January 11, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode, we dive deep into the fascinating realm of Goals and Routines, inspired by the wise words of Scott Adams, the brilliant mind behind Dilbert! As he rightly puts it, "goals don't create happiness," and we unravel the profound truth behind this statement.
Are you a goal-oriented go-getter, or do you thrive in the beauty of daily routines? Join Michelle Huntington and Guy Newman as they explore the dynamics of finding happiness in the journey rather than fixating solely on the destination.
💡 They discuss::
- Balancing goals with the joy of daily routines.
- Embracing the process and finding fulfillment in each step.
- The importance of adapting and evolving on the journey.
- Scott Adams' wisdom and its application in our lives.
Here's to embracing the journey, finding happiness in the process, and navigating life with purpose!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
G'day, leaders. In this episode, we talk about goals and routines. We discuss why goals don't
(00:06):
create happiness. They're important, they give you direction, but they don't create happiness.
And we talk about routines and some of our favorite routines. Enjoy.
Why do it count backwards? Are they? We're now recording.
What? Hello, captain.
What do I say? Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly.
(00:32):
What are we going to talk about? I don't know. So, leadership, life and everything else.
Yeah. And we're live.
No, we're recording. That was a good one, that one.
Yeah, okay. I can see in the middle of a boxing ring with that one. Michelle, I need you.
(00:56):
We had this moment this morning. In the pool.
In the pool, we went for a swim and Michelle said, I need you. I said, I'm here for you.
And she said, no, I need you. I said, I'm here for you. I said, she said, no, I need you. I said,
I'm always here for you. And she said, no, I hit you with my knee. I hadn't even noticed.
(01:20):
We are absolute lunatics. We laugh at the smallest thing.
Yeah, okay. And all we'd have is coffee. Yes, exactly. And we're still having it now.
Yes. Yes. Hey, Michelle.
Hi, Guy. What are we talking about today?
Excuse me. So one thing I wanted to talk about was at your last keynote that I was in the audience
(01:42):
for, you were talking about how goals are not the key to happiness. Can you explain that?
Yeah, I learned this. Oh, cracky voice this one. Excuse me. I learned this from a cartoonist,
you know, the Dilbert comic. Scott Adams, the cartoonist who does the Dilbert comic.
I read it. He said this, that goals don't create happiness. And I now agree. The more I've looked
(02:10):
at it, the more I've looked at this quote and the way he thinks about it is, yeah, it's really quite
accurate. So when I was young, I was a very goal-driven man, you know, you were too. You
wanted to be a pilot and you got there eventually through all of those hurdles. And I had all these
goals that I wanted to achieve in my life. At one point in time, something triggered me and I started
to set all these goals. I had all these goals and working towards these goals. But Scott Adams
(02:34):
pointed out that goals don't create happiness. The reason why they don't create happiness is
because 99.9% of the time you're not there. They're in the future. They're at some point
in the future. And so when you spend a lot of energy focusing on the future, as we've discussed
before, time starts to speed up. Not in the present. No, you're not in the present. You're
trying to drag the future towards you. And you get into this mindset, I'll be happy when.
(02:57):
I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when. No, you won't because when never happens, you get there.
You already move past it. Now you've got to be happy. You've got to set another goal. You've
got to redirect. So goals don't create happiness because you're not there. And you get into this
mindset, I'll be happy when. So you want to bring the future towards you quicker. So which means
you're not in the present. You're not in the moment. And all they do is create direction.
(03:21):
Yeah. So could you reframe it as purpose? Like a goal gives you purpose and a direction, not
the final outcome. So it's the enjoying the journey and being in the journey rather than
that the goal is everything. Yeah. I guess we've all heard this before. It's the journey that
matters, not the destination, all that sort of stuff. But that's the problem with goals is that
(03:43):
they don't tell you that the goals are there to help you make decisions and move towards them and
give you direction. But they, excuse me, straight of my note, I sound like Barry White. You swallowed
a lot of pool water. I did swallow too much pool water this morning. So the goals give you direction,
but they don't give you, it's not where happiness lies. It actually made me think about a couple of
(04:09):
guys, and I'm saying guys, meaning the group of pilots, that all they were interested in was
getting into an airline, typically Qantas or going overseas. And so all of the general aviation
flying that they did, they hated because the goal was so many hours so that they could then apply
(04:31):
and get into Qantas or get into another airline. And which was really sad because some of my best
flying was in general aviation and being in shitty little aircraft and ones that had things
missing and obviously not engines or wings, but instruments missing or you got to fly and
(04:53):
contour fly or chat with people or go fast, go slow, stall, whatever. That was some of the great
flying. And these people that just hated it and turned up begrudgingly just to get the hours to
then get to the airlines. I would love to be able to ask them, are you happy now? And did you find
(05:16):
happiness once you got into? What a great example. Yeah, I love that. Because we've often spoken
about how you had this, I'm not sure who gave you the mindset, either you could fly a thousand,
a hundred hours or a thousand hours. So I was told, because quite often when you did
freight flying or charter flying, even instructing that you could do one hour a thousand times. So
(05:40):
that is just going there and do the same thing over and over and over or a thousand hours each.
So every time mix it up, look for something else, be curious like we discussed in a previous podcast
and look at different ways to fly that route, different altitudes, different power settings.
Did you have that choice? You could actually have different routes, you could fly different
(06:03):
altitudes and stuff. You could kind of, not airline flying, but you could. And also it just
gave you, you looked out the window and you saw landmarks that you may not have noticed before.
So it was just mixing it up. So you're flying in the present rather than with a goal to get to
an airline. Absolutely, because the weather's not the same always and the fuel load, the payload
(06:26):
weren't the same. So just try different things safely obviously, but it gave you your envelope
of comfort expanded. And I'd guess, this is just a guess, that those pilots that were just aiming
to become an airline captain or an airline first officer or whatever and they hated the path to
get there, that creates a pattern. Yes. Right. And then when they're actually there, how do they
(06:48):
then suddenly switch into happiness? Oh, I'm a pilot, look at me. I think I've actually mentioned
this previously that what do you call a group of pilots? A winch. So it wasn't fun to hang out in
the crew room sometimes. Okay, so goals don't create happiness, they just give us direction,
(07:12):
which is important in life. That's right. But we've discovered a way that as part of the journey,
to ensure happiness and ease throughout your life, throughout your day, even when things
aren't going so great. That's it. You don't focus on goals, you focus on your routines.
So what you do every day is going to be the determiner. Determiner, is that even a term?
(07:37):
The determinator. That will determine the quality of your life.
I just reminded of a quote I like, if a man knows not what harbour he seeks, any wind is the right
wind. So goals don't create happiness, but they're very important because they give you the direction
that you're going to head in life. You don't just wander aimlessly, but they're not where
happiness lies. Where happiness lies is in routines. Yeah. It's what you do every day.
(08:00):
That's right. And this is what Scott Adams was saying, the Dilbert comic, that if you focus on
little things that you do every day that bring pleasure into your life, that's where happiness
lies. Yeah. And so you and I both have very strong routines, don't we? We do. We do. We listen to
experts. That's right. And I think if you can tie it to something, so we're teaching the kids at
(08:23):
the moment that when you tie it, link it to something else. So we used to have action flows
and in the aircraft so that if you forgot one thing, you had muscle memory basically. Yeah.
