00:59:43.480
This morning I was walking back from the gym
1699
00:59:43.480 --> 00:59:45.640
and I thought one guy was going one direction,
1700
00:59:45.640 --> 00:59:48.040
but he pivoted and I sort of walked in front of him
1701
00:59:48.040 --> 00:59:49.240
and he turned to me and says,
1702
00:59:50.020 --> 00:59:50.700
I won't even swear,
1703
00:59:50.780 --> 00:59:52.820
but he said some very mean, nasty things,
1704
00:59:52.960 --> 00:59:54.480
don't effing walk in front of me like that again,
1705
00:59:54.660 --> 00:59:56.800
you eff, you see you, something in T.
1706
00:59:56.800 --> 01:00:02.180
And I was like, wow, he's, he's so dysregulated
1707
01:00:02.180 --> 01:00:04.460
that he's so triggered and upset
1708
01:00:04.460 --> 01:00:06.680
that someone would simply, unfortunately,
1709
01:00:07.160 --> 01:00:09.440
walk in front of him instead of around him.
1710
01:00:09.440 --> 01:00:13.220
And that then triggers a response from him
1711
01:00:13.800 --> 01:00:18.700
to fire some forceful and unpleasant energy
1712
01:00:18.700 --> 01:00:21.360
using words in a direction of another person.
1713
01:00:21.360 --> 01:00:23.140
And we do this with bombs in other countries,
1714
01:00:23.220 --> 01:00:24.680
but this one was using words.
1715
01:00:25.240 --> 01:00:27.580
And luckily for me, I just felt compassion for him
1716
01:00:27.580 --> 01:00:29.140
because I thought, wow, he's had a really tough day
1717
01:00:29.140 --> 01:00:30.320
and most likely for the rest of his day
1718
01:00:30.320 --> 01:00:31.080
it could be pretty brutal.
1719
01:00:32.040 --> 01:00:34.240
No one feels good when you respond with things that way.
1720
01:00:35.500 --> 01:00:37.340
But if he was a meditator,
1721
01:00:37.440 --> 01:00:39.440
he would have had compassion and kindness
1722
01:00:39.440 --> 01:00:40.980
and been okay with it.
1723
01:00:40.980 --> 01:00:43.940
And so we just become better and we become calmer.
1724
01:00:44.020 --> 01:00:46.580
We become more compassionate and more empathetic.
1725
01:00:46.760 --> 01:00:47.680
Again, not perfect.
1726
01:00:47.760 --> 01:00:49.700
I still have a lot of stuff to work on
1727
01:00:49.700 --> 01:00:51.920
and that doesn't really end.
1728
01:00:51.920 --> 01:00:54.560
It's just that you just have greater clarity,
1729
01:00:55.020 --> 01:00:58.960
greater ability to be nonreactive and proactive,
1730
01:00:59.560 --> 01:01:00.780
sovereign in your state.
1731
01:01:01.280 --> 01:01:02.900
There's a beautiful word called to tiksha.
1732
01:01:03.060 --> 01:01:04.540
To tiksha means to be unruffled
1733
01:01:04.540 --> 01:01:05.920
by the circumstances of life.
1734
01:01:05.940 --> 01:01:07.300
So that guy was very ruffled.
1735
01:01:07.900 --> 01:01:09.560
Whereas in to tiksha, I'm unruffled.
1736
01:01:09.940 --> 01:01:11.980
I wasn't disturbed in any way, shape or form
1737
01:01:11.980 --> 01:01:13.180
by his response.
1738
01:01:13.660 --> 01:01:17.140
And so we wanna claim to tiksha
1739
01:01:17.140 --> 01:01:18.840
and particularly as leaders of the world,
1740
01:01:18.980 --> 01:01:19.820
at the moment, unfortunately,
1741
01:01:19.880 --> 01:01:21.040
we don't have any politicians
1742
01:01:21.040 --> 01:01:22.220
in the world that meditate.
