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since starting the Diary of a CO one of the most popular questions I get asked is what are your favorite episodes and
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what are your favorite guests now I don't think about it in terms of that I think about moments and insights so in
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this episode we're going to do something a little bit different I'm going to show you four moments from the Diary of a CEO
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that genuinely changed my life and changed how I think about one of my core beliefs that I then actioned that made my life better
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[Music] in your book that little voice in your head is this concept of neuroplasticity oh it says it on the back of the book it
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says um retrain your brain for maximum happiness this concept that we can retrain our brain physiologically seems like nonsense and I can't change my arm
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so when someone you know asserts that you can actually change your brain you can change your arm I can change my arm
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of course what tattoo no you work out that's true when you work out you're building muscles in your arms and that same exact process is exactly what happens inside our brains and it's
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called neuroplasticity the only difference is that you don't see it you don't see it visibly you can see your
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muscles growing because that's the function that they need you know they need to grow to perform but in your
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brain what actually happens again like computers it's almost as if you loaded a new piece of software I need a new piece
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of operating system uh on on your brain literally for every one of us listening uh everyone listening to us to it right now at the end of this conversation their brain will be why are they
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differently than when it started every single instance of anything that you do literally rewires the hardware itself the neurons that fire together wire together okay so imagine the old days of
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the switchboard okay and um you know Steve wants to call his mom so you you know crank your phone and the operator says uh you know hi how can I
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help you and you say can you please connect me to that number and she would literally take a wire and Patch you and
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your mom's phones together okay after a while the operator constantly every time
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you call you want you ask for your mom so the operator goes like why am I even wasting my time on this let me just
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patch that wire to his mom all the time okay so that's exactly what happens in our brains if you if you perform a sin
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give a certain function your brain starts to build networks that make that function easier to perform in the future
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if you do it one time it becomes a little easier if you do it 20 times it becomes permanent okay and there are
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there are tons of studies that if you if you take a simple task like tapping your finger on the table okay and you're
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requested to do that say 20 times every hour after a few days you'll find that you're so much better at tapping your finger on the table and you can do it much faster you can do it consistently and you can do it in the background
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Gamers know that for certain okay the problem with neuroplasticity is if you tell your brain to wire for tapping your finger it will if you tell it to wire
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for solving complex mathematical equations it may take a little longer but it will if you tell it to wire for
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hating people it will become very good at hating if you tell it to wire for fearing the end of the world because of
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what the media is telling you it's going to become very good at feeding the world I know some of these people I have no
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absolutely and you don't want them in your life the challenge of our modern world is that we think that this brain
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is supposed to be there to make us successful yeah okay first of all it's not the
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primary function of the brain the primary function of the brain is to make you safe okay and then the secondary
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function that we push human as humans to that brain to do is to invent iPhones and create podcasts and have amazing
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things right that's a secondary function but believe it or not before that secondary function your your brain is
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supposed to make you happy because happy is the ultimate form for you to perform in life if you're not
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happy you're not as effective as you could be at achieving survival think about it huh if you're grumpy all
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the time at work people don't like you you're not focused uh no one wants to help you you're wasting most of your
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time your brain Cycles uh you know thinking about the negative and so you're not Innovative or creative and so
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on and so forth it degrades your performance happy is a better place for you to be at work because it will make your customers want to do business with you it will make your colleagues want to
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uh you know to help you out it will make your boss welcome you and their team and so on and so forth we are social Animals
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by definition and we want to have that in our life and the easiest way to connect and to open up and to is
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discover the world is to be in a happy place that's a primary function of your brain
