What Triggers Our Emotions and How To Self Manage Our Mental Health To Realise Our True Potential

Speaker A: Foreign. Podcast, a business and personal development podcast to help you accomplish more in life and realize your true potential. And now, here is your host, Vic Muller.

Speaker B: Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Success Inspired podcast. My guest today is a best selling author and psychologist speaker specializing in trauma prevention and treatment. She has won two international awards for her commitment to treating PTSD and improving mental health in Australia. She is passionately curious about the convergence of emerging technologies and human experience. She is passionate about reducing psychological injuries at work, helping organizations to manage change sensitively, and reducing workers compensation claims for bullying and harassment. Her new book, which I've just finished reading and that resulted in me booking her on the show, it's called Trouble with Trauma and it provides insights into how our, uh, traumatic experiences affect our psychological world, but also our physical bodies. So today we'll be talking about why community trauma such as COVID 19 really have profound impacts on how we live our lives, what we can do about it, and how to realize our, uh, true potential so we can, you know, be more successful in both personal and work life, which is what this podcast is all about. So please welcome to the show, Kerry Howard.

Speaker A: Thanks B. I don't think I've ever heard anybody introduce trauma with such excitement. Thanks. Makes it nice actually.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I am excited because look, I've just finished reading your book and, and you know, it's. Honestly, I haven't really like self study much about psychology myself. You know, I'm. Dude. Right, so it's kind of like one of those things. Right, but, but I've just finished reading it and it's actually, it's actually a great book. So I'm very excited to talk about you, uh, you know, to interview about, about this topic and get the listeners to, to find out more about what you do because I think a lot of people need to hear it.

Speaker A: I think it's useful, isn't it? Because you just said it yourself, you know, you're a dude. You wouldn't have thought that you would read such a book or that you even needed to understand it. I mean, before you picked it up, would you have thought that, you know, trauma was something you needed to understand?

Speaker B: No, because I always thought, you know, trauma is something like when, you know, somebody may have had a, like a serious car accident or something serious happened, that type of trauma, or a soldier coming back from, you know, from a war or something like that, having a ptsd, something like that.

Speaker A: Well, most people kind of think that it is. Right. That's one of the things I talk about in the book that that's kind of how psychology has pitched trauma to the world, that it's just a really big, serious, heavy stuff. But we actually have a lot of traumatic experiences in our life. And I talk about the fact that trauma as a word originates from the Greek, and it literally just means wound. So when we talk about trauma in an emotional sense, we're just talking about an emotional wound. So we get lots of those in our life. Right.

Speaker B: What are some of the impacts that people might not realize as a result of having this?

Speaker A: I think a lot of people don't realize that our traumatic experiences actually change the way our cells function in our body and that we end up with traumatic memories. But they can include physical kind of muscle memory. We understand muscle memory when we start talking about learning something. Like, you know, we talk about muscle memory in golf or, you know, muscle memory when we're training in the gym, but we don't recognize that we also get muscle memory reactions or responses to certain stressful situation. People who, you know, work in desk environments and get very stressed tend to have this muscle memory that makes all of their shoulders and everything cramp up. They get sore necks. Um, so a lot of people don't realize that trauma also impacts our physiological body in lots of ways as well as our psychological responses.

Speaker B: Well, that you bring in an interesting point because that is something that you've wrote about in your book, and that's something that I've not heard of before, you mentioning vibrations. So keen to elaborate. What do you mean by vibrations in your, your book?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I, uh, talk about how emotions vibrate, right? So when, and this is actually scientifically measurable, we can, we can measure the radio frequency of vibration. And so what we understand is that when we are in, in an, in an environment that, you know, things might be a bit tense or like when people are happy. I said to you, the way you introduce trauma at the beginning of the podcast is like, hey, there's some excitement about it. You feel the energy lift when that happens, than if somebody kind of comes in and talks to you really low about it. So there's a really big. People just sort of, we're aware of it, but we don't actually recognize that it's a legitimate measurable thing. And that's why, um, the vibration of emotion is important when we start talking about trauma, because shame and fear, which are the two main negative, um, emotions that we experience, and they're very strongly related to our traumatic experience. Experience are actually the two lowest vibrating emotions that we actually have. And so they're heavy and they make it feel, make things feel awful. But conversely, some of the highest vibrating sort of things that we, we can pick up on in emotional terms, love and peace and joy, where you know, they feel really light and they actually vibrate at quite a high frequency.

Speaker B: So is this kind of related to when we talk about neurological system when there's you know, actually like electricity, our uh, bodies forms electricity, right. Creates some currents going through our bodies. And so is that something to do with that then?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's in that same sort of idea. And you know, if we, there is a lot of scientific evidence around it, but some of it still has the basis in some, you know, what people might think of as bit woo woo stuff. You know, people would have talked about their aura or the energy that they give off this, an element of it about in that sort of physics environment, the sense of the energy exchange that we have that we don't actually see, but we know that it happens. I uh, say to people it's like air. We know that it exists. We can't see it, but we can't survive without it. And you can feel that energy shift when you go into an environment where people have just been having an argument and you've walked into the room, right, you kind of like or something, you don't know what it is. You may not have heard them arguing, but you can feel that the air could have been cut with a knife. And we talk about that. But by the, you know, conversely you might go into, you know, a ballroom or somewhere where people are having a lot of fun and, and you mood m just lists, you know, as soon as you walk into it because it's got really lots of positive energy in it. And you know, I think we feel a lot that we don't necessarily recognize. And that's a lot of, you know, when we talk about psychology, I think there's lots of things that we, we feel but it's hard to put a finger on it. So we kind of invalidate it as if it's not important.

Speaker B: That's interesting. So would that be for example, like if I was working somewhere, I didn't really enjoy it, but then comes Friday night, I'm going out with my mates to a pub and suddenly I'm feeling much happier.

Speaker A: Oh absolutely. You know, I mean add uh, to that, the couple of beers that go along with it. But it's usually also the fact that it feels like, especially on a Friday night, it feels like I can leave that world behind and I don't have to think about it until Monday, so I kind of just switch it off. And a lot of people talk about being able to leave their stuff at the door, but you can't stay in a work environment like that for a long period and it not have an ongoing, like it will eventually have a big impact. And I think also, uh, that raises an important point too because, you know, it might be just a Friday night thing to start off with, that you turn around and, you know, you're able to focus elsewhere. But over time, if that then becomes a coping, a way of coping, then that bad work environment's having a much bigger impact on all sorts of areas of your life. Right, right.

Speaker B: It's like putting a band aid on it. You're not really fixing the underlying problem.

Speaker A: Absolutely. You know, and if you know that, you know, um, and we see this, I see this a lot in trades where you get, you know, the guys kind of generally get together maybe at the end of the day every couple of days or whatever and have a beer or whatever, but that's okay. But it's like if it feels like, you know, every day you're walking in the door kind of going, I just want to not think about the stress of my day, so I'm having a beer then becomes a problem. And you really need to try and work out how we deal with why the daily grind is causing you to have so much stress. And it could be hard because those things sometimes build up over time. You don't realize how much impact they're having.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: It's just slowly creeping thing I like to talk about.

