Ben Crowe - Play School

My favourite mantra is "I am enough no matter what, but I'm not done yet." There's no finish line to your purpose, right? Again, if your purpose driven, there's no finish line, you'll never get there. As one of the world's most in-demand mentor and leadership coaches, Ben has worked with the likes of Ashbody, Andre Agassi, the 2017 Richmond Premiership Team, just to name a few. You can't find a single definition of love, and you can't find a single definition of play, because it means something different to everyone. Love is the intention, and play is the action. As human beings, all we need is love. As human doings, all we need is play. So play is just the key to it all, really, isn't it? It needs a fundamental rebrand. We also want to talk about expectations. F all here. It's dangerous word, expectations. There's no right there. You've definitely read the first page. Line is officially read. We're all born with X chromosomes or XY chromosomes. However, there is one man who was born with something else, the Ben chromosome. Very good. And he's here. How long have you been sitting on that? That two days. I quickly ran into Bell next to me and said, "Hang on, X chromosomes, Y chromosomes." Is it X or Y chromosomes? The Ben chromosome is here today. I think I'm on it. I don't know. No, you have got the Ben chromosome. The only one who does. So it's pretty special. Yeah, you're original. Christian. It's strange why to start an interview with Ben Crow, but a question for you, Josh and Ryan. Do you know Ben's actual first name? What? No. Ben's first as the Crow. No. What is it? It's Benedict Crow. Is it? Wow, that's good. I highly recommend you change it to Benedict. Benedict. Ben is amazing. There was a period there when the Pope became Pope Benedict. And his full name was Pope Benedict Joseph. And my full name is Benedict Joseph. I thought, "Oh, my mum's a strict Catholic." And she was wrapped right under the film. Maybe certain miracles might start happening as well. Yeah. My full name is Benedict Joseph Anthony Crow. And my Twitter handle was Ben Joe Tony Crow. I often do an icebreaker like what's in a name. When we're running a session. And I get the person to sit next to them and tell them the full backstory of their name. Right. So obviously my full name is Benedict Joseph Anthony Crow. And I ask them to ask questions like, "Did you like your name growing up?" No. Thank you, Hugh. But it's a lovely name. Any boy growing up in the 1970s at St John's Mitcham with Dick Hinnie's name. The first day of school with a new teacher, the kids were just, "I used to go home crying." "Why'd you call me Benedict?" "Why, couldn't you have called me Benjamin or Ben or whatever?" Then I say, "If you could have chosen your own name, what would you have chosen?" Steve Hawth. That's a surname as well, Hugh. That's what I wanted to do with the kids. For me, it's Valentino. I don't think Valentino Crow sounds that. But I just love the name Valentino. I think your life looks completely different if you're Valentino. I think I look very different too. That's a whole different sliding door. Every time I go to Italy or Spain, there's a lot of good-looking Valentino's there. And the last question I say, "Look, is there any interesting bits about your name?" And I tell the story, in 2012, Les Mizz had just come out with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman. And I was at LA Airport and I was flying back to Australia, but I wasn't going direct to Melbourne. I was going via Sydney. And my colleague said to the quantist Stuart at the check-in, she said, "Surely you can do something for Russell Crowe's brother." She looks at my passport. I don't look anything like Russell Crowe. And she just seen the movie. And she goes, "Oh my God, I've got to be done. I find this out." Did Russell do his own singing in the movie? And I'm thinking, "Oh, shit, she thinks I'm Russell Crowe's brother." I haven't even seen the movie. And then I thought, "What would Russell Crowe's brother say to that question?" And I said, "Yeah, that's why he was so bad." Anyway, didn't do it. Not only did she get me on the direct flight, she upgraded me to first class. And then for the last ten years, when I fly corners every now and then the check-in, they kind of look at me and go, "Oh, how's your brother going?" Do you think Les made a little note on your profile? Yeah, they did. So I declared it on stage with the CEO of corners a few years ago. I just had to acknowledge as a Catholic. Technically, I didn't lie, right? Because I got three brothers. So I'd say, "Yeah, my brother's really well-playing." So I just didn't deny it. Yeah, anyway. Extension to Benedict, but thank you, too. Well, he, everyone will probably know a lot about Ben Crow. I've probably watched, you know, accessed him through Mojo Crow or heard him on our podcast. You've been on a few times before. But just to refresh you, who's Ben Crowe? As one of the world's most in-demand mentoring leadership coaches, Ben has worked with the likes of Ashbari, Andre Agassi, the 2017 Richmond Premiership team in the A.F.L. Dylan Orcott, Steph Gilmore, just to name a few. But it's an absolute privilege that we get to call Ben a friend of the show and a friend of our. -Lifes. -Lifes. -Lifes, yeah. -Yeah. -I mean, only hugely influential part of my life, for sure. -Yeah. So Ben's first episode with us was way back in 2021 when he focused on finding purpose through owning your own life story. And that was really significant to you in particular, Ron. -Yeah, oh, go. Well, I mean, it's. When we first caught up, Ben, I won't do the whole story. But basically, when we caught up, I really had never heard anything about shame, vulnerability, or brine brown, or purpose. So any of the. I had heard the words before, but I never knew what it was. And in a 45-minute session, coffee that we had together, you basically gave me the rundown of what those things are and how they could help me. And within a couple of hours, I would say, even a couple of days to really clarify, I'd figured out what my purpose statement is, what my shame was, and then to have this sort of like. to understand the importance of being vulnerable about those things and sharing them. And that's basically. It was such a. such a building block, I think, of me being able to do this podcast at all. And so, I'm gonna thank you for that multiple times, and there will be a time where I'll stop thanking you, but it's not yet. So, thank you. Thank you for that. You know, we've got the book launch tonight. And we have sold out 1300 people coming on. I'd say 80% of the audience have written to us, or me personally, and saying, "Thank you for that podcast, for helping them through the pandemic." But they are referencing that specific episode, which I said at the time, it's not me. It's just where the world's at right now, or what it was back then, and the principles that you can kind of share. So, congratulations to you guys, obviously, as well. In our second episode, we looked at meeting your inner fan through the role of love, and we actually did a split episode, because it was just so much in it we did over two episodes. And so, the third part, also part two to the episode, was about being your inner fan. And Josh, I know that was turned out to be quite a helpful thing for you. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we discussed this in that episode, but you and I, you very kindly did a session with me, and we had a long chat, and a lot of good things came out of it, but there was a specific mantra that we discovered. And that mantra was that, at my worst, I'm good enough. You had a wedding to MC, or something? Yeah, that might have been it. I think I had something coming up that I was really nervous about. And it might have been that I'm seeing the wedding, or. Yeah, and I came up with that, and then I mentioned it to a friend, and he, before I'd be live tourant, I was so nervous, I used to be terrified of public speaking. It's a real, it's really weird how you can kind of conquer a fear when you think you can't. But I was terrified of it, and he turned up on my doorstep before the night, before we left for the tour, and I had to sing on this tour, as well. And he'd made a bunch of guitar picks for me, and the guitar pick had a picture of me and my two boys on one side, and on the other side, it said, "At my worst, I'm good enough." Oh, my God, that is so beautiful. Yeah, and so I carried them and played that, used them for the whole tour. And I think it's probably worth saying that of all the things we've done on the show, I think one of the most, maybe the most common thing that people who I don't know, strangers have come up and said, is that they have used that mantra for themselves. That's so cool. Yeah, and that was about. That was about. So, it was really special. Yeah, really special. Yeah, and so relevant, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think we've got to eat someone we're not in those situations. So the courage mantra that you created, yeah, it's. Yeah, thanks for sharing those beautiful stuff. Yeah, thank you. The reason Ben's here today, and most recently here's published "Where the like gets in his new book," which he's written, it's available absolutely everywhere. But before I. We talk about that just, like I guess our kind of. Well, I guess my reflection on you, what I've written down here, as my own notes, if I read it out, it sounds very strange, but I will. Have you spent time with your Ben, often covered in sunscreen and rolling around in our speedos? I'm wearing Bordjord's shoes wearing shoes. And we will link to that video in the show, though. Yeah, just a couple of times. So, what I meant was, often I'll say Ben down the beach is a better way to discover, but Ben understands growth in a way that few do. As something that often arrives uninvited, ask everything of us, and if we're willing to listen, leaves us more human. He speaks from a place where values were tested, identity was reshaped, and meaning becoming non-negotiable. To work one-on-one with Ben is an invitation to live with intention, courage, and heart. We are so happy to have you back. Wow, thank you here. Yeah, I'm supposed to, not cry, I'm supposed to be the one who gets you guys emotional, but that's, yeah, thank you very much. It's a privilege for a lifetime to do what I do. And I'll say this up the front. I've said this on all episodes. What you have created, and I remember talking with you, if you before you actually created this program, right, and then we've created over the last six