Get Booked – Richard Sutton, Thrive 220124

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and this is Get Booked. I am a huge book fan, so I love doing this show. Get Booked is all about talking to authors, chatting about anything and everything books related and all the joy enlightenment, and escape that good books can provide. Sit back and let us entertain you with a different guest each week, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. This week we are going to be chatting to Richard Sutton, who has over 20 years' experience in the world of resilience training and performance coaching. Having coached Martina Navratilova and winning Olympic teams, he demonstrates in his new book Thrive, how resilience is a consummate skill that can be learned and fostered through life. Thrive is packed with stories, quizzes, and scientific facts— so many of them, and they're excellent— about how consuming a daily intake of omega-3 increases resilience and so much more. I've thoroughly enjoyed working my way through this book, and I think you're really going to enjoy our chat shortly. Here at Get Booked, we like to open discussions and offer support via the incredible writing community out there. Come and join us, get involved, and if you want to catch up on previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud. Right now on Get Booked, we are going to talk about Thrive by resilience coach Richard Sutton, and this book is all about how resilience is often influenced by our childhood. The type of adversity we experience as a child has a, a distinctive emotional and biological signature later in life. However, While we can't change our past, we can change our future using cognitive reappraisal, creating a positive perception of negative events. This is a practice that today's guest has used himself, having overcome a traumatic childhood. He also discusses how to create a resilient brain and the 5 personality traits that foster it. And now I get to introduce today's guest to the show, Richard Sun. How are you? I'm very, very well, thank you. And thank you so much for having me on the show. You're very welcome. I have, um, such a ridiculously long to-do list at the moment from working through Thrive. It's, um, there is a lot of content. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, because there's certain— I love books like this because you can take from it you can learn, but there's things that you read and think, that's something I can do, or that, that applies to me, or that's something that I know I'm not doing properly and I didn't realize this was this situation. And whenever I came across something that I knew I needed to work on— my memory is terrible, so I just kept on having to stop and then even Google the concept, or search where I can get DNA gene testing, or figure out, make sure that I look at different things to make sure that I boost my omega-3 and da da da da da. So yeah, I'm, I've gotta work through my to-do list and this weekend I'm gonna have to do some serious research. You, you're not alone. When I was, when I was reviewing, um, the final edit on the copy that's, that's just been released now, um, I was going through it and, and there were so many like prompts and reminders of, of little tips and, and things that can really make such a difference in one life. And I was like actually making personal notes myself. So you're not alone, even the author needs a little bit of a reminder. And then I went to listen to the audiobook and that really reinforced some of the notions and some of the concepts. So there is a tremendous amount of content. It's really just, it's about being the best version of ourselves no matter where we came from, no matter how life started, the obstacles we face, the hurdles, the challenges and everything in between. It's, uh, we can, we choose our path, we choose our destination and we have this authority that sometimes we forget and we don't realize. Yeah. Yeah. And also we're quite often just, I mean, it's not talked about in the book, but we're also so overwhelmed with what we need to be doing sometimes. And I like, I like to kind of introduce small things that they just become part of who you are. And part of your daily practice rather than— there's a lot of my friends who make these huge changes that just don't fit into their life properly and then they end up failing at it and then feeling even worse that they didn't succeed at the changes they wanted to make. And I'm a huge fan of doing little things, integrate them into your life and then add something else and then add something else and do it step by step. And that's why I've got, I've got an email at the moment about 8 different steps from the book that I want to completely master. And then I'll probably have to read the book again. And that falls into James Clear's Atomic Habits sweet spot. He basically said, yeah, kind of little things make it easy, constant cues, reinforce it with some sort of kind of positive experience afterwards. And, and if we can do that, we can adopt and really bring these habits into our lives. And by doing so, our life ultimately changes and But, but I totally subscribe with what you're saying. It's the little things that really make a difference over time. I think that over time is the big piece. It's the consistency factor that really means a lot in terms of a personal journey or growth journey. Yeah. Yeah. And I think something— I mean, I was reading about the DNA testing as well, because although there's like work that we need to do sometimes where wasting our energy because we're not actually understanding what's going on chemically within our body, where it could be actually be quite a quick fix, or it's just a case of we needed to take certain nutrients or we're missing something else. It's not always external factors. And I loved reading about that. But also I read a book, um, a couple of months ago as well, and the main thing that the psychologist said is like, get your blood work done, understand your own genetic makeup, because it could solve so many questions you might have about yourself. We live in such an exciting time where biotechnology is advancing by the day, and we can gain so much knowledge. And, uh, the, the whole resilience journey and performance journey in, in life really boils down to one thing, is know yourself. And if, if we can take, you know, a small little blood sample, get it analyzed, and, and The gene