Speaker B: You know, I mentioned it a few times on this podcast how it's important to, if you want to be like successful living, um, you know, a purposeful life, fulfilling, uh, life like your life to your true potential.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: And you know, both personal and work wise, you need to look after yourself. You can't just, you know, like keep on building business but don't kind of look after yourself. Right. So it's about taking responsibility. Right. And uh, so if we talk about like what you just mentioned, you know, if you're in the environment, you could have the escape mechanism. Friday night you go out for bees and kind of blame the environment during the work week that makes you feel this way or that way. But ultimately we really need to be more responsible over our own feelings. Right. Do you have any tips on how we can go about doing that?

Speaker A: I think, I mean, you raise an interesting point because I think if you're going out every Friday night and you're having a few beers with your mates. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's more. But it's more if it feels like, you know, you felt like you wanted to do that, you know, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, you know, and the idea of going back to work on Monday made you feel like you needed half a dozen beers. Right. That's when it becomes a problem. But often we, when I talk about it, uh, can creep in. It's just the fact that it feels like, you know, you're unhappy, but you don't realize that you then leaning on, I want to say, more negative coping ways of doing things like drinking as opposed to, you know, trying to go to the gym and make yourself sort of release some different endorphins to help, you know, feel better and then doing something positive about trying to find a different work environment. Right. Because this is a big part of, you know, we can, we can stay in a really negative situation and just keep being angry about the fact that it's a negative situation and it's having this negative kind of impact and not actually do anything about changing that impact and making it any better. And we, we can see that a lot. And I think a lot of people, that's where Covid really had, um, quite a big impact on people, was just the sense of not feeling that you're in control of what you want to do with your life. You, you have to do things that other people are telling you that you want to do, not necessarily things that, you know, you want to do. And it's a, a really big, uh, reminder that, you know, we're individuals, but we also individuals that need to operate in a collective society with other people. And so we kind of sometimes end up having to do things that, you know, for the benefit of everybody, as opposed to just ourselves. And that, that can be quite hard. And I think it's a, uh, really challenging sort of time as well, where for a long time we've been really focused and social media stuff over the years has built up, actually encourages the focus to be just on us and not necessarily kind of awareness of our sort of engagement or role in connecting as members of a community.

Speaker B: So this is really interesting. Now you also mentioned, you know, obviously what's, what's current and uh, that is Covid, and you work with a lot of organizations. So what are some of the, um, emerging trends that you're seeing in organizations and the impact of COVID I think,

Speaker A: well, certainly in Australia and look around the world, this is a little bit different, but because of the way the Australian, uh, government have approached Covid, it's quite different here in Australia. I think a lot of people are seeing that coming post lockdown back into the work environment that we're sort of seeing. People want more flexible work arrangements. There's. I had an interesting statistic from a recruiter that was talking about the fact that people who are looking for new roles now are actually looking not because, like, they used to want more money or better pay, like better recognition, whereas now they kind of want more flexibility, they want better mental health support, and they want to know that they're operating with an organization that's, um, sustainable, that considers the environment. And I think that's a really interesting kind of shift that's happened as a result of COVID because people got an opportunity to spend, you know, quality time at home, more time around people that they, you know, their families and loved ones and, you know, focused on work, but not other distractions. You didn't have anything else to distract you. Right. And so, you know, uh, being able to recognize what's really actually important to you. And I think for a lot of people, you know, reconnecting with the family, I mean, sure, those people out there who had to homeschool while they were working from home and doing all of that, it's hard. But I think it also kind of gets us back to a place where we start to recognize that often what we think we need to do in terms of our work and stuff, you know what, when we get down to basics, we don't really often need all of, you know, the other stuff. And so people go, I don't really need all that money. I could probably drop back one day a week. I want to stay home, spend more time with the kids or my partner or whatever it is, and reconnect with, you know, my life, my home, my. You know, the things that kind of keep me feeling comfortable and stable and that work is. Is something that I do, but it doesn't define my life.

Speaker B: Absolutely, you're totally right. It's, it's. It's certainly made a lot of people, uh, think about and realize that, you know, that what was the status quo and basically, you know, kind of thinking, well, that's kind of the way it is. Having to commute an hour, you know, big, big cities, maybe sometimes even two hours to work and back from work. I remember when I lived in Sydney, you know, I was living south of Sydney. I would have to have to travel by Train for like an hour, hour and a half to get to the gym and then back. Right. And all those little things. But, yeah, I'm sure a lot of people have then, yeah. Realized the benefits of just being at home and saving so much time.

Speaker A: Yeah, it saves time, and it saves. It actually saves lots of incidental things. And I think lots of people didn't realize how much we forgot how to cook. Right. And so going back to some basics, actually, you know, cooking from scratch, making your meals, you know, getting back to even being in the garden and doing stuff, uh, around the home that we. We always sort of. Oh, uh, we were too busy to do before. And I think it's sort of allowed people to get a bit more, um. I think comfort in just being at home and being able to do things. But, uh, I think too, there's a lot of that. That caused a lot of adjustment. A lot of people had to really. It's been a significant adjustment sort of, you know, into that place. But I notice even myself, like, whereas before I was very social and I would do a lot more. I mean, I. I'd be doing stuff most sort of evenings. And now I'm really noticing the fact that I've got. I've kind of got more time. I need to start looking at filtering those sort of social connections back into my, you know, time. And I. It was really weird because it was interesting to just kind of go, what did I use? Like, what did I do before? Lockdown, then lockdown. I kind of developed a new habit. And now I need to look at, well, how do I bring myself out into something that's different again? Because I. I'm recognizing that I. I do need to create those opportunities for different kinds of connections. Was looking at dance classes last week because I'm like, oh, good, I can go. I could go back in and do them. Right. So I think all of those shifting things are important. And, you know, sometimes we don't realize that we want to make a change until it's forced upon us. And then we realize, actually it gave us some positives and we don't want to go back to the way that it was.

Speaker B: That's right. Sometimes it could cause anxiety. Right. Because going back to maybe the way that was, that you didn't maybe enjoyed, you know, being in that situation. Now you have to kind of go back, whether it's, you know, um, a young kid going back to school where maybe they've been bullied and now they've got all this anxiety about coming back or it's somebody working somewhere that they've been really enjoying it, just working from home and now again, they have to go back to the office. Right.

Speaker A: So I think a lot of organizations are seeing those changes. But, and, and I think there's pros and cons on both sides. And, and I think the most important thing for a lot of organizations coming back into it and for us as individuals is to recognize that it can't all be one way. And it's really important that it isn't left to be one way. I often say to people in organizations, you will have people who will feel that they can function more effectively and be more productive at home, but they won't continue to be more productive at home if they're doing it all the time. We kind of have to have some balance in there because we do go back to what we talked about, about the energy and the vibration of the energy. We get that from when we're talking with other people and when we're connecting with other people that we work with and we're working on common goals, for example, you'll get a bit more kind of energy and oomph and excitement about something that if you were just left in your own little world, you won't necessarily feel that same level of enthusiasm or motivation to move things forward. Right.

