00:01
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia. This week on the podcast, on the fifth anniversary, would you even believe, I speak to returning guest and the person I had for the very first episode of Micropedia, Professor Grant Schofield. As you guys know, Grant and I are great mates and colleagues. And in this conversation, we talk about the value of doing hard things.

00:29
particularly in a time where almost everything is comfortable and easy. So this is on the back of Grant's soon to be released book on the topic. And we discuss what doing hard things means, what both of us do in our lives that is in line with this and how we integrate the principle on a day-to-day basis. But we also sort of step back and talk about it more globally as to what it means for you.

00:57
and potentially those around you in order to optimize health. So for those of you unfamiliar with Grant, he's been on the podcast several times. I will put links to those podcasts in the show notes as well. Grant is a professor of public health at Auckland University of Technology. He is a former director of the university's Human Potential Centre, former chief scientific advisor to the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. He is the co-author of four bestselling books and uh

01:26
He's recently stepped into his full-time role as Chief Science Officer for Precure. Professor Grant's career has focused on preventing the diseases of modern times and seeing what it takes to help people live a long, healthy and happy life. He lives and breathes the motto, be the best you can be, and sees this as a game changer for the health system, capable of transforming the current health sickness model to one in which we aspire to be well. He is redefining public health as a science of human potential.

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the study of what it takes to have a great life. Grant is well known for thinking outside the box and challenging conventional wisdom in nutrition and weight loss, as well as physical activity and exercise. Grant brings his fluency across several scientific disciplines, from human physiology to psychology to peak performance, to his role at PreCure, where he delivers world-class training in lifestyle medicine and particularly health coaching. So I've got links as to where you can find Grant.

02:26
where you can find his What the Fat Books and where you can find more information on Precure and as I mentioned previous episodes which Grant has been a guest on. Before we crack on into the episode though I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favourite podcast listening platform. This increases the visibility of Micopedia and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there so more people

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get the opportunity to hear from guests that I have on the show like Grant Schofield. Alright team, enjoy the conversation.

03:04
Nice. Oh my God, that is hilarious. You just went all awkward. Hey Grant, how are you? Good. Well, this is the actual 500th version of the Micopedia podcast. This is, so, you know, I had to double check my facts. This will be, it is not the 500th. It is five years, I think, of doing Micopedia podcast. Oh, that's pretty cool. That's pretty robust. Yeah.

03:34
Given today's talk is going to be about robustness, you've been very robust. I have. And in fact, I think this is why I wanted you to be my interviewee, because you were the very first person who I interviewed on Micropedia all of those years ago when we were in some, I'm pretty sure we were in some sort of lockdown, because I think our podcast was us having a rant about lockdown or something. And then you've been on maybe two or three times more, I think.

04:03
How come you, I was the first person you knew? Yeah, no one else said yes, actually. Oh. No, I'm just kidding. Do you know everyone used to say yes to podcast interviews? I didn't get almost anyone saying no until this academic who's very big on X in the sports nutrition space, I reached out to him and asked if he would be on the podcast. And he came back and said,

04:31
I don't do anything without being paid these days. Isn't that crazy? An academic. Most people are quite happy to be on there because the lottery of life of course is doing something you love. So then you're just going to do the stuff because it feels important and it's good fun. uh And if you haven't won that lottery and you're doing something you need to be paid, well, that's just your bad luck really because you didn't win the lottery of life. You struck out. So you should feel sorry for the poor guy.

05:00
Well, I started off feeling a bit miffed from that, but then just thought it actually didn't matter because there are so many amazing people who have said yes and continue to say yes that, you know, ended up being no big deal, but I thought it was an interesting response. Yeah, it's just a slight on there. You're missing the spin of the wheel, really. They laid it on red when everyone else got black.

05:26
That's a good way to put it. It's a good way. And the years, we've had quite a few in-depth conversations, which I've always appreciated. in fact, of course, because I used to work at AUT, then I left AUT, we didn't have that same sort of weekly catch up, probably a good thing. I mean, you would have just annoyed me anyway. So this is always a great opportunity to catch up. But we recently did in person, which was really fun. Yeah. And so the best

05:56
catch up is that we go for a run together and we can't physically leave each other for like an hour. In one case, when we got lost on that back bit of Brisbane, that was an hour 45. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah, was slightly, no, I was fine. I was down for a longer run and I was pleased that we hadn't mapped out an entire long run when we got lost because that way you're sort of accumulating even more kilometres. no, it was fun. And it took me back to the time when we, another time we're in Brisbane for a conference.

06:25
going running at like four o'clock in the morning because it was so, so blim and warm. But really lucky Grant to have you as a really good friend and as a mentor and you continue to put out awesome information, both obviously in that academic space, but of course you've since sort of just moved a bit into more of the, what is it? What is it? Is it just private education? I'm like, don't want to undersell it actually. Pre-care trains health coaches.

06:54
prevention is cure. then I think probably now we would say we've brought that into just being experts in behavior change in general. Because, you know, my opinion, the holy grail of having a good life in the first instance is knowing how to change your own behavior. But then if you're in our helping profession, knowing how to change other people's behavior. And if you think about the skills needed for that, it's sort of the antithesis, the exact opposite.

07:24
of what the medical and health system does, which is just randomly hand out advice. They don't meet you where you're at. They're not doing it on your agenda. They're telling you to do stuff and uh you mostly, people don't because there's some straight physiology. The mid-brain lights up, fight or flight, minimise danger. Whereas if you tell me you're doing something, then the frontal lobe lights up and you're simulating the future and you can imagine great outcomes.

07:52
So, you know, the whole thing about health behavior, both for yourself and for other people and the relationships in your life, ah pretty much the exact opposite of what the medical system does. So that's what we're really become involved with. uh And that's what I'm doing mostly. I'm still supervising some patch day and master's students and doing some research. But as for the day to day runnings of university bureaucracy, that's moving into being a distant memory. Thank God.

08:21
Not that it's any good to start with. I should say that strategic laziness, not actual laziness, but strategic laziness has always been a strength of mine. um And this was long before one of the great books, The Subtle Arp of Not Giving a Fuck came out. um And it's a best selling book. The title is not really about not caring, but it's purposefully deciding not to care about some things, um which frees you off to do the stuff you want to do.

08:50
Universities are full of things that can suck your time and return nothing but grief. So, yeah, I'm pleased to be nodding that. That's such a, um what you've just described about, even though you use the university context, that's just the context, like life that a lot of people find themselves in, Having to give all of their energy and time to things which they would, that they feel obliged to because they can't say no, or they just have this, um

09:20
uh They don't put themselves first, essentially, I think, with a lot of my clients that I speak to. And actually learning how to do that and how to zoom out, I suppose, and look at the things which really matter and the things that don't, that's a real skill. Yeah. And the sort of skill, actual behavioral skill for buying yourself some time, because we're especially the people, I'm lucky I don't have a people pleasing personality. uh But for people like you that do, that you've got to...

