Paul McKenna (World leading Hypnotist): Unlocking your potential with new ways of thinking (E234)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. to create our brand new book, How to Change Your Life. Within the book, we've explored these learnings and translated them into the five stages of change that you can follow to get from where you are to where you want to be. Join us on our journey of sharing the learnings from every single one of our high performance guests with the world. Get your copy of How to Change Your Life today. Hi there, you're listening to High Performance, the show that unlocks the minds of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jay Comfrey, and alongside Damien Hughes, our expert in high performing cultures, we learn from the stories, successes, and struggles of our guests, allowing us all to explore, be challenged, and to grow.

1:15Here's what's coming up today. What a modern psychologist, hypnotist and neuro-linguistic programmer does is help somebody to literally reprogram their mind or teach them to program themselves really quickly to turn around unwanted behaviors. I hear people say rubbish like it takes 21 days to get a habit. I've seen people in 21 seconds change. In that moment, their life changes, or they meet someone, or they come up with an idea, or they suddenly see a possibility. In that moment, everything changes. Life is absolutely amazing. Try and find out how much pleasure you can stand. So welcome to High Performance, Paul McKenna.

1:57This is part of a series of episodes that we're releasing in January at the very start of 2024 to help equip you for the year ahead. And today we welcome to the show a master of helping people change from losing weight to enabling better sleep, releasing anxiety to quitting smoking. Paul McKenna has sold over 10 million books. He is the number one hypnotist in the world. And on today's show, we talked to him about his new book, Success for Life, The Secret to Achieving Your Potential. And you know what, Damien and I really enjoyed this conversation. At times we challenged Paul, at times we disagreed with him, at times we vehemently agreed with him and loved his approach.

2:37And I'm telling you now, right, the energy this man brings to a conversation, the force of nature that he is when you're in a room with him is really something quite special. And, you know, I left having learned again an awful lot. And that's why I'm so pleased to bring you this episode at the start of a new year. And don't forget, we also have the High Performance app. And if you download the app, You can actually hear Paul guiding me through an exercise to try and help me with an issue that I've got in my life. So if you want to hear that, download the High Performance app. But right now, let's get straight to it.

3:09Time to get you closer to your own version of High Performance with a world-leading hypnotist. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome to High Performance, Paul McKenna.

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5:08Well, Paul, this is a real pleasure to welcome you to High Performance. Thank you, Jake. Hello, lovely to see you. And Damien, lovely to see you too. What is High Performance, do you believe? when somebody's in a sort of a peak state when um athletes call it being in the zone musicians call it being in the groove psychologists call it being in flow when you're involved in an activity to the peak of your ability sort of the rest of the world disappears you know you move in the right way you think uh the thoughts in a you know a really good sequence and you are you're actually in a state of excellence is what I would say.

5:46And should we all aim for that? Like, do we need to aim for excellence? We don't need to, but it's a good idea to, because firstly, it feels good, right? You know, even when you're watching someone else in a peak state, right? If you have the reference experiences, say as a sports person, you're watching, you know, someone performing an athlete really, really well, you enjoin them to some extent. or if you're watching, you're at a concert and you appreciate the music, the musicians in the groove, you enjoy them in that flow, that groove, you know, that peak state. And so it feels good. And so, yeah, so it's a good thing to aim for because it makes you feel good and it makes other people feel good.

6:29A lot of our listeners will be familiar with you from your days on television as a hypnotist. And I'm interested if you tell us a little bit about how you describe what you do now. okay so you're absolutely right i my i began my life as a radio broadcaster then i became a uh an entertainment hypnotist comedy hypnotist and i then moved into self-improvement television and i became an author and nowadays what i do is i teach hypnotherapy i have the largest hypnotherapy training organization in the world i do motivational events i'm a hired gun and and i still write books or make audio video products that either help people to overcome a problem, to sleep better at night, to become more confident, to quit smoking, etc.

7:14Or aspirational. So no matter how good your life is right now, I've got the access codes to your unconscious mind and I can crank your life up and make it even better. Not install my model of happiness in you, but help you become the best version of you. I know that you work with some of the most famous people on the planet right we all assume well they don't need paul mckenna because they've already achieved great things they must already be happy no i feel very honored to have worked with some some spectacularly talented people and sometimes they will have a problem like everyone else they just want to quit something or they just want to get over a phobia or other times they'll they're already brilliant to what they do but they want to be even better they want to have the edge so for example, Roger Daltrey is not an unconfident person, but when he walks out into a stadium and performs for people, he wants to be in a peak state of performance.

8:08So he uses one of my trances, as does James Corden. And again, I can only speak about this because they've spoken about it publicly. So they want to be in that peak state of performance when they're actually doing their job. Can we talk about some specifics then when it comes to the work you do? I mean, I was listening to the news the other day and this shocked me eight million people in 2023 in the uk have taken antidepressants yeah one in 12 in the united states on antidepressants there was a recent survey that said globally we've never had so much but we've also never had so little purpose yeah and there is what did you describe it as a moment ago a biological biological there's a we're in a psychological pandemic in a psychological pandemic how have we got there well firstly uh because This is a big question, by the way.

8:57And yeah, a quarter of the country is taking some sort of psychiatric medication now. And I am not qualified to say whether antidepressants are a good or bad thing. Of course, for some people, they definitely help them through a difficult time. Now, there's no doubt that antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptaking inhibitors do alter brain chemistry. but um i think what's happened is uh a lot of issues that really should be dealt with by psychologists hypnotherapists or modern sort of uh yeah counselors if you like have been treated by medication and that's not bad by the way because there's some wonderful medications but rather than people spending time doing talking therapies which um uh in some cases more expensive than a pharmaceutical medication.

9:50You can understand why, and also work quickly, people have gotten into the habit of using medication. However, as a therapist who practices talking therapies and some of these new what we call psychosensory therapies, I think it's something that will become more popular in the future because we went down some really weird routes, thanks to Sigmund Freud, you know, who thought that we just sit and talk about our problems and analyze them. And somehow, you know, that will cure people. Now, there's no doubt getting something off your chest makes many people feel better. But going back over and over and over all your problems is a bit like throwing someone with a broken leg down the stairs until they feel better, because you're sort of reinforcing it by going back over it.