Speaker B: Mhm. So do you think this might result in more like a hybrid situation going forward where organizations might be a bit more flexible and allow that sort of a hybrid solution where they might, you know, a couple of days be around their colleagues and having face to face meetings and all that, getting all that positive benefits from, from positive impact from sort of doing that, but then also being able to work from home or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah, Because I actually think that the hybrid solution is probably the best way, but that's actually been probably one of the hardest things is because a lot of places when it was forced on us, they just kind of. Well, we didn't, we didn't have any choice. But then it's really interesting because organizations are then struggling with things like, you know, workers, comp workstations set up at home, you know, who provides the equipment. All of these sorts of things are then becoming questions that HR managers are then kind of like that. We're dealing with a uh, a HR minefield here. Right. Because you know, when, when it was kind of everybody did it because it was a public health order. That's quite a different, you know, situation to be in where people just had to make adjustments if they could and some people weren't able to do their job because it had to be done face to face. And those people, you know, they had more time because they didn't actually have any job that they could do online. But then other people had to go and make adjustments, you know, to their own situation, find a space that they could work from home. M. You know, you get to. Who provides the equipment. What happens when the equipment breaks down? Like it opens up in lots of ways a bit of a minefield about then, you know, having to look at policies and procedures and processes around all of these different things. And it's, it is a little bit tricky. And I think a lot of organizations are struggling to make the adjustments because it's new ground. And whenever we break new ground, it's always. We're never quite sure and we don't know how to kind of, you know, make sure that we've done the right thing and, and protected ourselves and protected the staff member and all of that sort of stuff. So it's always uncomfortable. Right, because it's still change.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And there's countries. I'm gonna pull some. I don't know if I'm correct. I think it's Sweden or one of the Norwegian countries. But they're, um, implementing some of these things that are working quite successfully from um, school system to, uh, working environment for Agiles and how they have the flexibility around things.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, you look at somewhere like Estonia, where they were so set up in a digital world that it was really, really easy for them to just transition everything online. I think this is one of the challenges that we have with technology. Technology is there to enhance our experience as human beings. I think it becomes a bit of a D point where it controls the way that we end up communicating. I think we need to be able to have balance. We need to be able to get on a zoom meeting and do these things online when, even when we need to, whether we want to or whether we need to, just purely for distance purposes. And working out what's as effective online is quite important. I mean we've done that in the therapeutic space. But there is an element too where you've got to sort of go, when we, and we saw this with COVID when we're doing it all the time and we're becoming like we only ever see people on the screen. There's other impacts that it has in terms of our health. You find people end up with more physical kind of challenges because they're not moving so much. Um, we've all had to get blue light glasses because we've all got to sit in front of bright lights while we're talking to people, talking online to people, and watching a screen. And being in front of that sort of screen constantly all day is tiring. And we have to set up different things about how we move our body and stuff. Because you know as well as I do, it's really easy to end up just getting stuck to your desk. And before you know it, it's four o' clock and you haven't had lunch. Right.

Speaker B: 100%. And then your performance goes down and you might just keep on trying to like get, get more done, but you're not really, uh, performing that well. So.

Speaker A: No, it's not. And this is actually one of the other things that I talk to people about a lot. It's actually as important to factor in that downtime. Right. On a regular basis to help your brain actually refresh. I was watching an interesting thing on SBS the other week about sleep and they were talking about, you know, when you want to um, reinvigorate that rather than just having the coffee and then expecting it to do it, you drink the coffee, have a 15 minute power nap, and by the time the caffeine kicks in and you've had your little down, your brain turn off, you kind of come back in and it's all, you know, all, all Blazing Saddles. Right. And that's an interesting one because it's, it's remembering that sometimes, you know, we need to just allow the brain that little bit of a, uh, reboot. Right. That it's kind of got stuck because we, we think we can't leave because we've got so much to do, but we so overwhelmed in that that we don't actually, we can't get focused. And so the best point in that is to get up, walk away, have a walk around the block, get some fresh air, you know, go and stand in the sun, like just, it's that recharge, like reset. So, um, it's a, it's a challenging thing to manage on your own too though, right? Like, I don't know about you. I've had things like stretch break and informing things to tell me to get up and move around and they go off and I ignore them.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's always to felt fell into the, into the trap of thinking I'll just hustle, just go through it, just get it done. Like go, go hard or go home, kind of just, just get more done. But you're totally right. It's, it's, it never works. It Always goes to your detriment.

Speaker A: What you said about self management. Right. So, you know, being aware of how you operate most effectively. Like, you know, I know that I'm, I'm pretty good new. Like if I want to do innovative thinking stuff, I'm actually better off in the, in the morning, you know. So when I've been writing, when I write books and stuff like that, I do most of my writing in the, you know, in the afternoon. I need to do the mundane things that don't require my creativity to be kicked in because otherwise it, you know, I can't do it. So I've learned that about myself over time. I've also learned things like, you know, I'm better, I uh, function better when I go to the gym in the morning because something about that kind of morning startup thing, something about that tends to kind of, you know, get my brain firing and I, I can feel more energized during the day, whereas if I go to the gym at night, what I, uh, I mean that's not bad either because I actually notice I sleep better. So I think being able to monitor those things for yourself and, and we're all individuals, right? We've all got to try and work out what's the best thing for us and what might be good for me might not be good for you and vice versa.

Speaker B: Yeah, but certainly there's lots of different tools you've got. For example, you know, hydration. You might get one of these water bottles that will like literally tell you, you know, 8:00am, 9:00am, 10:00pm where you should be by the time, you know, you got to get to, uh, lunchtime, you should have, you know, drink maybe half liter, liter water, that sort of stuff. Or you've got things like Pomodoro technique, which is pretty, pretty effective. That's one, one of the techniques that I like to use every now and then where I set a, um, time block for 20 minutes and just go really focused for the minutes and then stand up and you know, go for five minutes, maybe do a couple of squats, couple of push ups and then come back in and then do another block of 20 minutes on a specific task. That also works quite well.

