After being hospitalised three times with stress related heart problems and burnout, which included flat-lining in the emergency room, Craig Johns realised that he needed to be more than a leader of high performance. He needed to go above beyond having high performance leadership. He has now transferred those strategies into working with CEO's, senior executives, coaches and leaders from some of the world's leading companies including Nestle, P&G, Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, AIG, Boyden and Nike. 

Born in New Zealand, Craig has 25 successful years of experience leading, managing, coaching and providing sport science around the globe. As an elite athlete he competed at the Hawaii Ironman, four World Triathlon Championships and continues to play competitive golf. A hip replacement and second pacemaker, at the age of 30, meant a full-time shift to focusing on having a high performance leadership and being a CEO and National Head Coach. 

He has coached and managed 3x Olympians, 10x World Championship athletes, 21x national champions and a 3x Ironman Japan Champion. He has worked with world leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Mind and Life Institute, WTA Tennis, IRONMAN Triathlon, United World College and over 100 Olympians and World Champions while living in 5 countries.

In this interview Lisa and Craig do a deep dive into avoiding burnout and managing your performance over the long haul. About high performance leadership and how to manage your health and mental wellbeing in order to be the best you can be. You can find out more about Craig at www.nrg2perform.com and about Craigs speaking services at www.craigjohnsspeaker.com  

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

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For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying. This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy. Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book: "There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us."—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete. Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by LisaTamati.com.

Speaker 2: (00:11)Hi everyone and welcome to pushing the limits today. I have a fantastic episode with the amazing Craig Johns now Craig Johns is originally from my hometown from Taranaki, but living now in Canberra, in Australia. Now. Craig is the CEO and founder of energy to perform. He's a CEO himself. Uh, he has a background in 25 years global experience working in the sport health, mind, education and hospitality industries and he loves to help him become high performing leaders. He's also coached at the elite level Olympians, triathletes, world champion athletes, um, across a number of areas. And he is really at the top of his game as far as, uh, human performance. And I was really privileged to be on his show last weekend. He's agreed to become, come onto my show this week. So you're in for a really interesting session. If you want to know about being a high performance leader.

Speaker 2: (01:07)If you want to know about high performance and sport, then this is the man you need to listen to. Um, just before I hand over to Craig now, just want to remind you my book relentless is now available and still seeing now copies. So if you hop over to relentlessbook.lisatamati.com you can order there and you can order audio books, eBooks, Kindle, Amazon, you name it, all the options are there for you to see, uh, to, to purchase that book. Um, I had the privilege of having a wonderful online book launch just a couple of nights ago and we're going to be doing, uh, a weekly one of these. So if you want to join me on one of those sessions or live session with me talking about the book, of course my mum will also be there. Um, then please reach out to me and I'd love to let you know when the next one is happening. Um, you can reach out to me at Lisa, at lisatamati.com and if you enjoy the show, please don't forget to rate and review this podcast. It really, really helps us get more exposure and we have some brilliant people sharing their incredible knowledge. Right. Without further ado, over to Craig Johns .

Speaker 2: (02:19)Well, how everyone Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you with me again. I hope you guys are all staying safe out there as best as you can in this crazy time. Yeah, I'm sitting today with the lovely Craig John's from Canberra and Craig is the CEO and founder of energy, uh, the energy to perform. So welcome to the show, Craig. Thanks for coming on board. No, Lisa, it's great to be on your show after we had a great interview the other day. Yeah, it was fantastic. So I had the privilege of being on Craig show as well. Um, active CEO, if anyone wants to go and check that out. Active CEO. Now, Craig, can you give us a little bit of background about your life and your story and what you do these

Speaker 3: (03:00)days? Yeah, so I grew up in Taranaki as well. So from the same region, grew up on a farm, you know, a families were pretty simple. Yeah. And dad, you know, worked on a farm since he was 14 years old. He, it went through kind of the school of hard knocks and it was around our pretty rough crowd. And the teachers would say to him, look, you know, you're not going to make it in life. And when he was 14, him and his mate, they like to mess and like pee and light eating their lunch. And so they went to the principal and say, look, you know, we're wasting your time, us being here and you're wasting our time. So how about we build the furniture for your school? And so they're great to it. So they get access to the woodwork room and middleweight room and started building furniture.

Speaker 3: (03:47)And then at the age of 14 he lifts school, went farming and retaught at 45. So I think the, uh, sort of prove them wrong in that sense. I'm a mum also came from a farming and hospitality background, her banana under a famous pub and pop Tia and you know, they, it's a lot of time spent on the farm and I think that grounding from both of them, very simple. I appreciate the small things. You work really hard and then the benefits will come and uh, from uh, an also from a sporting side. So I had a, had a fortunate too, both sides of the family have coaches, so dad's side where all around field hockey and my mom's side were all around cricket. So I had this great grounding from a sport point of view and also from coaching and leading people, which was just fantastic.

