10. From Breakdowns to Breakthroughs (Part 2) - with Aidan McCullen, Award-Winning Innovation and Leadership Expert.

In this episode (part 2) we chat with Innovation and Leadership Expert Aidan McCullen about intuition, positive and negative energy, serendipity, re-invention through the phoenix, and transforming difficult experiences into growth.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

You're listening to the Mastering High Performance podcast with Nadine McCarthy and Paul Hammill, where we go behind the scenes with guests who reveal stories, insights, and strategies about what it really takes to master high performance. Welcome in and enjoy Falche Stock August Buin Saltas.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I was telling you a book I'm reading at the moment is called Serial Innovators, and it's unfortunately it's the people who survived that they covered in the book. And I said it to the guy about survivorship bias. I was going, but what about there's way more people who didn't? And then what they do is they retire on the job and they feel there's so much I could do for this company if it was only allowed, but I need I have a mortgage to pay, I can't do this to my family, it's risky not to do it, it's comfortable, I'll stay here. And a little part of you dies in there all the time, and and that's one of the things I try and just make people aware of. I don't want people to feel bad because that's situational, that's like you cannot, you there's sometimes you can't make take the risk, and what happens people is they get ostracized, they get gaslit, and really, and and this is probably one of the drivers behind my show. I I don't want people I want people to know that that happens a lot, and that that doesn't mean that you're broken, it means the system that you were in is broken.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

