Hidden Metrics

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, a podcast on the arts of imperfection because life is never always perfect. And that's what we're talking about as we navigate through life. This is gonna be an interesting topic today because you know what, there's the thing that Jim mentioned about this topic about observable metrics and hidden metrics. And I love this concept for this reason because there's so many things that we are so focused on usually of the observable metrics, but we never consider the hidden metrics. I'll give you this one quick example because it's cut from front of mine. A few months ago, you would have seen a podcast of me. you know, going to the Superbow and then coming back and feeling the loss and you know, the pain of that I'm still painful, but let's let's not talk about that. But anyways, let's talk about the observable with observable metric that most people measure is going wow, like you spent x amount to go there. My wife still talks to me about that, by the way, and still rubs it in. But the hidden metrics. Oh, yeah. Massive, I think it'll be taking me years to pay, pay that back. And not and then.

I'm going to with that. You have probably got catch up to do. You've probably got heaps of catch up to do.

This is what we talked about. So the observable metrics, most people think is like, oh, you got to pay that back financially. No, no, no. It's the hidden metrics that she's expecting for me to pay back in credit that is not actually financial. But my thinking was, what I want to get to is the hidden metrics for me was, you know, which I think we kind of dove into that in that podcast, which was about, you know, being a fanatic or being a fan. There's a hidden metric that only applies to me. You know, that the amount of pleasure or, well, in this case with depression, the amount of like joy or just a set of experience that I got to experience that is in measurable in my eyes. And, you know, so it's not a monetary thing, but it's actually the experience. So for me, it's experienced like I measure my life by the experiences I actually encounter and I get I get to have for me, that's really important. And that's it's almost in measurable in a sense, from an observable thing, but it's definitely hidden because it's only hidden, it's only available and observable to me as a person. So that's the concept of what we're going to try to talk about today. So Jim, take it away.

Yeah, I had two episodes during the week that really triggered this as a concept, as an idea to have a discussion about was number one was a coaching client who really wanted to focus on increasing turnover in his business said, you know, for the next six months, all I'm going to do, and that's going to be the only thing that I'm going to do is work towards this specific goal, this specific revenue goal at the exclusion of everything else. And.

Hmm.

Yeah, we've spoken previously about going all in and this guy was going all in, right? But it was just, there was a thought in my mind that was, that was the observable metric was going to be in six months time. The metric that I'm aiming for is this, the hidden metrics was, okay, great. Got, got it. Great. I want to reward that as a, as a, as an objective, but what's the cost of that? What's the hidden metric? What will you give up on?

Hmm.

And what will you actually set as a compromise or sacrifice in order to do that? Now, if that hidden metric is, uh, something that you go, I feel comfortable with that. Great. But if there's things that you don't even become aware of that you're sacrificing, then this isn't a basically a reality check just to go, Hey, what's it going to cost you? So that was one of them. And as you know, about a few hours after that, I was just on socials and I just saw.

Mmm.

a reel of someone who was talking about and discussing Elon Musk and basically saying the observable metrics of the genius, the great inventor, the engineer, all those kinds of things, they're the observable metrics that we see. What we don't see is the cost of that. And the part of his personality that makes him be that kind of a genius also has a dark side. And that dark side triggers off impacts other people around him. And so...

Hmm. Yeah.

that they're the observable metrics that we go by. And you can't, you know, you can't sometimes have one without the other and you can't have sacrifice everything and sorry, go for one thing without sacrificing other things. That's pretty much the case. So that's, let's talk about that.

Hmm. Yeah, and I want to add to that too, I wanted to have a different take on this thing. So let's just take your client there who is, you know, going for the one thing and I think there's some actually plus side to do that, right? Is there really plus side to just go like, this is the one thing I'm going to focus on. Because this is the one thing that's going to make the biggest difference in my life. As long as you choose the right observable metric there, that is actually the right thing that you actually want to do. So the key question that I think is really important here is to make sure you dive deeper into that. making sure that the one thing you are actually measuring is the thing you actually going is actually going to move the needle to where you actually want to go. I mean, whatever goals we actually set to achieve is never usually the outcome. It's usually what does that goal mean to you once we achieve that goal and how does it apply? So that's one thing. The second observable thing I want to kind of mention is that hidden metrics, what you said is all the things that, you know, that may get missed or sacrificed or what are the things you have to give up. I also want to add to that the hidden metrics is also all the things that you need to consider.