panel that I reference in the book is a gene panel that I collaborated with a biotechnology lab around the world, and it looks at the 13 most influential genes in human performance. And just if we do have certain polymorphisms or certain adaptations to those genes that might make us a little bit vulnerable in certain instances, we have the power to choose and shape the environment to neutralize, if not eradicate, that influence altogether. It's simply a dial. We can turn it up and turn it down, and it helps us choose our nutritional supplements. It helps us choose our exercise habits and behaviors, or lack thereof. It helps us choose when to listen to music. And do we need cold exposure? Do we need heat exposure? Do we need anything in between? Do we need medication? It's just like such an incredible— and it's a science that is evolving. It certainly hasn't got there yet, but we know enough to make a substantial difference in our own personal lives and on our own personal journey. I, do you know what, I was absolutely enthralled reading about the chemical elements of resilience capability, just how much we can actually control and consume. And, and actually there was so much information in here. I like the fact that people can choose what's going to work for them, because, you know, some ideologies just aren't going to work for some people. It just might not be something that kind of floats their boat. But I love that there was so many different options that the mere fact that sometimes, you know, even if we're a bit depressed or anxious and we can't understand why, and it's driving us crazy and probably making us even more depressed and anxious, actually it can just be that we're deficit in something. Oh, 100%. And, and like you pointed out, it— the, this, this whole experience is very molecular. So there are around 7 molecules that have a very profound influence on our resiliency and our coping capabilities. And if we're able to tap into these molecules, um, augment them, support them, nurture them, ensure that these systems are, are, are well governed, it really does give us an opportunity. It gives us an opportunity to be more successful through adversity and challenge and change and complexity and everything that we experience in, in today's modern world. But, you know, to your, to your points, uh, a couple of days ago I had a conversation, and the conversation was, it was around a photograph. And, uh, I'm, I'm always caught blinking, like my eyes are always closed on, on photographs. And because I blink a lot, and, and the person asked me like, how come your eyes are always closed, everyone else's are not? And, and I explained that I blink a lot, and they said, why? And dopamine is often associated, high levels of dopamine associated with a lot of blinking. Um, so I said, my dopamine levels are pretty high. So they said, so that's you know, if that's an intrinsic thing, how does it manifest? So, so I'm pretty motivated, I'm pretty ambitious, I'm pretty driven. And I then proceeded so that it's, it's not only good, um, you can also have a, a negative, um, negative relationship to excessive dopamine. And that negative relationship is anxiety. So I'm also prone to anxiety. So in the mornings, I've, I've got a cold plunge, and cold plunge will help modulate my, my levels of arousal and anxiety and create a tremendous sense of calm. I need to I need to meditate, and that's where I can modulate that experience. But at the same time, I'm also getting the benefits of the raised levels of dopamine, the ambition, the drive, the motivation, and everything in between. And it's just this knowledge that we can manipulate the variables in such a way that we can create and facilitate the best outcome for ourselves. Well, that's where knowledge is power, isn't it? Applied knowledge is the power. Applied knowledge. Yeah. Power knowledge is interesting, and plough knowledge is power. So moving on to a kind of— you talk a lot about adversity, and especially how in our childhood adversity, you know, how we can turn things around if we need to. But I think adversity, it regularly is used to reframe how people feel about the challenges they've faced, you know. I, I think there's a lot of, a lot of people have had to actually deal with adverse situations. They've been given the opportunity to learn and grow. There are so many people just sail through life, and then when something, you know, kind of bad happens to them 40, 50 years in, they completely implode. You know, the more challenges we face, the more we grow, the more, the more we learn, the more we kind of find coping mechanisms, I think. And I found it really interesting. Like, I think it's nice for people to know that if something bad's happened to them in the past, that's not the be-all and end-all. We can use it to kind of propel ourselves forward and see it as a, you know, reframe it as something positive. Absolutely. And, you know, it's just in my research, it was something that I didn't fully understand. And the, the— it's the notion of if you experience childhood adversity, theoretically you've gone through hardship, you've gone through challenge, you've gone through pain, and you should come out the other end more capable, and your coping mechanism is more refined, and your ability to handle more pressure and more weight better. And when I started diving, and I did a very, very deep dive into the literature, what I found was that it's the exact opposite. Adversity in childhood actually makes us considerably more vulnerable to future challenges and future events. And it's very well explained and it's very well unpacked in terms of even the different types of threats and the different types of challenges and their impact on us. And fundamentally, it boils down to a shift in our stress response behaviour. So if we're exposed to physical abuse and trauma, what tends to happen within our stress axis is that it becomes disproportional. It, it overreacts to anything that we experience in life. If we are subjected to neglect or emotional abuse, we can't shut down our stress responses. If we subjected to uncertainty or constant threat in life— uncertainty being financial principally, or divorce, it creates a heightened reactivity. Everything puts us on edge. And what I've explained now is, is almost compartmentalized in many respects, but life is not compartmentalized. We often have all of these stresses superimposed, and we're looking