Anchors & Tugboats

Jono Hey:
Negativity can be very restrictive.

Negative self-talk narrows your focus, and it kind of acts like an anchor on you.

On the other hand, when you've got positive sort of self-talk, positive outlook on things, it's very expansive, and you can focus on gratitude, opportunity, the joy of what you're doing, and that's much more like a tugboat, and that will help pull you forward.

Tom Pellereau:
The friends you keep are incredibly important.

Those people that really pull you forward in what you believe is achievable in yourself, and how to behave and how to be with others.

Jono Hey:
I'm not a big golfer, but I think it's such a classic.

It's a gorgeous day, walking around, and they're whacking the ground with their clubs, swearing at friends, not talking to anyone.

Rob Bell:
I have been that guy.

Tom Pellereau:
I've been with that guy.

Yes, you have.

Rob Bell:
This week, we're talking about anchors and tugboats as metaphors for negative and positive thinking and self-talk.

It works particularly well when applied as a metaphor to swimming, but it's intended as a means of assessing how our mood and thoughts can affect us in all aspects of life.

Before we get into it properly, you'll be able to see the sketch for anchors and tugboats on your podcast player screens now, and if you fancy having a closer look, you can head to sketchplanations.com and I'll include a link to that sketch in its full glory in the episode description text down below.

Thank you all for your correspondence with us since last time and please keep them coming in.

We're open to all sorts of correspondence really.

I mean ideally your takes and your stories on the subjects we've covered, but general feedback, suggestions, complaints, factual corrections, we're here for all of it.

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Or you can email us and the address is hello at sketchplanations.com.

Lovely stuff, thanks Tommy.

Right then Jono, what's all this about then?

And where did you hear about this concept of anchors and tugboats?

Jono Hey:
I heard about this idea of anchors and tugboats, this analogy from a chap called Justin Ross.

He's a sports psychologist.

And he was actually on this, it was a Swimrun podcast, the Løw Tide Bøyz Podcast.

And they were talking with him.

Rob Bell:
Great podcasts.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's really fun.

Especially if you're into Swimrun.

And he, I mean, he's a sports psychologist.

So he helps with the mental side of sports.

And during the conversation, he mentioned about the sort of self-talk that you might give yourself in an event, but also in life.

And that negativity can be very restrictive.

If negative self-talk and it narrows your focus and it kind of acts like an anchor on you.

And then on the other hand, you're like, okay, well, how do I get to positivity?

When you've got positive sort of self-talk, positive outlook on things, it's very expansive and you can focus on gratitude, opportunity, the joy of what you're doing.

And that's much more like a tugboat and that will help pull you forward.

And he focused on sports psychology, so this might literally be, okay, it's got to a hard point in an event, like a marathon, let's say, that you're running.

It's funny even to say this, how are you talking to yourself?

How are you getting yourself through this moment?

And are you finding yourself in a negative frame of mind or a positive frame of mind?

And you'll probably literally feel the impact of that mental change.

On how you're performing in the event.

I really like it because it's not, I don't think it's limited to sports.

And I think I can see lots of examples in the rest of my life where negativity can sort of act like an anchor on me and positivity can do the opposite.

And so that's why I wanted to do the sketch about it.

Rob Bell:
I totally agree with you.

And with Justin Ross, with Justin Ross, the sports psychologist, who you heard this from, in that, yeah, it applies to all sorts of stuff.

My first question that I wanted to ask you both was whether you're aware of that self-talk, the inner voice.

My assumption is that everybody has it, but that is an assumption.

I don't know.

Are you guys aware of when you do that?

Is it something that you do regularly, not just in sport, but at work or any kind of situation?

Jono Hey:
I think everybody does it, but maybe that's not the case because maybe it's just us.

I think that if I'm in a tough situation, I might go, come on, Jono, pull yourself together.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, nice.

I think that is a good example of it, right?

That is, come on.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, come on.

Focus here.

You're messing this up.

Sort it out.

One of the things that Tom absolutely would jump to you in a sec, but he pointed out in the podcast that thing, which I thought is really interesting, is that nobody ever teaches you how to talk to yourself.

I know that's a strange thing to even say that, but how do you control what you're saying to yourself to get you through difficult things?

I don't remember ever doing a class on it or anything like that, but maybe it's really important, like learning what is useful self-talk and what is a bad way to self-talk.

Maybe you pick it up from all sorts of aspects of life.

But I don't think I've ever done a course on it, but I think everybody has it.

Tom Pellereau:
What Jono just said is really fascinating in the fact that I think at school, we don't get taught about our inner thoughts or we didn't.

I think kids these days do a lot more.

They asked how do they feel and that sort of stuff.

Certainly, but one of the reasons I love sport is because sport kind of brings some of these things to the front and then we hear about them.

And in sport it's very kind of measurable and repeatable and then there are some incredible professional athletes who are really taking this to the next level.

And certainly this metaphor is so clear when you're thinking about going for a run or going for a swim.

Swimming, running, they're hard work, right?

And if you are thinking about, oh, this is such hard work, oh, I'm so slow, or it's going to be a very, very different experience to if you think, oh, I can feel the wind to my back.

Oh, I'm, you know, I'm feeling lighter today.

And even if you just say those sort of things to yourself, oh, it seems like I'm going quickly today.

Like, you just feel faster when you're running in many respects, so I can really get that.

And then how can that sort of understanding then translate into the rest of our life, which is a lot more than our sporting activity?

And certainly, I'm very aware of how I'm thinking about myself and try to be.