This is part two of our conversation with award-winning innovation and leadership expert Aidan McCullum. In this clip, Aidan describes how it's quite common for some employees to find themselves on the edges of workplace culture, not quite feeling involved or valued, leading to quite quitting and disappearing while showing up every day for work.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I said to Paul before we met you today, I was saying I've only observed your work from afar, um, and I've seen a lot of outpouring of love for you on LinkedIn um following the reinvention summit. That was the first time actually that I that I came across you, um, and just seeing the impact that you have on other people um publicly that people are willing to come out publicly and say, you know, what the impact was, and and and and that's a real tribute to you, um, and a consistent tribute. But there's something I think in the you know you talked about knocking on the doorways and and and making sure you're pulling the levers, but I wonder about the other aspect of the serendipity that you talked about. And I was thinking as well through another lens of the words of Carlos Castanada about the cubic centimetres of of chance. And I wonder how much of that serendipity kind of emergent quality um unfolding with a kind of a higher power or a universal quality, whatever words you want to put on it, how aware of you are that, or do you focus on that as well?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, I do. I'm a huge believer in the universe. I mean, it's delivered for me so many times, and uh and actually just doing what you believe is right. Like, I do think everybody has an internal compass. I I often think about that water divining, you know, the the divining rod that you feel I you know I I I've written written about it before, I call it the GPS uh feeling with a pH, so good feeling system, and that you you can navigate a lot of the world through how you feel about things if you tune into that, including people actually. And I I'm a huge believer in that. There's um a guy passed away, he was due onto my show, unfortunately he passed away, Bob Proctor. Oh no, yeah, Bob Pro Bob died about two years ago. Yeah, and he he he shared this story that really was uh just it's not that it's it's something you inherently know but you couldn't put words on, and it was the idea of the law of vibration. So most people know about the law of attraction, and Bob was in the movie The Secret, and in the Secret he talked about the law of vibration, but it was kind of edited, and he was never happy about this about how it was edited, and it was made to serve the law of attraction. He said, But the the foundational law of the universe is the law of vibration, and what the law of vibration is is if you think of resonance, the I have two pianos, I I hit a B plus over here, whatever B minus. I I don't obviously don't do music, and the piano over here, without me ever touching a key, resonates at that same frequency. And he's like, in a way, the way you navigate the world is you attract things on your frequency, so you put out a certain vibe, and that's what and we use the language of this all the time. Really like the vibe of that coffee shop. Um, really like Nadine and Paul, they're on the level, and and you're saying actually they're on your level, they're on the same level as you. And I actually think, and I I've said this a lot to people that I'm I'm grabbing grabbing something here close to me to try and articulate this, but a comb here, and you think about musical scales. That if you're down here and I've done this, I've I and I actually wrote about it in my first book. In times when I was injured or things weren't going round, I was moaning and I was angry, and I was emitting that frequency. And of course, I attracted more of the same, more crap, more injuries. I remember actually one time, one of my lowest times, I came home and my apartment was robbed. And like, think about the likelihood of that. I came home, I was moaning, I was angry, I hadn't been picked. It was that coach I was telling about, so angry, and I come home, somebody had broken into my apartment and robbed my computer, my brand new Mac, and this is like 1990, it was a Mac was like 10 grand, and I was like going, and and it was one of those moments like going, okay, I need to change something here. And it's really difficult when that's when you're there. And I do think that if you when you find yourself in those moments, that you do everything in your power to get yourself up here, and that and sometimes that means leaving a relationship or leaving a career that's keep that's actually keeping you there, and and you change you change up the different uh levels, and then other good things start to happen to you, and that's my view. That's how I actually kind of navigate things, and even people that you know you do have a feeling off people when you meet people, you you do go something I didn't really like about that, or that didn't feel right to me. And actually, they've discovered there's brain tissue in the gut, so there is knowledge in the gut, the gut knows, but it doesn't speak the same language as the brain. So your feelings are the language of your of your heart, and words are the language of your brain, and they don't speak to each other, so that's why we lose a lot of that kind of ancient ancient wisdom. So that that that's a huge thing for me, and you mentioned the reinvention summit. I actually constructed that around really good people, as in the speakers. I I have had the same privilege as you to have brilliant people on my show, meet great people, learn from them, and you often have just a connection with them, you you feel connected to them in some way. They for me, they're they're always grateful that I've actually done my work and read their book and stuff like that, which I always find kind of incredible. But I I'm I'm happy they are, they're happy with the interview, and I've kind of kept in touch with them. If I spot opportunities for them as speakers, if they're speakers or whatever, I might send them things. If I see something that actually resonates with their work, I'll send them an article and go, hey, I just saw this in this book, you might be interested in it, and just kept in touch with them. So I I gathered a group of people at as speakers at the reinvention summit around the type of energy they emitted, and well, I felt they did, and and that's what people felt at the event. There was an energy there, and it was just really nice vibe. People talked about that, the music we chose, the setting, the lighting. We spent a fortune on like it wasn't it wasn't a money-making venture, and I think just to put a cherry on top of what you you asked me, it's the same with my work, is that I'm not doing it. Like you you'll find this time and time again, where I've been on many, many podcasts, and it's very clear the podcasters doing it to build their own personal brand, and the way you know that is they do all the speaking, or you say something and they frame it in what what their agenda is. I and I I I do this, I know this mainly from actually listening to interviews when I'm preparing for my own show where I've read the person's book, and then I might listen to an interview to actually hear their voice and how they speak and how they say their own name, stuff like that, little things. But I'll hear the podcaster just harping on, and you're kind of going, Who's who's the interviewee here? Like, so I I genuinely I'm I'm so curious where I'm reading so much work that I find I find a way to articulate it or share it that hopefully it'll help somebody. And and I just put it out there, like it's not I'm not doing it as marketing. I'm actually going, here's a pretty cool thing I found. Uh, because I'm like that, you can't see it on screen here, but at the bottom I've my entire music collection. Like so of a I've vinyl, like old vinyl. And I was that kid who was like going, Oh, can I play you my can I play this song? Can I play this song? And just what's happened with me is I've replaced books with with the vinyl. That's why I'm not allowed to have it in my own house. My wife won't let me.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Too big a collection.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I have my man cave here.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Yeah, exactly. Um, I have one more question that I'm gonna hand back to Paul. I'm really curious about though. So when I was doing my research on you, there was a piece on your own website around using the phoenix as a metaphor. And then you talked earlier in the interview here about the assets and the ashes. And I just really curious around the whole reinvention and disruption theme of your work and how central it is. And a question and a curiosity on do you feel that we always it always has to be like a kind of a breakdown to break through like your new book title? Does it always have to be burnt in order to re to re suppose to rekindle or to to reignite or to come through in a different way or to transform? So I'm just wondering what's your sense of how that actually happens and is it only in a Phoenix way?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

