Loneliness has been correlated equal to impact of smoking and obesity in terms of the ultimate health effects. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer, and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast. My guest today is Craig Cooper. And Craig is the author of a book called Your New Prime, which Tony Robbins has called The Blueprint for Men Over 40. Craig is also a serial entrepreneur. He’s a venture capitalist and host of the American TV show Adventure Capitalists. He’s originally a New Zealander but grew up in Australia and now lives in Newport Beach in California. And on today’s episode, we talk about how you may shift your training and your diet and a number of other things as you get older, from when you go to your 20s to your 30s, 40s, 50s, and so on, and some of the shifts and some of the beliefs that

Craig has had to change in order to keep himself injury-free and keep himself healthy and fit. We also talk about how you can cultivate your friendships and your tribe, particularly through sport, as this is a really important part of keeping yourself mentally healthy. And this is something that I’ve seen with our camps and through master’s swimming, that having this tribe or this group of friends that you can develop through swimming is a really important part of life. We also talk about why it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, how much fame, how much celebrity you’ve got. Everyone is going through the same issues. And Craig knows this from meeting very famous people and knowing very famous people through the work that he does. And he says that there’s no difference between people, no matter how much fame or how much money they’ve got. Another thing we talk about is the swim run community and why this is an

event that Craig has really been drawn to and really enjoys. Another thing we talk about is how you can get out of being complacent in your life. Now, there’s an element of some things we want to have certainty around, having some structure and some schedule. But we also need to have some level of uncertainty of things that we don’t know what’s going to happen, a level of adventure and play and having that uncertainty in our lives. And we talk about how you can have a bit more of that if you feel like it’s something that might be missing in your life. Let’s get into the episode. Here’s Craig Cooper. Craig, thanks for joining me on the podcast. We recorded this last week and as soon as I got off the call, I realized for some reason it didn’t record the sound on your end. And first of all, I was frustrated and I was embarrassed that I cannot believe that I wasted your time with it. But I appreciate you getting back on and offering to do this again.

So, mate, thank you very much for doing it. No, and someone who can admit their mistakes, Branson, is highly credible in my books. Well, I was thinking of it like in my mind, every excuse in the book was coming up like, right, how do I make it seem like it wasn’t my fault? But in the end, look, it comes down to me and just rip off that band-aid and it will all be fine. But yeah, at the time, I wasn’t too happy. I get double the amount of time with you, so, you know, it’s fun. Appreciate it. Craig, your background is primarily in business, but you’ve also written a book called Your New Prime, which is mainly for adults or men over 40. And how they can continue to be healthy, keep strong and live a good life. So, how did that come about with your background’s primarily business, but then moving into writing a book about men’s health? Yeah, well, you know, business has been my business, like it has to be, right?

But my passion has always been my health. And, you know, I say that because it’s kind of been a selfish endeavor for quite some time ever since I was, you know, going back to when I was nine, when I had encephalitis, I was in a coma for a month. When I was 11, I nearly lost my left leg through to, I think, osteomyelitis. I had viral pericarditis through sort of my 17th, through to my 19th year. So, I’ve had this history of inflammation and it’s been, you know, obviously a big deal for me. You know, I was, you know, I was a subject of, you know, a single mother sort of upbringing. So, sort of out on the street a lot, you know, in New Zealand and then subsequently in Australia. So, you know, I had to take care of myself and that was, you know, basically bringing myself up, you know, just as a person but also sort of looking after my health, you know, as a, you know, a teenager and into my sort of early adult life.

