#132: dare to try

0:00Brother, we've just redefined what's possible in podcasting. You only know what you know until life forces you to think bigger, until the place that you're in forces you to think bigger, until the life that you once lived feels so small. And until you step outside, that doesn't even enter your consciousness. And I think what we've just done here is going to set a standard for podcasting as a whole and what people can do. And it's going to force people to be more creative. You always operate within the confines of your personal belief of what you think is possible. And you need someone else or something else, whether it's historical or in the present day, to break you out of those limiting beliefs that you impose on yourself.

0:45And they're always self-imposed because ultimately, if you look at where the power lies, it follows the blame finger. And you need to blame yourself for everything. You're responsible for everything you do in your life. And therefore, you're responsible for your limiting beliefs. So you break free from them and you choose to. How do you do that? Well, one of the key sources there, we're humans. We're social creatures. We need other people to help guide the way. Look at the four-minute mile. It was impossible. People thought it was physically impossible. What happened? Roger Bannister comes along.

1:22He doesn't believe it. He chooses to not believe it. He suspends his disbelief for a second and he goes after it. What happens, Chris? He gets the four minute mile. And what happens after that? Someone else does. Then another person, then another person, to the point where it becomes normal. Not normal for the norm, but normal in the running community. It becomes a standard, a benchmark for elite. But before it wasn't possible. What that does is it makes you think about what actually is possible. What is making us not believe the things? And there's this nature of we don't believe something until we see it.

2:06So when it comes to creation, all we're creating is based on the confines of what we believe is possible. It does get me thinking around what are the things we need to do to break free from that in order to actually create something unique. And maybe one step deeper is, is it even about creation? Well, I think the key word there is creation. We need to build. We don't just want to be consumers and we're living in a hyper consumerist society. Everything's telling us to get more consumption, more and more. the billboards that you see on the buses going past on the street. You go to any big town square.

2:49Look what Times Square is. It's famous for advertising that tells you you're inadequate. You're not enough without this product, so go and buy it. We're consumers. We're living in a society that glorifies consumption. But the problem there is you're not creating. You're not building anything. And the building protects you from these limiting beliefs because when you're building, you're not thinking about being inadequate or all of the other noise in the background. You're just in the moment. You're in this flow state. You're creating. And I think that's the magic of the world and the magic of being human.

3:25If you look back at the long, beautiful arc of history, the creators are those that are remembered. People that left their mark some small way or bigger way on the world. They build. And I think there are two fundamentally different mindsets in terms of approaching the world. There's a mindset where you're always seeking, you're looking, and you're consuming, you're taking. Or there's a mindset when you're building, you're providing, you're taking responsibility, you're going out there and you're laying the foundations of a beautiful home rather than looking at someone else's and wishing it was yours.

4:05Here's the thing, the difference between those two mindsets is the person building, they think that they can do a thing, whereas the person looking at others who have the thing they want, it's programming their brain subconsciously to remind themselves that they don't have that thing. If you want to have a million dollars, you're subconsciously remembering the fact that you don't have a million dollars, so you're going to show up like a person that doesn't have a million dollars. And look, what do I know? I'm 20 years old, but from everything I've seen in life so far, if you show up like the person who doesn't have a million dollars, life in the world isn't going to give you that million dollars.

4:45Well, the less you chase, the more you receive. The less you need things, the more it just seems to come into your life. When you need something, you give off the most disgusting smell. People can smell it. It's like needing repels people. It's the opposite of abundance. It's scarce. But building's interesting. Maybe the secret isn't to build. Maybe it's to unpack. Carl Jung talks about this thing, the collective unconsciousness. It's this idea around that we are all the same deep down. And the unconscious is not just me or not just you. It's not my unconscious. It's not your unconscious. It's the collective unconsciousness of everything.

5:33There's studies around 100 monkeys were all together. And when they learn something new, all the other monkeys in the world can learn it as well. And it's this weird thing. When electricity was found, it wasn't just the one person that discovered it. Multiple people were discovering it at the same time. And it's this weird thing where it's almost like that you need to be in the right place with the right energies, with the right bodies that are carrying those energies and have the right experiences to shed all of the layers that are blocking those energies. And then there's these perfect synchronicities that come into our life.