10:39So for a long time, people thought the solution to overcoming problems was analyzing it. And now we've moved past that. Now it's about recoding or repatterning. So if you tell me you've been through a horrific experience and you can't stop thinking about it and it's in your mind all the time, rather than just sit and talk about it and go over it and over it and reinforce it, what we do is we make it so it's unimportant. It's coded differently so that you go, yeah, something bad happened to me, but it doesn't bother me anymore and so um how we've got to the place where we are where your question started where we have a massive proportion of people taking medication is um partly economic partly cultural partly a whole load of different things um it's nobody's fault but if the medications work so well why are we taking more and more of them so for people who are already doubting themselves hearing us have this conversation thinking well the tablets will work for me because my brain doesn't have the capability to be rewired i'm not strong enough i'm yeah i'm not there what would you tell us and more importantly them about the power of the human brain okay so firstly we do need to put in a caveat which is somebody's clinically depressed you actually need to see um a qualified professional right um but what what i say to people um in relation to the work that i do firstly uh a lot of the problems that people have in everyday life are now quite easily solved using modern psychological techniques like hypnosis, like neurolinguistic programming, NLP, right?

12:14And now these psychosensory techniques where you tap on various acupuncture points or you touch the side of your arms, this sort of thing. And these work really well for a whole host of everyday sort of modern problems. And if you want to quit smoking, hypnosis now proven to be the most effective way in the world to quit, right? So I think it would be great if more people were using them. In fact, when I started doing this 35, nearly 40 years ago, it was voodoo, right? And people certainly in this country wouldn't go and see a therapist because it would mean you're mad. And there was a big stigma around it.

12:49Nowadays, the invention of the label coach means that people can get help. They can say, you know, I've got a coach, somebody who's helping me access my resources to be a better version of myself. Whereas therapy is seen largely to help people with problems that they can't seem to overcome. And so both have a role, by the way. And what I do is kind of a mix of both, really. So can we rewire our brains? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I hear people say rubbish, like it takes 21 days to get a habit. I've seen people in 21 seconds change. You know, they literally have gone, you know what? I'm never doing that again.

13:25And that's it. In that moment, their life changes, or they meet someone, or they come up with an idea, or they suddenly see a possibility. In that moment, everything changes. So, you know, I'm down on conventional old-fashioned analysis because I meet people who've been in therapy for 20 years, and they can talk to you like a shrink, and they'll say all this psychobabble, like, I've got this unexpressed Ray George, my father, and I'm dealing with it. No, all I'm interested in is the output, right? It hasn't made any difference to their behavior. What a modern psychologist, hypnotist, and neuro-linguistic programmer does is help somebody to literally reprogram their mind in the same way that about half of what you do every day is a habit, right?

14:07You don't think to yourself, shall I clean my teeth this morning? You just do it, yeah? So some of those habits or programs, if you like, help us. Like you learn how to, as a kid, tie your shoelaces, open the door, etc. So you don't have to learn how to do it every day, and you store the program in the unconscious. And some of the programs we have are unhelpful. Overeating, drinking too much, smoking, insomnia, lack of confidence, etc. And through modern psychological techniques, you can program somebody or teach them to program themselves really quickly to turn around unwanted behaviors, to be able to feel better more of the time.

14:43I actually think we need to pass this over to you, Paul. Because people are chewing into this, having seen the name, maybe having seen the trailer, maybe having listened to that first couple of minutes thinking, this could be the conversation that changes everything for me so if that's what they're thinking yeah what what should we be talking about please you tell us psychological technology has taken this dramatic kind of quantum leap recently um and and so it used to take six months to cure a phobia for example now most phobias not even 60 minutes right because we understand more about how people um make themselves frightened and how they can make themselves unfrightened and confident.

15:23And so we're gearing up to, I mean, what's really interesting now is with artificial intelligence and the way our species is going, we're going to go through, we're going to go through, again, a massive change in the species from which we can never return, where there will be a marriage of cyber technology, human physiology, etc., the singularity. And, you know, some of that's very exciting. If we look at, say, the many of the developments in medicine, fantastic. If you look at warfare, then it's very scary, right? But I tend to be an optimist, right? I, you know, I think when I look at, say, I like the Gaia theory, that the Earth is a living organism.

16:08The days and nights are the heartbeats, the rainforests are the lungs, the oceans, the blood supply. And there are about the same number of communication connections on the earth right now as there are neural networks in a brain. So we're the global brain. We're neurons in a global brain. And, um, uh, what's interesting is to me is that I'd say the two big problems in the world right now were certainly selfishness and, you know, fear-based aggression, greed, stuff, stuff like that, right? Which is polluting our planet. And a friend of mine, he did a few years ago, he took an aerial shot of Los Angeles and cancer cells.

16:43And he put them side by side and their structure is similar. And so right now we're in this age that the Chinese call Wei Qi, which means two characters, danger, opportunity. So I think right now we've got all of these amazing possibilities. You know, I'm fascinated by human development as well as actually, you know, understanding how it is that we can overcome human problems in, you know, the context of my work as a therapist, but also kind of where we're going, you know, where we're going as a species. And I think there's a lot of things to be excited about. There's some things to be absolutely terrified about.

17:26And, you know, only the future will reveal that. Your new book that's come out, I think, is really quite powerful. And it's powerful in the way that we were saying it's common sense but it's not always common practice for people to understand it and i'm thinking in relation to that what i i think that directs us around the opportunity element of what you've just described so i'd be interested if you wouldn't mind telling us some of the principles that you talk about in the book that any of us can adopt and employ within our own lives okay so over the years i've had the opportunity to work with all kinds of super achievers, you know, as well as people who are, you know, with problems.

18:06And these are people from the world of sports, the arts, you know, business, etc. And one of the things I like to do is model how somebody does something if it's excellent. If somebody's doing something dysfunctional, I model how it is they're upsetting themselves or holding themselves back, and then change that. But the idea is if you can model somebody who's a model of excellence and codify it and then teach it to other people in a fraction of the time that it took your model of excellence. That's a great thing because that moves the species on. And so this new book that I've written, Success for Life, The Secret to Achieving Your True Potential, is really about seven main areas.

18:46Self-belief, confidence, that sort of stuff. Then you've got clarity. A lot of people are not sure about what they want. When you ask them a series of questions, they go to their values. They suddenly get clear about what it is, right? Then there's connection. That's connecting to other people, connecting to life. That's where we get our vitality and life force from. There's also a determination. A lot of people who are procrastinators, it's not they're lazy, they're just frightened to make the wrong decision, which is a decision. But when they're clear and you get their self-sabotage and those aspects of them that are holding themselves back, suddenly they get determined and motivated.