years, and I know you know that because you get the feedback, but it's just so important and so relevant right now. And writing the book, the book's literally called "Where the Light Kids In", which is to celebrate imperfections. The Wabi-Sabi Kinsugi, Japanese philosophy, and so forth. So, you know, it's an extension of what you guys have created. So, congratulations. Oh, you're welcome. Absolutely welcome. I mean, it's, I don't expect it credit in the book, but that's good enough. Well, man, right, one-earned. Okay, so the first question, which, because I know it's quite a long process right in the book, was the most important thing that you learned whilst writing it? Yeah, there's, I mean, there's nine perspectives in the book, and while every chapter has a problem to solve or a mindset to shift, they all share one theme in common, and I didn't realize this until I'd actually written the book, obviously. And that was learning to accept the things we can control, and accepting ourselves, and focusing back on the things we can control. Of that, the answer to answer your question, there was two things in particular that I learnt when I was writing the book. One was the interrelationship between self-acceptance and self-compassion. I didn't truly understand that relationship and how powerful they are together. Self-acceptance is obviously accepting your imperfections. Self-compassion has been kinder to yourself along the way to make the landing softer, because it's pretty jarring to accept your, you know, you know, accept your body image or accept your stage in life or so forth, where self-compassion can come along as a friend. So self-compassion makes the self-acceptance easier, is that kind of, yeah? Yeah, so if we developed a self-acceptance list, and you might write down the first thing that it's you might accept that you're imperfect, self-compassion then says, "That's okay. You're a work in progress, or you're also original." Self-compassion might say, "Have them got it figured out yet." Self-compassion says, "That's okay. You're on a journey. I'm just a stay curious, so playful." Self-acceptance might say, "I can't please everyone." The self-compassion would say, "That's okay. It's not your role in life to do so." So when you bring self-compassion into your self-acceptance list and bridge it, it's incredibly easier to accept the things that for many years we haven't been accepting, and therefore we've been suffering because we're comparing and judging ourselves accordingly. So that was a really big theme that it took me a while to kind of understand that too, but probably the biggest thing I learned writing the book, and this has had a profound impact, not just on my life, but on my clients. So because I was great thing was, I only had two clients that last year, which is Alex Carey, the cricketer, and Molly Picklem, the surfer. So unfortunately for them, they were guinea pigs. Fortunately for them, they had happy endings, in terms of what happened last year, but it was the interrelationship between confidence and belief. And what I learned was as human doings, we need confidence, but as human beings, we need belief. And most people come to me for confidence in their skills, but what they lack is belief in themselves. Now confidence is evidence-based, right? It's learned experience. You learn how to run, you learn how to hit a cricket ball, and so forth, and you get experience, and you trust your skills as a consequence, where belief is existential-based. Like you can believe in a God, even though you can't prove he or she exists, just like you can believe in your potential, even though you haven't got there yet. Now, what I found fascinating when I was kind of, obviously running the book and getting deep into this concept was, if confidence and belief had a punch up in the street, they have a fisty cuffs in the street. I often ask my clients, who do you think will win? And so often they say confidence. And I say, belief kicks confidence as ars in a street fight, because confidence is evidence-based. Confidence goes, have I been here before? Believe goes, I haven't been here before, but I believe in my potential, and I'll trust or figure it out. So in writing, well, I guess just in every aspect of your life, do you believe in yourself? Yeah, so there's two core beliefs, right? And what I'd love to, I mean, if we get time to, literally explain how we develop our beliefs and how we reframe our beliefs, especially the beliefs that have been holding us back pretty much. What do that now? This would be a good time to do that now. Totally. So our belief system gets shaped by our life story. Things happen to us in life, she happens to us in life, and we believe something, good or bad or right or wrong about ourselves or the world or our place in the world. Now, unfortunately with our reptilian brain and negative bias, what we believe often, especially about ourselves, is more negative than positive. So going through the process, there were two core beliefs, and I firmly believe this. I think I said that you and I discussed this over the summer. There's only two core beliefs, and as a parent, if you can instill them in your kids or as a human, you can instill them in yourselves. You kind of bulletproof in my opinion. Still would have developed skills for whatever it is you want to do in terms of your passions in life. The first belief is to believe that I'm worthy. No matter what, just as I am. Because if I do believe that, I'll trust that whether I win or lose today or whether I win or lose in life, it's so good, because I'm worthy, no matter what. You could just call that love or unconditional love. Of yourself. Yeah, yourself and others. The second belief is to believe in your potential. And then trust, if you keep chipping away, working away, things will take care of themselves. You could just call that courage. Some people call this attachment and authenticity. Indigenous tribes call this roots and wings. Yeah, foundational roots that I'm worthy of love, no matter what. And then the courage to spread my wings and just see how far I can fly in life. So identifying the beliefs that are holding you back, Josh, we did that with the courage mantra right before you public speaking event. So identifying the beliefs that are holding you back. But that's second belief in particular. And we will, I'll show the process that we take people through to reframe their beliefs. What I'm so excited about right now is, especially traveling around the world, one of the biggest fears in the world is the fear of uncertainty. Like what's going on with COVID and Trump and wars and so forth. There is so much uncertainty in the world right now. You think about it. If you can believe in your potential and trust that you'll figure it out, trust that you'll get there, that fundamentally changes your relationship with uncertainty. It changes your relationship with the future. Like we can't control the future obviously. And by definition, we can't control uncertainty. But we can control our relationship with uncertainty. And that changes everything. That creates the future as this next moment is one of excitement and possibility and opportunity and give me the ball. Let's see what we can do in this particular moment. So you get excited about the future rather than anxious about the future. And that like in my experience that that is really, I find that really easy to do when the stakes are low. But when the stakes are high and I'm really anxious, so I'm really worried and my belief is low. I find it really hard to put that into action. Yeah. And the thing is Ryan has thousands of thoughts every day. You don't know when one of these thoughts become a belief. What we do know though is once it becomes a belief, it's much, much harder to change. But how does it become a belief? Yeah, that's the thing. You start to think about it and think about it and think about it and think about it and think about it and you find evidence to support that this is true. I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not pretty enough. You'll find, if you look hard enough, you'll find it. But similarly, if you look for evidence to prove that you can do it or you are a work progress, you'll find that evidence as well. Sorry. You don't think I'm pretty enough? I think it's pretty enough. Well, I think Josh is pretty, but I have to concede that this dream. Sorry. I'm happy with that. So then the process is, okay, so how do you reframe your beliefs? So the back of the envelope that we talked about in the book is first and foremost, we can actually make this a session if you wanted to. Identify what's one belief that may be holding me back in my life at the moment, or in reaching my potential. So you identify a core belief that might be holding you back in some way, shape or form. And then you say, second part is, okay, and what's the consequences of holding onto this belief? What's the impact of having, holding onto this belief? I've had for a very, very long time, right? And it might be in terms of comparing myself from lacking energy, I'm unmotivated, or I'm not happy, so forth. So you identify the impact that this belief is happening. But in the same way that you used to believe in the tooth fairy, or you used to believe in Father Christmas or Santa Claus and no longer do. So apologies if you still do. Okay, excuse me. Okay, sorry. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Hyperthetically. You can also So reframe other core beliefs in particular about yourself. Right. So once you realize that, you know, you had the power to, you can't reframe what happened. You can't reframe history. You can alter your interpretation of it and identify a new belief of that, that moment happened, right? But you can reframe your relationship and interpretation of that. So what if that old belief is wrong? What if I can do this and what if it all works out? I wonder if it just, just while we're on this, I feel like in the abstract, this is kind of hard to get ahead of me. But I wonder if anyone has like a belief. Well, yeah, I was, maybe it's relevant. I've been wanting to say that I feel like for me personally, I've always felt worthy of love from my siblings and parents. I mean, really lucky to have an upbringing where I, yeah, I feel worthy of love and I think it's one of the reasons I've probably ended up with an incredible wife and life partner is because I had a very good sense of what love is and that I'm worthy of a good version of love and a healthy relationship. But then I've never had a sense of belief that I'm worthy of success or worthy of being successful. And I think this podcast is the most important thing in like there's my family and this podcast, like I just love it. I love it so much. And an idea popped into my head recently, a bit, a pernicious idea of like, what if this doesn't exist one day? And what if this stops for whatever reason? And I found myself getting very sad because I was thinking, well, Bridges incredible, she'll get, if the worst thing happens in this end, Bridges amazing. She will be like producer of the best show in the world of some variety. Hugh has built a business. His incredible, he'll do amazing things. Ryan is one of the funniest, most creative talented people ever. I don't know what I'll do. I could end up working at the local cafe. That would be good enough. That's nice. That's fun. But I don't, for whatever reason, I haven't been able to imbue this, the success of this show as evidence that I'm worthy of success. And that there's something still holding you back of like, no, this is just a fluke. You're on the co-tails of other people. It was great fun. And not that you didn't deserve to have this great experience. It's been wonderful. But it was a one-off, you know? Beautiful. So the core belief is I don't believe I'm worthy of success. Yeah. The consequences of holding onto this belief is every now and then this fear comes in of what if it's all failed? Yeah, yeah. It doesn't work out. Yeah. It's probably a constant fear of like, oh, could this all fall over at any point because it's a, because in my case, it's a fluke. Yeah. Yeah. And that affects your energy, motivation, creativity, just enjoyment right up the future. So if the goal is, okay, what if you're wrong? What if you can do this? What if this is going to be an incredible success? And what if it all works out? So flip the script. What would be an empowering reframe, Josh, of that original belief? Like what would be the opposite of that, I'll, OG belief. Well, it's hard to find, because I think for this to work, it has to be really authentic to me. Yeah. Because I find it hard to put any language in there that maybe actually to start with, start with, I believe, right? Because we're literally flipping the script now. Yeah. The old belief I wasn't worthy of success. What's the new belief? All right, it's a bit, I'll start low, but I believe that maybe if I've done it once, maybe I can do it again. And if you believe you've done it once and you can do it again, what will you have trust in moving forward? The other people I don't know with that. Or maybe that's a good, that maybe trust that I could find great people to succeed with. But if you've done it once, you can do it again and you keep chipping away, you keep working with great people, things will work out. And if you generally believe that and have trust in that, you start to find evidence. You'll look fit. You don't need evidence to reframe a belief. You do that's, confidence is evidence-based. But if you want to fast track that belief, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that you've done some pretty good things on this show for the last six years, right? And the live show as well. And you're developing and learning and growing. You start to find this evidence that go, yeah. I do believe in my potential and our potential and I do, therefore, trust that I've done it once I can do it before and I'll keep chipping away. And you start to focus on that new belief over time, right? You start to find little bits of evidence along the way that says, yeah, I mean, we'll work out, right? You start to get excited about the future rather than just what if this all goes away one day? You start to think about possibility and opportunity. You start to play with the future rather than fear the future. Yeah. And so you can start to do that. We did this in real time last year, both with Alex, but Molly Pickleham was probably my favorite athlete, journey of last year. She really likes Alex. I'm pretty good. Alex had a very good second. In terms of these principles, Molly's my favorite. I don't take favorites with athletes. They're all my favorites. I mean, to be fair, you did just name Molly's. Story. I'm okay, smart ass. So she struggled with acceptance, really, really badly. That's why this podcast running perfect is literally about accepting imperfections, but she just struggled with the concept of acceptance, which most people do, by the way. It's not an easy kind of it's quite a nebulous concept to get your head around. So she found another way in and I'd never worked with a client who developed this, but she developed a just admitted list, not a just do at least, a just admitted list. Because the most successful people in life have an appetite for the truth by saying, what am I in denial of? So what do you in denial of Molly and writer? The first thing she wrote down in her just admitted list was that she was scared. Oh, really beautiful. The second thing she wrote down in her just admitted is she wasn't admitting that she wanted to win a World title. And she could believe she was good enough to win a World title. So that was the first step. And then she could transfer all that list into her acceptance list. She started to understand the power of acceptance. And then she did really well for the first four or five events of the year. The second step once you develop acceptance is confidence in her skills and her coaches and her new boards and so forth. So because there was a lot of changes going on in her last year. So she developed confidence in her skills. But we noticed something halfway through the year that whenever she got to a quarter final or you know, 75 she'd just capitulate or her style of surfing changed dramatically. And looked at it and go, this isn't a confidence issue. This is a belief issue. So the next kind of session with Molly after the Australian leg, I think there was five events left on the World Tour. And she was doing pretty well, right? But not blowing that everyone out of the water at this stage. Anyway, in a very, very emotional session, she was able to identify the two core beliefs holding her back, which were those two core beliefs that she thought she had to win a World title in order to be worthy of love. This is very common for athletes. And the second one is she didn't believe in her potential. So in the last minute or two of her heat, she just kind of tightened up rather than lighten up and she'd either fall off her surfboard or just make the wrong decision. Once she was able to reframe those two core beliefs, she then went back into the water. She made the final of all five events. She won three of them and then she's just become Australia's latest world champion surfer. And in her victory speech, she said she did two things. She honored her beliefs and new beliefs. And she had trust in the unknown. And that's for me, probably the most profound way of explaining the combination if you can get those two beliefs, right? So, and by the way, in terms of one belief around love and one's about courage to kind of go out there and realize your potential, in my opinion, love trumps courage. Because if you don't believe you're worthy of love. Oh, so I heard I love trumps courage. No, no, that's really love. Yeah, exactly. Love trumps courage. Yes. Because if you don't believe you're worthy of love, you're going to go searching for it in all the wrong places to the detriment of living a life true to you and having the courage just to be you, which is authenticity, right? So, yeah, that foundational belief, in my opinion, is the most important to start with. But the second one is still really important because as you said, Josh, you might believe that you're worthy of love, but you're not believing in, you don't believe you're worthy of success. So identifying that second belief, and by the way, I think that's the belief that holds most of us back from kind of realizing our potential. Yeah. Can I ask just to follow up on the role of other people in reframing your beliefs? Because I think, Tim, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this because it feels like it could be dangerous. But also, I feel in my case, one of the main things that allowed me to overcome my fear of public speaking and do a live show was the belief that the other people in this room and Georgian Bella as well, but back in the day when we were doing the first live show, that really that Ryan, Hugh and Bridge had in me that I could do it. Yeah. And I felt like I needed their belief to get me to a point where I believed it myself. Is there a healthy role for other people in belief or can it be a dangerous slippery path? Well, if you're looking for evidence, that could be qualitative evidence that you've got incredible feedback from past episodes. And that can reinforce that this new belief that you've got that you do believe in your potential is true. Mm-hmm. Conversely, if you're getting negative feedback, and I think when Hugh and I very first met like many, many years ago, he just got negative feedback from someone and therefore he was really, it can really shake us up. So be careful about who you listen to. That's what's so important to surround yourself with good people who want to see you go on a journey because there's a lot of negative people out there as well that can kind of sabotage your belief system if you listen to it. So be very cautious, be very careful if you're like and consider it in terms of what information you choose in to believe as part of yourself. But if it comes from a place of love or courage in most cases, you definitely want to surround yourself with those people. Interesting. The other two things I'd love. So we also want to talk about expectation today. We also want to talk about play because there's such key components too. Apple here, it's dangerous word, expectations. You definitely read the first page. Ryan is officially repaid. I'm going to say one of the book. Be careful. Be very careful. But we also have this wonderful Patreon audience who had questions that they wanted to ask as well. So we have some questions for them. Knowing that we want to talk about expectation and I'll be very careful that play and then some questions from the audience. So can we talk about expectation now? Because I know we're such a key part of this book for you. Yeah, totally. I deliberately made chapter one of the book, the dreaded e-word as Ryan, so I can't be mentioned. The dreaded e-word is expectations. Because I thought if a teenager doesn't read and picks up my book, what would be one theme that could possibly change their life or save their life? And for me, it's reframing their definition of what is expected of them in life. And more importantly, what isn't expected of them in life. And I used to say it's sabotaging our performances, which it is, but it's also sabotaging humans in terms of the pressure we put on ourselves today in terms of how we define expectations of sabotaging humans. Yeah. It's how we define expectations. When you and I were growing up, Ryan, expectations used to mean something we can control 100 percent, right? Because I can want the sun to come up tomorrow, but I can't guarantee it. There's no promises, so there's no expectations. And today, because we're obsessed with opinions of others or we're obsessed with greed and growth and so forth, our definition today is something we can't control, but we still expect it, which is also the definition of pressure. So our definition of expectations is also a definition of pressure, which is why whenever you watch the tennis or the cricket or any reality TV show, you'll always hear those two words mentioned in the same sentence. There's so much pressure, there's so much expectations. So the quickest way to reframe expectations is to reframe how we define it as something we can control 100 percent. The goal is to win the expectation is to focus on the things we can control. As we mentioned in the last episode, it's now the number one deathbed regret. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to me and to be me rather than the expectations of others. But so, even on our deathbed, we're still getting distracted by this. And it's so damaging, right? Because we think the game is winning. So we get scores at school, getting the best grades at university, we get a job, but we still don't feel like we're enough. We still feel like we have to live up to the expectations of others. Right? And I'm not hanging around till I'm 65 to continue to feel this way. And as it fair to say as well, that those expectations are rarely actually stated. They're kind of assumed expectations. Correct. And there's two in particular, in my opinion, sabotaging the whole world. One is the expectation that we have to please others or prove ourselves to others or be validated by society or live up to someone else's expectations, which causes emotional pressure. God, I've got a please right. I've got a please here. I've got a please judge. And the second one is the expectations of outcome, the future, which we can't control. That causes outcome pressure. So identifying our form of interference, if you like, is always associated between those two. So, okay, so how do we flip the script? Right? Well, what about our definition of expectations now is only things that I can control, for myself and only for me. Because believing I have to live up to someone else's expectations is not my life to ask. That's not my role in life. I can't control it anyway, to your point. But what I think about myself, what kind of human do I want to be, what my values are, what my goals are, what my dreams are. Yeah, I can control those. I can't control whether I get there or not, but I can control what they are. So we become more self-determined, not socially determined. Right? So when you start to become self-determined, you determine what your taste buds like or what makes you laugh. What makes you cry or what you stand up for or stand for, you start to stay in your lane. Because that's our only role in life. We still love others and are connected to others. But we can't believe our role in life is to live up to someone else's expectations. And it's so damaging. And last year I was at working, doing some work with the San Antonio Spurs and BA-Tune. And I was working with their coaches. And we did this whole session on how to remove pressure, you know, their free throw line by focusing on the things they could control and redefining expectations. And the next day I spent some time with the University of Texas, a health division, and they had this joint venture. And I was talking to their head of psychiatry and I said, okay, what's going on? What are the big issues for? And she said Ben, the amount of kids in colleges in America now that are dropping out of college in the first semester and it's costing us billions. And I said, what's the recalls? And she said, pressure. And you know, whenever you've got a hammer and everything looks like a nail, when I hear the word pressure, I kind of intuitively know what's going on. And I said obviously emotional pressure or outcome pressure. And she said both. And then she said something quite alarming and I can't believe she said it second not first. She said, also Ben, the amount of kids that are self-harming in colleges in America today because of this pressure. Right. And it frustrates me so much because we are putting pressure on ourselves because we're focusing on the wrong expectations. But it's, as I said, it's not a teenager's role in life to please someone else. Live up to their expectations. You still want to be a good human for you. And if that impacts others, that's fantastic. But I think our confusion today and it's causing so much pressure, especially on teenagers. And so for the, I get asked all the time, you know, is it media? Is it social media that's causing this? And I said it is, but it's also consumerism and materialism. But it starts in the education system, right? In grade three in most countries around the world, that's when grading gets introduced. When kids go from intrinsically playing with shapes and playing with numbers, suddenly extrinsic, because there's grades. And suddenly my parents are interested in my grades. And suddenly I'm not in that class. I'm in that class. And a nine year old boy or girl, they're too young at that age because from that moment on, they start to believe that they have to do something or achieve something, right, in order to be someone. And that just continues on through their whole life. And that's for me, that's one of the most damaging things. But that's not their expectation in life to get grades to please their parents, all right? Their expectations in life is to be the best version of themselves. And if they can learn that at a much younger age, we stop comparing ourselves and judging ourselves and putting all this pressure on ourselves as well. Something that I'm strolling with a little bit as a parent and with love, some advice on I think. And I think this must be a common thing. But when your child shows an interest and particular talent, I think I think interest probably comes with a foretalent or, but when they show an interest and talent at something and they're really good at it and you see them light up and you're so proud of them for giving it a go and getting better and seeing this journey of growth and development on something. I find it very hard as a parent to know it because I don't want to put that pressure of expectation on them that they need to, that they need to do this to please me. But I also want to show them how excited I am for their journey and their success and foster a flame for them with what they're doing because I think having a hobby or being it doesn't, you don't have to be amazing, but having a hobby and caring about something is a really important thing. How do you guide a parent to make sure that they're getting that fine, it feels like dancing on a nice edge and getting that right with their child? Yeah, in really simple terms, reward effort, not outcome. Reward the intrinsic motivations, not the extrinsic motivations of outcome and achievement. And what I mean by that is intrinsic motivations is well done when you got up and got going again when you fell over in that race, right? Because that's perseverance, right? Well done when you had to problem solve that tricky situation, right? That's problem solving that's play. Well done when you had to help your teammate who had no idea what she was doing on the Netball court, right? That's that's purpose, that's love, right? You're rewarding the intrinsic motivations which your son or daughter can control. You can't control whether they win a game or how many goals they score when they're 18 or the B team. If you start to reward that and you're right, it's a fine line because we love our kids, so we love to see them have success. Right. But part of the journey is get them to redefine success from an intrinsic scorecard, not an external scoreboard. It's just so tricky because it's like we have all been brought up under the model of like great shot if it went in. Correct. And if it misses, it's like, bad luck. Correct. Correct. we are having to completely shift our perspective and shift the way that we then talk to kids or other people. It reminds me a lot of, and I know you've read the courage to be disliked, I know, and it reminds me a lot of one of the hardest concepts to get my head around in that book, which is like all based on Alfred Adler's stuff. - Yeah, Adler, yeah. His whole thing is like never praise, never rebuke, which is so against the way that we've all lived our life. But I think it's sort of connected to this a little bit. - Yeah, it is. I disagree slightly. You can praise, but you praise the right things. - Yeah, right. - So getting back to pointing, getting back to the question, you've heard me say this before, the six most powerful words of parent-concided kids is I love to watch you play, because it's unconditional. It's not conditional upon whether they're not lost or they scored a goal or in the 18-month-of-beat-team. The three most powerful words that a parent-concided their kids is, I often ask people this question, "Okay, what's the three most powerful words you can say?" And they often say, "I love you," or "You are an orphan," I say, "No." - You better win. - Exactly. We need to have a separate conversation. The three most powerful words you can say to your kids are, "No matter what, whatever you want to do with your life, I'm going to support you, no matter what." I've got your back, no matter what. It's like it's unconditional. It's not conditional. So you help them redefine success and redefine what a win is. So unfortunately, most of us live our life. Hugh Uric, you taught me this many, many years ago, that when Nens Syndrome, when I get that promotion, then I'll be successful. When I get that goal, when I get in the 18, then my parents will love me. It creates this cortisol, because this gap mentality, because I'm here, but I want to be there in the future to make my parents happy. It creates so much pressure. You'll never get there anyway, because you get there and you think, "I still don't feel