09:49
buy yourself time, right? To figure out how you're to say no, but nicely. And so that's a skill. also, you know, top of that, basic facts of the matter are, if you're going to have a good life, you're probably going to be saying no to actually things that you would love to do. But that's in the context of things that you would even more love to do. So, you know, that's what you want to be choosing between. You know, things that you really, really want to do and things that you sort of really want to do. Not stuff that

10:19
you don't want to do it all, somehow you've got roped into. So Grant, I have like a list of questions and I really want to go through them with you. Because a lot of this, because I imagine you cover this in your book as well that's coming out, but Choose Your Heart. So what is the name of your book that you're about to publish or you have published? Yeah, Choose Your Heart. I'm just in the final, I had a full draft done and then I gave it to the

10:48
editors, which are the pre-cure CEO, but also my wife, Dr. Louise Schofield and the pre-cure marketing lead, my son, 24, Sam Schofield. Incredible writers and communicators and they're like, well, that's shit. oh you're not serious, you? And so now we've gone through another two iterations and it's um looking amazing basically thanks to uh their help.

11:18
but the books choose you out of harder getting shit done by doing hard stuff. And I mean, I just prefaced this by saying, right, one, let's get the embarrassing part out of the way because this could, I had a book called What the Fat, you know, with various connotations and Choose Your Heart, which I thought had no connotations until recently, my 84 year old mother took me aside and said, I'm concerned about the nature of your book title.

11:48
And I said, what, what are you concerned about? And she's like, it's got a very sexual connotation.

11:58
I would never have gone there with that book title. No, but I'm sticking with it. yeah, I was like, okay, mum, thanks for that. And that your mother came up with it is actually quite hilarious. Yeah, that's right. No one wants to sort of think about their mothers in those terms. No. But I think what I've been thinking around with that is uh some of the stuff we've done our whole life, you and I, Mickey, we've had the privilege of doing it for our...

12:27
career and our passion and what we did personally, that, um, yeah, some obvious biology, um, and yeah, the technical name for that is hormesis. You do something that's in high doses will be toxic, but in low doses just damages you a bit. Um, your body readjusts and you're a better version of yourself and exercise is the most obvious example of that. Right. We know the seven truths. I've got the first truth is move or rust, which is, we, we, we know

12:57
uh so much about that now, but I think it's just worth re-emphasizing amongst all that, that still, of Australia, New Zealanders are still coming off the couch uh sedentary or physically inactive. And if you wanted to choose, we hear all this stuff around prostate screening, breast cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening, statins, uh GLP1s, what do they actually do for your polyp and quantity of life? Well, maybe it's some of them a little bit. uh

13:27
But if you wanted to actually figure out the dose of something that would actually really have an effect on the quality and quantity of your life as being physically fit and physically strong. And we just need to keep shouting that from the rooftop. you know, one great disappointment of my 30 year academic career is that on my watch, we've got worse. Yeah, and I've been working at it quite hard, to be honest. So, so.

13:54
That's the obvious biological aspect of that. uh Food is obviously the holy grail of having a good life as well. But there's a hormetic aspect to that. stress of eating is inflammatory and that's a really good thing, just like exercise is inflammatory, but equally not eating is anti-inflammatory and that uh yin and yang is biologically hormetic.

14:22
stress recovery, stress recovery and that building up. Like anything, if you keep taking the food without the not food section, then you run into ah issues there. So, started with that biological aspect, but I think what's grabbed my attention more than anything else by a long shot, you get metabolically dysregulated by being inactive, poorly, eating poorly.

14:52
But the brain biochemistry dysregulation, which I think is getting pretty well known now around the reward system, is one of the great ironies of life. one of the truths there is, know, pleasure causes pain and pain causes pleasure. And if I just want to go back a step here, I think the most interesting thing to me and

15:19
This is true in every Western country, but I'll just tell you the New Zealand data because I know them so well. If you measure 16 to 24 year olds in the National Health Survey, you measure their psychological distress. So this is not mental illness, but it's severe psychological distress, not coping in society at that moment. Then on our national surveys, these are robust measures, the K10 that's been used around the world. In 2005, 5.6 % of our young people

15:47
at any one time had severe psychological distress. That's not awesome. And some statistic that girls are usually 50 % higher than boys and there's some reasons for that will come into. And it was going along quite steadily like that until about 2012, 2014, when in every Western country that just tilted upwards and rocketed away from us and is still going away from us. And so in the last National Health Survey,

16:16
it was 25 % of 16, 24 year olds had severe psychological distress at any moment, girls close to the 33%. And it's not discussed in society. So it's not meant to earn us, but it sort of does get diagnosed as depression and anxiety as well. But sometimes on physical pain, they're not coping. And the question is, there's a few hypotheses around what changed here. And I think

16:46
It's a dysregulation of the pleasure or the reward pathways. so a common thing is, you know, once it's too stressful for you, uh reach out, get help. Sure. And that'll be a bunch of people. But I don't think that's what's explained what's happened. I think what's happened is, oh especially the advent of the, you have a look at your one now actually, the device.

17:15
around that time and then social media, you know, that raises dopamine, uh vaping, tobacco raises dopamine super nominally, junk food or ultra processed food raises dopamine super nominally, gaming does, more for boys for girls, are so sure that more for girls for boys and so on and so on and on. And so now you've got dopamine going way up. You need more and more of the same

17:46
pleasurable stimulus to get the same hit, tolerance. And now the system down regulates. So baseline is not ah neutrality, it's the opposite of pleasure, it's pain. ah And conversely, you're in a situation that you started taking all these pleasurable things that initially gave you pleasure, and now you're in psychological pain. And that is a ridiculous situation for us to have ended up in as humans.

18:14
But I think that's the most likely explanation for the rocketing change in for youth mental health outcomes. And you think particularly for girls who do compare themselves with other girls of the same age. And you've got this Instagram, you know, you're not comparing yourself with just the girls in your school now. You're comparing yourself with all of the girls in the world.

18:44
oh most of the ones you're seeing aren't even real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Grant, when you mention like, it's, you they're living in this pain or the psychological distress, and I'm just curious, like, is the distress come from the removal of these things to get back into everyday life? And I asked this question because I remember looking at a study actually, maybe, maybe it was 2020 or 21, and they talked about the effects of

19:10
It wasn't social media, it was gaming, the effects of gaming on the brain and how when kids get fully immersed into that world, it's much more exciting than real world. And so when they're pulled from it, be it to go do their homework or to go to the dinner table or whatever, they have this level of anxiety and I'm not going to say depression, but this real shift in mood and lowering of mood.

19:36
Is that where it comes from? it just the sort of living in the environment of, or do we not even know? I think that's a great example of that. That's the only story in one of my chapters is my 14 year old son, Danny. He's our third son. So we really haven't been paying quite as much attention to them. So, you know, don't judge me for this, but we lost some of our parenting mojo or attention, I suspect. But he was into his gaming quite a lot. And, you know, what we noticed was a few things happening.

20:06
He stopped eating normal food, stopped enjoying exercising, he's a keen hockey player and doing so much of that. He was quite socially withdrawn. He'd easily been disreguited and get angry. I don't know if people who've got teenage boys, don't know this, you've happened to you, Mickey, but you just hear them down in the room and then you hear them banging on their thing. Fuck, and it's just, so this beautiful young man had sort of disappeared from us.