19:26Then there's energy and health. I mean, one of the things that we know, again, it's a sort of modern area of psychology medicine, is something called psychoneuroimmunology. That's PNI. And that's where psychology and medicine overlap. And so through visualization techniques, for example, you can enhance your immune system, right? There's tons of research on this now. And then finally, happiness, right? So everybody wants to be happy. But a lot of people think that happiness will come from having more stuff or more status or things like this, whereas our inherent default setting is happiness, and we kind of get in the way.

20:07So what I do is I explain this, I get people do exercises, you know, and I speak in hypnotic language. So metaphor is the stock and trade of hypnotist, right? And then I build, there's a whole load of audio techniques with this, but a trance. And a trance that gets you to access all these super states. And what happens is as you hit the end of this book, you get euphoria, right? Because suddenly you've stacked all of these great things on top of each other and you can see a great future. You feel full of positivity. You're literally turbocharged. And so some of the things are real simple. I mean, some of the, let me do a quick thing with you now and people watching or listening at home, right?

20:51So if it's safe and appropriate to do so, if you close your eyes and imagine a cinema screen in front of you and on that screen, I'd like you to watch a you that's operating at your true potential or close to it. Yeah. A you that's in the zone, in the flow. That's right. Look at the way, look at your posture, the expression on your face, the light behind your eyes. Look at the way you connect with people, the way you gesture. Hear the sound of your voice. And then when you're ready, float over and into that you. Step into that you and see through the eyes of your more confident, optimistic, joyous, creative self.

21:31That more optimized you. Hear your internal dialogue, strong and positive. And feel how good it feels. And then from this place, imagine another cinema screen in front of you and a you that's operating at an even higher level of potential. A you that's a sort of a superpower you. Yeah. Look at your posture, your expression. light behind your eyes. Once again, that, that, that aura of confidence and charisma of happiness and joy that you're exuding. That's right. And the way you connect with people, your gestures, everything, then float over and step into that you. That's right. See through the eyes of your optimized super self.

22:17Hear your internal dialogue strong and feel how good it feels and notice where the feelings are strongest in your body. And wherever they are, give them a color. And then imagine moving that color in your mind up through your neck and around your head, down through your shoulders, into your arms and hands and fingers, down through your chest, into your legs, and then double the brightness and double it again and double it again until you are glowing with this color. And then imagine taking this into the rest of the day. Imagine taking it into next week. Imagine taking it into your home life, your social life, your work life.

22:50Imagine taking it into challenging situations or dealing with difficult people imagine spreading it into your future forevermore and then when you're ready you know just come on back out feel good yeah it does can i jump in though because when you spoke about the word trance yes i'm conscious that for me it goes back to that idea of voodoo or something to be hesitant or just or and And I think the way you've just explained it there is powerful and it can feel very self-affirming. I'm interested in almost challenging some of that cynicism that's inherent in our culture that would get in the way of us accessing some of these resources you describe.

23:36Well, I mean, you're absolutely right. A lot of people, well, not so much now, but for a long time, people had understandable fears about hypnosis. They thought it would, you know, they might do things against their will. They might blurt out some secret. They'd lose control. They'd go into a trance and never wake up and all these sort of misconceptions. And the idea is, is that modern hypnosis gives you more control over your mind. If you like the people who want to control you and do it surreptitiously and manipulatively, our politicians, salespeople, you know, cult leaders, those kind of people.

24:17and use people like me to show them how to do it, right? And so we live in an age now where, you know, there's a lot of manipulation that takes place by people not with our best intentions, but theirs instead. So are we being manipulated then by people that want to do it and we don't even know it's happening? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, just look at political campaigns, look at advertising, you know, look at just the way, the values of, say, the people who run big tech, you know, shape our world, right? So, by the way, it's not like they're men in some, you know, cigar-filled room, you know, leather-bound chairs, you know, plotting to take over the world.

24:57I'm not some conspiracy theorist, but yes, modern persuasive communicators learn specific language patterns. You know, years ago, I looked at the language patterns of Margaret Thatcher, Adolf Hitler, and Tony Blair. Now, the content is different, of course, right? But some of the structural stuff was the same, right? Like what, for example? Well, you know, just, for example, politicians speak in terms, first of all, they speak in vagaries, right? You know, we all want freedom, we want liberty, we want justice, we want to feel the things right, or they'll use assumptions, you know, they'll use assumptive language, hypnotists do, I don't know when you're going to relax into a trance and how deeply you're going to relax.

25:38But as you relax, you'll notice it's the right trance for you, right? So what I've done is I've hit three assumptions there in a row, which is beyond the limits of what's called trans derivational search. So your mind has to go on this search and try and make sense of it. After three, it just goes, all right, this trancing's happening. So again, people like Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama they are all trained in NLP they're immaculate communicators and in a way a politician does need to be that's their job is to inspire people, uplift people, it's not all bad and evil but of course it's when it comes to selling products people that sell products their job is to get you to buy something and so they make it seem as attractive as possible, if you're a legal advocate your job is to put the best case for your client to the court.

26:32So communication skills have been around since the beginning of time. It's just we've become much more sophisticated in our use of them. And now with things like social media, it's possible for good and bad communication to spread more rapidly. So would you tell us, for anyone listening here then, how they can harness these patterns? So I love the assumptive nature of the language. I like the idea of talking in vagaries yeah what else could our listeners take away and use say if it's about getting your kids to do homework or whether it's about you mean yeah in really practical terms well you see the thing is kids learn by what you do not by what you say right and so they're going to learn by example and uh uh there isn't a kind of one size fits all but um hypnotists use um we recall it hypnotic language, which is persuasive language.

27:28So for example, you build agreement. You see this in commercials. You want value for money. You want reliability. You want a product that you can trust. You want the Okie Koki 2000, right? Because you've said yes to the first three things, you're more likely to say yes to the fourth, right? So if I'm hypnotizing somebody, I'll say, you've come here today for a reason. And you're sitting here and you're listening to me and you're aware of certain sensations and very soon you'll be noticing changes. So I've put three things that you can say yes to. And the fourth is a statement of direction. But again, a good salesperson does this.

28:02I walked into a shop the other day and the chap said, I noticed you looked at the jackets first. And then you looked at the coats. You're obviously looking for something. Maybe these will interest you. And I, oh, maybe these will interest you. Yeah. Cause he got me to say yes to the first three things. I was more likely to say yes to the fourth. Brilliant. Can we go through some of the, well actually all seven elements of the book. I think it'd be really valuable for people to walk away with some real thoughts and some real tips and things that they can take into their own life. So you mentioned self-belief first of all.