No, it's a great question. I I I because people say to me, Oh man, do you not get tired? Just always doing something, always reinventing. So just to explain for our audience who might not know the Phoenix, the so I lived in the Phoenix Park when I moved up to Dublin from Meath. I actually lived in the park, and my dad was this park superintendent. So he renovated the park from pretty much a dump that it was in the 80s. It was in really bad shape. There was drugs and needles and prostitution all over the place. He he is a landscape art architect as well, so he reinstated the all the lamps, uh, put the monument in the middle of the road, all that stuff. So that's so I have a uh connection with the phoenix, but the phoenix is for me the most relevant metaphor for reinvention. So so that in order to truly enjoy a new lease of life, the phoenix is this mythical creature that every 500 years willingly walks into the flames, burns itself up, and from the assets, ashes takes whatever assets are there, and only by doing that enjoys a new lease of life. But but to your question, that's at the end of a life cycle. So you will get a certain period out of those moments. So it happens everything in life. You you have phases, and I feel at the moment, and particularly and this is actually why I'm writing this new book, is that and and students need to understand this that those phases of the life cycle, the 500 years, the metaphorical 500 years, are getting shorter and shorter because careers are getting career spans are getting l shorter, skill sets, the lifespan of a career skill sets getting shorter, like you will you won't get as much out of it as you used to. There is a term called the four and forty, which was go to college for four years, work in a career for 40. Now it's more like the it's like the every four. So you have to maybe reinvent yourself every four years or at least build a new skill, and actually importantly, unlearn the skills that you've had because they might no longer be relevant, and you may have set yourself up for demise because of your success victory disease. So that's that's what that is about, and yeah, I think that that's probably the thing that many people who are in college right now are studying stuff, but that by the end of the time they get out, those things are gonna be irrelevant, or they're not gonna be totally irrelevant, but there will be some assets in those ashes, and and this is your point about trying. That I and I really want people to understand this is really important that that doesn't mean you don't go for it. Go and do something that you enjoy doing because you're gonna do it really well, and no matter what it is, there's gonna be some assets in it that you're gonna have developed something that's gonna be useful and transferable. Now you may have to sometimes add a new skill to that, uh, subtract an old skill from it, as I said, unlearn. But that for me is the thing. Like, so if you look at uh uh me coming out of sports, I mean, what's your skill? I tried to join in the early days, it was like 19. I I retired in 2008, terrible time to retire in the middle of a recession. But I tried to get into Google and Google like going, you don't really have any skills. And I was like, Well, I speak fluent French, I'm really disciplined, I work hard. And like, if somebody said that to me, I'd be like going, oh sign them up because but that those things don't appear on a job spec. And you that's what I mean. Like, you have to keep pushing and looking for an opportunity in. There's gonna be an in somewhere, but in today's world, and because of those spans that you get out of uh any skill set or job or a career, because they're shorter, it means that you're gonna have what's an apparent failure or and and public failure where you're let go or you're made redundant and have the resilience to go, well, that's power for the course now. So I have to actually just go for what assets do I have in the ashes. And also, if you're younger in your career, look for jobs that are gonna give you the most learning in the early days that are gonna be transferable. And I do think that that's the one of the things you do. Look for a job that is gonna be enjoyable because you're gonna do a good job at it, yeah. And yeah, you have to suck it up sometimes and do crappy admin stuff and all that kind of stuff. Everybody has to do that. I do that in my career, but you manage that and you you focus on the things that give you some type of joy and something that you're gonna be curious about, so you're gonna actually do the extra work more than other people, and that is the assets in the ashes.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

We haven't really talked about your network without without naming names or whatever, but a lot of a lot of what you're talking about seems to come from a deep self-motivation to reinvent and to persevere and the discipline and all that. And and yet you talked about the people who had a negative impact, you know, your Leinster coaches. So tell us a little bit about your network and the positive people aligned with your as your frequency. Tell us a little bit about that that part of you.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

