Dealing with Heartbreaking Loss

Welcome Jim, welcome everybody to the Wobby Sobby podcast. Now you'll notice my voice is kinda little bit more of a downtown today. Yeah, it's a bit of a down croaky for sure. Yeah, and.

It's a bit croaky. It's a bit croaky, a bit flat. Yeah. What's going on? Actually, let me interrupt you. Just pause. For anybody who's not watching this on video, Lawrence is wearing a San Francisco 49ers top. So he's with quite pride, but he's also feeling a little bit flat. So what's that about Lawrence?

Yeah, well, listen, uh, last week I, um, I made a decision to, uh, fly out to Las Vegas to watch my 49ers go play in the Superbowl. This is my second time. Um, last time they, four years ago, they, they lost by, uh, you know, by a close margin, they, which a game they should have won and unfortunately it took them four years to kind of get back here. And I thought, you know what, I'm going out there. I got the opportunity and move my, you know, move my appointments and, uh, skip, you know, and just took a flight. No ticket. I just bought a plane ticket to get there and I'll figure out the ticket of the Super Bowl itself. I had a friend, a couple of friends who I can stay with so which kind of made things a little bit easier. And again, Jim, we were up by 10 and we end up losing in overtime. And my God, that was a heart wrenching game. It's been close to 30 years now. We haven't won a title. We've been there three times since then. We've lost all three. It is brutal.

Yeah.

And so I'm bleeding red today. And, but I, you know, here's where I want to kind of start. I don't know. Not everybody understands this and I understand, and I, my wife just doesn't understand and I totally get it. So I'm going to start here because I, for some reason, and I'm not sure if you feel the same way. And if you don't, please tell me. Cause people just don't understand what a fan goes through or a fanatic goes through when they're passionate about something. And I don't understand it.

Yep. Yeah.

to be honest with you, you know, it's just the team that I support. My wife keeps on telling me like, you do understand that you don't play for the team. Like, oh yeah, I'm fully aware that I don't play for the team. And, but somehow I'm so invested in the team that like this literally breaks my heart. I couldn't, I was literally speechless. I don't know what to say. And when people kind of knock on you or after the game, it's like, it's too soon.

Yep. Yeah.

It's so raw and as silly as my logical side of my brain says, this is the most ridiculous comment my wife says like, what are you talking about? Like, why are you so sad? And they're like literally laughing at me. I'm like, literally too soon. It hurts so bad. But I don't logically understand, but I know emotionally I am torn up in pieces because we were so damn close and we just couldn't pull it off. And it's frustrating.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep.

My feelings are frustration. My feeling is sadness. I feel sad for the players. I feel sad for the narratives that come out of this, but it's not logical. So anyways, I don't know if you feel that way about any particular team or sport.

Yep. Yeah. So yeah, let's, yeah, let's dissect this because I think there's a lot. It's, we can look at this at a, you know, we can look at this at a, at a protective, a level of, of superficial, how the game, the team lost, but there's deeper themes here that I really want to explore. Right. So, um, yeah, I'm glad you went with it's not logical because on the surface it's not, and I'll be hand on heart saying exactly the same thing. Like there are things that I have done.

I need therapy.

Like, and this is caught off and there's a deeper value and there's a deeper reason why you're really emotionally connected to the team at that level. And you talk to fans who go to every game. There's a bigger reason other than saying you'll win your team win or, or lose. It's, it's, it's like you're winning in life. You're losing in life, that kind of thing. You, a lot of people associate that level of significance and importance to it. So much so that, you know, when you towns and suburbs whose team wins. the next like our practice, I'll give you an example. Our co-practice practice was in a suburb called Essendon. Now Essendon, I'm not as passionate about NFL as you are. My sport is AFL and I would do the same thing, very much. I've had the fortune of being and supporting the most successful team in AFL in the 20th century. So I've had the gift and I'll talk about that specifically. But like the team, who's the suburb in the team that was the arch nemesis of the my favorite team Essendon was only like 500 meters away from our practice. And I was in this conundrum where if they won, our practice boomed that week. It was like the energy level that all the retailers, all the shop owners that come in and go, how's your week been? They go, mate, flat out. The week that the team lost,

Hmm

Trade was just down. It was really phenomenal. So it lifts the energy and the vibe of the whole community. So it's not just you and a few other handful of people who are just emotional in it. It lifts the community. So that's the first level. But I'm glad that you declared it from the outset and go, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is that has me so emotionally connected to the team, but it's not logical. It doesn't make sense. Other people around me.

Yeah.

who know me really well. Like you see, Cameron Goode goes, I don't get it dude, but there's other nut jobs and other people, crazy ones who go, I get you totally. And you know, push comes to shove, you're in my foxhole because I know you will stick through with this team through good and bad times.

