Managing Overwhelm

Welcome to this edition to Wabi Sabi and this could be an impromptu podcast in a way because we actually had a specific topic we want to talk about. But Jim in his wisdom and always loves to throw curveballs at the end, at the beginning of our calls. And he said, you know, we're just having a chat and just checking in with each other. And all of a sudden it's like, why don't we just talk about that? I'm like, okay, you know, let's just, no preparation. That's how we roll in Wabi Sabi. We don't prepare for our...

Thanks for watching! Yeah.

our podcast simply because we want this to be authentic because it's about the art of imperfection. There's no perfection here. We don't have notes. We just really just kind of go with what, how we feel and what we're talking about on the top of my mind. So Jim, you are going through, you know, we're just talking about summer and I hate to put this in context because I want to make these evergreen, but let's just, you know, it's summer somewhere in the world right now.

Yep.

Usually, at least half the world. And right now you got your boys in town and we're just talking about the balance between spending time with family and spending time with work and also the overwhelm or maybe we won't call it overwhelm but like the balance of those two while you're engaging with major projects you're dealing with.

Yep. Yeah. And it was, and you're right, Lawrence. I want to, I want to piggyback on what you just said. We had a topic we went right. We're going to talk about this today. And just in our pre-call pre-recording meeting, we were like, Hey, this is going on. That's going on. That's good. And that's right. And thank you for actually going, let's just course correct. And let's just go with this because I guess the emotion that was coming up in us, I think is probably something that a lot of people will feel when they've got a lot of things, a lot of moving parts going on. So So yeah, for me it has been a really hectic period, no question about it. We're in a European summer right now and because we work not just geographically in the people that we see in our location, we work with clients throughout the world, both of us. And so what that generally means is things don't always line up and synchronize exactly as you would think you would have in your local environment. So while a lot of people here in Europe are going into Uh, go slow and going into holiday mode and whatever you and I are cranking, you know, you and I cranking, getting things done, coordinating for, because of trips that we've had trips that are coming up, um, talking and supporting people from out the world. And you look around sometimes and go, am I the only one around here who's working? You know, am I the only one who's really just going pedal to the middle? It feels like everybody's in holiday mode except me. What's going on? Did you have it element of that?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, when you add the element of like your kids being home, um, you know, my kids are home at the moment, obviously from school holidays and, uh, and you want to kind of keep them somewhat busy, but at the same time, you're like, Hey, daddy's got to work still. And, and you, and, and it's also that, that the weird reality of like, what's what you're going through personally isn't matching necessarily what others are going through. And this is how, you know, when you're dealing with clients from around the world or any client anyways, no matter what it is. no matter what business you're in, you also got to take into the fact that your world doesn't necessarily match, you know, everybody else's world. I think when we were, you know, during the COVID period of time, that was probably the only time that I recognized in my lifetime where pretty much everyone in the world was experiencing the exact same thing, right? Other than that, any other time in my lifetime has always been something different. We're always experiencing different. So right now we're in summer. we're dealing with like slowdowns and you know, things are going on holidays, people traveling a lot of, you know, moving, you know, everybody's going to the beaches and taking time off. Whereas, you know, let's say clients in Australia, that's in the middle winter. Like they're just like bunkering down, let's go. Let's, you know, let's, let's start hustling. And, and the reverse will happen when Australia, Asia Pacific starts going on in their holiday mode in December, January, and everybody's like, hey, let's go. It's cold. That's, you know, we're staying at home anyway. So let's work. And so I think oftentimes it's about matching the, the external environment.

Yeah.

Sorry, the environment of your clients and the people you serve doesn't necessarily match the environment that you're in now. And that was really, you know, I'm going to just go slightly off topic here, but I think it makes the point where I rarely recognize this when my father-in-law had his accident. Okay. So when he had his accidents, he, you know, for those people who don't know, he, he broke his neck on Christmas day and he had to, he basically became a quadriplegic. Now during that period of time, because it was Christmas, everyone was on holiday and I still had to practice. And I was trying to find someone to cover for me, but unfortunately, you know, as a chiropractor, I couldn't find someone that last minute. Everybody's on holiday, so I still have to, you know, basically I had to go serve. And I remember one time being in the mall, in the shopping mall, you know, getting groceries or whatever. And I, you know, obviously, you know, overwhelmed with sadness and, you know, all the stuff, all the questions that come along with it. But you start to realize, like, everybody's happy, joyous. you know, Christmas time, everybody's like with their families, it's the summertime in Australia, and everybody's moving on with their lives. And you know, here, here I am sitting there going like, I wanted to shout out to the top of my voice, like, don't you know what's going on? Right? Like, why are you guys so happy? And I know this is just internal, but I, but someone in the world right now is feeling that way, right? Someone in the world right now is feeling down, sad, you know, depressed or whatever they're going through because something has happened to them or happening to, you know, Happening to them right now and but the world moves on and it was like a real clear moment I was like, oh the world continues to spin the world's continuing moving no matter what's actually happening to me And I think that was like one of those weird Moments in my life where you just like there's this like disconnection and connection to the world that I felt and I can't really describe it That's the only way I can kind of describe it and I feel like that's sort of happening in this moment in time So there's something similar to that

Hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's a normal physiological response that when things get overwhelming, we disconnect. It's actually a survival mechanism. So is that disconnection process disconnects you to the circumstances, kind of like a pressure valve that's released to allow you to adapt and, and compensate with what's going on. So there are plenty of times when things get overwhelming, people check out mentally, physically, emotionally to be able to cope with what's going on. So I totally get that, that you'll talk about.