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it's hard for some people you know because we can all think of someone in our Lives who has um certain
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wiring very stubborn wiring that almost seems impossible to unwire and the only thing we all have that ourselves as well the Saturn wiring in our brains where something happens and our reaction to
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that thing might be uh you know to catastrophize it's the end of the world that's like a it feels like it's a
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certain set of worrying where trigger and then the brain goes through the circuitry and it goes catastrophe Panic
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yeah and yeah and the answer to that I found was to actually guide that person or yourself if that's yourself to the opposite of your wiring so if my if my wiring is to look at everything and see
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what's wrong with it I should deliberately force my brain to look for what's right with it so uh you know I uh
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when I was when I was coming here it was very busy in the morning and so I came late if you remember and my brain's
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immediate reaction is oh what's gonna happen I'm gonna be late for Steve right that's the immediate reaction of the brain because something is wrong so it looks for what's wrong
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I could also say and what is good about that what is good about being a little late you know he's been recording for the last few days so it may give him a little bit of extra time do you want to
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know the truth I was so happy you were late because I was late right so I was doing upstairs reading that I was reading the book and I was thinking I
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just hope he's like 15 minutes late he's not coming here perfect so I carried on going and carrying on going and Karen I'm going and I just finished as you arrived yeah so it's perfect time you see that that is the truth huh
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that's the truth that your brain tries to deny you from seeing and interestingly you can train your brain
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so so basically what you can do is for every thought for every negative thought that your brain gives you task it with
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the task of giving you a positive one or two positive ones nine I say nine yeah because in reality if you look at life around you more than 90 of life is okay for the your brain to contribute more
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than that as negative is not fair right so if literally if your brain says hey by the way this studio is a little
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warm what else is about the studio my friend Steve is there the lighting is perfect the crew is amazing the you know the coffee is is not that bad you guys get got me honey I can go on for hours
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right and and the idea is by training your brain to look for that what are you actually doing you're firing the neurons together prostitute so and exactly your
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your your book basically says it is the answer the answer is when you find gratitude what what that gratitude
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Journal that you keep ever that you kept for years every day what was it telling you it was training your brain to look
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for what's right that your brain every night that you did it was like okay it seems he's gonna be
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asking to call his mom a lot more often it seems he's going to be asking for good things a lot more often I might as
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well observe them I might as well find them and so yes you said some people are impossible to
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rewire they're impossible to rewire if they've been practicing a certain wiring for 21 years it's not going to take 21
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seconds to rewire anyone including me and you it will take 21 days let's say for your brain to recognize I need different work and it will take maybe 21 months for your brain to say and I don't
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need the old wiring anymore okay and the game here is can you actually keep doing that can you keep tapping your finger in
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a way that trains your brain that this is the wiring that you need like can I keep going to the gym and
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working on my absolute guns yeah believe it or not the research will tell you that a big part of being athletic is
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wiring of your brain not your muscles for your brain to be able to say I will go even if I feel a little tired I will
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go even if I feel a little uh busy I will go and I will do the right exercises even if the last push is a
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little painful a lot of people will hear that and go what's the evidence for this what's the evidence for neuroplasticity
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is there science oh there is a ton of science behind neuroplasticity any anything from between neuroplasticity
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and neurogenesis is when you know neuroplasticity is to rewire um the connections between the neurons and neurogenesis is to actually create new or new neurons when if you're hit
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with a ball for example and part of your brain is damaged how we can recreate that right if you have a stroke and how
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you create recreate that and ample evidence one of the very famous stories is Matthew Ricardo when we spoke about
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him in the beginning Matthew's brain looks different than the average human brain his insula is much bigger in
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relative comparison his prefrontal cortexism is bigger and and it it fires more often it's simply because of the constant neuroplasticity of I need you
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to meditate I need you to stay quiet I need you I mean some of the of of of Matthew's Journeys would last four years