I'm not necessarily very good at changing it.

I don't have an excessive number of negative thoughts, but I do have quite a lot of self-doubt.

And so, I think all of us do.

I think we all have it to different levels.

Some people have it a lot, and that's really tricky.

Some people don't have it at all.

I look at Trump, I'm not sure he's ever had a negative doubt in his mind ever, right, about his ability.

Jono Hey:
Justin had his kind of phrase for it was, the first step is all about awareness and you can't change what you're not aware of.

So, yes, Jono, the first step already there.

Rob Bell:
Can we talk about that for a second?

Because I thought that was incredibly important.

It goes with everything, right?

If you want to change something, you need to know, you need to be conscious, you need to know where you are when you're starting out.

And so you need to, in this context, you need to be aware of those thoughts, you need to be conscious of those thoughts.

And that's not always easy.

I feel quite lucky in that I find myself being conscious of thoughts quite a lot now.

I don't know, probably in the last 10 years or so, I'm just more conscious of the thoughts that are going through my head and the things that I do, that I say to myself in self-talk, because I self-talk loads.

And I always have done, and I know it.

Sometimes it's in my head, sometimes it's out loud.

As I said earlier, sometimes it's in the mirror.

I've given myself pep talks in the mirror before.

Goes back to the university in revision, since like, come on, mate, sort this out.

Like you're being lazy right now.

You need to get back in there.

You need to get on with the rest of the day's work and come on, sort this out.

That's not necessarily what we're talking about here.

That's just a bit of self-talk.

But I feel that that consciousness, that awareness and noticing those thoughts is absolutely key.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

And I don't know how you train awareness particularly.

I was trying to think of, you know, it's easy if you're in fact, it's perhaps the thing, like when you're feeling a lot of like negative thoughts, or let's just stay on sports because it's kind of easy.

Like if you're on a big hike and it's really hard, and you start going really slowly and you start just noticing how hard it is, and you don't always notice that you're doing that.

You know, you almost need somebody else to come and say, you know, help snap you out of it and go and like, get you to like literally look up and go, okay, where am I?

What am I doing again?

Okay, why am I here?

Yeah, why am I going so slow?

That kind of thing.

But I don't know how you train awareness, but yeah, I feel like awareness of anything you want to change is almost always the first step.

Rob Bell:
Tricky though.

Is awareness of awareness the first step?

Jono Hey:
I'm aware that I'm not, you're almost aware of it automatically.

Can you be aware of it?

Rob Bell:
Yes, but there's an element of seriousness because we're talking about this now, right?

And so I will be more conscious of what we're talking about now moving forwards.

I'm vaguely conscious of it already.

But if you weren't conscious of it at all and it was just happening and you've got positive or negative thoughts that are affecting the way you act and affecting your performance in whatever entity or context that might be, if you weren't aware of it, being told that it's a thing might help you be aware of it and might help trigger some awareness at some point.

Tom Pellereau:
Most definitely.

And I'm sure you're aware of the four by the two by two of unconsciously incompetent, as in you don't even know that you don't know.

And then you kind of reach this stage of incompetent but you are at least competent of it.

And then you go to unconscious competence and then unconscious, you just naturally do it.

And certainly we don't all get to, I think we all eventually become aware that these negative thoughts are not necessarily helpful and more positive thoughts are.

But a lot of it is down to the language we use to talk to ourselves.

Like if you start saying things like, you know, I need to do this, I have to do this, like that puts a kind of a burden on, like I've got to finish this hike, I need to finish this hike, that's very different to, I'd like to finish this hike or I choose to.

Like that creates very different, I get to like because a hike is amazing.

Like two weeks ago, you're probably like, I wish I was out hiking, and now you're out hiking and it's getting a bit, oh, I need to finish this, it's really scary, but it's amazing, right?

And I had a classic example of this last night.

I drive my kids to and from school, and also I had to take Jack to a club and the traffic was really bad and it was dark and it was wet and I was, and we were running late, but I'm in the car with my two amazing kids who I love hanging out with, but I found myself in really quite a bad mood and I apologized to them saying, I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm in a bit of a bad mood.

And the kids were really, really nice to me actually.

They were like, I don't worry, daddy.

Poppy was like stroking me, it's all right, daddy.

And this morning driving them to school, it's great fun.

We're listening to podcasts, we're talking and all that sort of stuff, but sometimes I find I can't, I really struggle to get myself out of it.

Rob Bell:
But you were aware you were in it?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
You were aware you were in a bad mood because you said, sorry, I was in a bad mood.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
But that's good awareness.

That is not guaranteed that that will happen, I think.

And it's such an interesting example, isn't it?

Because I think there are other times in your life, I don't know, if you're stuck staring at spreadsheets all day or something, where you would think, oh, I would love to be driving my kids right now.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And then there you are driving your kids and you're in such a bad mood that you can't enjoy it at all.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
So I'd love to, can we, can we, can we dive into this a little bit more?

Are you, do you remember any of what the specific like self-talk in your head might have been at that point?

Like, oh, I hate traffic.

Why am I always stuck in traffic or why am I late?

I'm going to be late again.

Sorry, not again.

I'm not projecting anything on you.

Tom Pellereau:
Well, this particular night we are always on the edge of late because he has squash and then hockey and then cricket all in one evening, which is the best.

It's just like my dream evening, but he gets to do it and I get to drive into all of it.

But in that particular instance, I was quite frustrated with the external things around me, slowing me down rather than myself.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you were still, you would have been like, oh, bloody traffic is always through here.