So, you know, it’s been a big focus of mine for sort of like 25, 30 years and it’s been, you know, really the book was a sort of passion project around, you know, how do I keep myself healthier because, you know, as I’ve sort of grown older and sort of, you know, the medical literature has evolved. We’ve found out that, you know, inflammation is just more and more at the core of, you know, disease. And, you know, it’s not just, you know, the, you know, stroke and heart attack and, you know, general lifestyle disorders but, you know, full metabolic disorders that, you know, we’re subject to as we age are sort of rooted more and more in inflammation. And I’ve kind of got the inflammation gene which I’ve had since, you know, I was born. So, you know, it was a passion project for me in order to keep me thriving through my, you know, 40s and 50s and I’m sort of turning 57 next Saturday. But it was also, you know, as I researched it more

it became more of a mission to sort of, how do I get sort of more and better information out there to men my age and educate them better because, you know, on the one hand, there’s, you know, so little information available to men especially around my age. You know, there’s a big focus on, you know, abs and biceps for, you know, guys and teenagers and that’s the focus of most of the media. But in terms of, you know, 40 plus in terms of the things that kind of really matter to you as your age there’s sort of very little information out there about that. And at the same time there’s a lot of disinformation, right? We get sound bites from the, you know, six o’clock news every night where, you know, we’re just inundated with sort of, you know, the influencer marketing around fitness and health and a lot of it is, you know, not rooted in science. I mean, basically anyone can come in and become an influencer. You know, if you’ve got, you know, a good body

and, you know, 500,000 followers on Instagram, whatever it might be, right? So there’s a lot of disinformation there. So I wanted to cut through all that particularly as it sort of relates to sort of guys my age and provide a platform for them to sort of thrive forward. And, you know, not just about fitness because that’s only, you know, one part of, you know, being healthy. I wanted to focus on, you know, every aspect that, you know, drives you forward and helps you thrive forward mentally, physically, emotionally, sectionally, nutritionally and fitness is only a small part of that because fitness changes as you age. You know, fitness is not just about, as I said, you know, biceps and abs. And that’s really the focus of the media. Fitness at, you know, my age, and I think you’re 32 now, Brenton, is that right? So, you know, you know, my fitness regime is a lot different to you girls, even though I, you know, through your videos

and everything, I, you know, try to keep up with you as much as I can. But, you know, for me, it’s more about, you know, flexibility, mobility, you know, strength is a huge part of it. You know, obviously as we start to lose muscle mass as we age, but it’s, you know, it’s a different platform once you hit your sort of forties and above. There’s some beliefs that you had 10, 20 years ago that have changed. What are the main beliefs that you’ve changed in that time where you realize that maybe what you thought you could do when you were 20 or 30, maybe isn’t the smartest option now, or some of those things where you were, you’ve completely switched dances. I mean, I know with my coaching, with my swimming, there’s been a few things where I’ve had my eyes open to what I originally thought when I started. Is there only anything that stands out to you there? Yeah, I think, I mean, you’ve got to, I mean, you’ve got to realize your limitations as you age, right?

Because, you know, I kept pushing as hard as I could, you know, as long as I could. And, you know, I got to the point where I was just rolling between injuries, right? So, you know, my whole sort of training and, you know, athletic, you know, platform and, you know, the competitions that I was entering that were basically structured around whether I was healthy or whether I was injured. And as you get older and older, you just got to realize that, you know, you’ve just got to step it back a bit. I mean, I competed in competitive Spartan racing up until about three years ago. And I was, you know, to that point, just really just racing between injuries because, you know, it was a, you know, it was a heavy, both endurance, you know, high intensity sort of strength-based exercise program with a lot of exercises which not necessarily sort of conducive to health as you age, you know, a lot of squats, a lot of heavy lifting and twists.

I mean, I was continuously just putting myself out of the game just through sort of the exercise regime that I was undertaking. So at some point, you’ve just got to say like, some things you just got to like stop and realize that that’s not conducive to a sort of a long-term sustainable health program. So for me, that was, you know, when you look at specifics, there was a lot of like squat work. There’s a lot of evidence around, you know, squats as you age in terms of barbell squats, in terms of, you know, in terms of the impact on that as you age, you know, I do a lot of kettlebell squats just in terms of goblet squats. And I’ve sort of sort of mixed that up a little bit. You can still continue to get the same sort of strength benefit but sort of, you know, using different machines and the like. So, you know, I’ve changed that whole strength regime. Nutritionally, you know, we all, you know, you just eat whatever you want, right?

