Freeways, Speed Bumps and Road Blocks

it's another episode of wabisabi and i just you know so excited about this particular pod cast because jim you send to me yesterday you messaged me something and you said he what about this topic and i thought let's go with it so the title of this particular episode is gonna be free way speed bumps and row blocks i think that says it all exactly what that means

yep because because there have been heaps of for both of us right so

yeah i think for everybody who's listen to this podcast i'm sure you've all experience life in the fast lane and all like most of the time that we really think about more things in the vast lane we always kind of remember the speed bumps and obviously the road blocks so jim tell me why you know what was the inspiration for you that came up with this particular topic today

okay so i mentioned two and you put put you succently put the theme and the topic on it but fundamentally really the back story to this was i have spent eighteen months trying to organize my passport my great passport my fathers greek descent and ere's a result of that in order to be able to be an citizen it's a great gateway to be able to have flexibility in and options too anybody who lives in europe so that was the pathway now i started this woman back in australia months ago my brother and i went he wouldn't it be a good idea you know we were contemplating things and i guess we're wit in idle of lock down we both went and what are we doing can we get out of and so we both went let's apply to our passport he was looking to going to portugal at one stage but he hasn't and i went okay i'm just going to get mine anyway and he got his in six weeks but because i had a

right

there was a number issue or a number mistake in how my birthday was registered in greece because we lived there or a little while it went and i actually had through githoughthis whole convoluted process that took me eighteen months my brother said got it in six weeks i got mine in eighteen months and there were plenty of obstacles there were plenty of skids there were so many along the way that it really revealed me to me in this process and i had to

uh uh

you know when when i received my passport on friday it was an emotional moment it was almost like oh my gosh you know wept to know it was tears of release you know he was holding on but then i reflected back and went what happened to me where did where did that take me who did i become et cetera et cetera so thought to be a great discussion point to open up with today

yeah absolutely i think and that's the thing if you if anybody's ever experienced southern europe you you know there's plenty of speed bumps and road blocks and i'm not talking about the ones actually on the road i'm actually just talking about the barocracy how things and how fast things move here and i think and that's the chanlet's just start there i think the realization i think is most important i think as a discussion point is to recognize me it's easy to know when you're in a free way

oh h yeah yeah

it's easy to know when everything is moving you know super fast and everything is going smooth and when you're in flow i think that's the easy part but i think is also the distinction i think that most people need to really be aware of is being distinction between what a difference between a speed bump and a road block and what i mean by that is because oftentimes i find that too many people hit a speed bump and they think that's a road block and then they act a core

m

ingle and and they you know let's face if we all hit a speed bum what do we do we've got to slow down right we're gon slow down the car so you're not absorbing the bumps you know you're just gonna have to adapt to it slowly and oust gotta know it's going to take a little while but i find that a lot of people because they don't life has been really good right most people life has been really good it's been maybe not a free way but it's like you know it's a normal road and it's been smooth sailing and they lived a comfortable life and they never really experienced

yeah m

much bumps so the first time they experience the bump they almost go they can really react is what the hell is this what are these bumps on the road so just think about everything because there are a lot of times when you know i'm sure that has happened to you jim when you ve gone to spain for here like there are certain things when i moved to portugal that i would have never encountered in canada or in australia or any country that i lived in because it's only unique to this

yeah m m

ulture or this country and so to me at the beginning it's kind of like a speed bump that i've never seen before or bump i never even knew existed and that could easily if you know for someone seeing the speed in was like what is this on the road they could go like this is ridiculous and they just kind of give up and they treat that as a road block but isn't really real block it just means that it slows down it's something that you know you have to learn to deal with and adapt and get used

yeah m yeah yeah yeah

do i think that is the distinction i think that is so important to recognize between a speed bumping a road block

yeah totally and the a lot of the time it's very easy to default to a victim nar narrative in those moments where you're thinking for me why me why does it happen to happen to me like and that's the default easy part the part like you just said is like if there's an obstacle i think i've mentioned before like my previous in a previous iteration of version of myself i just take a longer run i've ben trying around through that brick wall and i've learned that that doesn't always serve me so you know like it just doesn't doesn't work yeah know that that brick wall is saying so either i've gone we're gonna ask for help and i go around and so that's like discernment and wisdom that teaches you that and that's equally applicable no matter what area of life you're talking about it's the same old thing let us speak but to me there were so many times where we were planning to go one way or you might be going

you're big jim but that brick wall is pretty strong too

and in one way and it throws you off a little bit and you either have to course correct or you have to re evaluate and go okay am i driving according to the right condition i don't need to change is is the goal still the goal and all those kind of questions come up but a really important thing that happens for people at those times is they either personalized that set back as something that's a problem in themselves or there's a problem in the in the vision or the mission or where they're going as a post to just go hey didn't see that coming okay how do we adjust and how do we keep moving forward