Speaker A: Yeah, but see, you know, the people I think, and it's good to recognize that there are tools out there to help you no matter what it is. It's a bit like I, I tend to work better and remember things when I write them down. Um, and I, I encourage people to go back to that because our technology world, we often forget things we can put them in places on an electronic whatever, but our brain is still not prompted to go and check it sometimes. And so then things kind of just get, you know, they drop by the wayside. So it's working out what tools work best for you and then being able to utilize them. And like I said, what might work for one person won't be the same thing for somebody else. But often what happens is we. I think we get into. It's a bit like fashion. We get into trends or fads about, you know, what we should be doing. And yet I think the best thing that you can do is, you know, what, you know, works for you. But it can be hard for some people because they'll just tend to ignore things that they know that aren't working for them because they don't know how to fix them or resolve them.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Now, I want to talk about limiting beliefs, because when it comes to entrepreneurship, you know, starting a business or pursuing better, you know, better career choices, sometimes we. We are. Or we are our, um, own worst enemy. Right. Sometimes we've got this, you know, limiting belief. We might think that we're not good enough or all that sort of stuff. And I've heard that that's a lot of it is as a result of our child who. Or some sort of a way we were raised can to elaborate.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, in the book, I actually talk about the fact that, you know, all of our trauma experiences kind of layer, uh, but they layer over the top of what we call a negative belief system. And, you know, primarily because of how we feel as young children, um, we tend to have what we call concrete thinking. So we take responsibility for things, even things that aren't really our fault. But we. We're very black and white about it. And as a child, your parents can do no wrong. So the fact that we have this idea about not being good enough, we actually develop that by the time we're about four years old. And so then our experiences in our life just build up on that, and we will develop other ones along the way. Feeling like I'm different or I don't belong or I'm unimportant. Then we get things that come up, like in Covid, I'm not in control. I can't get what I want. Um, and these are all what we call negative cognitions or negative beliefs. So they're just the thoughts that we have. But, you know, when they start in your early childhood, they get a bit stuck in there. And people just don't realize that there is an alternative way of thinking. And part of what we do in a therapeutic space is try and work through those negative beliefs so that we can resolve them and allow people to, you know, recognize much better when those, you know, that old, uh, chestnut kind of comes up and being able to rationally understand where it comes from and you know, why it's not real in, in terms of it doesn't define you. And it's a bit of a process. I outlined it in the book about our self management system and recognizing our different parts and why that makes it a framework that's really easy for us to follow to understand when we have an emotional reaction to something, maybe what we're reacting to and then how to kind of move ourselves forward into a bit more of a rational approach where we can actually solve our way through any kind of problem really.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Because I mean, when we are too emotional, that's what we, we are making stupid decisions, right? Well, good example is when you get pissed off at someone and you're having a fight, it's always to say stupid things or, you know, and then realize later that's actually was uh, a nice. And in retrospect, you know, didn't need to say those things. So.

Speaker A: But I think, and that's one of the awareness raising things, right? When we're angry in particular, we tend to externalize it. We're not. And I always say when we're angry and even when we're sad, same thing. But whenever we feel the emotion, it's a really good opportunity to kind of stop and go, this is my emotion.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Uh, what we tend to do is go, that person made me angry. But actually I'm feeling angry. That means I have to own the anger. Why am I feeling angry? I, um, might be angry because they did something that made me feel a particular way and that's why I'm angry. Because actually what I'm feeling is shame or fear. Right? But the, the challenge of being an adult really is because we just react to the anger and we project it back onto that person because they've raised this negative feeling and we don't know what it is or how to deal with it. And that's a bit of a process. It takes time. It's part of our um, maturing process. But only if we've actually been given insight into the fact that, you know, we really need to stop when there's sort of any emotional experience that we've got and question ourselves about why we're feeling that way.

Speaker B: Right? Because this is going back to back to our earlier childhood about maybe some things that are triggering, triggering our like early childhood memories or experiences. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah. We don't know what they are until we start trying to understand them.

Speaker B: So how can one go about that? Because that seems, you know, not like a very easy thing to do.

Speaker A: No. And like to begin with it, it really isn't to begin with. You're always going to be looking at it after the fact. But a lot of what happens is if we're not aware we will get angry and we would explode about something. And then we get, then we turn that anger into ourselves for being a horrible person and behaving that way instead of. So we're just still in this outward. I uh, talk about that blame, it's the blame stuff and we put it out and then we turn it back in. But in sometimes like then when you recognize that anger is a bit of a problem, we have to be able to stop and go. The only reason we get angry is because somebody has done something that's actually triggered a negative feeling within us that's shame or fear related. And that's your opportunity when you, when you can. Right. Because not to begin with, a lot of people can't do it. They uh, react before they stop and think about what's happening. So it doesn't matter if you do it to begin with after the fact, but you need to kind of recognize when the anger comes up before we just react and do whatever it is that we might do. That's the kind of red flag moment to go, oh, there's that feeling, hang on, what just happened that I'm angry about. Before we become a bit more self aware, we often just react and we're on the attack before we stop and really have time to look at what's going on with us. And that's just a, it's the way we've learned to cope with things. So as we develop that more emotional maturity, being able to sort of stop and reflect now some people, they'll stop and reflect but they won't necessarily be able to unpack um, it fully. And that's where therapy kind of comes in. Because you can, you can work with a therapist and maybe unpack that a bit more. Mhm. Or you know, just that ability to stop and think about it a bit more before reacting might be enough for some people to start to be able to put some change processes in place that mean that they can stop themselves at the red flag and kind of go, oh, this is me. This is, you know, I'M reacting to this and then they're not actually externalizing their emotion. So it's a learning process, right? I mean it's like anything in life. I don't think we just instantly know how to do something. It's a bit of trial and error and, and you need to be supported

Speaker B: in that a hundred percent. This is certainly important because when at uh, the end of the day we, we want to like, we want more in life, we want to be living healthier, happier lives, right? And let's say as an example, that might be, want to, to have a successful business. Well, if you want to have a successful business, you can't do it on your own. So that means you need to collaborate with other people. And so if you, if you, if you could improve the way, how you keep yourself in check and how you're being a bit more uh, rational around your own feelings and emotions and how you deal with it, then you can, you, you can be a better leader. And, and if the people that you're working with could act the same, then the whole blaming and you know, being sort of a reactive and um, you know, not really being, solution, sorry, problem solving minded is not really there. Right?

Speaker A: No. And I think, I mean you raise an important point because you're talking about, you know, how do you become successful and successful in business? I often like to then go, uh, back to why success in business is important to you because often, you know, we go into business and success is different for different people. You know, for some people, they want to make more money because then they feel like they'll prove themselves to all of the kids that gave them a hard time in primary school. Right now that's just again a reaction to something else. And I think we need to recognize what drives or motivates us because, you know, as entrepreneurs in particular, you'll come up with different ideas for things and your rationale or the reason to keep you moving forward is always going to be different. If it's purely about money, then you're going to end up falling over at the first hurdle really because to get successful in business you usually have to fail multiple times. And you know, that's just the reality. I think the other thing is that as young entrepreneurs, and this is probably one of those things I wish I could tell young entrepreneurs, is that we get very protective about our ideas. We think that our ideas are so unique and special and we can't tell anybody because you know, the other thing is we might talk to some people and then find that they steal our ideas. And so we, we get really protective and possessive about our stuff to the point that we don't recognize, you know, where we could make good collaborative kind of relationships. And certainly, you know, the last few years, I've done more and more and more partnerships and, you know, connections with people who have expertise and specialty in areas that I don't have. Now, as a young entrepreneur, when I didn't have a lot of money, I would learn to do a lot of things for myself, but I never really did them very effectively. I knew I knew what I needed to do, but often that wasn't my niche. So then as I got better in my niche, I then started realizing that that then gave me more money to pay people to do the things that they were good at and to help me doing what I'm good at. Right. While I'm continuing to keep on the area of sort of expertise or specialty that, that I'm focused on. And that means that over the course of your business career, you're going to end up having different relationships with different people along the way. And some will really raise you up and you will really grow together, uh, and other people you might work with for a while and then realize that that's a little bit of a dead weight that's not working for you and you part ways. I think being able to be really clear about whether or not you're aligned in your values, you know, particularly in any partnership sort of stuff. And I've seen it where people, you know, some people want to ride off others coattails. And I think if you're not aligned in your values, you know, that just won't ever work. Um, whereas, you know, I think when you can come in a collaborative way and kind of go, well in my success and I'm making somebody else's success, and then I'm able to shine the light on it because I've actually managed to get here because they helped me. Like, there's a really big. That's a philosophical difference between, you know, hanging on to somebody else and helping lift somebody else up 100%, 100%.