But, you know, we’re bulletproof. You know, so, you know, now either, you know, very high proportion of fats because, you know, from the point of your brain health and sexual health and maintaining your testosterone, fats are a huge component of that. I ate a small amount of carbs, but I have to balance that in terms of the endurance work that I’m doing around, you know, specifically the triathlon training that I’m doing at the moment. And I eat a high proportion of protein now than I did in the past because, you know, once you hit like 30s of the age, but really once you hit about 40, 45, your body really starts to break down your muscle mass. So you need to eat a high proportion of protein per kilogram or pound of body weight. And then supplement that obviously with, you know, higher sort of, you know, low strength work. So less in terms of volume in terms of strength work,

but more in terms of intensity. Higher, heavier weights as you age, pretty much as heavy as you can lift as you age in terms of maintaining muscle mass, but less volume in terms of a weekly basis. So, you know, you don’t do weights every day. So I break my sort of training range came up into sort of endurance, tempo, high intensity training and strength work. And I kind of mix that up on a weekly basis. And that’s kind of where I focus. And with the other side of things as well, in terms of your, we spoke about this last time, your tribe, your friends, family, that sort of thing, has that shifted in focus as in you’ve, have you felt like that’s become a more important part of your life or you’ve come to understand it? Is that, and the reason I ask that is, for me, I think, particularly in my 20s, I probably didn’t have much of a focus on it. You know, it just sort of naturally happens. You might be at university and that sort of thing

happens a lot easier, but as soon as you have kids, sometimes that can fall by the wayside because you become so busy with that. So what I’ve tried to do with that is put a little bit more time and effort into cultivating that and being able to keep in touch or spend time with friends and keep that going because I’ve seen it be a really important part of mental health and also just the side of things where you’re having fun, you’re able to play, you’re able to really just take a step back from all of the other stuff that you do. Yeah, I mean, you’re lucky when you’re young. And so when you’re younger, it’s easy to cultivate friendships. You’ve still got the sort of hangover from college and your sort of early sort of state friendships. And also you’re in a social environment just in terms of your business. You’re continuously networking, whether it’s to your social networks and everything. So you’re lucky to have that as part of your platform,

but that’s not the case for upwards of 60% of men, if I can just speak about men in the United States in particular. The latest figures show that birds of 60% don’t have a single person that they can actually talk to, which is a massive social health problem, as well as, as you pointed out, a significant mental health problem globally. And that is basically being accelerated by the fact that not only are we lonely as a population, but when you layer on top of that sort of the level of social isolation that we’re in at the moment, it basically doubles the health and both physical health and mental health impact of that. And I say physical health because loneliness has been correlated equal to the impact of smoking

and obesity in terms of the ultimate health effects. So it’s a significant public health disorder. So the challenge to your point as you get older is cultivating those friendships and putting in place in effects, systems in order to make that happen because as you get older, it just doesn’t come as natural as it does when you’re younger because your friends fall by the wayside, everyone’s locked into their own little world with their kids and they’re sort of immediate network around school and the like. So it’s important to both cultivate those friendships

as well as column as you move forward as well because you obviously wanna maintain healthy friendships around yourself in terms of people who promote you and people who advance you because the old saying is the average of the five people that you mix with and it’s absolutely true. So you don’t wanna make sure, you have to make sure that those people who you are cultivating in your inner network are those that you can both contribute to as a person

and that also you can pull from.