Speaker 3: (04:42)I moved to Oakland to study, no sports science at university. I went on to do things around masters and biomechanics before hitting overseas. Uh, so my work in Auckland during that time was around sports science with some of the Olympic teams, some of the professional sports and was always coaching from the age of 15. So I love coaching swimming. So fly saving and triathlon in was working with some pretty amazing athletes during that time when I was 24 I got this call too. We've got a swimming coach opportunity for you in Taiwan. And that's kind, kinda like, well, I'm living at middle wide. I've got a beautiful view over the middle wide beach in Oakland and I've got these amazing opportunities. But I just thought, you know what, hi, I'm 24 years old, is this incredible world out there. I know nothing about Taiwan. All I think of as these, this big tall buildings. And my friend was like, no, it's really cool. There's like massive mountains. There's beautiful beaches. Amazing people. And so I thought, you know why not? So I packed up my bags at 24 and that started my worldwide adventure and have now lived in five places and wow. Currently based in Canberra. And you've done a of work in

Speaker 2: (05:58)the triathalon space, is that correct? So tell us a little bit about some of the sort of work you've been involved with there.

Speaker 3: (06:05)Okay. Yeah. So I've been a triathlon since I was nine years old, was my first triathlon. Wow. And so it was in my blood from quite an early space, and I naturally transitioned into triathlon where overseas I was coaching the Taiwan national team and went through to work at one of the Oh sort of most famous and beautiful splices and [inaudible] Peru kit called Tonya Perro, which is the only vice where they have, or mind how education, hospitality as an integrative approach. And so we're working with a lot of the world's top triathletes there. And then the last five and a half years I've been in Australia as a CEO of, the sport of triathlon in Canberra, and then working with the national team. So quite a, quite a big involvement. And it's just a beautiful sport with a great community.

Speaker 2: (06:55)Yup. Okay. So what have you learned as a, as a person from being an athlete that you've taken over into your corporate world, if you like, into your business and you know what you're doing now?

Speaker 3: (07:07)I think when you're very young and you're in sport, you learn some great basics for

Speaker 2: (07:11)Mmm.

Speaker 3: (07:12)Succeeding in life. So you have time management, discipline, hard work, um, overcoming adversity. You know, resilience. If we look at what's happening right now in the world around COVID-19 and coronavirus,

Speaker 3: (07:25)it really sets you up to handle those situations well. You've experienced loss before, you've experienced hurt and pain before. You've experienced the unknown and I'm overwhelmed many times and you've always made a way out of it. Yeah. You just don't give up. You, yeah, it could be out on a, I know I bike ride and you're stuck three hours from home and you've run out of energy and battling a IDK in our headwind in it's five degrees in. You just don't want to go on any longer, but you stop playing mind games. You think positive thoughts and

Speaker 3: (08:02)Nixon it and you just go from lampposts or lamppost or town to town. And then next minute you're like, Oh, I'm ready 20 minutes from home and you get home and it kind of feels a bit tiring and then you kind of wake up the next day and go, huh, what's next? Where's the big Nick's big talent? So I think those aspects are really good. And a sport like triathlon you, you wouldn't less than you loose. So you know, in a team sport you've got a 50% chance of winning every single time. And I was fortunate to be in a field hockey team where we never lost the game. The Stratford hockey team in the Taranaki league, they went something like 270 games straight without losing a game. So it's a record in New Zealand for any sport. And it was a phenomenal time to be part of that because I learned how to win end this awesome, great listens winning all the time.

Speaker 3: (08:56)However, in triathlon there's also potentially a bit of side where you are learning so much because it is so difficult to win when you might have, you know, a couple of thousand people. On a start line or even if it's 50 on the start line, your chances of winning are not that high. No, you have to [inaudible] learn to deal with winning isn't everything, but what is the winning? So it may not be first across the line, but it might be okay, I've improved my swim or I was able to stay with that pack longer or I felt better on the run. So there's always ways that you can be winning, but it's might not just be that gold medal around your neck.

Speaker 2: (09:36)Then Neva comes instantly. Th th that actually standing at the top of the podium as always a progression of years to get there. And many, many

Speaker 3: (09:43)in the, in the, in the individual sports,

Speaker 2: (09:45)um, you know, and lots of semifinalists and problems along the way and overcoming it. And then when you get to the top, you don't stay there either. So it's learning to manage that whole system and keep going. Um, so the biggest, listen, they would be, yeah, definitely. Keep, keep working towards your goals. Would that be right?