6:11So maybe the thing one step deeper from building is how do we unpack what's already there? And how do we create space so that we can remove all of the noise so that we can see what's already there? When I think about all of the most creative moments in my life where before building, we need to come up with what to build, which we need to use our creativity to be able to come up with what to build so we can actually build something, which is what we're talking about here. But in order to be creative, you need to remove all of the noise. This is why shower thoughts are a thing. This is why when we are doing something that doesn't require a lot of distraction, we come up with the most amazing things.

7:02So maybe the key to building is to unpack what's already there. And the way to unpack what's already there is to create enough space to invite it in. Have you heard of the left brain and the right brain? Yeah. it kind of often is misunderstood and people mischaracterize it a lot in pop psychology for the sake of views and clicks but this really stems from the research of a guy called ian mcgillcrist he's this legendary guy in academia he wrote a book called the master and his chemistry and it's speaking about the left hemisphere of the brain versus the right hemisphere of the brain and what the different functions are so you have your left side and the right side of your brain they're separated by the corpus callosum this is what bridges the gap between your left brain and your right brain and interestingly enough it does more to inhibit to stop the communication between the two sides rather than to facilitate it to let it happen what does that show well it shows that the left brain and the right brain if coming into too much contact with each other actually confuse each other and limit the capacity that we have as humans because they've got different functions.

8:16So left hemisphere, what does it do? Well, that's much more responsible for all of these things that are more quantifiable for something like writing or speech or studying something like a scientist. That's what your left brain is going to be responsible for. Right brain, it's much more creative. It's the thing that helps you look at the beauty in a painting on the wall. You look at a Mona Lisa and you can't quite articulate with your left brain why it's so beautiful, but you know that it is when you gaze into its eyes. That's what the right brain enables us to do. And the two work in tandem. And by the way, they never do one thing individually.

8:57They're always working kind of together, but each one has a different function. Now, with that, what Ian McGilchrist addresses in his book is the fact that we're living in a world dominated by the left hemisphere. Everything we do is quantified. We're always looking to optimize. We're always looks maxing or whatever. We want to live in this maximalist world where we fulfill our potential. We don't waste time because we're scared of wasted time because time is the only thing separating us from our death. so we hyper optimize but what do we do when we're quantifying everything we're looking for the answer we're never using faith what we're doing is essentially living in this skepticism we're always skeptical of taking a step back and going this view is beautiful this is not a green screen by the way i need to rail this home and i don't quite know how to articulate why this is so beautiful and mesmerizing and maybe i could try if i put some words down on a page but fuck that that would take away from it well when you try and if you if you were to look at this and you can take it all in.

10:23Now, try and explain what you see. You understand it. You understand what you see. You can't explain it. I look at it and I go, I can piece everything together. But then when I try and explain it, I can't really. and so much of our life in this world that we're operating in and in this society is operating in a 3d world it's this world where you know where we're operating in this in this lens of like i need to do more i need to make more money i need to strive more i need to work until my eyeballs bleed i need to do all of these things externally and it's very easy to use left hemisphere brain to be able to thrive in that 3D world.

11:14But I wonder where deep fulfillment plays and where the meaning of life and the fullness of life plays in that 3D world. Because I wonder if there is ever an end destination when you're operating in the 3D world. I genuinely wonder. I'm not sure if there is. And I think this is why people lean towards Christianity or religion after they've made so much wealth. Because they go, well, what the fuck else has meaning? Like, what is it? I've got everything I ever wanted and I still feel empty. And maybe if you go beyond that, and we do realize that there is this common unconsciousness, we realize that we are this energy living in a meat suit, filling our days with things to do so we don't get bored.

12:12And perhaps, just perhaps, that there's a freeing nature in realizing that because then you don't fear death because you know you're not going anywhere. It's like you don't feel death because you're not going anywhere. You don't really feel this need to please anyone. Your ego is fully removed. Your ego only lives in the 3D world. It can't live beyond that. You have so little ego that you can't even comprehend ego. That's what Jim Fordham was saying today. He's like, the 3D world is one that's filled with ego. It's filled with external praise. It's filled with external things that are just things.

12:53And they're not going to be there with you when your meat suit dies and you spawn into another meat suit. They're not going to be there. And so it's a weird pursuit. Do you think that there's value in this discussion or do you think if you go too far in this, you can't operate in this society and you end up just becoming a mushroom and you can't even operate in this world? What are your thoughts on going down these rabbit holes that are quite spiritual? The key thing is I think you always need to bring it back to a practical element. You always need to think pragmatically and reflect on what the world is actually showing up as to you.