20:35
I've been listening a lot to the Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lemke's work and read her book, Dopamine Nation, which I recommend. And she really talks about the idea of a dopamine fast, which is just removal of those high dopamine rising things. we just took the game away, which is a pretty brutal period because you go through a situation where

21:05
First of you're assholes and then you're effing assholes and they're just basically losing their shit at you. And then when things come right in a couple of weeks, a normal, boy who wants to pet the dog again, eats normal food and gets some pleasure of exercising. Because of course those things didn't give any pleasure because they didn't raise, although they do raise dopamine, it's not raising it enough to even get out of pain. So what's the point? And so...

21:35
It's very easy to blame these kids for being dysregulated, but it's just actually uh nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with that one third of girls that are in psychological pain. It's just that they've got the exact normal physiological and neurological response you'd expect from exposing yourself to exactly those things. It's just normal physiology. In many ways, it's surprising that it's only a third of

22:04
girls and a quarter of boys. I would expect, given, don't know, like vaping, porn, alcohol, social media, gaming, junk food, you know, the whole way they live their life is around those. I'm surprised only a third go down the Googler. Now, that's the incredible thing to me, that Fizil is not worse. A hundred percent agree. See, I think Grant,

22:32
with you in your situation as you describe it with Danny, the great thing is that both you and Louise were on the same page. Danny just had one place with which he, you know, he had one, there was one voice, you guys were united in that. And so he couldn't go anywhere else to get a different... Opinion. Exactly. Whereas for people who might be in split households, where the children might go from one to another, they may get one message from

23:02
one household and then in the other household let loose. That's a challenge. I know, look, these are just the real life challenges of being a parent, I suppose. You don't want to talk about that one a bit more? Yeah. Well, sure. Shall I just go for it? No, but you know what I mean? Like, you know, just the different messages that kids can get. And I guess there are a lot of kids in those situations, I suppose, and a lot of parents. Yeah. mean, what Flynn said was,

23:30
Wicker for a while who was 160 something kilos. But that was exactly that. But around food, they've just both a better sort of divorce relationship and playing that poor boy off against each other and undermining each other. mean, gosh, there's no winners there. And so Grant, with regards to obviously the dopamine, I'm just going back to your example.

23:58
taking away the gaming, you're able to reestablish some sort of more normal baseline. Like is that the only, I guess, I don't know if you know, are there other solutions? Is there any other solution? The other solution of course is that, what we're talking about is one half of the equation, is pleasure eventually causes pain. But the whole system works completely in reverse, which is the evaluation of cold, sauna and or exercise, preferably all three.

24:26
This is a really weird thing, right? No one likes cold water, do they? Like, I'm going to sit there, even if you've been doing, we've got a chest freezer here, we freeze it up and you jump in it. No one looks at it and goes, this will be fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good point. Because you know what? In my head, I'm like, I do, but I don't love it. What I love is the feeling afterwards. Yeah, correct. Because it's the exact opposite thing. So now you're putting uh discomfort first. Yes. And so the reward system

24:56
works almost completely the opposite way around. uh Then you take the discomfort away. Now you've got pleasure, but it's a different way of stimulating pleasure and it lasts so long and it doesn't raise dopamine supernormally. So you don't get the addiction side of things, but you get all the benefit of elevated dopamine and restoring uh baseline back to normal, which is uh a really cool thing. uh

25:24
Yeah, there's a bunch of different ways of doing that. If you do heat, I think you've got to do a heat and tool that dimorphin sort of, know, really uncomfortable, panicky feeling where you want to get out of there comes. I think you do need some of that level of discomfort because then you're relieved from it. The coal, well, you know, just depends where you live around the world, but you can get there pretty quickly and you don't need to do anything too expensive about it. And the relief from that.

25:53
is really palpable and actually the same is true about exercise. And so that sort of run is high and much of that is the reward system and some different physiology around the opus and whatnot, working in the exact opposite way. you make yourself sentry and keep yourself insulated indoors and you get the gaming and the

26:22
social media and the junk food and the porn and the vaping and blah blah blah blah modern life, then good luck to you. but I think it's a relatively easily resolved situation with the right will. But yeah, that's sort of the point around pre-care and behaviour changes. Getting there. Getting people to get the will because if you go, that's the problem. Yeah, that's the rule of law. If you tell someone to do something, they probably won't.

26:51
If they tell you, they probably will. Everyone knows that truth with their partner. When was the last time giving advice worked out for you? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I totally appreciate that. um A couple of things actually spring to mind. Well, one is with regards to the cold and the heat, because obviously getting kids to exercise, maybe that's slightly easier, but should all parents just

27:19
chuck their 14 year old into some sort of like cold plunge, maybe that's how to do it. Is there a space for it? Because we never talk about kids actually and that sort of thermoregulation and... Danny does. He goes in the sauna and he goes in the cold plunge and he chooses to do it to manage his physiology, which is, he'd never expected that. I'd have to say as a parent, one really good thing about

27:47
I mean, sometimes you go on the sauna one day and they're like, oh, good dudes. Yeah, they just jump straight out. But often they do stay in there and randomly they'll talk to you, which is quite an interesting proposition for a dad and a teenage boy. Yeah, 100%. Not in the other places that happens, right? Yeah, yeah. So true. And my other thing that actually you mentioned the runner's high, do you get a runner's high?

28:16
Yeah, I feel good after exercise. To be honest, think that you get a better one from swimming, to be honest. Interesting. Do you? Well, yeah, because I often, I don't know what I expect from a runner's high. know, people talk about this, I want to get that runner's high. And so this is why they run. And I'm like, I never get a high from running. I have a lot of

28:44
Feel-good feelings, like I look forward, not I don't always look forward to the run, you know, there are times like maybe 50 % of the time I look forward to running. I love being out there doing it. Not all the time. Sometimes I really hate being out there doing it, but man, I love it when it's done. And I love the fact that I did it. And I literally feel like almost my work is done for the day, even if it's like 6 a.m. in the morning and I've got an entire work day ahead of me. It's like, I love it, but it is work. And I love the feeling that I've achieved it.

29:13
But I've often, think, run as high almost to me as people talk about this, like they're in the zen place and... uh I think it's just like the same feeling as not being cold anymore. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's good enough. But yeah, no, we're not buzzing away on mid-amphetamine or something. Well, it no adenosymylic with me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was just interested to know what you were...

29:43
what your experience is. you're talking about the type of challenge and stimulus sort of comes in that sort of physical realm, like the thermoregulation, like exercise, diet. But of course, that's going to build that mental resilience. like, what is it anything in that mental sort of resilience space, which you've also looked in for this? Yeah. So I think there's three things here that I want to sort of talk about in a manner.

30:13
um couple of uh orders. One is sort of related to this uh gaming and pleasure thing, but it's multitasking and distraction. A lack of focus is just a thief of joy in life. And so if you want to have a crap life where you don't really achieve much, you're constantly jumping from place to place, then what you should do is you should have your phone in front of you, you should have your emails open.