Speaker 3: (10:03)Yeah, just small steps and appreciate the small things. I think in times like these where you need to have a bit of gratitude for yourself. Yes, you need a lot of gratitude for other people and acknowledge and sank and be kind to them. But a lot of people forget to do that with themselves. Worst predict. So it is so important to be, you know, looking everyday what is something I did really well today, well done. Yeah, that's great. Boy I'm off the couch this morning and I'm out running and no one else's. And, and there are lots of little things that you can just look after yourself a lot more effectively and you can do that in day to day life. And I think people, as much as this is going to be a very challenging time, I think people have the opportunity to learn, to appreciate the small things in life and be around their families and yeah, maybe Potter in the garden or whatever it may be and realize how important that is to success in life over a long period of time.

Speaker 2: (11:01)Yeah. In taking the long view on this one now, Craig, and now you have a bit of a story yourself, um, a story of, of going home, you know, working so hard and burning out and um, coming into a bit of a drastic situation. Can you share that sort of background story, because you know, these are the stories that really teach us.

Speaker 3: (11:20)Yeah, they are. I think from a very young age, I've always, you know, push the limits. For me it was, I'm trying to find that new space, um, where can I take my body? How much can it handle? And you know, I, it wasn't the most talented person out there, but I had, damn, I had some grit and hard work if they can be. And I think that comes from there from my mother. Yeah. I think we both the same there. And you know, a lot of people go, Whoa, you know, you did really well, you succeed into world champs. And I said, yeah, there was a lot of hard work in that. And you know, there are a lot more talented people, but I managed to get ahead of quite a few of them just because I was more determined and dominant approach to say, you know what, I'm going to prove people wrong.

Speaker 3: (12:02)I'm going to prove science or medicine wrong and I want to see if I can get there. I love it. So I triggered hot problems and probably stress and burn out to a certain extent, not always burnout, but pushing that limit three key times in my life. So the first one was, who knows, uh, 15 and I'd come off a week long swim camp at Christmas time. I had done some things I've never done before. I had people stopping in the lines watching me do a set and which is absolutely flying and this felt amazing. And the next day was new year's day. I got out of bed at six o'clock in the morning when to go to the bathroom and find and went out for very long time. Um, my dad, who had just had a hip replacement was on crutches and sort of come along and tap me.

Speaker 3: (12:54)And he thought I was, could have been dead because he, he couldn't been over at time and he said my eyes were in a state that he'd never seen before. And being knocked out for over five minutes is, um, yeah, fairly scary for a lot of people. Hmm. You know, that opportunity. I spent some time in intensive care, uh, and, and word was spreading around the community that I'd had heart attacks and all sorts of things that happened to me. Um, and it took a little while for, um, the cardiologist to try and make sense of what was going on at that time. And they initially, he said, look, you know, you have to give up sport. That's it. Your resting heart rate is too low. Um, it's, it's still 32 right now and I get down to 24 at night. My next spot right is still over 210. Wow. And I've always had an extremely low blood pressure of 90, over 60. Yeah. So all those things with their, and if I stressed too much, there was a recipe for disaster in a way.

Speaker 3: (13:58)so they, but they couldn't find an actual reason to why I was having these heart problems at that time. And while I was really struggling. And so in the end, they just say, look, you can go back to sport, but you need to monitor and listen to yourselves. And I made two New Zealand teams within a year, um, and, and obviously had a very successful career after that. The second time I did it was I was working in Taiwan. I was qualified for world half iron man champ. So I was pushing the limit about six weeks out from the event. We had a big period of work where I'll be working around 60 hours a week plus those training 30 hours a week. Um, and just, I mean I was always some to try and find where is that balance on the high performance edge and I just pushed it too far.

Speaker 3: (14:46)And so I had the same thing happen there, not to the, I wasn't feinting, uh, so much because I had a pacemaker and by then it was stopping me from doing that. Ah, so that was the second time. And then the third time I in Thailand, I was working, uh, 70 to 80 hours a week. Loved every single minute of what I was doing. I was worth 302 days straight. Yup. And woke up and did the big find to gain and um, you know, obviously this time I'm married and my wife's freaking out. She, I had never been in a hospital apart from being born pretty much. And you know, this took a big toll on her and I spent quite a bit of time in hospital again and Thailand and was during that time I realized that wasn't right about me anymore. And it was more too, you know what?

Speaker 3: (15:37)Hey look, yeah, my heart's struggling a bit here and I'm not feeling well, but you know what, I'll, I've got the resilience, I'll bounce back from it. Right. You do it all the time and training, you know, you work hard, you smash yourself to bits it and you'd get a better recovery and your bounce back and away you go again pretty quick. But in this instance there was a lot more to it and I could see the effects on the staff. You know, we had 500 stops, so you could see how that affected them and especially my wife. And at that point I was like, you know what, I need to change. I'm, I put on 14kgs, I'd stopped exercising. Aye wasn't eating well even though I was at the healthiest place in the world. Mmm. And I was only getting four to five hours sleep a night.