13:33the problem with a lot of these spiritual practices I see and philosophy that I engage in is they become so abstracted from the real world, they almost are redundant. And the thing about knowing more is you realize you know less. But before you realize that, you think you're the smartest person in the world. You think you have the solution to all of life's problems. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where these guys walk around with podcast mics thinking they have the secrets to the universe because they watched another podcast by some psychologist and they're like, yeah, now I've unlocked all the truths of the universe.

14:08But what that opens you up to is even more danger than the dumb person that knows they know nothing because you're going to go out there with confidence and you're going to run into some brick walls. Now, there's a danger here of overcorrecting in the other direction where you don't want to be the enlightened idiot who thinks he knows everything but doesn't so you refuse to learn anything there is a utility to going out there and trying to learn more and thinking you learn more you know more and what i see is these confinements of philosophy when it gets too abstract is you kind of pigeonhole yourself into a belief system.

14:54You pigeonhole yourself into a way of seeing the world that doesn't open you up to any other perspectives. And that sucks. That's really bad. So when you're going down these rabbit holes that we're speaking about, I think you always need to be open to there being other answers and abdicating all the current worldviews you have because they're wrong. well if we take if we if we use that lens do you really think that you young person in this meat suit that's grown up in a small town thinks you know the answers to the world like do you think you do i think that i know the answers the point i do is the point i need to get slammed on my face to be reminded of what actually matters and how insignificant i really am and i think this does draw back to every single leap in my life where my life changed.

15:50And it started from when I was 12 years old and my dad took me away from my small town that I grew up in, Ellie Beach, in a small town in Australia. He took me away and I remember holding my best friend, crying, thinking, what are these people, my mom and my dad doing to me? I don't want to leave. I don't want to go to this place called the Gold Coast. I want to stay with my best friend. And I felt so heartbroken. Then I get to the Gold Coast. We're driving. It was like 13 hour drive with a couple of stops and a couple of flat tires along the way because we had a trailer on this old van that we were driving my dad's car.

16:29And I remember we were driving up the street to my house. And this house that I ended up growing up in from 12 to 18 years old before I moved out of home. And I remember we drove up the hill to this old house that dad bought. And when we got to the top of the hill, dad said, Christopher, turn around. And I turn around and I see this massive football stadium. And I freaked out. All I wanted to be as a 12-year-old kid was a professional football player. And I turn around, I'm like, no way. We live right next to that? Now, my mind and perspective fully changed. And six months later, I went back to see my friend that I was hugging, crying, and all they were doing were just drugs and stealing and all this stuff.

17:17And I'd completely transformed into a person as I went, wow, I could never go back to that life. Now that led to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing to the point where that's the smallest stadium in the whole country. And then I moved to a city and then you go to America and then you go to And the realization here is every single leg of the way, you unlock a new understanding of what's possible and what's out there. It's one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it. Your peripherals expand and there's no going back. It's very, very hard to go back to a small life that you were once in once you've experienced the bigger life and you like the taste of it.

18:00We only really know what we've experienced. So to think that we know how this world works when we've only experienced what we've experienced is crazy. Even just unlocking this right now and experiencing this has altered something in my brain about what's possible. People don't understand that camera all the way up there is showing a bit of this. people don't realize that we're powering a cinema production with a generator that we carried up a hike to get to the cliff of this beautiful place in Sedona as the sun was setting we were running up with sandbags massive big double wind-up arms we've got cinema cameras everywhere we have a drone, we have a generator crammed all into a car that we drove all the way from LA.

18:55This has unlocked something in my brain about what's possible. We had a dream. It was a thought. We acted on it. We didn't know how, but we went, let's just see. And because we stepped over that level and we've reached this new level, now what's possible is endless. It's like we can do anything. We can do this anywhere. people probably can't copy us because i don't know us but but like try and copy this man but like but but yeah it unlocks this level in you that that is so freeing and i can see how insignificant it makes you feel but how unstoppable it makes you feel at the same time you need to break free from the shackles of your left brain because to overcome these hurdles to overcome these walls they're paper walls ultimately that we put up for ourselves we need to step into the unknown something that we haven't seen before that's the point imagine if you lived your life doing only things that you knew were possible you wouldn't do anything you wouldn't achieve anything imagine you only dated the people where you knew it would work out you wouldn't date anyone imagine you only took the job offer that you knew would be fulfilling and that you knew would make you enough money to live sustainably.