Yeah, and that's the strange, that's the craziest thing is that your complete strangers would probably know me about this or feel the same level emotional as someone who is closest to me. Right? And my kids are laughing at me, you know, my wife's laughing at me. And they don't mean to laugh. They're trying not to laugh. And because they know it is I'm actually serious. I'm not actually joking about this. And it's like I said, it's not logical, but it is an emotion that I can't, you know, put to words. And it's not the first time I'm obviously gone through this several times now we've come close. the last five years, we made it to various championships and Super Bowls and just haven't been able to pull it off. And you kind of get to this place, it's like, man, I remember telling myself the last couple of years, I was like, okay, stop taking it so seriously. You know, like just let's not, and I did, you know, I'm not gonna take it so seriously. But then this year, as the success rises, you get hooked into it and it's like, got me hooked in again. I was like, oh man, I'm all in now. Emotionally, you kind of bought in. And yeah, and the pain is real, man. It's really, really weird.

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah.

to kind of see this within myself, to feel like that level of like just frustration. I almost don't want to watch like any of the stuff because I don't want to hear all the noise that goes around it. And I'm only putting myself in, I can only imagine what the players are going through. I'm like, if I'm hearing this noise as a fan, I can only imagine when that, those noises actually directed at you, 24-7, if you turn on the television, they don't know you.

Yep. Yeah.

but they're just sort of talking about you and about your life and your dedication and your mistakes that you made and quarterbacking, literally TV quarterbacking, it's like, look at this play that you didn't show up in time. And then rewind it, no one does that to our lives, right? No one does that to our life. And it's a weird kind of a place to be.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, you know, there's the analogy that we use quite regularly. Actually, we had a group coaching session today with a team and we talked about this. So I think it's quite relevant. The analogy and the principle of the elephant and the rider, where a lot of the times, when we talk about emotion, that's the elephant and the logic is the rider, the person who's on the elephant. And you kid yourself to think that as a rider, you have control over this beast. And yet when Emotions surge as they do. The emotions take you along the way. And so at an emotional level, I think we might've touched on this at one other time, but as a fan, you have emotional buy-in to a team, and it means so much to you for so many reasons. A player can come and be a professional, give all of they can, then they'll swap teams, and they're dead to you the moment they've gone. It's like, this guy is a savior, how could you, whatever. But it's their, they're professional. That's their role. That's their job. But as a fan, you like, man, I'm, I'm sticking by this team constantly. So much so like when I grew up, my, the, the rivalry that we had with the team that I don't support us in, and, uh, we, we went back and back to back to back premierships, they won one year one, we were on one year back in the eighties. And it was like the golden era of both of those teams. And then we went through a really lean period, not 30 years like you had, but Like suddenly we were getting flogged and we were living in New South Wales. We moved back to Melbourne and my kids were agnostic to AFL. You know, they were in rugby, rugby league, rugby union. I didn't know about AFL. So they came back into town. I remember they went to school one day and my worst fears were coming to fruition. So they went to school and I started talking to these kids and they, they come in and said, something about, I met little Johnny, I don't know who it was. And Jonathan, Johnny follows football and he likes a team called Essendon. Well, I went into a mad panic. It was irrational. I looked over to Battandia and I said, honey, I'm going to lose them. I'm actually going to lose them here. I need to pull out all stops. So I went out and bought every bit of Hawthorne paraphernalia and equipment and gear you could possibly imagine. Scarves, jumpers, beanies, season tickets, the whole lot.

I'm sorry.

Prior to that, when they were drawing footballers, I would put brown and gold, the two numbers together. It was just, I own it, I claim it. The boys laugh at me now. But there was a period where I was totally irrational. I did whatever it took. And we went to, yeah, you get it, right? Because I'm the same. So we went to most games and they were like, hey, listen, you're gonna support this team. They're great, they're wonderful. We're getting flogged by every team. We went through a very lean period.

I get it. Oh, I get it. Yeah, you were in the bottom for a long time.

for a long time and they're like, dad, hang on, hang on. Let me get this straight. I thought you said Hawthorne's a really good team. I go, they are, they are. And they go, just stick with them. They'll come good, they'll come good. And I'm using this opportunity, these learning moments saying, your footy team is like friends. They need you more when they're losing than when they're winning. Stick by them, they'll come good. And luckily for me, they did. And within a period of the mid 2010s, Hawthorne won three premierships in a row. And That was phenomenal. That was great. I did whatever it took to get tickets as well. I got three, two tickets. I could only get two at the time. I did exactly what you do. The only difference was I didn't have to fly the other side of the world, but I literally did whatever it took. I got onto it. So what will it take for me to get a ticket? I'm a member. There's an exclusion. It's almost impossible to get. Yeah, but what do I need to do? And I paid the price and I was paid to pay the price because it meant so much to me.

Yeah. I, uh, so kind of bring that story home. So I totally understand where you're coming from. I remember Karen brought home a, uh, a t-shirt for, you know, it's just on a random, random t-shirt from a store, uh, brought it home because she really liked the color. It was blue and it was perfect for Christian. And, uh, he put it on. I'm like, you can't wear that in the house. It was like, why not? Because that's the New York giants. I was like, so it's like, can't wear any, you can't, not that they were a rivalry or anything. It wasn't like, you know, the, the Rams or the Seahawks or whatever.