30:42
should have people texting you, should be using a messenger. You should just be multitasking because that's the surest route to not being able to pay attention to anything. There's a sort of myth of multitasking and the myth is that woman is substantially better than men and we have some insight to the fact that we've got it this or not. And neither of those things are true. I'll tell you why, because first of all,

31:11
There isn't even a literature on multitasking. There's a literature on attention shifting because that's what it is. You don't pay attention to concurrent, but different inputs. You pay attention to one, then you move to another. The thing is when you do that, you come back way back from where you left off. The data on that are hugely robust. things like, all you have to do is, I mean, there's studies when all you have to do is have your cell phone

31:42
in the room with you, even in a bag, destroys cognitive performance more than not having it in the room at all. But having it up on your desk does worse. There's cell phones and driving behavior and the performance differences in a simulator with no hazards is profoundly different. Something like... oh

32:10
only notice eight out of 40 hazards when you've got your cell phone out. And not noticing a hazard means you didn't even know it was there. You've completely missed it. Yeah, it was potentially pretty dangerous, but it goes into sort of cognitive work and everything we do. So if you want to bug your life up, including your sleep, then multitask, because that'll be good fun for you. um And so anyone knows, I know if you're writing, you want to be productive, then you single task it.

32:39
you're faster, you make less mistakes. Again, mistakes being defined as things you don't know you've made. So that's the first thing. The second thing is a really good piece of psychology. So remember, I did actually train as a psychologist. I wasn't very good because I don't shut up and listen enough. I've got the answers. You don't want to tell you.

33:06
You're very self-aware that you are. Yeah, yeah. So that's something. one thing that's the best tool that's developed in psychology over the last 15 years is this acceptance commitment therapy. And it really draws quite heavily on its roots in Japanese psychology, but also Stoicism, which I know is pretty popular, probably especially for your listeners. And

33:35
The acceptance bit is that, and this is sort of the exact opposite of cognitive behaviour therapy, which is, you you're going to have thoughts that are triggering, here's how to avoid those thoughts, you don't drive past KFC because you might have a triggering thought, might end up in there. And yeah, that's a fair enough strategy. uh But acceptance commitment therapy is a better strategy. And that's why it's like, you're going to have negative thoughts and feelings. uh That's a normal part of human life. uh We're built to minimise danger. And so things are going to...

34:05
appeared negatively sometimes, it's fine. The trouble is if you try and wrestle with those thoughts or get rid of them or delete them, well, that's physically impossible. Deleting any thought is impossible. I say, I don't want you to ever remember anything about a day of wedding, ever again, just forget it. It's a great day, you're not going to forget it. Equally, you can't delete other thoughts. The classic,

34:32
Fusion example, it's like, you don't think of a can of Coke or don't think of a polar bear. Yeah. All that pops into your mind is that. So if you can't delete a negative thought or feeling, then the best thing is to notice and acknowledge it. And that's called diffusing from it. So that's the acceptance part. And the commitment part is like, regardless of how you feel or feel and what those things are.

34:59
What's, what are your values? What's your North star? What's, what's your best life? And so ultimately it doesn't actually matter what you think. It matters what you do. And, and so then the acceptance, there would be, talk about the choice point and the choice point talks about towards moves. I only do something that moves me towards my best life. when I move, something takes me away from the best life. Now I'll give you a real life sports psychology example ah of this in action because I'm really proud of this.

35:28
because I'm otherwise skillless in the situation I'm describing. So this is a years ago, I'm the football soccer coach for the St. Joseph's Year 6 soccer team. Wow. Yeah, which I literally know nothing about it. We could have done a big test, which we did do. Hilarious.

35:57
But what I'd notice in the games um is that the ref, which is often the coach from the other team, would make calls that were both wrong and unfair. And the kids would get really pissed off about that. uh And then they would lose their shit a bit. And then the parents would lose their shit as well. And then the whole team would go to shit and then we would just lose the game. And we were going to this tournament. This is the big...

36:26
quadragular tournament of the North Shore where we played Takapano primary, Forest Hill primary, Milford primary and Hauraki primary. Yeah, the stakes could not be higher. Yeah. So I the boys there, just as we were about to leave the school, was like, one thing I've noticed that happens a lot in the games guys is the refs make calls that are wrong and

36:56
bad. Oh yeah, sucks, sucks. I was like, are the chances of that happening in today's games? And they're like, oh yeah, that's definitely going to happen. I was like, what, every game? Yep. Multiple times. So they've identified that that's going to happen multiple times. And I was like, well, how are you going to feel about that? And they're like, oh, we'll just carry on. I was like, no, no, no. Like you've been wrongly pulled out and penalized in a game that means something to you by some of the people that doesn't know what the topic, how you going to feel? Oh yeah.

37:25
I'll be pissed off, I'll be this and that, and the other guy getting about it talking it up. I was like, okay, well, we've identified that it's going to be inevitable that this is going to happen. We're going to feel upset about it, and we're not going to be able to do anything about any of those things. How are we hoping to go in the tournament? Well, hoping we can do as well as we can and win most of the games and blah, blah, So we work through the acceptance part. It's inevitable. We can't do anything about it.

37:54
and we're going to feel shit. And I was like, well, what do reckon the best interleavers are? And they are actually going, we'll probably just notice that, thankfully some boys said we're going to notice that we feel shit, but we'll probably just actually, the best interleavers get straight back in the game and do our best. And I was like, yeah. And we won the whole tournament, not because we're any good, but because the other teams all completely lost their shit.

38:20
And we didn't. So all we had to do is not be useless and lose our shit. the 12-year-olds won the game and we victoriously carried the trophy back from Taha Rata Sockel Park to suggest a score short walk and paraded around the school. Amazing. Not young, it's a small example, but it's such a great technique. I use it with my athletes I coach. A classic in endurance sport is

38:50
that it is inevitable in the events that you choose, especially the 70.3 and I, that I coach, that you're going to feel physical and mental anguish, particularly physical anguish, particularly through your legs. And those feelings are unavoidable and inevitable. And so we re-catch that as that's interesting data coming in from your body.

39:20
and that they're going to carry on anyway, because that's what they'd already decided to do. So that's just another example of that. But uh acceptance commitment techniques are so easy to learn uh and such a powerful way of thinking about what it takes to have a good life. we're not after, we can't not have negative thoughts. It's not a real thing. It's part of being human, but you can't avoid it. uh And yet we...

39:48
go out of her way all the time to try and avoid it, which is an exercise of stupidity. As you were talking about your 70.3 athletes, was thinking about the run that we just did, grand, grand. And I knew on the longest day, I knew because we were at the top of the field that we would start later. We would start at 10 a.m. as opposed to 8 a.m., which meant that we wouldn't be finishing this day at the earliest, maybe two o'clock.

40:17
but maybe even 4 a.m. the next morning. And as I was contemplating that in the sort lead up to the event, I was like in my head, I'm like, man, if only we can just be a bit slow enough so we don't get in that second wave. But that was actually never gonna be an option. And once I realized this on day one and the long stage was stage three, I just thought, there's nothing I can do about it. And actually, it's gonna hurt regardless.

40:46
and we're going to have low points regardless. And in fact, part of those low points are a sign that we are this far through the event that we have already achieved this much. actually, and I literally have the thought in my head when we're doing it, every step, every kilometer is a kilometer closer to the end. And it actually helped me, um it helped me to really get into it. And I actually really enjoyed the feeling of

41:15
feeling like shit, I think because it just meant I was closer to the end of the day. So I think what I've just described is exactly what you've just brought You're 100 % right. But I think there's a little bit more to it you're giving yourself credit for. Because I think, the sounds of things, you've acknowledged that the low points are um inevitable. And to rally against them happening or somehow think your way out of them is futile.