I think that that's one of the places most people who are comfortable in their career make their biggest mistake. That they they will only start to network when they need to. And this is what I was talking to Nadine earlier about this idea of build capability before you need it. The line I use in my book is a Spartan Warrior mantra: the more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in war. And what that is about is that you learn when things are going well. As a company, as an organization, you experiment when you have money in the coffers because you're gonna be way more tolerant of the inevitable missteps you're gonna take as you find some new emergent program, some property, some product that or service that you're gonna sell. Like they're very rarely deliberately found. You may create a deliberate environment for them to be found, but they're always emergent. And the same thing happens for me with I see it all the time with networking, is that people do it deliberately just after they've made it redundant, or just when things are going bad, or they feel the breeze of the company's starting to cut people, or I've been started to be managed out of the company, and we all know that feeling when that happens, you you know when they're coming after you, so then they start to network, and funnily, not everybody's open to that meeting all of a sudden, and then they panic instead of actually going, Well, I make this part of my of my who I am. Like, I I regularly meet people, I try and do the thing where I meet somebody for breakfast once a week that I don't know. I've been doing it for years, and I and I invite them and I bring them and I bring them to a nice breakfast and pay for a nice breakfast. And the reason I do breakfast, by the way, is I learned this when I was I set up a uh an office in New York in 2016 or so, and I the Americans told me the best time to meet somebody is actually for breakfast in New York because it doesn't interfere with their day. So I adopted that and I do that, but it's unbelievable, and and I think this is the thing, like in order to connect dots, you first have to collect them. That that is a kind of mantra in my head where people will always go to me, oh, where do you come up for your ideas for your I have an article I write every week called The Thursday Thought, never missed it in 10 years, never missed my show in 10 years. But I'm constantly collecting dots through reading, through these conversations, both ways, by the way, as being a guest on podcasts as well as being a speaker, talking to the organizations I work in. You're constantly got this input of dots, collecting them, and then afterwards, I'm a kind of a metaphorical thinker, so well spot a metaphor, and I go, Oh, that's just like that thing, that's the same mechanic. So in a in a way, I've developed uh systems thinking, and then take that as a as a metaphor and go, well, that's what networking is. You collect enough dots of people you know, and they're they don't have to be deep like a friend of yours, but eventually they'll collect, they'll connect, and opportunities will come your way. Somebody'll go, Oh, I met an interesting guy, he does events, he does speaks on uh keynotes. Hopefully, this is what they're saying, and then all of a sudden I'll get a referral or somebody an inbound request to do a talk, and I'll go, and I actually rarely go, Where did you hear about me? I know some people do that, I don't, but um, they'll go, they'll inevitably say, Oh, I heard so-and-so recommended you, or I was talking to somebody and they I needed a speaker on change, you're the person who they suggested, and it's not why I do it, and I think that's important as well, because people will smell that a mile away. Like, I'm not going in there and going, let me tell you a bit about myself. I actually usually what happens is people will comment on my writing or they'll reach out or they'll go, Oh, that really helped me, that piece you wrote, or whatever. And I'll go, Hey, do you want to meet up for meet up for a coffee or something like that? And not in a not in a creepy way. And uh inevitably they say yeah. But like it's like I think it was Steve Jobs said before, like, people were gonna go, now how did you get those parts for the initial Apple one computer? He's like on I picked up the phone, I asked. And I think that that's uh certainly been challenged as a skill since COVID. People don't do it anymore. And it's so important, I think it's so important just to even keep your keep yourself honest to what's going on in the market, what's happening out there, what are other people feeling, what's the vibe that we talked about earlier on?

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Is it important to have good people along your journey? And I suppose we are kind of talking career-wise here, perhaps, but so you you mentioned that Linster Coach, you had that negative impact. Um have you had real positive people that have helped you along along the journey?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

So absolutely, I I think there's always been you have to balance it out. And I think you you actually also when you find one that's willing to give you more time, you you might ask them to mentor you. I have a business mentor, a guy called Mick Carney. He's uh he's actually the Irish manager, he's the Irish rugby manager, and he was It wasn't why at all why I I asked him. What had happened actually was I did one of those, I arranged to meet him for a coffee and met him for coffee. He had just stopped mentoring. He set up a mentoring program for Irish International Rugby Team, the men's team, because he could see that they weren't doing any of this. They weren't, and he set up a mentoring program. And I met him and he goes, Oh, you're always reading some crap. What are you reading? And at the time my kids were a bit younger, I was reading a book called Raising Boys. Brilliant book, by the way, if anybody has boys called by a guy called Steve Biddolf. Now he wrote a book, Raising Girls afterwards, probably to extend the line a little bit. And then I think he wrote Raising Men, because as the kids grew up. But anyway, I read Raising Boys, and I and he goes, he tell I said, I'm reading this book, pull it out, and he goes, Give me one nugget from it. And I said, probably the most important thing I took from this book was that when a kid turns around 13, when a boy turns around 13, in in tribes, what they used to do was they gave them some rite of passage where, say, for example, it was a Native American tribe, they'd put the kid, the kid would think they're staying out in the wild, and they'd have to go through some type of initiation. And the other men of the tribe would actually scare the bejazus out of the kid. Now, they did this in a protected environment, so the kid thought they got through like ghosts were there or some type of demon or something like that, and the kid then was welcome back, and you're a man now, welcome back to the tribe. And I was telling them about that, and I was like, and the equivalent of that in today's society is that at around that age the kid will rebel often against their dad, and you have to have somebody else in their world, a coach, mainly. I mean, mainly a coach you can trust, sporting coach, chess, a chess teacher, a teacher in school, but somebody that will have a back channel to tell you how they're getting on, and somebody that that that child might share things with that they won't share with you, because they turn against you, because it's it's natural, and you see this in the animal kingdom as like kind of like growling at the the alpha male and kind of you know try and prove themselves. So there's this period that you have to guide them through, and I said it's kind of like mentoring, and he goes, he says, That's really nice metaphor for what I do. He goes, Uh, do you have a mentor at the moment? And I said, No. And he goes, Well, I've just lost a mentee, he's just graduated, so if you want to do it, I'll happily do it with you. So, since then, that was like well over 10 years, about 12 years, and he's been through he's been with me through all what he he used to think was crazy stuff. Like, I used to be like in the early days, I was gonna go and I'm gonna be an author, I'm gonna be a speaker, I'm gonna run events. I didn't even have the idea of a podcast back then, and I remember my early so he I'd meet him every quarter and show him my goals, and then he keeps holding me accountable to those goals, and stuff like speak, like in the early days, speak at an event every twice a year, and he was he you remember him looking at it like he's a very successful businessman, kind of looking at me, going, What would you want to be doing that for? And I was like, Because I because I need to build the muscle. This is the idea of build the capability before you have it. I was in a stable job at the time, and stuff like lecturing. So I lecture in Trinity Ecology Business School today, and I wanted a guest lecture, and he's like, Oh, are you gonna be paid for that? And he's like, Why would you be doing it? And I was like, Oh, well, I need to build the muscle, and it's the same as you know going and playing a match to just try and see how good you are, and I I think again, people don't tolerate that messy beginning of things to actually build the skill because you're gonna be terrible at it at the start. You mightn't be totally terrible, but like you're not gonna be a finished article, and you have to tolerate that. In my new book, I call it the J-Curve, which is you go back before you go forward, like it you dip, like the curve doesn't go up all the way, it often goes down and then up, and that's the J curve. And and I think that having somebody to guide you through those moments, even challenge you like he did. Like he he wasn't going like this, you have it all sorted here. He was like going on, are you sure you want to be doing that? And and you need that, you need somebody to be holding a mirror up to you.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