Why is it always coming through here?

Tom Pellereau:
Oh no, there was a negative cause I was like, why should I go this way?

Cause we were actually ahead of time and then we went, there's one or two ways.

We went one way and there was loads of bad traffic.

Rob Bell:
It's like, oh, should have gone that way.

So this is what I wanted to get to.

So this is what I wanted to get to.

So that self-talk was you saying, oh, I should have known this.

Tom Pellereau:
Kids, I'm sorry, I should have gone the other way.

Rob Bell:
So what we're talking about here with this specific context is what would have been ideal is for you to have been aware of that at the time, catch yourself like, oh, I'm putting negatives, I'm giving myself some negative talk here.

Do you know what, how can I reframe this?

How can I reframe it?

The reality in the context is the same, but how can I reframe that and give myself that self-talk, which may help me get out of my mood and stop my blood from boiling?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, yeah.

The irony was-

Rob Bell:
Get the tugboat, choo-chooing.

Tom Pellereau:
I've tried to say sorry to Pops, she was like, oh, and then we got talking and I was like, did you do that thing at school today?

And then we got home and we didn't want to get out of the car because she was then explaining to me about something that she'd done.

And we sat in the car for a few minutes once we got home.

And we could have sat there for longer, but if we'd started that conversation earlier, so it's a nice little analogy or example.

Rob Bell:
So then what you've described there, I'm no psychologist, but what you've described there is-

Tom Pellereau:
You'll give it a go.

Rob Bell:
Oh yeah, I'll give it a go.

Jono Hey:
I'm not a psychologist.

Rob Bell:
Right, then having had the car filled with a bit of negative energy from you, it feels like there was very positive energy by the time you got home, which then affected your whole mood and that whole intensity.

And again, projecting onto you, disgust in yourself, Tom, that you were feeling, was hopefully dissipated, right?

So are we talking about here, tugboats and anchors, about trying to find a way to control the narrative a bit more that we're putting into our own heads, that we're telling ourselves?

Tom Pellereau:
To release the anchor.

Rob Bell:
Release the anchor, fire up the tugboat.

Find the tugboat and latch on.

And it's not always easy, but in theory, it makes a load of sense.

Jono Hey:
One of the things Justin Ross talks about is to go, like you might be stressed about a lot of things that are as exactly as you said, external, but to think about and focus on what you, what's under your control.

Because, you know, in any parts of life, it's extremely difficult not to do it, but it doesn't help to stress about things that are not under your control, because you can't do anything about them.

So, you know, focus on what you can do something about, and that might be, you know, what's going on in the car, even if you're going to be sitting in this traffic jam for ages.

Tom Pellereau:
Exactly, your sphere of influence, right?

Isn't it?

Like, what is it that you can have influence and what can you not?

Rob Bell:
Can I give a personal example?

It is sport-related.

I've got a few that aren't all sport-related, but there's one sport-related here that is about self-talk.

I read a golf psychology book by a chap called Bob Rotella, who is a coach to many, many, many pros.

Great book, it really changed my game.

But one of the things he talked about is having a pre-swing routine that you go through before every shot.

And you can be whatever you like.

So I then developed my pre-swing routine.

And part of that, my pre-swing routine before every shot, apart from putting, is to take a big, deep breath in, exhale to let out the tension.

And as I'm exhaling that, I remind myself how much I love playing golf and how lucky I am to be out here now, hopefully, usually with mates, having a lovely, lovey time.

And so I clear my mind of any negative thoughts about what might have happened on the shot before.

And that's, I do every single shot and it's routine now.

I do it.

And I have this little smile that fills up my body, this kind of positive energy that I call it a belly smile.

You know, I don't necessarily have to smile with my face, but I can make my body smile just by that positivity.

And then I play my shot.

And it doesn't really matter if it goes well or not, but it just helps me be very positive going into that shot.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
It's a really lovely thing because I'm not a big golfer, but I think it's such a classic one where you imagine people who are really pissed off with themselves out on the course, you know, as you say, I've been out with friends, maybe it's a gorgeous day, walking around all afternoon and they're whacking the ground with their clubs, swearing at friends, not talking to anyone.

Rob Bell:
I have been that guy.

And it's horrible.

Tom Pellereau:
I've been with that guy.

Yes.

Jono Hey:
Did you manage to help him raise awareness of it?

Rob Bell:
It was an awful time.

It was an awful time when the anchor was very much present in my life.

I don't even know why, but it was.

It affected that.

It affected a few things.

Tom Pellereau:
Your tennis.

I remember that.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, there's that as well.

Yeah.

Sorry, I wouldn't have to have a character assassination, but.

It's interesting.

I wasn't that much fun to be around.

Jono Hey:
I like it.

That's a lovely routine, but yes, I sort of wish.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Maybe you should do it whenever.

You're like, right, I'm just about to sit down on the computer and go through some emails.

Rob Bell:
Oh, exactly.

Jono Hey:
And remind myself.

Tom Pellereau:
It's a lovely day.

Jono Hey:
How lucky I am to be here.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I've got a great email account.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, look at that.

Jono Hey:
Clean keyboard.

Rob Bell:
Let's go.

Jono Hey:
Really nice emails to go through.

Rob Bell:
That was just an example for me.

I've got others in sports.

I'm sure we all have.

I mean, swimming is one.

Because swimming, you've got your head down, right?

And there's not that many external influences when you're long distance.

It's the type of swimming you and I do, Jono, quite a bit of outdoor swimming in lakes, but you can't really see that much because the water's a bit murky.