Ha ha!

like you can't wear another color team like it's not because you so you're serious like she like she literally means she goes you are absolutely serious you're not going to let your son wear a t-shirt that is not the 49ers i'm like yes absolutely not so again not irrational like not rational at all not logical whatsoever but um hey when you got to support the team you got to support the team and if you're gonna if you're gonna wear any particular team or you know that you're gonna wear you're gonna be Niners all the way and uh you know when you're an adult you can

Yep. Yep. Doesn't.

Again, not rational, but it is something that has to be kind of been nailed down. This is when they were young, so I wanted to make sure that they, you know, kind of follow through.

Yeah. So Lawrence, it is, it is raw. And let's, let's appreciate that. That is, we're talking really days after you've done this, this tour. So that's why the timing of this was, you know, it had to be that, that way. So what, when you can go meta on this, when you can look at this whole process, um, what are some key learnings that you took out of this week? Cause you, I remember you posted, I saw this as fascinating. You met people along the path and the way who were different, who were just

Yeah, we're Dragon Days. Yeah.

both a faith play as well. They were just like, I'm going there. I've just got to be there. What can you talk about for that?

Yeah. So that's one experience. Like if I had to take away some positive from this experience is that, you know, one of the things that was clear, I literally bought a ticket, a plane ticket to get there. And I figure I'll get a sort of ticket sorted out. At the end of the day, you can get a ticket if you want to. It's just a matter of price on how much were you willing to pay. Right? So let's face it, it's more about price than and yeah.

Yep. I was in the same boat.

And I was hoping to basically get a ticket last minute. And I figured the prices will drop. And as we get closer and closer to kickoff and that people will be panicking the cell and they want to get rid of those tickets. That wasn't the case. The prices were going up as the, as they were, as they were getting the kickoff. And I bought my ticket three hours, literally three hours before kickoff. And yeah, I paid it. It was already at a premium. It's been the most expensive Superbowl ever.

Yeah.

from a price point and it was absolutely ridiculous. But luckily Bitcoin was going up, so it didn't matter so much to me. I was like, okay, that's good. Anyways, the point is, so the journey was this. I took off from Portugal to head to Las Vegas and I had to do a stopover in Philly. And while in Philadelphia, I got on the plane and this guy sat next to me and he was wearing a San Francisco 49ers hat and a whole bunch of people had Kansas City hats.

Hmm. Yep.

There's a whole bunch of people who have 49ers hats and the guy sitting next to me happened to be a 49er fan And I was like, oh great go nice hat you go into the game. He's like, I don't have a ticket yet I'm like, oh, this is kind of cool I was like, oh me too. I say where you're from. He's from Toronto. Oh, I go dude I'm from Toronto and we find out later like another thing in common was like our brothers are Big die-hard Buffalo Bill fans. I'm like no way like it's like this worse. This is so strange And so anyways, we're going there and we, at the end of the day, we exchanged numbers to say, hey, like, let's, like, it's hard to sometimes get a single ticket, let's go together, you know? And we try to figure it out. It didn't eventuate, he had, you know, some connections to the 49ers with some things. I had some connections and we're trying to get through, but it just never happened. But so that, there was, you know, another fanatic friend. I thought I was the only person who was willing to kind of go single. But I get to the game, I buy a single ticket, the girl next to me, you know? She's bought a single ticket. She happens to sit next to me. And again, you know, she is another person who came there just to watch the game. He didn't want to watch anybody else. Like she's, we know one of the crazy ones. And then the guy behind me was a guy who's sitting by himself. I introduced myself and go, hey, where are you from? He's from Texas. I'm like, yeah, he's watching the game by himself. And like, it was just incredible that I was surrounded by people who was just there. And the crazy thing is that we were there four years ago. Together, we bought a ticket.

Yep.

four years ago when we lost and we came back for some more heartache. And I think that there was just to me, the post I wrote about was this great Timothy, I think it's Tim, Larry, or Timothy Larry's poem will call find the others. And the essence of the poem is that you got to find the others, the others meaning like those people that are not like anybody else, the people who are do kind of crazy things, the people who are just slightly unusual and a little bit kind of demented in the head or, you know, just

Yep.

do things that are just not the scripted society way. And when you're able to surround yourself with the others, which we did in a podcast on this, right? We've done a podcast of surrounding yourself with, you know, the closest people that will elevate you and lift you. Well, that's kind of the way it is. And because when you find that commonality, there was that deep passion. You know, there's deep passion, that deepness. That's what I took away from it. Like, there are people just like me. You just got to go and find them. I didn't have to say hi to those people.

Yep. Yep.

I didn't have to introduce myself, I could have just sat quietly on the plane, which I normally do. I didn't have to say hi to the person behind me. I was there two and a half hours before the game. I didn't have to say hi to them, but I did. And because I did, we had a connection for three hours, or four hours or so. And it was great, it was a great connection. And we commiserated, we celebrated when we were winning. All those things kind of came about, and it was like, that was the human nature. And to me, it reminded me in how... amazing a human connection is when we're bonded, like perfect strangers bonded by a common passion or purpose. And I think all of us have that, right? Rather be your passion for crochet or whether it be passion for wellness or passion for finance or just like pick a ball or whatever it is, like there's a passion in it. And I think oftentimes what we tend to do is we shy away from it. We try to shy away from when those things are important to us. And

Yep.