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in isolation I would meditate for four years maybe be in isolation in Hermitage for four years right and and so at that level your brain starts to do very different things and by the way that's
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not unusual now many farmers around the world live in isolation for a very long time believe it or not you and I when we when we spend a long time on airplanes I
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I chose a long time ago to not watch a lot of stuff on that on you know I maybe watch one movie but not the entire trip
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the other bits of Silence that's actually a form of of meditation I uh you know my my absolute wonderful friend Jamie Nelson the photographer if you
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know him he photographs indigenous tribes and the way he does it is he would go and
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and spend a few months outside their premises you know their Village if you want in silence you know camping out there he doesn't speak their language he's just sitting there waiting for them
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to accept him and then he would start to you know communicate to them in sign language because it doesn't speak their
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language and he's one of the wisest people I know and I and I said how did you become this wise I never studied any
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of those things and the reality is is because he's in constant reflection and meditation he's sitting out there and
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he's spending hours and days in reflection and meditation right because you're sitting alone all of those things
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are our habits and all of us have the chance to do it I mean so you you could be on the tube uh for a commute of 40
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minutes a day and you could be in that commute cursing life and that's a very good 40-minute exercise to work and another 40 minute going back or you could be spending the 40 minutes in
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gratitude you could be first for you know uh the 40 minutes listening to music could
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be doing whatever what you will do for 40 minutes a day will rewire your brain it really is like a paradigm shifting thought that our brains are in this constant growth and evolution but when
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we look at as you said my muscles are my muscles are changing State size growing more fibers to achieve their objective
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in a different way and of course my brain is as well and when you think about that it's really liberating
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because you realize that you're not stuck with who you are absolutely not so let's choose what which parts of it are
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we going to grow I think that's the whole point and we grow it with our actions and our thoughts repetitive actions thoughts and memories believe it
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or not one of the interesting things is if you take a memory in the past yeah and you think about it over and over and
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over it's as if you're hap it's happening over and over and you're growing the neurons that are needed or
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you're growing the connections between the neurons that are needed to trigger that memory think happy memories okay if
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you sit next to your partner and focus on one thing that they do and go like they say do this they do this they do
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this they do this and forget that they do a hundred other things that you you love and appreciate 8 your
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neuroplasticity is making you completely obsessed about that one thing and you can only see that one thing and
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eventually you know some of my friends after a breakup I go like so what happened then they'll say one thing it's
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like just you could they obsess about it over and over because your brain is growing to say he needs to think about
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this right I'm gonna make it easier to think about this I'm gonna make it faster
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more accessible one of the things I've heard you talk about a lot is your your journey and your
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evolving relationship with sex and sexuality and how that changed from when you were very young through the period when you were drinking a lot um till today can you talk to me about
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that Evolution and what you've learned about those topics that might benefit me yes absolutely
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so I'm going to sort of keep referring to my sobriety in that period of my life because it was so
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transformative and it revealed so much to me so much that I could have never imagined at the time so something that also happened when I got sober I think this was about
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a year into my sobriety I realized just how much sexual shame I was holding so much of it and I initially sort of wanted to fix it
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wanted to do something about it what are some surface level things that I can do what can I read what can I sort of dive
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into how can I deal with it from where I am now as a 25 year old but I quickly realized that I actually had to trace it back to see where it even comes from and I realized just like so many things it
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did come from my childhood being raised in a Christian home I learned again not directly more so
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indirectly that being a sexual being was not something that was off God it was not something that was supposed to be a part of who I am pleasure was never discussed sex was never discussed even
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Intimacy in general I never saw my parents hold hands I never saw my parents hold hands I never saw them kiss
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I never saw them hug I never saw any sort of affection but I knew that they loved each other I knew that they cared about each other but affection and intimacy I just never saw that not for a