28:33It feels like the golden bullet. It feels so elusive. How do we develop our self-belief? Well first of all everyone has confidence to some degree. But they might not have it when they want it and where they want it. So for For example, when you're walking around a supermarket, you don't go, oh, shall I get the cornflakes? You just do it. You do it without thinking. When you're sitting talking with friends, you're not worried about being judged. So you're natural and authentic, right? So everyone has that. But sometimes in some environments, people go, I've got to speak in front of all these people.

29:05And they go into an unresourceful state. So basically, this book is about learning seven power states. So the state of confidence, self-belief, being authentic. is again, you know, when I wrote a book about 20 years ago about confidence, I would tell people, oh, I'm writing about confidence. And people said things like this, they would go, oh, a training manual for our souls, is it? And I said, what do you mean? Those confident people are in your face. I went, no, no, no. Those people are very unconfident. They're trying too hard. Naturally confident people are authentic. They're genuine. They're comfortable in their own skin.

29:39So again, through visualization processes, like the one we just did. And the other thing as well, one of the reasons that people don't fulfill their true potential is either they're not thinking big enough, rich enough, right? Or they're holding themselves back. They have some self-sabotage. They have some programs deep in their unconscious mind that they're not worthy or that somehow it'll all be too much. They've got a little imposter syndrome stuff going on. And so they sabotage their success, hold themselves back. And again, that comes from one part of the person wanting to achieve and the other part going, hang on, we want to protect you.

30:15You know, if you just suddenly get up and start talking to everyone and, you know, what if you might not know what you're talking about or you might get criticized, so we'll just hold you back and keep you shy, right? So what you do is you get the two aspects of the self together through a really simple process. It's an NLP technique and both of them fulfill their positive intent. So tell us how to do that part. Okay, we do it now if you want. So is there a part of you that wants to achieve something and a part of you that sort of, you don't need to tell me any of the details, a part of you that holds you back, do you think?

30:45Yes. Yeah. So if you place your hands like this, there you go. Now, if you close your eyes for a second, don't go off into a trance, but I'd like you to put the part that wants to achieve in one of your hands. Yeah, that's it. So it's your right hand, is it? Yeah. That's right. The part of you wants, you know, to go out and do particular things, achieve and succeed and accomplish stuff in the world. But then there's another part over here, this part, that's not sure, that holds you back, that limits you and actually wants to protect you and keep you safe, right? So its intent is positive. Both aspects of you have a positive intent, right?

31:18And now what I'd like to do is bring your hands together. That's right. Bring them together so they're overlapping. That's it. There you go. I'm going to come around here. There we go. That's a good. And then what we're going to do is these two aspects of you are going to figure out how it is they can work together so you can succeed and achieve, but at the same time, you're protected. And what will happen is in a moment, it'll be like a click or it'll be like, oh yeah, it's possible. You won't necessarily know that. There you go. You won't necessarily know how, but you know, it's possible. And now there you go.

31:49That's a good. Now integrate that new super part into you. And I'd like you to see what it's like to succeed and achieve, but also to have all the safety and protection that the part that was sabotaging or stopping you was doing so both aspects are working together so instead of driving down the street and slamming on the brake you ease on the accelerator ease off the accelerator ease on the brake ease off the brake there you go that's it there you go when you're ready just come on back so when you think about succeeding and achieving it feels different than it did yeah right so what we've done and by the way, this is deceptively simple.

32:25I've seen this one thing literally create the most mind-blowing change in a person. Suddenly, you know, they couldn't get into relationships and then bam, they meet the right person and get married and have a happy time. Or they just weren't, nothing was working for them in business. And then suddenly they get an idea or they just get focused because these parts within us are aligned and not in conflict. How did it feel? yeah it was yeah it was so i'll tell you it was like i'm quite shy at heart so i sometimes go into environments where i have to meet people and i'm i can be quite reticent to sort of hide in the corner or make an excuse to escape from there as quick as i can so that's often one of the parts so yeah so when you think about it tends to be a bit more sure sure when you think about going into those environments now what's the difference of just so the as you were describing it was almost like acknowledging that shyness yeah and saying it's often just feeling not necessarily self-worthy but it's it was about going into an environment and not feeling i have to be loud or dominant but i can go in and just be myself and be authentic yes so you could see that you you could imagine being in the environment and feeling different yeah definitely right now the neat thing is is so you imagine that one scenario there your brain you see generalizes right you learn how to one door you can open all doors right so what it'll do is it'll go oh if i can feel like this in this environment maybe i can feel even better in other environments and so when you look back on this in years from now you'll suddenly go maybe it was that day when i was sitting there that led to this uh different feeling and set of experiences in my life going forward yeah Yeah, really nice.

34:09Okay, that was great. The big sort of thing for me there is when you talk about, you know, someone lacking that self-confidence, that even the negative self-talk is your brain trying to protect you. Sure. You know, it's a positive thing in a sort of strange way. And I think as soon as we can think, hold on, every time my brain says I'm not good enough, it's looking after me. Yeah. And then you can accept it, I think, more, and hopefully learn to not listen to it necessarily. Well, see, the thing is, I think you've made, Jake, a very good point there because basically every dysfunctional behavior has at some level of positive intent, right?

34:42So for example, if I'm phobic of, I don't know, flying, there's a part of me that's trying to protect me because it thinks it's unsafe, even though, you know, we know statistically it's very safe. Or if say, for example, smoking, right? The positive intent of smoking is it's a very good stress control mechanism. It's just got a massive negative long-term health consequence. But, you know, a smoker, I'm freaked out, I have a cigarette, I feel calm. So there's a positive intent there. But there are other ways to get calm without cigarettes. So in a sense, what we're doing is a negotiation. We're saying, look, I understand that part is interfering in your life.

35:19For me, for years, I kept getting into the same kind of relationships. And, you know, then eventually went, hang on, the common denominator here is me, isn't it? Um, so, uh, and I'm, I would sabotage it early on cause I was frightened of being hurt. And then when I, you know, I, I did a similar sort of negotiation, a few other things happened. Uh, finally I not only got married, got happily married. And, and, you know, again, it was, it was a little while recognizing that I was sabotaging it. It's actually one of your, one of your seven points connection. Yeah. And people might be listening to this going, well, Paul's got it all figured out.

35:57That's how he's written his book and had all this incredible success in his life. So I think it's important for you to say, like, you've had issues with these things. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, you know, again, I really appreciate you saying this because I don't have all the answers. You know, I have some, but problems, challenges are how you learn and grow. You know, I like Buddhism. You know, the Buddha was not a god. He was a man who perfected himself. And, you know, the only way you can do that is by getting it wrong, by going places where you've got to go where it isn't to find out where it is.

