Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Well, welcome back to Wabi Sabi. This is a podcast for the art of imperfection because as we know, life is never perfect, it's always full of imperfections that we need to handle and adapt to. And it's been an amazing couple of weeks. It's been a couple of weeks since me and Jim have recorded and we titled this particular podcast called Plane, Trains, and Automobiles because well, due to our last two weeks, we've been definitely, I've been on a plane and trains and automobiles all three and so has Jim.

Yep.

And we thought that we will do a whole podcast on this. And it's been a great couple of weeks, Jim. How are you feeling overall in the last two weeks since all your travels?

It's yeah, it's been a great couple of weeks, massive learning. You know, I, the intention was to get to conferences and to upskill and educate myself. It's the theme of the planes, trains and automobiles for the podcast today is really what happened in the ensuing transport in the getting there and the like, it's kind of like, I think John Lennon said, you know, life's what happens when you're busy making other plans. And that was really the case of what's happened in there. I think there's so much that I've learned.

Hmm.

expanded on and grown in the last two weeks. That had nothing to do with the conferences. So I thought it'd be a great opportunity for us to go in it. Yep.

It was an interesting, well, let's start here because I think this is a really, really good topic here. One of the first thing that came to my mind is like, you know, we, as we go to conferences or we have a destination, whether it be a holiday or a retreat or whatever we're doing, it's the destination we think we're going to get the most learning in the destination itself. But as we highlighted, this is out of the outer respect of John Candy, Planes, Chains, and Automobiles, like the movie, classic by the way, classic for anybody who hasn't watched that. But the thing is, is that I think that movie.

Yep. Yes, yeah, great. Loved it, loved it.

from memory, it's been a while since I've watched it, but from memory, that movie epitomizes exactly what we're talking about, because it's not the destination that gives us the greatest gratitude and greatest gift, it's actually the journey, the process, which is life, we'll call it, that's where the most learning comes from, which is hence the planes, trains, and automobile, and we both had very interesting times during those processes. Now, of course, the conferences, the retreats, or whatever we've been to, had great learnings, but again, the learnings also came, the journey to and from.

Yep.

those events that have massive learnings.

Okay, so we've both, you know, just prior to recording, we both get, look, there's a lot we can discover. So do you wanna start first? Do you want me to start first? What, how do we wanna go about it?

Well, listen, like I will say, like based on what I just said around the in-betweens, I think, you know, I ran a retreat in Bali for my clients and I, you know, been doing these retreats for a lot of years. And one of the things that changed it up a little bit, cause it's been a couple of years since I've done one since COVID. So one of the things that, you know, on the same theme, I think it's how I design my retreats is that most people think they're coming in for particular content. And you know, they learn something. And what I got to say is like, I've moved away from content. Um, from retreats for a long time now, mostly because you can get content anywhere and today, like of all the times you can literally get content from an AI chat bot that tells you everything you need to know about anything at any given moment within 30 seconds. So you don't need to come to retreat to get content. What I think you need is sense of community and a sense of connection. And I designed my retreats in a way that the learning isn't necessarily from me or from the content I deliver is actually the learning is going to be in the situations I put you in. and also the situations that you have during, between each content piece, like a break, a massage, or a dinner conversation, a breakfast conversation, a lunch conversation. And I think if we see life to attribute life more about learning from, not from what we expect, like, hey, I'm gonna learn when I go to this class. I'm gonna learn from going to this seminar. I'm gonna learn when I listen to this particular podcast. I think it's about the... where those going to and from of those places, there's so much learning in between. But the only way you're gonna learn from them is by being observant and being open to learn from those pauses, if I wanna call it that, between those learnings. Would you agree with that?

Yep. Totally, totally. And I love really what you're saying is, and I agree with you, I think we're in a day and age where there's no shortage of information. So we can get that anywhere. So what, you know, people flew from one country to another get to retreat very much like they did with ours. And so what we're doing is we're attracting it's an experience and as much experiential learning. Sometimes it's about helping people find answers through the process of conversations. open discussion and forum. So that's, I'm finding as a trend, that's what a lot of people are yearning for, particularly after a couple of years of not being able to go to things, they're really craving that. So I think you're really onto something exceptionally well. And experiential learning is always fantastic because you solidify the learning through an experience and it just deep dives, you know, you basically integrate that information so much better. So I totally agree with you in that regard. Lawrence, what I really, so, wanted to know, because you posted on your socials that you had a deviation to your straight line path and your plans after Bali. So could you just share that and perhaps go into what that experience is like and what it taught you about you?

All right. Sure. Yeah. So basically I, I traveled to Bali. That's about 24 hours or so, and then travel back to 24 hours back. But I didn't, couldn't actually go home because I actually had a scheduled meetings in London that I had to attend to, to get some training done. And while I was in London, I landed, you know, from Bali. And at that day, after the day I landed, I went out for a nice walk. I probably walked like 15 kilometers all around London, just kind of exploring. And I remember going to dinner that night and it was very dimly lit restaurant, great restaurant, great food. But I noticed I couldn't read the menu very well, and I bet that's pretty typical with my age and my like nearsightedness and darkness and dimly lit restaurants, you know, I have my flashlight on but I noticed that it was like I had like floaters in my eyes and also noticed there was a bit of blurriness, you know, felt like it almost felt like there's something like in your glasses, you know, but I thought was in my contacts, I couldn't do anything with it. I'm like, okay, well, I'll just get through dinner and then I'll go home. So I went back to my hotel and took the contacts off and put my glasses on and like, oh, interesting enough, it's the same blurriness.