enough," because you're chasing the wrong version of love. "God, now I've got to do it again. I've got to do it again." Rinse and repeat. And you never feel enough. There's such a better way to teach our kids how to live and how to push themselves to realize their potential. That's measured backwards from where you first started. So if you gave your son a piece of paper and said, "Right, I write down all the little wins and all the successes and gains you've had from when you first started to where you are now." They wrote all these incredible little things have had along the way. And then you said to them, "How do you feel?" When you look at that list, incredible list, right? They'll often say one of five words. They see they say they feel successful or grateful. They feel happy. They feel confident. And they feel content. Now they're not done yet. They've got all these goals and dreams they want to chase down. But it means everything they go after from this moment on is a want, not a need. If I need to get this goal, if I need to get this score in order to be validated, right? That's going to create pressure straight away. And the way you do that is literally create a success list that's based on the present moment and intrinsic, not extrinsic. So rather than saying, "I know I'll be successful when and put yourself into that gap mentality." You say, "I know I'm being successful when." So if you've got your kids to write down that list, "I know I'm being successful when." They'll probably write down when I train really hard and I do something new for the first time. I probably solve and I finally get the goal. So they start to learn. They're focusing on these intrinsic motivations. If you can continue down that list, "I know I'm being successful for me when I get eight hours sleep or I have a belly laugh with friends or I get out of my comfort zone or I learn something new or I see a beautiful sunrise or I get every green light on the way to work." I have a favorite coffee with my favorite barista. You're starting to redefine success for you and only you. You're determining success for you. It's not determined by what I think my parents want or my coach wants or my teacher wants. I'm determining success for me because the definition of success is the alignment between what you truly value and how you live. That's what success is. It's not predicated on someone else's definition of success for you. So align it to what you truly value. And that could be as simple as having a laugh with friends. Then you redefine what a win is as well. What I mean by that is identify three wins that you had today at school or in training and so forth. Three wins that you'd like to have tomorrow. If you do that exercise, write down the neuroscience and this is crazy. First and foremost, you go to bed grateful for those three wins that you had, that your negative brain doesn't want you to remember. But secondarily, overnight while you're sleeping, your brain is problem solving those three wins that you'd like to have tomorrow. Again, a win might be as simple as getting out of my comfort zone or training really hard. Now if you do that for seven days, that's 21 wins that your negative brain didn't want you to remember. But more importantly, you're redefining success into the present moment. So you don't have to wait to be happy or successful in the future. You can be happy and successful and content right now just by how you redefine and the language that you mentioned Josh. The parents is so important because you said it's such a fine line between well done, you got a goal or well done, you got an A or well done for training really hard for that exam or for that game. Well done when you're fell down, you keep going. This is what we call intrinsic motivations and kids can control those. They can't control the extrinsic. I don't know what their parents expect of them and so forth, but they can control those. It's great. And I think it's such an important message because I think culturally it's the opposite. There are so many examples for kids, culturally of extrinsic being the only value from sport to Instagram. It's everywhere as we know. And it's such an important message because I think kids sometimes the parent, I think you feel like you're fighting against if you're doing your best, but you're fighting against so much pressure that is pushing in the other direction. So many examples for kids to grab onto. So that's brilliant. It's all entirely. The thing that I've, you know, I'm in my early 30s now. It's not that funny, but I'm 44. And so my whole life I have been, my life has been dictated. Like so many, it was dictated by what other people, like these expectations and what, you know, trying to whether it's like making something so other people will think that I'm great or essentially like most things I do is for the approval of others, the validation of others. And over the, actually over the summer break, I was reading, rereading the the sequel to Coach, it'd be just like which is the coach to be happy. And it's kind of a refresh of the first one, but also it's some new stuff. But one of the things that I kind of hit me like a bolt of lightning was that I, and it's sort of obvious to say, but I kind of, it led to me kind of having like a new year's resolution, which is like, I am done with doing anything for other people. I am seeking my own approval on everything I do now. So listening to what you just said, and you are still on a journey to identify some beliefs that are holding you back from believing that you are worthy, unconditionally, no matter what, just as you are. So you don't have to prove anything to anyone else. That's not your responsibility in life. If I said to you, what's my role, what's your role in life? I don't think you'd say to please others or prove others, right? Be the best version of you. If it's got purpose attached to it and potential attached to it, it's going to help the world, right? It's going to help whether it's your art show or whether it's your comedy or whether it's the imperfect, you combine play, purpose and potential, right? As the three, by the way, these are the three most important intrinsic motivations for humans. And it's the top three reasons anyone goes to work. So yeah, for getting back to your very first question in terms of parents, what does play look like today? Just asking yourself that question, or am I in the play state or am I in the fear state? Because the opposite of play isn't work, the opposite of play is fear, right? And I really wanted to stare parallel on the front cover of the book. But she was the first person who, in my opinion, totally understood the relationship between play and love. There's a school of thought in psychology, there's only two emotions, love and fear. And every other emotion is a derivative of one of those two, so excitement and passion and confidence is love and anxiety stress worries fear. But it's the same with play. So the opposite of play isn't work, the opposite of play is fear. And suddenly realize that, okay, if the opposite of love is fear, and the opposite of play is fear, then maybe play and love related. And when I tried to define it, you couldn't, right? You can't find a single definition of love because it means something different to everyone. And you can't find a single definition of play because it means something different to everyone. And then I had this wall, maybe, just maybe, love is the noun and play is the verb. Love is the intention and play is the action. And maybe the Beatles are only half right. Maybe as human beings, all we need is love. But as human doings, all we need is play. So play mobilizes love. Well, so play is just the key to it all, really, it needs a fundamental rebrand because as humans, where, you know, it's homo sapiens, we're naturally designed to play. I'd buy nature. But at the moment, we're play deprived, which is a bit like being sleep deprived. And when we're play deprived, our mood darkens. And I've never seen so much fear in the world today, especially in the workforce and in schools and so forth, they don't call it fear, they call it pressure. Feeling so much pressure, so much pressure, right? So, and in my opinion, it's is because we're here. when we're extrinsically motivated and focus on things we can't control, that emotional pressure, that outcome pressure crads that fear. But getting back to being intrinsically motivated gets us back into the play state. So what a play looks like in any moment of the day changes. That's why play is so beautiful manifestation of love, whether you're making art, making jokes, making movies, making love. If we're in the play state, we're not in the fear state. So when I'm working with athletes, I'll always ask them, okay, or the mantras that they can ask themselves in any time, rather than berating themselves, right? Am I in the play state or am I in the fear state? The second question is, what does play look like for me here? Sometimes it looks like curiosity, quick as way to get into play, having fun. Sometimes it's really hard work and problem solving. Sometimes it's experimentation, sometimes it's imagination and so forth. But as long as we are in the play state, however we define it in whatever is required in that moment, in my opinion, we're closer to love than we realize. It's a quirky topic to talk to, especially alpha males about this. But the men of how light bulbs go on when people realize, I'm not in the fear state, I'm back in the play state and then I'm more authentic when I'm in that state. God yeah, absolutely. That's so well explained. I can't help but look at everything through the lens of parenting right now. That's kind of the way I'm thinking of it and thinking about my kids in play. But I do want to get to the audience questions. Wonderful Patreon audience. From a little more imperfect, our subscriber show here. Yeah, we put the call out to them and just said, look, what do you want to know from Ben Kroh? We have got some fantastic questions. What's your real first name? Come with us. This is from Annie. Annie says, what advice do you give to young ones when figuring out what they want to do as a career? In particular, what kind of mindset they should adopt? And it says in brackets here, from someone who thought they had a clear career path, but now that dream no longer appeals to them. That's a very specific question to Annie, but I feel like for a lot of people, because we had someone jump on the back of that straightaway and say, replying to Annie's question, how do you support your child going through the