Hmm. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. I guess you kind of somewhat unplugging from the world for a little while. You want to get off that train. Yeah. And I think that the hard part, I think is oftentimes it's like, you know, uh, there's, there's two consequences with that. No, not too conservative. Like you have a choice at that point. It's like, you can stay disconnected, uh, or, and then that, that is not necessarily always, always healthy either. Uh, but you know, at some point you reconnect and that reconnection phase like, like you just gone right back to.

Yeah. Sorry.

to reality and the moving train. And sometimes that could also be very jolting as well.

Yeah, you know, there's two different components there that we can probably tease out and talk about here is it's when you're meant to be in your A game and you disconnect, that's one thing. But when you're in holiday mode, how do you unplug? So it's a case of, you know, if you have a business and you've gone away and you need to ensure that everything's still operating okay, how do you still get the break? How do you still detach yourself from the day to day operation?

Hmm.

ensure that everything's okay, that things haven't burnt down or blown up or anything like that, but still also honor the downtime that you've got your holiday time, your family time. Because if you're, if you're, you know, there's an old saying, wherever you are, that's where you should be. That's where you should be. And if you're, if you can't focus on the break, the quality times, et cetera, and you're thinking about what you, what's left behind or whatever, you haven't actually dissociated from that day to day. So you go back and it's happened to me before where the majority of the break concentrating, thinking about how everything's gonna be operating when I get back to the point where I didn't honor the break. I didn't recharge at the level that I could have. So that was a really big lesson for me. So that was a bit, just when you were talking about your father-in-law, that was the difference, I thought, was you're in something that you're trying to get out of it. You had to still be present, but emotionally you were trying to disconnect and you didn't feel as connected as you normally could. That was probably a bit of a difference.

Hmm. Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that I would find, and I've been in this couple of situations where like, you know, like maybe it's like right now, like where as everybody's on holiday and I like mentally I should go, I should really be on holiday as well and check out and really kind of be with family. However, at the same time, there's a balance in my head as well as that I need to push those certain things I need to get done and I still need to kind of be of service and, and that's conflicting sometimes because sometimes like you do. want to honor the checkout, but at the same time, you also know that if you don't actually have the luxury to do so, how would you handle that situation? How do you balance that?

Yep. You know, it's a great question. Stephen Covey years ago wrote a couple of great books, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The other one he wrote, which I found really helpful, was First Things First. And it was a great frame that he used to be able to help identify not just planning and time management, but priority management, which it really helped me. And he used the example of the fish tank.

Hmm.

And he talked, he basically said, if you have a fish tank and you have certain ingredients, you have rocks, little rocks, sand and water, and you're trying to get as much of that in there, what do you do? Now the big rocks signify the most important things in your world. The little rocks that once level, two levels down, sand not as important and water are kind of like filler things, times, distractions, et cetera. And his principle was always that you always put your big rocks in first. And so consequently, once you've got all your big rocks in place and you plan for those, that's when you start putting the little rocks in. And when you, in between the gaps of the big rocks, and once you've got as many big rocks and little rocks in there, that's when you put the sand in. And by the end, you might only have a little bit of water, but the reality in the scheme of things, they're not as important. So I got to a realization years ago that because of what I'm trying to see and do in the world and.

Hmm.

all the experiences I want to have, there will be more things that I want and need to do than time available. So I have to get really, really clear on what are the most important things that I cannot afford to drop, what things can I not afford to let go of because they're too important for me. So for me, it's family, kids, health and wellbeing, relationship. So in your answer to your question, I know it's long-winded, I always prioritise those first. And so fundamentally, I'll put the big rocks in. in there and if I don't get an opportunity to do the things that would be great whatever, I'm at peace with that because I know I've gotten the big ones taken care of first.

Well, you know, like in reverse, right? What happens is that, I'll just continue on that story, is that if you put the sand in first, and then you put the pebbles, you're never gonna be able to fit the big rocks in. So like that's the, you know, the answer to that. So that's why the big rocks have to go first. So I think one of the key elements is though, with that, like with that analogy, one has to be aware of what your big rocks are, which you kind of highlighted already. So it's really important, right? You have to know what your big rocks are. If you don't know what your big rocks are,

Yep. Yep. Yep.

this is gonna be a problem. So number one, you have to kind of take, you know, kind of be aware of it. I think the second thing is also being, not being distracted by the sand and the water. I, you know, I don't know about everybody else, but sand and water, they're sexy. They're the ones that are fun to do because they don't, they're the distractions that are easy and that's good. There's the social media, it could be, you know, video games, it could be your phone, it could be, just things that are easy to do.

Mmm. Yep.