Yep.

It's like, well, obviously it wasn't the context. So it's gotta be my eye. And this is like, you know, we're talking like 10 o'clock at nighttime. There's nothing I can do about it now. So went to bed, thought anything of it next morning, you know, did my calls and did my exercises and realized that it's still there. And like, okay, I better just go for a walk and find an optician. But I had my meetings, you know, this is like the first time I'm meeting this group of people. I can't just skip out, you know, I could, you know, I literally spent all my time there. So went to my meetings and then realized that it was getting worse. So I decided to go see the optometrist. And the optometrist looked at me for 15, 20 minutes and said, you know what, we're sending you to the hospital. You gotta go to emergency hospital. Obviously there's a lot of emotions around that because your brain automatically goes to the worst case scenario. Like your brain just goes, okay, this is not good. The optometrist wasn't too scared, so actually that was helpful. And I think the lesson I learned here was really important because my brain automatically went to retinal detachment because my dad had. And my dad didn't do anything about it. Actually, he took too long to do something about it. And he actually is blind in one eye because of that. Right. So just as a PSA, you know, like public service announcement, like if you ever have floaters in your eyes and you, you have some blurriness in eyes, like shadows, like black shadows, corners, or like flashing lights, do something about it, like go to an emergency or go to an attention, it might be nothing.

Hmm Oh, okay. Yeah.

but it's not worth the risk, to be honest with you, of this permanent loss of sight. We're talking permanent loss of sight. It's not like you can fix it. So you wanna get on top of it right away. So that's where my brain kind of went. And you know, the worry actually wasn't about me losing my sight, because I mean, that's the potential there, but I knew I was catching it pretty early. I should be fine. But it was like mixed symptoms in a sense that I don't think it's that bad, but then there were some signs that could be bad. And that's where I started to realize I'm like, where my brain was heading. It was like, if this was a retinal detachment, I would have had to have emergency surgery, which means that I would have to most likely, couldn't fly, which means that I had to stay in London for like another two more weeks, which I've been away for two weeks already. And like, that's what played in my mind, like I'm missing the time with my family and what I'm gonna do. And my wife was really good about that. Like, you know, Karen was, she was actually the calming one for a while. I wasn't freaking out or anything, let's be clear. I mean, at the same time, like my brain was running wild. She's like, look, listen, let's find out first.

Yeah.

Like, let's not jump to any conclusion, because all we're doing is speculating. If anything, which is really why I'm proud of my because if anything, usually she's the one who jumps and makes things way worse than it actually is. So for her to not do that was very surprising, because it's uncharacteristic. But here's the thing. Here's another lesson on the side, which is, this is what partners do in relationships. Like when one partner feels a certain way, the partner, the other partner is there to ground you if you're, you know, doing the opposite, right? So if you are down, they're there to pick you up. And if you are elated and have an ego, then they're, they're there to bring you down. Like, that's the point of a partner. And I think that was really a true sign of exactly that she wasn't panicking. If anything, I was the one kind of as me worried, and she balanced and go like, let's take it one step at a time, let's go and find out what the answer is. And then let's make decisions. Don't worry about what could happen or what, you know, because that hasn't it's not on the on the cards yet. So I think, for me, it was like,

Hmm. Yep.

lesson here for all of us is one is you do need to think through like worst case scenarios. I think it's, it's not healthy not to think about it. I think it is wise to kind of consider what are some of the possibilities, but in, but at the same time, you can't go down that rabbit hole thinking that is going to be the only scenario, right? So what I'm saying is, you got to look at what is the best case scenario? What is the worst case scenario, but also like most likely scenario and play them all out. but don't live in like the worst thing only because that's where I think that's where our brain kind of goes into this fight or flight state. So basically I went to emergency hospital, took the tube and waited for, I don't know, two, two and a half hours or whatever. And they took me in, saw me, looked at me and they said, yep, you have a tear. You have a tear in your, and that's why the blurry vision was because the protein, the blood was pooling, there was a bit of blood.

Yep.

and which was, you know, created like this almost cytoplasm in my eye. So that's why I couldn't see very well. And plus the black, the, uh, the, um, the black, um, shadows, uh, were just basically protein strings that were in my eye, the floaters. And so basically that this is going to require, uh, emergency surgery, um, not to fix the tear, which is really interesting, but to basically surgically place the retina. more to the back of the eye so that it doesn't detach. So basically more of a prevention surgery because otherwise the liquid could go behind the eye and push the retina forward and that's where the detachment can occur. So I had like those in the worst case scenario which was a retina detachment, it was more like a middle case scenario which is the most likely scenario where it could lead to a retina detachment but it didn't. So therefore that's why the laser surgery. So that was my incident. And luckily like you know, everything went well as when Literally finished that night, probably around 10, 30, 11, went to bed and the next day I was back at my meeting. So it was perfectly fine. But one of the major things I lesson learned was when it comes to things like this, like I already talked about not freaking out, but also this thing too as well, it's like, yeah, you do need to do something about it. And waiting sometimes could be costly.