1743
01:01:22.620 --> 01:01:24.260
Maybe the king of Bhutan.
1744
01:01:24.540 --> 01:01:26.680
But, and I actually ran a retreat the other day
1745
01:01:26.680 --> 01:01:28.660
with the future prime minister of Bhutan
1746
01:01:28.660 --> 01:01:30.540
and he was meditating and he was a beautiful man.
1747
01:01:31.880 --> 01:01:34.420
And there's some really phenomenal things happening
1748
01:01:34.420 --> 01:01:36.680
in a couple of countries, but not many countries.
1749
01:01:36.840 --> 01:01:39.040
We still got leaders that are acting emotionally.
1750
01:01:39.740 --> 01:01:41.580
That's not a healthy way for leaders to be acting.
1751
01:01:44.960 --> 01:01:48.160
A friend of mine, you may well know them,
1752
01:01:48.340 --> 01:01:48.940
give you a background.
1753
01:01:48.940 --> 01:01:53.660
And they ran a program with some execs and CEOs.
1754
01:01:54.520 --> 01:01:55.760
And part of it was learning to meditate.
1755
01:01:56.260 --> 01:01:58.060
And then every part of the program
1756
01:01:58.060 --> 01:01:59.400
over a year long piece,
1757
01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:01.160
the meditation was built into it.
1758
01:02:01.220 --> 01:02:02.460
And it might have been as simple as the one
1759
01:02:02.460 --> 01:02:03.500
you just did with me,
1760
01:02:03.580 --> 01:02:04.680
or might have been a longer one.
1761
01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:08.680
But the global, the group CEO, the organization,
1762
01:02:08.900 --> 01:02:09.780
at the end of the program,
1763
01:02:10.040 --> 01:02:10.640
when they were asked,
1764
01:02:10.840 --> 01:02:12.400
so what did you get from this year long thing?
1765
01:02:13.200 --> 01:02:15.440
His answer was two seconds.
1766
01:02:16.800 --> 01:02:17.400
So what do you mean?
1767
01:02:17.400 --> 01:02:19.280
He said, I got two seconds.
1768
01:02:19.500 --> 01:02:24.560
The pause from my reaction, two second pause to my,
1769
01:02:24.560 --> 01:02:26.420
whatever my, sorry, from my trigger,
1770
01:02:26.740 --> 01:02:28.140
two second pause to my reaction.
1771
01:02:29.120 --> 01:02:30.740
And my friends initially were really disappointed.
1772
01:02:30.840 --> 01:02:31.820
They go, oh, we've done all this,
1773
01:02:31.920 --> 01:02:32.740
we did this, we did this.
1774
01:02:32.780 --> 01:02:34.300
He goes, no, no, no, you missed the whole point.
1775
01:02:34.600 --> 01:02:37.160
I've learned the value of two seconds.
1776
01:02:37.560 --> 01:02:40.800
I've learned the value of just managing myself
1777
01:02:40.800 --> 01:02:42.340
before I choose my reaction.
1778
01:02:42.380 --> 01:02:45.260
He said, you have no idea how invaluable that has been.
1779
01:02:45.260 --> 01:02:46.120
I love the name.
1780
01:02:46.120 --> 01:02:47.420
That's a good name for a book, I think.
1781
01:02:47.700 --> 01:02:48.080
Two seconds.
1782
01:02:48.080 --> 01:02:49.360
Get you two seconds, yeah.
1783
01:02:49.720 --> 01:02:50.260
That's cool.
1784
01:02:52.080 --> 01:02:53.320
So for our listeners,
1785
01:02:53.860 --> 01:02:55.620
you've already told us start simply,
1786
01:02:55.720 --> 01:02:57.660
just start with micro, get started.
1787
01:02:57.820 --> 01:03:00.200
What's your hope for the folks listening to this?
1788
01:03:01.660 --> 01:03:05.720
The hope is that people live more healthily.