Right? What we, you know, there's another book called, Eat the Frog, I think it's by Brian Tracy. And he talks about, you know, if you kind of combine the books, the two books together, you sort of going, well, you know, if you're gonna eat the frog anyways, you wanna eat the big frog first, right? And the biggest frog first, because that's, you know, to start the day, you wanna eat the biggest frog. And because one of the reasons why is because you feel that much accomplished when you actually done the biggest thing and that you need to do that day.

Eat the frog, yeah, yeah. Brian Tracy, yeah.

So I think the analogies are great and to make sure you understand, it's like it's not just about picking and being aware, but also spending the time to know the priorities and actually taking the time, actually re-evaluating your action steps right now, moving forward. Let's talk about juggling, right? So if we're juggling overwhelm at the moment, you got all these things in the air, is to actually spend the moment, instead of just keep juggling, you keep juggling and drop like, oh my God, I'm overwhelmed.

Yep.

is to sometimes be able to take a moment to put all the balls down and then decide, do I actually have to juggle all of these first? Do I even have to juggle? Because sometimes you don't need to juggle all these balls. Realizing that this is a freaking pebble and this is the sand here, I should only be juggling the big rocks. And I think that analogy, we know what you said, is so powerful. And I think that's something that we need to kind of do.

And I want to, I want to come back to that juggling analogy too, because some great wisdom that I was also given as well is yes, you put them down. And also if you've got, you were juggling some balls in the air, identifying which ones are the rubber ones and which are made of glass or crystal. Yeah. Because the crystal ones, you can't afford to drop them and they're your highest priorities, i.e. your big rocks. So if you keep your eye on them, the rubber balls will bounce and you can let that go and things will be okay.

Ooh, I like that. I like it. Hmm.

which probably leads into the whole discussion, Lawrence, of the difference between, there's a lot of talk about balance and harmony. And a few years ago, it was a colleague of ours who actually really introduced me to this concept and basically said that balance is a really difficult thing to maintain, but harmony is a lot more of a dynamic model because it identifies that there are times where you know you're going to need more

Hmm.

time or energy in one specific quadrant and you allocate that accordingly knowing that, okay, you're going to put a bit more time here, it's going to be a little bit less time here. But you're always in control of that. It's when you're trying to get up this artificial pie that you're trying to even everything up to the point where you're not really acknowledging the pressing nature of things, which is along the lines of what you asked before. I think that is when people come unstuck. I know I certainly had in the past. So when I recognize that, okay. Like you said, you've got a break coming up in the next couple of weeks. So in order to make that happen, I'll definitely get you to expand on that. There are things that you have to put in place now to ensure that you have that freedom in there. So do you wanna talk about that? And that to me is really what Harmony's all about.

Yeah, like for me, it's like it's a change in, to me, it's homeostasis, right? Like any given moment in time, we have to work a little harder. If we're going to go for, you know, a workout or we're going for a run, like your heart rate is going to go up. That's not imbalance. It is just homeostasis to your heart is basically adapting to the pressure and the environment that you put your, you know, the, that you put yourself in to kind of make sure there's enough blood flow to your rest of your body. So I think it's in any given time, there's going to be some stickiness and that or some required more energy.

Yep.

in certain areas. So in, you know, in my case, I'm sure everybody's been through this case where you're going, okay, well, I know I got a holiday coming up, and I know I have a break, I'm not gonna be taking calls, I'm not gonna be I'm gonna take I'm gonna totally switch off. And so what that means is that I'm gonna have to stack, you know, all the work that I need to do right now, like, you know, before the holiday, and stack it afterwards, so that I've got momentum leading up to it, and also momentum afterwards. And we all know we can do it. And we got to, but it puts a lot of pressure. So which means I do have to work a little harder. Um, you know, as I lead into this holiday, because I know that there's so much to be done prior to so that I can make sure that I completely check out or check out as best as possible during the holiday break and those preparation is important. We just, we don't, unless you have a job where you really just go in there and you are, you do your job and you get paid a salary and it doesn't really matter whether you're working, you know, whether how much, how fast or how much you work. But most of us, you know, as entrepreneurs are in an environment and business environment where. we're compensated by the amount of effort we put into our day-to-day deliveries. And so that matters in terms of from that point of view. So that's why I think for those of us in those situations that we have to make sure we do the right thing and we may just need to work and prioritize those things, prioritize the work, say over family, the weeks leading into it. That's sort of the pressure I'm feeling at the moment.

Yep. Yeah. And you know, for me, I had, uh, just put some contacts out a really busy week last week. I flew, uh, to Amsterdam, did some work there. Fantastic event. Got to Amsterdam. It was like a heat wave. It's like something to happen here. You know, this is like really hot. It was hotter than in Barcelona and they're ill equipped for the heat. So in an audit, Oh, it was amazing. It was like we're in an auditorium that there's no air conditioning in. And it's like a hundred people in there. So are you kidding me?

One that a 100 years, right? Oh no.