41:45
So that, so it's inevitable that they're coming. It's futile to try and will yourself out of them. And so you've ridden them through them and as a normal process of life. Now ultra endurance is great for that because it brings life into a sharp focus. So you get to do, you know, what people get in life, but it's, it's given to you in a day. And this is one of the beautiful things about.

42:12
sport in general and why I think it's so essential for young people because it creates robustness through the rules. It forces discomfort, it forces situations where it's futile to get out of it. It's not possible without literally taking a bat of water and saying I'm going home, which is not an option when you're halfway across the desert. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So that's...

42:42
you know, that's the beauty of sport and for adults. If you don't continue to keep reinforcing those lessons, you've somehow won the lottery and you just go to a life of hedonism and comfort on the beachfront property, you'll have a miserable life. You actually do. I mean, not that I have experienced that, but if I think about times where you might not be so, or I think about people who

43:11
who literally on the outside wouldn't have anything to stress about, your mind will still create problems. And in part, there'll be problems that will be unsolvable because they're almost not real to begin with. don't know if that, I'm just thinking about it. When we don't get our bin in, she gets really upset because she says it's she's got to worry about. I should say the other thing though, what you've got to be careful about is being a hyper, choose your hard responder because

43:40
because there's a flip side to just choosing hard stuff all the time, eventually you're sort of subjugated into a life where you're depositing into this bank that you never withdraw from, right? And we know lots of people who train and live their life like that. we're choosing some of the hard stuff now because otherwise someone else will choose the hard stuff for us.

44:09
And we didn't want that path, we wanted this path. So we're just more choosing a path. And I mean, this is what I see in education, right? So I didn't read Triad School. Well, that's just a dumbass decision because not doing the hard work there means that every life is going to be hard. The area under the hardness curve is about the same. But if you get to choose it early, then your trajectory is way up here and you get all this other...

44:38
rewards and resources that go with it. If you don't try early, someone else will decide what your heart is. And all of a sudden, you're working in a factory and two jobs and you're living in places you don't want to live. And then your whole life unfolds with the same hardness, but not what you chose. so that's what it's about. choosing, there's a hardness to choose, you choose, uh because if you don't, someone else will feel that'll suck. It's not about the sort of moral and Christian virtue of temperance, which is, uh

45:08
put off feeling good about yourself until you die. Yeah. Which is of course fundamentally stupid. Um, because the very point where you cease to exist, therefore can't feel anything. Um, that's what you're waiting for. That's like, I, I, fun, I know other people might have other things they believe about life and death and stuff, but in the moment that's where the evidence is to me. Like temperance is temperance sucks. Like put up this sort of

45:37
I'm going through purgatory now for my whole life to avoid it, paternal purgatory. That may or may not actually exist. When you put it that, it's definitely more than questionable. Grana, what I think about a lot with clients that I work with, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this. So I talk a lot to them about that emotional regulation. And sometimes when you're in the moment, like when you're uh soccer,

46:07
team is on the field, the ref has just made the bad call and they're getting angry. It really does take discipline to sort of not get emotionally hijacked by that. That's what I, that's where I think people can struggle. Like they know logically what they should do, but their logical brain just will not kick in. And so if they get angry or they're stressed, their emotional brain is telling them to eat the chocolate, to drink the wine, to...

46:36
watch the porn to do the thing which allows them to be distracted from real life. Are there, in what you sort of, maybe not necessarily with the soccer example, but just in other people you talk to in this sort of behavior change space, are there tactics that help people, I guess, reground themselves or come back to the present and not sort of run away with their emotions? Because ultimately, when you look back retrospectively in any situation, you

47:03
you almost know what the thing was that you should have done, and it's the thing that you would have wanted to been doing, but you just get emotionally hijacked. Yeah. I mean, think there's a few aspects of that. We've just written a couple of behavior change books as well. think one thing, a point I make in behavior change is it's all good and well doing lots of psychology, which we've been doing bit of just now. But also don't forget uh biology. Sometimes people think, like I said this a lot in

47:32
eating and you will as well. So, you know, people have an emotional eating behavior. They have, you know, a bunch of stuff going on. It's not until they actually, you know, change the composition of their diet and, you know, get off the ultra processed food. And so they have not riding that roller coaster. I mean, my estimate on the sugar crash phenomena of hypoglycemia because you eat starchy sugary food.

47:59
reactive hypoglycemia, the sugar crash, because you overcompensate with insulin. uh My view is that that emotional day rules about 50 % of New Zealanders and Australians, and probably therefore reverent us in the West of Europe. So it's all going well, I've got an emotional eating problem, or uh then it turns into a full blown eating addiction or even a mild addiction.

48:27
It's very easy to think of those things as a dysregulation and it is a dysregulation but it's a dysregulated normal physiology. yeah, I want to just put that in advance. So we wouldn't expect anything else given... of course you'd be, you know, like, and we're all predisposed in different ways, right? So I tried cigarettes when I was younger and I didn't get addicted to them. I don't know what I was thinking. so did I, actually. Yeah, but we didn't because we're not.

48:56
that way inclined. um And, you know, I probably could drink a fair bit of booze, not that I actually drink at the moment, but if I did, I don't reckon I'd become an alcoholic. Yes. um I'm not quite wired that way and I'm not easily addicted to food in the same way either, but other people are just wired a bit differently. And, you know, in a different world, that would be an advantage to the environment, you know.

49:22
So not all of us react the same way. And if you're more reactive that way, then uh that's a thing. The second thing about biology with that is also the nervous system is completely under normal voluntary control. We talk about the autonomic nervous system, but in reality, how you breathe dictates how your nervous system responses. If you close your mouth and

49:50
know, breathing slowly through your nose, hold the breath vaguely at the top and breathe out again and hold it at the bottom, that sort of box shaped breathing. Then your sympathetic nervous system, the whole fight or flight response is utterly squashed. There's a thing called the Barrow reflex. You cannot physically have that negativity bias, better safe than sorry, fight or flight system activated if you're breathing like that. And many people's

50:18
grandmothers, at least when I had grandmothers, they would say, look, before you sign a thing, take, take three deep breaths. But literally both my grandmothers said that to me. And I suppose they were talking about emotional regulation through the Barrow reflex and the sympathetic nervous system control. None of those, none of those words that ever heard of, I won't, or maybe they had, but probably not. these are normal things. I think.

50:47
Part of behavior change is also being a decent physiologist because while we talk about these acceptance commitment techniques and noticing negative thoughts and all that sort of stuff, uh if you've got dysregulated reward systems and uh your normal homeostasis around glucose and insulin is all up the creek and uh you're a chronic mouth breather uh and...