1789
01:03:06.040 --> 01:03:08.400
They know there are simple strategies
1790
01:03:08.400 --> 01:03:10.360
and steps to be healthy.
1791
01:03:10.660 --> 01:03:12.340
And you're not gonna see them on a billboard.
1792
01:03:12.360 --> 01:03:13.840
You're gonna see Coca-Cola on a billboard.
1793
01:03:13.840 --> 01:03:15.480
You're gonna see McDonald's on a billboard.
1794
01:03:15.700 --> 01:03:17.240
You're gonna see Krispy Kremes on a billboard.
1795
01:03:17.560 --> 01:03:18.740
You're not gonna see the steps
1796
01:03:18.740 --> 01:03:20.600
for you to not be part of the system
1797
01:03:20.600 --> 01:03:22.960
and claim sovereignty in your health.
1798
01:03:23.580 --> 01:03:25.280
It's not that complex to be healthy.
1799
01:03:25.560 --> 01:03:28.920
The second thing is to be emotionally and mentally stable
1800
01:03:29.660 --> 01:03:32.280
for people to find that,
1801
01:03:32.280 --> 01:03:33.820
regardless of the challenges of life,
1802
01:03:33.820 --> 01:03:36.080
because they will come thick and fast every time,
1803
01:03:36.360 --> 01:03:38.100
every day, there will always be challenges.
1804
01:03:38.560 --> 01:03:40.740
But how do I emotionally and mentally
1805
01:03:40.740 --> 01:03:43.620
find my way through that complexity of life
1806
01:03:43.620 --> 01:03:46.500
in a way that isn't emotionally upheaval and reactive?
1807
01:03:47.620 --> 01:03:49.120
Because that's gonna lead to the health as well.
1808
01:03:49.640 --> 01:03:51.320
And so those are the two main things.
1809
01:03:51.320 --> 01:03:53.400
How do I be physically, mentally, emotionally
1810
01:03:53.400 --> 01:03:56.000
more stable, more sovereign,
1811
01:03:57.180 --> 01:04:00.480
reclaimed back from the influences of the world around me?
1812
01:04:01.160 --> 01:04:05.670
And I think fourthly, on top of those three is
1813
01:04:07.420 --> 01:04:08.720
getting a bit woo-woo again
1814
01:04:08.720 --> 01:04:10.680
just as a little bit of a warning here,
1815
01:04:11.680 --> 01:04:15.540
that we have also another layer of reality,
1816
01:04:15.640 --> 01:04:16.860
another layer of existence,
1817
01:04:17.300 --> 01:04:19.140
physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
1818
01:04:19.560 --> 01:04:21.900
We have to start realizing that there is something
1819
01:04:21.900 --> 01:04:24.240
beyond our physical, mental, and emotional state
1820
01:04:24.240 --> 01:04:26.420
that we have accessible to us.
1821
01:04:26.780 --> 01:04:28.800
And you can call it being, or presence,
1822
01:04:29.120 --> 01:04:30.800
or in Sanskrit I like to call it
1823
01:04:30.800 --> 01:04:32.720
sakshi kutashtha, the sun, a witness,
1824
01:04:33.100 --> 01:04:34.340
which is consciousness itself.
1825
01:04:34.980 --> 01:04:37.440
So I have thoughts, I have feelings, I have a physicality,
1826
01:04:37.440 --> 01:04:38.720
but there's consciousness itself,
1827
01:04:39.420 --> 01:04:40.600
which as Einstein would call it,
1828
01:04:40.600 --> 01:04:42.060
a unified field of intelligence.
1829
01:04:42.560 --> 01:04:45.240
And we need to know how to access that field
1830
01:04:45.240 --> 01:04:48.380
and realize that we're not just
1831
01:04:48.380 --> 01:04:50.340
these three layers of denseness
1832
01:04:50.340 --> 01:04:51.500
with something more than that.