Yeah.

measuring to get to that observable metric. So meaning like, the one thing you know, we have one metric that we're actually trying to one objective or one metric that we're trying to go after. But there's so many little hidden things that have to be taken account or needs to be measured in order for that to even occur. So just something to kind of think about so we can actually tackle from both ends. So let's kind of dive into each one of those. So let's start do you have a what was your advice? Like, what was the main thing that you kind of, you know,

Yep. So the so when so so a lot of it you're 100 % correct like the first process was identifying the lead domino the multiplier So if we focus energy and attention to this and get rid of distractions here this yeah, this will move your life faster than anything else, so I Totally agreed that that was the identification of the thing that would make the biggest thing big difference to everything else So that we agreed on it what I qualified

guided him through first.

and went through was the values, it was basically a values filter that we went through. It's like, great, awesome. Okay, so you're gonna focus on this and based on your hierarchy of values, you've identified finance and wealth and financial defenses as value number four, right? So I've gone through this process with this person before. And so number one is love and family. So effectively what, that was the disconnect.

Right.

that I was seeing the value, it was pretty much setting this guy up for some heartburn because if his valued number one was wealth, then it would make total sense that you are all in and you're congruent with that. But why I alerted this person to this was to go, okay, love and family are your number one and number two is health and vitality. So are you telling me that for the next six months, you're going to compromise your relationship with the people you care about the most? and you compromise your health and wellbeing in order to achieve this metric. You will achieve it, but at what cost? And so that was the pathway that we went through. So it's always important never to make anybody wrong for an objective is to actually try and seek understanding of what is the motivation behind it and how it links up with their values.

Yep. Yeah. So I think there's a couple of different outcomes that could have came about that. Right. So one, he might've realized that maybe just maybe wealth is his number one priority and he just wasn't willing to admit that. Like, and that happens a lot. Oftentimes people will say family is the number one priority and my health and wellness is my second priority. And then wealth is somewhere down the middle because socially as a social metric, like it's the better thing to say.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's.

And I remember getting caught up in this long time ago and I was saying, you know, I used to say, family is my number one priority. And I actually had to confront myself to go, is it really though? Like if my family was my number one priority, would I be traveling around the world going 24 hours, going away and spending time away from my family one week at a time? I don't know if that's actually true, right? And that was a harsh reality. I really had to think back and like, is family my number one priority or is it one of my top values? but it may not be my top value. And I had to really sit back and think about that. And that's, it really took me by surprise in what I thought and in terms of how I interpret that. And the reality was that at the time, my family was not my highest priority. It was definitely in the top three, but it wasn't my highest priority. My highest priority at the time was actually impact. I cared more about helping others than really putting my family as number one. Now, some people are going, how can you say that? Again, you're judging me.

Hmm. Hmm.

based on if you're thinking about you're judging me based on your value system or what or what you think I'm supposed to say versus about what I actually truly feel. Now I'm not saying that that is my set my body system now but I just think that it's important for us to like what you said for all of us as free clients who really really value your system that goes is the value say value system hierarchy I said I was is it really true or is it changed or it can change and really have the face the reality of that. I think that's number one.

Correct. Yep.

I think that the second thing there that I want to comment on was also recognizing that it's it's Actually kind of lost my thought here But I was just gonna continue my train of thought here with regards to the value system. The value system is a measurement of of actually that's what I can say the What I find common among people is that they will say my family is number one But I'm doing this for my family. So they justify the wealth value

Good. Yep. Yep.

to justify to say, I am doing it for my family. So what do you say? Like that's common and I've used it myself. So like, where do we, how do we tackle that?