The um I know that the example you gave of your conversation with Edio Sullivan is just one example of a conversation, right? But there, but there are so many people, including myself, that probably would like to have a conversation with somebody, but will probably be going I need to think about the outcome of this. Like how how if if this goes the way I think it might go, I'm gonna feel good, and if it doesn't go the way I feel uh I want it to go, how am I gonna feel? And and you probably avoid it. Um is that something you would do often to try and get to the crux of the question you you had in that in that instance, or was that a once-off? Like do you do you go do you give that loads of thought before you do it, or is that something you do to kind of reinvent yourself and and self-reflect?

SPEAKER_00 27:22

I think it's I think it's important to understand you know that concept because it's only that person's opinion too, Aiden.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

They may not be honest with you either, you know?

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Yeah, and I know I I know both of you have an interest in learning and and diagnostics and stuff, and I think that's the danger of diagnostics, that you can really damage somebody with an opinion. And I'm I mean, Paul, that's the big problem with coaches, is like that's one person's opinion, but some people let that and and it's very it can be hard. I mean, one person's opinion can end your career before you even start. Like that, like I don't know what that coach uh like he really had a vendetta against me then after I spoke up to and and I was like I I I'd be very honest if I had done something, and I actually asked my mentor, I said, Here, should I meet your man and see, you know, now that it's all blown over and he stopped coaching, so to see like what was the problem, and he goes, He he knew him, he served under him. He's like going, Don't bother.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Okay, well, there well there's a good example. Well, there's a good example of one you didn't go back to, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Yeah, well, well, that was why he uh like no matter who I asked, went, uh, he's he's a bit bitter, and you know, so it so sometimes you're the problem, sometimes you're not, and all the advice. And I asked Eddie about that guy as well, and Eddie said, Don't bother with him. So so sometimes that's that can be really toxic. And I know I was only I met a guy for breakfast this morning, and um he was saying to me how his boss in work took a real vendetta against him because he was an innovator and he was actually trying to do what was best for the company, but she was so insecure that she actually went after him and and actually really made it difficult for him. And he and he said it really damaged him for a long, long time. It really hurt him, and he's only got his confidence back, and it happened so much. I was telling you a book I'm reading at the moment, it's called Serial Innovators, and it's unfortunately it's the people who survived that they covered in the book. And I said it to the guy about survivorship bias, I was going, but what about there's way more people who didn't, and then what they do is they retire on the job and they feel there's so much I could do for this company if it was only allowed, but I need I have a mortgage to pay, I can't do this to my family, it's risky not to do it, it's comfortable, I'll stay here. And a little part of you dies in there all the time, and and that's one of the things I try and just make people aware of. I don't want people to feel bad because that's situational, that's like you cannot you there's sometimes you can't make take the risk. I had it, I uh you know this put in RTE. I worked in RTE, the exact same same thing that happened. This guy I met this morning happened me, and it was because the lady I worked for felt threatened by me, and I only found this all out afterwards that they had intended me to take over from her job, but they never told me that, and they never gave me any air cover. And you know, I I could look at that, I look on it as an absolutely essential part of my personal development because I never knew what resistance to change I never knew it could be so bad and so vindictive and nasty, and what happens people is they get ostracized, they get gaslit, and really, and and this is probably one of the drivers behind my show. I've turned that that could have been a poison to me, but I turned it into a fuel, which is I don't want people I want people to know that that happens a lot, and it that doesn't mean that you're broken, it means the system that you were in is broken.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah, so many external factors that are completely out of your control, yeah, yeah exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And and I think that's so important, and I think that that's at the heart of a lot of my work is I I want people to know there's there's a formula behind most of this stuff, it happens a lot, and I think that's the thing you realize. There's a quote quote by Mark Twain very close to the work I do. History doesn't repeat what it rhymes, and if you read enough in the same field, like I've gone deep into the same field, change, innovation, transformation, whatever you want to call it, reinvention. I don't actually care what you call it, it's the same stuff. You see these rhymes time and time again, you see these templates emerge, and I try and share them in ways that people go, Oh, it feels like he's talking to me here. And and I want them to know that that's true, and actually, you're not the problem. You're only like, and and even you're not the problem if you decide to actually sit in it and go and put up with it. That's not a problem, that's a choice. There's a brilliant lady I had on my show, again, another quote that made it to the new book, she said to me, most people worry over making the right decision. She said, You're better off to make the decision and then make the decision right. And I love that because that means no regrets. I did everything I could with the information I had at the time, including not making a decision is a decision. But be aware of that, and then if you if you do that, don't be going around moaning on it, because that was your not decision to do that.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah, my final one is you you um you mentioned earlier, I just picked up on it, uh, beating to beat you felt you needed to beat the stereotype, right? And this was from the you know, for the from the professional rugby player who didn't want rugby to define you, etc. And then coming into kind of your more uh business related career, you wanted to beat the stereotype. And I'm just wondering where you're at now with that. Are you still beating the stereotype? Is it still in there somewhere? And does that keep you keep you going? Well, or is it gone?