And we're helping the kids build this by creating routines and attaching something to something,
(08:44):
like to a previous action. So trigger the routine, to trigger habits. Yeah. So we,
first thing, cuddle. Yeah. The very first thing, cuddle. Yeah. When you wake up in the morning.
Because it raises oxytocin levels. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go through all of our routines. Hugging.
We're both voracious huggers. Yes. We hug as many people as we can because-
(09:06):
Neighbours, friends. Neighbours, friends. Yeah. Oh, I had a great hug the other day. I was
coming home from work and one of our neighbours had been overseas and he was standing there talking
to another neighbour of ours and I said, oh, this is my opportunity. So I ran up and I gave them both
a big hug and immediately you feel better because your body is much better. And so I was like,
immediately you feel better because your body produces oxytocin. We've discussed oxytocin,
(09:29):
haven't we? I think we have. In another podcast. I know we speak about it all the time, but if you
don't know, oxytocin is the hormone that's released into your body when you're feeling love and it
helps you feel connection. And it's the happy chemical, the love drug, the moral molecule,
the empathy chem- it's got lots of nicknames, but it's a feel-good chemical and mothers get a big
(09:49):
rush of it when they give birth. Yes. So they'll bond with the child. So hugging is in our routine
every day. So we hug, then roll out of bed and make the bed. So if you're one of those people
that like I was when I was a young man, when you get out of bed in the morning, make the bed.
Why do we make the bed? So that we can feel like we've achieved something and if we've achieved
(10:12):
nothing else, at least you have a made bed in the evening. There's a famous video on the internet
about this, isn't there? Yeah. Because when you make the bed, you get a hit of dopamine, the reward
chemical. And what you shouldn't do, which is what the majority of people do, and I constantly,
constantly talk to people about this, don't grab your phone first thing in the morning. No. Yeah,
this is all over the internet. Well, what we actually, I missed a step because we do breath
(10:32):
work. Yes. So wake up, have a hug, then do breath work. And people are now getting the picture there.
Do breath work. Yeah. Three to four rounds. Yeah. So we do Wim Hof breath work. Yep. Yep. So did the
Wim Hof course quite a few years ago now. Fell in love with this man. He's just the most amazing
man. But if you've never done breath work, it's you breathe powerfully into your stomach, your chest,
(10:58):
and then into your head. Like that's a power breath. You do that 30 or 40 times. You oxygenate
your blood, but then on the 30th, 40th or 50th breath, depending on how long you want to go for,
you just blow out all of your air. So you've got no air in your lungs and then just hold your breath.
Mm. We can do it just over three minutes. What do you experience when you do it?
So I generally go into a meditative state and I find that when I do that, I can, my breath hold
(11:25):
lasts longer. If I'm thinking in my head about holding my breath, I start to feel like I need
to take a breath. So I do a body scan and start at my toes and anything that's hurting or I'm
feeling pressure or anything really, I just work on the breath there, the oxygen that I'm imagining
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in my blood being directed to there and then work my way back up my body to my head. I have fallen
asleep sometimes. I've started snoring. And then it can become almost like I'd imagine hallucination.
(12:12):
Yeah, I've seen psychedelic colors in my mind when I'm doing the breath hold. So 30 or 40 power
breaths and then making sure that you're not blowing the air out. So you're not hyperventilating. So
you're just releasing. So you're not actually pushing it out. And then that breath hold and
in that breath hold, it's such a beautiful meditative state, isn't it? But then when you
desperately need to breathe in, don't. You keep holding until your body starts to shake a little
(12:37):
bit because then what happens is you get a dump of adrenaline into your body. And adrenaline is very,
very healthy for humans. So my routine will always involve trying to get adrenaline into my body
artificially through breath hold because when your adrenaline goes up, your immunity goes up, it
triggers your immune system and a bunch of other things. It's actually quite a healthy thing.
I learned adrenaline. And then when you desperately need to breathe, you then breathe in and hold it
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for 15 seconds, squeezing the air up into your head. And that's another explosion of color and
vision that happens with eyes closed also when you get that oxygen hit. And then so then after
we've done that, we three or four rounds, three or four rounds. That's right. Then we roll out of bed,
make the bed. Yeah. Cause if you grab your phone first thing, which a lot of people do,
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your brain's getting a hit of dopamine, the reward chemical from the phone.
And now your brain thinks, oh, that's where dopamine comes from. So you can start grabbing
your phone, you start swapping and scrolling and it's, it's not a very healthy thing. Emails can
wait. Yes, exactly. And that Instagram post doesn't really need to be looked at the first
thing in the morning. No, that's right. You don't want to train your brain that you get dopamine
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from it, from the phone. You want to train your brain that you get dopamine from activities that
are value, like making your bed, whatever it is. Well, then we grab, we have some lemon water. Yes.
We squeeze some salt if we, if we think of it, squeeze, squeeze a lemon into water and then drink
a large, large glass of water or more. Cause when you sleep, you dehydrate. Yeah. Then we go for a
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walk and up hills backwards. Cause we've got dodgy knees. We read somewhere that it helps your knees.
So my mate Brett knows about my knees. He had to carry my stuff, some of my stuff across
Tasmania cause my knees blew out. Yeah. And a big hike and I showed that to Brett, the,
the legend that he is. Um, yeah. So we walked backwards up, up hills and it's done wonders for
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our knees. If you've got bad knees, walk backwards up hills. Yeah. It's hard. And there are some steep
hills around where we live and then, uh, home to you make the world's best coffee. Thank you. So
we sit on the front veranda, read a book, read a book, have coffee, each read a different book.
Yeah. And we often start talking to each other because you've read something in the book and
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you want to tell you, Hey, have you heard this? That's right. Yeah. And what do you think about
this? And that's, that's magic that time, 20 to 30 minutes of just reading every morning with a
coffee, sitting at the front, saying hi to neighbors that are walking past. There's one particular
neighbor and I don't know if he does it now as a challenge, but he runs to the ferry at the end
of the street and we watch and he's got young kids and we think, okay, he was running late,
(15:13):
but every day now he runs to the, in his suit. And it's like, maybe one or two minutes earlier.
I want to talk about somebody with a coffee in the book. Yes. Phil Goldson. Ah, yes. We met him in
Darwin. So Phil Goldson was the beautiful man who brought the international men's day to Australia
over 20 years ago, I think under just on 20 years ago. Yeah. It was a while back. Yep. Okay. And
(15:38):
Phil was at the men's forum that I spoke at up in, up in Darwin and the most gorgeous human being,
like isn't he the present, his presence. Like I collect heroes. He's now a new one of mine.
Yep. Um, but yeah, he says that he and his wife, he still hasn't perfected the coffee for his wife,
but they sit down and they have a coffee and, and read a book and, um, they call them gold nuggets.
(16:03):
Yeah. Which is great. Golden nuggets throughout your day. And he was saying that he plants them
because he has previously suffered from depression and he told the audience, all of the wonderful men
that were in the audience, how it never truly goes away. It's always in the background. However,
if you set yourself up for success every day by having these nuggets, even when he's low,
(16:27):
he's got that to look forward to. And again, because that's tied to happiness for him,
it can then either nullify, like neutralize the, the, the low feeling, um, and then start to give
him purpose throughout the day. He's doing something intentionally to fight off the effects of depression
(16:49):
through activities that bring dope in me and serotonin and all of the feel good chemicals.