51:14
you're not going to have the biology that supports making good decisions. And I think that's not really talked about in the world. I don't know why, but I've been thinking that way. Yeah. And you know what, Grant, when I'm listening to you talk about it and talk about changes, talk about the environment we live in and the exercise we're not doing and we're not breathing properly, all of this stuff, I understand why some people who have yet to make a move

51:44
feel a little bit, get that paralysis by analysis in part, like, cause I, and you must have this as well, get a lot of interaction with people. sometimes, okay, I will be honest. Sometimes I feel like people make an excuse for themselves. They're like, like, I'm so overwhelmed with all this information. I don't know where to start. So I don't do anything. And I do think in some people that's, that actually is just an excuse. I think it's a deflection tactic. I mean, I don't know how this sounds, but

52:12
That's actually what I think. so they just can, so it gives them yet another day to live the life that they're in their little comfort zone. But I do think truly people might feel stuck in the situation they're in and they've got all of these opportunities sort of might be presented to them, but they're not sure which one is going to be the biggest tile mover and which one might be the easiest for them. Because someone might look at you and go, it's all right for you, Prof. Grant Schofield.

52:41
because look at where you are, know, because people think things like that. Oh, it's true though. Part of the human condition is we've basically mastered our environment. uh When we didn't master our environment, uh when, know, times when we actually don't, like when there's hardship and wars and stuff, uh mental ill health drops off the face of the earth. It's really not much of a thing. Crime drops way down. uh

53:11
national fighting, unification with... I'm not suggesting we start a war, by the way. There's massive unpleasant things about that. But when we're not fully in control of our own environment, back in our period of the times, we've got too many other things to actually worry about than being able to sink into comfort. um I'm not saying that those lives were all that much fun because we were probably almost never satisfied. We were constantly in search of doing the next thing. Yeah, winter's coming.

53:40
find some food, we're going to start, we're going get food in two days. So you've got all of those things. Now we've mastered those and that's fabulous. We don't have to worry about those and that's an amazing thing. But it's come at such a cost of the sort of comfort crisis that we live in. the reality is, and what I've had to write this book is, why I've had to do it is simply because we have to take affirmative action to choose hard things in our lives. Otherwise we can't have a good life.

54:10
And that's the paradox of modern living. You have to choose hard things, otherwise your life's going to suck, um which is sort of counterintuitive. It's counterintuitive. The whole uh medical industry and how we talk about health is certainly counter to the entire uh psychology and psychiatry and how we talk about mental health. It's certainly contrary to the whole consumer world and uh Instagram and buying stuff that we live in.

54:39
It's counted to the entire ultra processed food world that we live in. We've sold in the Lotto world and the holiday world. We've sold a mirage that our life will be awesome if we uh became creatures of leisure. The ultimate lie in that for all humans is retirement. It's a stupid idea. um You should work hard and sort of purgatory and then when you're old enough, you can just

55:08
have the reward of not working and just floating around doing what you're doing. How dumb is that? I can see, why people feel like that is their reward for working hard, you know? But I am on the same page with you, like, in that. Because, I mean, a sense of purpose is one of the, to your point, you talk about it, actually, in fact, another podcast I did earlier today, a similar conversation, like when you have this sort of sense of purpose, that's actually the...

55:38
the driving force behind like a really good life? Yeah, well, you have to have a sense of actually, I'm there, I should, let me just try and find this and read this out. I'll go to my last truth, know your why, or you'll have nowhere to go. And what I did is I tried to unpack what I called, this is getting quite metaphysical, to be honest, Miki, but yeah, we'll just see what you're transing about. I understand life's essential truth. So I went and reviewed, I went and read all these brilliant things, know, like the

56:08
stoic stuff that Tao Te Chi, which is a Taoism literature that read about Buddhism and uh Zen and, uh you know, more modern sort of contemporary Arthur C. Brooks, who's sort of wellbeing psychologist and uh these things. I came, my view was that we're not the first humans to ever be thinking about what it takes to have a good life. you know, we're millennial into being humans and there's no reason they were more shippant than us.

56:38
a thousand years ago or two thousand years ago or in different cultures. And in fact, these things should converge from different religions and different sort of self help on self help and everything. So I think they do. And I've got I've called these with tongue in cheek essential truths. And I've got four essential truths. OK, so here's essential truths. uh Essential truth, mortality. We are all going to die.

57:04
All but one, all but one. Who's the one person that will not die? What's that about? Brian Johnson. Yeah, I honestly find that stuff a bit ridiculous to be honest. So do I. Who wants to live forever? Honestly. It's weird. It is weird. I 100 % agree. 100%. Yeah, and he's just randomly trying non-evidence based stuff. Like I said, today's going to be microdysync, psilocybin for longevity because there's one mouse study.

57:33
with telomere lengthiosite, really? Yeah. But I think there's a really important idea that we're all that you actually going to die. And I think we've talked about this with our uh parents and I think Barry's dad, my dad, and them passing away. The only way you can live a good life is to acknowledge that life is finite and that it comes to an end. And that is a strong thing throughout history.

58:02
And I really feel sad, anyway, so the end of my dad's life with prostate cancer, he was so worried about every conceivable treatment he forgot and so scared of dying, even though he got to his mid-80s with a pretty good quality of life, that he forgot to learn to know how to live. And I think that was a real shame. So that's essential truth number one. You're going to really like essential truth number two. Yeah, I liked essential truth number one, just so you know. Essential truth number two, less is more.

58:33
And that's a theme that comes across all the time. But accumulating stuff is no path to happiness and the well-being. It's just not the way that actually the less stuff you have, the less things that you actually do, the more you achieve. So I think that's the next one. Essential truth number three, your life will change. I really like this one. And I got this more from, you know, it's that, you know, one of the

59:02
things that's known in modern psychology is that your fluid intelligence, your ability to be an academic ninja and epsilon, know, nail it, takes when you're about 35 years of age. And it actually consistently and reasonably rapidly goes downhill from there on in. You know, that's shit. You know, I'm super smart at 36, goes down after that. Because how old are you? I'm 58. So what are you bringing up there? But the good news is,

59:31
the thing called crystallized intelligence. So long as you keep doing this massively improves that crystallized intelligence is really what I call wisdom. uh And it's really why as you get older, uh things like mentoring uh and helping other people, uh coaching, uh both types of things are so much more important because you do accumulate wisdom if you do it the right way and actively go about it. So your life will change. You won't be the ninja in

01:00:01
Yeah, and effort is another thing. I mean, somehow you've still managed to maintain it reasonably well. Like I've sort of fallen off the cliff frankly, even though I've tried hard. Yeah, I mean, I'm still okay, but I'm anything like I was. So your life will change. And I think, you know, the seasons of life, you know, are really a thing. And essential truth number four, um loss and pain are inevitable and necessary.

01:00:31
There's nothing truer in life about, and this has been a real feature across all of religion, and to be fair, they had more loss and pain, possibly in older folks than we have now, but these are not things to be shied away from when they happen. uh Most people oh who have started a business and lost it, or uh most people in athletic environments would say that uh almost all learning

01:00:59
that they've had came through the failures, not through the successes. And you know that's true in business. I know that's in business. know that's true in sport. In music, in entrepreneur, like you hear it all of the time. People say that you don't hear, you weren't there to get the 48 rejection letters before I finally got that one acceptance letter for my New York Times bestseller, for example. 100%. So, in fact, the...

01:01:28
The only path to a good life is going to be through multiple failures because failure is such a powerful teacher. Success is a weak teacher. Do you know, Grant, the thing, like, I feel like these are things which people should know or do know, but don't act on or refuse to acknowledge or something like that. Because I have a lot of people in my ecosystem, I talk about this and like this quite a lot, but it's almost like it just, there's a block.