1833
01:04:51.880 --> 01:04:52.900
I think we need to bring you back
1834
01:04:52.900 --> 01:04:54.340
so we can talk about that topic
1835
01:04:54.340 --> 01:04:57.080
and in the land of AI, what does all that mean?
1836
01:04:58.160 --> 01:04:59.460
And then GI and AGI and all that,
1837
01:04:59.580 --> 01:05:01.440
because I think that's a phenomenally interesting topic.
1838
01:05:02.680 --> 01:05:04.380
I could talk to you for hours about many, many things
1839
01:05:04.380 --> 01:05:06.160
and we don't have hours for this episode.
1840
01:05:06.160 --> 01:05:08.200
Is there anything I haven't asked you
1841
01:05:08.200 --> 01:05:09.420
that you think is really relevant
1842
01:05:09.420 --> 01:05:11.000
or important for this conversation?
1843
01:05:13.270 --> 01:05:15.290
I think knowing that our audience,
1844
01:05:16.190 --> 01:05:17.790
I imagine it predominantly men,
1845
01:05:19.130 --> 01:05:20.710
and in a particular age bracket
1846
01:05:20.710 --> 01:05:22.670
where we're getting to that,
1847
01:05:23.190 --> 01:05:24.730
what's next, what am I here for,
1848
01:05:24.730 --> 01:05:25.570
what's this all about?
1849
01:05:26.030 --> 01:05:27.690
And I see that life has three acts.
1850
01:05:28.070 --> 01:05:30.590
Act one is not to 30 these days,
1851
01:05:30.650 --> 01:05:31.610
it used to be not to 20,
1852
01:05:31.650 --> 01:05:33.290
but we push that act out to 30.
1853
01:05:33.350 --> 01:05:36.910
And act one is a very narcissistic, egocentric time,
1854
01:05:36.910 --> 01:05:38.530
which is really just all about you,
1855
01:05:38.610 --> 01:05:40.870
from the dummy, the boob, the toy, the rattle,
1856
01:05:41.250 --> 01:05:42.410
all the way through your 30s,
1857
01:05:42.630 --> 01:05:43.850
what can I get for me?
1858
01:05:44.390 --> 01:05:46.610
The second act is a tough one, predominantly for men,
1859
01:05:46.910 --> 01:05:48.710
because, and I shouldn't say that,
1860
01:05:48.730 --> 01:05:50.190
because it's tough for women as well.
1861
01:05:50.350 --> 01:05:52.170
Actually, it's equally tough for men and women.
1862
01:05:52.650 --> 01:05:54.450
Just want to make sure I correct that.
1863
01:05:56.090 --> 01:05:59.370
The second act is all about contribution, responsibility,
1864
01:06:00.570 --> 01:06:03.870
career, family, mortgages, debt, you know,
1865
01:06:04.470 --> 01:06:05.330
achieving, striving.
1866
01:06:05.430 --> 01:06:08.190
It's burdened with obligation to others, you know,
1867
01:06:08.810 --> 01:06:11.150
and usually it involves a lot of people,
1868
01:06:11.530 --> 01:06:14.570
but particularly it's why men six to one
1869
01:06:14.570 --> 01:06:17.450
have greater levels of suicide than women,
1870
01:06:17.830 --> 01:06:20.270
because they feel this immense sense of responsibility
1871
01:06:20.270 --> 01:06:21.170
and they're just trying to escape
1872
01:06:21.170 --> 01:06:22.050
from that responsibility.
1873
01:06:22.130 --> 01:06:24.350
It's a tough act for the second act.
1874
01:06:25.210 --> 01:06:26.910
But the third act, a lot of that stuff is passed out.
1875
01:06:26.990 --> 01:06:28.050
The kids are moving out of home,
1876
01:06:28.370 --> 01:06:29.710
it usually starts around 50,
1877
01:06:29.830 --> 01:06:30.990
it's pushing a little bit later than that,
1878
01:06:30.990 --> 01:06:32.070
because we're having children later,
1879
01:06:32.070 --> 01:06:35.350
my kids are still at home and I'm 58, so they're 24.