but that's the hardest decision to make though isn't it like the discernment between the speed bump and the road blocks what we're discussing and decernment the decision that you have to make whether this is a rope true road block or it is the speed bum that's that's the hardest part right it's easy to say it an analogy point of view but when it comes into situations it could be very hard like i'll give you an example like um you know there's certain i'm sure i'm sure people have experience where they hit a speed bump but it's like once speed

yeah yeah

after another and another another like what but then all of a sudden like i guarantee i've done this many times where my brain just goes maybe that's the universe way of telling me i shouldn't go down this road right and we can kind of default to that kind of statement or that story and then eventually what that does is like okay well maybe i'm just going on down the road i gonna turn back around go back the other way and but reality is like how do you decide how does someone decide what is your thinking process where is this just a

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

bump is this something that i have to get used to and adapt accordingly or is this like a road block or and seth godin actually talks about this is called the cold sack sometimes you just end up at the dead end and you should just stop right so how do you with your decision process of decision try to decide whether or not this is a speed bump or rollock

m yeah yer's a great question because i've got like three levels that i look at i always look at it as data information number two intuition and number three experience so fundamental there are three metrics and so what happens is if you only ever focus like by nature i'm a very intuitive person and this is you we've spoken about elements of this or if you're going maybe i'm listening to university all that i

m

into that because if i walk into a room and all my spidy senses are going off and says listen to that i listen to that but what happens the danger and the problem with only focusing on intuition as you're re enforcing your bias you're enforcing your blind spots and so consequently if you only ever make decisions based on intuition you're reenforcing that that could be good but sometimes they could be leading you down the wrong path so it's incorporating data so you know like in terms of the road like if you're driving along and you're your senses on your car and going hey you you've got to to corporate all that data there's no point ignoring it or righteously saying i'm not going to listen to it i'm goin goin to trust what here so it's listen to the data so interpreting the data listening to your intuition and then your experience of time helps you govern that like if you've been driving for a while you've got a rough sense of it's wet so i need to slow down on whatever so it helps you with that and nothing is ever full proof you know just because you've got data doesn't anyway make mistakes it's just to me i've got to find that relationship between the three of them that will help me make a decision

yeah that's very interesting i'm not sure if i discussed this in previous podcasts episodes but you know tell me if i have jim so that we can kind of move on from it but i actually have similar three steps very i think they're actually almost identical but just in a different term i learned this through a nate navy seal sniper um his name is randy and he he basically was a yeah maybe seal sniper and i was talking to him once like how do you we were in japan

oh

just talking and i'm like how do you guys make decisions you know as you know as a map like how do you guys make decisions and he goes that's easy he goes we make decision on three fronts three the real threes right so he goes we learn with the first decision we walk into a room i mean these are life and death situations right so you walk into a room he goes the first thing is intuition okay so that's the same low so intuition is the first element because intuition just like you have a good feeling and sometimes you doesn't make any sense but it's there

the rule three rule ren

right so that they have to follow that so they will always follow the intuition so they always check in with the intuition obviously this is a very fast pace intuition is the first thing if there's no answer from the intuition if the intuition doesn't have anything it doesn't give you any feedback then they go to the second level which is instinct this is where the training kicks in right so that's why when they go into training they do all over again because they want them to not be able to think and react in certain situations right so they're on to de

yeah

to their instincts we all have instincts especially in sport or we have certain instincts around life you know going down a dark alley you have certain instincts you in you have certain instincts about when someone does this you know you know react accordingly and so that's the second level of decision making now if the intuition is not there doesn't give you an answer that if the instinct doesn't give you an answer then they go through the third level which is then intelligence i kind of make that word up but basically the intelligence is based on what you said experience and your lot

yeah m yeah

go mind what was interesting right to me was what he said last which he says he goes the higher level you go from intuition to instinct to an intelligence the more likelihood and probability you make a mistake i was like oh like that's pretty interesting right um and this guy whose life and death situation a decision thing if they make that deciniontry so i think to add i think both of us you know that that context is really good decision try i'll add the elm

yeah yeah yeah yeah

oh you know for listeners and the viewers to make sure you consider the situation that you re actually in meaning like i think that you have to evaluate the situation to not try not to allow emotions to cloud your judgment in those situations because as soon as emotion as soon as your lympic brain kind of plays and plays in there you are creating that you could easily create that cognitive bias the intuition you think in intuition but really is your emotion of fear um so we got to be careful and i think one thing i learned today i was going to do a video on this but it's such an intent thing the concept which was easy and even now it's like response versus react right and he said you know when we react to something oftentimes like there's certain things that we do have to react you know i was playing sports today playing paddle like when the ball comes to your face yeah you got to react okay punch comes to you you got to react right those are important reactions but when it comes to human communicate

