6 Mindset Shifts To Make 2024 The Best Year Of Your Life - Season 7 Roundup
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By the way, in case you haven't heard, my brand new book, Feel Good Productivity, is now out. It is available everywhere books are sold. And it's actually hit the New York Times and also the Sunday Times bestseller list. So thank you to everyone who's already got a copy of the book. If you've read the book already, I would love a review on Amazon. And if you haven't yet checked it out, you may like to check it out. It's available in physical format and also e-book and also audio book everywhere books are sold.

Hey friends, and welcome back to Deep Dive, the podcast where it's my immense pleasure to sit down with authors and entrepreneurs and academics and creators and other inspiring people, and we find out how they got to where they are and the strategies and tools we can learn from them to help build a life that we love. Today, we are going to be wrapping up season seven of the

podcast. Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has watched or listened to the podcast on any platform, YouTube, Spotify, Snipped, whatever platform you're using. And very excitingly, we've hit 400,000 subscribers on the Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal YouTube channel, which is absolutely sick. And we've also had some incredible guests over the last few months. We've had billionaire CEOs, world-famous athletes, mental health experts, and brilliant professors. And we've talked about building businesses, becoming creators, managing the risks from AI, and leveling up

our mindset and our life. So today I'm going to be sharing six of the best mindset shifts from the past season, which will help make 2024 the best year of your life. We're going to hear from mindset expert and psychiatrist, Professor Steve Peters, psychologist, Dr. Julie Smith, award-winning entrepreneur, Jody Cook, business expert, Chris Ducker, world champion rugby player, Dan Carter, and public speaking coach, Alionor Hunter. And I hope you enjoy this little roundup episode.

Your book, The Chimp Paradox, is absolutely like world famous. I wonder if we can, if I can ask you, what's the mind model that you introduce in the book? And then we'll kind of... Going back, yeah, to the 1990s, what happened is there was an epiphany moment and it was with a particular patient. So I won't go into the great detail, but just to say that I was...

able by just asking the right questions to talk to what I thought was a very sensible person. And then suddenly someone who didn't seem sensible at all and was very emotional and pretty catastrophic in thinking. So I started looking at what do, because we've now got functional MRI scanners, what does the research show us on this? And I started realizing that if we scan somebody's brain and they were talking as what I'd call a human being,

They were rational, they were logical. So I'm going to simplify the neuroscience because I realize a lot of listeners are not neuroscientists. We looked at the top part of your head, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, seem to be leading on this. And this we know is where executive functioning takes place. So in essence, if you put your oxygen supply in that part of your brain, you're going to think and work in a certain way. You'll look for facts, logic, etc.

but there's more to it that hit me. That part of the brain works with acceptance and starts saying it is what it is. That part of the brain looks for solutions.

As opposed to when I started moving the patient by asking emotive questions, so things that would make them upset or more emotional. If you look at functional scanners, what will happen, they'll go to the orbital frontal cortex, just above your eyes. And now they start acting in a very strange way. They wouldn't work with facts at all. In fact, they'd have great difficulty accepting them. So what they do is go on feelings. I'm not saying they're wrong. And intuition. Intuition.

And they'll work with those and they won't understand facts. It's almost like facts are not part of the vocabulary. So what you've got to, I started to see is I've got two people in the room or two brains in the room. So then I start looking and thinking, well, how can I understand this better? And it became two systems. So then I looked and I thought, you see classic connections in the brain. So when the orbital frontal works, it pulls on things like the amygdala heavily.

All of the brain to me is like an orchestra. So both of these systems pull on the brain, but they select certain of the instruments. And the orbiter frontal selects feelings, past experience, emotion. It works on trigger points. It works on behaviors. So this is behavioral therapies coming in. And then I looked at the dorsolateral areas, and they don't work with behaviors. They work with rationality and thinking. So your cognitive therapies are coming in.

And I thought, oh, this is really good. But there's more to the brain than that. So in the center, you've got all this other sort of instruments playing away. They're not the lead instruments. They're not the orchestral conductors, which is what these two other parts are. They're the thinkers. But they actually contribute heavily. So I started seeing that as being a computer.

So what I'd got is essentially the brain was a computer advising, but it does more than advise, and we may get to this. It actually takes over. So there was a paradox that when you imprint a belief in that computer...