in terms of pretty, like, strong economies and, and fairly robust societies. From a financial perspective, you're looking at about 50-53% of children are coming from very adverse conditions or who have experienced adverse childhood, uh, incidents. And it's, it's, it's quite concerning because there you arrive in adulthood and you're arriving adulthood with this, this dysregulation. And, and that can often manifest in, in emotional challenges— depression, anxiety, and, and in between. And if you look at the prevalence of childhood adversity and its relationship to You look at childhood adversity and its relationship to the prevalence of mental health issues later in life, you see that it's statistically about at least a third of mental health issues have their roots or origins in childhood adversity as an adult, and 50% if you're a child. So, so here we've got this, this, this picture that's starting to unfold, and it's still not sensical because we need challenge in order to grow. We need setbacks, we need failures, we need disappointments, we need hurdles. These are the things that shape us and mold us. And it's, it's been one of those, those questions. And it was very much the thesis of the book is trying to understand and explore what, what the difference is, how, where is the good challenge and where is the bad challenge? Because if we're not, like you say, if we're not subjected to challenge, we, we ourselves, we don't move forward. And, and if there is something in the future that, that stands in our way, it's, we, we crumble. We, we haven't developed ourselves and Fundamentally, I think it boils down to two things. It's— the first is our ability to cope with stress. If we experience challenge in our formative years and we develop coping mechanisms in terms of stress modulation and stress management as a strategy, it's something that we can develop at any stage of life should we want to and should we apply ourselves. But the second feature is that the difference between childhood adversity, the challenge that breaks us and the challenge that makes us, is— I would put it down to one thing. It is a person or an individual or group that believes in us. So if we have support from another individual, they say, 'I believe in you, I have high expectations of you,' and along our journey and along our path, you always have this person in the corner or in your corner, or you have this group in your corner. It could be a teacher, it could be a parent, it could be a friend, it could be a family friend. I really do believe fundamentally, and I've seen from a literature perspective, fundamentally there is the shift because if you can combine challenge with support, challenge with support and perspective, all of a sudden the whole kind of landscape changes because it's not a challenge that becomes totally overwhelming. It almost becomes manageable challenge because of the different perspectives and the comfort of knowing that you're in this with someone or with a group. I think you— yes, I was just going to say, I think you, you, you perfectly kind of put that in the book in relation to Albert Einstein and the kind of nature versus nurture. Where, when he wasn't nurtured with his, um, biological parents, but then when he was put in a different environment, how he just absolutely excelled. And, and that's the thing, as we see Einstein's accomplishments, I mean, I think he was cited as the, the, the greatest individual of the 21st century. And yeah, I mean, he's Nobel Prize winner and some incredible theories, um, in physics. And we assume that his, his whole life was just brilliant. And in the book, it kind of gives us this formative journey of Albert Einstein where he couldn't speak by 4. I mean, it's in all, in all cases, in all instances in today's world, he would have been considered— he would have had some sort of diagnosis, possibly on the spectrum. And, and he really struggled. He struggled in many respects, did not show the promise that he had, which which he demonstrated in his later years. And, and it did take shifting environments, being in a supportive environment, people who backed him, believed in him, people who accepted him for who he was and who he could be. It's, it's an amazing thing if we experience the same challenges, but we're within an environment that is safe and, and is buffered in, in many respects from, from some of the, the stresses that don't have to be there. It's really, it's a tough one because You don't want anyone to have to have some sort of abusive or adverse childhood in any way, shape, or form. But, you know, it's again just reframing it. It's just when we do have to fight for something, and when you know that you kind of have to push yourself forward, it teaches you that to appreciate things and to push yourself forward and how to be proactive because you've had to be. It's, it is tough, but it's You know, it's all about reframing it so that we don't drown in the negativity. No, we don't want anyone to have an adverse childhood, but it's books like this that are aiming to kind of help people reframe how that adversity can be used to our advantage. It can be. Two days ago I had a meeting. I've got a partner in Australia and we're kind of looking at a collaboration and it's a very similar age to me. And very, very motivated individual. And like, I just paused in the conversation and I asked him a question. I said, what motivates you? You're so driven, you've achieved so much. I mean, your business is global. It's like, why do you need to keep going? And he said that, you know, when he was young, he had no fallback. If he didn't survive or didn't make it work, there would be nothing. And it pushed him and it kept driving him. And it's just something that became who he was. And then the conversation proceeded to like, and now, and, and the reality is that he's been very successful, but the price that he's paid for being successful is extremely high. He's, he's, let's say, crossed the line in, in a certain context of, of life and the finish line. And he's, he's crossed the line weathered and beaten and tethered and exhausted. And kind of looking for another chapter in life and to reboot. And I think that really is what resilience is. It's about being successful but not compromising yourself in the process because we can embody grit and perseverance more and we can certainly adopt grit and perseverance and inculcate that into our very being. And they're