1880
01:06:35.970 --> 01:06:39.730
We had them a bit later than most people in the old days
1881
01:06:39.730 --> 01:06:41.170
were having them in their 20s,
1882
01:06:41.170 --> 01:06:42.890
and also, they're staying at home longer.
1883
01:06:44.550 --> 01:06:47.830
But that third act is when you really start thinking
1884
01:06:47.830 --> 01:06:51.090
about, wow, I'm like, I'm looking at retirement,
1885
01:06:51.270 --> 01:06:52.450
what am I gonna do with my days,
1886
01:06:52.530 --> 01:06:53.850
what is my point of life?
1887
01:06:54.150 --> 01:06:55.630
And we can get very lost.
1888
01:06:56.010 --> 01:06:57.670
We can get very disenchanted,
1889
01:06:57.790 --> 01:07:00.190
we can get very depressed,
1890
01:07:00.190 --> 01:07:02.450
a lot of guys get very depressed at this point.
1891
01:07:03.070 --> 01:07:05.150
And what's really important, I believe,
1892
01:07:05.930 --> 01:07:07.470
particularly for the masculine,
1893
01:07:07.610 --> 01:07:09.350
because women can have masculine energy as well,
1894
01:07:09.410 --> 01:07:12.650
but for the masculine, it needs to be goal-oriented.
1895
01:07:13.370 --> 01:07:15.330
It needs to know what it's here for,
1896
01:07:15.330 --> 01:07:17.350
what it's doing, and you need to wake up with purpose,
1897
01:07:17.610 --> 01:07:18.730
you need to wake up with a mission,
1898
01:07:18.850 --> 01:07:20.810
you need to wake up with something bigger than you
1899
01:07:21.230 --> 01:07:23.670
that is going to be your why.
1900
01:07:24.330 --> 01:07:25.970
Simon Sinek's great talk, what is your why?
1901
01:07:26.050 --> 01:07:27.450
Why are you getting out of bed each day?
1902
01:07:27.450 --> 01:07:31.870
And if it's saving lost dogs on the street
1903
01:07:31.870 --> 01:07:34.330
or working in an orphanage, have a why,
1904
01:07:34.470 --> 01:07:36.250
and that's what's really important for the third act.
1905
01:07:37.930 --> 01:07:39.150
You are in the third act,
1906
01:07:39.730 --> 01:07:41.490
and I'll be at the early stage of the third act.
1907
01:07:41.510 --> 01:07:41.990
That's right.
1908
01:07:42.250 --> 01:07:44.070
What is the, if you could imagine
1909
01:07:44.070 --> 01:07:46.490
the 75-year-old version of you
1910
01:07:46.490 --> 01:07:50.750
reaching back to talk to you now in the third act,
1911
01:07:51.190 --> 01:07:53.330
what would that person be asking of you,
1912
01:07:53.530 --> 01:07:54.910
telling you or asking of you?
1913
01:07:55.210 --> 01:07:56.310
It's such a good question.
1914
01:07:56.310 --> 01:07:59.150
If I was 75, looking back at me,
1915
01:08:00.350 --> 01:08:02.410
I made some really dumb financial decisions.
1916
01:08:02.530 --> 01:08:03.990
So I was like, firstly, I would say,
1917
01:08:04.350 --> 01:08:05.990
just think before you leave.
1918
01:08:07.930 --> 01:08:08.870
I don't think you're the only person
1919
01:08:08.870 --> 01:08:09.830
in the world who's done that.
1920
01:08:14.090 --> 01:08:18.810
I think the big one is to trust the process.
1921
01:08:19.330 --> 01:08:20.850
Don't put so much pressure on yourself.
1922
01:08:21.189 --> 01:08:22.069
Trust the process.
1923
01:08:22.310 --> 01:08:23.529
Know that it's gonna be okay.