The two thinkers are going to be the decision makers. Have to listen to that. They can't go against it. So, for example, if you had a belief that this building was unsound and the roof is about to collapse, then whether you think emotionally or rationally, you have to get out of the building. So the center of your brain, it was crucial that it seemed blank at birth.

apart from instincts and drives, it's blank. Belief systems start coming in and we work them out from being taught or experienced. So I started thinking we can alter that and that would alter whether you left the building or not on your belief. Yeah.

So this all got complicated as he's doing. And I thought, it's got to be made simple. Now I teach at Sheffield Medical School and teaching medical students, they like things simple and practical as I do. And I'm thinking these are doctors to be, and they're not going to be neuroscientists. They're going to be many of them GPs and other careers in medicine, but they want an understanding of what the patients are thinking and how they act and how they can work with that. And so...

I then had another epiphany. I started looking at people and thinking when they're irrational, they look just like chimpanzees. I looked at chimpanzees and thought they have a society which is very similar. Not everything is in line. But I started speaking to the hominid specialists, people who knew the apes. But more important, the ones who were the neuroscientists looking at the apes.

And at that point I was told, and I believed them, the chimpanzee and the human have the same system in their brain when we're reacting emotionally. But the other apes don't. So we think in a certain way. Now this has been published 20 years on. In 2018 they published this to say the other great apes, the gorilla, orangutan, bonobo, they don't think like humans and chimpanzees. But we are so close that we say this is our nearest relative. Yep.

because we think the way they think. Genetically, it's not our nearest relative. The bonobos got more genes. So I just coined the phrase, I said to the students, if I said you had a little chimp in your head, and when you're in this part of your brain, that's the chimp brain. They loved it. It was simple. So when you become irrational, your mind takes over. That part of your brain works with trigger points, behaviors, is impulsive, catastrophic. It's a defense system. Yep.

Whereas when you move to the dorsolateral areas, you're in human mode. Now it's you. But what was intriguing is I was getting this with patients. And then there was this moment for again, for me, an epiphany, probably around just the late 90s.

There was no control over the orbital frontal. It was very fast moving and it's a reactive system and it's inbuilt and you're given it. And when you look at the development of the brain, it has a head start in the fetus. So it's already operating in fetal life and it keeps going right through a whole of our life. Whereas the human part, as I'm calling it, didn't operate. So we come late to the party. So I started then looking at child development.

And I found that it's obvious, it became blatant, that children around two or three start saying why. And the dorsolateral areas are coming in with reasoning. Before that, they don't ask. It's behavioral. So, for example, if you want to help a child that's distressed, distract it. And we know that works best. Don't reason with it because you can't reason. So this all started coming together. And I thought, I've got to keep it simple.

So the students helped me. They wouldn't let me go complex. So they said, right, you've got a human brain, which is you are in control of that. And that's logic, rational, calm, and solution finding. You've got a chimp brain, which you've been given at birth. And that's why at the beginning of this, I said, that's your mind. It's a machine. You don't have a say in it.

Research shows that for most of us, we're on the neurotic type spectrum. Our chimp system is highly strong and it's quite reactive and impulsive. But there's a spectrum. Some people have very quiescent, calm chimps. And I always say to people, if you've got a calm chimp, it may seem an advantage, but actually in the long run, it's a negative because it's meant to be highly reactive. It's meant to give you warning of danger. And that...

Going back to your point about sports people or anybody, it can be your best friend because that thinks outside the box and reacts quick and warns you of danger. And we know our intuitive skills research shows are far more accurate than when we have to try and find logic and facts initially. So working with intuition, as long as it's functioning well, is actually a massive plus. Hmm.

So you have to start joining forces of two thinking brains and start working together. And again, the research shows the people who work with both the logic and the intuition and learn how to manage them and emotional warning signals from the chimp system do the best.

Have you come across The Work by Byron Katie? Yes, yeah. That was one of the books I started reading last night when I couldn't sleep. Because I had this Tony Robbins event and he was kind of talking about this method. I just find it really helpful. It's like these four questions when you're having a thought or some kind of limiting belief. Question number one, is this true? And then just asking yourself yes or no, like, you know, the body will have a response to that. Question number two, is this really true?