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moment when I sort of wanted to really understand where a lot of the sexual shame was stemming from or just
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I'm also even outside of sex intimacy intimacy feeling very disconnected to other people when it came to intimacy but also from myself I realized that I could only be
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expressive as a sexual being if I was drunk or if I was high if I was in that place where of course my inhibitions are low but I had no insecurities I didn't
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have to feel like I'm doing something wrong I didn't have to feel like my pleasure was wrong but then when I got
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sober all of those things came to the surface and then I I had to look that in the eye so that also became something
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that I started sharing over time as well I was sort of sharing my journey with sobriety I then started sharing the
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things that were revealed as a byproduct of me getting sober and sexual shame was
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a huge one was a big part of that my relationship with sex has evolved a lot yeah over over time I think it was early
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in my early years influenced by porn yes for many people so me too that's the way I went into the game trying to be those
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those male porn stars right and I think over time and I think there's this wider issue in our society
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specifically I've got to be honest with men yes um what they think that what they think sex
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is in terms of this kind of very aggressive often dominating transactional um encounter yeah and then there's you
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know again I'm just I'm just talking freely I don't give a [ __ ] whatever please do please but I'm seeing a lot in
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my in my close friends they're all in relate they're often in relationships not all of them where they're having
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problems with their sexual relationship with their partner they're basically saying things
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to me and I'd say this is crazy I'd say 75 to 80 of my male friends are saying my partner doesn't want to have sex she
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doesn't like having sex yeah and I was there at one point too my partner said that to me at 1.2 yeah and I took it on
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face value I thought they don't like sex what I came to learn is that wasn't true but that what what I'd learned to be sex and what I was bringing as sex this kind of aggressive
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you know whatever was not yes the language that they spoke right and I feel like I'm surrounded by men that need to start seeing sex as a
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language because then you can ask yourself well actually she's speaking Spanish and I'm speaking English that's why it's not she doesn't like English
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she just doesn't she speaks a different language yeah I mean yes that's a lot I'm just dumping that on YouTube no that
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resonates so and I'm I'm really glad that you said this because I think you're speaking something that is on so
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many people's minds or something that they've just never really put language to and a big part of my
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Awakening if you will and really addressing that sexual shame is because I also learned sex from porn at 10 years
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old 10 years old so by the time that I had sex for the first time when I was 14 it was very much like a porn performance
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to put it very simply and I speak to so many people men and women about this very specific thing a lot of us learn
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that we should perform that sex should be driven by orgasm and ejaculation and this sort of production if you will which is not actually accurate for most
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people when it comes to what really actually feels pleasurable especially for women so I started to realize when I
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got sober that every time that I was having sex for example I faked every single orgasm it was all a perform I
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didn't know much about my body because I'd learned from porn and because the men that I was with had also learned
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from porn we were just in a performance and no one's actually talking about it right so in time times when I was in
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relationships and I made myself think I don't want to have sex I don't want to have sex anymore it actually was not
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that I didn't want to have this type of pornified sex that's what I actually meant so what you just said is really important and I realized that's when I found tantric sex actually yeah that's
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when I found tantric sex around 2018 because I realized that I had always felt like sex was being done to me yes that I was not a part of it and that is
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how most women feel I I felt like I needed to apologize yeah because that's what that's what I
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came to learn yeah was that the the reason why the person I was with had turned around to me and said I don't like having sex is and when we got talking about it after I acted like I
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mean let me be clear the first time she said that I did not understand my little Neanderthal monkey brain went uh like I
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was emasculated by it yeah it made me feel what is this something that I was I didn't know
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ended up breaking up but this person got back with this person a year later when I was maybe a bit more mature I
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apologized and I said I want to have a conversation and I also said to her that I'm going to be here regardless of whether we have sex or not yes and then