I really went in this weekend, I literally wore like this jersey and into the middle of Las Vegas the day before. Like I didn't care. And Karen's like, why are you doing that? Because, not because everybody else is doing it, like I mean, most people are dressed up anyways. It was like, because I want to identify myself. And it's like, I don't care. Like it's just like, it's almost like going to like Comic-Con, you know, and dress up as I think. I don't get it. But it's like, okay, some people just want to lean into it. Great. That's your thing. And I think that's a powerful...

Yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep, yep. That's your thing. That's their thing.

lesson to recognize is to lean in. So number one is lean in to the uniqueness or the craziness about you that things that are just like a little bit kind of weird and morphed. Because when you do you will attract those people who think the same way. Now you detract a whole bunch of other people but that's the point. But you actually will attract those people that actually have that similarity to you. I think that is a very powerful way because you get that connection and then once you get that connection and that's

Yep.

That goes a long way, I find.

Yep. So there's a couple of things I want to talk about here and that is, um, the, the purpose or, and the value of being clear in your values, because the moment you're really clear in your values, you are super clear that the 49ers are really important to you. So every decision can be made in an instant, right? In an instant. And you, you weigh it all that up. And, and so that to me is there's no doubt. And I, and the And I watched the game too. And if things had gone slightly differently, you would have been celebrating this experience as one of the greatest moments in there. But you had to put yourself, it's the man in the arena. So you're in it and you're emotionally connected. So that's a big part of it to go, okay, you're all in. The other thing that I really wanna focus on is, we look at it and Grant Cardone wrote a book called

Yeah. Hmm.

And there's an obsessive part of me that I have to take for a longest time. I usually need to make that wrong. It's like, Hey dude, you're pretty full on about this or you go harder at this or, Hey, you're going to fly the other side of the world to watch your team. That's obsessive. Yeah. But what happens is you can be like everybody else or look at what you just did as a superpower. So this is why I wanted to talk about this because let's flip this and go where else in your world.

Mm.

would this trait, this characteristic, this ability to go, I'm doing this no matter what, be seen as an absolute asset?

Yeah. So to me, when I first recognize it to, to make sure I lean into who I am and what I like, it creates this. So, you know, one of the things we talk a lot about, about people is about building your personal brand. Right. And the way you build a personal brand is to actually lean in to the things that make you unique. You can't actually have a personal brand if you're the same like everybody else. Like you can't be a personal brand if you're just vanilla ice cream, right? The only way to be a personal brand, like say Ben and Jerry ice cream. It's like because you have like these crazy fish food flavors, right? As a flavor. That's what makes you different. Now, if everybody copied that, then that's not anything unique. So you have to kind of be unique. And I think one of the ways of being unique is to lean into your craziness. Right? So, excuse me. For me, like I am a 49ers fan and I'm not just a regular fan who liked the team. No, I've been a fan since 1984. I have a story on why. 49ers because most people ask him like you're not even from San Francisco like why did you choose the Niners? So maybe that's a different story, but I'll get to that maybe later But to me like I've been a fan for since 1984. That's that's 40 years, right? Since I've been a fan and you know, have I followed them every year? No, I haven't you know But there was a but I have been religiously probably for about 10 to 12 years And I've been to a lot of the games and I never lived in San Francisco. I never even lived in America I lived in Australia. I've been to at least I probably being close to 10 games now, and then I didn't even live close to it. And here's the crazy thing, here's, so. When I was in Australia, I actually, you know when you visualize a BHAG, right? Your big higher industry. One of the BHAG I wrote down to myself is be a season ticket holder for the next 40 years while being in Australia. I'm thinking they play 16 games a year or 17 games a year, eight of them are home games. I'm like, eight trips, can it be worth it? Now that's craziness, right? But I was like, okay, but what kind of person would it take and what would I have to make, you know, or create an income that was easy for me to do?

Yeah. Yep, yep.

Right? So that was the b-hack. So going back to that person, like leaning into it, so you can see how like somewhat obsessive I am, that leaning into it, then you're recognized. Right? So you talk about, well, how is that a superpower? Well, the superpower is that you're recognized now because most of my friends who know me, know that I'm a Niners fan, and so now we have something to connect. I know, for example, a few people who are different teams fans, we will banter with each other, or we'll commiserate with the, and when our team kind of go again.

Yep. Yeah.

So there's that bond that you can actually bond with other people because even though you could be the opposite team, like so for example, you practice inestimating even though you are Hawthorne supporter, but that banter, right? Even though it's meant to be, you know, conflict, but that banter actually connects you to your patients. Right.

Ah! I love it. I love that also has a trash top, but I just love the back and forth. I would have people in the week that our team lost to them would come in grown men who would know better in fully kitted out gear of their of their team and go, Oh, I didn't realize I was wearing this today. I'm like, right. Yeah, of course you didn't. Right. So, but I love that, that jest, that jousting. I really enjoy that. But to me, it's the fun and the connection.