Speaker 3: (16:17)So I wasn't allowing my body to, to recover. Right. So I wasn't giving it a chance whatsoever. And what was really, and, and, and obviously at that time I decided the term breaking the CEO came up for me at that time, breaking the CEO code and [inaudible] that concept is now sort of really developed out in working with CEO's and executives around that and also building out programs for corporates. Exits are as well. So that's where that came from. But one of the real interesting things is when you're in athletes, you base everything. Everything's based around recovery. Yes. You've got the hard work. It's based around recovery because that's when the gains happen. That's when the high performance gains actually occur. And you have really strong trees. So when you push the limit in training or at a rice, your body tells you, you know, your times aren't as good.

Speaker 3: (17:15)Your heart rate might be up, your sleep patterns go off. Um, appetite can change. And so there's a lot of really strong triggers that you're aware of. And generally you're recording a lot of data, so you, or you've got a coach that can see things as well when you're in the working world, [inaudible] have that. It's not a physical fatigue unless you're in certain [inaudible] industries. Yeah. So it's a real psychological fatigue. And unless there's a catastrophic event, yeah. Don't realize what's happening. So, excuse me to interrupt. But when you're an athlete, you only value breaking yourself physically.

Speaker 2: (17:50)So you think any mental stress, it's just like, Oh, you know, grit. You haven't run 200 cases today. You know, like it's not that bad. You underestimate how much that they can put on the actual your system when your brain is stressed and when you're, when you're pushing the limits. Mean to me it takes a lot of energy. I mean, 20% of our energy goes just into our brain. 20% of our calories, for example. Yeah. Which is, you know, and part of it. So what's happening when you're in psychological fatigue or in your work spaces, the change in fatigue and energy levels is so gradual and our bodies so clever at adapting, you don't understand what's going on, you don't feel it. And it keeps dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping until it's too late. You don't realize it. And generally it's either you take a couple of days off or you go on a planned holiday and you get sick quite often.

Speaker 2: (18:45)Well, you get to a point where I did where I had just worked at 302 days straight, full on 100% the whole time there was, it was go, go, you know, 24 seven never stopped thinking and the body does soon. You know what, okay, I'm going to have to put the brakes on here. I'm going to put the handbrake on it and we're going to hit real hard and you're probably going to hit a lamppost at the same time. And yeah, that's what happened. [inaudible] it a big lesson. The body is a very clever thing when it, you know, even in the, in the athletic world like, um, when you're running specific boat, you know, when I ran through New Zealand, my body was like shattering my body down in your mind is so strong that you pushed through the pain and you carry on and then my body actually pick up, carry on till the end of it run.

Speaker 2: (19:32)But I paid the price for the next, but he is, well actually I'm still lost if I'm honest. I mean I think cause she pushed through those, you pushed through that, that survival limit. Okay. And you do do damage. It reminds me of a really funny story. Um, I was racing autumn in Austria back in 2005, so would have been my first right man. Oh uh, yeah. First Imam. So week before I had, um, Oh go, this is going in my head, uh, not boil. Um, and then fiction, uh, [inaudible] on my head anyway, so I had, I had a, had a medical problem and yeah. Um, so from that they said, Oh look, you know, you may not be able to race. And so during the rice, like I felt good beforehand and I said, okay, look, yep, you've got the clearance, go for it. And I felt amazing. I swam really well up with the front packs out onto the bike and feeling good. Got 50 K, and then I just started vomiting from 50 K right through to the a hundred into the 190 K ride. And I'm sitting here going, I don't know how I'm going to get through this rice if I can't get food. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (20:46)got onto the felt good,

Speaker 3: (20:48)you know, I felt pretty crappy near the end of the bike and then got on the run and felt good for the first 10 K and going along nicely. And then I'm like sitting there going, I need to eat and I need to drink because I'm kidding. Anything down all day, you know, we're a six, seven hours into the rice by them. And I remember, I remember sitting down at the 21K Mark it was a loop, a double loop course. You come back past the finish line a couple of times and I could hear on the loudspeaker, a friend of mine ran out to sink being called out and saying, I went to our champion for today, ran out two sinks about to cross the line. And so I remember that and that's the last thing I remember. And, and I woke up in the medical tent [inaudible] I was like, how do I do? And they're like, what do you mean? I said, where did I finish? And they're like, Oh, we found you at the 22 K Mark or running down the wrong road and we were trying to stop you. And you're like, no, leave me. I'm about to catch the widow completely out of it. Just lost it. You know, body wanted to keep going. But I had, isn't it amazing how strong the mind is though, that you can push yourself to almost killing yourself? Yeah. Yup, yup. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (22:02)and like you, you know, through all this, these, you know, the cycle if you like, of of going had crashing, growing, had crashing, going hog crashing. It just started to learn something that you've actually like used today and you are in your world today. Okay. Yeah. So when, so when I was sitting there and I talked about, you know, being in that position, hospital, yeah. A couple of years ago and okay, I realized I needed to break the CEO code. And the big thing for me was I have all this amazing knowledge and lessons learned from the athlete world, from coaching, from being a sports science in that high performance space. And I was using none of it, none of it. And here's a lesson for everyone in life. There are four basic fundamentals to performance. Anyone, no matter what you do, it's exercise, nutrition, freeing your mind and recovering with purpose.