So that’s why groups like YPO and religious groups

are important in a lot of cultures because they bring together the community, they bring together those true sort of social networks and it’s those countries, if you look at Sardinia and Okinawa and Loma Linda, California with the seventh state benefits, it’s those groups which show the longest lifespans if you look at the blue zones, for example, they’re grounded in community. It’s not so much about the diet or there’s no equinox health centers in Sardinia

with 50 people deep on a treadmill every day, right? Those people live long and healthy lives because it’s all about moderation, it’s about social connections, it’s about eating less and higher plant-based diets, it’s about walking to the shops every day. There are fundamental similarities amongst those countries in the blue zones that actually lead to those positive health effects. It’s something that I noticed, particularly on our camps, our how-weak camps in Thailand, got 20-odd swimmers there, a couple of coaches and pretty much every meal you’re there with at least a bunch of other swimmers from the group. We’re having breakfast, lunch, dinner, you’re training, you’re staying in the same resort, like it’s in seven days or eight days, you feel like you’ve gotten to know these people so well and you really feel that sense of community and that sense of, for me, I go there and it feels very much like a holiday, even though we’re coaching,

we’re getting up early and that sort of thing, but it is a really enjoyable time because you do not get that sort of social interaction and make those sort of friends just in day-to-day life in that short space of time and when you’re in an environment like that, we’ve got people who have met at a camp, say five years ago, and they’re still friends today, they catch up if they are ever in each other’s city and all that sort of stuff, and that’s what I really love to say and I think back to when I was at college at university, like it was pretty great to live with, you’ve got about 150, 200 other people there in this environment, you get to know a couple of them really well and that place where you can just, you’re basically living with your friends, it is really enjoyable, like it’s those, yeah. Come naturally, I mean, you’ve got to actively cultivate it, joining a swim squad, which I did a couple of years ago

when I got back into sort of adult swimming, right, was a step towards that and that environment. Joining clubs, actively promoting social engagements with both your sort of core in a network as well as the sort of outer rings of that network as well. And some people just sit back and go, oh, why isn’t Jack called me? I haven’t heard from him forever. Well, pick up the phone yourself and call him, right? Actively promote something. I am known amongst sort of my network as kind of like the glue that sort of brings everyone together because I’m the guy who’s actively on text during the week, where are we gonna ride? Just go do the swim, let’s sit down the beach tomorrow. I put out 500% more than I get back from that group, but the bits that I get back are super important to me, but I would never stop doing that just because I don’t think I’m getting the same back. I get a lot back from my networks and I have a bunch of different networks,

like business, like training,

that’s probably a sport business, but I have sort of compartmentalized networks,

but I’m actively promoting them and sort of driving them consistently because if you just sit there, the whole thrust of my book really is about getting out of complacency, right? It’s about striving forward in your middle age, getting out of complacency in terms of your friendships, because you carry over a lot of friendships from a lot of years and you don’t really realize, you don’t really do a sort of a friend audit as you go through life because people just stick with you. It’s like the same old guys you play golf with in the weekend or catch up with it and you don’t realize necessarily whether that’s a healthy platform to continue to carry forward, right? Because you’re complacent in it, just like your nutrition, just like your health network in terms of your doctors and everyone who sort of feeds into that network, you’ve had the same doctor for 15 years, maybe it’s time to do a health audit with that team.

So it’s about basically doing an audit on your life and I draw 40 at the line, but it certainly is not the benchmark for when you start. I laugh because I get guys when I talk to them about my book, they go, oh, that sounds fantastic, I’ll buy your book when I’m 40, I’m 39 now, right? I say, dude, it’s like, there’s no time to wait.

But it’s really about how you get out complacency from a relationship perspective is extremely important, right? Because you look at the divorce rate, particularly around where I live in Orange County, it’s pretty much 80% of people in my street have been divorced. Now, Orange County is a very, I think it’s the highest divorce rate in California down here, right?