above? Yeah, totally. When I'm talking to teenagers about their careers, I tell them to focus on two things only. What am I excited about? What am I passionate about? And what am I good at? Or what do I think I'm going to be good at? Right? And it's a life journey. The curiosity, what's the answer to those two questions? Right? You're not going to figure that out at the age of 18. I'm 58 and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up, right? So staying curious to what is it that I could be best in market at and really good at from a capability point of view? And what is it that I'm passionate about? Right? The third question is, okay, how do I make a dollar from the answer to those two questions? Now you don't have to make a dollar. It could become a hobby. Right? You're running, for instance. You're passionate about it and you're good at it. Right? If you're a professional, you got paid for it, well, then you've got the holy grail right. And Ica guy, the Japanese framework for finding purpose is the combination of those three things. The fourth world in Ica guy is the world needs it. So you know that question you asked me earlier about does just matter to me or matters to the world? Well, it's great that it matters to you, but it's even better if there's has an impact, right? A legacy on the planet as well. But I'd say here, it's much about finding out what you don't like to do or what you're not good at along that journey. Don't have it all figured out. But the most important place state for that to answer that question is curiosity. I'd stay curious. Maybe I'll have a crack at that. Maybe I'll have a good go at that. Maybe I'll be good at that. Maybe I like it. Maybe I won't. Right? You don't have to have it figured out. So it's more a process of elimination of working out what I don't like or what I'm not good at along the way. Right? If you get all three, then that's brilliant. But you might not, you might find purpose in other aspects away from your work. You might find it in your family. You might not get that intrinsic benefit of finding real meaning from a work. But I might get it in my relationships and being part of a community and so forth. You just literally go on that journey. Stay in that place state is, yeah, what will excite me? Oh, let me up. And what are my good at? And continue just to have the curiosity to kind of tease that out. Might take a lifetime. And if it doesn't work out, just because it doesn't work out, let's say you start a restaurant. And you do it for a few years and you don't want to do anymore. Society might call you a failed restaurant tour. Well, you write a few books and you don't want to be an author anymore. You're not a failed author. Ashbody's not a failure because she retired at 25 years old. She has had other goals and dreams. She wanted to chase down right and started a family and started a foundation. So staying true to you in terms of answering those questions would be, yeah, for me, the first way to stay in your lane. Because that is often like as a teenager, sort of bringing in the expectations again. It's like it's the biggest obstacle in people. You can figure all those things out, figure out what do I get excited about? What am I good at? But as a teenager, it's really, really hard to get past the pressure of like, well, I'm really excited about pottery and I'm pretty good at it. But I can't, that can't be my career. Because you go to the careers council or your parents and they're like, well, these are the courses that you could get into and these are the good, safe careers. It takes so much, I think, well, probably great parenting, but also self assuridness from the teenager to be like, I know it's a little bit unconventional. But I'm going to follow my heart and I'm going to do the pottery. Even though there's no clear path to like quote, unquote success. The expectation that they assume is there for what's that, the ability to kind of follow the dream and follow the excitement. Yep. And that's the greatest tragedy in my opinion is we're following someone else's expectations. We've only got one life. Let's do what we think we value and what impact we'd love to have and just stay in our lane. Like you do you boo and I'll do me as my wife says or my yoga teacher says stay on your mat. Not physically, like metaphorically. Stay on your mat. Stop, don't compare your downward facing dog to someone else's or I'd then stay on your mat. Why do you keep getting off your mat? Just go back to your mat. Exactly. And it's the distraction today. And the reason, by the way, the reason we're so distracted with these expectations is because well, getting back to attachment through, we crave attachment to the tribe and our greatest fear is rejection from the tribe. But we've gone too far to care more about what you think of me, what I think you expect of me rather than what I think of me and what the expectations I have for me. So we need to create a boundary for ourselves except that we can't please other people or live up to anyone else's expectations, but also accept that it's not our role in life to do that. Our role is to be the best version we can be for us. Now that ends up becoming a pottery teacher or selling pottery or a pottery expert, but I'd say to that question, stay in the play state. Experiment. What else could you do with pottery? What else could you do with craft? Stay curious, experiment. Try new things and have fun with it. It might morph itself into something else. So if this exercise was about getting you guys in the play state, I'd be saying, I'd tell me what you love to do when you're a kid. What did you just play around with? There's a very good chance that everything that you three were doing when you were younger has formed what you're doing today. Our play history forms how we show up as adults. So if you were playing with, you know, playing hospitals and doctors and nurses, right, very good chance you weren't playing. Good chance you were preparing, right, for a future career as a doctor or nurse or you're playing with Lego. The very good chance you became a consultant or an engineer and so forth. So it's fascinating when we trace back our play histories and think about that as relates to how we show up today as adults. Because we often just don't know, you know, it's like we, it's like we, we worry the told how, how this dream will end or it's like where, where someone thinks it will go and all we assume that like, I can't really do that because what's it really going to lead to? What's even the point of following it? But the thing that I've found time and time again is we have no idea where this thing will lead. Yeah. Even though if it the start, it kind of seems innocuous and maybe even pointless from like a career point of view or a future point of view. It's like, it's like often we don't know what opportunities or relationships or journeys are going to come from things that you're just drawn to naturally. Luke McGregor, who is a stand up comedian, his story is, is just great and so perfect for this word. So he, he was working in finance, I think, in a job that he just really, really didn't like and he's not like a gregarious guy around the office. But I think he probably recognized that he was funny and he wanted to do comedy. He always wanted to do it, but he didn't necessarily know the pathway. He certainly wasn't from an environment where that was not to speak for. I'm not necessarily not encouraged, but he probably just didn't have a lot of modeling around him that he could see a pathway to that. But then one day he was like, I'm going to try, I'm just going to try it. And he just started doing like open mics more and more and he was never done stand up before. So he started doing it more and more. He's like, I'm pretty good at it. I'm pretty good at it until eventually he was earning enough money that he could quit his job. And he's like, obviously now a very successful comedian actor, writer. And it's just like, I just love it when people do that because There's no way he would have thought. Uh. when he went on a Tuesday night, when he goes to this comedy club, there's no way he would have thought this is going to lead to me getting making several of my own TV shows. He wouldn't have thought that he'd just followed his time. - And the silence behind that, I'd say, he was in the play state, he was curious, he was creating, experimenting, keep going. He was a sense of purpose, like it meant something to him, it really mattered whether it was making other people laugh or seeing if he was good at it. But he was also in a sense of potential, learning and growing, and mastering the craft, and getting out of your comfort zone. And the order of vision is really important. The reason plays the number one motivation anyone in the world goes to work is it fundamentally affects the work itself. Do you think about you through it with the imperfect? Everything you do is play. Everything, so it's fundamental to the outcome of the product that you create. And that could be in customer service or whatever it is. The reason purpose is number two, because it's one step removed. The play that you do here has a purpose. What you're doing has a reason, and that reason really matters to you in the world. Potential is two steps removed. It's a means to an end, that learning and growing, and getting a comfort zone to realize your potential. So my son might want to become a lawyer, and he's currently working as a barista. But he can still be motivated by potential, the possibility of continually going and getting a comfort zone to eventually become a lawyer. So identifying how you can tap into those intrinsic motivations, as a barrier, a protection from expectations of others, and money and fame and status and recognition, and all these things that sabotage us along our heroes journey. For me, it's just so profound, and we can control them as well. We'll define them differently to everyone else, but it's not our role to compare ourselves to someone else's journey anyway. So we spoke about leadership before. A fantastic question here from Rhys on the very topic. So as a leader who's quite avoidant in conflict, this impacts the team at times when tough decisions/conversations need to be had with team members. Speaking what I should be saying to these team members, as their manager gets watered down, with not wanting to upset people and want to keep the peace, any tips to overcome/approach leadership as someone who is anxious at times? Yeah, we confuse conflict with disagreement. You actually want disagreement. That's where innovation comes