So, but I didn't think it gets this hot in Amsterdam. Sure does. So I had a lot of that. And because my kids have flown in from New York and London this week. So it was awesome catching up with them. And it also coincided that they were pressing time-sensitive projects that I had to work on, coupled with the fact that my son has decided that, you know, he's competing in Jiu-Jitsu competition at the end of next week. So he decided that it would be a great idea for both of us to ramp up our training in preparation for that. So I've had all these factors that I'm working with, but I got to the point where I went, okay, I know I'm gonna be tired. It's just, it just is. You know, next week, when the kids are gone, I'll be begging to have had that extra time with them. So for me, it was the awareness, like you talked about awareness, just to go, you know what, you're under the pump at the moment. That's okay, because in the grander scheme of things, you're dedicating a bit more energy to some of these big rocks.

Hmm.

because you have the first time in six months that you're seeing your kids. So to me, that was like a priority. So I will compromise my sleep and rest for a short period of time, because I know that the time with my kids is way too precious to waste it on other things that I could be doing or allocating. So to me, I know it's not a indefinite period. It's a short period of time. Having taken care of my health and vitality will ensure that when I have these periods where I have to... crank up a little bit more, my body can handle it. And then I'll go back into a normal homeostatic state.

Yeah. So there's two things right there. What you said one, I want to address this, which is preparation, like preparing, you know, uh, before it actually happens, like preparing for overwhelm when you not actually an overwhelm so that your body can be, uh, not balanced, can be prepared for, to adapt to those situations where it requires you. This is why we train, right? We train because we want not that we need to go into a competition every single week, no, we train because when we're called to do some you know, hard work or maybe a competition or maybe do something physical that where bodies actually well prepared for it, right? And that's the whole point. And I think the second thing too as well, and I actually am blanking exactly what the second thing was, I knew what was going to happen. I should have started there. But you know, one of the things that I think brought me to, this may be the second point, but who knows, I'm making it up as I go along. But it's actually about, I know, I should have said it.

No one will know, Lawrence, no one knows what that second point was.

But you're gonna want, on the next episode, on the next episode, I will tell you what the second thing is. But I actually do have a second point. The second point was to the fact of how we adapt in certain moments, where you just sort of said, you just know mentally that in this moment in time, I know it's not healthy for me, but this is what I'm gonna have to do. I'm willing to sacrifice certain things. And this example happened to me last week, right? I entered a paddle tournament, and man, God.

Yeah, I saw that on socials.

You know, we were scheduled to play at 6 p.m. And I showed up at 5.30 trying to warm up, you know? You gotta make sure you warm up when you're getting this old and you, you know, like a little older, your body stiffens up, you wanna make sure you get there. And my first game did not start till 8.30. Like, it's like two and a half hours late. I'm like, this is ridiculous. And we, you know, we made it all the way to the semifinals and we were playing two 21-year-old kids. So like two of them combined doesn't mean you equal one of our age. And... I was so tired. It was like 11, we didn't finish till 1130 at nighttime. The finals had been finished until an hour later. I was so tired and so dead, but you know, and I was exhausted the next day. I woke up, I was sore, my body was aching. And, but it's that moment in time. It was just like, all right, it's one game or one tournament, you know, I know I don't stay up this late ever usually, but you almost got to just stay focused on the moment. And for me, the problem was I checked the time. I, you know, I was focused on time.

Yeah. it. Yeah.

where the guy who actually won, he's a bit older than me and he was actually, he beat those 21 year old kids, beat them handsomely well too as well. Him and his partner beat them well. And he was like, oh my God. And we were just talking about it before. And he goes, man, it's late. And he's like, he goes, you know what time it is, right? And he goes, no, I go, actually, I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know, I'm gonna just stay focused. And he just, he didn't wanna know the time. There's no clocks, I didn't tell him. And he was just, he knew it was late. I'm like. Logically he knew it was late, but he was like, nope, don't tell me this because I don't want to enter in my brain. And he was so focused, man. I've never seen someone so driven, so focused. And yeah, he won that tournament. And so I guess my point was, was that, is to think about like staying in the moment. He was in the moment. You talk about people in the moment, he was in the moment, not letting anything distract them for that tournament. It was really great to see even someone, you know, who's not a pro, we were just amateurs to kind of stay that honed in on the prize.

Yes.

Who they beat the team that actually they lost to them earlier in the tournament. So which was really cool to see

You know, I was just thinking I'm reminded back in Australia when they play the Australian Open, the tennis and they have it at the hottest time of the year in Australia and it always seems to get these little drawn out games that the games finish at three 30 in the morning. And I think spot on of what you say. The hard part is that they know the competitors know what time that is, but I could see the logic in what you were talking about the guy with the paddle final week. I don't want to know what time it is because.

Mm-hmm.

You've got, you're dealing with your own fatigue and then you're dealing with the narrative and the story about that as well, which is a compounding one. And I found that yesterday where I, you know, when we were training Jiu Jitsu and it's like 34 degrees, 36 degrees and it's really humid and you've got 40 people in a room who are just wrestling and fighting each other. It is just hot as any scenario that I can make. It's like doing Bikram, but fighting in someone with someone and

Mm-hmm. Mmm.