It's like, huh, actually, perhaps it's not. And the way that he was talking about it at this business conference was a lot of us will have these limiting beliefs about what we can or we can't do. And we'll say, you know, in my case that, oh, you know, I shouldn't, I can't grow my business because if I do, it'll mean my lifestyle is going to become more stressful. Like, is that true? Is that really true? Is like, have I actually examined all the evidence and like landed at this conclusion that growing a business always means that the owner becomes more stressed?

And just writing it down and asking those questions. And then, you know, the next like question three would be something like, how does it make you feel to identify with that thought? And then question four is, how would it make you feel if you just chose not to identify with that thought? And then you do like a turnaround, I think she calls it, where you sort of

write down the exact opposite of which in this context would be, the more my business grows, the less stressed I'll be. And you find reasons to support that. And it's just like a very simple step-by-step process where I was like, damn, this is actually bloody helpful. Yeah. And do you know, it's a really sort of interesting, I say variation of, it's kind of CBT in some ways that CBT will look at, okay, thought challenging. So it's, you know, and that would be one way to do a thought challenge is just asking yourself, is it true? Yeah.

Often when we're really stuck with a thought and it's causing us a lot of distress, it's because we genuinely buy into it and...

So, you know, once you get to the point of therapy and you ask someone, is that thought true? They will say yes. And they do believe in it. And that's why they're in such pain. And so sometimes it's not enough. And that's when you can go into the sort of challenging that thought. So looking at the evidence. So is it true? OK, let's let's just play around with the idea of taking it to court and and

Where is the evidence, not only in my opinions, but what evidence would stand up in court to say this is true? And then looking at the other side, where's the evidence that it might not be true or might not be the best reflection of reality right now? And you can go into doing all that kind of thought challenging stuff, looking at both sides, getting really honest with yourself about it.

And you can get help from friends and stuff to do that if you're not in therapy. Because sometimes it's really difficult when you're really stuck on something to even consider other options. And that's why you're stuck, right? Because it's not easy. But for some people, that's not the best way because it can set up

argument in your mind and then you're just ruminating on... So you can kind of try and go down for all the evidence that this thought isn't true and then your mind just keeps coming back with, yeah, but, yeah, but this is the reason it's true, this is the reason it's true and you end up...

almost in more distress because you're just going back and forth with this sort of internal argument. And that's when the act stuff is super helpful. So the diffusion stuff. So it's like, actually, do you know what? True or not, I'm just going to push this thought to there. And I'm just going to see it for what it is for a minute. And I'm going to try and hold it lightly. And I know that that's one option. I can go down that and I can go down that route and I can kind of fuse with that thought and I can spend time with it. Where is that going to take me?

And what are my other options? And sort of holding those options lightly, which is in some ways a bit more mindful. So rather than getting into the nitty gritty and trying to find the truth.

It's acknowledging that often a truth is a mixture of different opinions and not one. And, you know, sometimes you're never going to find the truth. And being okay with that, kind of holding that lightly and moving on to the next experience. Yeah, one of the things I find helpful is that almost that there is no truth. It's just, you know, generally, if I think of the...

The disempowering thoughts that I have, they're not things that are like objectively true or not. It's not like I'm not going to be ruminating by the fact that I cannot physically bench 200 kg. But I might be thinking, oh, my content's not valuable. People don't like me. I'm going to become irrelevant. Like, oh, I'm a bad public speaker or whatever, whatever the thing might be.

these things like you know i was speaking to my cousin the other day in the car and she just casually threw out the phrase oh i'm just really lazy and i was like are you is that you know is that true and she'd never really questioned that belief because i guess a belief is just a thought that we i that we hold with some level of certainty and we sort of went went over the evidence a little bit i was like i don't know i mean to me it doesn't look like you're lazy because you're doing this this this and this like how do you feel about that she was like

Oh, yeah. I mean, I guess when you put it that way, you know, perhaps I'm not lazy. And it was it was such it was almost a revelation for her to be like, oh, I'm not actually lazy. Shit. Like, I've been telling myself the story for such a long time.

But I find it helpful to imagine the idea that there is no truth. It's just a matter of a thought that we believe because we have certainty with it. And actually, there are way, way more options out there than believing that one specific thought that I'm lazy or I'm a bad public speaker or whatever the thing might be. And that's where labeling thoughts can be really helpful too. So, you know, noticing a thought for what it is is often, you know, if with that situation, it's as you have the thought, recognizing...