yeah yeah

and right often times we react and you know you regret it the moment you say it right and so instead of reacting every single time it's like we need to take and tell your brains to respond because now when you respond to a situation you do have to have to take that time to kind of consider all the factors are involved all your level of experience all the level instincts and all the levels of intuition before you actually respond and i think that having that just that

yeah yeah m yeah

distinction between reacting to responding allows you to remove or at least minimize the emotional bias that you might have in that situation which then can help you make that decision better

yeah and i love what you said about the interplay between instinct intuition because a lot of the times what allows someone to have certainty to trust themselves is the level of preparation so topic theme we have regularly and martial art is you don't rise to the occasion a default to your level of preparation and so consequently first response sniper and marine has drilled into themselves this is just an automatic play it is like these are drills go to those on can default on those in the absence of emotion because my body is just going through it so many times so that's where the automatic parts come into it and you trust that you know any time you talk to a team and this is probably a really good example of being on a free way in the road like is you could be part of a team and you're out of form you've still been going to training but form is just not happening what great coaches say focus on the process but read the outcome go back to basic incorporate that and once that happens you build momentum and you and i both know i say the hardest team to play against is the one that building momentum so once they've got momentum they just score goals at will and you can't stop them it's almost like there's a way or sena coming through and it's really really difficult so they're the kind of interplay are really like that from instinct but a lot of the time you can't just keep pulling a rabbit out of the hat you have to be prepared and this is the part when i did some search with military guys always said that what allowed them to trust their instincts in those life and death moments was their preparation because that gave them the confidence to back their instincts or their judgments in the moment

and that's hard to do though right preparation to make decisions preparation to make tough calls in life and business is very difficult because unless you intensely in sport is easy because in sport we intentionally go and train and practise and take lessons because you just want to get better but most people don't spend the time to intentionally prepare to make decisions in business

yeah

to make decisions in their life because they almost think that it just will come naturally and i think that's a massive problem you're absolutely right of a preparation like you definitely need preparation but we don't spend any time really going into the dodo of life and business to practice what would happen if x happened what would happen if you one of your staff decides to quit on you today what would happen if one of your staff decides to steal from me what do you do in those situations you know what

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

and when you get a law suit like all of these things we don't ever prepare ourselves or our mind or even even think about we only do most of i don't know about you but most of us do this only because in hindsight and reaction because it already has happened and we learn from the experience but we never put ourselves in the situation from a simulated position what would we do

yeah yeah yeah yeah totally and you know i work scenarios in day to day like you and i both have been involved in team training that basically you train the team and sometimes there's role played people have this hang up on rob place and we change into scenario training and it just made all the difference but you're training for scenarios you can prepare for those for that we introduce for example we simulate aspects of a game so we like basically saying i'm paying sport and i'm going to just be kicking practicing my kicking for for the next hour so that you get the raps and so you have certainty in that action so the moment that you have that opportunity you're not thinking about it you can dissociate from it and it's preprodown in your body so you're right there's a lot of things in life you can't anticipate but it's important to be and we've talked about the adaptuchadaptation having an adaptability capacity able to respond in the moment as opposed to reacting way too late

yeah i think a good exercise for everybody based on this conversation right now is that i think it's important to really spend a lid of a time we have to spend a lot of time and i'm trying to be pessimistic here but to really think through what are some of the worst case scenarios that could happen in your business if you've never done that before think is important i actually you know tim ferris actually did a great um video on this i think you did a ted talk on this is called the fear setting exercise and i would really encourage anybody to go and watch fear setting type and fear setting on youtubeaand watch tim ferris talk about fear set

by

because one of the things that most of us are you know we're all afraid of something but the exercise basically walks you through is it goes let's go through the scenario if the worst thing that could ever happen to you in that particular situation and let's walk through what would you do like you know how do you feel what would happen and then it goes what would you do if that did happen to you right and then you will write down all these things and then you go i think that one the other question was like what would you do to get back to this to the level that you're

yep m

now so let's just let's play with this example s say m let's say i got fired from my job okay great and i'm living a certain lifestyle kay what would you do then like if you got fired tomorrow what would you do you know would you go back to your parents borrow some money you go to the bank because i wore a car like what would you do right and you just literally list through that experience rather than feeling a victim and going all crowd to suck like yeah that will come anyway but like let's go through what what are the actions you would actually take okay and then you know the other question is like then what what