I did two sessions yesterday, a lunchtime one and an evening one. And by the end of the day, I was, we were getting the train home because the easiest way to get the training. I was falling asleep. I was absolutely falling asleep. I'm having dinner with my kids and I'm like falling asleep chewing. It was that talk. But yet today I look back and go, wow, I would have naturally instinctively wanted to retract from that. I would have gone, okay, I've got life really busy at the moment. I need to pull back. And I normally do that. Here's a situation where I actually went the other way, where I actually went, okay, I'm leveling up on multiple areas, which not so much that it surprised me, but sometimes you do, you surprise yourself in terms of what capacity you have. But I also noticed that in a healthy scenario, that is not sustainable. It's like you were up playing late for a final. You're probably going to do that four times a week, just like I won't. But it's a case of saying, okay, when the demands are necessary, this is part of, like you said, preparation, mentally, physically, all those kinds of things where. when the situation comes and you have to be tested, you've got to go all in, you can count on your reserves because you've built them up over time.

Yeah. And what failed me was, you know, the, the head space, you know, and I recognize it now, what failed me was I got caught in the overwhelm, you know, the amount of times I, or as I reflect back now, it's like the amount of times I said, this is well past my bedtime. You know, you know, I said this, like even when we play in the quarterfinals, we're, it was like 10 30. And I was like, I'm in bed by 10 and now here I am. And you know, luckily we, we beat that, that team, but it was like, by the semi finals, like my, I was only here. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and I said that over, whereas, you know, like we said, the finals guys, Christian, he was amazing and he was able to steer. So I think this is the reason why I'm mentioning this is because the overwhelm sometimes can, well, really overwhelm us. Like we get caught up in the story and it's not necessarily the things, it wasn't the tournament that, you know, collapsed on us. It was just, we had this mental fatigue, physical fatigue as well. And it just kind of like, and I remember aspiring it, then I can remember like, because we were playing,

Yeah. Yeah.

I was, it got a little chilly that night, you know, cause we're already sweating, but these games are like an hour apart. And so you kind of get stiff and you got a bit cold. And then, you know, then, then they go, okay, well, I'm tired, I'm a little bit cold, I'm stiffened, my body's not moving as well. This is my fourth, fifth game now. And then you see what I mean? And then they go, oh, I'm going to play these freaking 21 year old who can freaking run around the court and just like, you know, I'm fast, but they're faster. And it's like, you, you get in your head and that's what happened, you know? And we, and we just, we were already down.

Yeah.

Once we got down, we just couldn't get out of it. We just like almost somewhat gave up because it was like the shots just weren't making it over the net or just was a little bit too hard or a little bit too slow. And it was just like, just a little bit. And it's when you really look back, we just thought like, that's what is it? It was just like, we just lost focus. We stopped playing our game and they were aggressive. As 21 year olds, you can, you can be a dress but that's not our game. Our game is patience. We're slower when we make them make the mistakes. We just didn't do that. And so because we're mentally fatigued.

Yeah.

But it's the, it's the spiraling effect of the overwhelmed thinking that got to us. And I think that's exactly what happens in life and business is that we are overwhelmed. We all do. And I think we just proved that it happens all the time and we're all going to experience it at some time or another and repeat that cycle. It's the problem is that I find is when, when you're overwhelmed and you're letting the story overwhelm actually overwhelm you. And that could be really debilitating.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, and in support of exactly what you just said, I've noticed more and more so in the last few years, particularly in sports psychology, where they do a couple of things. Number one, whenever they've got a big game coming up the next week and you know you're up against a team that at that time in form is playing better, is a stronger, more formidable opponent, the psychology of the coach, the player quite often says, we are looking forward to the opportunity of testing ourselves against a great basically opponent, not, oh yeah, we're going in as the underdogs because that in itself is a you're priming for that preparation, so I've noticed that more and more and more as a means of down regulating the stress response and the narrative and the other thing which a couple of coaches have been doing particularly in football games is people especially in Australian rules, which is obviously I have a good understanding of as well, the team will go into the changing rooms and they will change gear. They'll go back into fresh gear as if it's like, okay, we're starting again. And that's like a reset, which is a really good psychological primate because it says, okay, irrespective of what happened, we're actually on again. You could be down by a significant margin, but we are starting again. And it's a game of two games in there. And it's really been helpful. So what you're talking about, Lawrence, I get it. There are times where we have...

Hmm.

We may have the technical skill, we have the capacity, we've got the endurance, but there's other factors. You know, I know you've done previous podcasts in the, the champions mind and the inner, inner mind and the, you know, winners mind and all those kinds of things that play such a big role. And if it plays such a big role in our capacity to achieve, it can also talk us out of things it can, it can amplify fatigue and challenges ahead of us, et cetera, and make the whole overwhelm story so much worse.