Yeah. Well, look, thanks for sharing that because that's, you know, pretty personal and private and intimate and scary. And you've taken us all on a journey that I think certainly what I'm taking out of that is there are times where, you know, things, these things never happen when it's convenient, you know, you never go, Hey, I'm having this problem at, you know, five o'clock in the afternoon, everything's all like, Lasting at night, you're tired. You just don't want to be doing that. And, and a lot of this, the temptation. So you had a strategy, you got onto it very quickly, but it just highlights the time that she things show up at inopportune times. You know, kids cry and a need emergency attention at a hospital at two o'clock in the morning. So it's never at a convenient sort of a time. But I think what I took out of that is sometimes you just have to, sometimes you have the objective. person around you because sometimes you're in it and you know that things on a logical level but sometimes you do need someone external to go, dude, you know, everything's going to be okay just for a reassurance so you can cycle through it. But you took action very quickly and thankfully as you said, you addressed that issue very quickly. You know, there could have been scenarios not only just in your eye but other areas where you could apply this and go, what do I act on quickly enough? What do I take too long to act on? And then what are the consequences of that?

Hmm. Yeah, I think... Yeah, and not freaking out and making it worse than it is. I think it's an important lesson there. Because I mean, I'm not patting myself in the back here on how I handle my situation, but like I did, there was a lot of feedback on the next day was like, you had eye surgery? Like, what are you doing here? You know what I mean? Like they just kind of like almost bit of, it's almost like them freaking out me, more freaked out that I was actually like functional and just going back to dorm a day to day thing, than the actual eye surgery, sorry. And I'm like, well.

Yeah.

Like what I'm also gonna do, like it's not like life, it wasn't life or death. It wasn't like, you know, I don't need to make it out to be more than what it was. I mean, sure it was emergency. I'm not saying that it was a small thing, but it's also not that big of a thing too. And so I think sometimes, and what it kind of, I guess the takeaway for me is like, oftentimes how many times, and which is me included, like how many times are we going into a situation that we make it, like we almost create ourselves to be the victim and we create our situation where we.

Yeah.

we make the situation more eventful than it needed to be. And because we wanna feel like a victim, it's so easy to do that, right? It's so easy for me to like, oh my God, this is what happened to me last night, da da, like, and make it all about me. But the reality is like, no one, like people are interested, but they don't care that much, you know? Like it's your own story. And reality is like, we don't, I don't have to go there. I don't need to create victimhood around this whole thing. I'm gonna live my day to life. And I think that that's.

Yep.

I've done that many times in the past where I made it worse than it actually is. And it really didn't need to be. And I think that's a huge lesson that realization that I actually had in that moment is like, Oh, right. That's it's, you know, try to remain stoic as possible through that ordeal and, you know, deal with it as it comes, which is, uh, you know, what we, a lot of, a lot of us, what we've been talking about in these podcasts.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. Well, like I said to you, I'm glad you acted on that very quickly. And importantly, you've shared that from a perspective. I think that I certainly have taken a lot out of that in terms of my own world and go, look here, the effects, these are the consequences, these are the little gentle little reminders that life gives you. And then when you ignore them, it's a slap across the head. And thankfully, you acted on things at the earliest opportunity. And as a result of that, you got onto it straight away. So.

Appreciate it. Yeah. Well, let's transition to your life, because I know that I've heard that you've had some eventful stuff, but you haven't told me because you're saving it for the podcast. So I'm going to be like a listener here listening for the very first time, like what has transpired your journey, your journey, your planes, trains and automobiles.

Yeah, that's good. Hahaha Wha- uh Fair, fair enough. I look, thankfully there were no hospital visits for me. Um, it felt like I might have, uh, had a heart attack at some stage along the way. But, you know, when we talked about planes, trains and automobiles, it really was, uh, yeah, how sometimes experiences reveal you to you and show you how you do life. And, and they, a lot of things that you do prepare you for a specific moment. Well, that's really kind of what happened. So the first week of the couple of weeks that we haven't recorded, I went to Mulligo and had a great conference and seminar and everything was all great. I came home for a couple of days and then we flew to Birmingham in the UK. So it was an event that we were going to go to. But while we were in Birmingham, we took the opportunity to travel down to London to catch up with our son who lives in London. And so same thing as you got up, recorded, had some calls, did a recording. jumped on a train, everything's going great. About halfway along from Birmingham to London is a place called Milton Keynes. The train driver says, listen, we're stopping here and the train cannot keep going any further. And people are curious, what's going on, what's going on? And they've said, listen, there's been an incident. Apparently someone's jumped on the lines of the train and committed suicide and... the train couldn't proceed all the way in through to London. So they've canceled all trains in and out using that line. There were no backup buses in any way. So the only way that you could get from Milton Keynes to London, which was a journey of an hour and a quarter was Uber or taxi. And so Ubers, you know, there was just a procession. So it was a case of just going

Hmm. Uber. Yeah.