yes yeah

what would you have to do to get from where you were going back to zero to get back to this particular life that like you know and then lay out some of those steps and then the whole point in the exercise to really kind of pointed out to y that even if the worst case can you think is the worst thing that could ever happen to you is actually not as bad as you think it is because you already have the action step you already know what would be like you already now wha y're gonna do and you already know how you're gonna get back to the same level is all of a sudden like the thing i was afraid of isn't actually a mean

m

not saying you're not going to have any fear just you're not gonna be as afraid as you were five minutes ago before you did the exercise

yea i love i love that and talked a lot about like the stoic principle where you if you're ever worrying about losing everything you just one day you you just dress up in your oldest clothes walk around and eat really basic food and go is this what i am scared of is this's what to pre programme it's kind of like exposure far being away to prepare you for that to go i survive and i did that just in answer to your question lorance i think it's a really good point because

yeah

discipline that a lot of that found works really well for a lot of people and certainly for me as well is if you get knocked side like things you didn't anticipate whether it's a road block or what have you the temptation is to want to take action immediately and a lot of the times let's say you get downside you lose your job like you just said the example the instinct is just going to get go and go and going but a lot of the time you need to recruit first you need to give

m

back to guess a point where like you said out of emotion but if you're coming up with solutions out of that fierce state they're all going to be less than so if you're making decisions out of fear doubt uncertainty they're going to be totally different decisions as opposed to ones that are made out of feeling grounded feeling confident feeling centered you know so to me what i've learned and a lot of times on the other side of it if i was making decisions out of anger frustration righteous whatever it is then they're not great either and so consequently i find that i'd have to go into damage control or repair something that i'd send em done because that wasn't appropriate so in those scenarios i think it's really relevant to say okay i've just been side swiped here i didn't anticipate it and hatevernow how do i group how can i get myself back to a point where i feel grounded and centered think back to a timing place where i felt in control everything was great you sit around and go i've got

yep

breathing i can touch the ground i've got my land you basically get connected and when you're in that place that's when you start making decisions that's the difference between reacting and responding which is what you're talking about before

yeah absolutely having a clarity of your decision making you need that clarity i mean and i'm going to show the first thing even you mentioned about you know this image i had was from sport from today actually so i would use as an example because so i play paddle today and one of the paddle techniques or the strategy is to hit the ball down the line hit in the middle and the reason why you hit in the middle is because now you're hitting between two players and the decision between the pair like you know for me it's to say me my partner have to decide who's going to take that ball right and and there's many times when that ball comes in the middle which is an easy shot right but the problem is it because if the shot is coming in fast i have to react but i also know my partner can get there and i can get there who's going to take it and in that moment one of us has to decide who's goin take it because and this is happening several times today where because i thought i know i can take it and i even called it but i also see his racket just

yeah

about the hit too i have a slight hesitation and i don't hit it square and that's when the mistake happens and i think that's exactly what you're talking about is when when you are trying to make a decision without with from that fear mentality of what yo're gonna lose right versus about sitting back and actually having full clar and seeing the whole picture you're kind of you're gong to hold back just a little bit and when you make that decision your n hit that ball it's gonna be slightly off center and that that's what happens to the all of the all

yeah

goes off that side and not go where do you want it to be and and that fear based decision making um you're always going to be avoiding rather than actually seeing a clear path and making the decision towards something that has actually beneficial to you

yeah yeah yeah totally so this week last week i should say when we were in grease just a bit more context it took me eighteen months and i had to take my case to the high court of greece to change my identity and that cost a lot of money to do a lot of time and my lawyer i hired a lawyer to help me through this process and we're in this police station i'm gonna get my idea and she was like you know grace under fire you know and this is real

m

important about responding because we had this road work and the police officer says listen all your details haven't been updated on the computer system so i can't issue this information you're gonna have to go into this this this this this is his and i was originally just taken a deep breath i've looked over my lawyer and she's just taken a big deep breath and gone okay and she's regrouped and she's going okay so look here's the scenario what can we do can we do this watching your control phenomenal questions because this person who was who was seeking it in a transitional manner wasn't thinking outside the square she was and if she'd got into emotion i got into emotion it would have been black white you know zero some game whereas she just looked for solutions and so consequently and she was an injured she was absolutely a she goes okay can we do this case we do that you open to the possibility and also you know what and so

m yeah m

we've made it happen and what that to me it kind of provided it's not a dead end end sometimes you've got to call it sometimes it's basically a bigger opportunity that's just waiting for you to find that so a lot of times in negotiation they say that you know the sale starts when the person says no you go so let's change the terms of change of structure on the time lines you always change

yep

around but you've got to be nimble in yourself to think outside of it and dissociate the emotion and the ego from what someone's saying sometimes negotiation terms to find the best solution for everybody

it takes a lot of practice to become stoic enough to be able to hold back those initial reaction emotions that each one have and you know what we're highlighting here is it's important for not only in business transaction and decisions but it's just as important when it comes to relationships with people you know like what you just described with your lawyer and yourself and just taking that moment of pause that's that's responding that's not reacting and