Yeah. And, and, you know, some, some players actually are known to use that psychological, uh, advantage to their, in their favor. I believe it's Michael Jordan where, you know, he would walk into the opposing locker room to just say hi, you know, just to say hi. And, and that, you know, because, you know, sometimes the other locker room, we've got, you know, younger kids and you're like, Oh my God, it's Michael Jordan. And, and that has all, it's just him walking into creates a presence, um, to kind of scare you where the, you know, the

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

for the rookies where the someone who is more experienced is like, get out of here. Like, you know, just don't get in my head. And I think that's exactly what happens, right. And it's, uh, these, the psychological components in a business realm is that we are, are usually the Michael Jordan's of our own game. Like the, uh, the opponents is we're the only opponent that we're actually facing and it gets in our head. Uh, I was listening to, um, a pocket, uh, I don't know why I was listening to this podcast of Kobe Bryant and he was just talking about, you know, really

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

when he used to make all these air balls and these misses, he's like, what are you really afraid of? Like in our minds, as a fan, you're like, oh my God, that must be, you know, just so sad, or it must be so hard, so much pressure. But in his mind, he's like, I don't care. Like, you know, like, so what? Like, you know, what if the fans are gonna joke at me, they're gonna make fun of me, my head, like, but he didn't care. He was so detached from all of that noise, but where most of us would be crumbling to that pressure. he loved that pressure. And, and that's the difference between a killer, you know, who's a killer isn't in the sport. He's so focused on what he had to do and worked at it over and over again. He was not, he didn't, he wasn't afraid. You know, he wasn't afraid to take the final shots. And that's the main difference to some of these some of the players out there. We can't remember his name. There's actually an Australian I love losing on top of my head right now is a basketball player, so talented, but he's

Yeah. Look lonely?

No, no, he's, he's in the NBA right now and he, uh, he's just chokes at every given moment. He just choked every single time. Um, and, uh, and he's, he's just, he's just terrific. He's just in big games. He's just a choker and he's well known for that. Uh, he plays for the Philadelphia 76. I think he might've got traded. Um, but anyways, very talented player, really highly played. Uh, I just wish it can come with help. I'm not a basketball fan, so I don't really know the name, but we all will know.

Right. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Well, I'll add another, I'll add another sport too, because out of all the sports that we play, a lot of them are dynamic, they're moving and there's the psychology again, a really fascinating game to play for anybody who ever has is cricket. Now cricket, when I first introduced my lovely, I know that's the problem, that's the problem, right? So I played cricket for many, many years.

I'll try not to fall asleep. Ha ha ha.

And when I first introduced cricket to my wife, the tennis is a softball, she was a state representative softballer. She goes, hang on, let me get this straight. Yeah, let me get this straight. Yeah, yeah, man, she's got a rocket arm, my lovely wife. She's got a rocket arm. She was a designated hitter. So she came in where, yeah, so she, yeah, so it's, you know, like don't mess, don't mess, she had a rocket arm. So yeah, all those kind of things. But what fascinated me.

Oh wow. Really? I used to play softball. Okay. Oh my god. Don't mess, don't mess with it.

When I was explaining cricket to her, I'd go, listen, this is what you do, explain the rules. She goes, let me get this straight. You can play for five days with a team and it can still end up being a draw. And I said, yeah, pretty much. She goes, what a ridiculous game. But the thing about cricket, which is absolutely phenomenal, is that you have close proximity to players that you're playing against for nearly five days. So imagine when you're a batsman, you've got a whole team all around you. And let me tell you, they're not encouraging you. They're not giving you words of affirmation and encouragement while you're there. They are trying to get into your head constantly. And if you're out there for a while, you've got them talking at you constantly. So that's the thing about cricket. It's like as much, it's a mental game because it goes over a long period of time. And the Australian captain, Steve Wall, who was one of the most successful captains of that era was so mentally strong and he thrived so much on that trash talk. The teams would refuse. talk to him because he couldn't basically get into an argument that would sometime to elevate it. So he was using it as a trigger to elevate something in being a psychology. So they had to just go, no, we're going to use a different strategy because this guy comes at us ferociously if we try and get into his head.

Yeah, and that's the thing with regards to the psychology part of we kind of mentioned that we are our worst own enemies and sometimes we really got to understand that we have to take a step back and this where you have perspective will really help you. Because we're fighting against herself we're fighting against our own voice and if you don't get outside cons consult I guess or. Outside wisdom it's really difficult to see past that and I think that's really challenging I think sometimes we having another voice inside your head. will be really go a long way in terms of your ability to be able to, you know, really kind of weed out, you know, the negativity, the weed out your own, own voice. And that is really challenging, especially when you're on an underworld. Like it's easy. It's easier when everything's calm. But when you're already under pressure, and when you're already in overwhelm, it's really difficult to shut down that voice because now it's like you're already drowning and you're swallowing water and you're actually underneath the water. And that voice is the psychological barrier that you have to overcome. Not only are you physically trying to crawl out of this and get some air, but then your brain is getting into you and you have to find another way. But the real good thing about life is that most of those overwhelm, it's not debilitating. It's not life threatening. It's mostly in our head. And we gotta be very, very clear to distinguish between the two. But it feels like you're drowning, feels like everything's gonna go to crap. And I think it's really important to just pause.

Yeah.

to recognize that you need help and then you ask for help.