That's a judgment or that's a self-criticism or that's an opinion or that's a memory or that's a story I tell myself or that's a prediction about the future or there's a catastrophizing thought. So, you know, there are lots of different types of thoughts, none of which would qualify for giving fact as it is.

So as soon as you can kind of notice, you know, be mindful of a thought, notice it and then label it as, oh, yeah, that's a, you know, self-critical judgment of mine. Then you're in a better position to be able to take it for what it is and not

buy into it you still might hold it there and you still might feel like you're lazy but noticing that it's an unkind way of speaking to yourself and an unhelpful kind of thought pattern or an opinion um helps you to kind of helps it to carry less weight yeah and have less effect on how you feel yeah like you're holding it at arm's length again yeah

So it's almost like this idea, like labeling this as a narrative or as a story or as a memory or as a self-criticism helps it sort of be like, oh, actually, it's just that wooden mask that I can hold a little bit away from. It sounds like you did a really great sort of thought challenging exercise with her. So well done. You have mentioned in the past a personal success system. What is a personal success system?

I think everyone on the planet has a personal success system. They just might not know exactly what it is. And some friends who popped to mind are, there's a friend called Shona who has a business called Perfect English Grammar and her personal success system is going to events because what she finds is that every single time she goes to an event,

she'll meet someone, she'll get an idea, something will happen. And in the six months after her business doubles, and that's happened like three times now. So because she knows what it is, what her personal success system is, she can apply this going forward. And she can just go to bigger and better events. And she can kind of take the crux of this system and just keep applying it. And everyone's

Second favorite billionaire, Jeff Bezos, has a very similar thing where he will think of an idea. He will write a one-page press release about it. He will see how that goes down with a very small group of people. And then he'll just build it. And then he knows that a few of them are going to take off. Some of them aren't. Amazon's got like...

157 businesses that it started that didn't go anywhere. Like you remember the dash buttons and the fire phone and like random stuff. And it's like, yeah, we'll give it a go. Might work, might not. That's like his success system is coming up with the idea, writing the press release, releasing it and seeing what happens. And I realized that I had one too where...

If I look back at anything that I'm like proud of or anything I've achieved, I pretty much followed the exact same system to achieve it. And so this is going to be different for everyone. But mine is set the intention, speak to someone who's done it, ask them how they did it,

find out a method and then split that method into something that I do every single day for about half an hour and just keep going until it happens. That's just my success system. And so when I worked this out, I was like, I need to test this with other things. So the next thing I had in mind was to write a book and get a publisher. So I followed the exact same process and it just worked. And there's almost something in like

When you figure out what your unique resources are, what your unfair advantage is, what you're like somehow weirdly placed to do with your resources or the things around you, you can figure it out and then apply it going forward. And I think you can kind of achieve anything. So I don't know if you know what yours is. Like the top three, like the top one thing that you've ever achieved that you're just super proud of, it probably had a method from the start to the finish of how you got there.

As you were saying that, I was thinking about the very first cohort of our YouTuber Academy, which was like the first product we released and just completely exploded the business overnight, basically. And that was, I had the idea while I was sitting in a Starbucks in Cambridge, journaling in a physical pen and paper. I was like, this would be a good idea.

I banged it out over the next several weeks nonstop. And then three weeks later, the course was live and made 350k. And that was more money than I'd ever seen before in my life. Have you replicated that since with other things?

I remember the first business I started that was successful, again, zero to MVP in about three weeks. I had the idea while I was at the mosque of like, let me build a company that sells medical admissions courses. And boom, we were up and accepting payments within three weeks because I was just like, I was like, cool, I'm just going to do the thing. Not overthinking it, not worrying too much about what people will think and just having that sort of iterative kind of mentality. So the initial idea comes from you not being in front of your laptop.

Yes, that's very true. The initial idea comes from you having the space, being somewhere different, having a pen and paper. And then after that, what made, with each of those ideas, did you have the conviction that they would work straight away? I had the conviction that it might work. And so it was like a lot of, this could work, let's just give it a go. How many of the ideas that you write down in your journal do you think, oh, that won't work, I'm not gonna do that one?