Speaker B: Now, I want to go back to the individual because you mentioned. Interesting thing is the question whether actually what you're pursuing, like why do you want to be successful? Right. Because there's. It brings an interesting question whether. Because there's a lot of people that are. You hear stories about, you know, a rich person that is unhappy living in their mansions but not really being fulfilled. Would that be because in your book you talk about validation and you know, and going back to these childhood survey experiences and some, some need why you behave certain way as an adult. You're trying to kind of fill the void or looking for some validation. But ultimately, if you could resolve a different way, then you, you might actually realize that what you really want is something totally different.

Speaker A: Exactly. And I've, you know, I've certainly seen at the beginning of, you know, some people's career, certainly I see this a lot in young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs by their nature, usually think quite differently. And so they are, uh, often even going through school, they feel sort of different and they feel like, you know, they're a bit of an outsider, so they think differently. But that means that when they get to the point where they really need to collaborate with others to become successful, it can be quite difficult for them to do that. Now, you know, we determine success in very different ways. In, you know, from some cultures there's, you know, it's all about money and it's all about the perception and it's all about driving the great car and all of that. But most people you write, I could like, there's survey stuff around, you know, when you reach the top of your game, like, and you've really kind of been successful as far as what society deems success to be, and you've got the great car and you've got the what your, your life can actually be quite empty because in order to get there, a lot of people have really, you know, stepped on other people pushed people aside, really, like, gone. They, They've got their eye on the prize, but they've completely demolished the room in the process. And then they get there and they've got it, but there's nobody there to celebrate and share it with. And ultimately our, our basic human need for, for humans is to be connected. And so, you know, no amount of success, we think that, you know, that financial success is going to give us this, you know, the adoration really is what they're looking for. And yet they, they've often hurt people in the process. And so there's nobody there to kind of enjoy or celebrate it with. There's a, uh, challenging line in there because often those people have defined themselves by what they do, not who they are. And that's why the success is ultimately quite empty. Even though from the outside, a lot of people would think that they were, you know, perfectly happy and everywhere they want to be. And we see this in celebrities and stuff like that where, you know, look at people we know who, uh, have got to the pinnacle of like the top of the top and then end up taking their own life. And you think, how on earth could they have not been really happy? But that reason that says it's quite lonely at the top is often that feeling of disconnect that they've had to kind of disconnect from people who are close to them to get there.

Speaker B: And one of their protective mechanism on the way to the top is ego. Right? Is where the ego comes in. It's like people say, check your ego. I mean, is there such a thing as a good, good ego and bad ego or is it just bad ego because you get ego?

Speaker A: Well, it's interesting because if you go back to Freud's original kind of, you know, explanation for the, the ego, it's kind of like the part that you show to the world. And I think there's a lot of people, we, we do tend to talk about ego as being, you know, a negative thing. In Australia we had a song. You know, ego is not a dirty word. But I think there's an element of um, buying into your own self importance that drives, like making a bigger ego presence and thinking that you're important. That's what we perceive as a negative ego. Whereas your ego really is just how you see yourself in the world and how you show up in the world. So, um, I would say that I have a reasonably healthy ego just because I'm okay and comfortable in my own skin and how I show up in the world, but I'm not out there trying to go look at me and I. Wonderful. So there's a, they're both still ego, but one we talk about is an inflated ego as opposed to, you know, the ego that says, I'm just, uh, this is me and I'm okay with my, with who I am. And it's okay that other people may or may not, you know, like that. That doesn't really matter. So there's a, I want to say one's more secure than the other. And I think if you, if you have quite an inflated ego, it's very easy for people to come along and poke a pin in it and deflate it. Right. But something that's built on more solid foundations is, is going to kind of keep you in good stead. So not all ego is bad.

Speaker B: So referring back to the self management system that you mentioned at the end of your book, you talk about the seesaw between the, the child and the protector. So how does, would I, would I say correctly if I think that this is where they, you know, sort of Trying to protect yourself because you got the inner child that is being hurt based on a memory from the past. And that's why you kind of, you know, blow up your ego or things like that.

Speaker A: Uh, absolutely. I think. What. So before we kind of develop an awareness of our rational adult self and the fact that we have some value because we, you know, show up in an authentic way, we can often build an ego on top of our protector part. That's like, I always talk about donning the suit of armor a bit like, you know, Darth Vader in his, you know, costume and the troops, but really not being in touch with anybody at all. And so we can kind of like push our way through and feel like we've got to prove that we're, you know, strong and we can just, you know, we're barreling our way through. But actually we're not doing that in a way that's truly authentic to who we are as a person. We have to recognize that that part is there because we're trying to protect ourselves from being hurt. But when we can kind of be okay with who we are and not really strongly react to other people, we can rationally work out what works for us. We can socially engage in ways that are appropriate. We can make a really good contribution in our working life and feel like we've adding some value there. And we can seek answers to the problems that we want to understand about ourselves. And I always say your ultimate rational adult self is a seeker. It's a, ah, part of you that really wants to understand what is not just what's the meaning of life, but what's my purpose here and how do I make a really effective contribution that means that I leave a lasting legacy that isn't just about money or, you know, some studio of fame. It's about, you know, something that really helped humanity to improve or something that was more sort of significant. And for some people that's a really big driving force. And for other people, you know, that's a bonus.