Yeah, so great wisdom that I always had around that too, Lawrence, was two things. Number one, when there's noise going on around you, and the noise can be literal or metaphoric, but for example, if you're in a boxing match or an MMA fight, for example, there are hundreds of thousands of people watching and there's a lot of noise in there. And so one of the greatest bit of wisdom that I had was narrow down the voices that you listen to. They could be yours. But a lot of the times, you know, if you're a boxer, you're listening to what your coach and your corner team are saying. You have to tune out to all the other noise and the white noise that's going on and just get really, really clear of where I'm gonna put my focus and attention. Now you might not have a coach in your corner at that time, but it's exactly the same thing of just, what do I listen to? What do I draw inspiration from? And what do I get grounded in as a voice? And that could be your own voice. So that's really an important part. And the next bit of wisdom was, whenever you have so many things to do to as a, as a great counter to that is you just got to focus on the next logical step. You don't have to worry about, you know, Martin Luther King always said, when you go up the staircase, you don't have to worry about step 17 is step one. And breaking it down, chunking it down, you know, sort of bringing everything in from technique color to right here, right now, what moment, what is the first thing that I can do that's within my control that I feel will move me in that direction. And it's fascinating. how that could be. That could be in those states of overwhelms, like, okay, what do I need to do? Just breathe. Okay, I'm grounded. And so the point of power comes back to you and you can start then regrouping and going, okay, what do I now do next? What do I now do next? And it's just fascinating when you just go to that, what's the first most important thing that I need to do right here, right now, that will change everything. And that can start shifting the momentum in your favor.

Yeah, I think the worst thing that anybody could do when they're in overwhelm is that they are, they're focused on more bigger picture thinking, right? Because then you're overwhelmed and you're bigger picture thinking, you're now stuck in even more overwhelm because now you gotta deal with all the steps to lead to that overwhelm, or to that vision that you're actually trying to achieve. So I think your advice around the next step, I love that quote.

Cough cough. Yeah.

from Martin Luther King and it's so powerful. I've used that so many times. Whenever I feel this pressure, this unnecessary pressure, I put my, I'm plowing myself. Usually two things I realize that one, it's not as bad as I think it actually is, or I make it out to be, right? So that's usually in my head. And two, it's really important to take that first step. Like it is, whatever steps you charchip away, and I think it's like placing small bets, right? Small swings rather than trying to go after the big home runs. And I think it's, it's but they got, you got to take a swing. You got to take the small thing. You got to take the safe bets rather than trying to win it all. I don't think we need to win it all to get out of a one. The best way to do is actually taking small steps forward and sooner or later, you just keep your head down to Nick, the next step, the next step, the next step. You will eventually find your way out.

Yeah. And the biggest thing that I've also come to understand as well too, is that whenever there's a lot of going on, there's the situation and as you said, right at the start, your own representation, your own emotional regulation of what's going on. And a really important thing is to actually get yourself emotionally regulated and grounded, irrespective of what's going on. Now you quite often will hear, I know we've probably used more sports examples in this podcast episode than anything else. But one of the greatest cricketers of all time was a guy called Shane Warren for people outside of Australia, who may not, or particularly in Europe, not as many people who aren't English would know this. He was one of the most, he's one of the most amazing players in his, in this sport. And he had an amazing capacity to be a big game player. So it was almost as if, and it was a period where there was scandal around, what was going on off field for him. And People were like, I can't imagine, has so much pressure. He's got media, he's accounting in his home, his relationship, all those kinds of things. And he would get up onto the ground and something would happen. He'd play some of his most amazing games. Now, most people are challenged by that, myself included. If I'd gone through what he had gone through to then be able to perform at the highest level would have been hard enough. But he sometimes found another gear where some of his best games. happened to be when he had the most amount of conflict, the most amount of drama, the most amount of distraction outside the game. And it highlighted the importance of being able to get really, really clear and get grounded in self to show up as a big game player irrespective of what's going on. Always fascinating.

This is a great demonstration. There's one movie, it's called For the Love of the Game. Most people are worried you haven't seen it. It's a baseball movie with Kevin Costner. And he is, the reason why I'm bringing this movie up is because it visually shows this mechanism that big game players can kind of do, which is he does this thing, he's a pitcher, and he basically says, you know, says to himself, clear the mechanism, I think, or something to that effect. And what it does is that you hear the crowd noise just kind of just.

Yes.

blur out and just the noise is quiet, it's like loud to come just quiet. And all it is at the end is just him, the catcher and the batter he's facing. And I think that's like this mindfulness that, you know, we've been talking a lot about it, which is about training. Like you don't do that, you can't just train while you're in overwhelm. Like that mindfulness has to come when you're not in overwhelm. And I think this is where the training part is such a vital thing. We kind of honed in on this. It's like, how do you manage overwhelm? Like, you know, the, which is, what we're talking about in today's podcast is, well, you gotta do it when you're not actually in it. Like be prepared. And that's one of the helpful ways to do it. Like you gotta spend the time to really train your brain, train your mind to have your ability to be able to deal with those circumstances when it occurs. And we don't know when they're gonna happen. We don't know when things are gonna go sideways, but that's the point. You want to make sure to be prepared for that. You don't want to be put in a situation where things go sideways, then you go, okay, well now what do I do? because by then it's almost usually too late. Now we can probably get away with a few of these, but we want to be in a position where we can handle those pressures. We can handle those pressure situations. You know, you talk about Shane Warren or any of these players, they didn't get to that position by just being that's the first time they ever handled pressure, right? You almost have to, sometimes, you got to put yourself in those situations in order to thrive. Some people thrive and some people will cave. And the people who cave, like it's a mental training. It's not a physical skill. It's not an emotion. It's something that you have to train your mental ability and strength to do that. So my encouragement today, you know, we talk about all the solutions to the managing hormone is to actually, you know, train your brain, train your body, train your mind before it actually even get to that stage.