So he spoke about how he looked forward to making this coffee. I have the same feeling
when I'm sitting there at the coffee machine and I'm trying to do the fancy patterns in the milk,
I'm thinking, Oh, what's he going to think about this? It's like looking for pictures in clouds.
It brings great joy to me to feel like I'm doing something for another person when I'm making them
(17:13):
a beautiful coffee and then sitting there reading a book and discussing that book and just checking
in. I love being the recipient of your coffee art. I will make coffee for you whenever you want one.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, the next thing that's in my routine, uh, and I've encouraged so
many people to do this, but so many people look at me, get, nah, not doing that one, a cold shower.
(17:34):
Yeah. Yeah. So I have, have you standard warm shower, like everyone have your standard warm
shower. And if you haven't looked up Wim Hof yet, if you haven't heard of Wim Hof, where have you
been? Um, but I did his course years ago now. And so you have a, you have a warm shower. And then at
the end, take a big deep breath, turn all the hot off, all the cold on. And as the cold water hits
(17:56):
your forehead, breathe out and relax. And what happens is your body will start to release cold
shock proteins, which, which fight off the effects of stress and inflammation. And it's incredibly
healthy for you. And when you get out of that shower, out of that cold shower, and especially
in winter, winter is so good for this. You feel alive. Your body starts to heat itself back up
(18:18):
again. You get these, this rush of dopamine. Your brain is clearer than it's ever been before. And
you feel like you're radiating heat. You've just got out of a cold shower, but you feel like you're
radiating heat. And a lot of people go, Oh, I could never do that. But they're focusing on
that initial feeling of the cold water hitting them. But they're not focusing on how they're
(18:40):
going to feel when they get out of the shower. And I keep saying, just do it, just do it once or twice.
And when, when you get to the third time, your body will be craving for this.
Well, we watched that Netflix special with the kids and it was Chris Hensworth. Yeah. And he was
doing the cold, the swimming. And we do cold plunge occasionally at the skin bar in Roselle.
(19:04):
That's right. Yes. The bath house. So, um, that I struggle with the cold shower. And however,
the kids have all started doing the cold showers now. And I'm thinking, okay, if they can do it,
I can do it. Every single person that I've recommended it to that has done it has said
it's changed their life. Well, I enjoyed it when we were in Darwin because it was the cold water.
(19:27):
It's not cold. Darwin water is not cold. I'm so sorry, Darwin. You cannot do this. You've got to
go and get your ice bags from the server and throw them in the bath. But York showers, like
pure cold in Darwin is like our warm in Sydney. I didn't mind those cold showers in Darwin.
I felt like I was a hero. That's your definition of cold, Michelle. We need to talk about temperature.
I pumped myself up there. It's like, yes, I'm doing cold showers. Yeah. You're sitting in a lukewarm
(19:51):
cold. Yeah. It's like the pool. Yeah. But at the skin, shout out to Sam and Matt at the skin bar.
Yes, they're not sponsors. No, but they're the friends of ours. We go up to the skin bar in
Roselle and do our ice bath. They've got two baths. Yes. Two degrees and five degrees. I go the five
degree. I do the two. Yes. You're a psychopath. Now. Yeah. I started in the five. Yeah. It's the
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amount of, oh, feel good, everything after doing the ice bath, two rounds of the ice bath. That's
extraordinary. Wow. Yeah. My productivity goes through the roof. Yeah. It's just my mental clarity.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I can go through data and fire off emails. So if you think about three
minutes of what people perceive to be pain, it's not pain now for me. My body now screams at me to
(20:42):
do it. I love it. But you get into the cold water, you slow your breathing down, you connect your
mind to your body and you just sit there for three minutes. You get out of that cold bath.
That's two degrees. You're in iced water. And then when your body starts to heat itself back up,
the dump of dopamine that comes into your body then stays in there for two hours is extraordinary.
(21:05):
Well, productivity wise, I find I go from being reactive to being proactive. Because of the ice
bath. It sounds a bit silly, but it is that clarity of mind, but also just that feeling of calm and
peace. And so rather than being up in my throat and in the top of my chest with energy, it is
(21:28):
very calm. And it's almost like you can see everything happening around you and you can
selectively pick and choose your reaction to it rather than just being like, ah. Yeah. I'm aiming
for at least three ice baths a week now. Yeah. That's my routine. So routines aren't just what
you do every day. You can spread them out over the week or the fortnight or the month even. Yeah. So
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it sounds like we do a lot, but we get up early. We do. So 5am, 4.30, 5am to get all this in. Yeah.
And yeah, it's, and we're lucky the kids, the kids can kind of get themselves ready for school.
Yeah, make their lunches and we're at that age now. So the saunas are amazing now, aren't they?
Yeah. I used to struggle being in a sauna. I didn't like being overheated. It was always
(22:10):
an uncomfortable feeling because your body's gone into hermetic stress. But the research into
saunas, and I learned this from Dr Rhonda Patrick online. She's an amazing scientist, but she said
that the studies show that if you're in a sauna five times a week for 20 minutes each time at a
certain temperature, you reduce your risk of all cause mortality. So all causes of death by over 40%.
(22:31):
I'm going to live to be a thousand. Yes. You love your saunas in 20 minutes. And yeah, I was in one
the other day and I've, I find it very hard to slow my brain down. That's why I got into meditation,
which we'll talk about in a moment, but you do the ice bath and you get into the sauna. Once you don't
jump straight back, well, I don't jump straight back in. I let my body dump the dopamine in first,
(22:51):
heat up a little bit. Then I get into the sauna and the peace that I experienced in my mind is
extraordinary for someone who's always had a racing mind. It's amazing. So saunas are going to be a
big part of my routine as well. And another thing we do is we book in, we schedule into our calendar
(23:15):
a three day fast every month. Yes. Fasting. Yeah. Regrettably we kind of have to, don't we?
I know. Well, we've both got fair skin. Let's be honest. We look like ghosts.
Well we do. With freckles. But with you, all of your water polo swimming and training outside,
you were smashed by the sun. That's right. And I was a very, very silly, stupid teenage girl who
(23:42):
thought that, you know, a tan was required when my skin just doesn't tan. It burns then peels then
goes blotchy. And you also flew much closer to the sun Icarus. True. But it was, so now
older, wiser, seeing that need the, you know, my skin is now damaged, our skin's sun damaged.
(24:02):
My skin doctor actually suggested to me that fasting and how just the autophagy starts to repair
the damaged cells. So we schedule it in every month, three days. Day two, I'm a bit hangry.
Yeah, same. But we prepare, we have meals in the freezer for the kids and the instance.
(24:22):
So the last meal is Thursday night. The next one is Sunday night. Three days. Water, lemon water,
black coffee, black tea. Yeah, and herbal tea. Yeah. And then you just fight through the hangry.
And sometimes a bit of lethargy as well. But when your body goes into autophagy, it starts hunting
for damaged proteins. And it's very, very healthy for you because those damaged proteins, those
(24:43):
damaged cells could potentially turn into cancer, skin cancers, for example. And do you find that
your skin clears up on day four? Yeah, same. It's funny. Like when you've got damaged skin,
it's three day fast. And at the end of that, you look at your skin and it seems to have started
to repair. So we've decided to do it once a month. Yes. We were told that we can by our doctor. So
(25:05):
please don't take this as many full advice. If you've got diabetes and other food related
illnesses, yeah, please speak to a professional. But fasting has been proven to be very, very healthy.