20:14You wouldn't do it. It's funny how we always put up these paper walls around us that limit us when actually if you push hard enough on them, they collapse. And sometimes it takes someone else to drag you up. That's the importance of friends. That's why the lone wolf strategy doesn't work. Even if you look into the literature psychologically, you don't want to be a lone wolf. You want to go up there, climb the mountain with your best friend, and you're accountable to them. If I don't run up this mountain fast enough, carrying these heavy stands or carrying this boulder, my friend's going to be let down by me.

20:54And I don't want to do that because I care about him, right? That's one of the utilities. So to break down these paper walls, we can use society as a whole and friends, family. And I feel like there's been a death of that, especially when you've got screens dividing you globally we've got social media that gives us this illusion of connection when actually we're not connected at all because this is connection right here the phones are over god knows where on airplane mode and we're physically embodied chatting with one another and nothing beats it you know you really need to see failures and discomfort as new checkpoints in the video game of life.

21:38Every time you go through failure, every time you go through something hard, it's not you disappointing the God that wanted everything to be perfect for you. It's you acting on God's opportunity he's given you for growth. And one of the most formative experiences of my life was moving away from home at 18 years old. there was this one moment it was a moment that lasted 30 seconds and it changed my life and that was having packed up my car i'd graduated from college everyone else was either going on their gap year to travel with friends they were staying at home with their parents or they were going to university and i decided to move to london to pursue my dream producing another podcast at the time.

22:27The car was packed. I got in and I'd hug my mum goodbye. And I grew up with my mum, even though my dad is one of my best friends and I always see him and FaceTime him. My parents were split up. So I was always living with my mum, very close with her. And I got in the car, pushed down the clutch, pressed the start button, powered it on, the engine roars. And I look up and I see my mum standing there on the curb and I can see masked with this pride that was real and this joy that her son was going out to try and conquer the real big world out there I could see the pain in her eyes and she could probably see the pain in my eyes because I was about to embark on a mission and one in which I'd be leaving the closest person in my life.

23:25Someone that I know is only going to get older and that I'm going to spend less time with and who's in their glory days right now to pursue my dream. It felt selfish. And most of all, it felt alien to me because I'd never done it before. I'd grown up with a mom that did everything, that cooked every meal I wanted and that gave me infinite hugs and kisses and attention. It was lovely. But I had to do it. I had to step outside of my comfort zone because I had this little inkling of what could be and I listened to it. I was on alert for it and I found it and I acted on it. I saw the apartment. I rented it and I got in that car.

24:09I looked my mum in the eyes I waved goodbye and I drove off and it was painful but I looked back on it and I wouldn't be here without having done that I wouldn't have as big of a stack of proof that I can do this uncomfortable things and it changed my life One of those moments is one of those really hard times and when you stack up enough of those, you get this overarching feeling of being unstoppable. And it's the most freeing feeling because the outcome of going through unbearable things means they become hard. And the outcome of going through hard things, they become normal. then normal becomes easy, then when everything's easy, you feel this one thing, unstoppable.

25:10And you know, man, when I look back at my life, the last seven years, I've just been sprinting. There was moments where I had no one that had my back. There was moments where I questioned everything that I was doing. There was moments where there was so many people saying, I told you so because I failed and I got slammed on my face. And all of those times stacked up on top of each other led me to this point where I could look in the mirror, be proud and say to myself, I deserve this, this life that I've achieved. I deserve this. And no one, no one understands the hard times it took to get there.

25:54They just see the tip of the iceberg. They see the set. They see the nice places. They see the travel. They see the good body. They see the life and they go, wouldn't that be nice? And I was like, look, mate, the shit that I went through to get here is not something you would ever fucking walk. And that is why I feel unstoppable. That is why I feel so free. And that is the thing that makes all of this shit worthwhile. Us carrying the heavy weights up here makes this better. It literally does. I'm dripping sweat in the freezing cold. Don't even know how that works. I'm dripping sweat in the freezing cold, carrying these weights up, going like, this is probably possibly one of the hardest hikes I've ever done.