Speaker B: Now the other really interesting thing that you mentioned in the book is that, uh, the, our inner child that we all apparently have, very interesting. Is actually our true leader.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: What do you mean by that? And I know what you mean by that, but for the listeners.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. So because going back to what I said earlier about when we're children by the age of four, we've got this very clear awareness in concrete thinking. But four is actually the first time that you start to realize that you are not just an extension of your parents. And more than that, that your parents and the people around you don't know what you're thinking inside your head unless you tell them. And I always love it because I say, you can see when a person becomes truly an individual is because a child will come to you and say, I've got a secret. And um, m. When they've got a secret, that's when they know that they can think something in their head that you don't know unless they tell them. Now the interesting part about that in terms of our development is just that then they start to realize that they're thinking in here and then they behave in certain ways. And if they get into trouble, well, that was bad. So good things happen to me because I'm good, but bad things because I'm bad. And, and it's like this whole of, uh, person thing. It's not just my action, it's me. And so that concrete thinking is what sets up the structure around the not feeling good enough and, you know, forever getting into trouble. And then we take that and we progress with that through our lives. But when we kind of come back to the sense of needing to be connected. So go back to what I said about we have to have connection to survive. Right. We cannot live unless we've got people around us who are looking after us when we're children, when we're babies in particular. But that first point of recognition that I'm responsible for the disconnection comes at that age of four. So, uh, whenever we kind of get this triggering feeling of being rejected or being, you know, left behind or not being valued or not being wanted, it goes back to that first point in our life where we start to recognize that that's our fault. That somehow we're responsible for the disconnect.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And we can approach it in two ways. We either stay alone and, you know, curl up in a fetal position and cry in our pretzels and feel like nobody cares, or we can recognize that that means that we're feeling isolated and we need to try and work a way that we can appropriately try and reconnect with people who we care about and we, and we want to be close to again. And that's why I would say in arguments, you'll end up with one child and one protector. You know, when you want to come to a resolution, prior to that, when you're butting heads, you've got two protectors out going, no, it's my way and no, it's my way. Right. Whereas you need the protector in the child, because the child needs the protector, uh, to kind of go, it'll be okay if I feel like it's my fault and I come to you and I say, I'm really sorry I did that, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I need the return to be, it's okay, we're all right. I need that kind of adult response that says we'll be fine. And in the book, actually, at the beginning of chapter seven, I talk about a situation that I had when I was stuck in an airport in Cairo where I'd had. It was just a weird situation because I had like six panic attacks in like eight hours and I hadn't had a panic attack in like 20 years. And I know panic attacks are just the extreme version of our anxiety. And so as soon as it started, because I was so familiar with this system, I'm kind of like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. And I can turn inwards and see that four year old and immediately kind of say to myself, oh, uh, yeah, any four year old stuck in this situation would be freaking out right now. That was entirely normal. And then the adult in me can give her a hug and say they're there, it's okay, there is an adult in here somewhere that can sort this out. And so then I immediately can kind of bring that adult part of me back into consciousness. And then I'm in the problem solving, I'm going to sort this out, you know, until I hit another wall where it feels like I can't, I can't rationalize my way through this problem. And then the child comes in in panic again because it makes sense. I don't know how I'm going to sort this out.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: But even the awareness of it just meant that I was able to rationalize with myself as it was happening because I can't stop things happening to me in my life. Right. I didn't intend to end up in an airport in a foreign country in the middle of the night with no ticket and not able to get on a plane, you know, like it just wasn't meant to be that way. And we have, we always have experiences that kind of take us by surprise.

Speaker B: Mhm. Now as an adult we rationalize and we can use these systems and we could do stuff about it, but when we are four year old, we, we're not really that developed. So who is to blame? Would it be our parents? And if so, are there any tips that you'd recommend parents to avoid some of the mistakes, you know, some of the things that have, you know, then negative effect on the child.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's look, there's two ways of looking at it. I say to a lot of parents, it, look, you just need to recognize that you're going to screw it up and you just have to, maybe you have to pay for some therapy or maybe you have to kind of do a bit of reversing stuff later on. Part of it is actually part of the human condition. It's just the way that our brains develop. And in lots of ways those black and white ways of thinking are actually important to our survival because we have to have a complete right and wrong at that young age because that's the only way we can control whether or not we're going to do something that's right or wrong. So, you know, I use the analogy a lot like a two year old's going to run out in front of a car. Right. A lot of parents, you know, they grab them, they yell at them, they might smack them, you know, and that feels like it's a really terrible thing to do at the time. But what you're trying to do is instill a no go zone because ultimately you're trying to protect them. But it seems counterintuitive that you would hurt them ultimately to protect them. But that's where our, uh, developmental side of things comes in because that's that black and white thinking at that point in their life that's essential to their survival. Right. But when they're 14, that's not necessarily the same thing that's going to be needed to protect them because they should have developed some other awareness of their surroundings and, you know, understanding about how cars work and why it's a problem. Right. So it's. There are some things about parenting that I think we need to make adjustments for, but there are also some things, I think in modern parenting that we might be tempted to go too far the other way. Um, and it's a really challenging thing. I honestly think the biggest challenge to modern parenting is technology. M. You know, we teach children, we're forever taking photos of them and we're like, we're teaching them to, you know, put on the happy face, which is fine. But I remember the first time ever seeing a baby and it made me really sad. Um, in a pram and with a book and banging on the book like it should have been an app thing that changed and not turning the page because they didn't. And that's where you stop and kind of go. There's sort of a lot of like Technology can be great, but sometimes there's a reliance on it in, you know, favor of spending time with the child. Right. And I think lots of interactive time without, um, technology is, is really probably more key to their development. And we know that. I want to say Risky Play because that's the other thing that we don't do. We protected our children so much from all of the things that could go wrong in their lives. So, you know, when we were kids, it'd be outside in the, you know, playing in the street with the other kids and we used to play cricket on the street and I', uh, there's a car coming. You have to get off the road. You know, we had Billy cuts with no brakes and we would go down. Uh, now I'm not saying these are things that all kids should do, but we, the Risky Play actually taught us to develop a sense of awareness around what was going to hurt us and what wasn't and, you know, exposed us to a range of things that a lot of kids these days don't get exposed to. And I think we're really starting to see that.

Speaker B: And it's only going to get more crazy. And I say crazy because I don't know if it's good or bad. I'm just saying it's crazy because I don't know how to, what to think of it. But you know, talking about this metaverse thing. Yeah, right. Like imagine like, and this is not, this is no longer sci fi. This technology is out there now. Now they finally sort of getting to a point where it's going to become mainstream and Facebook's all on it. Right. And so what is the future going to look like where kids going to have this headset, they're going to live in this virtual world where they'll rationalize it as it's safe because it's not real. And then they'll, they'll never really sort of have those experiences like you just said. And so.

Speaker A: Well, it's really interesting because what we know about virtual reality is that our brains respond to it as if it's real. So actually it's it. And it will create some interesting stuff in terms of, and we're adaptive. Right? So you have to remember that our brain synapses are, uh, constantly adjusting and pairing to the changes in our, our environment, which is why we see a lot more attention problems now with kids because they don't have to actually learn. They don't have to learn things, they don't have to pay attention for long periods of time. And so you know, there's lots of short sharp bits of information and that becomes then problematic if you want them to try and focus and learn something without having a constant reference space. So uh, it's gonna, it does change the nature of the way that we do all sorts of things, including work into the future. Now you know, I can't help but go back to, I think the movie was called ah, Wall E. The one where, where you see that the, the robots have taken over the Earth and these humans are just in spaceships floating around on sunbeds, getting really fat because they don't have to do anything and they don't have to think either. They just sit in front of screens and mindlessly get fed lots of information. M and I think we can actually see that as we immerse ourselves more in that virtual world. And I'm not saying that it's all bad, but when we do that we actually disconnect and lose a reality of what our real world is about and how we have to interact with the earth and the soil and the water and everything else. Because if we live in that sci fi space, don't expect that we're really going to get any major changes in our climate change world or fixing some of the other problems that we've got on the Earth because uh, we just kind of reality take, we take ourselves out of here. We don't have to deal with the reality. We can create our own reality. Now that is a bit scary because that's a space where people can kind of like create something. We already see it with social media that we can create something that is this perfectionistic, idealized world that we cannot ever as humans actually achieve. We can aspire to it, but it's never going to happen because we're imperfect now. You know, when we start looking at all the movies that talk about AI and any level of, you know, integrated versions of AI and how we take that along, the reason we're so scared of it is because they represent a perfection of the human race that we can't, we can't achieve because we are, you know, flawed human beings who have a whole bunch of complex things going on. So the complexity of who we are as human beings, then projecting that into a metaverse that we can just create anything that we want, I think is going to cause us more problems with trying to cope with the reality of, of how we truly live.