Speaker 3: (22:57)Now all of those have effects on your ability to perform mentally, physically, emotionally. Okay. [inaudible] they have huge effects on things like your mood on your ability, your cognitive function, your ability to, to actually process information [inaudible] okay. Don't have those imbalance, then you will limit your performance potential. So I was, look at it this way, your talent sits, your minimum performance ceiling, your exercise, your nutrition, you're freeing your mind and you're covering with purpose determines how high you can lift the ceiling. All right? So that is what controls that your talent controls just your minimum height. So you could be the most talented person in the world, but if you don't look after yourself, you're not going to get anywhere near your potential. Hmm. And so obviously we say that quite often they get lazy and know everything's too easy for them when they're younger. And then finally, some people who actually really look after themselves come through and Sean above them, and that works in whatever space it is, whether it be a musician or a speaker, a coach, an athlete, a parents, whatever it may be, that will determine it.

Speaker 3: (24:16)And then the second aspect is, uh, that are really thrived on and tested and tried many times is paradise nation and of the term that CEO paradise relation. Now puritization initially comes from cataloging in the library system and it was cataloging on periods of time. Then the sporting world took it, especially in endurance and used it to paradise. There they work in stress loads and balance it with recovery periods so that they can get jumps in performance over time. So as they recovered, their performance would go to a high level. I would stress it, they dropped down their performance, but then when they recovered it would go higher again. So I applied that to work. Um, and as we talked about before, you don't recognize the fatigue that's going on and you push and push and push. And because it's the stimulus is that the change is so small and it's a catastrophic event, then you don't, you, your body is adapting to it. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (25:12)so important to actually plan the recovery and, and that can be on a daily basis, weekly, monthly, yearly or career basis. Now, the Korea one is fascinating because I've only met two people so far who do this extremely well. One is Anne gripper, who used to be CEO of triathlon Australia and she's now working at new South Wales office of sport as their CEO. And she is into a fourth cycle of five years in a job, one year off, five years on, one year off. And she planned that, you know, uh, what are we looking at about seven, eight, nine years ago now? Nearly 20 years ago. Yeah. Each of her breaks, she's done something completely different. Yeah. And some might think of it as a sabbatical, but no, this is actually planned. It's not seven or more years. It's, it's every or five years on, one year off.

Speaker 3: (26:03)And so she cycled the world for one of them. She set up a philanthropy, uh, in another one and the other one, she has gone off and done her masters at one of the prestigious Mmm postgraduate schools in Switzerland for school, the lighting. So I'm looking forward to what's next. I don't know. I haven't actually spoken to her. What's next? The other one is Del Beaumont. Del Bowman is a bit of a legend in the personal development and kind of marketing spice and has a huge following in Australia and around the world. And he's been working for 17 years and kind of that personal development space for the last 10 years. He works two months on, one month off. Wow. Three months on, one month off. And so during that one month off, he generally goes to a new country around the world. He takes his, his wife has young children and he's been, I think he's over a hundred countries now.

Speaker 3: (26:58)He's been to, and so that's the approach he's taken now. He has a, he's built a team behind him. He's put trust in them. I'm sure he will really hard during the two months, but then he has a full one month off where it's completely off work. Yeah. Extremely good. Uh, if we took a look at it from a year point of view, most people will go, all right, I've got four weeks holiday. I'll take them off inside the Southern hemisphere. They'll take them off for Christmas and they'll spend time with the children. I've a summer, a Northern hemisphere would obviously be July, August period. So what they do is they work 11 months and then they just have this recovery there. So it's a long time to be staying on and performing at a high level. Exactly. Yeah. And so what's more effective is if, how do we look at, can we put things in every three months or every four months and actually scheduling those [inaudible] your diaries before the start of the year, like an athlete would.

Speaker 3: (27:52)They plan the recovery periods at Welland avant, sometimes up to four years if they're into an Olympic cycle. [inaudible] and you sit there with your family and you plan that so that you're both offered the same time, if that's what you want to do. If you're married, if you're not, then obviously you just need to look after yourself. It's a bit easier. Um, but as you plan that time away from the work that you're doing away from the passion that you're in, get out in night, go see some new places, change your environment and allow that mind to refresh and the body to recover and that as well. Uh, and then obviously we can type that down to even into a WIC space where, how do we cycle those periods? What has been fascinating through the research with Don [inaudible] pretty much in, in endurance athletes and also in anything that's done in business, it works out to be about a three to one work to rest ratio.