What do you do? Now it was a really interesting social experiment because you get a situation like that and you get to see how people handle things. So don't get me wrong, we weren't absolutely wrapped with the idea and we had a moment where we've gone, could have, would have, should have, all those kinds of things that we went through that gamut. Then we went, okay, what are we gonna do? So the driver said to people, listen, you can stay here, you can stay on the train. We don't know how long it'll take. It could be an hour, it could be five hours. So there were people who did stay and they were prepared to wait, not knowing that whether they'd be able to proceed and go forward. There were other people who just cracked it, you know, and they were telling everybody about the situation and anybody would listen, you know, they had the vent. And there are other people who just jumped off straight away and didn't think they just reacted, you know, and then they had to come back and get their luggage. I forgot all this. But there was a group of people and we were in that where we just sat for a little while and went, okay, we're just going to sit and regroup. What are our options here? What are we going to do? You know, how are we going to play this?

Did you do a Richard Branson and put a sign out and bought a bus? Just joking.

had we, had we, had we sort of, sort of, because what happened was we actually, um, well, but turn, I was strategizing. We go, okay, listen, here's our options. It's going to probably, it was a couple of hundred pounds to get to London. Right. And we've gone, okay, what are our options? If we can get a big enough mini bus, we can get in a few people on here. We're all going to the same place. Great. We'll split it. But at that stage, the bus, the taxis weren't coming. So. It was like, if you could get one, you were doing really well. So while we were waiting on the train before we even got to the taxi drive, this little, this, when I say little girl, you know, she was a young woman, beautiful smile, but really sad eyes. Right. And she really came over to us and said, um, listen, you know, what's going on? I, she was really scared. And, and she came over to us because we were the older couple and she figured it was safe to go to the older couple. Um, as she said, look, I'm trying to get to London.

Yep.

I've got no money, I don't know what to do. And you know, it's either Uber or taxi and I can't make it home. So we said, listen, why don't you come with us? So she came with us. And I know this is a little bit of a story, but we can dissect this afterwards. There's so many learnings in there. So we finally went out to the taxi rank, tried to get five people in the van. We could only get three because a small taxi came. So we took this woman with us and we got to a train station and from there we had to get the tube to get into London. yada yada, you know, we're carrying on. While we were on the train, on the tube, when this girl felt safe, she started to, you know, unburden herself of her story, right? And she was saying, you know, what are you doing? And she said, well, we're heading off to London to see our son. And, and as she goes, I haven't been home for four years. I had a family discord. I haven't spoke to my, you know. parents and we're like, oh gee, that's really sad. And the more we got into it, the long story, the short story of a long story is that she had come from Sri Lanka, slave trade into London. She was a slave in her brother's family, right? She'd been, you know, there'd been an attempted murder on her life. She had to flee London to get to Birmingham. Like it's a most horrific story, right? And it was like, we're like crying, just listen to this girl's story. And she, you know, she had the.

Wow. Oh my God. Right.

the baseball cap and the hoodie, just really trying to hide, because she was in fear of her life. And after about 20 minutes of listening to this, we were just like, man, this is just intense. And so we exchanged details. We're going to keep contact with this girl. She doesn't know her soul. She's running for her life, all those kind of things. We finally get to London. It's been a wonderful day with our son. We're having a chat to him. And... You know, he's a young guy in London, you know, he's, he's expanded on his social network, you know, he has his ups and downs. So he was talking about some of his ups, some of his downs, but we've got unconditional love for our, for our kid. And so we've got providing the support. And after we left, you know, I had this really big epiphany that, you know, let's say you've got, you know, you've got our son in that scenario and he's, he's going through a bad patch. Now he has the trust and faith to reach out to us and we have. conversations and we talk to him and we provide moral support and any support we can. Fast forward it to the girl on the train who's got no one that she knows and she's going through cycling through depression, fear, anxiety, all those kind of scenarios and fast forward again to someone who potentially got too much from them, they jumped on the tracks. And

Hmm

So to me, it was one of those moments where it just flashed all in front of me. I went, holy smoke. I've seen the gamut of where things will go and potentially can go when people don't have a social structure and a support network, don't have an outlet for to be supported and finally, when it gets too much, when they don't feel like any more options, the, the tragic scenario of that. So that was, it was like, it was a really emotional day. to, you know, cause people like it blew me away that, you know, someone's committed suicide on a train or on the train tracks and more people, like I had compassion. I was like going as bad as my day is, as inconvenience this is, my day's better than yours. You know, and I was stunned at the lack of compassion for that and no one wants the inconvenience of it, right? But it just, I don't know, like I'm still integrating and processing that. So that's me laying it on.

Yep. Absolutely.

on the table here, Lawrence, and I'm happy to sort of go anywhere you want to go with any aspects of that as well.

Yeah, well, that's a fascinating story. And it's great to, you know, see that you were able to help her out. And I'm sure that trajectory for her, like these are those sliding door moments, like what we can never know is the sliding door moments for her or what may have transpired may not have transpired if she did or did not take up your offer. And that's kind of freaky, right? So I think that in itself is, you know, that's, I mean, you know, thankfully that you know, she was able to trust. And you know, let's go back to that for a second. I mean, I think you and Bettina have this energy about you that she probably created that trust just from the energy that you put out. You know, and I think that goes a long way in terms of how we operate in life. And you know, there's moments of times, I think sometimes we don't know what we look like in public. We don't know how we're projecting our energy. So whether the energy is closed or open, and I know I've been, you know, put out energy that I don't wanna talk to you.