yeah yeah yep yeah yeah

you know we you know as human beings are so used to reacting and be reaction mode and the problem reacting in those circumstances in communication it really does lead to a point where if i started getting angry at you like from because i heard something what's your automatic response your automat response is going to defend and then now re because i attacked because i didn't like what i heard and then all of a sudden you put you in the defensive and then therefore now we're arguing

m yeah

now we've lost um you know we've lost basically what we discussing what we're trying to trying to come to a resolution with and i think that's the problem with our lour communication this happens in our staff this happens in our teams this happens in our intimate relationships our friendships and i think that's such an important thing to think about is to know how do we build up that resiliency to hold back our emotions and be still with our thoughts and to be able to respond instead of reacting because your ability to do that can not only influence your decisions but it can actually influence a lot of co operations from others and in your effectiveness as a communicator

yeah totally agree and i actually had a conversation with someone just two days ago about the similarly where basically three ways road blocks and speed bumps where in relation to a child and so when you're trying to build a relationship with your child when you're basically saying when everthing's going great you're in free way vote they going to school there's no disruption they're sleeping they're doing all that eating well all those kind of things but little obstacles happen along the way and little basically a little speed bumps coming across i should say and you might say this in whatever it is that you need to do and say come and talk to me you can talk to me and if they come and do that and the default is that you basically true about you really disiplinnt harshly subconsciously they're gonna go i'm not going to do that again so it's a really important moment you actually the same thing respond versus reactors take it on board and just go what i hear i may not like but at we're trying to do is work through this scenario i'm trying to help this child and i know plenty of situations where i had to just rather than speak to just hold hold there and just allow them to work through the process knowing that no matter what with that or otherwise we got you back and that was a really big moment so there's things that haven't always gone to plan you don't have the perfect frame and life time but it's a case of how you build trust when things don't go to plan

yeah yeah yeah yeah especially with kids i mean it's one of i've had moments when the kids were young there are certain things that you know maybe we'll have discussion on podcast other podcast episode but there's certain things that really not only irritate me it doesn't irritate me it actually really hits me hard reactionary and i can't control it just hits me and i had to learn and i don't like it but it's like it's a reaction i can't control like it's one of those

yeah hm yeah m yeah

things that hits me a certain personality characteristic and it's my own kid and i'm like this is wrong i know it's wrong but i can't stop how i feel right so what i learned to do was because i can't i don't want to react so therefore i just need to respond and the only response i can have in that moment with all that emotion within me is to just walk away is to just like i have to tag team care and i go you're in on this because i'm going to lose it you know and it's not the kid's fault it's everything that it's all me

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yep yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

it's you know must have you know obviously there's some old stuff going on there but sometimes it's the best thing for them but you got to know what those things are you got to catch yourself because i mean how many parents i'm sure i've been guilty of this where you just react and like what are you doing right and and then that that trains is what you're talking about trains the kids so to expect that response next time or they lose that trust and men those little moments you know it only takes a moment sometimes to create a story in their head

yeah yeah yeah

especially when they're young they're just going to craft that story and that could derail not derail but at least you shift the narrative in terms of how they see us and the relationship you might have

it does it does you know like i think on a previous podcast i've mentiohip that i've got a really great relationship with our kids in terms of honesty and the like the bad story that is you don't always like to hear what they've got to say and so for me when they were growing up as teen agers you know they would come in and just go full basically medal jacket full metal jacket and express what they need to say and the part of me that went how can you talk to me that way you know

m

i'm your dad that was that was my ego and righteousness coming up and there'd be a clash right so i had to just get to that place where i've gone stopped making the narrative they're disrespecting you but rather how comfortable and safe do they feel that they can express that to you and so i re framed it and that really helped that and so you know i don't have a problem with conflict in terms of if i know that they were playing when

yeah

playing the man we're playing the ball totally comfortable with that and so things can get pretty heated in the discussion high lighted to me when into greece where you i'm sitting around having dinner with extended family haven't said there's a lot of shouting and carrying on and for years friends of mine who were non direct come over go well you guys arguing so much we're not arguing man we're just talking that's just how we do things but we've created a safe environment where you can express what you want provided that you're not personal

yeah yeah

ising it and so when when i felt that things got personal and i react which is what you're saying i had to cycle through that and go okay okay they might cross the line and i'll pull them into line with with what i'm thinking and i ll circle back and do that however the gift in this whole cenaristey feel safe and trusted to express what they want they're not repressing it and so you created this