from. The intersection point of different opinions coming together. But unfortunately, we confuse that with conflict, and as humans with conflict avoiders, we go into that vital flight kind of stage. So the first thing I'd say is learn the art of a crucial conversation. A crucial conversation is when the stakes are high, emotions are strong, and opinions differ. Right, what happens next determines whether it's a good conversation, or typically it's a really bad conversation, because we go that vital flight or free-state, silence or violence. But there is a really simple approach to having a crucial conversation. And I think you can Google elements of this. It's called SBI. SBI stands for situation, behavior, and impact. And then you throw in a generous assumption. I love generous assumptions. I'm obsessed by generous assumptions, because it creates empathy and compassion and removes conflict. So as an example, situation might have been yesterday in the meeting. I'll use you as an example here. Yesterday's meeting, which is the situation, behavior is when you laughed at my idea. Impact made me feel like shit. Generous assumption. I know it wasn't your intention. I know you're a good person. I know the real here. But that's how you made me feel. As soon as you add that generous assumption, the person goes, "Okay, I'm not under attack here." Because he knows the real me. But I still behaved in a way. So you don't want to lose the behavior, but you don't want to kill the relationship. And then the person, "Oh, I'm so sorry, man. I didn't realize I wasn't laughing at your idea. I was laughing at how you spoke or I was laughing at something else." So it encourages an understanding and a pool of meaning. So if we can write it out, when I do this with leaders, by the way, we all struggle with conflict by nature, because we want to be part of the tribe and we fear rejection. But you don't want to have an organization where you don't have a disagreement. If you all agree, then what you're going to do for the live show, right? You've got this institutionalized group thing. There's going to be no disruption in innovation. I think Seinfeld talks about how they write their episodes. Jason Sedeckis with Ted Lasso, they add on. You don't own your own ideas. So there's no ego attached with whatever idea I come up with. But the generous assumptions are so powerful. And generous assumptions, because what happens is we judge ourselves on our intentions, but we judge everyone else on their behaviors. And we don't know what their intentions are. So our reptilian brain with the negative bias feels in the blank. And obviously it's more negative. Josh, why wasn't I copied on that email? Why didn't you invite me to that meeting? But if you simply said to yourself, what's the most generous assumption I can make by why you did that? Or why Joshua Ryan did that? Suddenly, empathy and compassion is filling the room. And I'm filling the relationship. And shame that not good enough for your rejection can't exist when empathy and compassion are in the relationship. And all you got to do is practice generous assumptions. I was driving here and someone cut me off on traffic. And I had to slam on the brakes. He didn't put his indicator on. My first impression, I want to kill you, you asshole. But if I simply said to myself, what's the most generous assumption I can make by why that person did that? I'll probably say he was racing to the hospital. He's well, I've spent to have a baby. He's sung, been hit by a car or he's left the oven on and home. Now in one second, I flipped from the cortisol, I'd conflict, conflict, conflict. And put empathy and compassion in. And all I did was say, what's the most generous assumption I can make? As Ted Lacer would say, I love from a dead for who he was and I forgive him for who he was. But just asking yourself, generous assumptions are a superpower inside families, inside organizational cultures. But most importantly, they are beautiful to kind of handle conflict as well. Yeah, I had the exact thing last night as a parent. I'm told it was just, for me, I've been melt down before bed and it was going for ages. And it was the exact thing of like, what's the, I was so frustrated. It was such a long day and was exhausted and, hadn't had much sleep tonight before. But I literally did that thing of like, what's the, and I, it actually helped me work out what was going on as well. Like it was a generous assumption, but it was also true, like she's starting school in three days time. And that is such a huge thing. And it'd be so much anxiety underlying there for her. And it just straight her up, like, I, of course, like, you absolutely, you don't need to get all this out of your system. And I'm safe person to do it to. And I'm so privileged that you feel comfortable doing this in front of me because this is you trying to get this nervous, anxious energy out. And I'm here, like I know, holder for like an hour until she fell asleep and it was great. The fact that she felt safe to do that with you. And that's a privilege that, you know, as opposed to, why is this happening or are you angry? That empathy and understanding actually makes the relationship stronger. Yeah, it's incredible. One thing that may not seem obvious to anyone else, maybe it was just happening my head that one, I think I would need to be careful with generous assumptions that I don't end up gaslighting myself. And starting to say, what do you mean by that? To take the example that you used before, someone laughing at you and you felt offended by it, I would worry that if I gave them the generous assumption that I would sort of say to myself, nah, you shouldn't have been upset about that. And start to gaslight myself that the behaviour that they did was actually okay, when sometimes the behaviour might not have been okay. Yeah, like if they're laughing at me in that situation. It's like a two-genera assumption. Yeah, it's like you've taken the, I can see myself taking the generous assumption too far to a point where I'm, yeah, questioning myself, did something actually happen there that was maybe up, maybe they were all, everyone else is in the right. And I was the one in the wrong because I took it too personally. Almost to the extent we were excusing bad behaviour. Yeah, exactly. That's really important point that generous assumptions like acceptance, right, it's not putting up with mediocrity. It doesn't mean accepting or placating bad behaviour. But all it means in this moment, things cannot be other than how they are. And I'm not going to apply a generous assumption rather than a negative one. You still got then the ability to ask a question, right, what are you laughing at? It just means that in the first moment, you don't go into fight or flight stage. Yeah, you're not getting distracted by someone else's. And it's literally passed on, you know, one person can say they're laughing with me, a generous assumption, and someone else can say they're laughing at me, negative assumption. And who's right? Yeah, so all you do, you're choosing a generous assumption. But then again, if their behaviour you don't think is correct in alignment with your values, you see what agency to kind of be curious or ask a question to understand what the context was was for them, right? So you're not putting up with bad behaviour or accepting, you know, mediocrity or placating bad behaviour. It's just in the moment, you're not using that as interference, right, for where you want to go. And it's dependent on the levels of sensitivity passed on through your genes. So you might be more sensitive than you, right, or vice versa. You might have thought they're laughing with him, and you might have thought they're laughing at him. So he might intuitively, by having lower levels of sensitivity, not taking an offense, where you might have taken offense. You've both got agency though. Can I do something about it, take action, right? You've still got agency to be curious and investigate to see, okay, am I safe in this environment or do I not trust this person's intention or behaviour? So you can still move forward. It's just in that first moment, generous assumptions creates a boundary for yourself. And it almost feels like the generous assumption moves it from, which is sort of what you said, but from conflict to disagreement. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's still confusion in you. You're still curious about why they're laughing. And you want to get to the bottom of that to feel that you're safe, and they're part of your tribe. Yeah. And that should be your role as well so that you feel safe and enjoying the relationship and so forth. So it's not just accepting someone's baby havia and this is my lot in life. You've still got a role. You still want to feel connected and a sense of belonging as well. Yeah, absolutely. That's beautiful. The question from Sonja, which also could be a question from me, I often feel caught between craving a simple, meaningful life and the drive to keep striving and expanding. How do you think about holding both contentment and self-actualization? All right. That's a beautiful question. Yeah. My favorite mantra here is, "I am enough no matter what, but I'm not done yet." Okay. Right answer. Yeah. So it basically means, "I am enough means I'm content. I'm content in who I am as a human being. I'm not content with the goals and dreams that I want to chase down in my life and I'm not content with the impact that I can possibly have on someone else's life, whether I'm a parent or a friend or so forth. You'll never be content. There's no finish line to your purpose, right? Again, if your purpose driven, there's no finish line. You'll never get there, right? You'll always be. But if it's doing from the right reason, you're doing the right thing for the right reason in the right way, that's fine. But if you're doing it in order to feel content, in order to feel worthy of love or so forth, you'll never get there." So intentionality is everything to that question. I love that so much. I just want to follow up with this question from John, because it's along the same lines. So I'm so interested in your answer to this. How do you balance being warm, open and emotionally available without slipping into people pleasing or overgiving? Yeah. Again, I'd say doing it for the right reasons. If you're doing it because you are the pleaser, I think I need to please you, you, in order for me to feel that I belong. So the goal is I feel like I belong already. I want to be kind to you, not nice to you. I'm being nice because I'm fabricating