SPEAKER_00 33:08

I think well, I I don't have it, but I think the world has, and the world does that to make sense of things. Uh, you I mean it's it's a categorization, people stick people in categories. Irish is a stereotype. I I get this all the time where I had this recently, I was brought to Canada to do a talk, and the the guy who brought me the owner of this business, he said, Aiden, you know, sorry about this man. Uh you know, I'm not I gotta head off on the night after your talk, I gotta work down in the US. And I'm like, Oh yeah, no worries, man. I'm exhausted anyway after workshop. Like when I go hit the sack, and he goes, But don't worry, a friend of mine's an Irish guy, he's gonna bring you to an Irish pub, and you guys can go and hit it hard. And I was like going, oh my god, I didn't think of anything worse. I don't drink, so I was like, firstly, I'm not a he thought I was a jock rugby player who loved his booze because I was Irish, and I get that all the time, and I'm like, I'm sorry to sorry to burst whatever bubble this is, but I I'm not like not up for that, like you know, and they're like, Oh geez, we're really bummed out with this Irish guy, but uh he he uh anyway. So I said to the other Irish guy, that guy, and that guy was actually staying in town, he'd come for my workshop, and his wife and young kid were there, and I said, Hey man, I said, like, I don't have any interest in hitting any booze, and he goes, Oh, me neither. And the two of us went for a bite to eat, went back to the hotel, he went to his family, I went to bed. But I don't have an internal need to do that, and I think I think I mean you never know, the ego is always the enemy. I think I don't need to prove myself anymore. I I I think a lot of the rugby was driven by a fuel to prove myself, like my and it's not you know, it took me a long time to get to come to peace with this, but my parents didn't really come to my games or you you know the way we do today, like we'd come to the opening of an envelope for a kid. Like I don't do any of that stuff. I I I I do I do for my kids. I do, I would be at the opening of an envelope, I do everything for them, but that didn't happen in in our day as much. And I didn't even I wasn't even aware of that till I had kids, and even like I play for Ireland or play for Toulouse, and my parents didn't come and see me play, you know, and it doesn't make sense to me, but I think in there somewhere was the inner child going, look at me, I'm somebody, Pa. You know, and and I'm like, now I'm like on, I'm good, I don't need that because the way that that can be toxic, you can that can manifest. My wife tells me all this time, like I'll I'll do some cleaning at home or I'll do some work at home, some of the homework that the the housework that she always does, and I'll say, Hey, uh, hey, I I filled a dishwasher, and she's like going, Do you want an F and medal for that? And the dean's laughing. I like I think a lot of a lot of us do that, but it that all stopped when I just made peace with that and went that's all looking for recognition, you know, and uh I think when you stop looking for the recognition, the recognition actually comes. That's what happened with that Thinkers 50 award, maybe I don't know, but I don't and maybe in the vibrations like like you were talking about earlier, yeah. Yeah, yeah, because by seeking it, you're all almost pushing it away. Maybe I don't know, who knows? But uh that's how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Brilliant, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah. I'm thinking of um I don't always share this because sometimes I share it with the guests afterwards, but there's always something comes into the space, kind of really hums in the space, but I can't uh it it it it probably started to come in about 15-20 minutes ago, and it's very bright in the space, so I'm going to share it. Um I speak it's a lot of the stuff you're talking about already, but it's um this Irish word, an old Irish word, which is the word Ashling. And the Ashling was uh so like I feel it's in the space for you, it's in the space because of you, so that's why I'm sharing it, but I haven't previously shared live the whatever is in the space until after the podcast, even later, weeks later with with with the guests. But the word Ashling was like a dream vision. And it usually you were talking about dreaming in French earlier, but it usually appeared in uh dreams, which is kind of the dream part, the dream vision, but it's usually a big reinventing, catalyzing um dream. And I think it's probably in the space because I hear everything you're saying and what you've you know in some ways achieved, or you know, what you've what you've what you've done in terms of all the the discipline and the trying. And yet it feels like there's a uh uh whether it's conscious or unconscious, there's a big energy about you and a and a big radiance um and an emission in itself, you know, like the emanation, like that kind of pulse and a pulsing that I mentioned earlier. And I'm wondering, are you aware of what is fueling that at that kind of source level, I suppose, or what is it does any of that even resonate? Um I'm wondering about what yeah, what you might like to share in response to that.