So when you look at midlife crisis, both from the point of view of your health audit, from the point of view of your friends, from the point of view of your relationship, it’s a very important benchmark because you don’t have that long to go, right? So you wanna make sure that you’ve got optimal health, you wanna make sure that you’re in a relationship that you’re thriving with,

that your friend’s group is feeding you and not taking from you. So in terms of putting in place the core components of that going forward in order that you can thrive going forward in your 50s, 60s and beyond, that’s really sort of where my focus has been. I like even just bringing up the conversation of having that audit and just seeing where you’re at with different parts of your life, having that come to mind is a good way to start that and start to make some changes. And I know Tony Robbins and one of the things he talks about is certainty and uncertainty. And we spoke a little bit about this last time, like it’s great that you wanna have habits, you wanna have rituals in place, that’s what’s gonna help you grow and develop in certain areas. But we also want that element of uncertainty where a bit of adventure, a bit of play and getting out of that complacency. And for me, number of ways I like to do it, there’s surfing where there’s always that element

of uncertainty, especially on the bigger days, mountain biking and just not having a destination in mind and just exploring. Same thing with running as well, I really like that where you don’t really have a place in mind, you’re just running around and that’s seeing where it takes you. As well as open water swimming, there’s certainly that element of uncertainty. And for me, if I can have that a couple of times a week in my schedule, then that’s what I find when I am in those structured environments or that schedule where I know I’ve got things on, then I can do that happily, but without that element of uncertainty, I find it very hard to sit down and actually do the work and I could do the thing that I do have set in diary. Well, it’s funny you raise it because my favorite runs are in the canyon up behind my home where we actually sit out, we don’t actually have a destination or a loop. We just say, well, wherever we end up,

we’ll just get an Uber back, right? You know, at the times when you could get a Nuba, can’t get one now. But I mean, those are the best times, right? You know, whether it’s hiking and the national parks here or whatever it is. I mean, you know, what we’ve learned, I think more and more, you know, the last couple of months is that there is no certainty, right? And I’ve been through, you know, a number of black swans in my life, you know, financial crisis and stock market booms and, you know, in the life, probably four or five. And this is obviously, you know, ranks up there at the top, but, you know, in terms of, you know, certainty in life, I mean, there is no certainty, right? So, you know, you can’t live your life as if there is certainty, you know, as to, you know, what’s gonna happen tomorrow? What’s gonna happen the next day? You know, because there are these massive black swans that they come inevitably out of the blue.

We never know what they’re gonna look like. So, you know, it’s tried to say in its cliche, but, you know, in terms of, you know, living in the moment, you know, that’s, you know, it’s just a, you know, a key takeaway, I think, for, you know, the global population in terms of, you know, what we’re suffering, you know, through at the moment. Because, you know, we realize there may not be a tomorrow, right? Tomorrow is massively, you know, impacted by an event such as, you know, what we’re going through at the moment. So I find that, you know, there’s a lot of good coming out of the situation at, you know, at the moment because, you know, one of the big takeaways is that, you know, we’re all sort of like, you know, realizing that, you know, firstly, there is no tomorrow. Secondly, it’s, you know, we can live very, you know, much simpler than what we’re living before. You know, certainly our friendships are key and I think we can identify that core group

that we talked about before more and more through this process because they’re the ones that are reaching out to you on Zoom and saying, hey, you want to catch up? I just want to see how you are. Which, you know, I’ve had, you know, maybe, you know, four or five friends who I haven’t talked to for quite some time, you know, reach out to me and do, which has been, you know, fantastic. I’ve had a friend in Melbourne, a very close friend who reached out two weeks ago and just said, hey, I just want to reach out and just make sure we’re all okay. You know, for that to happen amongst men’s groups is very, very rare because, you know, we’re at, you know, we’re a lone wolf culture and the older you get, the more isolated you become and if you’re sort of operating at a certain level in, you know, business, it’s very, very hard to curate close friendships because, you know, by the nature of what you’re doing, you know, you’re nervous about your position,

you’re nervous about exposing yourself emotionally

to other people in terms of, you know, discussing, you know, your problems and things that are going on in your life. So the older you get, the more successful you get, the more isolated you actually become and then if you take Silicon Valley for an example, about what they’re saying in the latest studies, about 30% of Silicon Valley startup executives are chronically depressed and there’s about 15, 18% of them, which are, you know, suicidal. We’re seeing a massive suicide epidemic amongst startup founders in Silicon Valley for that very reason because, you know, not only do they have a massive amount of pressure on them given the sort of nature environment that they’re working, you know, there, but to succeed, but they also have no one to talk to. So, you know, it’s incredibly important that we start to foster these groups and the United States, we’ve never had it.