Hehehehe

Here's something really interesting that I, I think just as we're talking about it, that I realized that it's probably partly I've passed it on to our kids. So they're all Hawthorne supporters in Australia, but they both, my boys follow that EPL and my oldest son, Sebastian is a mad Ken Chelsea fan. For ever, ever since he was, you know, he's like the last 15, 16 years, he's watched every game that Chelsea played live. That meant for all the years we were in Australia, he was getting up at

Right, wow. in the middle of the night.

two o'clock in the morning and he's never watched the game. Right? And when he moved to London, he had a very surreal experience because he went to Chelsea's home game, home match to watch the game live during the official time and it like during waking hours. And that felt really weird to him because his association was like, I'm so hardcore, I'll watch it at any time. I don't want to watch the replay, I've got to watch it live. My eldest son...

Yeah.

My youngest son is a Manchester United fan. So he's gone to, he now lives in London. He went to Manchester to watch them play. So I can look at this and go, look what you've done to these kids. But effectively what I love is the fact that they've found the spirit to get really excited about something in life that juices them up. And if they can have it in one area, they can apply it in other areas. Because you know that the moment, yeah, that's where I'm going is, life doesn't change because of reasonable people.

Well, I think that's what you're alluding to, right? Yeah. Yes.

You're right. It's been said before. It's the unreasonable people that shake stuff up that makes things happen. And to me, there's a, there's a huge level of unreasonableness about what you've done. You've done what I'm looking at is encapsulating and bottling and channeling it in a way that goes, Lawrence, use that to go make great happen. Things happen in business and life. And you've, you know, you've got it because you've got a reference for it.

Yeah, and I think, so I'll give you an example of what happened to, like, I bought the ticket, the plane ticket maybe about a week prior to. I was really debating whether I should go or not, because I, to be honest with you, I didn't know if I could go through another heartache of what happened four years ago. And that's the truth of it. Like, I don't want to pay all that money and go and experience it, and I just want to sit with me for a while. And I waited a week, because it was two week period since we knew that they made it. And I waited a week and I got back to Portugal, and I felt... I don't know something in me just felt confident everything was falling in the right place and you know, I'm like, okay screw it I'm just gonna buy the ticket plane ticket It was not until the day before the even the day before I left. I was actually having second thoughts and And then my wife found out how much tickets were for the game and she goes because she gave me I fully asked permission first, of course and Then she found out actually how much you cost she goes Are you serious that you're gonna pay X amount to go to the game and I'm like, yeah

Yeah.

I wasn't, I was not apologetic for it. I'm like, yeah. And she goes, and then she's shaking her head, blah, whatever. And so the night before I was literally contemplating gym, I literally thought it goes, you know what, if I don't go, I'm just sacrificing a thousand. Like a thousand, like it's a plane ticket, right? It's like, I know it's a lot of money, but at the same time, it's only a thousand, you know, versus what I would have to pay once I get there. And then I rationalized. I, so I didn't pack to be honest with you. I had to leave at eight. I did not pack till 6 30 AM that morning. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Really? Wow.

Because I was on the fence. Because here's the thing, my logic brain was trying to override my internal brain. Because my logic brain was sort of saying, maybe you shouldn't go. Maybe you should, like, what's the worst? But then I thought better of it. I'm like, what's life about here, Lawrence? I made a commitment. I'm going to go. I got permission. I moved everything around to get there. I'm like, it's an experience. Like, you know, even if you lose, which we did, it's an experience. It's a story you can tell.

Alright. Yep. Yeah.

I get a podcast episode out of it. Hey, like that's better than nothing. Right. And so, and so for me, it really kind of like, for me, that's when I really start to recognize them, like, this is what life is about. You talked about being unreasonable. It is freaking unreasonable. It is unreasonable for me to go to take. I just literally been to the States. Right. I just flew back 17 hours to get back and I got to go back again. Four days later, it's unreasonable from a time perspective, unreasonable for my, uh, my body's health perspective. Cause I've just done it.

Yep.

three, financially, it's just a stupid decision. But you know what? Like you said, most things are done because of unreasonable men who do these crazy things because I know that I could utilize this and leverage this and make me do unreasonable things in other parts of my life. And that's the story that I wanna tell. That's the story. To be honest with you, part of me just wants to go to the kids to go, this is what dad does. Like you. You know, you gotta go do something that you're passionate about and go do it because it's in your dream, it's in your bucket list, go and do it. Most people would say, oh, I wish I could have gone. All of us have the opportunity to go, but there's sacrifices, right? Sacrifices financially, it's factfinding time. I'm not saying be like me. That's not exactly what I'm saying at all. I'm saying if there's something you really truly wanna go and do, sometimes you have to execute. We moved, you know? We gave up our Australian life.

Yep.

a great life that we had to have this unknown journey, right? Because of that passion, the same passion it is for me to go because we want we crave the experience. Right? There's a lot of a lot of money left on the table, a lot of money spent to get to where we are. And it's probably not exactly the same that we thought something's better, something's worse. But the experience though, right, the experience that the story you can tell another person that you

Yep. Yep. Yep.

You can't you can't like that's worth like it's not there's no monetary but it's so worth the juice right the squeeze sorry. Yeah.