I shared it with Benjamin Balk, who I work with. And he did it. And he went a step further and did,
I think, 84 hours fasting. And he was saying... That's four days. I'm doing the math.
(25:27):
And he said he felt amazing, just such clarity of mind and energy in his body.
So yeah. Because your brain's starting to use ketones for fuel. You've heard of ketosis and
people who go into ketosis. So he did it. So Ben, if you're listening, it's time that you did it
again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ben, you can't just do it once and think that you're cured for the rest of
(25:48):
your life, mate. You've got to do this regularly. I've read, I don't know if this is true, I haven't
confirmed it or not, but Kelly Slater, who is still on the world surfing circuit, I believe,
in his 50s. So old. Yeah. Does 10 day fasts. Wow. And I've heard Peter Atiyah, who was the guy
that was coaching Chris Hemsworth, and I've heard him talk and other people do extended fasts. I
(26:14):
don't know if I could get past... Four and a half days is my longest so far. That's when we had
COVID and we were really lethargic and we had no energy. I think I was about 40% energy. And I
found a doctor online who was suggesting fasting. And so I went on a fast. You did three days,
I believe. Yeah. I did four and a half days and cured. Gone. All the lethargy was gone. That
(26:36):
worked for us. Again, this is not medical advice. Please speak to your health professional.
What are your other routines that bring happiness into your life? Oh, so when I kiss the kids of
the morning and at nighttime kissing them, we have routines of what we say and what we do
(26:58):
to go to bed and the different sayings and things. And so the kids know, I know, to feel good,
it's a lovely way to end the day. And yeah, it's just... And I think that one of the things that
we've changed up, and some days it's having to try to change it up, making the effort,
and other days it's easy, is the wine of a nighttime just to switch off if you've had a big week or
(27:26):
celebration or whatever. It's that rather than the first glass leading into many glasses,
it's the switching off that one sip or the first small glass. I was really disappointed to learn
that. I many years ago read research that a glass of wine, red wine specifically, was good for the
(27:48):
heart because of the resveratrol in it. But then I've read that if you want to get enough
resveratrol for it to be good for your heart, you'd need to drink 30 or 40 glasses a day.
Wow. I thought it was liters.
Liters, 40 liters a day, yeah, something like that. Yeah. So if you're currently thinking to
yourself, challenge accepted, that's a wrong thought. Because it's that first sip that
(28:13):
apparently turns off your default mode network, the bloody brain that's always the monkey mind
that's always chasing, what are we going to do tomorrow? That feeling where your brain
just switches off. It's just that first couple of sips, but every other sip after that is just
pure poison for your body. There is no, apparently, there is no healthy amount of alcohol for a human
being. It's poison your body has to now process and get rid of through your liver.
(28:36):
I know it works even just, if you have a wine glass or a lovely glass or a lovely cup,
you can still get that same feeling by having tea, coffee, sparkling water, whatever your drink is,
you can still get it. So if you sit at a particular seat and table or pub or wherever you go,
(28:59):
which is your signal, your habit of that's, it's wine down time, you can actually do it without
that alcohol and it still works. It's like a talisman almost.
Yeah, yeah, it still works. Well, for me, it's worked. So I challenge everyone to try it.
Yes. If it doesn't work, grab that glass of wine.
We are sponsored by Bollinger. We're still waiting on Bollinger.
(29:23):
Yes. Yeah, but it's that first sip that's having that effect. So do it with some sparkling water.
And if you do want to have a glass of alcohol to wine down at the end of the day,
have it early. Don't have it close to sleep because it dramatically affects your sleep in
a bad way. And sleep is the most important thing that human beings do. Thank you, Dr. Matthew Walker,
(29:44):
the global sleep expert. But yeah, don't just have it early and then just stop. Just appreciate the
fact that the default mode network in your brain has turned off. Your brain is now slower and you
can be more present. Try it with a glass of sparkling water and use it as a trigger to slow
down, but don't lean on three, four, five glasses. It's just so unhealthy for humans.
(30:05):
So we sprinkle golden nuggets throughout our day. So we have something to work towards. In those days,
when you are exhausted, when things maybe haven't gone as planned or something comes up that's like
not a nice situation, it's just having those little anchors throughout the day to keep you going.
So Phil, him calling them golden nuggets was perfect. As soon as I heard it, it's like,
(30:30):
oh, of course, that's what they are. Another one, Rosebud Thorn. Oh yeah.
Yeah, to the parents, this is a great one. At the dinner table, hey guys, what's your Rose,
what's your Rosebud, what's your Thorn? So the Rose is something that happened today that went
fantastic. What's a win you had? What was your best moment of the day? Thorn was something that
didn't go the way you planned and what did you learn from it? And then Rosebud, what is something
(30:54):
that you're looking forward to? It's a great way of getting the kids to structure a conversation
around the table instead of them fighting and kicking and pushing each other.
Guys, what's your Rose, what's your Thorn and what's your Rosebud? What are you looking
forward to? Those routines, we need to be sitting around a table discussing our days with children.
It's a great memory for them when they get older, it's a great way to create that family unit.
(31:18):
We do everything around the dining table, don't we?
We do, we do art and everything. My favourite routine is I wake my son up in the morning,
he's 10, go in, give him a hug and he just throws his arms around me, squeezes me so tightly and
we both say in unison, best time of the day. And then he comes for a walk off and then in the
(31:38):
evenings, 15 minutes of reading Harry Potter together in bed. It's our favourite story,
I've read them now four times with my kids. He's the youngest and we're going, I think we're on
book four and read a bit of Harry Potter, another big hug and love you mate and have a great night's
sleep. It's those routines that bring quality into your life.
(32:04):
No, so to wrap up, it's not the goal, the goal gives you purpose and direction,
but don't hang your hat on the goal as you will be happy when. And just plant nuggets throughout
your day and whatever that looks like. We get up early, we're morning people and we're very
productive in the morning, but other people might be on the other end of the day.
(32:24):
Yeah, do it at the end of the day.
Yeah, or in the middle, do what works for you. But if you find just little things that you can
make a habit, a routine.
Yeah, like laughter, listening to stand up comedy, being grateful,
listing all the things that you're grateful for, get your mind feeling like you've gotten
abundance and then your body doesn't have to stress anymore because you don't need to fight
(32:45):
for anything.
That's right, start small, don't structure your day so that there's no leeway for anything going
off track. But just small little nuggets, even one, if you don't have any, start with one.
Just start with one, start small.
Yep, honestly, it helps.
(33:06):
So goals don't create happiness, they just give you direction. They're important,
they just give you direction, but happiness lies in what we do every day, the journey,
the routines. Bollinger, where are you? Bollinger, we're still waiting.
Lindt chocolate.
Lindt, yeah, Lindt, we love Lindt chocolate.
Yeah, I suppose.
Bose, anyone who wants to sponsor the podcast?
(33:26):
Anyone really.
How selfish are we? We enjoy doing this, we'll keep doing it anyway.
That's right.
More dogs?
More dogs, the world will be a better place with more dogs.
So if you want some merch with some great messaging on it, we've got t-shirts and hats
and everyone that's bought one and given us feedback said they're a real conversation
starter.
That's right.
(33:46):
Yeah, and every time we wear them, people walk up and go, yeah, the world, more dogs.