Speaker B: And not just from a mental perspective, but also biological evolution. Like, you know, I was a movie somewhere, a scene where they said that you know, like, you think about the aliens, how they got like really slim arms and slim bodies and just big heads, big brain. And they actually, they said, uh, it's actually future. This is actually a human evolved to that point because they stopped using the body and they just lived in, you know, all just, just intelligence.

Speaker A: Um, anyway, yeah, but that actually makes sense, right? Because if you, you understand basic human physiology, we do actually put the energy into the parts of the body that need it the most. We, we can see that we have, as, as the human race has become more evolved, we, we have got bigger heads. You know, we have got some of these things that have changed. And our body, that's where I talk about our bodies are adaptive. In the book, I also talk about the fact that you have intergenerational things that are encoded in the cells on your DNA, including our traumatic experiences, but also those adjustments and changes. So when we start to just focus on building, you know, our, our intelligent way of working or doing things, of course our heads are going to get bigger. Our bodies potentially may get thinner and smaller, but what we're seeing is because we have access to so much food, in fact an abundance of it, we're not getting thinner and smaller, we're actually getting bigger. Right. So physiologically, you know, we're, we're carrying a whole bunch of stuff that we don't ultimately need. And like, they're, I mean, this. We're complex systems, human beings. We really are. And in our communities, we're also very complex in the ways that we interact. And you know, as well as I do, we have to get back into the gym and do things with our bodies because we're no longer out toiling our own land, growing our own food, you know, carrying things around. It's, you know, we sit at a desk all day, we drive a computer for a living, then we've got to physically make time to go and build up the things that are going to keep our body working effectively and healthy. So, yeah, uh, it's definitely going to be a changing world how soon we get there, because, you know, you know as well as I do, every couple of years, like, the, the rate at which we improve things actually doubles. So it gets shorter and shorter to get double improvements. And it's just amazing how quickly those things will transform. I don't think we should be scared of it, but I think it's going to raise quite a lot of ethical kind of challenges for us as human beings.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. It's going to be interesting. Now I've Got a couple of personal questions for you, Kerry. What compelled you to become a psychologist? Oh,

Speaker A: actually, it was. I think. I think I was always this, uh. I mean, I was always the person who was interested in helping others. That's probably the first part of it. But how I ended up in psychology was actually because I met with a TV producer. I was 19 years old. I had this idea that I really wanted. I thought I could, you know, help people in a way, a bit like Oprah. I kind of wanted to be Australia's version of Oprah. And I thought I really could do that and it would be really good way to do things. Not because I wanted the fame. I just thought I could kind of bring people together and help people. It was really interesting. And he said to me, kerry, you know, I think you've got the charisma to pull it off, but where's your credibility? Like, huh, huh, Credibility, right. So I needed some, you know, rubber stamp piece of paper, some metal to pin on my chest to tell people that I was, you know, that I had credibility or validity to be able to talk to people about their challenges in life. And yet I would honestly say that even though. Absolutely. I have learned a lot over, uh, my career and I've written a lot about the things that I've learned and I've had lots of experiences. But I think my general human nature of wanting to help others has actually been the same from, you know, all the way through my life. I think that was almost part of, you know, how I was born, that that's part of what I was meant to be here to do. That's part of my life purpose. So the, the getting, the validation, though, interestingly, made me feel then that I was put into a place where I then couldn't do to. Not to the extent that I wanted to, the things that I really felt I needed to. Because I was then put into this, you know, framework or structure of a regulatory, uh, kind of process that, uh, made me feel like I was, you know, gagged and couldn't actually talk as openly about things. You know, I couldn't share what I really thought or felt about things. And that's a really interesting kind of process because that's how it works in Australia. It's not how it works in other countries. And so I think the focus on really helping people, that was the first thing. And then the second thing was that I was a year into my degree, I went back as a mature student and I got hit by a bus as a pedestrian. And I suffered Post traumatic stress and I had secondary depression. And I'd always been a very, you know, probably quite a driven a type personality. I felt like I'd lost my personality. I felt like I didn't know who I was, and I didn't really feel like I had any motivation or energy to move forward. And thankfully for me, I recognized that and I reached out and I got different sort of support. And, you know, I did things that other people, you know, may not have done, but I did what I felt was right for me and I was able to get things, you know, back on track. And I remember starting to then feel like I found my personality again and I could move things forward. And, you know, but then that really led me on that journey of understanding that no matter how bad things get, that we always can, you know, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off. And it might be slow for a bit, but we can move ourselves forward and, you know, get back on the path of where we need to be. But also that that path doesn't necessarily need to be one path. I often talk about the fact that, you know, we're like a tree, that we might have this idea about where we want to go, but when we get into our later life, we might branch off into all sorts of different areas. And, and it's not just one, you know, one idea about where we thought we should end up. You know, that's the difference between a pine tree and, you know, a eucalypt or an oak.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Look, and I think that's. This is an important message, even for the guys, you know, for you, for those, um, for those of you guys listening, you know, like, I mean, we all want to pursue, you know, some level of success in one way, shape or form, and it's okay to pivot, it's okay to change direction, do something different. Whether it's changing career changing, you know, starting a business, business not working out. Okay, just wrap it up, try something different.

Speaker A: And actually, it takes m more guts to pivot than it does to just keep on keeping on feeling like you're not doing well and failing at things. You know, that's probably one of the things I've learned the most over my, over my entrepreneurial career certainly, is that, you know, sometimes where we think we should do something one particular way, that there's always another way, and being open to other people's ideas and thoughts, you should take them on, but you only need to keep what truly rests well with you. And also coming back and realigning constantly with your sense of Purpose. Because if you can align with your purpose and, um, what you feel like you're here to do, you will wake up every day full of awesome, and life will be easy to be able to go and do the work that you really, you know, need to do.

Speaker B: That's exactly. Which brings us back to the beginning, what we talked about, you know, where you might not be really happy at your work, work, work life. And then you're looking towards the Friday. I mean, I know some of the people that say the thing like, oh, uh, you know, I just got to get through Monday through to Thursday, and then it's Friday and weekend, and then they just live by weekend. They don't really live in the. And that's like, it's almost. I mean, it's seven days a week. And if you're hating on four of those seven days, then you're not really living. You're only living, you know. Uh, uh, yeah.