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she could she had a safe enough space to start talking to me about it and what I discovered is she'd been with
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should I had three previous boyfriends over the course of seven years her view of sex was this person comes
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and takes from you treats you like this object and he was with him for five years treats you like an object takes
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what they want from you and then he was actually going and cheating on her as well right so Not only was he taking he
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was then like hurting her and that cycle just repeated her relationship with what sex is was really really toxic she
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didn't like that yes she didn't want that anymore yes and that's what she and me probably referred to as this word sex
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so it was kind of like learning a new language of sex and what it actually is that meant she went from the place of
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like I don't have sex anymore to absolutely loving to have sex yeah I didn't think it was possible I thought
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if they don't like sex dump them yes you know I'm gonna go find someone else right that will let me take yes and you
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know what you you've articulated that so beautifully in terms of sex being a language and it's going to
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look different for every single person because something that I realized is that I could tell when I was with a man
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sexually I could tell if they were sort of if it was like a script almost like a
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play-by-play like this is exactly the method we do this we do that switch into this switch into that it wasn't sort of
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flowing and very intuitive as to what's actually needed in that moment which reminded me of porn and I would also
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realize actually and this is something that I've spoken about so much because I ended up um starting a sexual wellness
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company called Cherry Revolution over time and I realized that even some of the positions I would get in were very much like porn because certain positions in porn are like that because
00:22:20
the camera is there not because it's comfortable because that's the shot for the viewer to be able to see it so when
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I started to see that I'm starting to replicate this in my most intimate private moments but we're both doing it
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I made myself believe that I didn't enjoy sex so then drinking and drugs and everything that came with it I felt like those were the moments that I could be
00:22:46
fully expressive without needing to perform which is very interesting because you would think it would be the opposite that I would then perform more
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but I felt as if I could actually speak my mind if I didn't enjoy something can we try this can I do this instead or I just want to give or I just want to receive can we be slower and then when I
00:23:04
was sober I felt like I couldn't say those things because if I say to you as my partner I might be emasculating you I
00:23:11
might be embarrassing you you might think something is wrong so I would just perform and you're performing as well
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and then it just causes a huge disconnect so tantric sex was the first thing that I came across that made me realize and really articulated that sex is actually not a specific destination
00:23:29
did you know that you can actually enjoy sex without uh ejaculation that you can
00:23:34
have a full body orgasm that you can be very slow that foreplay can be the main thing that you do that you can experience orgasm without penetration just so many different ways of
00:23:46
articulating that experience of sex and it's just that an experience and that changed so much for me it's
00:23:54
such a sort of a narrative violation for so many people who've spent their whole life watching porn and then yeah
00:24:00
recreating it this idea that you can have an orgasm from touch that you can use energy to to cause
00:24:06
someone yeah orgasmic pleasure and yeah um yeah I just that's it's a really important topic that I think people need to talk about a lot more and I think just just saying to someone that's listening to this that might be in a
00:24:17
relationship where they're not they're in a sexless relationship yes just proposing the idea that what if you both
00:24:23
just speak there's just say there was ten languages what if you're just speaking the wrong language right you
00:24:29
know what I mean and what approach would you then take you're probably trying to learn the language yes yes and also
00:24:34
communicate to them what language you speak and see and see how you can be bilingual I guess yeah you know what it
00:24:41
it reminds me of um are you familiar with Love Languages and and that that whole thing yes I realized that a lot of
00:24:48
people expect someone to give in the way that they like to receive you know so no one really says okay how do you like to
00:25:00
receive love how do you like to give love and the moment that I started asking those questions even though I
00:25:06
believe I [ __ ] cringed in the beginning I'm like really if I get it but you get used to it yeah and if they
00:25:13
run off good food yeah it's Stephen it's been a game changer to just ask the person that I'm dating or my current
00:25:20
partner to be like how do you like to be loved how do you like to receive love and how do you like to give it
00:25:25
um because just those simple questions can change so much and then you can use the same with sex what do you like and
00:25:32
what do you not like what have you changed your mind about what do you like to do now and again or maybe not so much
00:25:38
sometimes um how much time do you need how does your arousal actually work and I know
00:25:43
that some people might not know how to answer these questions for themselves so it's actually very good to start asking
00:25:49
yourself those questions before was speaking about it with someone else because I think we get into
00:25:54
relationships and make so many assumptions based on all individual experiences and our world view and we
00:26:01