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I love it. I uh there's a book I read that was uh very relevant to me, made a lot of sense, and it and it's it's it's highly metaphorical, and it's kind of about quantum physics, it's kind of like about manifesting. Uh it's called Reality Trans Surfing by a guy called Vadim Zeeland. By the way, the audiobook is hard listen because they have all these sound effects in it, and all of a sudden you're kind of going really, we don't we don't really need those sound effects, but it's actually hard to read as well. But I it really made a lot of sense to me, and it's just because I'm a metaphorical thinker, and if you treat it like a metaphor, it makes a lot of sense. But one of the things I realized was, and and this this is why I I do really believe all the things that are crappy that happen to you happen to make you aware of something, and sometimes it's to make you aware of what you already have, sometimes it's to prepare you for something that's coming, and and it's very hard to connect those dots backwards and make sense of them, but we all have had this moment where we go, Oh thank god I didn't get that house, thank god I didn't get that job, thank God that relationship didn't work out because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. So we all have a version of that a sliding door moment. But I do think this the RTE experience, which was really toxic like I I noticed this early. I remember a guy being introduced to this guy and he looked about 60. Like I'm 49, I'm nearly 50. And at the time I was 40, maybe, maybe even for maybe 40. And uh he he sits down, he's talking to us, and he and he jumps up and he goes, Oh, I better go off and pick up my son from the crash. And I was like, like that, Eddie with the coffee again, like what looked to the guy beside me, his son, his grandson, he means. I wasn't being judgmental, I was just like going, he must have had his kids very late, and he goes, Nah, that guy's 30. And then once I was aware of it, once I had the lens for it, I noticed it everywhere. And I do, I really, really believe that if you're suppressing your energy, uh your life force, if it's going to places it shouldn't, like I like I did when I when I held a grudge against that coach that I Paul, you and I were speaking about, that I held a grudge for him for a long time, and that's toxic, and that goes into your body. Basil von der Volk wrote a book, The Body Keeps the Score. The body stores that it it it it it becomes toxic, it's like toxic energy stuck inside your system. And if you if you do your best not to do that, so find ways not to do that. So I've manufactured uh my work, I work alone. So if I have a problem with the boss, I gotta look in the mirror, and I try and work with good people, I try and work with people with good energy, I steer clear of scrolling, I don't do any of that, and I and again, no judgment. I know people need an outlet, but I find I find, and and actually one of the places I found this recently, and I found myself getting pulled in. I give all the Trump stuff and all that kind of stuff, the Epstein files, all that stuff, but was when RTE were pulled through the press in the last couple of years, and there was all those trials and stuff like that. I felt myself having a bit of Schadenfreude. You know, Schadenfreude, for those who don't know the German term, taking joy in other people's misery. And it wasn't it wasn't good, and I felt myself being pulled down, and and in there, so does your energy, and so and you start to go down, descend down the scales, your energy's been low, and I was like, Oh, I gotta stop. Empty my reset my YouTube algorithm, wipe it, clear all my history, clear all my searches, reset it, let it begin again, have only positive stuff coming on to it. I I know that all set might sound mystic to people, but that, and then on top of that, I really do. I go to the gym six days a week, I train a lot. People think are like, what are you training for? I'm actually training for my future self, and I actually believe my future self is almost coming to me in the mirror and kind of going, Hey man, thanks for doing all that work. Look at me now, and and in a way that I'm working, I my body works, I can bend down, I can pick something up, I can play with my grandchild on the ground, I can go on a holiday, I can put my bag in the overhead locker, and I'm I'm always building capability for that future. But in there, I also see it as almost like a dynamo. If you use it, it it generates an energy, and I do think people feel that energy off you because there's a there's a there's a they can they call it charisma or whatever, like there's an energy in that, and the and the other side, just to sound that Nadine, the opposite's also true. You can have somebody who is extremely toxic or narcissist who has the ability to do that and can hypnotize you in some way and make you believe stuff and gaslight you.