26:48And then we build this as the sun's setting and the photo that's captured doesn't even feel real. And let me tell you, if we clicked our fingers and got these here, we wouldn't be laughing as much. And you know why as well? Because if it was that easy, people would have already done it. And if we tie this back into the message around, we've just created a new normal or a new standard and we've just expanded what's possible in podcasting. What's the way that you can do that for everything in your life? what's the way that you can create something that people can't click their fingers and copy in a world full of noise most people creating content is just filled with noise as well you're adding fuel to the noise fire and there's something about creation and putting effort into something cool that feels way more full and way more alive than just doing something that everyone's done and what comes with that is a very very hard journey and for that I say great because ultimately you want to love your life and you want to be happy with what you're doing and you want to feel content with where you're at and you and you want to feel like you've actually done something that you're proud of and oftentimes that takes work and this isn't us getting up on our moral high horses and saying we're better than everyone else we're saying we acted on that little inkling that we had of a thought and we got over the hurdle and we did something that we've both dreamt of for a long time and anybody else watching or listening to this can do that too everyone in this collective unconscious has the power within them to overcome the hurdles facing them right now think about the number one thing in your life right now that's plaguing you and know that a million other people in history have overcome that very hurdle and they're probably not as smart or creative or hard-working as you you can do this you can do more than you currently have on your plate you can fill it up it just takes bravery and it takes a willingness to suffer.

29:11Suffering, I always thought, was this abstraction from the normal. It wasn't in God's plan. And I say that as an atheist that doesn't necessarily believe in God, although after tonight I'm a lot more open to his existence. How did this get here? But now I look at suffering as a fundamental building block to a good life. You need to find that burden, the biggest burden you can, and carry it because that's what's going to fulfill you. I think it's especially a more masculine trait, but I think it applies to everyone. Taking responsibility and doing the thing. And it's tough when we're living in, yes, this left brain world now that's hyper-consumerist, but also in this world that's objectively a lot more prosperous than it's ever been.

29:59Look, things suck in life. I'm sure of it because I experience it every day. But relative to everyone else in history, everyone else in the world, if you're listening to this anywhere in the West, we have it pretty good. And the problem actually comes with the fact that we've been deprived of deprivation in the last decade. And because of it, we're living in a cultural enemy where we need a little bit more of a fire up our ass, to get us doing the very things that we had to do the rest of history to fulfill us as human beings. We've been dragged from fulfillment and from the bedrock of society to acting on our hedonistic desires because we have the ability to do so, and that's great.

30:46But I think we've gone too far. And if you're on the fence of acting on what you want to do, what's the point? What is the point of living if you're not willing to take a risk and have a crack at life and chase those dreams and do the things that you've always wanted to do? What is the point of just playing it safe?

31:14Because when I look back at my journey and I think about the challenge, the pain, the hardship, those moments were actually the best part. Where are we rushing to? We're not rushing to our deathbed. We're rushing to build character. We're rushing to be proud. We're rushing to achieve the things we want. But we're also rushing to feel good about our life. What's the point of doing anything that doesn't get you closer to that? Because for me, we're all going to get old. All of the things that we obtain are going to become meaningless. But what we're always going to have is ourself, the character that we've built, the person that we see when we look in the mirror.

32:03And I don't know about you, but when I look in there, I want to be proud of who looks back. I want to say g'day to him and be like, I'm glad you're my friend. I'm glad you're on my side. I'm glad you've been here for me. I'm glad you were my best friend during all of this time because no one else was. I want those things. And to get those things, you need to go through the shit. So go through more shit and then your life will get better because you'll like who you see when you look in the mirror. And for me, I think that's a good starting point to get on the track of building a life that you truly want.

32:43And stop taking the safe option. The safe option that people perpetuate. It's never actually the safest if you investigate it further. It's never what will actually give you the most joy and fulfillment. It's the thing that eliminates the probability of the worst things happening to you, but it also eliminates the probability of anything truly amazing, truly beautiful, truly unquantifiable happening. whereas what I see especially with younger people now is they're told to go to university because it's safe they're told to get this nine-to-five job because it's safe and they're rebelling less and less people are going because they've realized that doing the path that's more trodden rather than less trodden it guarantees your life of misery because we're humans we're not clones from Star Wars that can be predicted at each and every level.