expect the person we're with to reflect the exact same thing back to us but we don't we don't ask questions I watched a lot of interviews of you before you you arrived here today and I
00:26:14
think in pretty much all of them you said I'm a normal guy I'm a regular guy and I get that I get that I understand
00:26:20
what you're saying however well it's not false modesty I don't want to I'm not going to let people build builds me into
00:26:29
something I'm not you know and I think as I get older I know the frailties more and more and I'm not ashamed of them you
00:26:35
know I mean it's it's okay many mistakes many many sort of it's okay otherwise Things become all too
00:26:42
you know that how it's it's hard to relate to you know but you you got through SAS selection just I got through all this [ __ ] just you know and people
00:26:54
turned turned to you and said things and as they turn back and quit right that that for me is a filtering process of
00:27:01
something yeah whatever that something is resilient all it is is something we can control it's not a filtering of
00:27:07
talent it's not filtering if you're you're brilliant you're through you're not through you know it's a genius of
00:27:13
selection for the Special Forces it's all about heart and spirit and we can all have that that's not a god-given
00:27:19
talent that's a that's a muscle that builds with walking through the door of failure time and time again and keep
00:27:25
getting back up you know so I like that as why I say I'm an ordinary person as well also say just to so many things because you know yes I passed oh yes you reached the top of this man or yes you
00:27:37
do but it's always just and that's okay you know and it's also Often by standing
00:27:43
on the shoulders of many Giants who've helped me you know many many times you know if I think of ss selection you know
00:27:50
that time there were so many times where somebody somebody just kind of believed me in a critical time you know it might
00:27:56
be something where the two corporals running something good we want that guy do on you know a bit of luck falls on
00:28:01
his side somebody backs you you know or you know you you I don't know just the more I look back on so many so-called achievements the more I see
00:28:11
the hand of good people in critical moments but as you know you have to win the hearts of those people in the first
00:28:17
place but also the role of just that dogged determination to keep going and that's not a thing of being brilliant it's just trying to keep going often sliding
00:28:28
another step back but keep moving forward and you say that to you know I've got three boys now three teenagers and I
00:28:34
think if you said to them what one thing does your dad say to you day off day before you go to school
00:28:41
it's always just you know don't give up don't never give up be kind you know be determined but
00:28:47
never give up and they roll their eyes but you know what one day they'll know that it's a key thing a key thing of
00:28:54
life you know you don't have to be the best to do your best did that resilience muscle as you call
00:29:01
it grow over time of course it's just like like everything it's like the little little Seas to the mighty Oaks
00:29:07
you know how do we build it just inch by inch and uh and that's a great thing because it's not something only some people can have you know it's Universal for us all we can all become people
00:29:18
think it's a god-given gift to someone be resilient resilience is that muscle and you build it by failing and trying
00:29:26
to stay positive and and trying to get back your feet and going again you know I look back and I remember being uh
00:29:32
really excited about being picked for the fourth eleven football team as a linesman I wasn't even in the team you
00:29:39
know and it was like my job was to bring on the oranges at half time you know but it was that and I remember my dad was
00:29:46
the only dad on the side of the pitch cheering me on I thought it's so embarrassing he's not I'm not even in the team and dad said you know he's come
00:29:53
to kind of but actually those little steps of like I'm going to do this I'm going to bring
00:29:58
on those oranges and you know you're never gonna forget it's gonna be great and ink into tiny little things
00:30:05
but having to fight for things you know it's how often do we see at school though the the school hero
00:30:12
actually in life doesn't always do that brilliantly and why is that it's because they've got you
00:30:18
know schools rewarded that they've never tested this you know where little Johnny who doesn't
00:30:25
have that doesn't get the awards is the linesman brings on the oranges yeah whatever it is drugs doesn't even get noticed and everyone's anything but never gives up and keeps doing his best
00:30:36
and still doesn't really get noticed but doesn't matter but when he leaves school this might not be the biggest thing but
00:30:42
this is like ninja-like you know that that resilience muscle inside is strong and as you know and as I know in life
00:30:50
that's the one that is gonna carry you further and and the Unseen people at school often do better in life it's like don't peek too early don't peek at 14. I
00:31:02
certainly didn't I sat here with um Eubank I've been thinking about this idea of resilience and what it really means and as we sit here today my
00:31:09
current hypothesis is basically resilience is the story it's kind of this contract you have with yourself this self-story about who you are and in
00:31:16
those moments when no one is looking I I was talking to Eubank about me being on the running machine and knowing I've got
00:31:21
two minutes to go because I said before I started I'd run till 45 minutes but my
00:31:26
legs are hurting and they're cramping and I could give up and walk away and No One's Gonna know because no one's here but what I I alter my own self story in
00:31:33
a way and I send a message to myself that I am the type of person that gives up when it's tough so is it really do
00:31:40
you relate to that and is this kind of like you're crafting this story about who you are to yourself with every small
00:31:46
decision you make doing the linesman job you said I'm going to do it the best I possibly can and although it's not what
00:31:52
I wanted I'm gonna I'm gonna give it everything I can and not give up yeah yeah does that relate and also I think
00:31:58
the thing of giving up is that you know what is that thing a temporary pleasure long term yeah that's not true you know and and for me I just I I developed a thing where [Music]
00:32:10
whenever people quitting or complaining I like those moments for me it was like okay there's all the all the chat and the bravado is always there at the beginning I was full of that but bring it down put the squeeze on you know we
00:32:22
like grapes and squeeze us you see what's inside bring the squeeze bring the squeeze now we see characters see