It's not that clear.

And so you've just got your head down and you're with your inner thoughts a lot of the time.

Tom Pellereau:
A lot of the time.

Yeah, what is that like?

Because I really don't get that.

Jono Hey:
It's funny, isn't it?

It's quite meditative in the sense that there really is just you.

Because as you say, what you can see is up to your hand in front of you quite often, not always, but quite often.

So, there's nothing else going on.

So, you're kind of just with your thoughts, and maybe for hours.

I think...

Tom Pellereau:
What are your thoughts?

Are you tired and so actually you're not really able to think?

Because you must be also knackered, right?

Or your thoughts with the pain or...

You guys do this pretty seriously, right?

So, where are your thoughts?

Or you've done a lot of them.

Rob Bell:
My thoughts, it's just metronomic.

I couldn't tell you what I think about.

I'm basically just counting to three for hours and hours and hours.

Tom Pellereau:
So, one, two, three, breathe, one, two, three, breathe.

Rob Bell:
And occasionally I'll just focus on a slightly different aspect of my stroke or my kick.

I'll just be conscious of that for a minute whilst I'm counting and then I'll just count.

Tom Pellereau:
And is that maybe what you like about it?

Just the fact that there is no other thought, you are just in that one, two, three.

Rob Bell:
No, I don't necessarily like it or dislike it.

That's just how it is.

Jono Hey:
In the Løw Tide Bøyz Podcast, again I think maybe it's Chiva called it Black Line Therapy, which is in a swimming pool.

This is if you're doing laps in a swimming pool, all there is in your world in a way, if it's not a busy pool, is this black line along the bottom of the pool and you just follow the black line, turn around, follow the black line.

And it's quite interesting, interesting space to clear out the rest of the world.

And so I suppose it's really relevant, that's why you start thinking about self-talk, because that's all you're doing.

It's like what's going on in your head?

You might as well just be sacrosanct, doing a meditation session.

Rob Bell:
I feel like we might have gone a bit swim centric.

Have you guys got any examples of this in your lives or others that you're aware of outside of sport?

Tom Pellereau:
I think the friends you keep are incredibly important, and I am lucky certainly with you two and many others to have incredible friends who really kind of strive me to try and be the best person that I possibly can in their attitude towards things, in their success of what they've done, like you guys, it's just amazing in what you've achieved.

And so I don't find that as a kind of, oh, I want to be better than them.

But it's like, I think what would Jono do in this situation?

What would Robbie do in this situation?

And that really kind of strives me to kind of be the best person I can in everything I do.

Rob Bell:
How does that relate to the tugboat and the anchor in your mind?

Tom Pellereau:
Well, I think if you guys were kind of quite negative, like, oh, I'm not sure that will ever really happen, or is that safe for us to do that?

Or we'll never be able to swim that race or do that run.

I think that would have a very different effect on me.

Ben LeHuray, one of our best friends, went from the early age, he was like, yeah, yeah, we'll go and dive off that thing and do a backflip into the water.

All right, what are you talking about?

No one in their right mind would do that.

And then I find myself on the edge of a cliff going, well, I'm not going to backflip, but I wouldn't even normally jump off this, let alone anything, you know, those people that kind of really pull you forward in what you believe is achievable in yourself and how to behave and how to be with others.

Jono Hey:
There's a lovely trick in a way for giving advice to yourself is to ask yourself, what advice would you give to your best friend?

Yeah.

If they were in this situation, what advice would you give to them?

Because it's much easier, we often find, to give advice to other people.

And you can see, oh, they're stuck on this thing and you can help them out.

And so I remember hearing that as a little thing, which is a bit like going, what would they do in this situation?

Or, you know, if they were here, what would I tell them?

As a sort of way of getting your mind out of it.

Rob Bell:
It's a way round getting over a lack of faith in self-talk, maybe.

Does that make any sense?

Because if you don't have any faith in yourself in a particular context, just by telling yourself, oh, come on, you can do this, you might not actually believe that.

So maybe it's a way of getting round that, of finding a different way to get self-talk back into your head by projecting it coming from somebody else's face.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, exactly.

And I think in a way, like what's always lovely, is kind of like to have your own cheerleader.

And I think it's really nice to sort of surround yourself with people who are your cheerleaders.

And they're always supporting and pushing you on, no matter what you're doing.

And I mean, you know, not everybody has that.

But I sometimes think, well, how could you be a cheerleader to your friend?

Because when you have someone like that in your life, it's so helpful for you and it makes you feel so good.

And it makes you feel like you can do so much more, which is brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
I'm not sure if this is related, but I often feel we are harsher on ourselves than anyone else would be on us.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, a lot of the time.

Tom Pellereau:
What would Rob say to me now?

What would Jono say to me now?

Rather than what am I thinking?

It's often a very good way of helping to find that tugboat, that kind of lift out that you need in some places.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's really easy to focus on your flaws rather than what you're good at.

And often, actually, it's your friends and your colleagues who can notice what you're good at because you don't notice because it might be effortless for you.

Yeah, actually, that's a real asset for you.

Tom Pellereau:
Have either of you guys read David Goggins' book, Can't Hurt Me?

Jono Hey:
I haven't, but I've had many people tell me about it because it sounds fascinating.

Tom Pellereau:
He's the mental endurance runner, is one of the many things he has.

He was a Marine and the Marine training and all that sort of stuff.

And one of the things he talks about is how your brain has the tactical advantage over you.

Like it knows everything about you.