Quite a lot. So there's something about those ones that made you think this is worth doing. Yes. So I'd find almost the metrics around that because that's probably a system as well. You've probably got like all the ones that I've written down that I found out or that I've thought would work had these characteristics that they probably all got in common. And then the next thing you did was...

banged it out over the next few weeks with a team I'm guessing that probably followed the exact same process as well yeah solo initially and then the second one was with a team of just like alright scrappy let's just bang stuff together let's not let everything hit let's just whack it up you know and in both cases and actually I think in all cases I got my hands quite dirty with it it wasn't like I'll just sketch out the vision and let the team execute it was like

I'm in making the landing pages myself and doing the copywriting myself. Okay. And like in the nuts and bolts of it. So getting scrappy, boots on the ground, taking imperfect action and then launching. Yeah. To current network, current audience. Yeah. I mean, the first time around I didn't have an audience, so I had to post on the student room and hope for the best. Second time around I had Twitter. Yes. And so Twitter was where I was and sort of building in public as well. Second time around.

So this is your system. This is exactly your system. Coffee shop idea.

set of criteria that it matches taking scrappy action and then just doing it you could apply this to anything going forward your next thing that you want to achieve yeah this is the thing so it's like i i'm also thinking you know when i was writing the book most of the progress was made in like very short bursts of time there was this week where we were at a team retreat in wales and some nice airbnb and i was like cool my job for this whole week is just write one chapter a day and from morning to evening which is like i'm just gonna write the chapter

And I wrote like 50,000 words that week. Yeah. And I've never, like, that's by far the most productive I've ever been in my life in terms of like word count. Whereas it took like two years to write 10,000 because I was just like overthinking and outlining. Yeah. All this sort of stuff. I wonder if some kind of magic sauce that works for you is this

taking away the pressure of it being good and being okay with it being like this is a disgusting first draft but like it doesn't matter because it's gonna be like it's gonna be fine because you there's probably something in there that means you trust where it's gonna go so you will accept a level of imperfection because you know it's kind of part of the story but you know I quite like to think about like the movie of your life like if this was a movie of your life right now

Then you there in your cabin in Wales writing the book, like that would be there and it would be a really fun scene. And it would be like, there's like rain outside and there's like sheep barring in the distance. And it's like, it's this glorious kind of thing. And you're there like, and like scrunching it up and going like that. And like, it would be cool. So there's maybe something that's like, you know, it's part of the story. You know, it's ultimately going to lead to success that lets you,

Kind of get out your own way and just put words on the paper, which is powerful because loads of people can't do that because of the writer's block thing. Yeah, I think recently we've not followed the system because...

We now have a head of product who's responsible. I've been wanting to make a productivity course for a while. If I'd followed the system, I would just bang it out in three weeks and it would be done. But now we're like, well, we've got a head of product and we've got a big audience now. It's kind of a big deal. We should do this properly. And therefore, we should do the competitor analysis and we should figure out what the offer is and we should follow the methods and all this kind of stuff. And I can see the value in that. But I'm also kind of like feeling the sense of like,

I just want to make it in a weekend. Yeah. Because I think I can make it in a weekend. Yeah. Rather than a six month period of like back and forth with our head of product. I think it's a really valid point. And I think it's almost why startups will always do well because they don't have this sense of, oh, we need to do it properly. Whereas like businesses that have been going a very long time, they've got like polyamory

policy and HR and procedures and stuff they have to do so they almost they almost become irrelevant because they are following so many different procedures when the startups are like we're just going to do we're just going to execute I'm going to get on with it so maybe getting back to the the scrappier the scrappier you might be the way so I guess just thinking about this out loud I could do the scrappy version 0.1 soft launch it to like twitter in the email list see what happens but

And then at that point, I lose interest in it. And then I can hand it over to a team member to take it from 0.1 to like 100. Yeah, because you're the visionary. Yeah. Are you an ENTJ? Yeah. Yeah, we're the same. But yeah, that's exactly it. The E means you're super...

The N means the, it's like the visionary, the I've got these great ideas, but then you need someone else to go. And the T means very, very logical. The J means that you can plan it all out. But ultimately you don't, even though you know what the plan should be, you don't want to execute the plan. So that's where your team comes in and goes, hey, there's all these cool stuff, cool things in mind, and they do it. Sick. So how would someone go about finding their own personal success system? Think about...