yeah yeah and and that takes that we talked about this in the last week's podcast i believe when we talked about victim and victor in that triangle so if you haven't listened go back to that because i think this is what happens right we have to learn to not we have to be the victor we have to go through that process within ourselves to be able to have that strength and we have to practice it and have the discipline to be able to not react but that takes so much time and effort

yep m

um because you know we got to think beyond that and want i mean the reason i brought the victim is because a victim would always see that everything is happening to them right and the reality is that if your if your emotions get angry we all do that like something happens or your kids says something or your partner does something or your friend does something and you react emotionally i'm not saying that it's not their fault at all but it's not always their fault like there's a part that we have to take

yeah m

time to not be a victim that something is happening to us we also have to take the victor position into really value and going well what what role did i play in creating the situation doesn't this is not about fault like you know it's about really recognizing what role that i play to create the situation in the first place the person is still may be at fault or i might be fault but at least you've taken the time to kind of reflect upon because that's something you can control right how you behave

m yeah yeah

and how you react and how you created that situation that's something you can control and change or at least for the future and i think that's an important role for us to kind of take

yeah totally and you know when you're in the free way of life and things in cruise mode you're not being challenged you're in top gear you've got it on automatic cruise control you might even take your feet off of the accelerator and things are going great swimmingly and we we get seduced into thinking that that's that's how it s that it should be and when it's not like that something wrong the reality is like there are speed bumps that happen along the way and so in the speed bumps happened here's an opportunity that sometimes may take you on a differ course on path that you don't even realize which may be even better because two years ago lawrence you and i probably didn't think that would be on the other side of the world perhaps maybe we might have gotten to a podcast but we may not have suddenly a confluence of factors led to a thinking and change and shifted and here we are right and and once the dust settled i know for both of us will go this is also this is one of the greatest gifts that we ever given to ourselves to our family and grow

yeah yeah

opportunity but you don't stop and reflect when you're going in cruise control you just keep doing the same thing

well let's think about going in cruising just imagine your i mean we've all done it were sitting in clusecontrol on a really long stretch of highway and free way it's kind of boring right and so i'm not saying life shouldn't be that way like of course you want majority of your life to be in flow and i think flow your perfect like everything working but it's like you know i was reflecting upon this today i said imagine like you know any sport it's a frustrating

yeah yeah yeah

any sport is frustrating because there's always moments of like man why am i making so many mistakes right so i was talking about pat today i'm like all the points that were won by the other team was mostly i would say eighty percent of me making mistake has nothing to do with you sure they had great shots and stuff but mostly because i either set that up or i made the mistake and in as i remember thinking like why why why why can't i just not make mistakes but then i go well if i didn't make any mistakes i'll be winning all

yeah

the time and if i win all the time would it actually be fun if i just dominated every single person and the answer is no that's the point of competition it the point of competition that you have to kind of be put into situation to really lose or have and it's like so that money money mean by it's like what's the point of playing if you're only playing against people you're much better you're winning all the time like so how is that fun right remember one thing

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yep yeah

i was like one like this game had a really great partner and we won like six zero it's like well i mean not that it wasn't fun but like it's not as fun as if it was like a game where it's like five four seven you know six four like it's just so close and everything comes down to you know all these you know tight matches that's way more fun even if you even on your on the losing side so i think that that's what you're kind of describing is like that's free ways are great it's awesome right but free way with no speed bumps in terms of life i don't know

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

i don't think it's as fun as we imagine it to be because the challenges is what makes us what's the experience that we want to create for ourselves

yes it's a human experience and that's why you see like ninety five year old blokes who can hardly walk on a buggy on a golf course determined to get the perfect round played for seven years and it's ten the daylights out of on this game but they're going an it's the last thing i do i am going to to my golf game i love that that spirit of trying to improve trying to get better listen i guess let's reflect on the the brick walls

yeah

the absolute total so something has to shift at that point you know you know you might get to a point where you go we have run of course we can not go any further then there's the whole experience around that as well you know how you see it whether you see it as failure where you see that as a failing or whatever you want to sort of expand on that there

yes yes yeah absolutely that's you know for one of the things i think there's one thing about the brick wall is the challenge is the it's acceptance actually use that word its acceptance meaning acceptance means like what go and talks about a cold sometimes you just realize that you're not going through that wall it's a dead end and no matter how much you pound your head and punch through that wall like it's not going anywhere and so sometimes that acceptance is is accepting the fact that you ha

yeah

to start over again or got to go backwards and there's a psychological phenomena which is i think it's called some cost fallacy and some cost fallacy is basically when you put a bunch of money in to do something let's say it's a course let's just say i went to college and i spent you know a hundred thousand dollars in a degree that i thought i wanted to go into let's say law and i went there and about the last so after i finished a part of me just as