Love your t-shirt, love your hat.
Yeah, more dogs. So good to see you, Michelle.
Bye, guys.
I need you.
Bye.
Bye.
Well, that was fun.
That was fun.
You're such a clown.
(34:07):
The clown.
Lady captain.
And who's going to listen to this?
Maybe our mums.
Thanks, mum.
G'day, leaders. In this episode, we talk about goals and routines. We discuss why goals don't
(00:06):
create happiness. They're important, they give you direction, but they don't create happiness.
And we talk about routines and some of our favorite routines. Enjoy.
Why do it count backwards? Are they? We're now recording.
What? Hello, captain.
What do I say? Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly.
(00:32):
What are we going to talk about? I don't know. So, leadership, life and everything else.
Yeah. And we're live.
No, we're recording. That was a good one, that one.
Yeah, okay. I can see in the middle of a boxing ring with that one. Michelle, I need you.
(00:56):
We had this moment this morning. In the pool.
In the pool, we went for a swim and Michelle said, I need you. I said, I'm here for you.
And she said, no, I need you. I said, I'm here for you. I said, she said, no, I need you. I said,
I'm always here for you. And she said, no, I hit you with my knee. I hadn't even noticed.
(01:20):
We are absolute lunatics. We laugh at the smallest thing.
Yeah, okay. And all we'd have is coffee. Yes, exactly. And we're still having it now.
Yes. Yes. Hey, Michelle.
Hi, Guy. What are we talking about today?
Excuse me. So one thing I wanted to talk about was at your last keynote that I was in the audience
(01:42):
for, you were talking about how goals are not the key to happiness. Can you explain that?
Yeah, I learned this. Oh, cracky voice this one. Excuse me. I learned this from a cartoonist,
you know, the Dilbert comic. Scott Adams, the cartoonist who does the Dilbert comic.
I read it. He said this, that goals don't create happiness. And I now agree. The more I've looked
(02:10):
at it, the more I've looked at this quote and the way he thinks about it is, yeah, it's really quite
accurate. So when I was young, I was a very goal-driven man, you know, you were too. You
wanted to be a pilot and you got there eventually through all of those hurdles. And I had all these
goals that I wanted to achieve in my life. At one point in time, something triggered me and I started
to set all these goals. I had all these goals and working towards these goals. But Scott Adams
(02:34):
pointed out that goals don't create happiness. The reason why they don't create happiness is
because 99.9% of the time you're not there. They're in the future. They're at some point
in the future. And so when you spend a lot of energy focusing on the future, as we've discussed
before, time starts to speed up. Not in the present. No, you're not in the present. You're
trying to drag the future towards you. And you get into this mindset, I'll be happy when.
(02:57):
I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when. No, you won't because when never happens, you get there.
You already move past it. Now you've got to be happy. You've got to set another goal. You've
got to redirect. So goals don't create happiness because you're not there. And you get into this
mindset, I'll be happy when. So you want to bring the future towards you quicker. So which means
you're not in the present. You're not in the moment. And all they do is create direction.
(03:21):
Yeah. So could you reframe it as purpose? Like a goal gives you purpose and a direction, not
the final outcome. So it's the enjoying the journey and being in the journey rather than
that the goal is everything. Yeah. I guess we've all heard this before. It's the journey that
matters, not the destination, all that sort of stuff. But that's the problem with goals is that
(03:43):
they don't tell you that the goals are there to help you make decisions and move towards them and
give you direction. But they, excuse me, straight of my note, I sound like Barry White. You swallowed
a lot of pool water. I did swallow too much pool water this morning. So the goals give you direction,
but they don't give you, it's not where happiness lies. It actually made me think about a couple of
(04:09):
guys, and I'm saying guys, meaning the group of pilots, that all they were interested in was
getting into an airline, typically Qantas or going overseas. And so all of the general aviation
flying that they did, they hated because the goal was so many hours so that they could then apply
(04:31):
and get into Qantas or get into another airline. And which was really sad because some of my best
flying was in general aviation and being in shitty little aircraft and ones that had things
missing and obviously not engines or wings, but instruments missing or you got to fly and
(04:53):
contour fly or chat with people or go fast, go slow, stall, whatever. That was some of the great
flying. And these people that just hated it and turned up begrudgingly just to get the hours to
then get to the airlines. I would love to be able to ask them, are you happy now? And did you find
(05:16):
happiness once you got into? What a great example. Yeah, I love that. Because we've often spoken
about how you had this, I'm not sure who gave you the mindset, either you could fly a thousand,
a hundred hours or a thousand hours. So I was told, because quite often when you did
freight flying or charter flying, even instructing that you could do one hour a thousand times. So
(05:40):
that is just going there and do the same thing over and over and over or a thousand hours each.
So every time mix it up, look for something else, be curious like we discussed in a previous podcast
and look at different ways to fly that route, different altitudes, different power settings.
Did you have that choice? You could actually have different routes, you could fly different
(06:03):
altitudes and stuff. You could kind of, not airline flying, but you could. And also it just
gave you, you looked out the window and you saw landmarks that you may not have noticed before.
So it was just mixing it up. So you're flying in the present rather than with a goal to get to
an airline. Absolutely, because the weather's not the same always and the fuel load, the payload
(06:26):
weren't the same. So just try different things safely obviously, but it gave you your envelope
of comfort expanded. And I'd guess, this is just a guess, that those pilots that were just aiming
to become an airline captain or an airline first officer or whatever and they hated the path to
get there, that creates a pattern. Yes. Right. And then when they're actually there, how do they
(06:48):
then suddenly switch into happiness? Oh, I'm a pilot, look at me. I think I've actually mentioned
this previously that what do you call a group of pilots? A winch. So it wasn't fun to hang out in
the crew room sometimes. Okay, so goals don't create happiness, they just give us direction,
(07:12):
which is important in life. That's right. But we've discovered a way that as part of the journey,
to ensure happiness and ease throughout your life, throughout your day, even when things
aren't going so great. That's it. You don't focus on goals, you focus on your routines.
So what you do every day is going to be the determiner. Determiner, is that even a term?
(07:37):
The determinator. That will determine the quality of your life.
I just reminded of a quote I like, if a man knows not what harbour he seeks, any wind is the right
wind. So goals don't create happiness, but they're very important because they give you the direction
that you're going to head in life. You don't just wander aimlessly, but they're not where
happiness lies. Where happiness lies is in routines. Yeah. It's what you do every day.
(08:00):
That's right. And this is what Scott Adams was saying, the Dilbert comic, that if you focus on
little things that you do every day that bring pleasure into your life, that's where happiness
lies. Yeah. And so you and I both have very strong routines, don't we? We do. We do. We listen to
experts. That's right. And I think if you can tie it to something, so we're teaching the kids at
(08:23):
the moment that when you tie it, link it to something else. So we used to have action flows
and in the aircraft so that if you forgot one thing, you had muscle memory basically. Yeah.
And we're helping the kids build this by creating routines and attaching something to something,
(08:44):
like to a previous action. So trigger the routine, to trigger habits. Yeah. So we,
first thing, cuddle. Yeah. The very first thing, cuddle. Yeah. When you wake up in the morning.
Because it raises oxytocin levels. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go through all of our routines. Hugging.