1924
01:08:24.689 --> 01:08:27.670
And more importantly, and this speaks to everyone, I think,
1925
01:08:28.710 --> 01:08:32.370
who are particularly guys getting into their 50s and 60s,
1926
01:08:32.550 --> 01:08:33.950
is don't stop having fun.
1927
01:08:35.229 --> 01:08:36.569
Do fun stuff.
1928
01:08:36.850 --> 01:08:39.290
Stuff that just lights you up
1929
01:08:39.290 --> 01:08:41.189
and doesn't make sense and is gleeful.
1930
01:08:41.490 --> 01:08:42.370
And I'll give you an example.
1931
01:08:43.250 --> 01:08:44.310
This was not in my third act.
1932
01:08:44.370 --> 01:08:45.109
It was in my second act,
1933
01:08:45.109 --> 01:08:47.970
but I was going to yoga one morning,
1934
01:08:48.649 --> 01:08:51.330
and particularly some of us in the spiritual community
1935
01:08:51.330 --> 01:08:53.529
can be a bit serious about spirituality sometimes.
1936
01:08:53.670 --> 01:08:55.450
I just have a t-bone stake or something, you know?
1937
01:08:56.069 --> 01:08:56.890
But I was going to yoga.
1938
01:08:56.890 --> 01:08:57.710
It was five in the morning.
1939
01:08:57.729 --> 01:08:59.170
This was when the cross and Sydney
1940
01:08:59.170 --> 01:09:01.490
hadn't closed itself down and the cross was pumping.
1941
01:09:02.050 --> 01:09:03.410
And yoga was in Edgecliff,
1942
01:09:03.569 --> 01:09:05.130
and I was driving along New Southend Road
1943
01:09:05.130 --> 01:09:06.270
going to the yoga studio,
1944
01:09:06.330 --> 01:09:08.290
and it was a cold, rainy Sunday morning,
1945
01:09:08.670 --> 01:09:11.029
and I was about to turn left to go to my yoga studio,
1946
01:09:11.069 --> 01:09:12.950
which was in White City Tennis Courts.
1947
01:09:13.090 --> 01:09:15.990
And I thought, I have no idea why I did this.
1948
01:09:16.970 --> 01:09:18.090
I drove up and I thought,
1949
01:09:18.130 --> 01:09:19.189
I wonder what the cross is doing.
1950
01:09:19.210 --> 01:09:20.670
And I used to love the clubs and the rave scene,
1951
01:09:20.670 --> 01:09:21.870
which I left behind at that point.
1952
01:09:21.950 --> 01:09:23.090
But I drove up to King's Cross,
1953
01:09:23.170 --> 01:09:24.229
and remember the Goldfish Bowl?
1954
01:09:24.890 --> 01:09:28.590
And the Goldfish Bowl had this thumping dance music
1955
01:09:28.590 --> 01:09:29.149
coming out of it.
1956
01:09:29.149 --> 01:09:30.649
There was a crowd of people out the front,
1957
01:09:31.050 --> 01:09:32.649
and I was in my yoga gear.
1958
01:09:33.370 --> 01:09:34.370
Luckily I had trainers on.
1959
01:09:34.790 --> 01:09:35.770
I parked my car.
1960
01:09:35.910 --> 01:09:37.210
I walked past the doorman,
1961
01:09:37.410 --> 01:09:38.950
and I danced for two hours straight.
1962
01:09:39.550 --> 01:09:41.550
And it was the best music I've ever heard.
1963
01:09:41.750 --> 01:09:42.470
I walked home.
1964
01:09:42.870 --> 01:09:44.410
The kids and the wife were just waking up.
1965
01:09:44.490 --> 01:09:46.170
I said, I've just been in a club for two hours.
1966
01:09:46.290 --> 01:09:47.890
And it was crazy as hell.
1967
01:09:48.850 --> 01:09:50.609
But that was so good for my soul.