The things that you've done that you're most proud of and not the things that you think you should be the most proud of, but the things you're really secretly the most proud of, and then figure out what you did from start to finish to make them happen and do that with multiple things and then find patterns, whatever they are, however weird the patterns are. It might be that...

that you've ever achieved on a really cool level has always involved this one person or has always involved this one coffee shop in Cambridge or whatever it might be. Find those patterns and then go to those people, go to those places again and try and replicate it. So let's say I,

I'm studying architecture at university and I'm thinking, you know, I want to actually be an architect. I don't want to be one of those, you know, architect dropouts that start a YouTube channel for now. I want to study architecture. I want to build my professional reputation. I want to network with the right people. Maybe I'm active on LinkedIn. Maybe I'm going to these conferences and just trying to build up a decent body of work. But I'm also thinking in the back of my mind, you know, I can see myself based on the sort of person I am. You know, back when I was in school, I was selling candy bars, whatever. And I was like,

I'm thinking maybe I want to start my own firm one day and preferably sooner rather than later once I've got a bit of experience under my belt. And maybe this personal brand stuff could be interesting. In that position, let's say someone is a professional in a traditional career and they like the idea of a personal brand.

Firstly, what's the benefit of them trying to build a personal brand within a professional industry and then how would they go about it? Well, I mean, obviously, it will give you options further down the line. That's a big benefit for sure. In terms of going ahead and actually starting and doing it, I would be, in this day and age, I'd be really, really upfront with my boss.

And I'd say, "Hey, I'm thinking of starting a YouTube channel where I'm going to show people how to draw or how to use CAD or how to make 3D models or whatever it is that people do in architecture offices." And my father was an architect, so I've kind of grown up around that a little bit. And I just thought before I start doing it, I'm not going to mention my company that I'm working for or anything like that. Opinions are my own and all that sort of stuff, but would you have a problem with it or not?

Because you're better off being upfront with that and getting the green light from your boss than you would do putting an entire year into it, the boss is not liking it, and then getting into trouble. That wouldn't be a good situation to be in at all. But it would certainly give you opportunities further down the line. It creates options, which is never a bad thing at all. But Ali, honestly, we're sitting here talking about this. If you'd have told me 17, 18 years ago when I opened the doors to my first business that

that I would be writing a bestselling book on building a personal brand business, that I would be making money to speak in front of complete strangers on stages around the world and have tens of thousands of people tuning into my show every week. I would not have seen this coming at all.

This has not been planned, or at least initially it wasn't, right? I'd like to think that I've been a little bit more strategic in the last seven or eight years, but at least at first. Like, I didn't even realize I had a personal brand until I got my first book deal. And then I realized it was one particular conversation that I had with the publishers who said my first book was called Virtual Freedom.

And they said that they liked the concept of the book and the proposal for the book because it felt like it was the outsourcing life section of the four-hour work week that never got printed kind of thing. It was like the next step kind of thing. And that's great. And that's going to put you on another pedestal, Chris. And I was like, well...

Okay, that's great and everything, but I just want to help people. I'm not writing this book to move up a pedestal or two. This is just what I've gone through in the last four, five, six years. I burned out in 2009 and then had to come back from that. And part of that process was hiring a whole bunch of people to replace myself, some virtual, some not.

But then I started blogging and podcasting and all that sort of stuff in 2010 about VAs and virtual teams. And all of a sudden, bosh, I'm getting a publishing deal because I'm the VA guy, right? So, okay, great. I've always wanted to become a published author. That's a goal. Let's tick that off the list and we'll move on from that. But then what happened was

After the book came out, people started to say to me, how did you do that? How did you get the book deal? And I started reverse engineering it back. And I said, well, I got the book deal because I was publishing content three times a week on my blog and I was podcasting every week. And, you know, I was doing YouTube videos every now and then. I was on Twitter.

you know, back when, you know, Twitter was like really cool when it first started, right? And all this sort of stuff. And you reverse engineer it back, you realize actually I'm building that personal brand up over a period of time. And it just ended up culminating with a book deal. So then that's where YouPinnow was born. That was where if I can do it for nothing, there's no reason why I can't help other people do it as well. And that was where YouPinnow was born.