So it is much better at convincing you to just pack it in, to stop running.

Why are you running?

What's the point in this?

Why don't you just stop and have a sit down sort of thing rather than carrying on?

So he talks about your brain can remember all these things of where you failed, all your negative thoughts, whereas others don't see that.

So it's like trying to, and he talks about techniques to get over.

But I never thought about the brain having the tactical advantage over oneself.

It's a really unique way of looking at it.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, but I believe in that so much.

I believe in the head having so much power over the body.

Tom Pellereau:
The whole thing, yeah.

Robbie, he also has the accountability mirror, which you will love.

It's like talking to yourself in the mirror, having a proper accountability, and then sticking the stuff up on the mirror.

So you remember, this is what I said I would do.

Rob Bell:
I like that a lot.

Jono Hey:
I mean, I think Justin Ross talked about, you know, in many ways, that the mind evolved, you know, to talk us out of doing dumb things.

And so when you're trying to do something that's really hard, on the edge of, you know, what you might consider sort of sensible and safe, it's sort of natural that your mind might try to talk you out of it, and you need to sort of push through.

Rob Bell:
I feel like social media might have reversed that slightly.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, quite possibly.

Can I have a really simple way, which I think definitely works for others, including kids, but also for yourself.

I mean, it's really simple in sport, but I think it will happen in real life too, which is just sometimes you just need to eat.

And I know that it's really silly, but I remember it definitely when I'm running, and you're running, and you're on a really long run, and everything's getting really hard and whatever, and then you go, oh, actually, maybe I should have something to eat, and you have something like a gel or some jelly beans or something like that.

And then you don't necessarily always notice the transition, but then a few minutes later, you realize that you're cheerful again, and you're chatting with the person next to you, and you're looking around you.

And I think quite often our energy just gets low.

It's very fine.

And sometimes you just need to eat, not in like in the Grinch, drown your sorrows in carbs and ice cream kind of way, but just get a bit of energy back into you.

And that sometimes it's your energy has got really low, and that's kind of the source of the negativity.

And in some ways, that's the easiest way to get you out of this sometimes.

Tom Pellereau:
And as you say Jono, with kids, it is like they are screaming and horrific to each other.

You give them a sweet and then within 30 seconds, they're kind of back to being normal people sometimes, but just a little bit.

It doesn't have to be a sweet, but just any kind of food, an apple, something that they can eat, and they suddenly change back to beautiful people again.

Jono Hey:
And I think that's quite hard to have self-awareness for that, to go, I think my energy is just a bit low.

I need to, I should just have something to eat.

I'll just go over there, have a biscuit and a cup of tea, and then I'll come back and I'll feel all right again.

But I wouldn't often think of that.

Rob Bell:
I learnt it within my career working in TV, because shoot days when you're out on location can often be long periods of time when you're just on it, on it, on it.

You're working, working, working, you're focusing, focusing, focusing, and there's no time for food and there isn't any food.

And it's happened to me a few times where it's three o'clock in the afternoon, you haven't had lunch, breakfast was hours ago, and you've been working, working, and your brain's just been focusing so hard.

And then suddenly you can't remember anything.

And you just can't remember your lines or you just can't put two bits of direction together.

I've learnt to recognise that now and go, Oh, do you know what?

Sorry, guys, I just need to, this will be quicker for everybody.

If I take 10 minutes now to just go over to my bag where I've got a bit of emergency supplies, I'm going to have a little cereal bar and I'll be back.

And I'll probably get it first time then.

I've learnt, I've learnt that.

And I learnt it the hard way.

Jono Hey:
How did you learn it?

How did you get that awareness?

Rob Bell:
Because, as you know, a director told me, because I was, this was when I was trying to break into TV.

And I was rubbish.

I couldn't remember anything.

I couldn't explain.

I couldn't, I had this thing to explain about directional drilling in oil fields out in the North Sea.

And I had an article that I read.

It was about five page article and they needed probably a, I don't know, minute and a half segment for me to explain what it is very, very simply.

And I just couldn't do it.

I couldn't do it.

And I was going around in circles and then, and then words just didn't mean anything anymore.

And, and the director said, have you eaten?

Have you eaten?

He said, no, I haven't had lunch in years.

Okay.

Tom Pellereau:
All right.

Rob Bell:
Let's get that.

And so I've learned that.

I've learned that.

And I, and it happens, it's happened probably a handful, maybe even a dozen times since then in the last 13, 14 years.

And now I recognize it and go, okay, sometimes you just need to eat something.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

They knew that well on The Apprentice.

We had these massive bags of food in the boot of those Chrysler's.

Rob Bell:
Really?

Tom Pellereau:
Big old bags.

It was like on the second day, we discovered them.

We're like, hello, look at these.

And they're all those kind of healthy bars.

Rob Bell:
You know what I mean?

Tom Pellereau:
Like the Alpen ones.

And people are just chugging away.

And I'm like, what is in these?

Rob Bell:
The chocolate covered Alpen.

Tom Pellereau:
No, no, the kind of, they look sort of healthy.

And I'm like, what is it?

It's like 60% sugar.

Like guys, you know, these really are.

But yeah, on TV, they knew you just had to keep us fed to get the best TV.

Jono Hey:
Actually, one of the places I worked in San Francisco, we would sometimes do research sessions and we do long interviews with people often in their homes.

And there might be like two or three hours, which schedule a few a day.

Occasionally you do three a day and we had a limit.

You couldn't do more than three a day.

