00:03Let's talk about an important shift in our thinking and behavior that can free
00:08us up from a lot of angst and struggle in our lives and help everything flow a
00:12lot better. But first let me ask you something and please be honest with
00:17yourself. How many times in the past year have you started something? A new
00:23eating plan or just going for a walk around the block or a promise to
00:26yourself to slow down and then you've watched it quietly fall apart within a
00:31few weeks. Well if you're anything like I was about a year ago the answer is too
00:37many times to count. I spent 40 years being busy, really busy, broadcast
00:43journalism, boardrooms, deadlines, flights. I was good at striving and then I stepped
00:52on the scales one morning at the age of 60 and the number staring back at me
00:56was 90 kilograms and I won't pretend that wasn't a shock. And here's what made it
01:03worse. In my 30s and 40s I was a martial arts instructor, a Pilates coach, a fitness
01:09trainer and I've always known quite a bit about the human body and how to
01:14condition it. And somewhere in the rush of the decades, the careers, the commitments,
01:19the constant doing. I had walked away from all of that, not in one dramatic moment, just
01:26gradually. The way the tide goes out. You don't even notice it until the beach is empty.
01:32By 60 I had accumulated what my doctor cheerfully called a fairly typical picture for a man your age.
01:39high blood pressure, a bad knee, persistent lower back pain, enlarged prostate,
01:46high cholesterol, more fatigue than I should have, an inside that didn't match the person I thought I
01:52was on the inside. So I did as I had always done, I attacked it. I made a plan, a
01:58rigorous one,
01:59new diet starting Monday, daily exercise, no alcohol, the whole modern self-improvement arsenal.
02:07And I think I lasted about two weeks. When you're 63, even when you still feel young, your body is
02:15not
02:1523. And your nervous system, already tired from a lifetime of striving, doesn't respond well to
02:22being attacked again, even with good intentions. I needed a completely different approach and I found
02:29it, oddly enough, in a two and a half thousand year old Chinese concept called Wu Wei. And it changed
02:35everything for me. Wu Wei comes from the Taoist philosophy, from the famous book Tao Te Ching,
02:42written by a legendary sage called Lao Tzu, around 400 BC. The literal translation is non-doing or
02:50non-action. And I know a lot of you are probably thinking that sounds like giving up. It is absolutely
02:56not. Perhaps a better way to translate it is not forcing. A river is not pushed from behind nor
03:04pulled from ahead. It flows with gravity. It finds its way. It doesn't attack the rocks. It flows around
03:10them. And over time, quietly and without drama, it shapes the entire landscape. That's Wu Wei.
03:18It means acting in alignment with your own nature and with the natural flow of things, rather than
03:24constantly forcing outcomes through willpower alone. It means choosing the path of least resistance,
03:31not out of laziness, but out of wisdom. And there's a beautiful paradox at the heart of it,
03:37that Tao Te Ching says, the way does nothing and yet nothing is left undone.
03:44Think about the times in your life when things went really well. Were you grinding and straining,
03:50or were you in a kind of a flow where the right actions seemed to arise naturally, almost effortlessly,
03:57where you were so aligned with what you were doing that it didn't feel like work at all? Well,
04:03that's Wu Wei. You've already experienced it. We all have. The question is whether we can learn to live
04:08there more of the time. Now, why am I talking about this? What does an ancient Chinese philosophy have
04:15to do with getting healthier, feeling better, and building what I call a personal renaissance
04:20in our 50s, 60s, and 70s? Everything. Absolutely everything. Because I believe the reason most of us
04:27fail to make lasting changes at this stage of life is not a lack of information. We know vegetables are
04:34good
04:34for us. We know gentle movement helps. A good night's sleep is important. Stress is corrosive. No,
04:40we fail because we approach change the way we approached everything in our working lives. With
04:46force, with a schedule, with targets and deadlines, and with a performance review at the end of the month.
04:53And when we don't hit those targets, we don't just stop. We feel like a failure. And that feeling,
04:59that disappointment and self-criticism is exhausting in a way that makes the next attempt even harder.
05:07Wu Wei is a completely different system. Instead of asking, how do I force myself to exercise? Ask
05:13yourself, what movement would I actually enjoy? What feels natural to my body right now? And instead of
05:20attacking the diet with that punishing regime, say to yourself, knowing what I know about the best foods
05:26to eat, what would nourish me today? What feels right? Instead of fighting your way to sleep or
05:33serenity, ask, what can I let go of? Where am I creating unnecessary friction in my own life?
05:41Now, this isn't passive. This is intelligent. Water doesn't force its way through rock by being
05:47aggressive. It persists gently in the direction that is open to it. And given enough time, it carves canyons.
05:56Well, so far I've shared about 10 kilos in three months, not by severe dieting or ludicrous exercise,
06:04but from listening to my body and responding, by finding the movement I actually liked. Walking,
06:11light stretching, some of the old pilates I taught decades ago, and above all from qigong and tai chi.
06:19And by eating in a way that felt like nourishment rather than punishment, basically I stopped fighting
06:25myself. Let me suggest three wu-wei principles that you can begin applying today, right now,
06:32without having to buy anything, signing up for anything, or making a single dramatic commitment.
06:38Principle one, follow the path that is open. Stop fixating on the path that is blocked. If your knees
06:46mean running is impossible, that's not a failure, that's information. Find the door that will open.
06:52Swimming, walking, gentle yoga, tai chi. The body has a way. The key is to find it rather than mourn
07:00the one
07:01you can't take. Principle number two, do a little consistently rather than a lot, occasionally.
07:09Wu-wei differs from the hustle culture we were all trained in. A 20-minute walk every day will
07:14transform your health over six months. The grueling two-hour gym session you do once and then dread
07:21will not. Small, natural, sustainable actions. That's how rivers carve canyons. That's how we change.
07:30Principle three, remove friction rather than add force. Instead of willing yourself to eat better,
07:37make the good food easier to reach. Put the fruit on the counter. Prep a week of veggies on Sunday.
07:44Put the walking shoes at the front door. Wu-wei is about designing your environment
07:50so that the right choice becomes the natural choice. Remove the obstacles. Don't try to overpower them.
07:57And finally, please consider this. We spent decades delivering for other people, for work,
08:03our families, our responsibilities. And that's taken something out of us physically, mentally,
08:09and in ways that perhaps we're still discovering. Our personal renaissance is not about punishing
08:14ourselves back into shape. It's about recovering something that was always there. Our health, our calm,
08:22our sense of ease in our own skin. The Wu-wei approach tells us that the most powerful thing we
08:28can do
08:28is stop fighting the current and start flowing with it. Find what is natural. Find what is
08:35sustainable. Find that which feels even slightly like coming home. Because this is not the end of
08:45our story. In fact, for many of us, this chapter, freed from the relentless demands of career with wisdom we
08:51simply didn't have when we were in our 30s. This chapter is where the best of it happens. But only
08:58if
08:58we stop trying to force it.
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