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't want to talk to anybody right now, you know, especially on a plane or something. It's just like, I'm going on a big journey. I just want to be myself. I don't want to be disturbed. And sometimes I'm more of the opposite. I want, like happy to meet anybody and talk to anybody. Right? So it's like, I think sometimes we got to be aware of how we are operating because that either opens or attracts certain types of people in our lives. And I think that's going to be important, you know, which is a side comment here, but I think, you know, you're, you're absolutely right when there's, you know, especially with, you know, all the things that are happening around the world at this moment. and you listen to those stories and you're just going, like, what the hell is going on? Like, what is going on in this world? And there's one take that you can take as, like, the world is going to hell, or you can also see the world as going, the world is full of amazing people, and we're gonna come out of this. And I think that's what the feeling you have on a very global aspect to the very personal aspect of what you kind of went through with those three distinctive stories and what those people have to go through.

Hmm.

And what I liked about what you said was about where true colors get shown. Uh, that's the thing that caught my attention is like, you know, you start to see the different gamuts and out of a hundred people on a train guarantee there's going to be the, the extremes of both ends and also the people in between. And, but that by nature is what human nature does. If you have, I think that if you are observing a human nature, you really start to see that we have the capability to exhibit. all of those emotions that you just described from one end to the other. And when I say capability, meaning is that I'm sure we have individually, I know I have, have behaved in those manners in various situations at some point in my life. The difference is, yeah, right, exactly. And I think that's the difference. It is we have the ability. And so the judgment, I think, you know, and I trust me, I'm so guilty of these judgments, but then I realized it pulled back and realized, I'm like, hey,

Hmm. Well, that's why I'm putting it out there Lawrence. Yeah. Yeah, cuz we all have

I was there once at one point, maybe in a different instant, I behaved that way. And I think that, you know, to be able to kind of take a step back, and I think that takes a lot of work, we've been talking to work ourselves, to be able to realize and observe that these behaviors and patterns that we all exhibit to some degree, whether it be anger, fear, happiness, joy, sadness, and it's all developed, developed based on context, on how we choose to operate and see the world. I think the people who freak out are so self-absorbed and concerned about their wellbeing, they don't see anybody else. I'm not blaming them, but it just means that that's what's happening. But we don't, but again, you don't, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's, I'll leave it one thought, which is like, can you imagine living like that always? In everything, you know, where you can't see perspective and you're just in that.

Yeah, you're in it. You're in it so much that you can't see perspective. Yeah. So, so, go, go. Yeah.

fight or fight mode all the time. And that's usually the cause of a lot of the health issues that we experience in life.

Yeah, no, totally. And you know, Lawrence, the, the part of the story I didn't tell you was we got to London, but that night there was heavy rains, like, so parts of Scotland and the UK were cut off. So we had been monitoring the rail line, figuring out how we hope we can get home. And it didn't look like we couldn't. So we've turned up to the station and we turned up early and they said, listen, sorry, no trains are heading out. This line cannot get through.

Hmm.

So we've gone over and there's massive like hysteria at the train stations and Houston stations, a big station in London. People are going berserk. And so we go up to one attendant and we go, listen, you've probably learned. You've probably heard this question a thousand times. What's going on? You know, no trains going through. I go, is there any way that you know that we can get to Birmingham tonight by train? And the guy, and we showed him a ticket and he goes, and he stops for a moment. He thinks he goes, yes, there is a way. We'll go, okay, we're all ears. And he said, you've got to go from here to this station, jump on that train, get onto that station, get on this station, get to that station. So I had like four or five trains. He goes, and you've got 30 minutes to do it. And if you can make it in 30 minutes, you'll get there. So we did, we did it. It was like.

Wow.

mission impossible, right? We're following through, we're carrying on, we get to the station, we get to one station, and we didn't know what we were doing. And we're looking around, this guy comes over and says, "'Do you need some help?' We go, "'Yeah, we're looking at this and this and this.'" And so he systematically helped us, found it, and we thought he was an attendant, you know? But he was just basically a traveler who saw, a random, who saw us looking like, "'Hey, we're lost, we're not really sure where we're going.'" And he actually reached out and said, "'Let me help you.'"

random. Hmm.

And we were in the reciprocal state to where we were earlier in the day, where, you know, we were open there to help because we were the ones going, we don't know where we're going right here. We know we've got to get there by a certain time. And he came along, saw the situation and guided us. And we had situations like that where, you know, things happened and we lined up and we caught our train and we got home. Now, statistically, it was impossible. But you know, I think what I took out of it is we just asked the question in a way, because we could have cracked it at this guy as well, like everybody else had, but we just asked him a question and said, listen dude, based on everything that you know, is there any chance? Because if we have to catch a taxi, all right, that's what we're gonna do. And that's, you know, well, we're driving back, when we were riding in the taxi to London, both of us turned around and looked at each other and went, you know what? the pain of not seeing our boy was greater than the cost of this taxi fare. And so we perfectly surrendered that and let that go and we're at peace. If we didn't have to pay double to go back home, it would have been awesome and great. And thankfully we found a way. So there were times where a lot of people, and I know previously, I wouldn't have gone up and asked someone that question. And that question made all the difference.

Yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes like you just we forget that there's alternate routes. There's alternate because we were so fixated that this is the only path. And to kind of highlight this point, which is similar to what we talked about. Remember I said to you, like, when I thought I was going to go through retina detachment and I would have to stay in London for two weeks, my brain just goes, man, like, I don't know how, who am I going to stay with? Hotel is going to be expensive for two more weeks. Like, who do I know? So you kind of go through that in that path, right? So the next day after everything was sorted, I'm like, you know,

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

I sort of mentioned to the people that in my group, I was like, oh yeah, I was lucky last night. I knew it was in a detachment. First of all, I was lucky it didn't happen in Bali. Let's be very frank with that, which would have day before. So lucky, I was lucky it wasn't doing it in Bali. And the second thing was like, oh, but you know, I'm lucky it wasn't a detachment because I would have had to stay here and there's no way we would have been able to fly. And this guy's from London. He's like, oh, you would have been able to figure it out. You could have just taken a train. And I'm like, oh.

Yeah, yeah, correct. Yeah.

never thought about that. Take the train to France and then figure away from France to Portugal. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, like it would have taken a long way, but it's a possibility. And he goes, Well, even you could actually just take go down to the south of England, take a ferry across the Portugal to the north of Portugal, then rent a car and drive home like, Oh, right, there was actually two alternatives instead of flying. So what my point is, is that just like yours is like, until you get a different perspective, you didn't realize there was another route because all I think was I have to fly. No, there was actually other routes. Now it would have taken longer. There's all these

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep.

different hassles to it, but I would have been good if I did have that surgery, I would have been able to go home, you know, it's a little bit sooner than two weeks. And I think this is what you're saying is that sometimes like you got to be open, that there's other ways is sometimes you just got to ask the question and you got to ask the right people. And but most people are not willing to ask the question because they don't they already feel like this is the only way and I've been so guilty of this so many times in my life.

Yeah, totally. And I think in a previous podcast episode, we've talked about a previous version of me would have just taken a longer run up and just try and smash through that brick wall. And, you know, so, but it, but just like what you're doing is you're not actually being resourceful, you're not actually looking outside of it. And sometimes like in your case with Karen, Karen had the perspective externally to go, Hey, you know what, it's going to be okay. And, and, and you then. could down regulate your stress response and get to more resourceful state. And it's the same thing with us. We just asked someone who wasn't emotionally in the situation for guidance and we were prepared to ask, you know, and that really helped. And having someone who could basically illuminate the path for us and we went, right, we're in, we're committed to this, we'll do it, we'll do what it takes, you know, because like I tell you, the energy and the emotion and the anger that was there, at that station was huge. And I would bet that not a lot of people ask that question. Cause if they did the train to Birmingham was half empty. Right. So there are a lot more people that if they were going to Birmingham, it could have got on that train, you know, but they didn't ask a particular question. And, and I think that that's what I've been guilty of in the past where, where a lot of the times, if I'm in a sticky situation, I've got my own emotion around the situation and the problem as well. And sometimes.

Hmm Yeah.

You know, what I've learned is that if I can basically just dissociate myself from the emotion of it and go meta or get another perspective either by myself or get someone else to see something that I can't see my blind spot, quite often the solutions right in front of you. You just hadn't allowed yourself to go that way.

Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of times, and we see this with clients, right? How many times have you ever spoken to a client, a coaching client, where they tell you something, like on a call, and you're like, WTF? Like, why didn't you tell me this like two weeks ago? Like, why didn't you reach out? Like, why did you try to solve this problem on your own? Like, this is what you hire me for, right? To give you perspective. I'm not saying I can't give you the answer, but I can maybe share some of the burden and maybe have talked you down this.

Yeah. Yep.

this stressful situation you've gone through. And in, but I relate it back to myself. I'm the same thing, right? Some of there's so how many times have I just not been afraid of embarrassment of asking a stupid question that could have easily been solved by someone to the people that I know I'm surrounded by some of the smartest people around, but yet I failed to ask the question or I failed to ask for help simply because of ego. And I think that's like the real lesson here, what you're describing is like for all of us, we need to understand that You need help when you need help. And it's not, it's very important to have the courage to ask for that help. I think that if your true friends are your true friends and the people that you care, that care about you or, you know, that really care about you, when you ask for help, even though it's no matter how embarrassing that is, that help is gonna be received genuinely. They're gonna want to really want to give to you at that moment in time, because they can see this is painful for you. But we gotta remember that. You know, it's humbling sometimes to realize that you're in a situation that you're embarrassed about. But to recognize it going, Hey, you know what, I'm embarrassed when I put myself in the situation, but it's okay. Like I need help right now on any perspective and be able to like, to ask for that help. And it's challenging. It's I know I've reached out to you a couple of times. It's like, you know, it's like, Hey, like this is the situation I'm going through. And then you just kind of share that perspective. And it's like, Oh, like, thank you. Like, it's so helpful to have someone.

Yeah. Hmm.

to just see a perspective. Because most of the time we're so stuck in the forest, we can't see beyond those trees. But you come in and you go, hey, this is what I see of you. And you're like, oh yeah, forgot about that part because I'm so stuck on this tree. That I forgot that there's the other part over here. I think that's where coaching is such an important element in life, that it provides that perspective that you just can't see, you can't solve.

Hmm. Yeah.

And the best way of someone said this to me, which was you cannot read the label from inside the bottle.