Is there a way to build a personal brand without, I guess, quote, creating content? Or is that really the main lever? I mean, I think there probably is. I don't think you need to. You know, one of the easiest ways for us to spread our message, our opinions, our ideas, and our thoughts is

today is doing exactly what we're doing right now. It's getting in front of other people's audiences. Your people will tune in

and I'm a little Marmite, right? People either like me or they don't like me. There's not a lot of messy middle with me, and I'm actually fine with that as well. I think pretty much every content creator should be like that. You either love it or hate it. Marmite have it, they've got it down right. In terms of marketing, they lean into that love it or hate it thing so well, and it works brilliantly. And I think the same could be said for personal brands as well. But this was not something that I really...

thought was going to happen but now I've just rolled into it and I think that the majority of people who jump on board with the idea of building a personal brand and they understand the power of it and

And there is a certain amount of responsibility involved as well. Obviously, as you get more and more known and respected, your opinions and what you say online really matter particularly. But no, I don't think you need to create content yourself. But I think in today's world, you definitely need to be in front of other people via their other people's content maybe.

You've had a bunch of setbacks in your career with like injuries and things like that. And I know that, you know, anyone listening to this or watching this will have also experienced major or minor setbacks in their life where they've maybe had a goal or a vision or a purpose to work towards. And then the universe has dropped a piano on them and like something bad has happened.

in i guess in your world you know the world of elite high performance what are some strategies that you and your team have found helpful for dealing with dealing with setbacks yeah it's it's hugely important particularly in today's you know today's world you need to understand we don't live in a a perfect world there's going to be disappointments there's going to be setbacks you're not going to achieve every single goal you set out to achieve but

Having the right tools to deal with those situations can be a huge advantage, give you so much motivation, give you real strength and desire to...

And to learn from those moments. So a lot of people look at my career and just focus on the success. But I firmly believe the person I am today is not because of the trophies that I've won or the accolades that I get. It's because of the difficult times, the setbacks,

I've had and the things that not many people sort of know or learn about and that's what I wanted to share in the chapter in my book around resilience and having the right tools to deal with resilience. So it's an amazing story that I tell that I used to hate to talk about because it was at the 2011 Rugby World Cup where we went on to win it and

And I'd been the vice captain of the team for three years behind the great Richie McCaw, but I'd never captained the All Blacks. Whenever he wouldn't play, I wouldn't play for whatever reason. But in the last round-robin game of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, I got the phone call the day before the game, the last round-robin game, to captain the All Blacks. One of the best...

phone calls that I've had and of course I said yes, Richie McCaw pulled out late with a little niggling injury and here I was, really proud moment to captain the All Blacks for the first time. So I went off to the press conference the day before the game to talk to the media about how proud I was to finally captain the All Blacks, what a special moment it was for my family and I.

Went off to our final training run, which is called the captain's run, which is the captain gets to decide what you do. This is quite a proud moment. This is feeling good. It's been a great day for me. We went through the captain's run. I always finish the captain's run with a few shots at goal. And I've been kicking goals ever since I could walk. Dad taught me to kick with both feet as soon as I could walk. So I've kicked millions of kicks in my life. My last shot at goal, I was lining up to kick, and as I came into kick and the impact of the

My boot hitting the ball, I dropped to the ground and I had a serious injury. And my groin had just...

It had actually torn off my pubic bone, and I just fell to the ground in extreme agony. And this was my third World Cup, and I'd had two failed World Cups. We'd done so much work around the psychology. I just felt like we were destined to finally win a World Cup. I was 28. I was in the prime of my career. Everything was going so well. I thought, this is my time. This is my moment. And then for it to all be taken away by such a serious person

injury, I was devastated. So I rushed off to the medical center where I had scans. So I was with my doctor and then the specialist, my doctor was like, do you want to see the results? And I was like, no. I knew in my mind that my dream was over. And I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason, but this was going to be my last World Cup. And

All those thoughts of why me, why now, why such a serious injury, nothing made sense in my mind at all. Everything had just been taken away from me. I jumped in the car to go back to the hotel and halfway on the journey back to the hotel, I, hey doc, is my World Cup dream over? And she's like, yes. And I just burst into tears. I cried all the way back to the hotel, went to my room, you know, players would come through, coaches would come through to help.