Speaker 3: (28:43)Yeah, three, two, one. So say an athlete will generally go three weeks on one week off, three weeks on, one week off. Now if sometimes they may do a longer period up to five or six weeks and then, but then they need a longer recovery period to balance that back. But it's still equal somewhere around three to one, unless they're doing something really extreme. And in the, it might need to be a lot more recovery in the working world. They do stuff, uh, say on a daily basis where they look at how long can a, a high performer achieve high levels of performance and productivity over period of time. Now there's some that say 52 minutes, um, of work at that level and before they start to lose the, the performance and lose the productivity and it takes about 70 minutes to get that back.

Speaker 3: (29:33)There are others who say 45 minutes, 15 but most of the studies are still based around a three to one where it's risk ratio. So it's a great place to stop. Now if you go through what a lot of CEOs and a lot of businesses and a lot of families are going through right now, which is a massive stress load with dealing with [inaudible], you actually go into needs more recovery in there. Yup. Or a longer piece of recovery coming up. Now we're pretty much going to be forced to doing that because you're working from home. Yup. There might be some stresses, yes. But you're pretty much going to be forced to do that, which will be really good for you. Really good for you to take that time out to recover [inaudible] and we're using it to recover, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so the key message is here that it's all around proactively planning recovery so you can sustain high levels of performance and productivity all the time.

Speaker 3: (30:27)And that's what I've been able to do since then. I don't drink coffee, I don't have sugar, I don't um, touch soft drinks. I don't have any caffeine whatsoever. I can't cause my heart anyway, but I have consistent energy all day. I don't get to a point where I fall over. I don't get to a point where I feel it declining. If that happens. It's extremely rare because I plan my recovery, I've got my exercise, nutrition, freeing my mind and recovering with purpose embedded every single day. And if I do need to do a period of how to work, then I will, I will plan a longer period of recovery in there. So I will look at it and go, okay, this project is going to take quite a bit of time. So I know I need to have some recovery in it. Yeah. At the moment, I am having to stop pretty early in the morning because of dealing with some stuff with covert 19 from a local, national, international level in multiple areas.

Speaker 3: (31:21)So I have to start at five Oh six in the morning and I might not finish till nine at night, but I'll go out in the middle of the day and I go for a two three hour bike ride and have some recovery. So I'm in the middle of the dice. So I ensure that I can perform at a high level. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's really about planning in doing the very basic things. Well, you sleep, you know, when you were doing in Taiwan and you hit that four to five hours a night's sleep, it's a disaster. Well, your hormones now, when do you put on my, you know, I don't order those sort of things. Uh, really those sort of things are really crucial. But their sleep, the hydration, the nutrition in the meantime breaks. If we all would agree on that and they exercise. Oh, absolutely. No, we are, we're singing from the same song shake Theo thing. Yeah. And it's certainly important. I like it. There's been a whole thing of the last sort of 10 years around that the hype before or that the people can go without slave and they'd be performing a massively. Now there's something trying to me what the statistic is.

Speaker 3: (32:27)Oh yeah. I think it's something like 7%. It may even be less than that of people that can survive, that can function at the highest level off around five to six hours. Yeah, it's very few,

Speaker 2: (32:40)but most people, it's around eight to nine hours. And every time you reduce that, like say if you reduce it by half an hour, you probably won't notice it too much because your body's adapting to it. But it does have quite a big effect [inaudible] on your IQ. Obviously your intelligence, your emotional intelligence, as you said, your hormones, which you fix, uh, things such as energy to fix, such as things as your mood. It affects your ability to cope under pressure. Alright. Really important things that you need to have firing in all cylinders. So the people that are thrived, Oh, sorry. Yeah. People that are thriving at the moment rather than just surviving the coven 19 and coronavirus people that actually [inaudible] sitting quite healthy and are able to make decisions rationally. I will too go through thought processes and um, ensure that they have the cognitive function, deal with things effectively.

Speaker 2: (33:37)Those that have come into it a little tired that don't, don't have a healthy body are the ones that are struggling the most. Yeah, yup. Mean to the end physically and [inaudible] sleep deprivation one, um, that really over time leads to cognitive decline, you know, which I'm, you know, specialized in learning about brain rehabilitation and, and the correlation between Alzheimer's and dementia and lack of sleep over many years is it's a very strong one. Mmm. So for that reason alone, you know, you need to, if you want to have a brain that is performing into, you know, like the stats already in your thirties and your forties, you know, this is already a map to climb. Okay. And you, you know, optimizing every area of your life so that you can cope. What's the [inaudible] you know, I like, I've got a [inaudible] well it shouldn't be healthy fit. [inaudible] and I can face this courses with a beta lot of energy [inaudible] to focus on, you know, like I've got more to, to, to more resilience.