01:01:58
in their willingness to accept, you know, the people with the all or nothing type personalities, the type A perfectionists, like we know so many of these people and that mindset might get them so far in other areas of their life. But if I'm just thinking about health, it's literally, it's like one of the number one sort of killers of any uh success, if you like, because as soon as they had a barrier and they cannot overcome it, they just, it's the end of it.

01:02:28
I wonder why people just don't get this message. I know I've got a doctor of philosophy sitting in the back there, so I like to, not that it's actually in philosophy, it's in psychology, but I like to think that philosophy is actually something to engage in in life and think about, yeah, we're not going to solve how the universe works and the men.

01:02:57
the meaning of life, know, as Hitchhiker's God to the galaxy, answer is 42. So there's absurdity there at some point. But regardless of not knowing that the bigger picture stuff, think you've got to come to life with something about life. And in many ways, that's the beauty of religion, is it offers people a structure to understand that it has its good points and bad points, but you know, to offer that structure now, because we're a secular society.

01:03:26
we don't have that guidance anymore, that's, you know, in many ways a good thing as well. Then I do think it's important to have some philosophy of life and some parameters around which you do things. yeah, this got out wrong. I'm not trying to offer up choose your heart as a religious text or a philosophy, but I'm just going, you know, like for me, at least the reason I wrote it, it brings some value around, you

01:03:56
what the sort of things I'm interested in, are biological and physical, physiological realities, psychology, practicing psychology, changing your behavior, understanding how to fit into a mismatched world. And as well as some philosophy and religion as I wrote for me, just to get some clarity around that. So that's been a success already. If I someone else then so be it. And I feel like, Grant, like you almost cut through a lot of that.

01:04:26
esoteric sort of stuff that is out there that people could dive into themselves. Like you mentioned Stoicism and all the rest of it. Like for some people, that's just a little bit too abstract. But if they can have practical application of some of those principles, then you get an understanding of those principles alongside doing it. And I feel like a book like yours would offer that up for debate. Yeah, it's interesting because the Stoicism is a great example because I listened to that Tim Ferriss and the other guy with the daily Stoicism.

01:04:56
Ryan Holiday is a good staff uh and Ryan Holiday is probably the better example, but it's not the only tool like this, like there's multiple tools here, right? So, StyleStack is like a really good screwdriver and acceptance commitment therapy might be like a really good saw and you to take the building analogy further, you really need to have a time and place to use the different tools and there's

01:05:24
there's not one tool, heaps tools and you're not going to build a house just with a screwdriver or a hammer. um That wouldn't be a great house. And so I think, yeah, that's what I like to do anyway, is think about it. Yeah, nice one Grant. And then with regards to yourself, like what do you practice on, maybe not daily, but maybe a weekly or frequent basis um as part of our discussion today from your sort of like choose your hard. What's your hard? Yeah, so that's my part three actually.

01:05:54
went through that and said, here's the things that I've just typically I've failed at all of them. But my annual hardest thing is my July the first five day fast. And I start that every year and I just have low confidence that I'll somehow not make it. And people go, lose muscle mass on it. maybe. But it's five days out of 365. mean, I think you're right. I have other days where I've made up for some of that.

01:06:24
So that's a set annual thing. uh Our family owns a sauna, which we had to save for, I literally save $40 a week for ages to get that and invest it well. uh Got a chest freezer. So we've got those. Obviously I'm an exercise sort of guy because it's both my job and my life. that's part of my thing. oh

01:06:53
recently started choosing hard events. Again, I just did a 17.3 triathlon for the first time in 15 years and I'm doing the Ironman triathlon in March. Yeah. Which I know people will, you know, go for it because it is pretty extreme, but, uh, you know, in fact, that's the hard thing that I've chosen and it's, it's, I'd rather choose that than learning to play the guitar or something. It's where my community is. I know the sport, I coach in the sport. I like the details. I like the equipment. Uh, I like

01:07:23
everything about it pretty much except for the entry fees. uh And so that's another hard. uh I think everyone should choose some hard around food rules. Like if you don't have some rules and you've got to believe the rules. uh Now, I think we're quite aligned on this, Mickey, from what I actually practice. So I started as a low-carbon sort keto fasting author.

01:07:51
I do stick to low carb base if I'm just preparing my own food, but I accidentally come across carbohydrates as part of my day-to-day life, which I don't necessarily avoid. Sometimes I do, but sometimes I don't, in particular, some of my exercise ah I use. But I do have some rules and I avoid alcohol uh as a rule. So, think without food rules, and you can be a low fat.

01:08:19
person. can be just wickedly prioritized protein person. But those, just to be clear, those are still rules around food. I was going to say, think that rules provide the structure that these provide gives you a bit of freedom, actually. So you're not always making decisions. And, you know, because I think people get that real fatigue around having to make a decision. Are they going to have that drink? Are they going to, you know, so are you going to order pasta? I don't know. just

01:08:48
throwing these things out here. But essentially, if you have a way of doing things, then suddenly you've got these guardrails. And that almost takes care of 80 % of those food decisions, which just alleviates a lot of that mental... That must drive you crazy because, I mean, you do way more of this than me, but it drives me crazy when people want an eating plan, which I'm against for a start, but also they want 10 different options for these different types of meals. I actually personally think they'd be better off with way less options. But here's the rules.

01:09:18
Stick to these, you're free. Yeah, and it's funny you say that because oftentimes with people, like I'm happy to provide people with plenty of options for the most part because it's part of what I do is design these options for people. But I think people think that they want options, like they think they want to count macros, but then when they add the reality of all of this different choice, it is just too complicated for them. And actually, just do these three things on rotation across your week, you are good.

01:09:47
I mean, a classic example of a great role that's really strict is your protein is very modified fast. Like it's, it's really strong, right? Because it's like, here's what you're doing on these days and here's your choices. Do it one day, two days, three days. These are the results you get. You choose. first of all, you haven't told them to do it. They've chosen the one they want, which is, you know, change. Second, you go, here's what you do on that day. And so like they're and that,

01:10:18
It's almost like that's really restrictive on one hand, but on the other hand, it's actually really freeing. I really like that method. In fact, I was just about to do that method uh in the second part of November, because I'm not overweight or anything, but I'm just going to drop like three kilos for my race, because I've got some goals that I want to achieve. It's not a health thing. It's a performance thing.

01:10:46
But I'm going to do it through a program to spend a modified class. I start one day a week and see how that goes. If it's not going so well, I'm going to add to two days. And if I have to get up to three, I will. probably hopefully won't. I'd be very surprised if you did, actually. I think that you would get away with one or maybe even three a fortnight, depending on how long you wanted to do it. Yeah, I think that would be such an effective strategy. Yeah. But yeah, like it's...

01:11:14
It's a freeing strategy because that's the rule that day. Yeah, 100%. And there are just a lot most personalities, even if they don't realize it until they do it, actually just really well suited. just take, you don't even have to think about it. And from a preparation perspective, at least a lot of people I speak to are like, I don't even have to worry about thinking about what vegetables to have for dinner. And they're like, thank God, so simple. And it's only one day. It's just one day. You can do anything for one day.