yeah sometimes for we can

now if i want to be a lawyer but the sun costs fallacy because you put it in four years of work four years of money four years of time you thought fotis lost you would then go well i must have to continue on this journey and be a lawyer for the rest of my life so there's two course two paths here one you spent the next thirty forty years as a lawyer that you and a job you hate or you go i'm going to go back and do something else i'm going to start a business or whatever those are two options

m hm m yeah

and i think that's the sum cost fallacy that a lot of people get sunk like i put in money now like it's like it could be as simple as buying a concert ticket you know that you now you're sick and i can't go but it's like but i paid for it but you've already paid for it anyway so whether you go or not it's irrelevant you've already sunk that cost and so i think that's the same type of analogy of thinking of when you hit that break ball and you have to accept sometimes you just have to accept you're not going through it not this way anyways you have to go back around and start again and but a lot of people struggle on me included struggle to let go the fact that but but but i put in all this money i put in all this time i must do this actually being a car tractor is like for me and i think for you to jim i spent eight years of my life university to become a carpractor eight years of you know college tuitions all that stuff to be a car parker thinking that that's gonna est f my career

yeah

you know remember you know deciding that like now i think i'm done practice that decision wasn't like easy it may you know that's spun in my head for years and but it's like letting go like yeah but i got all this knowledge i met all these great people you know i have this degree that no one can take away from me i still you know all this stuff is like you forget about those things but he's like no no but i have to be a car pater know i don't have to be you know i'm still who i am i just now have an experience as a carpenter and now it can go do something else

m yeah yeah yeah yep

i think that when you hit that break wall sometimes is like no that's enough and you got to be able to find the right way you know find in the way

you i think there's a distinction between a repeated lesson that you keep repeating that you haven't actually learned from as opposed to a brick wall bears there been plenty of times where i've gone why does this keep happening and that brick wall was really an opportunity for me to do some learning and go you know it doesn't have to be that way and as a result of that re grouped and changed in a different way but sometimes you're right sometimes you know that you know that you

yep

but something run its course and it's only really your own ego or the commentary from other people that forces you to do that no stilling someone as well like while i was over season i said look my impression of you is that you've just got a can do it has to happen approach and i look at that may be the persona that i give but i've learned over time that i have to be like if you if you are if you're fighting against gravity and you're going now i'm going to the universal laws are going to win and there's no point fighting sometimes against something that you know is not going to work out that's just really your own narrative and i think ego that won't allow that so there's a lot of courage that get to the point o listen i tried my best i really tried my best i can look myself in the mirror but i'm done ar as we can go and what have i learned from here and there's a totally different story because you don't feel like you're failing that you don't feel like you know you you've pulled up short because that's as far as you can go i'm at peace with the older i get is if if i know that i'm not playing both sides of an effort and i'm actually all in and that doesn't work out i can live with it

yeah and i think that's you know that goes with a lot of things t could be you know people who says you know i can't leave this town where i can't leave this city because it grew up here like that limitation sometimes stops you from but you know but they still have these dreams nothing there's nothing wrong with that but but they have these dreams like i want i don't travel the world i want to go live on the other side but they can't let go the fact that there they're supposed to be there like now you don't have to be anywhere i think it's about

yeah yep

and go just accepting like certain things are there's some end points on things the end points on relationships you know sometimes the relationship is just done dragging on the relationship that has no love and no connection isn't necessarily healthy for either of you right you know having a business that no longer serve you doesn't fire you up sometimes you got to call it quits you know and but now most of us hang on for too long a staff member that you know you should have let go like

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

two years ago that you just haven't because you were just afraid of conflict you know like all these things um they just sometimes we just failed to do because we're afraid and there's fear and that there's an end to it and of course it's hard to break up with someone of course it's hard to let a staff member of course it's hard to shut down your business that you might have started twenty years ago the reality is as though we got to start thinking what's on the other side like how much more

yeah yeah yeah m

like digging a hole and hitting your head against that brick wall over and over again is that the life you want to have or do you want to create a life that's actually more has more experience has more life and more passion and purpose right and i think that's such an important thing i do want to go back to what you said about repeated brick walls um you know one thing i learned around the brick walls i mean trust me i'm re learning a few couple lessons over and over again

yeah yep yeah yeah

no matter how every year or every couple of years it keeps on popping up and then he never escaping now the story that i'm telling myself at least okay so i don't know if i'm wrong maybe you know jim you can tell me i'm wrong in this but the story i'm tell myself after years of constantly bumping into the same freaking won like i'm here again like damn it like i'm back in this brick wall like like i'm familiar with it i realize that sometimes okay and sometimes not all the time but sometimes