very powerful traits and you will be successful. It just, it's a matter of what cost. And the story of Einstein, the story of many successful people is how resilience is, like you say, is this, this reframing and constantly checking and saying, how do I adapt and how do I grow and how do I change and how do I be different? And what are the skills that will help me in this situation? Because a lot of the software I developed in my formative years might not be applicable now. And if I applied in the situation, what necessarily helped me overcome the challenge and the setback and the failure that is impending. So it really is a very, very dynamic process that, that's, that we all kind of have to really be fully engaged in. Well, we're constantly evolving. And do you know what? You can do so much work on yourself and think, yeah, killing it, loving where I am. That's very likely going to change in 5 years' time. We constantly need to learn and grow and change and adapt to whatever's going on in our world and who we want to be and who we need to be for other people. And that's, and that's, there was, there was so much debate, like resilience is something that's been, it's COVID-19 was, was really that, that launching point in terms of we all have to be resilient and we all have to be better versions of ourselves and our businesses and our families and our country. And that, that word became kind of Transcendence, the most topical word, uh, word certainly of, of 2020 and, and beyond. And there's been extensive research into resilience, largely with clinical populations, uh, so those individuals who've been subjected not through, uh, desire or want, but to hardships and, and challenges. And some have overcome it and some haven't overcome it. And, and researchers have looked at those traits that have supported those in overcoming the, the imposed, um, traumas and challenges. And this has been going on for 70 years. And historically, it was always believed to be these fixed traits. It's emotional suppression and mental toughness, being just able to handle more pain than anyone else. And it was the perseverance piece, keep, kept circling back, and the grit piece kept circling back. And some of them are admirable traits and some of them are dysfunctional traits. But, but notwithstanding In the last 5 to 10 years, there's been this paradigm shift, and this paradigm shift, understanding that resilience isn't a fixed trait, it's flexible, it's malleable, it's adaptable, it's fundamentally embodied by the word adaptability or cognitive flexibility, where we have to adapt to stress and challenge and change and setbacks on an emotional, physical, and mental level. We— that is this new reality that we all live and exist in. Today's the pace that the world is moving at today is the slowest it's gonna be in the future. This, this is the slowest point. Yeah. As we understand it, as we experience it, it's crazy and it's quick. It's, it's really, really fast. It's, um, yeah, ridiculously scary. Uh, yeah. Unbelievable. I've, I've got an interesting question for you. I've got two really bizarre questions for you, right? First of all, as I was reading through the book, You refer to when you were trying to learn a new language and you said that you sounded like a 15-year-old poodle. What does that sound like? It sounded like me trying to speak Mandarin. Very poodle-esque, is that? I'll just tell you that the analogy is When I was younger and I think I was living in a block of flats and one of the neighbors had an old poodle and every time there was a noise, the poodle would bark and it was like screeching noise. It was like it would shake you or rattle you to the core. And when I was in the story you're referring to, I was athletic director for the Chinese Olympic team and I was based in China and I didn't have an easy start and I had to change myself and I had to adapt and I had to kind I can't really understand the landscape from the team standpoint. And the only way I believed possible was to start trying to learn Mandarin. I wasn't very successful at it, but I threw everything at it. And the issue is I cannot sing and Mandarin is tonal. So every time you say something, it has to have a very specific tone. And if you lose the tone, you lose the meaning. And I would attempt to try and construct sentences and words, and it really was a source of laughter, tremendous humiliation. And it just brought back memories of that poodle next to me in the flat next to me. Yeah, but it certainly broke barriers and the walls came down, and my relationships with everyone around me was just kind of really solidified because of me trying to grow and change myself and being prepared to kind of look less than, less than cool in the process. Do you know what though, that's just a really nice reminder for people that it's not necessarily what you do do, it's the fact that you try. It's the effort. 100%. 100%. Um, it's, it's, it's, you know, I've got, I've got two boys, I've got a 2 boys and a girl. And the one boy is just so talented. Like, whatever he does, he is, he just is gifted. It's like crazy. I look at him, I think, like, it drives you, it actually drives me insane. I can't even go watch him play football because he doesn't try. He doesn't put any effort and he just got all these skills. And when he, and then he loses interest like after 40 minutes and, you know, the game's still going, but he's lost interest. Now he's looking at his hair and he's looking at his shoes and he's looking and, and it's like very frustrating. Then I've got my other son who is, he's not, he's not the most talented, but my word, this kid tries and he's got so much persistence and so much commitment and he just tries and tries and he's become unbelievably good. It's like, it's unbelievable how this, the shift has, has happened. And, and I've seen this, I worked with many athletes over many decades. I mean, 25 years at the top of professional sport. And one thing I did notice is that when it comes to success in any endeavor that you choose, the commitment, the consistency, the work ethic counts more than anything. And I see that with my two young boys now, how the perceivably less talented has become the exceptional player. So it's, it's just such a, such a lesson. It's such a reminder for me. I think that's a really good reminder for everybody, isn't it? And just, there are so many people that just kind of sail through and they can do