And they were very organized as a company, basically, which is like this process of you do something, you reflect on it, you learn, you try and improve it next time.

And one of the things in the packing list was snack bars.

Because obviously you're doing this as a little team, three or four of you, and you're going around.

And if you go around all day and you don't have time for lunch, everybody starts getting a bit snappy with each other, a bit short.

It's not very fun anymore.

And actually just packing some energy in the bags was literally on the list, to stop arguments, I think.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, that's good.

Jono Hey:
So focused.

Tom Pellereau:
Food very much a tug.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, so food is a tugboat fuel, yeah.

Jono Hey:
It's really easy as a kid to get it in your head that you don't like something.

And maybe you're doing this to spite your parents.

Rob Bell:
This is interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

Jono Hey:
But I had it with the piano.

So I was doing piano lessons.

And when you get to do something, or if you got to do something, or you have to do something.

And so I was supposed to do, I don't know, my parents were paying for piano lessons.

So I had to go to the piano lessons.

I had to go to them.

And I didn't like what we did there.

And I was practicing scales and scales are boring.

I didn't like the pieces.

I didn't want to go.

I wasn't any good because I hadn't practised, you know.

So there's a massive negative cycle.

You come back, how was piano?

It was rubbish.

I'm no good.

And I wanted to quit.

And then there was this point where it switched for me.

And I switched teacher and I was suddenly like, I like this.

I get to do piano now.

And I get to go work on this piece with the teacher.

And this is a piece I want to do.

And of course, so many people have that with music.

You know, you don't have to play the guitar.

People pick up the guitar because they want to make some music and they love making the music.

But I was just in this sort of negative cycle.

Like, this is rubbish.

Why have I got to go to this again?

And then it's probably more mental than anything that changed it.

And now I love it and I'm still doing it.

And it's funny that that power of, I mean, I was a massive anchor to myself.

So I needed to switch to some positivity and made a massive difference.

Tom Pellereau:
That's a brilliant story.

You've told me that before.

And I struggle with it a lot as being a parent as to when you kind of push the children to keep on, that they have to keep on going back.

Because also, resilience is a really important thing.

To get good at some things, you just have to keep on going back.

But there is that difficult balance and I really struggle with it.

Rob Bell:
So to build resilience, you might have to drag an anchor for a little while.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, or you might have to force your kids to drag an anchor for a bit.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, fine, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
And that's no one wins in that circumstance, right?

Rob Bell:
Unless the anchor becomes a tugboat, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
Not in the short term anyway.

And for this, so Jono, with you, was it a change in teacher?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it was the change in teacher that I remember the most.

And also a change in focus.

I deliberately stopped doing grades and decided to go, I'm going to take this bit, this music book, and we'll work on these.

And they were things I wanted to play.

And it was transformational.

Tom Pellereau:
Nice.

Rob Bell:
This is a little different, right?

Because it's not like you were suddenly conscious of these negative thoughts at that time when you were going around and you didn't like it and thought, oh, do you know what?

I need to start telling myself something differently.

I need to start reframing this.

That wasn't the process with you there.

Something else happened that wasn't a conscious recognition of anchor and then start telling yourself positive self-talk.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I don't think I got myself out of it.

Rob Bell:
No, and I don't think you can ever do that, actually, can you?

Just turn from one to another.

Something else might have to be a trigger, but then you can build upon that.

Tom Pellereau:
It's very circumstantial.

I think sometimes we can.

We can just go, we're on a walk.

It's really wet and horrible.

I can go, actually, it could be a lot worse.

And you just, you know, we have a saying, chin straps, you know, come on, chin straps, get your shit up, get your head up.

You know, it's actually, this is amazing.

And I think you can sometimes snap.

We've mentioned how food can sometimes change.

With Jono, it sounds like he released the anchor by cutting the whole, we're going to do grades.

Sometimes we need our friends to help us.

Sometimes there's circumstances.

Sometimes actually we need our friends to go, look, you're being an idiot.

Just, this is good.

This is all right.

And that's also quite difficult.

Jono Hey:
Don't know if you guys remember there's a sketch I did, which is just called Complaining at the Weather.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Oh, yeah.

Jono Hey:
And it's really simple, but I just think Complaining at the Weather is just such a classic thing, isn't it?

And the sketch has essentially adults being grumpy at the weather each time.

It's raining, it's too hot, it's too cold, and the kids are just having a great time all the time because it doesn't do any good complaining at the weather.

Rob Bell:
That is a perfect example.

That is the perfect example of anchors and tugboats, I think.

Tom Pellereau:
There's no such thing as bad weather, there's only the wrong clothes.

Rob Bell:
Exactly.

That and that is a very tugboat frame of mind.

Tom Pellereau:
Billy Connolly, that quote got me a job once, I think you remember, Rob.

Rob Bell:
I did.

I think it got me a job as well in the same but a different interview an hour later.

So recently, I've had a bit of an example of this professionally.

My industry took a massive nosedive a couple of years ago, and it left a lot of people out of work, including myself, and there wasn't much going on.

And it was a very negative kind of time, actually.

And there was a lot of negative self-talk that I was guilty of.

And then a couple of things happened.

One, I almost did a Jono and Change teacher.

I actually just had a conversation with a professional coach who started to help me reframe things a little bit and look where opportunities were.

And once I had that, my self-talk changed dramatically from that, well, this is the end of this, what are you going to do now?

I don't really want to do another job, so what am I going to do?

It all changed into, and this is very much what you're talking about earlier, Jono, where Justin Ross took us, having been very focused on, well, this is the end of this then, and I don't know what I was going to do to, in the negative side of things, to the tugboat, it being a world of opportunities.