If you look at the institutionalized health system here, we’ve had an office of women’s health for about nearly 30 years in the White House.

There’s been a lobby group for about 20 years to get an office of men’s health and it gets nowhere every year. Every year the White House, well, before Trump, every year the White House was lit up in blue, sorry, in pink for, you know, breast cancer awareness week. It took nearly 25 years to get it lit up in blue just for, you know, men’s health week for prostate cancer. There’s no focus institutionally on men’s health here in the United States, which is a big issue, which means no money goes into it. Conversations about women’s health consistently, which is a great thing, but, you know, more men die of prostate cancer every year than breast cancer. And there’s, you know, very little discussion or, you know, to talk about the issues that men have to go through. And for me, one of my closest friendships has come from when, well, for me, this friend, we’ve had two mutual friends pass away, so one just happened and one was from suicide

and those two things brought us really close together. Whereas before that, yes, we were great friends, but it was a different level of friendship. And so now, having gone through those, having those two friends pass away and being mutual friends, it’s a very different relationship, but one where we’re much more open, we’re willing to share how we’re feeling and the actual things that we’re going through and it’s that sort of relationship that, yeah, I probably hadn’t really had that before because I hadn’t been through something like that and it’s a completely different thing, but when you’re comfortable sharing exactly what’s going on, it makes a massive difference. Yeah, I feel like you mentioned Tony Robbins, I’ve known Tony for, I don’t know, well, in my early 30s, I went to, my first unleash to power within, when I moved to the United States, and when I became good friends and did a bunch of business together,

traveled a whole bunch, and I spent a whole bunch of time with him on a plane. And you realize even at sort of that level, everyone’s got a problem, right? Everyone’s got a story, everyone needs help in some sense, so I think there’s a movement in Australia and New Zealand about sort of reaching out and just asking, I’ve forgotten what it was called, but I’ve seen some references to it about

just basically reaching out if you need help, because everyone thinks everyone else is all right, right? Everyone’s got a problem, Tony’s got problems, everyone’s got problems, right? You think everyone’s got the perfect life financially, emotionally with their partners and their kids, it’s just all BS, right? Once you get, they say never meet your heroes because you’ll be disappointed. Once you get behind the screen, no matter who it is,

I talk about in my book where I spent a lot of summers

up until probably last year, I travel up to Malibu every weekend because I’ve got the Lead Hamilton’s house up there because he’s got a 25 meter pool, which is about 20 feet deep, and it’s about probably 30 feet wide, it’s a massive big pool in his backyard, and throughout the week and particularly on Saturdays, there’d be about maybe 15 to 20 guys and girls came together at Lead’s house,

and this was movie directors, famous NBA players, everyone from John McEnroe to Barbara Streisand, and all these people would turn up, right? Just like if you’re sitting in the pool and suddenly Orlando Bloom would come in, right? It was awesome. It was just like a repository of all these people that would be pooled and it didn’t matter what you did, what you had done, because half the people there, you don’t know who they are until you find out who they are, but the rest, obviously, you know who you are. But everyone who came there were only invited and only got to stay and had longevity in that training environment if they had something to contribute to the group, right? Because it wasn’t just matter of just turning up, hanging out, doing some pool training, because that was the foundation of what became XBT training. You’ve probably seen that more now, which is the underwater training system which led and his wife Gabby started