We're both voracious huggers. Yes. We hug as many people as we can because-
(09:06):
Neighbours, friends. Neighbours, friends. Yeah. Oh, I had a great hug the other day. I was
coming home from work and one of our neighbours had been overseas and he was standing there talking
to another neighbour of ours and I said, oh, this is my opportunity. So I ran up and I gave them both
a big hug and immediately you feel better because your body is much better. And so I was like,
immediately you feel better because your body produces oxytocin. We've discussed oxytocin,
(09:29):
haven't we? I think we have. In another podcast. I know we speak about it all the time, but if you
don't know, oxytocin is the hormone that's released into your body when you're feeling love and it
helps you feel connection. And it's the happy chemical, the love drug, the moral molecule,
the empathy chem- it's got lots of nicknames, but it's a feel-good chemical and mothers get a big
(09:49):
rush of it when they give birth. Yes. So they'll bond with the child. So hugging is in our routine
every day. So we hug, then roll out of bed and make the bed. So if you're one of those people
that like I was when I was a young man, when you get out of bed in the morning, make the bed.
Why do we make the bed? So that we can feel like we've achieved something and if we've achieved
(10:12):
nothing else, at least you have a made bed in the evening. There's a famous video on the internet
about this, isn't there? Yeah. Because when you make the bed, you get a hit of dopamine, the reward
chemical. And what you shouldn't do, which is what the majority of people do, and I constantly,
constantly talk to people about this, don't grab your phone first thing in the morning. No. Yeah,
this is all over the internet. Well, what we actually, I missed a step because we do breath
(10:32):
work. Yes. So wake up, have a hug, then do breath work. And people are now getting the picture there.
Do breath work. Yeah. Three to four rounds. Yeah. So we do Wim Hof breath work. Yep. Yep. So did the
Wim Hof course quite a few years ago now. Fell in love with this man. He's just the most amazing
man. But if you've never done breath work, it's you breathe powerfully into your stomach, your chest,
(10:58):
and then into your head. Like that's a power breath. You do that 30 or 40 times. You oxygenate
your blood, but then on the 30th, 40th or 50th breath, depending on how long you want to go for,
you just blow out all of your air. So you've got no air in your lungs and then just hold your breath.
Mm. We can do it just over three minutes. What do you experience when you do it?
So I generally go into a meditative state and I find that when I do that, I can, my breath hold
(11:25):
lasts longer. If I'm thinking in my head about holding my breath, I start to feel like I need
to take a breath. So I do a body scan and start at my toes and anything that's hurting or I'm
feeling pressure or anything really, I just work on the breath there, the oxygen that I'm imagining
(11:49):
in my blood being directed to there and then work my way back up my body to my head. I have fallen
asleep sometimes. I've started snoring. And then it can become almost like I'd imagine hallucination.
(12:12):
Yeah, I've seen psychedelic colors in my mind when I'm doing the breath hold. So 30 or 40 power
breaths and then making sure that you're not blowing the air out. So you're not hyperventilating. So
you're just releasing. So you're not actually pushing it out. And then that breath hold and
in that breath hold, it's such a beautiful meditative state, isn't it? But then when you
desperately need to breathe in, don't. You keep holding until your body starts to shake a little
(12:37):
bit because then what happens is you get a dump of adrenaline into your body. And adrenaline is very,
very healthy for humans. So my routine will always involve trying to get adrenaline into my body
artificially through breath hold because when your adrenaline goes up, your immunity goes up, it
triggers your immune system and a bunch of other things. It's actually quite a healthy thing.
I learned adrenaline. And then when you desperately need to breathe, you then breathe in and hold it
(13:01):
for 15 seconds, squeezing the air up into your head. And that's another explosion of color and
vision that happens with eyes closed also when you get that oxygen hit. And then so then after
we've done that, we three or four rounds, three or four rounds. That's right. Then we roll out of bed,
make the bed. Yeah. Cause if you grab your phone first thing, which a lot of people do,
(13:25):
your brain's getting a hit of dopamine, the reward chemical from the phone.
And now your brain thinks, oh, that's where dopamine comes from. So you can start grabbing
your phone, you start swapping and scrolling and it's, it's not a very healthy thing. Emails can
wait. Yes, exactly. And that Instagram post doesn't really need to be looked at the first
thing in the morning. No, that's right. You don't want to train your brain that you get dopamine
(13:46):
from it, from the phone. You want to train your brain that you get dopamine from activities that
are value, like making your bed, whatever it is. Well, then we grab, we have some lemon water. Yes.
We squeeze some salt if we, if we think of it, squeeze, squeeze a lemon into water and then drink
a large, large glass of water or more. Cause when you sleep, you dehydrate. Yeah. Then we go for a
(14:08):
walk and up hills backwards. Cause we've got dodgy knees. We read somewhere that it helps your knees.
So my mate Brett knows about my knees. He had to carry my stuff, some of my stuff across
Tasmania cause my knees blew out. Yeah. And a big hike and I showed that to Brett, the,
the legend that he is. Um, yeah. So we walked backwards up, up hills and it's done wonders for
(14:28):
our knees. If you've got bad knees, walk backwards up hills. Yeah. It's hard. And there are some steep
hills around where we live and then, uh, home to you make the world's best coffee. Thank you. So
we sit on the front veranda, read a book, read a book, have coffee, each read a different book.
Yeah. And we often start talking to each other because you've read something in the book and
(14:48):
you want to tell you, Hey, have you heard this? That's right. Yeah. And what do you think about
this? And that's, that's magic that time, 20 to 30 minutes of just reading every morning with a
coffee, sitting at the front, saying hi to neighbors that are walking past. There's one particular
neighbor and I don't know if he does it now as a challenge, but he runs to the ferry at the end
of the street and we watch and he's got young kids and we think, okay, he was running late,
(15:13):
but every day now he runs to the, in his suit. And it's like, maybe one or two minutes earlier.
I want to talk about somebody with a coffee in the book. Yes. Phil Goldson. Ah, yes. We met him in
Darwin. So Phil Goldson was the beautiful man who brought the international men's day to Australia
over 20 years ago, I think under just on 20 years ago. Yeah. It was a while back. Yep. Okay. And
(15:38):
Phil was at the men's forum that I spoke at up in, up in Darwin and the most gorgeous human being,
like isn't he the present, his presence. Like I collect heroes. He's now a new one of mine.
Yep. Um, but yeah, he says that he and his wife, he still hasn't perfected the coffee for his wife,
but they sit down and they have a coffee and, and read a book and, um, they call them gold nuggets.
(16:03):
Yeah. Which is great. Golden nuggets throughout your day. And he was saying that he plants them
because he has previously suffered from depression and he told the audience, all of the wonderful men
that were in the audience, how it never truly goes away. It's always in the background. However,
if you set yourself up for success every day by having these nuggets, even when he's low,
(16:27):
he's got that to look forward to. And again, because that's tied to happiness for him,
it can then either nullify, like neutralize the, the, the low feeling, um, and then start to give
him purpose throughout the day. He's doing something intentionally to fight off the effects of depression
(16:49):
through activities that bring dope in me and serotonin and all of the feel good chemicals.
So he spoke about how he looked forward to making this coffee. I have the same feeling
when I'm sitting there at the coffee machine and I'm trying to do the fancy patterns in the milk,
I'm thinking, Oh, what's he going to think about this? It's like looking for pictures in clouds.