It's like, okay, well, that stuff's not happening so much anymore, i.e.

television, like traditional television, but there's loads of other opportunities out there, and wow, there's loads more than there probably were if by just focusing in on where it had been previously.

And so, but that's where I'm at in the moment, this real fuel of positive self-talk around my career at the moment and what I do professionally, which is very different to how it was prior to two years ago when it's all taken a nosedive and there's just no money in what I used to do anymore.

There's loads more opportunities, and I think I'm probably more excited about it than I ever have been.

And there's loads of positive reinforcement and positive talk, self-talk that's going on about it.

So that has been very much a anchor and tugboat experience for me over the last couple of years with that.

And it just fits so perfectly to what we're talking about with this sketch.

Tom Pellereau:
And how much do you think the coach was the opposite of to blame, to credit for that?

Jono Hey:
Instrumental.

Tom Pellereau:
Instrumental, thank you.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, it probably was that trigger point, as we're talking about earlier with Jono not doing grades with his piano and changing teacher.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
It's almost like, if I can, I love adding to metaphors, you know this.

It is almost like someone going with cutters and cutting the chain to the anchor.

And once that's happened, it's then down to you, still, a little bit.

Tom Pellereau:
What you do with that.

Rob Bell:
Exactly, because you could just float around or you could get a tow from a tugboat by jumping on board and giving yourself a bit of positive self-talk behind it.

And I'm conscious, ah, barely, but I am conscious of the importance of me giving myself positive reinforcement and self-talk around what I'm doing at the moment.

I am a little bit conscious of it.

And when I am conscious of it and I know it's happening, it's really enjoyable.

I really love it and I get loads from it.

Where I'm conscious of that, where maybe a couple of good things have happened and then I can self-talk myself up around that positivity, I end up having a really productive and really lovely day in all aspects.

So yeah, I'm a big, big advocate of this kind of, yes, of self-talk.

I've used that phrase quite a lot in this podcast.

I'm a massive advocate of it.

Jono Hey:
It's funny, I think Brits can be very cynical about positivity in a way.

Rob Bell:
I agree.

Jono Hey:
In some ways, I feel like Americans, it just seems much easier for them to embrace the positivity.

Brits can be very sceptical.

I guess it comes out as sarcasm or something like that.

Rob Bell:
The beautiful thing about what we're talking about here is nobody else needs to know.

You're doing it.

You're chatting to yourself.

Jono Hey:
True.

Rob Bell:
So no one needs to know.

You can remain cynical on the outside.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
If that helps you.

Jono Hey:
I think one of the things Justin says was like, it has to be relevant for you.

It's not just like sitting there and pretending that bad stuff isn't happening to you.

You actually have to have a genuine like, oh, actually, I am glad to be here.

Actually, there are lots of opportunities.

Like it has to be genuine, not just like, I am glad that everything is fine.

Rob Bell:
Someone just drove over my foot.

It's all right because I have got another foot and I didn't like these shoes anyway.

And I was on my way to the hospital, I was passing the hospital on my way home.

So, you know, great.

Tom Pellereau:
Isn't that lucky?

Jono Hey:
Great day.

Rob Bell:
Isn't this all worked out wonderfully?

What else would you guys like to add in around anchors and tugboats on this metaphor of self-talk and positive and negative reinforcement?

Jono Hey:
Can I add a serious thing and a stupid thing?

Please.

One, just to put it out there, because I thought it was really interesting.

Justin had this framework where he was kind of like in training for events.

This is sport again.

There was kind of like four waves as he saw it.

One is that you train like the sport specific aspects.

So you like get really good at swimming or football or tennis or whatever, you know, how do I get to be a better player?

So sport specific stuff.

The next one was like realizing the importance of strength training.

So and also in the benefits of longevity and injury prevention, like building strength and so you go to the gym as well.

And then the next one was nutrition.

So you go, ah, actually it's really important to optimize your performance and your recovery is to get the balanced nutrition for sport.

And then in none of that was actually the mental one.

So he sort of he saw it as like the fourth wave of training is how do you train that system?

So very often it's like your mind wants to quit before your body does.

And so how do you train your mind?

So you've worked on the sport, you worked on your strength, you worked in nutrition, but you still might give up at mile 20 because it's hard.

And I think it's really interesting to think of training in that way.

And I never thought about training my mind for stuff particularly, which is cool.

But the other thing I was going to say was as soon as I put this out, I got a few notes saying tugboats actually do rather a lot of pushing rather than pulling these days.

Rob Bell:
So it's kind of shunty.

Jono Hey:
Then I learned that tugs have these, some of the most advanced propulsion systems.

Rob Bell:
Oh, they're amazing.

Jono Hey:
Did you know about azimuth thrusters?

Rob Bell:
No.

Jono Hey:
Essentially like, you know, propellers that can spin around.

Rob Bell:
Oh yeah.

Jono Hey:
They can go in any direction.

They're really quite amazing.

I've no idea how to fit that in the metaphor, but you know.

Rob Bell:
The metaphor still works because what the tugboat does is pushes its target in the direction it needs to go.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Tommy, have you anything else you'd like to add?

Tom Pellereau:
There's a great sort of saying about toxic language, toxic words.

I don't think you necessarily need to explain what toxic word, but if you find yourself using words that you sort of feel, you know, would you use that word towards somebody else?

Is that a sort of a toxic, is that a word that's going to create an argument or a positive feeling?