00:32:28
what people are like and for me it just became whenever I saw people quitting or complaining especially complaining you
00:32:34
see it so much just in the military you see it on big Expeditions you see it even when we're filming TV shows for
00:32:40
people you know when it gets hard you know and you're hungry and you're scared and you're up against it and you're dehydrated you know those are the
00:32:46
moments and for me it just became a trigger when everyone's complaining and giving up it's a time to give more you
00:32:52
know just you don't have to give more in the early times just wait till this and that's how you separate yourselves in in
00:32:58
business and in life and in relationship you know in the big moments you know look at a relationship when it's when
00:33:04
you're under that wheel down everyone's throwing it you know are you gonna really throw that nasty comment or gonna hold it and just try and be gracious and
00:33:11
kind in those big moments you know and and I like that it wasn't you know it wasn't complicated to think
00:33:18
about Under Pressure it was just like when everything's going wrong that's that I'd give more rather than give up
00:33:23
and I held on to that in many difficult moments you know across many different Arenas and um
00:33:30
and has helped me you know I remember this guy said to me once said and you'd do anything for another 10 seconds I
00:33:37
like that you know when it's you're in that moment you keep going another 10 seconds that makes you different though
00:33:45
you've got to admit because most people don't want another 10 seconds yeah well it hurt it hurts I'm not saying it's not
00:33:51
going to hurt it's going to hurt but that fire inside it's in us all you know it's just you've got to dig sometimes
00:33:57
but it's it's a great truth to know that it's there when you dig you know it is there and uh and I think as you say once you get used to this and you start to practice it the muscle gets stronger and
00:34:09
then you almost seek out tough types you know this is a chance to to shine you know and as you say that's how you
00:34:15
separate yourselves in life you know you're going to reach these points but but in those big are you going to go
00:34:21
this way how are you going to act in those big moments and it's always what separates you know reaching those
00:34:26
Summits for not reaching those Summits when you look back on the person you are now and the tremendous wisdom that
00:34:33
you've just demonstrated just speaking to me just then do you recognize the Mel that was couldn't get out of bed
00:34:41
was feeling depressed couldn't find you know described herself as you as you did
00:34:47
as being lazy do you recognize that person and what's at the very essence in the engine room that drove that change
00:34:53
was it passion was it finding your calling um because I know you weren't this part you couldn't have been this person oh dude it's also been 31 years I mean come
00:35:07
on I've had I've like basically been changing for as long as you've been alive for crying out loud so true and
00:35:13
also human beings are designed to grow but not everybody seems to because you have they don't understand being stuck
00:35:20
yeah interesting see being stuck is one of the most universal feelings of The Human Experience and nobody understands what it is what is it oh it's amazing when you hear
00:35:32
this it's like so remember how we've talked about how uh the human beings have this crazy
00:35:39
amount of natural intelligence wired into us and inside your body we've talked about one of the signals anxiety
00:35:45
anxiety is a signal that means pay attention that's why you go into fight or flight you're in an alert mode okay
00:35:51
that's all it is it's a signal an alarm system and your body has a sophisticated
00:35:57
system of signals and alarms and they're all tied to fundamental needs anxiety is tied to your fundamental need for safety that's why it's a signal
00:36:09
let's talk about your most important fundamental needs let's go right back to psychology 101 Maslow's hierarchy of
00:36:16
needs uh you need food or else you die so when you need food what is the signal that your body sends you when you need water what is the signal cost when you
00:36:27
need um a air yeah you're catching your breath when you need rest what do you feel
00:36:34
when you need connection what do you feel lonely human beings are designed to grow
00:36:40
when you stop growing what do you feel stuck yeah I was gonna say stagnant but I guess stuck is yeah or stagnant we're still trapped I guess is yeah
00:36:54
feeling stuck is a signal that you've stopped growing that's it and when most people feel stuck since
00:37:03
they don't understand that it's tied to a fundamental need for growth we believe it's an existential crisis
00:37:10
and we blow up our lives for most human beings what actually will get you feeling like you're not stuck is having something in the future that you're looking forward to
00:37:23
or taking a class where you're learning something or changing a routine so that you try a new class at the gym learning anything gets you back in touch with a
00:37:35
fundamental need it makes you start to feel like things are moving and from that place of feeling a little bit more
00:37:42
empowered you'll be able to make better decisions about what big things need to change in
00:37:48
your life and is that you would also describe that as a moment where your life has like an
00:37:54
absence of purpose I think about I think about various examples Olympians that come
00:38:00
back from the Olympics and they they're like 80 chance of depression after they've you know and then I think about
00:38:06
people who have lost purpose in their lives for whatever reason been fired from their jobs or whatever all people
00:38:12
that are in jobs that are uh you know absent of purpose completely a feeling of being stuck and and then you certainly talk to us about the importance of goals and Ambitions going forward when humans don't have that
00:38:23
forward ambition or that thing to look forward to in the future and their current situation lacks purpose
00:38:30
they become very um psychologically disorientated either way I'd describe it um I act I have a different take on purpose um I think everybody's purpose is
00:38:43
exactly the same I think your purpose is to share your true self to be fully seen and for the Olympian when you are
00:38:57
training and you're in that Arena that is an experience of being seen and for most people that are lacking purpose they feel profoundly invisible
00:39:13
and being seen fundamentally comes back to whether or not you even see yourself and when you start to feel empowered and you start to see yourself and meet you
00:39:25
where you are what happens is every day that you're able to stand with yourself to accept where you are to give yourself the compassion to give yourself the support
00:39:38