01:11:43
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, really like that um rules um thing. uh Other hard stuff. uh mean, the thing I most struggle with in my whole life, this is going to sound ridiculously stupid, uh is getting the phone and iPad out of my bedroom. They just need to go. As soon as I put them elsewhere, I have a proper night's sleep.

01:12:12
I sit there and I wake up and talk myself into a podcast. It's just all bullshit and it ruins my life. And somehow I'm in a struggle that I never quite solved. I get them out and then they've slightly got a minor throw and they come back into my head and my sleep is bugging again. I'm not a big Instagrammer or anything like I do like to look at them.

01:12:43
It's quite good fun and it's quite good fun to see what the algorithm serves you up and what you get locked into. mean honestly, for some random reason it's been serving me up. I don't know if you get this, but it's people that have got overgrown yards and they come in with the snippers and paint them all up. I don't get that in my feed. I wonder if Barry does. Barry might. I don't. But I've obviously paid enough attention to it and thought it was exciting enough and it keeps giving you more, right?

01:13:10
Yeah, oh, that's funny. Isn't that interesting, Grant? Just everyone has a thing that isn't like that you can sort of get on top of, but sometimes it slips and then you get back to the bit. I Of course you do. I know better. And it's just, I don't know what's going on there. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I wonder what my thing is, actually. I'll have, there will be one. Maybe. It's interesting. So in the last year,

01:13:36
we've had um several trips overseas, much more than we would have liked probably last year. And it's very easy for us to get into a habit of just having a beer, just having this one, maybe two. And so um what I was noticing is that my alcohol consumption, I did a whole podcast on this actually, was sort of bleeding into maybe five days of the week. Oh yeah, that's getting to be an issue. yes. And so I decided to...

01:14:04
when we got back in May that I was just going to drink three days a week, just three. And like when I drink, don't actually, like I don't go to, like I have a very good off switch. I prefer the pre-dinner drink as opposed to an after-din drink. You know, like I do have a lot of things in my favour. don't feel like anymore. That's a good sign. It is a good sign. So, so, but what I noticed the first month, it actually was really hard to dial it in and to actually just do three days a week. And what I realised was I really had to exert quite a lot of discipline to do that.

01:14:34
But then after a period of time, and maybe it was three to four weeks, it just started, not only was it normalized, but I just started looking forward to not drinking for four or even five days of the week and actually feeling really good about it and feeling really good for it. Of course, subsequently in the last month, I've been away more than I've been at home. so getting back into that, I was just reflecting on this yesterday here in Dunedin thinking, man,

01:15:04
have to really exert quite a lot of discipline to walk past that wine tasting at New World's because I would love to go and taste that wine. But I've told myself this is an alcohol-free day, so I'm not going to break my own rule. it's not like, I mean, is that a drinking problem? I don't think it's a drinking problem, but I if I have an issue. Because we were just, and I were wondering around the Southbank area, and then we're like, oh, that looks like Mickey and Karen. And then they are at the pub.

01:15:33
And they're like, oh no, we've got these cards. You just go up with the card and get your own beers and beer tasting. Pour your own. And they've got like six or seven beers in front of them. well, that's good. And it's bloody fun. And this is the thing, Grant, right? Because I legitimately look at it as a bit of a hobby. Like it's a hobby to go to a brewery. It's something I enjoy doing, trying the different beers and things like that. So when I'm on holiday, then I'm OK. Like I don't have this real strict like.

01:16:02
feel bad if I have driven it, nothing like that. So I'm actually also pretty pleased with my mindset around it. Well, to be fair though, when we were lost on that run, it was like six in the morning around the back of Brisbane, so I'm like, oh, that looks like a pretty good pub. Yeah, I see it's my hobby. I'm always on the lookout. Well, that looks like could go there. I'm not really thinking about a pub at this hour of the morning. No.

01:16:27
And so, I appreciate what you say with the struggle with, you you've got one thing that it's just a bit more of a mental discipline type thing. And right now, where I'm at, mine would probably be to get back into those, just those three days. Yeah. So I'm proud of myself because I did have a ginger beer last night and I've got a Pepsi Max for tonight. So, um yeah. I legitimately am quite chuffed with myself.

01:16:54
And I think that is a feeling that time, which I um really need to lean into. And equally, I really enjoy delayed gratification. I mean, I really do. It's just my personality type. Knowing that I'll get a beer on Saturday. You're quite good on moderation. I'm very good on moderation. rather have a... This year I said I'm just not drinking because I drank too much last year. And it's just been easier to do it that way. Because I don't have to make any decisions. There's no decision to be made. Everyone knows about it. No one's hassling me.

01:17:23
I'm not at the stage of my life where I'm going to get hassled anyway. No, agree with you with that. Not that on your moderation, that most people are pretty accepting. Hey, Grant, we're going to have to wrap this up because I want to be mindful of your time. So I'm excited for your book. Let the listeners know when you think it's going to come out because I know it can't be too far away. And then also just where they can find you and everything to do with Precure and Behaviour Change, your podcast, et cetera.

01:17:52
Yeah, so you can come to profgrantscofield.com and sign up to my newsletter. I won't have to do it, so I'm trying to sell you anything there. But when the book comes out, which is towards the end of 2025, so in a month or two, then I'll let you know there. It's going to be on Kindle and Printout of Demand there initially. It's also the Preventious Cure podcast.

01:18:21
which I recommend. It also links through to Precure.com. If you're interested in behaviour change stuff, we've actually written, I've just been actually going this year on the book writing stuff. We've actually written three behaviour change books, a foundation, an advanced and a clinical practice one. I've just actually been my whole year just going on that. And I've been learning quite a lot actually. It's been cool. So that's all coming up as well.

01:18:47
Are they available to the public to people who will be available to the public in the next month or so? Nice one. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on those because they're just as the more you can learn about behavior change is the better you can serve the people that you're trying to help. Yeah. And also works on you. This exact same techniques work on yourself. Yeah. This is a beautiful thing about it. So that's why I go. So I was just kind of holy grail and having a good life is knowing how to change yours and others behavior. It's like, it's simple as that. Like, yeah, like,

01:19:15
If information was enough, the tumours would be better off, but it's not. yeah, thanks for having me, it's been cool. I really value our friendship and collegiality and it's like, it seems like it's been my whole life. It's been half of mine. No, I'm not quite that young, but yes, it's been some time. Grant, ditto and hilariously, I sent you through those

01:19:40
amazing questions which I looked at maybe twice. I we covered most of them and actually you got those off your community. your community I was going to say know me better than I know me, which is cool. That is really cool, I agree. Alright Grant, you have a great evening won't you? Alright, catch you.

01:20:07
Hopefully you enjoyed that as much as

01:20:11
chatting to Grant, it really is like just a conversation between two friends. And in fact, this is a conversation that Grant and I would have regardless of whether anyone else was listening. As I said, I've included links as to where you can find Grant in the show notes. And next week on the podcast, uh I'm going to be speaking to Dr. Abby Smith-Ryne about metabolism, metabolic health and women. Super great conversation. Until then though, you can catch me over on Instagram threads and X @mikkiwilliden.

01:20:41
facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition or head to my website mikkiwilliden.com and sign up to my Mondays Merry Christmas edition which kicks off Monday 10th of November registrations close Sunday 9th of November alright team you have the best week see you later