And if we can all help ourselves internally and externally by avoiding words like, you never do this or why do I always have to do that?

You know, those sort of toxic sentences or words are useful to try and avoid.

I think it makes for a better, better feeling internally and externally.

Rob Bell:
That feels like it's a kind of self-talk around relationships with other people, whether that's family or kids or colleagues or whatever it might be.

Tom Pellereau:
And oneself as well.

Rob Bell:
And oneself, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
Why are you always late sort of thing?

To say always late, that's toxic because that's not true.

Not always late.

It's quite regularly late.

But do you know what I mean?

So when you're saying, why, why does this always happen to me?

Like those are just toxic words, you know, because that doesn't always happen.

You don't always get stuck in the traffic.

You don't always make a mistake.

You just occasionally these things happened.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I have an example of that in the Paradox of Choice sketch.

And the interesting thing about it, I remember for me was, you know, the first you're like really excited about all these options.

And then you look at these options and you're like, oh my gosh, there's so many things.

If I pick that, I can't have that one.

So you're sort of worried about like, are you gonna pick the right one?

And then once you pick it, you're like, oh, I wish maybe I should have picked that one.

And then you have this, I always pick the wrong one.

That thing where you're like, and Brits do it all the time.

You're in the supermarket and you pick, it doesn't happen there so much anymore.

He's like, you pick the wrong queue, or maybe you're at an airport or something.

You know, oh, I always pick the wrong line.

And we'd sort of love to say that kind of thing.

Oh, you'd probably go wrong, that kind of thing.

And I think that's really important that.

So that is self-talk, that toxic language with the like paradox of choice and like cementing in that you always do the wrong thing.

Should avoid that.

Tom Pellereau:
Have you ever done that?

There will be a parking space.

There will be a parking space.

When you're driving somewhere or when you drive on my street.

Have you not heard of this?

The whole like wishing that there will be a parking space, that wherever you're going, like say you're going to a restaurant and you kind of know you need to park and it might be a bit tricky, might be a bit busy, but you'd be like, you're driving along and you're a few miles away.

You're like, no, no, no, there'll definitely be a parking space there.

It'll be really easy.

And you start like thinking about it.

It'll be like, you know, there'll be one just where I need it to be.

And the times where I can really believe that, there is.

Jono Hey:
Did you make this up?

Tom Pellereau:
No, I'm amazed that you haven't heard about it.

I've not made it up.

I've stolen it from someone else.

I can't remember who says it.

Jono Hey:
Finding parking to stress me out a bit.

And I think thinking that there won't be.

And then, you know, if people are taking ages to leave the house, I get a bit annoyed at them.

And then we all probably have a miserable drive over because I'm being grumpy because I'm probably too late to get a parking space.

But if I just changed it in my head, there will be a parking space.

My family will be much happier with me.

Rob Bell:
So the one thing I'd like to add before we run off, and I've read, heard this from someone somewhere at some point.

Jono Hey:
That's great.

Exciting new sources.

Rob Bell:
Thank you.

I've got better at that.

Is you're the only person who hears 100% of the things that you say, right?

So what you say matters because you're hearing it all the time, whether that's self-talk or talk externally about yourself.

Tom Pellereau:
Depending on your religious views.

Rob Bell:
True.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I don't know how to caveat that, but yes, you're right.

So what's our summary?

Is there a summary or conclusion?

Tom Pellereau:
Do we do summaries?

Rob Bell:
Well, maybe we do, Tommy.

Tom Pellereau:
Somehow we try to link it back together again.

Jono Hey:
There will be a summary.

Tom Pellereau:
There will be a summary.

Rob Bell:
Is there a summary or a lesson or a teaching that anyone listening might go, God, they've talked about a lot of stuff there.

I've got a bit lost along the way.

How do we bring it back and say, do you know what?

Based on what we've discussed there, here's some things that might be useful.

One, I think is the noticing.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Acknowledging, trying and acknowledge your self-talk.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, awareness.

Tom Pellereau:
The language you're using towards yourself.

Rob Bell:
And be aware of the language you're using.

Yeah.

And if it is verging on the negative, is there a way you can reframe it?

Tom Pellereau:
Or even the burdensome.

Like, I think it makes a big difference to say, oh, I must empty the dishwasher to, oh, I could empty the dishwasher now.

Or even if you say, I'd like to empty the dishwasher now.

Obviously, that is, you know, but, oh, I might have got to do this.

And you find a lot of people say, oh, I've got to do this.

And then I've got to do that.

And it's like, do you really have to do that?

You do and you don't, but it is actually a choice.

You could be like, no, I'm not going to do it.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I like it, Tommy.

I know you're right.

I do know what you mean.

I do know what you mean.

Tom Pellereau:
So tonight, you might be thinking, I've got to edit that podcast.

I mean, I could edit that podcast tomorrow.

That would be fun.

Jono Hey:
And Rob says that you can have a snack before you do it.

Rob Bell:
So that was definitely on my list of what we've concluded on this, that sometimes you just need to eat.

Jono Hey:
You've got something hard to eat.

Tom Pellereau:
I thought you said Rob must have a snack.

Okay, and a snack, yes.

Rob Bell:
I'm noticing that we've been speaking on this topic for a while now.

And I could say that we risked talking for too long about it.

But instead I'm gonna say, do you know what?

I think that is the perfect length for this podcast.

For now, go well, stay well.

Goodbye.

Jono Hey:
See ya.

Tom Pellereau:
Good night.

Look after yourselves.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.