Yeah, that's true.

right? Like, and that's what most of us are when we're in a sticky situation in our circumstances, if you're not growing, or you're not, you know, getting to where you want to go, you're inside the bottle, you can't read the label from there. You need someone from the outside to give you the outside perspective going, Hey, this is, this is what the bottle says. And that is what I feel coaching is about. And that's why I feel like everybody needs that perspective.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And you know, there's, there's situations where I'm not sure if it's what it's like in Portugal, but in Spain, there are a whole lot of people that sit outside the supermarkets and they'll beg a lot more than I traditionally had seen. And I think what happens is if you're desperate, you'll do it because in your mind, you've gone, if I don't do this, I don't have any other option. Literally. I don't have any option. I'm not going to eat. And I think that the girl on the train that the story that I shared She also got to the point where she had no money. She's like a hundred miles away from where she is. If she doesn't approach somebody, she's stuck. She's not going anywhere, right? And I think a lot of us getting to the point where you go, this is a life or death situation. This is like, there is no outweigh it. You will find something, we'll find a way and we'll find something within us to do, to take action. The key is, as you said, when it's not at that point, it's not.

Yeah.

You know, you've got overwhelmed, you're in it, whatever, there's options, but you, you can't see those. Are you prepared to reach out for help? Because a lot of them, I remember there was an example where, you know, the tenure and I went to, we went on a program. It was a coaching program and we were asked to do an activity that involved asking someone going up and asking for money to somebody, right? It was like, and it was the whole process. And to me, I didn't realize.

Mm.

how much, how uncomfortable I was about it. Cause some people would go up and just go, Hey, here's a dollar. Can I change it for two? They had no problems at all. I had this whole narrative around what are they going to think of me? How are we going to do that? I'm not, and I'm not desperate enough. And, and what, and so I made it harder on myself that I needed to. And that highlighted to me, my reluctance quite often to seek out help when I felt like I should know better, I could do better, yada, yada. And so that highlighted my reluctance, which is a lot of what you're talking about. But if I was down to my, I had zero, if I had no money and I was, if I went out and my family were relying on me to do that, to eat, then I would find a way to do it. I would just move that out of the way. But it was just cycling through my own story and narrative and what it meant to be asking for help. Um, I had to learn or really highlighted that to me. And that's really what I took out of what you were saying as well.

Yeah, and you're absolutely right about the there's a zone. Like there's moments of desperation where you will probably do anything. And so therefore you will do it because that the pain is way too bad. But there's that zone in the middle, where you are kind of just outside your comfort, you are comfortable enough. So therefore, like the pain is not that big of a deal. And the pain is not that painful. So therefore, that you don't actually ask for the help because it's, it's bad, but not bad enough yet.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think this is where the biggest challenge is for people to actually engage into asking for help. And I think we've got to remind ourselves that you've got to put yourself in the other person's perspective. If someone comes to you and asks for your help, how happy are you to be able to, like how happy are you to be able to assist? And how happy are you to be able to lend a hand? And how great do you feel afterwards that you did some good in the world? That's...

Yeah.

In essence, I feel like what we need to do is to think about is that if we don't ask for help, we're actually robbing them of that joy. We're robbing of that opportunity for someone to provide, you know, to help you. But if we don't ask for help, then you know, they don't get that opportunity. I know it's just a flip in the mindset. But the reality is true, though. It's like you're asking for some them for them to give you a gift. And but they don't know realize that you need a gift because you know, you're so proud and you put yourself up there like Everything's going great, right? Everything's going fine. But inside you're like, oh my god I don't even know how I'm gonna pay my staff next week, you know Then and when you don't reach out and people don't know and people can't reach your mind They're gonna take your word for it that everything is good because that's the standard answer. How are you? Everything's fine. Everything's great And this is the problem and this is this is where the opportunity of like a connective group is what we kind of start The conversation with is having a connected group of people

Yeah. Yeah.

that allows you to be able to share your vulnerabilities, allows that opportunity for someone to be able to be vulnerable enough so that they can actually ask for the help that they need and people then can share their insights.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think that you've highlighted a really good point there Lawrence, because the reluctance to ask for help quite often highlights the vulnerability. If you can get to an environment where you feel comfortable enough to go, Hey, this is what's going on for me. This is where I'm challenged. This is where I need some support. People want to help. People will help. And particularly if you're around a group of people, I remember years ago, I'm sure if you remember it, but, um, I think you'd gone to some retreat in Ireland.

Mmm, yes.

And, and, and it was around about that time where, like, I think my, I think I shared or something like that, but, um, my, my parents were dying and I was just, you know, I was, I was floundering. I really was kind of lost and you reached out to me and that meant a lot to me at the time. Um, the word someone would go, Hey dude, I hope you're okay. I hope you're okay. And, and I remember that.

All right. Right. I don't remember that. Okay. That's awesome.

So I do, I do, because you know, Maya Angelou famously said, people forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And in that moment, Lawrence, I actually, even though at that time we, this was way before podcasts, this is way before a whole lot of the connections. It was just a random act of kindness of someone reaching out and go, Hey dude, are you okay? Um, I want to forget it. I remembered it. And I think that was kind of like this.

Hmm.

That's really cool. You know, like I had a reference for what someone was really like enough to take enough of an interest in how I was going to, to just go, I hope you're okay. And I was okay. I had a great support network, but it meant a lot to me. And I think that that's the kind of support you're talking about is I guess the willingness, because for me, all my personal growth work has been about asking for support, all of it. Right. So

Hmm. Hmm.