Yep. So it's a feeling. Yeah. No, it's the feeling that you're, you're talking about. You know, I, when I was practicing, I had a client I used to take care of. She was a highly successful marketing executive and she had an irrational, and she'll call it irrational, um, obsession with attending, um, Kylie Minogue and George Michael concerts. Right. And she would go and she would go. And what if, if Kylie Minogue played in

Right, yeah.

London for four shows, she would fly from Australia to London and go to all four shows. Right. It was that level of obsession. And I'd say to her, what's it about? She goes, I don't know, but it's something about that. That makes me feel something. Right. And, you know, Maya Angelou, beautiful, wise woman said people will forget, often forget what you, what you tell them, but they'll never forget how you made them feel.

Good all for. Right. Okay. Hmm. Interesting.

And there's something about the connection to the 49ers, to this person with Kylie Minogue that taps into a feeling, a feeling that you can't necessarily make sense of a creator. You know that, you know, that, you know, that you have to be, you have to follow that path because a lot of the times if you tap into, and I, I'm a, I like to think of myself as a very intuitive person and I really tap into that. And if every, if I'm getting green lights, And, and I've, I, my body is like being willed. Like even if I'm standing still, I find myself, I'm in movement, even if I didn't, I'm not aware of it because I'm drawn to something like that. I can't make sense of it. I don't know what it is. I'll speak up when I go, that came through me, that kind of stuff. So it's very esoteric in that regard, but I know that I know that I know that I have to do that. I have to take this action. There's no if, ands or buts about it. It's like, dude, you're going.

Hmm.

And it won't make sense to anybody else. And people will accuse you of being crazy, but you just go, it has to get done this way. And sometimes you won't know the significance of it until after the fact, as, as Steve Jobs says, you connect the dots afterwards, but there may be a process. The, the, the time the 49ers win and you encapsulate that feeling and you anchor it, you will remember, and you will actually forget, I should say the pain.

Yeah.

because you've got that very much like women who talk about the pain of childbirth. The moment they see their beautiful baby, they forget how painful the experience was because they've got so much joy connected to the new experience.

Yeah, and it's hard to obviously feel that right now. I know that rationally and logically, but yeah, and I know that part of me knows that there will be a silver lining of all of this and there will be some sort of, you know, everybody says that it will be sweeter in the future, but it's so long away, you know what I mean? Because, yeah, and the thing is for me, I know it's not like...

Yep. Yeah, you don't know. You don't know when it'll be.

You know, it's not like a regular season game where you can go, you know, what, you know, we have a lot, even a loss during a regular season. It's like, oh, so painful. And your Mondays are like, oh man, there's this like, what you talking about? Like she's being down. Like, yeah. And Karen's sometimes like, why, like what's wrong with you today? I'm like, oh, nothing. I just never tell her because it's like, it's not even worth having that conversation. But you know, with this feeling now, it's going to be months, right? It's gonna be months because there's an off season, you know, and you can't even get back and get excited about something. But I know, like, I know how hard it is. For.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

for two teams to get to the top, to this one game. It's not just having the best players. It's about having a lot of luck, like a lot of luck that goes along the way, that has to go your way. No injuries or just wrong right injuries and the ball has to bounce the right way. Like you saw the game, I think you said, it was like there was two or three little things that should have, that if that didn't happen, if we would have won the game air very easily. But because of those things, it just didn't, the ball just never bounced.

Yep. Time on. Yeah, yeah.

our way. And if only one of them, you know, the muff pond, the, you know, the fumble, like if just one of them didn't exist, I think we would have been fine. But it didn't, it didn't fall away. And it just wasn't our day. And those things are I so that's what I mean. Like I know that's why I went this time was because I know it took four years to get back here. Right. And it took so long to get back here. And I'm like, I don't know when the next time is gonna be of course, we all think next year. But

Yeah. Yep. That's right.

know, like there's so many things that has to line up, right. And, and that's the thing with this, what I love about the sport is that it's that it takes 11 men to execute their job properly on every play in order for that to occur. And I don't like you probably don't know the sport enough, but there's one play when Brock Purdy threw in the overtime, he threw the ball just overthrew the ball, what would have been the touchdown, but it's because this guy was coming in his face, right?

You don't know? Yeah.

But it's because one of the guys on our team missed the assignment to take the best player on their team. And he came straight at him and he came and he threw the ball half a second too early just to escape. If that person took that, it was a bit of a touchdown. It was an easy touchdown, they would have had it. But that didn't happen. And one person make one mistake on one play out of, I don't know, 50 plays on that day, one mistake cost us, you know, and multiple things happened. That's the thing. That's the reality of sport. And I think that's the, that's just the perfect blend of why I love so sports so much because it's like any given day someone could win or lose. But the problem with that is that the winners, you know, it's like warriors and heroes, but the losers though, it's so like painful, there has to be a winner loser. And I think that's the beautiful part about sport. It's like without the pain, you can't

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You can't appreciate the joy.