and the love and the respect and the worthiness that you deserve you're going to go out into the world and share more of yourself that Olympic Athlete is
00:39:48
sharing more of themselves and so I think our purpose in life is to come back home to ourselves to reconnect with ourselves and to empower ourselves
00:40:02
to go back out into the world and share our stories and share our experiences and share our full selves with the rest of the world and look if I can save
00:40:13
anybody the heartache and the headaches that cause myself that's a life well lived
00:40:20
you know if I can laugh at myself along the way if I can punch a wall and drink a gin martini and then share with you
00:40:25
like okay this and then get out because how I got out of that because I could have been in that cycle
00:40:32
The Old Mill would have been there for a month everybody's out to get me I never get
00:40:38
recognized why even bother it doesn't matter and it allows me to share in real time that I feel all the [ __ ]
00:40:52
but I don't like to stay there and this is not toxic positivity it is important when you're disappointed
00:40:59
to allow yourself to feel disappointed it is important when you lose something to give yourself the grace to grieve for as long as you need to it is important
00:41:11
to have a good cry to have a good scream to draw it's important to feel the highs
00:41:18
and the lows you're meant to feel it all but you can shorten the length of time you stay down and what always helps me is I just kept
00:41:33
saying what I what I've said a couple times during this I I say to myself I refuse to believe that if I'm a good person
00:41:44
and that if I'm working hard I refuse to believe that this doesn't work out I refuse to believe that I'm not going to be okay like I know that This Moment's going to pass and I
00:41:57
know that I will look back on this moment five years from now and I'll see exactly what I was meant to learn and
00:42:05
redirecting your focus to what actually matters and the fact that you believe in your
00:42:11
heart that you got the mindset you got the work ethic you got the ability to figure this [ __ ] out and to keep going
00:42:16
and that eventually if you do what's meant for you is going to find you you will be rewarded for all this in the way that you're meant to be rewarded
00:42:27
that's amazing it's an amazing feeling because you can pick yourself up no matter what happens I spent so long
00:42:38
being dysregulated having a nervous system that was constantly on edge like what it felt like to be me
00:42:49
any moment in my life whether it was sitting in a classroom or I was sitting at that law firm bait stamping or I'm
00:42:55
sitting as a young mom with postpartum depression or I'm sitting in yet another job I don't like
00:43:02
is it felt like being in a car at a stoplight that had a green signal and the emergency brake was on and the
00:43:13
gas was floored and I was going nowhere like just the engine revved and the sense that I needed to go but not being
00:43:20
able to go and when I finally started to get control of my own thinking when I finally started to understand anxiety and how to quiet it in my mind
00:43:36
and then how to quiet at my body when I finally got serious about understanding trauma and healing it in my nervous system
00:43:47
first through EMDR through therapy through guided MDMA sessions I finally had the experience of being in my body
00:44:01
and being safe and being okay and I hadn't had that in a really long time and um I'm so
00:44:14
aware of when I'm not in my body now I'm so aware of when my nervous system starts to go on edge that my tolerance for staying there is
00:44:25
zero because I live for far too long feeling on edge anxious dysregulated self-loathing that when I dip into that
00:44:38
space and everybody you dip into that space once a day if not like I used to live there and so when I start to dip into that dysregulated anxious on edge
00:44:52
intense space it's like get this out of my body we got to get back into my new default which is grounded centered in control of what I'm
00:45:07
thinking what I'm gonna do next and it's a fluid situation but you just gave me the insight as to why it's so quick for me now
00:45:17
because I've made a commitment to myself that after spending 30 years that way 40 almost that I don't want to live another year that way another week that
00:45:29
way another full day that way now do I have things that happen in my life that are tough that that put me into a mode where
00:45:41
I'm anxious and on edge and of course do I disassociate when I get really awful of course but I now have the tools to bring myself back into my body
00:45:54
to give myself the encouragement the Assurance the support that I need so that I can face whatever is happening and know that I'm not only going to be okay
00:46:06
I'm actually going to be awesome eventually quick one as you might know crafted are
00:46:14
one of the sponsors of this podcast and crafted are a jewelry brand and they make really meaningful pieces of jewelry
00:46:20
the really wonderful thing about crafted jewelry is it's super affordable it looks amazing the pieces hold tremendous
00:46:26
meaning and they are really well made I think I've worn this piece for almost a year it hasn't broken hasn't changed color because it's really really good quality and it costs roughly 50 Quid
00:46:39
people will be surprised when they hear that they'll probably assume that all of my jewelry is like solid gold and cost thousands and thousands of pounds but
00:46:45
what's the point when you can achieve the exact same effect from a piece of jewelry that's high quality and costs 50
00:46:51
Quid that's why I buy crafted quick one for many years people have been asking for a coffee flavored Hill and quite recently he'll release the iced coffee
00:47:01
caramel flavor of their um ready to drink heels and I've just become hooked on it over the last couple of weeks I've
00:47:08
been on a really interesting Journey with huel which I've described and talked about a little bit on this podcast I started with the berry ready
00:47:14
to drinks then I moved over to the protein salted caramel because it's 100 calories and it gives you all of your
00:47:19
essential vitamins and minerals but also gives you the 20 odd grams of protein you need and now I'm balanced between
00:47:24
them both I drink mostly the banana flavor ready to drink I've got really into the iced coffee caramel flavor of
00:47:31
fuels ready to drink and now I'm drinking that as well as the protein make sure you try the new ready to drink
00:47:37
flavors that the caramel flavor is amazing the new banana flavor as well is amazing and obviously as I said the iced
00:47:44
coffee caramel flavor has been a real Smash Hit so check it out let me know what you think on social media I see all
00:47:49
of your tags and Instagram posts and tweets about you [Music] oh [Music] my God [Music]
00:48:12
[Music]