Speaker 2: (34:47)And at the moment we're all going a little bit, well some of us are going and sign the hat, um, and we have to for this short period of time and that's okay. As long as we're the planning and as soon as this one's down that you've got some recovery in there somewhere. Otherwise you will. Hello. I mean, I know this, like with my mum, I'm having that aneurism and you know, the book that I've just [inaudible] for that relentless, the first three years were seven days a week, you know, operating two companies working with her all day and not a day off. Never a day off. Yeah. Oh, you know, in the first six months it was round the clock and there was hardly any time for sleep. It was, yeah, four to five hours of sleep. And you know, I paid, I paid a massive price, but I had to, to survive. And now I have to, my body isn't quite as as it should be.

Speaker 3: (35:38)And I have to rebuild those resources again. And that is an extreme, you know, situations that you had to, you know, and we know as athletes how to do that for a period of time. The thing is [inaudible] don't, don't mistake mental toughness with, you know, you're, you're, you're still a human, you're not Bulletproof. I would like to think we are as athletes, we're not, and we will have limitations and we need to respect their bodies and gives them time to come back sooner or later and hopefully sooner. Mmm. So Craig, I now need to ramp up shortly and I know that you've got lots of things to get onward. So the periodization, the three two one is a really important factor adhering to the basics. Uh, got you. What else did you like? What would ask, would you like to leave as parting words for people to think about and we can they find you and reach out to you if they wanna work with you?

Speaker 3: (36:36)Yeah. Brilliant. I think one of the best [inaudible] the most important things is here is it. It's about the basics. You know, if we look at the most effective sports teams in the world are most effective athletes, they focused a lot on the basics and getting them right. What we're seeing a lot now in say the sporting world as we're seeing a lot of people going for the shiny things, they want to mimic the plays that the all blacks do. They want to be trying to do the same sessions as and the Olympic. A runner. Yeah, Stitcher, and so they want to go for the shiny things first. It is or about the basics and that's the same thing when it comes to looking after your body. [inaudible] no matter whether you're a mum or your a CEO or you're someone going to work or you look after the [inaudible], the [inaudible], the community bridge club.

Speaker 3: (37:23)It's about the bicycles. If you want to [inaudible] high performing person, I think that's really, really important. [inaudible] the second thing is that you need to obviously make sure that you're preparing to perform every day. If we look at athletes, singers, dances, songwriters, artists in what people would term is the performing areas. Um, and what they don't realize everything is performing. But I would consider those as performance ones. They spend over 95% of their time training, preparing, planning, and less than 5% of their time actually competing. Now when it comes to the business world, corporate world, it's the complete opposite. So they actually spend more than around 95% of their time actually competing. Yeah. And very little time planning, preparing training to be better, to improve their performance and to get the best out of their team. So I have the second phase of breaking the CEO code is performance is the three P's of leadership performance touched on CEO paradise [inaudible].

Speaker 3: (38:31)The second one is CUI prisons. Now CEO prisons is around, how do you turn up? Oh, sorry. How do you show up and turn it up? So it is how do you prepare for a meeting or an interaction or for a project? Cause most people just roll in. Yeah. We see quite often in the corporate world where people will go back to back to back meetings. Um, and even if they don't, they'll just rock into a meeting. They'll pull out their diary and go, Oh, we're talking about this today. Can someone brief me what's happening? Yeah, absolutely. Zero preparation. There's no preparation to right. Sometimes. Ah, yeah. And we all get caught in it sometimes, but wouldn't it be more effective if you actually plan for it? You thought about what you were going to say and what impact you are going to have on people. Uh, and, and you speak. So generally as a speaker, one of the key things you focus on before you get on stages, you visualize how you want the audience to react and feel afterwards. How do you want them to react and fill afterwards? So [inaudible] you've got to bring the performance, bring the energy, and you've got to evoke the emotions that are required. So that's in any meeting, in any discussion, any sales. Yeah. Any relationship that's so important. Evoke the new bright emotions, not any emotion. The right emotion.

Speaker 3: (39:56)Okay. And then once you evoke the emotions, you then need to make sure that you leave them with a message and something to do next. So what, what is the action that is going to occur? So prisons is all about your nonverbal communication. It's around your communication as well. Content you are going to say. So go back to nonverbal. It's around your body language. It's the way you bring your energy to the room. Mmm. [inaudible] the most important aspect because people feed a lot more off the nonverbals than they do the verbals. So we actually react. And so 97% of the message comes from the nonverbals, not the actual verbal content. Well, not what you're saying. Yep. That's how you say it. Yep. And how you deliver it. Yeah. Yeah. So that prison is so important. So a lot of the time we start, we talk with our, with the say CEOs executives to go, alright, let's cut yours, schedule your meetings in half.