Yeah. And I would say Lawrence that even you verbalizing your experience in your, in the game, if you were in another scenario, again, you would take that wisdom of this is what I learned as a result of that to reframe that whole experience moving forward. And I think that's what live drills, live scenario training is all about is preparing you, like you said, when you're not in that scenario. So when you are in the scenario, you go. Yep, got this. This is familiar. This is normal. So you're not alarming your primal brain going, danger, this is not good, or this is beyond. You're actually going, there's a familiarity, getting comfortable being uncomfortable, so to speak, that allows you to actually go, I can still perform. Yep, I've done this before. This is normal. Nothing, no, nothing to say, nothing to worry about. And that, as a result, that allows you to stay in your zones of still performing while things are a little bit more challenging than normal.

Yeah. And drawing from lessons from your last overwhelm or previous times, it's been helpful for me. Like I remember it took me many years to figure this out. You know, we talked about like just taking the first step, you know, it was talking to my coach and it was, it hit me like after so many years, I went, wait a second, I've been here many times before. Why am I still here? And I realized I'm like, Oh, you know what? Like all those other times, like the times were getting further and further apart, like in terms of my overwhelm, I used to get overwhelmed quite often, like say every couple of months or every quarter. where then there was like now, like it was at the time was maybe every six months. And I'm like, okay, like at least they're spreading apart, but I'm still experiencing it. So then I was getting frustrated. I was like, oh, wait a second. I'm like, okay, well, what did I do last few times? Like, what did I do in previous time? And it's usually two things. One is having some sense of direction, like just having some sort of, I remember don't have to be clear on it. Just like, I just gotta go that way, you know? And just knowing a direction, a sense of direction helps me because I can point myself that way. And then the second thing was just take the next step. Like don't worry about all the steps ahead of me, just take the next step. And those two things always gets me out. And it's helpful to be reminded of that on a regular basis.

Yeah. So I think we can start winding up now and really just summarizing and basically by sharing our own stories, saying, hey, you know what happens to all of us? It really does. And while we support people through that, that's usually when we've got objectivity. When we're fully associated, when we're dissociated, we can have an observer effect, we can look at what's going on. We can see, hey, the blind spots for everybody, but it's sometimes harder for yourself when you're in it. and you're fully associated in that experience. And we recognize, for both of us, that there was an element of that because there were competing priorities, there's time constraints, we've got a whole lot of things. And suddenly, at the start of this podcast, we both got the scenario and went, hey, yeah, we've got a lot of stuff going on. We can do one of two things, which we talked about, we can suppress it and talk about something else, or we could actually do what we did today, was actually go, hey, here's us. Here's what's going on for us. through this process of us talking it through, I'm clear on some things that I'm gonna do, which will help me, and in the process, hopefully it's given people some insight into what they can do for themselves.

Well, the perfect analogy, I think I'll leave with this, to put that in perspective, what you just sort of said is that just imagine if anybody who's done CrossFit, you would know what this feels like, or anybody who just watched sport, you wouldn't know what this feels like. You know, as a viewer, as an audience, when someone, you see a friend, just say I'm watching Jim and he's doing his workout, I'm cheering him on, I'm like, come on, Jim, come on, just a few more, let's go, let's hustle, come on. It's easy for the armchair quarterback to sit there and go, just throw a little harder. Just make that play, right? It's so much easier. But let's put that in reverse. What if you were the player? Like your heart rate is at like 180 beats per minute. You're like, you are tired, exhausted and your vision is blurry. And you got to pick up that weight or you got to shoot that puck or you got to throw that ball. You got to remember in that moment, the pressure is overwhelmed. You do not have perspective. I mean, so that's the difference between when you're in overwhelm, like your vision is very tunneled. Right? It's like, that's all you can see. You can't see, you know, you can easily imagine like, if I was that person, I would be doing this, right? I've heard how many times I view all of us, you know, watching Jiu Jitsu or MMA fight or a crossfit. Like if I was doing that, I'll be able to just, I'll just, yeah, I'll just hang on to that bar. I'm going to be able to live, you know, it's like, yeah. It's easy for us to say, cause we're not feeling, like we're just observing, but we're not feeling all the pressures are in. So when you're feeling the pressure, like it's quite overwhelming when you're in overwhelming, all that stuff is in your head.

Yeah. I can't believe he didn't do that. I couldn't believe it. Yeah.

and it's really hard to get objective view. And I think that's the main difference is that sometimes having an observer to realize like, hey, you're not actually doing these fundamental basic stuff because you're just so stuck on just trying to get, you know, to survive. I think it's really important to kind of, you know, pause because usually the game of life you're playing isn't like a win or lose, life or death, right in any given moment of time. So having that perspective is really helpful. So I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast, you know, just to really share that all of us go through overwhelm. We have challenges, we all have to deal with them. It's about learning how to deal with it. That's the most important. So I hope you enjoyed that. Please share this with other people. Um, please like us, comment, and, uh, ask us some questions around what are the topics you would like to have on the next podcast of what we sell. Talk to you soon.