Speaker A: Right. And look, some people and. And this is an important thing. I think some people choose to. They live to, like, they live to work. And I think when we do our. Our, um, business stuff, we really do live to work. We get something out of that sense of, you know, what we're doing and what we're delivering to the world. But other people work to live. And I think that it's okay to recognize that those people are working to live as long as they. They're okay with, you know, they're just going and doing the job because it's going to bring them in the money so that they can feel happy in the rest of their life. That's an okay thing as long as it's not this constant drudgery. Because there's. There's a big difference between, you know, uh, working for the man and getting a paycheck and being okay with it and feeling like you are constantly having to really drag yourself into that space because, you know, it's just not resonating with you in a way that feels like it's purposeful, and it feels like it's a. You're making something, you know, great or good, and it's too hard. Those sorts of roles, you know, if you keep ignoring it, they make you sick. Um, you can't. You can't live life that way. We've got to try and find something. And it's not always going to be perfect, but it's something that makes it feel like it's manageable.

Speaker B: That's right. There's a level of what you can tolerate, and then there it Gets to a level where it's just too much. And that's where you need to kind of, you know, grow some, grow pair

Speaker A: and make the, and make change. And look, uh, I think it's also important to recognize too, that sometimes we have to do something for a period of time. Right. So, you know, I've seen it in business and stuff where, you know, financially, for whatever reason, like, you know, you want to buy a house, you want to do. Sometimes you have to go back and do something that you don't really want to do, but you're doing it for a purpose. You're doing it for a period of time. You've got to get to the end. You're doing it because you're trying to achieve a particular goal. You can see where the goal post is. Right. So you can actually keep pushing yourself to get to that goal point. But that's because it feels like it's a goal point that's clear and manageable. And even though it might be a ways in the future, you, uh, know you've got to do it because it's going to allow you to achieve something else and you've got to get past it. Those things are really easy to actually, like, keep reinforcing. Where I've m. Got to get to, the ones that cause us the most pain is where we don't feel like there's ever an end to it. Right. And we don't. And we all, we don't know how to get out of it. We don't. We feel like we're trapped in it somehow. That's a very different thing. And that will make you sick. You can't get out of it.

Speaker B: You're totally right. I mean, there is, there's a value in perseverance.

Speaker A: Like, to persevere is to just keep on going. Right?

Speaker B: Keep on going. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So there is value in persevering. Absolutely. But sometimes, and this is where I think we can get into a little bit of trouble in that entrepreneur space, it can kind of feel like, because you can only persevere, uh, when the goal or the prize is something that is, you know, of real value to you. Right. Because if it's something that feels like you're doing it for somebody else, it's really, really a difficult and impossible task to keep pushing yourself, to drive towards it. That's where I say money isn't. Money cannot be the only motivator.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I was more pointing to the fact that there's, there's more and more people, younger people that sort of give up too quickly. So it's important. It's kind of.

Speaker A: And a lot of that, I'm going to say, has to do with the way that they were raised, right? Because their parents were busy. Their parents were, uh, often working. And rather than trying to encourage their children to try and try again to get something right, they just step in because they've got no time. And they do it for them. So what they do is create learned helplessness. And that's actually, we've got a whole generation now of young people, I want to say under 25. They're in that space of learned helplessness. They, they don't know how to pursue, uh, how to persevere. They don't know how to kind of, you know, stop, reset and try again. They just give up. I can't do it. And they walk away. And we've got a whole generation of parents that enabled them to do it. And so they don't have any resilience. And, uh, that resilience building skill is something that we actually now. And that's a lot of the training stuff that I'm doing now is actually resilience building for those young people because their parents didn't actually build it in them. And I don't think that was intentional. It's just the way society's gone.

Speaker B: Just the way it is. Just the way it is. M. Let's try and make it better. Awesome. Gary, this has been amazing interview. Thank you so much for coming along on this podcast. This, you know, you provide a tremendous amount of value and uh, to the listeners and, you know, you've helped me uncover some of the. Some of the questions that I had about the book as well. And, you know, it's really good book. I mean, guys, if you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening, I highly recommend that everybody reads it. It's called the Trouble with Trauma because it can really, really sort of give you almost like it's not a manual blueprint, but it'll give you information that's really useful in being able to recognize that there are certain things on how you behave or how you see the world, that if you change them, if you work on yourself, then you can kind of unlock your full potential. And this is what this podcast is about, helping you guys to, you know, realize your true potential. So this is one, one great tool. I cannot recommend it enough. It's called the, uh, Trouble with Trauma, written by Kerry Howard. It's available on Amazon. Definitely go and get it? Because it's a, it's a game changer. Now, Carrie, on a parting piece of um, advice here. What are the top three things you'd like our listeners to walk away with after listening to this interview?

Speaker A: I think it's probably the recognition that human beings. Life throws us curveballs and we just have to learn to duck and weave and recognize that we get hit sometimes. I think it's also recognizing that as human beings we think that we're very unique individuals, but we have consistent and reliable ways of reacting and responding. And when we understand that, we can fix that for ourselves and show up in a different way. Um, it's not instant, won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Um, and the, the third thing is I think just trying to remember that you can recover from anything and you can really motivate yourself to move forward as long as you're clear on your purpose. And purpose will always help you to, you know, focus on moving forward rather than, you know, feeling stuck in whatever's going on in your life. Now.

Speaker B: That's amazing. Thank you for that.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: Now, would it be anything that you'd like to, to uh, offer to our listeners for, you know, getting all the way to the end, for all the, all the good stuff always happens at the end. Is there anything you'd like to offer them?

Speaker A: Certainly. We'll give you a discount link for the book so that people who want to be able to get the book as an ebook or I think we can do an ebook discount. So we'll sort that out. We'll put the link with this and hopefully they find that useful. And yeah, anything else that you think might be helpful, you should find things on my website, kerryhoward.com and there's some resources and different blogs and stuff and follow me on social medias. I'm sure there'll be links down below and I put a few pearls out there from time to time. But I'm always open to hearing things that people want to know a bit more about as well. Things that will help.

Speaker B: Awesome. And if there's an organization that needs help with their people, what can, how they can reach us there? Uh, different, different avenue. Or they just go on your website?

Speaker A: No. So organizations or in particular people in HR or the CEOs of organizations that might be interested in looking at psychological injury prevent for their people, that's another area on the website actually have a psychological injury risk assessment that you can take for your organization, which is um, often a little bit of an interesting surprise for people about some of the areas, but it shows you what risks you might have and just gives you some guidance about how you might be able to improve things yourself. If you need some help, well, you'd be able to find me there as well.

Speaker B: That's amazing.

Speaker A: Kerry.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. Once again, I appreciate you coming along on the show and sharing your, your wisdom. And, um, thank you guys for listening to today's episode on the Success Inspired Podcast. If you've enjoyed this interview, then please share it with your mates that you think would also benefit from listening, show notes, links, and extra tips to help you accomplish more in life and realize your true potential. Please go to successinspiredpodcast.com that's successinspired podcast.com once again. Kerry guys, everybody, thank you and have a great rest of your day, everybody.

Speaker A: Thanks, Pete.