it. So I think so. You're like me as opposed to no. Generally, on my to be least, Ben Crowe wants to be kind. It's a value. It's important to me. So I'll come in from that intention. It's not so that you think I'm a good person. It's because that's living a life true to me and having the courage to be me and that might be kind. So, again, intentionality really is it really important in terms of how you think. If you believe you're worthy of love just as you are, no matter what, and it's not about me anyway, I've kind of found myself. And I can lose ego and fear. It's not about me. And I can find someone else. We're not islands on this planet. We're here to play, to serve, to love, to care, to help, to do something of substance while we've got this limited time on this planet. Part of that is in the last chapter of the book, I spoke about social Darwinism. Everyone thought his whole theory was survival of the strongest, but we got it wrong. It was survival of the kindest. And the evidence suggests that the communities that are the most kind work together in tribes, and they continually adapt. That's a big problem for the world right now. Totally. Totally. But if we're at each other's throats, that's how species fall out. And so, yeah, getting back to kindness, it's intrinsic and all of us. This has been so amazing today. Thank you so much. I know you've had a lot on today. I guess the final question from me, and it's one that I've never planned to ask, was thinking about it as we're chatting. I guess probably quite deliberately, and I tell you respect that, don't speak a lot about your kids, sort of, in public, and I totally understand that. But I'm interested to know, what are you most proud of with your boys in relation to the stuff that you talk about? So what is it that you talk about that you think perhaps they do really well, maybe naturally or maybe it's because of you and Sal. Yeah, but what are you most proud about with your boys? And this is definitely more Sal's influence than mine, because Sal is huge on being values driven and kind of purpose-focused. How can you all pretty big on that? Yeah, definitely books are Saly really. In terms of the impact on the kids though, it's definitely Saly more, and I mean, that's sincerely. Yeah, I actually wrote a story in the book, one weekend of my mum just turned 97, and when my youngest boy Ned, when he was 13, I think, we went out and visited mum, and we stopped off at a milk bar around the corner and had a sandwich there, and it was this beautiful Cambodian woman there. And she got talking to us, and it was incredibly emotional, 15 minutes since she was talking about the Camarroog and escaping Cambodia and losing her family. She hasn't seen her family since. She doesn't even know whether her kids are still alive and so forth, but the courage to escape and she was able to escape with one of her daughters, right? And then we went and caught up with mum. The next day, Ned played football. And the coach asked the boys, these 12-year-old boys, to dedicate their game to someone who had impacted them, someone who had helped them along the way and inspired them in some way, shape or form. And Ned played the game of his life. He got best on ground and so forth. And then I'm driving him home and I said to him, "Who'd you dedicate your game to?" I'm thinking, hoping it was me, but thinking of a popsicle, you'd be Sally. And he said to me, "Yeah, a smiley face." He goes, "You know that old lady we met yesterday in the milk bar, I dedicated my game to her and thinking about what she's gone through." And when you dedicate, and you can dedicate a moment, a lifetime, to someone else who's helped you along the way, it takes that performance. To such a spiritual level and a deeper level. And you lose ego and fear because it's literally not about you anymore. You can dedicate this imperfect episode. You can dedicate a lifetime to someone who's helped you along the way. I recently took on a lawyer. Sorry, sorry for you for that story. I want to hear that, but how did you feel when Ned said that to you? What were you feeling at the moment? Yeah, I was just so incredibly proud. I have a problem with being proud because I always thought being pride is the wrong thing. But I just felt so much joy that he's perspective, what was important to him and what he's learnt along the way. And I could give you so many similar stories for both Sam and for Harry as well, is the way they make others feel. That'd be interested, not interesting. I think they've got a beautiful balance between achievement. They want to do things with their life. But a sense of fulfillment and relationships, experiences and memories. I think they've got the balance. Beautiful. Don't get me wrong. When I spoke on Hamish Blake's podcast, I think I said, I made every mistake a dad could possibly make in terms of what we're talking about. Well done when you got an A. Well done when you got best and fairest. And what the mistake that that would have taught the kids along the way. And if I had my time again, I would have understood a lot of this. But yeah, I think they've, they have learnt and have intrinsically got a beautiful balance between what is important from an intrinsic lens, not just an achievement, kind of extrinsic lens as well. So yeah, that's probably what I'm most proud of all three boys. Yeah. The lawyer story very quickly that you were just, you were a bachelor. I recently took on a lawyer who was responsible for suing Donald Trump in the Supreme Court on November the 5th last year. You know, when the tariffs came in, they, I think that was in the news. And the lawyer reached out to me to ask if I would mentor him in the lead up in terms of pressure and expectation. Wow. It was pretty, pretty full on. Anyway, he gave the delivery of his life and the feedback was phenomenal on this lawyer. And I spoke to him the next day and I said, well, congratulations first and foremost, whatever happens in terms of the actual trial I heard you were incredible. What worked? Because you literally did every single exercise that I've ever done with someone in a very short spare time. And he thought about Forsake and he said, Ben two things. He said, first and foremost, you know, they got to get to exercise rather than saying, I got to go to work. I say, I get to go to work. I got to do this podcast. I get to do this podcast. Well, he woke up the morning of the trial and instead of filling all this pressure and expectation, he goes, you know what? I get to do this. I get to represent democracy. I get to try and take, get a victory here for the Constitution or also forth. And as soon as he said, I get to do this. He could not wait to get into the courtroom. He was so excited from that moment on. He was in a state of gratitude, right? And appreciation. The second thing he said worked was his father had passed away before the trial and he used to speak to his dad every night before and he very big case. This is the most successful lawyer in the US history in the Supreme Court. But he used to speak to his dad all the time. This was the first case he wasn't going to speak to his dad and he said that to me in our first session together. And I said, well, why don't you dedicate the entire trial to your dad, right? So your dad's literally in the courtroom with you. You can't see him. You can say, okay, what would dad do here? Right? Or what would dad say to me in this situation? And I said, as soon as he got into the courtroom, he did that and he said that and he said the connection between his head and his heart. He said it was such a spiritual moment for him. He was so calm and present for this moment and on, in terms of dedicating that particular case to his dad. The last story I'll share, just before I finish that chapter on redefining success, it's chapter 9 in the book and it's one of my favorite chapters. I was trying to work out how to finish the chapter. Right in the middle of the chapter, my father-in-law, Rod Grace, passed away, said his dad. And just before the Christmas before he passed away, he learnt a new game, which was to be a pong. Where you got to throw ping pong ball and you got to scull a bee if you get it wrong. Anyway, he said to me, you know, I'm going to be a pong ball. you have to go through the game after you had his third skull, it goes, "This is the best game ever." How old was he? I said, "Why?" Rod was 85. This is the best game ever. I go, "Why?" He goes, "Because even when you lose, you win." And I used to tell clients that in life you're either winning or learning that I was wrong. Because if something doesn't go your way today, but there's a lesson in it, like there's a learning in it, there's a growth in it. And that's technically a win. So even when you lose, you win, just like Rod said. And I think that's a core message for where the like gets in is when we're in our dark forest, right? And we're trying to slay our dragons and we're trying to work our way back into the light. We often think we're at our lowest-edb. But if you are a movie-produce, if you think of your life as a story, right, and things don't go your way, that's when your story gets interesting. That's when the writers are working overtime to try and make their protagonist see how he's going to overcome adversity and slays drag. And so that's the advice. And I'm hoping that's the theme that comes through the book. If you're in a really dark place, just know that it's when your story gets interesting. Because it's not what happens to you in life that matters. It's how you respond. Like, what am I made of here? And yeah, my beautiful father-in-law taught me a beautiful lesson when I was trying to finish that chapter. Really? You've always been so generous with not just the show, but us as individuals. We're so grateful for that. I'm your fan-stamist at Kilberbatch, but you are my favourite Benedict. Thank you very much. I won't tell the poet, but although it's fast away, so. Yeah, just again, so much to take from that conversation. It's one that I'll be listening back to over and over and over. Like so many people who continue to tell us they've listened to your episode so many times. So we love you. Thank you, mate. And please send Russell Eric Guards as well. I will. I will. I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast, but no. Congratulations, guys, and thank you for having me, as I said. It's a privilege to be part of this journey with you. anytime. And is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is generally nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline. I'm 13-11-14.