Correct, correct. And that's actually what happens when people suppress, you know, when they go on medication, particularly, because there's anxiety, they suppress the anxiety and it doesn't selectively suppress some emotions and leave the other one, suppresses them all. And so I think the big learning in this is if for you to fully feel life and the drama of life and sport, that's really what it is, you have to put yourself out there. And that risks... being emotionally hurt, upset, taken on a rollercoaster, all those kinds of things. I'll never forget going to a game and I laugh, actually two experiences, Bettina has played national softball and in her sport, she's like, goes crazy about it. But all the others, she's tolerated our obsessions with sport. She's like, okay, I'll come to the game, but I could do something up, but I wanna be part of with you. We're watching a game. and a close game. It is coming down to kind of like the Super Bowl. It's coming down to the last 35 seconds. It's one of the most exciting games I've watched. The scores are dead tight and I'm like I'm jumping up and down looking over pretend it's falling asleep. I'm like how can you do that? How can you do that? This is the most exciting game and she's like out of it and it's because she's not that's not her game. But I've gone to other games where same kind of thing. Crowd's

Yeah.

hasn't broken a sweat, I'm jumping out of my seat. I'm excited. So to me, the risk for you to feel those high highs, you have to be basically prepared to experience the lows. And right now is the low of that, but you won't fully feel all of it unless you go, I'm in.

Yeah. Yeah. And you have to be fully passionate. And this goes back to the transition of life, right? Like, in order for you to be successful in anything, which is risk losing, right, in a sense, risk being taking a loss, but also enjoying the euphoria of a win, you have to be fully all in, right? You have to be really in it, just like you said, because without it, it'd just be, well, it doesn't really matter. I'm sure there's a, like, I think it was the most watched television most watched television broadcasts since the moon landing. This particular Super Bowl, this is crazy, right? Back in 1960 something. So you can imagine there's probably a lot of people who just didn't care who won. For those people who might be listening to this and go, yeah, I watched the game, you know, even probably for you, it's like, yeah, it was a great game. It was probably actually the most entertaining Super Bowl game for most people because it was so close, went to overtime, so much drama, and it took that.

Wow.

But for me, it wasn't. People are like, oh, it must have been so great. No, it wasn't. It was freaking hell. Anxiety was up here and you knew it was happening. You're like, oh my God. But my point is that if you're not fully engaged, you're never gonna feel the euphoria. You feel like, oh, that was a good game, right? But for those people who like all the Kansas City fans, if you're investing in Kansas City Chief, like you're a euphoric. And if you were a 49ers fan, I could deeply invest in a 49er fan, you were depressed, right?

Yep. Yep. Yep.

but you only got those feelings, the highs and the lows, if you were fully invested. But if you were not fully invested in the thing, it's just a win and a loss. I think that's the same thing with life. If you're not fully invested in your career or your path or your wellbeing or your direction and your brand and whatever you're really passionate about, if you're not fully invested, the win will never be as sweet, right? But you also won't feel the losses, of course, but. but you're not gonna feel that sweet when you actually win, when you get to the pinnacle of your success. I think that's really important understanding about leaning into your passion and really focusing on going, what in your life, which is the question you asked me, what else in your life where you're fully passionate about so that you can actually feel how great that feels? Because when you do it, when you do feel it, you want more of it.

Yep. And Lawrence, those, those kinds of feelings, we're talking about it specifically at sport. And I'm really glad that we've captured the rawness of this for you because you, we've got this recorded now and you can look back and realize just how much and just how painful that was, you know, from, from that experience. But for people who aren't necessarily four to nineties fans or sports fans, whatever, take the learning out of when you really go for something that you really want. and things don't work out, you're gonna feel these emotions and they're normal. They're normal, right? You're gonna feel disappointed. And so a lot of great coaches with their teams we may lose a game, they'll actually get the guys to stay on the field to cycle through the feeling of loss and coming second to use that as fuel to recharge and come back next time. Not from an anger, but to feel the depths of emotion and disappointment and setback and loss and use it as a- compelling reason to keep moving forward.

Well, the narrative here at that point is very important because you can have a narrative, it's like I did all of that work, spent all of that time to get to here and we still didn't win.

Yeah.

Like you could be really, it could really take you down a really dark path. Or you can spin the narrative to be, we did all that work, all that time, it still wasn't good enough. Meaning that, okay, now I know how much more I actually have to do to ensure that we have a higher probability. And still, still won't guarantee that win. But that's two narratives, right? And that splits up in terms of the actions and behaviors you're gonna take.

No, no, and not. Yeah, and if you as a coach of a team help people understand that, we're not talking like superhuman outcomes here. What we're talking about tangible 1% improvements in key metrics in all areas of your game across the team. And that's exactly the same. If you're a part of a team in your work environment and you want to increase the standard of things, quite often it's identify what are the two key or three key metrics that we can improve on 1% and keep improving, adopting a culture of excellence and improvement over time that continually allows you to keep moving forward. That to me is the disappointment because life, the reality of it, there are going to be disappointments and for every winner there has to be someone who doesn't win. And it's about how do people embrace that, take that as a learning and don't personalize it. I think it's really... It's really difficult because the, you know, when, when you do get setbacks, I'm talking generally here, not just in sport, we have a tendency to personalize them to mean something about us and what we're capable of. And I think the whole lesson and learning here is to go, okay, how can we regroup from these setbacks? How can we really feel them and not numb them, not pretend they didn't happen, but really use them as a fuel, as a catalyst to. get better in some way, shape or form so that if you show up tomorrow or next season, you take that as a learning to keep you moving forward.