Would I have been that girl on the train asking for help? No. You know, the previous version of me would have walked to London, right? Rather than ask for help. So that's why I highlight that point because this girl had courage to ask for help that I initially, if I'm honest with myself, I would have gone, well, I might as well start walking now because there was a stubborn ego part of me that went, I actually don't want to ask for help.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. So to me, that was just as significant. And, and for me, once I made that declaration to just go, I need to be vulnerable. Oh, that's been the pathway of my growth. Huge. So the scariest thing for me in my world is to actually be emotionally vulnerable. And I deliberately lean into that to just say to someone, Hey, here's me. Here's my soft underbelly. I'm not actually, I haven't got control of this. I need help. Could you support me?

Yeah, interesting.

That to me is me being courageous. We talked about courage before I'll run into a pack. I will, um, fight anybody. That's okay. I'm not as scared about that, but that emotional stuff of, and I really had to stretch myself to get to that place. So this is, this is a part of that.

Yeah. It takes massive courage, man. It takes so much courage to, uh, actually someone just, you know, you're just remind me of something where someone I haven't seen in 30 years, um, and this girl that I used to know like a long time ago that I used to work with when I was in like, as a, in one of these camps, um, that I used to, you know, be a counselor and she reached out to me out of the blue, you know, just like this week actually, and just. You know, it was a middle of the night for her. And she's just like, I don't know why I was just thinking about you, Lawrence. And I just feel like you can help and share some perspective. And then she just downloaded, like, just downloaded like her, you know, what she's been going through. And I'm like, Oh, like similar stories. You're like, Oh my God. You know, and we, we like, I mean, we, we connected maybe about a year ago. You know, we found her on Facebook, but like, you know, we didn't spend that much time connecting.

Hmm. Yep.

But she just downloaded, you know, it's like probably like 2am for her at that time. And she just downloaded. And I'm like, okay, like then I shared. And, but I'm saying that story because it takes so much courage to reach out to, I'm not a random person, but I'm pretty removed from her life. And obviously she might've just seen something on Facebook, maybe watch one of my videos and just go, you know what, maybe Lawrence can help me in this. Right. And I think that takes so much courage to be able to just do that and ask for help.

Yep. Yep.

And I think to me, I guess the moral of the story is number one, if you do need help, reach out to someone. And if the response is not the response you get, then reach out to someone else, right? Like, don't give up just because one person didn't help you just keep going and have the courage to do so. On the flip side is that if you know, this is my general rule. My general rule is if I think of someone that I haven't spoken to, or but their name or their

Hmm.

image of them or this presence of them came to my mind, I owe it to myself to reach out. Even if it's like been few years, like I would just randomly reach out just because the I don't know, I know this is kind of weird and hokey, whatever, but like, I honestly believe that this person's energy or like that thought didn't just pop in my mind randomly. And it came with purpose. And so I usually just reach out and send the text or message.

Same. Yeah. Yeah.

and the amount of times, right? Yeah, exactly. And the amount of times, what do they do? They go, oh my God, it's so freaky. I was just literally talking about you, right? It's like, and I don't get freaked out by that anymore because this happens so often that it just doesn't make any sense. So anyways, so that's, I think that is the takeaway from that particular part of the story. I really feel that, I think the courage that I think we need to have, this is just a good reminder for me to have the courage to ask for help when I need it. And, you know, sharing that, your insights around that, it's been awesome.

I do it as well every time, every time. Yeah.

So Jim, where would you like to leave this?

Yeah. So as we, I think just the reason why we had this theme as planes, trains and automobiles was yes, we've, we've been on planes, trains and automobiles, but it was really about what happens when things don't go to plan. You know, what do you do? How do you become resourceful? Do you ask for help? Are you open to alternative points of view and who do you become under moments of pressure? You know, do you crumble or do you actually step outside of yourself, get perspective from somebody else or yourself and find another strategy that to me would be the synthesis of a lot of what we talked about today.

Yeah, and I think to add to that, I think it's a really wise idea to know that when you can say whatever you want on how you would have behaved or done if you were going through that situation, but in reality is that you may or may not behave the exact same way as what you thought you would have in that situation when it occurs. So the reason I'm mentioning that, I think it's really important for all of us to evaluate situations when like whatever situation has occurred and you acted accordingly, maybe take stock on going, how did I behave during that moment? And do I want, like, is there, what was good about that moment, the behavior, but also what would I have done differently in hindsight? I think when you take stock with that, then you have an opportunity to learn to be better next time. Because like I said, we can never mimic those situations in role play or whatever. until it actually happens, then you know your true colors will shine and how you behave regardless, don't judge it, just more evaluate it so that you can learn from it to become better so that the next time it occurs, you know how to handle yourself and remind yourself, like that's how I behaved last time, but this 2.0 version of myself is gonna act differently. I think that's a really important element to add to that. So this episode of Plains, Trains, and Automobiles is about the... the people that we meet along the way, the journeys that we have to have, that we will experience along the way, and the little imperfections of life in between the planes, trains, and automobiles. I think that is the essence of our podcast today. So guys, hope you enjoyed this. Please share this with others, and I hope that you got a lot out of it. If you have, please tell someone about the Bobby Sabi podcast. Until next week, we'll talk to you soon.