exactly m

after about like the tenth time i leave that wall and like i'll see you again my friend like i know i'm coming back and and the thing is i realize this is that it's okay that there's certain things maybe the story i'm telingmsesad that there are certain things that i meant to learn and relearn over and over again and it's not necesarly meant to be solved it's just meant to be that's my challenge in life that like that's the thing that i have to continue to go through the difference is that what i've noticed because of

yeah a te yeah

he now that i'm a bit older what i noticed in myself is that every time i come to that wall now at first it was a frustration that i want to freind punch it to now it's more like oh this all seems familiar and instead of anger i'm actually going yeah i'm back here again right like okay i accept it and i come back and and each time is that i recognized that the duration of coming back is longer

yeah yeah yeah okay yep yeah yeah yeah

frequency is much less and the intensity of it is that much less and so therefore like now it just becomes a like i know i'm going to be back here at some point i don't know when but i'm actually having a better relationship with it

yeah yet it's interesting to say that because a lot of work on life cycles there's you know when you map someone's life out you might find there's repeating patterns in people's life and for most of anywhere from two to seven years the same sort of pattern sense to show up so there's a couple of ways of looking about it's like hello dark and my friend hello but you welcome back whatever but i'm i'm relating to you lot better and that's in keeping with a lot of the purposes of life and there could be a life lesson like three that follows on a life theme and you'll see when you map out someone's life ere's a recurring theme that shows up so that's one explanation for it the other one that i'm thinking about when you're saying that and i've certainly had to explore that myself is when i look at it and go what's secondary benefit i get out of this and this is when it's like the dark side of okay what am i hating this as a ome but what i'm getting out of this what is it stopping me from doing and so you might say to yourself this like losing my voice when i've got to go and talk but what it stops me doing is actually really putting myself out there and i could always hire behind losing my voice as an example so a lot of the times that's that's the break through that i found is that when that shown up for me i've just gone okay what's what what's the message behind so what the secondary benefit and then when i neutralize that i found just like where you did either i didn't and as often when it happened i was better able to adapt to that much more effectively than row and knocking me around as much

yeah i think you just become stronger and i think that the important i think distinction here is that to make sure when you do come back like you know if you're repeating the same cycle over and over again but it's actually um i don't know how to say it but it's almost like if it's taking a toll on you like it's abusive to you then yeah you got you got to sort that out what we're talking about that repeated brick wall is like it is no harm in it it just means that like you're it's toughening you in a way

yeah yeah yeah

it's it's there to toughen you not not in a negative way but it's actually making you stronger it's like it's helping you building that resilience um and sometimes that resilience is so that you can teach others to help you know maybe your kids or you know and it is that type of thing that's the you know the basically it almost becomes instead of the brick wall it kind of gets shattered and actually just becomes a speed bump you know

yeah totally totally and one of my life lessons is patients you know by nature i can be quite impatient i want to get things moving i like my mental movement you know you want to shut me just stop me stop me moving my hands that just stops all the energy in my body so stagnation kicks in and so i've had to really revisit patients and patients and whenever i watched carding kid and i was watching me argue just basically trimming is bonsochere went that just feels like what i need but i just i'm repelling against that you know and yet that's the one if ever i'm impatient that's when that shows up for me so i had to do a lot of work around patients and breathing through things and deliberately doing things that don't have a time line so that it doesn't perpetuate that like myself that's it i've learned tolerance learned tolerance yet

yep that's why we moved to southern new europe right we're learning how to be tolerant

yeah because you know eighteen months and i thought to myself that's a long time when i said that to people i go to that eighteen months that's pretty quick man it's a perspective for everything from where we are it's like took way too long but from their perspective the i've had three five years you are kidding me

it's all proper perspective it's all perspective well my karen just went to a hair dresser yesterday i think she's from the u k and she was talking about you know her residency and stuff and it's been three years and she can't leave the country because she doesn't have a visa and it's like a so perspective perspective so listen it's been a great conversation jim and you know like we've all have experience of three was peep on some road blocks and i hope that you know the audience have got so much value from today hope you got some great advice that you can try on some of these

well yeah yeah yeah

we kind of been talking about to kind of help you through those speed bums and the road blocks and also you know the thinking of what free ways actually really mean so ouimdoyouhve any parting words

no no just glad and grateful that i have understood the distinction between those three points and it was it was great you articulated the thing perfectly you know just yesterday when we talked about that and allowed us to just put a frame around the discussion so no i'm complete i really enjoyed our conversation for that

that's great add one little thing just because you said it i think it's important which is gratitude you know you just mentioned it and i think having gratitude goes a long way in helping you go through the speed bumps and going through you know not going through but understanding and accepting rolblocks gratitude is one of those key elements and i think if you can create you know simple exercise is writing now three things you're grateful for every day the take a moment of paul to put things back into perspective of what those be umps

yeah

and rolbloks are actually meant in your life so

m