incredible things, but you know, it's, it's more important that you get somebody giving you something that really, really means a lot to them rather than just being slip and with their attitude, you know, it's like it means so much more if you receive a £1 present off your child than a £200 present from somebody who just kind of throws money around like no one's business. I agree. It's such a, you know, while you're saying that, I've just thought about in the book, I actually talk about it and it's a story of an aspiring tennis player who just had this dream of becoming one of the world's best tennis players. And the dream was Wimbledon. They wanted to be playing in the Wimbledon final. It just has so much, it just has so much. The occasion is so big. I can't explain. I've been in the box of, you know, all the major Grand Slams, but Wimbledon has something special and I can't even describe it. And so this was his dream. And I meet him at about 13, 14 years old when he was 13, 14, and his parents asked me to kind of guide and support him through his career. And he wasn't particularly good at that time. But again, like my older son, grit and persistence and hard work ethic and just consistency. And this was his dream and he wasn't stopping no matter what. And at the same time, I was working with a group of very talented junior tennis players. I've never seen anything like it. It's probably the most talented group that I've seen throughout my career. 25 years or so, um, at a very high level. And the years passed, and these talented, uh, kids, I would say, you know, 12, 13, you know, became adults. But the thing is, the game is very different as a child. I mean, you know, if you have a degree of physical superiority, you can carry it through, and it's— you're not already confronted with players with tremendous experience and And they were great juniors, they're really good juniors that held the number 1, 2, 3 spots. But when they turned and converted into the senior level of the game, what was quite surprising to me is that not one of them won a professional match. It just— the opposition was too smart and they were able to read them too well. And the minute they faced obstacles and challenges, they always relied on their talent. They didn't have that work ethic and they couldn't work through it. And they couldn't reconcile the fact that they weren't good and people saw them as not these kind of shining lights and stars of the future. And, you know, here you've got this, this kid who didn't have a lot in the beginning, but just every single day it was about how can I be better tomorrow and what do I need to do to, to grow and how do I need to evolve and kind of cut out the rest of the world. It didn't matter what other people are saying and other people are doing. It's just my journey, my process, my, my, my evolution in myself. And, and turns out that this, this kid was in the Wimbledon final, became his highest ranking was 5 in the world. It turned out to be one of the most successful tennis players who beat Federer, he beat Novak, he'd beaten the only top 10 player at the time he hadn't beaten was Nadal. So it's just an amazing, you know, work ethic, commitment, dedication, personal commitment to growth. Focus on what matters. And that's really— you saw so much of this is encapsulated in the stories in the book. Yeah, and there's some fantastic stories. I just want to quickly remind all of our listeners they can pop on to suttonhealth.co.za to go and buy the book, and it's in many, many bookshops here, there, and everywhere. And unsurprisingly, we are running out of time, but I would like to ask you for your 3 top tips on trying to maintain good mental wellbeing. 3 top tips. Only, I mean, it would've been easier to ask for 300. Well, I know. So, so tip number 1 is exercise. Yeah. Just from a neurochemical standpoint, hormonal standpoint, I don't think anything parallels exercise, and we often say we don't have time and, and we might not be well, or we don't have the energy, and it, it takes 7 minutes. The, the big neurochemical changes, um, take place within 7 minutes of, of, uh, initiating, um, exercise. And, and whether it's walking, whether it's stair climbing, whether it's running, whether it's cycling, whether it's swimming, whether it's weight training, doesn't matter what it is. If, if you don't have time to do 7 minutes, If you do have time, 30 minutes, 40 minutes will be very effective. Tip number 2, and this, this for me, this is a really important thing. And tip number 2 centers around personal control. When we're confronted with a challenge or when we're confronted with a hurdle or something that is very painful, we have to ask ourselves, we have to pause deliberately, pause instead of responding and reacting, pause and ask yourself, what do we want the outcome to be based on this, this current experience? And based on how we see the outcome, we need to measure our responses. Because I want this to be the outcome, therefore I need to think this way, feel this way, and behave the way— it takes time to refine, but, but certainly It's a very, very powerful tool. It's a metacognitive tool. It's been, for me, it's been the game changer. The final piece is self-dialogue. And I think that when things are not going well, we become our own worst enemies, that the noise in our own minds is so destructive. You know, how could we have missed it? How could we have got this wrong? What's wrong with us? What? We're a failure. We're not good enough. And self-confidence is that that thing that is all too fragile in so many respects. And I think that if we can control our self-dialogue and remind ourselves of our value and remind ourselves that we can do this and remind ourselves that it's just a matter of time and remind ourselves that it's about effort and remind ourselves that, you know, we have been successful in the past and just those positive reminders and you can do it, you don't have to be afraid, you've got people who care about you, people who love you. I think that self-dialogue piece That's in the book. I describe a situation that Novak uses, Novak Djokovic uses, where 83% of the time when he's behind in a match, he starts a self-dialogue and he turns the match around. It's quite remarkable. And I've used that extensively where you have tremendous self-doubt and tremendous fear and tremendous anxiety of a situation. And that self-dialogue is it's more powerful than one can ever imagine. So exercise, always measure a situation by what do you want the outcome to be and become your own inner coach. I think they're absolutely excellent. And you never speak to anybody in your life more than you speak to yourself. And it's so important. And you do, there's a fantastic section in the, there's quite a few fantastic sections actually in the book. That focus on the importance of optimism. And there's so many takeaways that I was taking from Thrive. We've run out of time, and I must say I've thoroughly enjoyed our chat today. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Thank you so much for having me. It was such a great conversation. It could have carried on for another 2 hours. I could too, so easily, so easily. But thank you so much, and everybody go and buy the book, go and buy Thrive by today's guest, Richard Sutton. That was today's guest, Richard Sutton, who now is going to read an extract from today's book, Thrive. There is something enthralling and confidence-building about overcoming difficult physical challenges, whether they are thrown at us or deliberate and intentional. Andrew Huberman, a highly regarded professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, views regular exposure to intense physical challenges as a key component in developing short-term stress tolerance and desensitization. This idea is central to the training ethos of many, if not all, special force military units throughout the world who develop and build their team's resilience and stress tolerance through exposure to extreme physical training and harsh environmental conditions. I had firsthand experience of how extreme physical challenges can improve resilience when I was drafted into the South African Navy in 1991 as part of a mandatory National Service Act. It was a tumultuous time in South Africa, with the South African Border War involving Namibia, Zambia, and Angola ending only 2 years earlier, and much-needed sweeping political changes taking place, which would eventually see the iconic Nelson Mandela take over the presidency. The military was restructuring and disbanding many of its elite units, which meant that many of the former personnel were reassigned. My basic training intake was the recipient of this restructuring. I didn't want to be there, and I certainly didn't believe in what it stood for, and so I tried everything possible to get out of the drafting. Because of the widespread negative views of the Enforced Service, the government managed to seal every conceivable exit strategy. By leaving the country for good. There was no perceivable way around it. I arrived at basic training unprepared, undisciplined, emotionally and mentally vulnerable, and seriously unfit. So unfit that a 5-minute light jog would have felt like an elite training session. Day 1 was brutal and seemed to go on forever. My lungs were raw from gasping for air, my knees and back were in agony, my neck and head grazed from carrying either a bed or cupboard as part of the drill instructor's fitness vision for us. And to be honest, mentally I wasn't coping. The next 42 days only got more intense as the elite forces instructors attempted to expose the fragility of the human mind and body of the men within our group. Fridays were special in a good, like, hope to see you at the end of the day in one piece scenario. I was teamed up with 8 other men and had to run, climb, and crawl through a 10-kilometer obstacle course. The course involved climbing large sand dunes which felt as high as the Empire State Building, carrying 2 enormous tractor tires, steel beds, 25 to 30 kilogram backpacks, our rifles, and other random items like a steel cupboard or something equally difficult and uncomfortable to carry. Looking back, it sounds like a painful audition for a furniture removal company. The Friday events started in the ocean doing push-ups in our full kit. The cold water was always around 12 to 13 degrees centigrade and merely added to our physical discomfort. There are only a few things that must be as painful as the combination of saltwater, drenched clothing, vigorous and repetitive movement, and sweat. The friction hurts, especially under the arms and between the thighs, and not just for the training exercise, but for days after. For 6 consecutive weeks, I struggled through this Friday training exercise, largely due to having such a low base of physical fitness. Mentally and emotionally, the Friday challenge always felt unmanageable and at times too painful to bear. Also, finishing at the back of the squad didn't bode well or do me any favours within the group, as we were judged on performance as a collective. Poor performance, measured by how long it took to complete the course, had consequences and normally meant additional physical and psychological experiences. On an individual level, to be successful in Basic Training demanded anonymity. And at no point did one ever want to be singled out, for the same reason you didn't want to underperform as a group. The goal was to stay in the middle of the pack, avoid eye contact, and appear utterly exhausted all the time. And violating any of this meant additional pain. Going into week 7, I felt a lot fitter, which was translating into better mental, emotional Coping skills. That Friday, our team was 3 men short as they had gone to sickbay. I suspect to avoid participating. But full squad or not, we were still required to carry, drag, or tow all of the specified items. As the exercise began, a loud warning was shouted by the base commander stating that the bottom 2 teams would have to repeat the event. This captured the attention of all the recruits and their squad leaders, who were required to run alongside their teams for the full 10 kilometers, shouting and screaming at their troops. The notion of an ultra marathon of pain was utterly terrifying. No team wanted to come last or second last, and so the event became fiercely competitive as opposed to a survival exercise to complete. That day, amid the increased pressure and challenge, I managed to be slightly in front, driven by radically improved endurance as my fitness had finally caught up with the rest of the team, and motivated not to have to repeat the event. I somehow found mental reserves I never knew existed. What was most surprising was the fact that One of the commanding officers felt inspired to join our struggle. Apparently, he was motivated by our monumental effort and