It brings great joy to me to feel like I'm doing something for another person when I'm making them
(17:13):
a beautiful coffee and then sitting there reading a book and discussing that book and just checking
in. I love being the recipient of your coffee art. I will make coffee for you whenever you want one.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, the next thing that's in my routine, uh, and I've encouraged so
many people to do this, but so many people look at me, get, nah, not doing that one, a cold shower.
(17:34):
Yeah. Yeah. So I have, have you standard warm shower, like everyone have your standard warm
shower. And if you haven't looked up Wim Hof yet, if you haven't heard of Wim Hof, where have you
been? Um, but I did his course years ago now. And so you have a, you have a warm shower. And then at
the end, take a big deep breath, turn all the hot off, all the cold on. And as the cold water hits
(17:56):
your forehead, breathe out and relax. And what happens is your body will start to release cold
shock proteins, which, which fight off the effects of stress and inflammation. And it's incredibly
healthy for you. And when you get out of that shower, out of that cold shower, and especially
in winter, winter is so good for this. You feel alive. Your body starts to heat itself back up
(18:18):
again. You get these, this rush of dopamine. Your brain is clearer than it's ever been before. And
you feel like you're radiating heat. You've just got out of a cold shower, but you feel like you're
radiating heat. And a lot of people go, Oh, I could never do that. But they're focusing on
that initial feeling of the cold water hitting them. But they're not focusing on how they're
(18:40):
going to feel when they get out of the shower. And I keep saying, just do it, just do it once or twice.
And when, when you get to the third time, your body will be craving for this.
Well, we watched that Netflix special with the kids and it was Chris Hensworth. Yeah. And he was
doing the cold, the swimming. And we do cold plunge occasionally at the skin bar in Roselle.
(19:04):
That's right. Yes. The bath house. So, um, that I struggle with the cold shower. And however,
the kids have all started doing the cold showers now. And I'm thinking, okay, if they can do it,
I can do it. Every single person that I've recommended it to that has done it has said
it's changed their life. Well, I enjoyed it when we were in Darwin because it was the cold water.
(19:27):
It's not cold. Darwin water is not cold. I'm so sorry, Darwin. You cannot do this. You've got to
go and get your ice bags from the server and throw them in the bath. But York showers, like
pure cold in Darwin is like our warm in Sydney. I didn't mind those cold showers in Darwin.
I felt like I was a hero. That's your definition of cold, Michelle. We need to talk about temperature.
I pumped myself up there. It's like, yes, I'm doing cold showers. Yeah. You're sitting in a lukewarm
(19:51):
cold. Yeah. It's like the pool. Yeah. But at the skin, shout out to Sam and Matt at the skin bar.
Yes, they're not sponsors. No, but they're the friends of ours. We go up to the skin bar in
Roselle and do our ice bath. They've got two baths. Yes. Two degrees and five degrees. I go the five
degree. I do the two. Yes. You're a psychopath. Now. Yeah. I started in the five. Yeah. It's the
(20:18):
amount of, oh, feel good, everything after doing the ice bath, two rounds of the ice bath. That's
extraordinary. Wow. Yeah. My productivity goes through the roof. Yeah. It's just my mental clarity.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I can go through data and fire off emails. So if you think about three
minutes of what people perceive to be pain, it's not pain now for me. My body now screams at me to
(20:42):
do it. I love it. But you get into the cold water, you slow your breathing down, you connect your
mind to your body and you just sit there for three minutes. You get out of that cold bath.
That's two degrees. You're in iced water. And then when your body starts to heat itself back up,
the dump of dopamine that comes into your body then stays in there for two hours is extraordinary.
(21:05):
Well, productivity wise, I find I go from being reactive to being proactive. Because of the ice
bath. It sounds a bit silly, but it is that clarity of mind, but also just that feeling of calm and
peace. And so rather than being up in my throat and in the top of my chest with energy, it is
(21:28):
very calm. And it's almost like you can see everything happening around you and you can
selectively pick and choose your reaction to it rather than just being like, ah. Yeah. I'm aiming
for at least three ice baths a week now. Yeah. That's my routine. So routines aren't just what
you do every day. You can spread them out over the week or the fortnight or the month even. Yeah. So
(21:49):
it sounds like we do a lot, but we get up early. We do. So 5am, 4.30, 5am to get all this in. Yeah.
And yeah, it's, and we're lucky the kids, the kids can kind of get themselves ready for school.
Yeah, make their lunches and we're at that age now. So the saunas are amazing now, aren't they?
Yeah. I used to struggle being in a sauna. I didn't like being overheated. It was always
(22:10):
an uncomfortable feeling because your body's gone into hermetic stress. But the research into
saunas, and I learned this from Dr Rhonda Patrick online. She's an amazing scientist, but she said
that the studies show that if you're in a sauna five times a week for 20 minutes each time at a
certain temperature, you reduce your risk of all cause mortality. So all causes of death by over 40%.
(22:31):
I'm going to live to be a thousand. Yes. You love your saunas in 20 minutes. And yeah, I was in one
the other day and I've, I find it very hard to slow my brain down. That's why I got into meditation,
which we'll talk about in a moment, but you do the ice bath and you get into the sauna. Once you don't
jump straight back, well, I don't jump straight back in. I let my body dump the dopamine in first,
(22:51):
heat up a little bit. Then I get into the sauna and the peace that I experienced in my mind is
extraordinary for someone who's always had a racing mind. It's amazing. So saunas are going to be a
big part of my routine as well. And another thing we do is we book in, we schedule into our calendar
(23:15):
a three day fast every month. Yes. Fasting. Yeah. Regrettably we kind of have to, don't we?
I know. Well, we've both got fair skin. Let's be honest. We look like ghosts.
Well we do. With freckles. But with you, all of your water polo swimming and training outside,
you were smashed by the sun. That's right. And I was a very, very silly, stupid teenage girl who
(23:42):
thought that, you know, a tan was required when my skin just doesn't tan. It burns then peels then
goes blotchy. And you also flew much closer to the sun Icarus. True. But it was, so now
older, wiser, seeing that need the, you know, my skin is now damaged, our skin's sun damaged.
(24:02):
My skin doctor actually suggested to me that fasting and how just the autophagy starts to repair
the damaged cells. So we schedule it in every month, three days. Day two, I'm a bit hangry.
Yeah, same. But we prepare, we have meals in the freezer for the kids and the instance.
(24:22):
So the last meal is Thursday night. The next one is Sunday night. Three days. Water, lemon water,
black coffee, black tea. Yeah, and herbal tea. Yeah. And then you just fight through the hangry.
And sometimes a bit of lethargy as well. But when your body goes into autophagy, it starts hunting
for damaged proteins. And it's very, very healthy for you because those damaged proteins, those
(24:43):
damaged cells could potentially turn into cancer, skin cancers, for example. And do you find that
your skin clears up on day four? Yeah, same. It's funny. Like when you've got damaged skin,
it's three day fast. And at the end of that, you look at your skin and it seems to have started
to repair. So we've decided to do it once a month. Yes. We were told that we can by our doctor. So
(25:05):
please don't take this as many full advice. If you've got diabetes and other food related
illnesses, yeah, please speak to a professional. But fasting has been proven to be very, very healthy.
I shared it with Benjamin Balk, who I work with. And he did it. And he went a step further and did,
I think, 84 hours fasting. And he was saying... That's four days. I'm doing the math.
(25:27):
And he said he felt amazing, just such clarity of mind and energy in his body.