36:29And so I do not have all the answers. I have some, absolutely. And, you know, and actually from my own challenges, problems, catastrophes, I've sometimes had a big learning and brought it back into some sort of, you know, something that I can use to help people.

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38:54Can you counsel or coach yourself or do you need to externalize it and get help from others? Well, it's a great question. I mean, sometimes yes, right? Sometimes I come up with something and I'm so pleased with myself. Like other hypnism, we ring each other up and go, guess what I can do, right? But very often it's hard to actually, when you're inside a problem, to think your way out of it and see. And in the same way that, like the other day, I was having, believe it or not, my haircuts, right? And the lady said to me, you know, this mindfulness works for me. And I said, do you think I should cut my own hair?

39:32She went, what do you mean? Well, should I cut it myself? She went, no. have a dress to do it. I went, well, it's the same with if you're anxious and you're trying to relax, let a hypnotist do it. So for example, in my world, like there's, there are people who are like, there's one guy who's great at relationships that I know. Another guy that's brilliant at eating disorders. Another guy that's fantastic with phobias. And then there are some people who sort of try and do everything, you know, as well. But generally it's better to go and see the expert, I think, because first of all, they're going to be able to, they'll, they'll take the stress out of it.

40:03They'll be able to do it. And also you might learn something in the process. So yeah, occasionally I do something to fix myself. Um, when I was living in the United States, um, uh, I had to go back and forth every other week to Los Angeles and I, and that's a long old flight. So I programmed my mind to go into quick time, right? You know, when you're queuing in the bank, it feels like it's taking forever or you're, uh, you're online and we go out with friends and wow, look at the time time is faster and slower given our perception so a champion sports person will be able to go into slow time jackie stewart famously said i've only ever driven fast twice in my life in both times it scared me you know anyone who's in a combat sport will go into slow time uh etc so i went into i'd get on the plane and i'd go in a fast time so i'd make the journey you know i'd say right i'm watching a film i'm eating something i'm tap away feels like there isn't really enough time, you know?

40:56And so the flight went really fast, right? So sometimes, um, I'll think up something that is useful in relation to a problem or other times I'll try and enhance something. I'll say, now that's really good. Like the other day I was working with this guy and I put this in this book, super achiever. And he said to me, you know, I've got all this career success, but I'm just not happy. And I put him into a trance and I said, I want your unconscious mind to go to the times when you were happiest and find the building blocks not just the serotonin dopamine etc find environment people and the mix of things connection contact you know intimacy etc and it came out wow i i went to these times i'd forgotten about and with my kids and with this and we were in nature and and but then from that i went oh okay um i i'm going to use that as a device to just instruct people's unconscious minds, which I put in the trance in this book.

41:56So it goes on a search, it finds all happy times, and it builds more of them. It basically computes, if this sort of stuff makes me happy, how can I quantum it? In your book, you talk about the three circles of connections. I was very fortunate too, when I lived in Hollywood, I'd always wanted to meet Robert Evans, you know, legendary producer. There's a fantastic movie about him, The Kid Stays in the Picture. and and uh what one day i got a phone call and uh but bob evans had really liked to meet you and this is like you know getting a call from the pope in hollywood it was behind the godfather the godfather true grit love story you know he's just oh he was fantastic and he he was you know the larger than life you know character it was amazing right and i became friends with bob and you know i'd go over and sit with him but in the most beautiful house and he had he was super smart guy, great stories.

42:46And he had this kind of very big voice, you know, you talk like this. And one day he said to me, um, he goes, uh, Henry Kissinger said, make three circles, make three circles, kid. The first one's big. That's your acquaintances. The next one's smaller. That's your friends. And the real small ones, your real friends, people who'd be there for you. You got to be there for them. And, um, I went away and I did it. Right. And I went, Oh, I have more real friends than I realized, but the majority of them are here in Europe. Right. And I do have have some real friends in LA. But anyway, I went, oh, it's a really interesting way of looking at it.

43:19And it's not a bad thing to have acquaintances or friends, but knowing who they are. And so actually me and my wife decided to move back to Europe as a result of that. And so it's one of those processes that's very interesting to do, and particularly in a place like Hollywood, Los Angeles, which is all about everyone connecting with each other, networking, leveraging, you know, everyone's thinking, what can this person do for me? You know, They're all thinking like that because it's a town of overachievers. But there's that lovely line in the book where you recount the advice of, it's actually secondhand, it's Simon Cowell's dad.

43:53Yes. Would you tell us about that? Sure. You know, Simon's a fantastic person. He's incredibly kind and generous. He's very candid, you know. Which of the circles is he in in your life? Oh, Simon's a real friend. Simon's been there for me whenever I've needed him. He's wonderful. and he said my my father said that um simon's father uh eric had said everyone's got a sign above their head saying make me feel important and uh you know one of the best-selling self-help books of all times how to win friends and influence people one of the sort of simple principles is actually listen and connect with somebody rather than sort of tell them how great you are you know connect listen etc and and i thought that was just a beautiful metaphor make me feel important because um it's a nice thing if you lift other people's energy up they like you they might not remember what you said to them but they'll pretty much remember how you made them feel i want to talk about creativity it's another one of the key seven uh blocks in the book and you know as someone who considers themselves to be a creative as a broadcaster and you know podcaster and a few other things along the way i get i do get these periods of block i get these periods of real like inertia and i don't know where they come from i don't know why they're there um i imagine i'm not alone what what can the book do for me in that space people have this idea that you've got to have a bow tie and work in an ad agency you know and be colorful to be creative no look if you drive down the street you're creating a journey right um if you um you know sit and look out the window you're creating a viewing experience i mean you you cannot not be creative.

45:34Everyone is creative all day long, right? And some people are creative in a way that is mysterious to others. So for example, we're a left brain dominated culture, which is logic, linear, sequential thinking. And so right brain people, abstract, you know, think as artists, poets, et cetera, you know, to the left brain people, it's miraculous. How do you come up with these songs or think of these amazing plays or things like that? Poetry. And so creativity is a state. It's a neurophysiological brain body state, right? And what I found when I lived in Hollywood was I ended up working a lot with creative people who said, I'm just blocked, right?

46:13And I would say, okay, I'd like you to remember exactly what it was like when you wrote your three biggest hit songs or your three biggest blockbuster movies. I struggle to remember the days when it felt easy. Yeah. So that's why somebody like me would guide you through it, right? So, so what you do is you go back to the moment before you were super creative, right? So for example, you know, they'll go, well, I, I came up with the idea for that when I was doing this. And I'll say, right, go back, see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel how you felt. The other parts of negotiation, right? So, um, I remember very famous songwriter, one of the great songwriters came around to see me one day and he said, you know, the thing is I sit down to compose in the morning, nothing.