You know what I notice about, you know, I'm in several couple of groups or, you know, people from, uh, I'm actually a group in Australia that we've got a group of friends who all are 49ers fans and we have like our own little messenger and we, you know, and the messages kind of go back and forth. And what's really interesting is that, you know, the way I feel right now is pretty much the same as what every, like a lot of them are feeling, like a lot of them just haven't been able to watch. They just don't want to approach it and it's going to take a little while. And I think that's that. That is a lesson there in itself. It's like sometimes when there is a heartbreak, when there's something in your life and your business or something that you just didn't meet, didn't match the expectation and it's like a setback. Do you, I think you do need to have some time to kind of not jump right back in and get into it sometimes. I think you do need to kind of sit with that pain. Yeah. It's a grieving process. Exactly. Yeah.

It's like a grieving process really. There's a grieving, yeah, yeah.

And that green process is so important because it's just like sit back and really kind of evaluate. And that's gonna take a bit of time and there's no timeframe on that. It's like, and I think it's important to kind of recognize that green process is an important part of healing and to recognize how you can actually come up better on the other side. But that's the time for the narrative. Otherwise you're doing it for the wrong reasons sometimes and you can't really evaluate it rationally if you don't actually think through this properly. So.

Yep. So Lawrence, thank you for being open to have this discussion. When I floated it as an idea, I was cognizant of the fact that too soon, but within days you're actually talking about that. So I'm really grateful for that. And I think that the gift and the message is to for people listening to feel and hear the timber in your voice, the emotion in your voice and just how much it means. making that okay and allowing that to go, hey, I really wanted this, it didn't work out. Okay, I'm flat right now, I will regroup and I'll come back in a different format. But really communicating and getting touched with those emotions I think is a really authentic expression of just the roller coaster that we do quite often go through in life. And for you, it just happened to be with 49ers. So thank you for being prepared to go there and play out. play with this while it would have been a tough topic to talk about. Even though some people may not relate to it for the people that can, you've, you've pretty much nailed it for them and made them feel like, yeah, that's exactly how I feel when things, you know, this big setback.

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to kind of talk about it. And you know, all I have to say is this quick summary on a couple of things I've learned. Number one is be fully passionate about something and lean into it. Uh, when you, when you can do that, you really feel the euphoria of a win, even though we didn't win, but you can, I just don't, can only imagine how great that feels, but you can only feel that if you fully are invested into something. Number two is, you know, in life, sometimes you gotta take those opportunities. It doesn't come very often. for me was the Super Bowl and I know even though I've been to one, I still haven't been to one that they won. I still want to be part of that and so I think for you sometimes it might be something else and you know sometimes an opportunity arises you know really think about it is that opportunity to come up again and you know can you take that chance and thirdly reality is that I think that you know when it comes to you know what I'm going through I know that not many people understand what I'm feeling right now and that's okay I'm okay with that. I don't need to rationalize with anybody else. I don't need to explain myself to anybody else. What I do need is find others who can understand. And I think we all feel that way in some sort of another, like in life, that sometimes we feel like we need to rationalize it and explain it to someone, but just remember that not everybody understands your emotional feeling. They don't have to either, but there are people out there who can, and I think that it's important to find those others who you can commiserate with because they will understand. And finding your others is such an important element. to be finding success in life. So I hope that kind of helps kind of, you know, summarize some of the topics we discussed.

One last thing I just want to add just along that line is you mentioned that you've got your 49ers fans that you have commonality with, but the big key that I've learned is just because you've got commonality with these guys, that's one thing. And then that may have totally nothing to do with another group of friends that you have entrepreneurship with as a bond. And then there's another group, but the only common theme and factor and thread to all that is you. And it's okay to have a part of you with one group, they celebrate or commiserate with your team's loss, another group, you talk business with another growth, you go paddle with another guy to crossfit, but it's a natural expression of every part of you in different forms in a heightened state around people who are just equally as passionate or crazy about it. And that's okay. And when you try to find all those things in one person, that's the difficult part, like I said to you. So it's a case of not compromising those.

Yes.

expressive fun parts of you is just finding them in different forms of different people because they're really part of you.

Yeah, and embrace every single part of you. That's the key lesson of what you're trying to say. So guys, I hope you enjoyed that episode and really hope that you can relate to some of those things so that in your life, whether it be sport or whether it be personal development or something else, I think there's some really cool stories. So please, I hope that you share this with other people and hope that you got something out of it. And I know this podcast was a little bit out of sequence because we decided to post this earlier than normal. So the other ones following will be mostly. back to the regular scheduling, which means that we recorded this much later than the previous, the next few episodes you'll be watching and listening. So just in case there's anything that I order, that's probably the reason why, because I really felt that this episode needs to kind of come up sooner rather than later. Until next time, guys, enjoy the Wabi Sabi podcast, the art of imperfection. And thank you, Jim, for allowing me to have a therapy session with you after my loss with the 49ers. Take care, guys.