So yeah. Because your brain's starting to use ketones for fuel. You've heard of ketosis and
people who go into ketosis. So he did it. So Ben, if you're listening, it's time that you did it
again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ben, you can't just do it once and think that you're cured for the rest of
(25:48):
your life, mate. You've got to do this regularly. I've read, I don't know if this is true, I haven't
confirmed it or not, but Kelly Slater, who is still on the world surfing circuit, I believe,
in his 50s. So old. Yeah. Does 10 day fasts. Wow. And I've heard Peter Atiyah, who was the guy
that was coaching Chris Hemsworth, and I've heard him talk and other people do extended fasts. I
(26:14):
don't know if I could get past... Four and a half days is my longest so far. That's when we had
COVID and we were really lethargic and we had no energy. I think I was about 40% energy. And I
found a doctor online who was suggesting fasting. And so I went on a fast. You did three days,
I believe. Yeah. I did four and a half days and cured. Gone. All the lethargy was gone. That
(26:36):
worked for us. Again, this is not medical advice. Please speak to your health professional.
What are your other routines that bring happiness into your life? Oh, so when I kiss the kids of
the morning and at nighttime kissing them, we have routines of what we say and what we do
(26:58):
to go to bed and the different sayings and things. And so the kids know, I know, to feel good,
it's a lovely way to end the day. And yeah, it's just... And I think that one of the things that
we've changed up, and some days it's having to try to change it up, making the effort,
and other days it's easy, is the wine of a nighttime just to switch off if you've had a big week or
(27:26):
celebration or whatever. It's that rather than the first glass leading into many glasses,
it's the switching off that one sip or the first small glass. I was really disappointed to learn
that. I many years ago read research that a glass of wine, red wine specifically, was good for the
(27:48):
heart because of the resveratrol in it. But then I've read that if you want to get enough
resveratrol for it to be good for your heart, you'd need to drink 30 or 40 glasses a day.
Wow. I thought it was liters.
Liters, 40 liters a day, yeah, something like that. Yeah. So if you're currently thinking to
yourself, challenge accepted, that's a wrong thought. Because it's that first sip that
(28:13):
apparently turns off your default mode network, the bloody brain that's always the monkey mind
that's always chasing, what are we going to do tomorrow? That feeling where your brain
just switches off. It's just that first couple of sips, but every other sip after that is just
pure poison for your body. There is no, apparently, there is no healthy amount of alcohol for a human
being. It's poison your body has to now process and get rid of through your liver.
(28:36):
I know it works even just, if you have a wine glass or a lovely glass or a lovely cup,
you can still get that same feeling by having tea, coffee, sparkling water, whatever your drink is,
you can still get it. So if you sit at a particular seat and table or pub or wherever you go,
(28:59):
which is your signal, your habit of that's, it's wine down time, you can actually do it without
that alcohol and it still works. It's like a talisman almost.
Yeah, yeah, it still works. Well, for me, it's worked. So I challenge everyone to try it.
Yes. If it doesn't work, grab that glass of wine.
We are sponsored by Bollinger. We're still waiting on Bollinger.
(29:23):
Yes. Yeah, but it's that first sip that's having that effect. So do it with some sparkling water.
And if you do want to have a glass of alcohol to wine down at the end of the day,
have it early. Don't have it close to sleep because it dramatically affects your sleep in
a bad way. And sleep is the most important thing that human beings do. Thank you, Dr. Matthew Walker,
(29:44):
the global sleep expert. But yeah, don't just have it early and then just stop. Just appreciate the
fact that the default mode network in your brain has turned off. Your brain is now slower and you
can be more present. Try it with a glass of sparkling water and use it as a trigger to slow
down, but don't lean on three, four, five glasses. It's just so unhealthy for humans.
(30:05):
So we sprinkle golden nuggets throughout our day. So we have something to work towards. In those days,
when you are exhausted, when things maybe haven't gone as planned or something comes up that's like
not a nice situation, it's just having those little anchors throughout the day to keep you going.
So Phil, him calling them golden nuggets was perfect. As soon as I heard it, it's like,
(30:30):
oh, of course, that's what they are. Another one, Rosebud Thorn. Oh yeah.
Yeah, to the parents, this is a great one. At the dinner table, hey guys, what's your Rose,
what's your Rosebud, what's your Thorn? So the Rose is something that happened today that went
fantastic. What's a win you had? What was your best moment of the day? Thorn was something that
didn't go the way you planned and what did you learn from it? And then Rosebud, what is something
(30:54):
that you're looking forward to? It's a great way of getting the kids to structure a conversation
around the table instead of them fighting and kicking and pushing each other.
Guys, what's your Rose, what's your Thorn and what's your Rosebud? What are you looking
forward to? Those routines, we need to be sitting around a table discussing our days with children.
It's a great memory for them when they get older, it's a great way to create that family unit.
(31:18):
We do everything around the dining table, don't we?
We do, we do art and everything. My favourite routine is I wake my son up in the morning,
he's 10, go in, give him a hug and he just throws his arms around me, squeezes me so tightly and
we both say in unison, best time of the day. And then he comes for a walk off and then in the
(31:38):
evenings, 15 minutes of reading Harry Potter together in bed. It's our favourite story,
I've read them now four times with my kids. He's the youngest and we're going, I think we're on
book four and read a bit of Harry Potter, another big hug and love you mate and have a great night's
sleep. It's those routines that bring quality into your life.
(32:04):
No, so to wrap up, it's not the goal, the goal gives you purpose and direction,
but don't hang your hat on the goal as you will be happy when. And just plant nuggets throughout
your day and whatever that looks like. We get up early, we're morning people and we're very
productive in the morning, but other people might be on the other end of the day.
(32:24):
Yeah, do it at the end of the day.
Yeah, or in the middle, do what works for you. But if you find just little things that you can
make a habit, a routine.
Yeah, like laughter, listening to stand up comedy, being grateful,
listing all the things that you're grateful for, get your mind feeling like you've gotten
abundance and then your body doesn't have to stress anymore because you don't need to fight
(32:45):
for anything.
That's right, start small, don't structure your day so that there's no leeway for anything going
off track. But just small little nuggets, even one, if you don't have any, start with one.
Just start with one, start small.
Yep, honestly, it helps.
(33:06):
So goals don't create happiness, they just give you direction. They're important,
they just give you direction, but happiness lies in what we do every day, the journey,
the routines. Bollinger, where are you? Bollinger, we're still waiting.
Lindt chocolate.
Lindt, yeah, Lindt, we love Lindt chocolate.
Yeah, I suppose.
Bose, anyone who wants to sponsor the podcast?
(33:26):
Anyone really.
How selfish are we? We enjoy doing this, we'll keep doing it anyway.
That's right.
More dogs?
More dogs, the world will be a better place with more dogs.
So if you want some merch with some great messaging on it, we've got t-shirts and hats
and everyone that's bought one and given us feedback said they're a real conversation
starter.
That's right.
(33:46):
Yeah, and every time we wear them, people walk up and go, yeah, the world, more dogs.
Love your t-shirt, love your hat.
Yeah, more dogs. So good to see you, Michelle.
Bye, guys.
I need you.
Bye.
Bye.
Well, that was fun.
That was fun.
You're such a clown.
(34:07):
The clown.
Lady captain.
And who's going to listen to this?
Maybe our mums.
Thanks, mum.
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