unknown 43:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

So it's like the force in the Star Wars, you can use it for good or for evil. I I hope, I hope that. if I have that that I I try and use it for good I mean even to I'll go to a step further even what I think like I mean what I think if I so I'm trying to say find a way to say this without revealing the person but say somebody who really annoys you and someone you really dislike and you have no idea why you dislike them and thinking ill of them is again a bad use of that energy. So I I even said to my wife this year you know what if you ever hear me moaning or giving out about somebody tell me catch me in the act because I I want you to firstly catch me in the act because already I've taught it so already I've triggered something internally and you start to you to to just expend that energy on somewhere where like who cares?

SPEAKER_02 44:54

You know what I mean like there's there's yes bad really bad things happen all the time but we obsess and we give out about stuff that actually doesn't matter like it really doesn't matter I we could talk all day I know I feel I feel that but we we from a time perspective and uh respecting your energy and time we should wrap it up maybe we'll have a part two um at some later stage um before Paul wraps up completely where can people find you where can they access your work and get in touch if they want to so I write a weekly article called the Thursday thought and again by the way just to you'll see the pattern here the reason I did that was for the discipline of having to do it on a Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

So it goes out every Thursday it's uh available on LinkedIn I do it on my own website aidanmacullen.com it's on Substack is probably the best place actually Substack and it's the Thursdaythought.substack.com and LinkedIn you'll find all my stuff I share excerpts from the show and just try and make it useful like I I I I try and avoid those humble brags it wasn't an honor to I I'm actually terrible at doing those but I tr I try to avoid doing them sometimes uh a a a company I work for will go hey will you share a thing and and then I'm like because I I feel awkward doing that stuff but it's part of the job so I I engage in that but I do mostly share stuff that I hope's useful and people can see some type of pattern of or themselves or understand something that they're struggling with in a better way and uh you can find that on on LinkedIn and it's Aidan A I D A N so that's me. Thanks Paul and hand over to you to wrap do the final wrap yeah just to say Aidan thank you so much for your time I mean it it's an episode where I know I'm gonna have to listen back to it a few times do you know what I mean because I I I was learning so much myself and as you know with any of these podcasts you kind of go well if if these things resonate with me you would like to think they will resonate with uh with some of our listeners so um it was absolutely fantastic so uh thank you so much and thank you for um all the time you gave us uh for this episode so thank you a pleasure a pleasure and wish you the best uh with the podcast and your learning journey thanks Nadine thanks Paul that's where we leave it for today on our next episode we meet Dr Paul McCarthy sports psychologist academic and prolific author together we explore the psychology of pressure through the theory of challenge and threat states and discover how the way we interpret pressure influences how we think feel behave and perform.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

It's a fascinating conversation so join us next time. Until then take care and thanks for listening.