46:55And then I've got friends coming over at seven. Oh, no, hang on. I've got to a hit song, right? And so what I did with him was I said, may I talk to your creative energy? You know, if we were to give it a name and he said, it's the force. It's like a force. It's like I channel it through me. I just, it comes on. So I've got no control. It just shows up. I said, I want to talk to the force, please. And he went, sure. And I said, so look, I appreciate what you do. And right now, you know, on a scale of one to a hundred, what percentage you went on? 10%. I said, could you take it to 20, 30, 40? We got it up to 100%.

47:30Oh, I want to write songs. Hang on. Tone it back down again. Now, there are all sorts of different aspects of a human being that are not necessarily all aligned. So you'll go, part of me wants to go to the cinema, part of me wants to stay at home. Now, it's not as though there are two people there. These are two ways of describing aspects of self process, if you like. And so I said, look, I wonder if we could ask you to show up at particular times and i'd like you to imagine now being by the piano or you know being by the keyboard or whatever it is and and then invite the the force to come on in and it came and um i remember i didn't i didn't know it was going to be this straightforward but it was and then like a few months later i got a call one night and this guy from a a big american band and he said hey man you know i said i understand you you got this creativity thing going, I said, yeah, but I mean, you know, it's late.

48:23And he said, look, you got to help me. I got to make this album. I went, and so I went, okay, may I talk to the creative part, please? He went, yeah. I understand you do a job. I'd like you to remember times you were creative. Is there any objection to you feeling that creative energy now? That's it. Fantastic. Anyway, I hadn't heard, I had a number for him. I called him about a month later. I called his agent actually about a month later. And I said, I just want to know how he's doing. He went, how he's doing, how he's doing. He won't stop writing. He's in the studio all the time. And so sometimes a simple negotiation, which seems like it's taking place in the waking state, whatever that is, right, is what a hypnotist does.

49:06It's like a negotiation. In a way, it's because I speak fluent subconscious mind, I suppose would be a way of putting it. And so with creativity, you are creative, but you might get in your own way. So for example, one of the ways that people get in their own way is they try and get an idea down and make it perfect while they're doing it. And they'll critique it while they're trying to brainstorm. So you get the critic out of the way and you just get it down. And then you critique it afterwards. Walt Disney's strategy was this. He'd dream something up, then he'd step into another sub-personality, he'd slag it off, and then he'd go into the third position of realism.

49:42well if that's going to work how will it work and so these are simple strategies when you read them you go yeah i could do that you know um and you know look at the paul mccartney strategy when he he came up with the the ballet you know he was asked in an interview how do you write a ballet he went sit here on opening night curtain goes up what do i see what i hear and then and then it comes from there this conversation reminds me how often we over complicate stuff in our own heads and actually really a lot of what you're saying. And this isn't me dumbing it down. It's like, it's kind of simple stuff if we know the tricks, right?

50:17Yeah, absolutely. You know, in the same way, there are things that you do that are really straightforward and easy to you because, you know, that's your world, yeah? You know, I find this, one of my friends, he's a, you know, kind of a genius in business, right? And he starts explaining to you, well, there's this, and then you do that. I go, oh, hang on, wait a minute. Hey, come on, keep up. and to him it's it's he doesn't understand that not everyone is able to think so clearly about all these different mathematical decisions and so you know it's what what you're used to but you're absolutely right i think a lot of the problems people have these days are uh from being tortured by their own minds and so uh you know they'll have a thought they'll have a thought about a thought about a thought and what particularly we find you know since the pandemic as people have become great at catastrophizing, going, hang on, this, there, the war, the economy, da, da, da.

51:11If you open a newspaper, turn on the TV, you're under attack, right? And which equals ratings, doesn't it? You know, the more emotive it is. And so, um, I like, there's a great saying by Mark Twain, which is, I've been through some terrible experiences in my life and some of them actually happened, right? Because, because, because a lot of the time things that we worry about understandably because we're trying to protect ourselves as we talked about earlier are never going to happen there are emergencies we're preparing for that never going to happen and uh i suppose in a sense um part of what i do is help people reset their thinking so there's their bandwidth which is taken up with too many survival thoughts suddenly when you take that out of the way there's room for creativity joy you know happiness you know all these sort of really amazing states and emotions we have had some of our guests tom daly for example spoke to us around the art of catastrophizing though working out what could kill me yeah going for an olympic medal yeah and then sort of coming up with contingency plans so i'm interested that your view on that but equally is there a ratio then that we should acknowledge some of the parts that are trying to protect us by catastrophizing but then the ratio to allow that joy and creativity and spontaneity to come in well it's a really great point because you're absolutely right if a part of you is worried and concerned about something its function is protection the job of fear is to say be prepared if i'm about to step off the curve and there is a bus coming I want fear to pull me back, keep me alive.

52:48I just don't want to live in it. Right. And so, um, you know, for example, Richard Branson does this upside downside thing. So, um, you know, when he thinks of when he's about to make a business decision, right. Professional risk takers are not reckless. They're people who for a living, they weigh things up. So say for example, uh, you want to ask somebody out on a date now. Downside is they might reject you. So you'll feel bad for an hour or two or a day or two, whatever it is. The upside is they might say yes, right? And then you can have a relationship. You might have an amazing life. So the downside is a three, the upside is a 10.

53:24When you have that, that big difference, take action. If it's 50-50, I'd be much less inclined to take action. And so it's, again, it's one of those things where you sort of, nobody gets it right all the time, right? You have to sort of weigh it up. But in any sort of achievement of things. First of all, you have to know what you want. Secondly, I think you should imagine having it and do an ecology check. Ecology is the study of consequences. So if in achieving this goal, will I cause problems for myself and other people? In which case, it's not a good goal to have. Also, the goal's got to be maintained, operated by you.

54:07You know, some people's goals are to make everyone else change to make me feel happy. So it should be, I'm going to do this in order to achieve that. And then once you've imagined achieving it, what you do is you literally back engineer it. So what I do with people at the moment, because I noticed a lot of people post pandemic had lost their focus because they couldn't make plans that everything goalposts were moving. Right. So I go, I want you to go, in fact, you know, go off into the, go off a year into the future and imagine you've had one of the best years of your life. if that's true what must have happened in regard to your health mental and physical your relationships personal professional your career your finances your spiritual life your general levels of happiness and so because you've taken the limiters off people go wow yeah if all that happened it would be great and then you go now come back three months what would have needed to have occurred then three months and three months and three months and then suddenly they look at their life and they've got a compelling future over the next year.