supportive team dynamic. It was exactly what we needed, an additional pair of hands and his leadership in the challenge. A few hours later, the event was finally over. Despite our reduced numbers, we had managed to place in the top 3 teams. That day we had all realized that we have the inner strength and ability to overcome any challenge, whether it be mental, emotional, physical. In a strange twist, it was also the day I began to love Fridays and the physical and mental tests that came with it. The lesson I took from this training exercise is that we're all capable of far more than we realize. In many respects, that's the purpose of being given the military activities is complete. We all have deep physical and mental reserves that can be accessed through training and building the right habits. In many ways, the direction of my life stems from the experience that day. It wasn't a feeling of pride of placing in the top 3 with a smaller team that motivated my journey, but rather the commanding sense of competency that I experienced through the event due to increased endurance and stamina, and how my emotional vulnerabilities became subjugated under these conditions. Applying this principle of physical tolerance to our own life and in your own personal context can be the defining habit that helps bring about and solidifies your future resilience. This training of physical tolerance need not be limited to exercise of physical exertion, It also can include deliberate cold exposure, heat exposure, and even intermittent fasting. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and you've been listening to Get Booked for women's radio station and men's radio station. Catch me here every day of the week at 5 PM for women's and every Tuesday at 4 PM for men's radio station. And you can catch up on previous shows at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked. Thank you for listening. To end today's show, we have a little snippet of one of my favorite shows of 2023 with the author Emmanuel Jal. Now joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station is the author of My Life Is Art by Emmanuel Jal. Now Emmanuel has distilled the hardships and learnings of his remarkable life as a former child soldier turned artist and entrepreneur into a framework of 11 pillars for living a life of purpose and overcoming adversity. My Life Is Art, which is actually an acronym of these pillars such as meditation, leading, and training. Now, this book asks some excellent questions to help focus your mind, remind you of your reality and capabilities, and how to focus your mind to assist you in changing your narrative. Let's not ask what we are not succeeding at, but what steps we can take to work towards our goals. And some of my main and favorite takeaways from this book were on purpose and joy. Without purpose, our focus is on the wrong things, looking at the purpose of others, stealing our own joy, and comparison is so unhealthy. I realize personally that I have recently lost purpose, which left me obsessing with the actions of those who clearly had more, or affecting my self-esteem, because a lack of purpose can make you look at what you are lacking rather than what you're— what you are achieving. And there's so much more to this book too, making it quite a remarkable reminder of just how precious life is, no matter what we've gone through, and how to make sure that we are Turning Life's Challenges into Something That Can Enrich Us Rather Than Swallow Us Up. And I have the pleasure now of introducing you to the author and today's guest, Emmanuel Lal. How are you? Hi, how are you? You know what? I'm really good. I'm quite uplifted. I have been storming my way through this book and, um, it's really kind of focused my mind and kind of given me a little bit of a control, ultimately. So thank you so much. I love the way you, uh, describe how purpose is to us and how it gives our lives a direction. And then when we focus on other people's purpose and we compare ourselves with them, then we get stressed out. So basically, as we walk in our path, we keep our joy as we are authentic to ourselves. I just love— I'm just taking the concept of what you're saying. Good. Well, do you know what? I mean, the thing is, our own mental well-being— so many people are struggling with it, and I think a lot of it is based in purpose. We kind of get so all-consumed with just trying to get through each day, and we lose that momentum if we don't have purpose. If we don't know why we're doing what we're doing, it can just become soul-destroying. And I realized recently that I've not been doing the things that bring me joy and that I've just not been going back to the roots of what I want to do with my life and what I want to give out to, you know, altruism is an absolutely fantastic emotion and concept. And if we can rein that in and remind ourselves, and I think you provide throughout the book some fantastic questions that we neglect to ask ourselves all the time. And we just get so lost in our own kind of misery and mundanity of life. And I've just, I found it really helpful to work through My Life Is Art. Um, how long have you been thinking about putting this book together? Well, this book was— I was just writing it for myself, really. I had no idea that I was gonna publish it. So basically, there was a time where I was reaching the low points and things were not going well for me. And then I just sat down and went to my childhood back. How, how was I able to be happy every day? How did I get this far? What are the challenges? And basically, I came to realize what was eating my strengths was my mental power. You know, even though I was— I have that purpose that was printed in my heart that guides me every day, but I had my own vision, you know. I have my own dreams, the things I want to achieve. And so I realized you could be purpose-driven, but there are certain things— the things that we want require us to acquire certain skills or increase our mental capacity so that we could be able to manage them. And then I start looking what are the principles of leadership out there, what, what habits and beliefs I need to bring into my life to change myself. And when I introduced few habits, I saw my life changing and my internal structure, my, my, the structure inside me changed and, and my habits improved, my focus improved. Then I was able to to begin to attain success in the field of things that I was looking