But they couldn't say anything. There's nothing that they could say could change this. And it was just like dead silence every time someone came in. It was nice to know that they were thinking of me and make the effort to come, and that helped. But I was distraught, so I was angry. I was sad. I was disappointed at all the emotions running through my body. But then after a couple of days, I was like, well, hold on, like,

you know what does an all-black great do in situations like this so that my purpose really helped me through uh through this the setback what does an all-black great do that's right an all-black great rehabs this injury better than anyone's rehab this injury before an all-black great resets goals you know you said that an all-black great needs to play for 10 years or longer so i signed a new contract to play for another four years in new zealand um to get me through to another world cup

and also an all-black great puts the team first so what does the team need me to do now well i'm injured so i need to help the player play in my position he went on to get injured as well so they brought in another player so i had to help him he got injured he went to a four string number 10 and it's a great story because um the fourth string number 10 went on to kick the winning goal in the world cup final but

Through that process, there were some great tools and learnings to help me deal with resilience. The first one was the importance to grieve. So far too often, I see people have a really setback, disappointment, and they just, they move on. Really positive, it's not that important, actually right, no, no, really positive mindset straight away. And I've seen that it

you know, bites them in the ass further down the track because they don't deal with your emotions straight away. So it's important to grieve, deal with your emotions. So much so that when I have an injury, my wife knows to stay away from me for 24 hours because I'm not a nice person to be around. I'm grumpy, I'm angry, I'm just dealing, processing it all. But there needs to be

You need to flick the switch at some stage. So for me it was 24 hours and depending on the severity of the setback, it can be a little bit longer. There's no point in me moping around the hotel room for the next two weeks feeling sorry for myself. So I do that for 24 hours, I flick the switch. That's when I change my mindset into a positive one. What are the goals that I want to set now that I've injured, whether it's your rehab or longer term of injury

in four years time. So I reset my goals. That's another really important thing of dealing with a setback.

Um, so it's, that's really helped me. And, and I had this new motivation to, to bounce back, uh, from, from this injury. Yeah. Uh, 2012, I got named 12 months later, you know, world rugby player of the year. So I, I returned and had a fantastic year. 2015 rugby world cup was one of my sort of best, uh, rugby world cups that I ever played, you know, sort of man of the match performance, the rugby world cup final. I was able to bounce back all of a sudden, uh,

Four years earlier when...

things weren't making any sense they all made sense now all those moments and setbacks were built up to make me a stronger more motivated player in 2015 so I kind of sit across from you today knowing that the person that I am today a lot more resilient and have the tools to help deal with resilience is because of those setbacks that I had through my career

I have this pet theory that we are looking at speaking the wrong way around. And that if you are someone who is, let's take the example of someone shy. And let's say you're at a drinks and you're sitting on the sofa and there's people around you. And they're all chatting to each other and no one's chatting to you. And you start to have these conversations.

thoughts that may be like, I'm not interesting. And someone tries to talk to you and the conversation doesn't really go anywhere for whatever reason. They get distracted or, you know, you feel like they're turning away. In that moment, it's very easy to think, okay, I'm going to get better at speaking. And the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to

be so charming and charismatic. I'm going to learn how to sit up straight. I'm going to learn how to use posture, use hands, tell stories, be exciting, get rid of my ums and ahs. I'm going to change all of these outside tips and tricks. And then when I have that, I'll be good at speaking. And then everyone, and I'll be confident enough to speak up at my drinks.

And it's kind of this outside in approach. Only when I have learned all these tips and tricks will I be good enough to talk to people. And right now the reason I'm not good enough is because I don't know how to do these things. I don't have those skills. And I think that's the wrong way around. I think it's the opposite. I think that in reality, I heard this phrase and I quite like it. The problem is not the problem.

The problem is your solution to the problem. Nice. So the problem here is not your inability to speak or your speaking ability. The problem here is you thinking you are a bad speaker or you thinking that other people are judging you. And so therefore you protect yourself by not speaking, by staying quiet. And that is the problem. And so in reality, rather than fixing it from the outside in,

of like if I do all these tips and tricks then finally on the inside I'll be good enough. The reality is that on the inside you're good enough. When you speak to your close friends, your family, to your loved ones, in some situations you're totally free. I think everyone has those places where they're totally free and they can speak but then in this situation you're not. So instead of learning speaking from the outside in of like these are the skills I need to learn

And then I will be confident. We should learn it from the inside out. I am the way me, the way I am right now knows how to speak. And if I just unlearn all of those beliefs I have about myself, about being terrible and having no value, then I'll be able, then I'll be amazing.

All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching.

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