55:08So again, these are things that seem simple, but took me a while to hone this and practice this to find out where it could go wrong and get it to work on most people most of the time. I want to touch on health and energy. I think if there's two things that we are, you know, people would say they want more of, it's better health and more energy. How can these techniques give us them? Well, okay, so there's some simple things. Every biohacker will tell you that it's sleep, it's diet it's exercise and it's state of mind those four things are the main things to look at and uh you know years ago i used to get up and attack the day and you know burn out regularly i was treating life like a marathon now i treat it like a series of sprints and i have not a cold or been unwell for five years now by making these simple changes you know uh i even when i had the the virus.

56:00You know, I was just tired for a few days. So, um, it's kind of what I don't do, you know, I don't burn out as much, but also, um, I listened to my body, uh, and, um, and I practice, I visualize myself in good health. Right. And again, there, there, you know, there are a whole load of things that I could point to people who do meditation, regular self-hypnosis, uh, tend to be in better health. If they're visualizing themselves, they tend to cope with stress better. 50 % of the reason why people end up at the doctor, you can trace back to stress, right? So if I could give people just one thing in the world, it would be to turn off the unnecessary, overwhelming stress and to be able to go into states of deep calm and peace so that they can replenish themselves.

56:47So as well as that, on this trance, I talk to the immune system and I ask it to optimize, right? And again, the unconscious mind knows exactly what I'm talking about. you don't have to know about macrophages and killer t cells etc it knows how to optimize see if i cut my finger right i put a plaster on it it's not the plaster that heals my finger it's my genetic code you know it's the it's the it's all the aspects of me that do it the all the plaster does is protect so very often we can treat things that manifest physiologically through psychological means right you know because there are all kinds of things which are caused by stress so the main thing is basically reduce stress reduce toxins uh don't wear yourself out you know simple stuff like this would you just give us a few of the key things that you do in your daily life your daily routine yeah get you to this place of not being ill well okay so uh what i do these days is i get up and i i juice first thing in the morning green juice and uh i I, uh, I, um, uh, and, uh, I make me and my wife a juice.

57:56Um, then I, if I'm hungry, I have some breakfast and, um, I do a walk in nature. I walk with my dog and I do a gratitude list. I walk around. I think of all the things that I'm grateful for, like my health, my friends, where I live in the world. Uh, you know, the, the job I get to do. I think of the small things like that first cup of tea in the morning, which is fantastic. And by doing that, I'm reinforcing at the unconscious level that my life is abundant. Now, if I'm feeling a bit low, I just go back over my list and it lifts me up, right? So it's a really good idea to think about all the things you're grateful for because far too many people are thinking about what they don't have, they can't do, etc.

58:33That stops you getting ill? No, no, I'm saying what that does is, so no, it's a good question, is by being in an optimized state of mind, right, you're going to be healthier, yeah? So what stops you, what gets you ill is um too much stress too many toxins and also let's not forget some people are genetically predisposed to some things right so you have to put that in the equation but what was a turnaround for me in my life was was stopping burning myself out working too excessively and and uh instead of as i i use the metaphor of a marathon and now a series of sprints with recovery time you know what i also do that i find just works for me is things like acupuncture um and uh i'm i do meditation or use one of my own trances you know people say to me but by the way there's um yeah people say to me they go you know isn't it weird listening to one i know that's my voice in my head you know hear it all the time yeah except i'm very relaxed when i'm talking to myself in a trance you know sort of worrying about something so would you tell us as well about that 80 20 principle because I think this links to your metaphor of a series of sprints rather than a marathon.

59:42Right. So Wilfred Pareto was a 19th century economist. And being an economist, you know, he's thinking mathematically. He finds that 80 % of the peas he harvests from his garden come from 20 % of the pods. And he wonders if this whole, this principle holds true in other areas. And, and it does. Sometimes it's 70-30 or 90-10, but 80-20 is a pretty good benchmark. So 20 % of your carpets walked on 80 % of the time. 80 % of the things that a computer does is down to 20 % of the software. 80 % of the cost of crime is down to 20 % of the criminals. 80 % of the money you make is from 20 % of your efforts.

1:00:2280 % of the fun you have in life will come from 20 % of the environments and 20 % of the people you know, right? The most fun. 80 % of the problems, the grief, and on all the stress, again, will come from 20 % of the people. So isolate who they are and just don't spend as much time with them or whatever those environments are that stress you out unnecessarily. So the 80-20 principle is a, it's like a rule of thumb, but it's a really interesting way of interrogating your life in terms of, you know, a lot of people use this in business. They then do an 80-20 of the 80-20. But it's a really interesting way of just doing a stock take on your life and going, oh, oh, hang on, that's where the fun and the good stuff is.

1:01:07I'll spend more time there. And that's where the grief is. Can you give us an example of that in your life, Paul, where the 80-20 principle plays out? Well, when I first learned about this about 25 years ago, whenever it was, I looked at all the various business interests I had and I went, oh, that makes the most money. and this, that stresses me out and that's all. And so I'm going to focus here. So from a business point of view, it made a big difference. Um, then also I, I, I basically in those days, I went through my phone. Who takes my energy up? Who takes it down? Mostly speaking, because some people, you know, can take your energy down on occasion because they have a friend who needs lifting up.

1:01:46Oh God, they drained me. Right. So I just wouldn't send them my new phone number. right? And I do things like that. And then the other use of the 80-20 was, oh yeah, there are things I do that are not, have no commercial, you know, gain at all, right? But I like doing them and they make me feel good. And so I do those, yeah? So it's, because I made it sound like some sort of Excel spreadsheet approach to life, which you could consider it is, but you know, it's not purely about commerce. It's really about feel good. And so that's how I've applied it in my life. So Paul, quickfire questions. Your three non-negotiable behaviours that you and the people around you should buy into.

1:02:30People who are selfish to the point that they're like sociopathic, they really don't care about the collateral effects of their own relentless desire and ambition is another thing that I find deeply reprehensible. You know, I also, do you know one of the other, it's going to seem a little more petty now, entitlement. You know, people who've just got that, that entitled thing that, that, that, again, it sort of gets me. But, yeah, I just, I think, yeah, I think, cruelty, bullying, condescension, yeah, and finally, entitledness. So, those would be three for me. Very good. What's your greatest strength and your biggest weakness?