with Brian McKenzie and Darren Allian. That was the sort of foundations of that training, but to my point, everyone who came there had something to contribute. So if you came and you sucked from the group and you’re a celebrity horde, then you wouldn’t get back, right? But if you came and actually contributed into the process, not about just being physically fit and involving yourself in, but there was a huge sort of sweetest sauna that sort of led as next to his pool. So we’d do swim training, then we’d do ice rotations in the ice bucket. We’d go into the sauna at any one time there’d be maybe 10 or 12 people in the sauna. And once you’ve got in the sauna, it was like one of those Indian tribes sort of like truth barrels, right? Everyone’s there in their bodies or in their speedos and all guards come down, right? So you got to the point where you’re talking with significant celebrities and public figures about their divorces and the problem they’re having

with this and that and the children. And it became to me, it was the first sort of like therapeutic sort of men and women’s group that I had been involved in. And I say in my book was the reason why I drove nearly two hours on a Saturday morning from Newport Beach, California up to Malibu every weekend because from the point of view of my personal therapy and what I was getting sort of out of that group and the friendships that I grew and cultivated out of it, they were priceless. So it takes effort, right? It takes effort to maintain friendships. And the hardest thing to do just given the nature of our lives and how busy we think we all are is to just pick up the phone or have a real communication with someone outside of just texting or commenting on their Instagram page or whatever it is. And I think when you look at this sort of interaction and how that’s becoming more and more pervasive and it’s going to be more and more,

I think that’s one of the key sort of benefits we’re seeing out of this crisis at the moment. And going forwards for you, what are you most looking forwards to in the next six, 12, 24 months? And what are some of the challenges that you’re looking forward to taking on, whether it be business, personal, triathlon, what have you got coming up? So let me think, well, I’d love to get back on a plane and go to the Maldives next week. That would be ideal. Even just go down to Mexico for the weekend. I mean, just those small things that you miss, right? Yeah. Because I really am getting cabin fever at the moment. So I’m missing that. Luckily, unlike you, it’s four degrees in Melbourne. We’re coming into summer here. So California is getting the weather back again. But athletically, I’m really looking forward to everything opening up again. I’m sort of just holding my breath every week to see what those schedules are looking like.

Participating in the swim run sort of world, which I love, I did Breca last year and I did the Australian champs and I just did the Attila World Champ Series in Catalina, which kind of slipped on under the radar before COVID. So I love the swim run movement to our point because it’s very, very conducive to community. Unlike triathlon, which I’ve sort of like dived back into, swim run, it’s an older demographic, much more sort of collegiate and friendly. I find the community basis of sort of the swim run movement is like, you know, super inspiring. I think triathlon loses a lot of that because there’s so much of the bike, right? Maybe you’ve just got to head down on the bike for so long, not talking to anyone, like you just become, you know, a bit of a loner. But it’s complete, the swim run environment is completely different to triathlon. So I’m looking forward to that opening up. I’ve signed up to some 70.3 Ironman events.

So I hope that starts to open up slowly and they get systems in place, which allow us to actually compete outside of, you know, Zwift and virtual Ironman races and all that sort of stuff, which is, I don’t know how sustainable that’s gonna be.

Professionally, I run a public company in Australia. We make cardiovascular health devices for measuring sensual aortic pressure, which is kind of a big deal at the moment, given that about 80% of the deaths in the United States have hypertension as their co-morbidity. So it’s a great, we have a great platform to sort of add into that environment, which was sort of actively building and sort of developing more and more. So yeah, we’re listed on the public exchange in Australia, the Australian Stock Exchange. So that’s really the focus of my business activity, pretty much everything that I have been doing over the last four or five years. You know, I had a TV show, as you know, called The Venture Capitalists. We were kind of like the shark tank for the outdoors. So, you know, that was a lot of fun. I wrote my book, which was awesome. And I’ve had a lot of venture investments, but pretty much everything that I’ve been doing

is sort of like put on the side as I focus on the public company, which is kind of a big deal. We think it’s gonna be a significant sort of multi-hundred million dollar opportunity. So that’s kind of 80% of my day.