Yep. Yeah, that's a great question. And you know what? I've cycled through that same journey as well too, because my highest value always is love, right? I'm going to love. And for me, I would justify it to myself for going, it's because of the love of this that I'm doing, you know, like, so I've gone through that parallel journey as well. The interesting thing is, you know, how I talked about, and I mentioned before, you've got your values, which are the values that are socially acceptable, that you communicate to the world. You've got a whole lot of them, which are called the shadow values that you actually don't necessarily, um, share with the world, but they're quite often larger drivers of human performance, right? So some of the reasons why, and we can go through some of the shadow values that most have been shown to impact and influence people's behaviors. Number one is power. Number two is significance. Number two is basically belonging, wanting to belong. Another one is superiority. And so there are four of them. And the other one, number five, is rebellion. So they've... interviewed a whole lot of people and they've gone, okay, what's the real reason you did this? If you achieve this goal, what does it really do for you as a person? You might not want to share it with the world, but it's just between you and me. Who, what does it do? And people go, I feel great about myself. I feel superior. I feel have power. And so when people can get really clear on the hidden reasons that drive their behavior and they can own them, then it doesn't, it.

Hmm.

Basically then you can use those for your success as opposed to feeling like judging yourself. Cause like you, I judged myself for a long time, you know, where I'm like, man, this is not normal. You can't have this insatiable desire just for this. What's the real reason. And the moment I identified shadow values, it was a really big game changer for me.

Yeah, exactly. And you can see that in other people too as well. Like, you know, it's not uncommon, you know, to see that the most influential types of people in the world that shape or change, you know, the destinies or direction of the society, like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, these guys are changes, even Warren Buffett. Like, I mean, those guys are well known for their successes, but the shadow side is like,

Yep.

the weight that they leave behind. We know about Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, how employees are usually ridiculed or laughed at or yelled at for not performing certain things. And that's the shadow side that people will question them, like, that's why it's wrong. If they didn't do that, I don't know whether they would have actually created the success that those companies have created and how it shaped the world. So it does take a certain type of personality, I think. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that in order for things to get done sometimes, to shape the direction of the world and society, it may require, as I say, may require certain people, certain types of personalities to kind of do that. Warren Buffett, he's always been classified as one of the greatest investors of all time. But when you actually go dig deep into the family history and how his children, what his interaction with his kids. or the lack of interaction with his kids, that's the sacrifice he had to pay. And so I'm not judging, I'm just not right or wrong, it's his own little life and his own values, but we just gotta know that there's other hidden sides instead of just always honoring someone for one thing, but not also ignoring the other sides, the hidden metrics that most of us measure by for our own observable, for our observable metrics for ourselves.

Yep. Yeah. And in terms of transparency too, you know, like even something, and this is the one that really riles people up, but even altruism and donations and it is, there's a, there's your feeding your shadow values, right? Because you might look at this and say, Hey, I'm donating $50 million to the hospital. Yeah. But you plaster your name on that hospital forever. So if it was really about the donation, no one would know. But there's a, there's a, so it's like, so what benefit are you getting? And that's not making it wrong. It's like,

Mm -hmm. Yes. Yes.

So once we can look at through the filter of that, we can go, okay, these are the things that you notice, the values that these are the things, but the hidden metrics, they're the other things that sometimes work for you or sometimes are really the real reason why behavior happens in the first place.

What is it even like, you know, darker sometimes if we I was watching this particular video on the breakdowns of like, why someone like Bill Gates would donate $100 million, you know, they, you know, on the paper, it's like, he would donate 100 million or he started a foundation, let's just say, I'm making this up. Okay, so, so don't quote me on this bunch of saying any, any ultra rich person goes, I'm going to create a foundation that donates $100 million. So basically, they put $100 million in this donation. But what and under American tax laws, from my understanding is that, If you set up a foundation, you don't actually have to use all $100 million. You can just, as long as you spent, I don't know, I'll say it's 5 % or 10 % of that to donations, the rest of it you can actually use for operational costs. Well, are they really then donating $100 million or they just shifted $100 million for tax -free reasons and then able to use 90 % of that to say $90 million to fund whatever operations they actually wanted to have and only really donate to 10.

Yeah. Yeah.

So there's always ways around that we just don't see because we just go, oh, the big headline, this person donated $100 million. So therefore like, oh, they must be amazing. But when you look at it, there's also tax incentives and all those things that really kind of makes it probably a darker incentives. Like I'm not saying any of this is true, but this is just something for you just to think of, for us to think about.