1:03:12It's a mix of basically, uh adaptability and tenacity right so um in terms of uh my life if i look back over it somebody pointed out to me recently said you've reinvented yourself a few times and i said i never set out to i just adapted because life took me in different directions well my interests are in different directions weakness um you know i'm gonna say that i i see the best in people to a point sometimes where I'm a bit gullible, you know, and literally I, I, you know, I want to believe that everyone is inherently good, you know, and, and so that's a few. Nice trait. I think you should stick with that.

1:03:52Well, it's one of those things where I'm not going to let it destroy my, my faith in human nature, but it has got me into trouble a few times. Let's say, yeah, you could go back to one moment in your life. Where would you go and why would you go there? Well, you know, I'm going to say something like the moment I got married, you know, and I looked into my wife's eyes and we connected and it was so beautiful we were exchanging our vows on a beach and it was like wow you know um i mean also the moment you know where we realized we were in love with each other there's some of those have got to be like the high is so high because the other thing that some of the other big highs are when i help somebody with something that say everyone else has given up on them.

1:04:35And this is a really hard thing. And they suddenly have a phenomenal breakthrough. And I mean, again, I can't quite describe it. It's like one of the greatest feelings on earth. You know, it's a beautiful thing. I think those are sort of my top. So if I had to pick one, I'm going to say the beach with my wife. What advice would you give to a teenage pole just starting out on his journey? Well, I'd just say it's all going to be all right. You know, I still worry so much about everything and try and overachieve. I say, hey, it works out great. You get everything you want, it's fine. You know, life is going to be absolutely fantastic.

1:05:08And, you know, you, you're about to live this. You're what a ride you're about to have, you know, it's going to be fantastic. I mean, the piece of advice, whenever I'm asked, what's the one thing you would tell people? It's you get more of what you focus on, you know, and, you know, far too many people are thinking about what they don't want these days. And I don't want to be overweight. I don't want to be, you know, shy. I don't want to be whatever it is. I'm not thinking I do want to be confident or I do want to be in control and these sorts of things. And that leads us really nicely to our final question after this fascinating conversation.

1:05:37Thank you for it. Your one golden rule, your message really, you'd like to leave ringing in the ears of people who've enjoyed this conversation. I like, the Dalai Lama says kindness is my religion, right? And I think, you know, right now we've got so much hate going on in the world. We just need more kindness. And again, all right, here we go. Gandhi, my life is my message. So if you want to look at, you know, in a way, rather than some words and platitudes, you know, what have you done in your life? Have you had an effect? Have you done something positive? So try and encourage people because, you know, my job these days, my main job is I teach people how to be hypnotherapists.

1:06:18And I'm teaching them how to get people to be kinder to themselves, to overcome problems and challenges to realize that, you know, there's a lot to feel good about. And, and so, yeah, I think that's the sort of the message I have is, um, life is absolutely amazing. Try and find out how much pleasure you can stand. What a great, what a great one. How much pleasure can you stand? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. It was such a pleasure. Really was. the pleasure is thank you paul

1:06:52damien jake look i think if there's one thing we try to be with the audience on high performance it is our true selves and really honest okay so let's just be honest and say that before we spoke to paul today you know you were messaging me saying there are there are certain areas of the world that he inhabits that you are you're a little bit cynical or wary about right yeah Yeah, definitely. So to qualify that, I think what I'm normally sceptical about is where I see any claims that you can change your life in a day, you know, you can instantly make yourself happier. Things like that often go against the idea of what so many of our guests tell us about is there's no shortcuts to high performance.

1:07:28It's about doing the work. So that's where my natural cynicism came from. But having met Paul and listened to him, I think a lot of what he spoke about was common sense. and it was about translating it into common practice. And some of that is about language, some of it's about belief, some of it's about habits that we get into. Is there also an argument that our area of expertise is always narrower than we think it is, right? So because we're an expert in one thing, we kind of assume we know bits about other areas. And actually, Paul sits there and explains that the human brain is so deep, so complex, so powerful, that maybe we can unlock it quickly.

1:08:09like maybe it is possible you know he said didn't he numerous times in the interview I sat with someone and in two minutes flat I managed to unlock something and I spoke to them weeks later and it totally changed the way they lived I do love the idea personally of thinking that's how powerful our brains are and that there might be a kind of an amazing moment that can come our way Yeah I 100 % agree with that but I think there's a step before that that when Paul's working with somebody he's working with somebody that's open to change somebody that's open to try new ideas somebody that's open to listening to a conflicting view and that's what I think is the key ingredient here if you've got an open mind you can learn from anybody and anything and that's what I'd hope that's certainly the way that I've tried to approach today and there's a couple of ideas that Paul shared that I'll definitely incorporate and hopefully from a listener's point of view that there's some ideas there that coming to it with an open mind means you can walk away with something valuable It actually reinforces, right, in my head that thinking that a moment is going to just naturally arrive where all of the stuff that you do badly, you're suddenly going to do it well, right?

1:09:17That's kind of unrealistic to think by doing the same thing, suddenly there's a different outcome. I think where that was a really valuable conversation for me is Paul saying, look, I've not been ill for five years. And every day when I get up, I go for a walk and write down a gratitude diary. The gratitude diary is not stopping him from getting ill, but the gratitude diary is making him live in a way where he realizes how lucky he is. Therefore, he doesn't pollute his body with bad food or too much alcohol, or he doesn't think in a negative way and bring stress into his body. So it's a small, simple step that actually has a really big impact.

1:09:50And even when he says like, you need a bit of anxiety, you need a bit of stress. That keeps you alive. That stops you doing stupid things. We're so desperately running away from any negative emotions these days. I think hearing him say, well, that's protecting you. That's also really powerful. Yeah. And again, if anyone's listening to this and going, well, I'd like to explore it in more detail, I'd point them in the direction of the interview we did with Dr. Julie Smith and also with Dr. Pippa Grange. Like Pippa spoke around the two types of fear, the in-the-moment fear that Paul describes of get out of the way of the bus or the more insidious, not good enough fear where that negative self-talk keeps us rooted in worrying about or catastrophizing situations.

1:10:33So I think what Paul was giving us there is rooted in real common sense psychological principles. I think what he's doing is translating them into behavioral hacks, whether it is going for a walk in the morning, the gratitude journal, whether it is just taking a moment to visualize the outcome you do want rather than what you don't. There's lots of really small tips that anybody can take and incorporate. And what I'd ask everyone listening to this is come with the customary open mind that our high-performance listeners are famous for. Thanks, mate. Cheers, mate. As always, I'd love to know what you made of this conversation.

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