1968
01:09:51.430 --> 01:09:53.109
And sometimes we've got to do some random stuff
1969
01:09:53.109 --> 01:09:54.430
that just doesn't make sense,
1970
01:09:54.470 --> 01:09:56.130
but it's good.
1971
01:09:56.770 --> 01:09:57.450
Have you been back?
1972
01:09:58.230 --> 01:10:00.550
They closed it down, which is a tragedy in Sydney itself.
1973
01:10:01.030 --> 01:10:01.970
But every now and then,
1974
01:10:02.190 --> 01:10:03.890
interestingly I do like to get up,
1975
01:10:03.930 --> 01:10:05.670
because I wake up quite early on the weekends,
1976
01:10:05.750 --> 01:10:07.650
and every now and then I drive around
1977
01:10:07.650 --> 01:10:10.310
the streets of Sydney to see what the nightlife is doing
1978
01:10:10.310 --> 01:10:11.570
at five or six in the morning.
1979
01:10:11.590 --> 01:10:12.590
I find it quite fascinating.
1980
01:10:12.730 --> 01:10:14.290
I do get a bit of FOMO sometimes.
1981
01:10:14.790 --> 01:10:17.770
My 20-year-old son, who you've met,
1982
01:10:18.250 --> 01:10:20.770
we were driving up Oxford Street recently,
1983
01:10:20.970 --> 01:10:21.850
and he just said to me,
1984
01:10:21.850 --> 01:10:24.030
I was over in that nightclub recently.
1985
01:10:24.410 --> 01:10:25.770
I said, that's where I used to go.
1986
01:10:26.710 --> 01:10:27.970
And I was older than you.
1987
01:10:28.550 --> 01:10:29.530
Seriously, I said, yeah, yeah,
1988
01:10:29.530 --> 01:10:31.610
I remember coming out of that place many, many times.
1989
01:10:32.010 --> 01:10:32.810
Me and your mom.
1990
01:10:34.410 --> 01:10:35.410
It's good to do that.
1991
01:10:36.150 --> 01:10:37.330
Tom, it's been a pleasure having you.
1992
01:10:37.330 --> 01:10:38.010
It's been a lot of fun.
1993
01:10:38.170 --> 01:10:39.710
I appreciate your insights and your wisdom,
1994
01:10:39.710 --> 01:10:41.270
and I look forward to having you back.
1995
01:10:41.610 --> 01:10:42.510
Absolutely, I'd love to be back.
1996
01:10:42.990 --> 01:10:44.970
Hey, I hope you enjoyed that episode.
1997
01:10:45.170 --> 01:10:47.210
He got some value from it.
1998
01:10:47.470 --> 01:10:50.170
New listeners keep telling me that they found our show
1999
01:10:50.170 --> 01:10:53.350
because someone like you shared an episode with them.
2000
01:10:53.790 --> 01:10:55.690
So if you think this was helpful for you,
2001
01:10:55.710 --> 01:10:57.130
can I ask you just to think about
2002
01:10:57.130 --> 01:10:59.550
one or two of your friends or someone in your family
2003
01:10:59.970 --> 01:11:02.110
that might enjoy it and share it with them?
2004
01:11:02.810 --> 01:11:04.370
If you haven't been onto our website,
2005
01:11:05.450 --> 01:11:07.190
DonateTheOldManIn.com, please go there,
2006
01:11:07.210 --> 01:11:08.970
because there's some free resources
2007
01:11:08.970 --> 01:11:10.290
that might be useful for you,
2008
01:11:10.430 --> 01:11:12.290
and you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter
2009
01:11:12.290 --> 01:11:14.610
so you never miss out on what's coming next.
2010
01:11:15.350 --> 01:11:18.210
And lastly, if you haven't subscribed one more time,
2011
01:11:18.350 --> 01:11:20.630
can I ask you, press the button to subscribe
2012
01:11:20.630 --> 01:11:24.670
on whatever video or audio platform you're on.
2013
01:11:25.670 --> 01:11:29.230
Until next time, don't let the old man in.