Speaker 3: (40:53)And it freaks them out. And we know we have to get the pay on the to do it and it teaches him to delegate the low and medium priorities to other people to look after. And so they just focus on the high priorities. And this is so important right now during covert 19 and coronavirus. You need to identify what are the high priorities and then determine what is going to have the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. And you move the medium and low, um, priorities and delegate them and empower your staff to look after those and given some responsibility. Don't take all the responsibility yourself. Hmm. So that's a really powerful thing right now. Mmm [inaudible] then obviously once we've reduced the number of meetings, we, we then go, okay, we need to put some time in beforehand. So you plan not just understand the content and maybe your outcome, but how you're going to deliver.

Speaker 3: (41:47)And then after the meeting you need to make sure you've got a debrief and some time to recover because we need to make sure that you're performing at three, two, one work to rest ratio throughout the day. [inaudible] come four or five o'clock when you might need to be making some really key decisions. You still have the energy, you still able to perform [inaudible] best to bring the best out of the people you've got. So powerful. The third phase is CEO performance and CEO performance is around developing high performing habits and high-performing habits. Uh, [inaudible] around making sure that you have your and your [inaudible] mental state that you're removing any obstacles, any, uh, things that are cluttering your mind, anything that is preventing you from being your best. So it does integrate. So that first one, that first phase of your foundations of exercise, nutrition fraying and modern recovery does include those.

Speaker 3: (42:45)But there are also other things. It's around ensuring that you don't contaminate the home space with workspace. Yeah. This is really, really important right now I working at home. So maybe I think for this, uh, I would just go into what's really important right now for those that haven't worked at home before. You need to set some boundaries, create a space where you do work only and only work. Do we need to make sure that it's, you can keep the children away if possible, unless they're really young. You may need to adjust this, that drinks can't be spilled, etc. That distractions are put to the side. You need to make sure that when you step out of that room, you go from being in work. So now being in home life, yup. Or release life, you put the new hat on, you need to make sure when you get up in the morning, you keep your routine as consistent as possible to what you would do from a normal working day.

Speaker 3: (43:41)Keep that routine because then your body's not reacting to stuff. Your body reacts when it's [inaudible] doesn't, it's unfamiliar. Yeah. It would be proactive. So get up, have a shower hugely out of your pajamas. Cause I'm sure there's a lot of you that are sitting in your pajamas and your boxer shorts, et cetera right now or your underwear doing your work at home. No, you've got to step out and get into the right mental state and you know, I have breakfast stopped the day as you would [inaudible] then you need to make sure that you've actually got planned time in there to step out and get some exercise, recharge the batteries, clear them on freedom mind, um, and, and have a break from things cause it's so easy to get caught up, especially when you're at home. And for those that are normally used to being in a really busy office with lots of calls and emails going on, now I'm going to find you actually probably not this week, but in the next couple of weeks you'll find you have a lot more time for yourself and you'd be able to get in the zone and standard zone a lot longer.

Speaker 3: (44:42)So when you're in that space, it is still important because if you want great performance throughout the whole day, through the whole week, through over the next few months, [inaudible] got to proactively put in the recovery now otherwise you will struggle later on. Yup. Mmm. And that is so important. Now there might be some if you're like, um, let's see how, so if, if you've heard of the five love languages. No. So there are Gary Chapman, check it out. [inaudible] fascinating, fascinating stuff. And it talks about one of the five love languages and how if you can understand what your love languages and you understand what someone else's is and then you know how to work with them. So my love language is acts of service. So I like it when people do things and I do things, that's my love language. Whereas my wife is physical touch and quality time, so she likes to be close to me.

Speaker 3: (45:33)We don't need to speak, don't need to talk much. And she dislikes to be close to me. So there might be an instance where say [inaudible] because they might be a bit more work to do right now is I might go out in the lounge, but we know clearly that I'm still working. We're, we're aware of that if we want to. And so it can be close to each other. If we want to have a discussion, I close the laptop, take it back, put it in the office, and then we sit down and have our discussion and talk through things or discuss whatever we want to. That's a good tip for me actually. Cause I'm, yeah. Tend to just be 24, seven hovering around the computer and sometimes the husband, it doesn't get detention in dates when he needs it. Yeah, because you were always, that delineation is really, really, yup.

Speaker 3: (46:19)And relationships are absolutely number one priority. It's so easy for us to brush them off to the side and get busy with work in the end. The people that are always going to be there when things are struggling, uh, when, when times are tough, when overwhelmed sitting are your family and your friends. And so if you [inaudible] [inaudible] them right anytime of the year, you can do it for a little bit. But if you do it over a long period of time, that relationship will deteriorate. So make sure if you've got healthy relationships, you have a healthy life and you have healthy work, um, and productivity and performance. Excellent. All right. It gives it a nice wrap I think for that. Perfect. Wrap up. So Craig, we can people reach out to you. I know you have a whole bunch of things that you offer in courses and a work that you do with [inaudible] CEO isn't so on as a speaker is a drug.

Speaker 3: (