You know, my family’s in Australia, my girls are in, you know, Sydney. They went back there to go to UNSW, and they’re now sort of based there because they grew up here since they were six. They went back to Australia. They basically decided they loved it too much. They loved the boys, they loved the music. They loved, you know, being able to drink at 20. So yeah, so they decided not to come back. So, you know, I want to get back there because I’ve been spending probably, you know, every quarter I have been back in Australia for, you know, either fundraising or, you know, other sort of corporate responsibility. So I’m looking forward to getting back into that. But, you know, my challenge is, I think from a health perspective, Brenton, I think my biggest challenge is sleep. And, you know, it’s funny, I was watching a triathlon video last night with Triathlon Taren, who I think you’ve interviewed and, you know, helped in the past with his swim stroke

and he was interviewing the top triathletes around their sleep regimes. And they’re all going, you know, I get like, you know, nine or 10 hours. I get like eight or nine. I’m just like shaking my head. I was like, how do you do that? It’s like, it’s a great sound bite, but it’s just like in my world, it’s just impossible. I’ve read an article on sleep therapy. I’ve, you know, blogged about it. I’ve been on Huffington Post. But, you know, it’s one thing to talk about it and know what to do, but, you know, executing against it. So, you know, when you look at, from a health perspective in terms of, you know, natural testosterone production, you know, obviously recovery, you know, it’s the number one free recovery tool, you know, is sleep. You know, across the board, sleep is just such a key component. So I’m lucky to get like 6,000, you know, consistently, which is just not enough. So, you know, we focus a lot on our sleep.

You know, my wife and I wake up in the morning. First thing we say is like, how many hours did you get? How many times did you get up? You know, it’s like, it’s a big deal. You know, we avoid drugs. We use, you know, as much natural therapies as we can around it in terms of, you know, processes before we get asleep. But sleep’s a big part of it. Staying injury-free is the most important thing for me outside of sleep, right? Because I put myself into the game and it takes a long time to get back in and get to the level where, you know, I’m at, you know, age group competitiveness. But then I’m always like operating on the threshold of sort of injuring myself again. And my consistent problem has been, you know, my lumbar spine and I’m going in next week to get some epidural cortisol, you know, injections in my back again. I’ve got access to, you know, a lot of good people who can help me, but it’s just the thing that, you know,

I’ve got, you know, I’ve just got to accept it. So managing that and, you know, pushing myself to the limit as much as I can without hurting myself and competing as, you know, best I can.

Because, you know, I want to keep thriving. I want to, you know, keep, you know, competitive in my age group. And, you know, I’m in a fairly competitive age group. You may think 57 may not be that competitive, but, you know, that’s sort of like, if you’re sort of 55, 56, and we’re sort of the bottom threshold is that’s a competitive age group. So, you know, I want to sort of push myself into that. And I’ve enjoyed, as you said, getting back into triathlon. I hadn’t done it for 25 years. So I’ve just started doing that the last sort of six months. So, yeah, that’s, and just, you know, just continuing to, you know, practising what I preach as best I can.

It sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate, but I, you know, it’s those, it’s having those things to do where you can progress. You can work towards something. That’s really where that enjoyment in life comes from. I mean, for me, I love just being able to try to continue improving my swimming or surfing or running, whatever it might be. And also just growing the business, growing effortless swimming and seeing how much better we can make things. And that’s really what, where I get a lot of enjoyment from. So, Craig, thanks very much for being on the podcast and for doing it a second time through. And when you do get to Melbourne or back to Australia, it’d be good to catch up. Yeah, well, look, you talk about my, you know, life goals for the next two or months. You know, I would rather meet you in New South for the new system. And, you know, do some laps out to, you know, granite or tea tree, that would be, you know,

I think that’s something I wanna, you know, go to bed thinking about tonight. Yeah, sounds good. I mean, thinking about that now, it’s, it was already a good thing to do, but now when I can’t travel to Queensland to do anything at the moment, it seems even more, more enjoyable. So, yeah, that would be, that would be awesome. Thanks again, Craig. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.