for. It's about changing the narrative and having a positive mental attitude. And you talk about in the book the power of reading and knowledge, and you know how it's not gold that we all need to search for to enrich our life, it's knowledge. And it's knowledge that's going to get us out of many of the issues we face in everyday life and politics and geographically. And I just think I, I love books that like this, that help us not only focus on ourselves, but also realize that other people go through some horrific adversity and they can still find positivity. And it kind of shimmies, shimmies us along, gives us a bit of a kick up the bum to kind of realize that, you know, if somebody like yourself can go through what you've gone through, and see it as something to spur you forward and actually see the positive elements of what you've gone through, it kind of can help us all. That's the beauty of reading, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, if you look at it with my life, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's learning how to detach our emotions from the pain we experience in the past so we could see the value that they have. You know, in, in our daily life, we see worries will give us anxiety. Depressions are the defeats of the past, the things we haven't found a solution or, or resolved. Then stress are the challenges of the moment that we don't have the mental capacity to handle. And so when your future, your present, and the past collide negatively at one moment you lose hope. And some of the tools I use here for my life is art, is imagination. How useful is my imagination as a kid? I used to hide myself in imagination, imagining myself either as a teacher, imagining myself either as a pilot, imagining myself to be a part of a solution in the future. I discovered as a kid that I can use my imagination in a positive way and it will terrify me, or use, uh, if I use it in a negative way, it terrifies me, but if I use it in a positive way, it uplifts me, it gives me hope. So imagination is like the eye to which we can foresee the things in the future that we can live for, and, and And that's in my life is that bringing that concept into my daily life right now is when I'm facing a challenge, I would ask myself, how could I imagine myself out of this challenge? And one of the most challenging situation was when we were walking, we were between 200 to 400 young people with some adults and we are child soldiers. Where swampy ground, you know, when you fall in this water, people could only see the bubbles. And a child soldier in front of me fell in the water and a bigger soldier behind trying to pick him up. So they both drowned as I was watching them. And for me, that was difficult to watch two people going in front of you. And what did I do as a kid when I faced something so difficult? Either make some prayers, close my eyes and try to escape into imagination. And in that moment of escaping into imagination, I even came to learn about the conversation in the mind, how your mind can ask you questions. So in my imagination, I, in the water, imagining myself to be a part of a solution in the future. So my mind asked me, you are now in a problem. And you want to be a part of a solution in the future. What are you going to do now? So I'm standing in the water. So I asked my mind the same question. What is it I am going to do? So the question came back to my mind. Why don't you collect, catch the leaves of the trees there, eat them, and if you don't die, share it with the rest. So I went and collected the leaves of the tree, ate, and I shared it with the rest. And then the same question asked me. Why don't you eat the snails that are floating on the water? Eat, and if you don't die, share it with the rest. Then another question popped into my mind: why don't you shoot the vultures that are eating dead bodies? Eat, and if you don't die, share it with the rest. So in this part of my journey, when I detached my pain from— when I detached my emotion from the pain I experienced, then I saw the value that that journey has given. Because I remember here, what was killing us was not because there was nothing to eat. What was killing us was our perception. You know, there's a part in our mind that is called the Reticulated Activating System, and we have also our built-in motivation system, which is made out of our beliefs. So they literally can shut down opportunities as we see. Or way to get out. And so as a kid, when I came to England, not as a kid, but in my, as I became, I came to Kenya, but when I started becoming a musician in UK, for the first time I entered the Chinese restaurant and here I saw all kind of stuff being eaten and it gave me a flashback and said, wait a minute, This Chinese, they've evolved their perception or perspective has opened up that they are experiencing to eat different things. Now in my journey, we had people who died because they didn't want to eat the snails because of their beliefs, you know, of what people are going to think about them. There are people who didn't want to eat the vultures. And in this journey, the lowest point, as you can see when you read the book, was when I was tempted to eat my comrade when there was no food. So now in some other places I contemplated ending my life. So here you go as vulnerable as you can because I discovered your most vulnerable state is actually directly proportional to your strengths. And so, and that's what we're able to connect with people and that's where you're living in a purpose with your art open because you've seen it all. Oh, you have an incredible, um, sense of drive, and it's definitely infectious the way it comes through in My Life Is Art. And I love how effective your driving force is. You— there's so much chaos that, that you've had to endure, uh, particularly in your childhood, and you've always found the driving force to find a solution. It's given you this purpose. And I just think there was a part, a really simple part in my life, is art that really kind of focused me quite a bit. And sometimes we just need to make small steps, and these tiny steps can eventually become something larger. Um, I read a book once that said, um, anxiety is fretting about the future, and depression is worrying about the past. And so we need to learn to live in the now. And a part in your book where it just said, just try and focus on doing two things, no matter how big or small they are.