Yeah. Yeah. And Laura's, uh, totally agree with you. I'm going to just shift it a little bit and basically say one of the previous podcasts we record, I can't remember if it was months and months and months ago. Now we talked about the, um, the measuring of the Apple watch. And I don't know if you remember when I said to you, I do, and I find it really well. And you said, yeah, but I don't, um, you know, it's the, so the observable metrics for you, if you, from what I'm understanding in this context, it'd be, if you had that on there, the,

Yes. Yes.

the hidden metrics would be, it would be creating not anxiety necessarily, but this whole, I've got to check it, what's going on, what's happening. And it would totally wire you up, right? So that's an example of observable versus hidden metrics where you think it's helping you on one level, but it's actually not helping you at all.

Absolutely. Yes. hidden. Yep. Yeah, I was actually staying with a friend of mine and I asked him, like, so how was, how'd you go last night? And he's like, oh, terrible. I'm like, oh, what went wrong? Because I just had a terrible sleep. My sleep score was whatever. I'm like, okay. I'm like, so then I couldn't tell, is it because, and I guarantee it's, I mean, it's got a psychological play in this, right? I'm not saying that he didn't have a bad night's sleep, but if your sleep score tells you, like, are you, Judging your sleep based on your sleep score or are you judging yourself based on actually how you feel? Like again, I don't have a watch, I don't have a sleep, I don't have an aura ring or anything like that. I'm not saying they're bad, I've actually been thinking about a lot about it but I don't know if I wanna get caught up in that realm of waking up and feeling amazing and then my whatever tells me like you should be resting today but I'm 530 and I'm heading into the gym right now and you're telling me I should go back to bed.

Yep. it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I've gone down that rabbit hole several times and I had to add to find an understanding of it as well because initially I was finding the same thing was like, Hey, I feel really, really tired. I think I'm going to skip it. And it says, yeah, you had a sensational and you just go, I've just got to harden up here really. And so you beat yourself up. And then there's other times you go feeling on top of the world, you had, and it says, dude, whatever you do, don't get out of bed. Just stay there. Just write a day off and you go, no, but I don't. So.

Yeah.

It does. There's a level. But so what I found is I've, I think I might've mentioned when recorded it, the biggest difference that I found is that it helped give me like, I, I, I found a hack and that was, okay, all right. I may not be able to go to a hundred percent, but we're going to 75 and a happy medium. And what I find is I've don't deplete my adrenals for the same way I did before. So I had a tendency to just, my natural tendencies to go, go, go. And what it gave me, I, I needed kind of these.

Yeah.

double white lines or these boundaries or gutter rails that you do when you go bowling to just go, hey dude, this is going to keep you safe because having a high level of energy and exuberance, sometimes you burn yourself and that is what it's done for me. And so I haven't gone to the obsessive levels because I can get very focused a lot. So I've used it to the benefit of it, but I found that if I got so obsessive about it, it would take me out as well.

Hmm.

That's the kind of personality type I am.

Yeah, I think like little things, not little things. Actually, one of the big things I noticed like throughout my career is like finances, like so, so cashflow versus like assets. So, you know, oftentimes like financially observably, someone could be a multimillionaire, but on paper on assets. So maybe might be through your stocks, your cryptos, your real estate, and you have that holding, but their cashflow poor, which I've been in a very such, I've been in a couple of situations where like, yeah, I'm, I'm asset rich, but

Yeah.

I don't have actually access to that right now and I need to go pay my staff. And so sometimes like cashflow can be a massive burn on your ability to be able to run a functional business. So I found that, you know, for me, having like an X amount saved and observable, but also have total access to, it's such a relief for me as a hidden metric.

Mm, mm. Yeah.

that or observable metric in my case, to make sure that I have that number at high enough value that even though that's not being invested in may lose money through interest, the high interest rates and everything, but it keeps me safe. It keeps me feeling like I'm okay, that I have access to that and that that lesson I learned like really early on in my career, just knowing that I had that number. So even when I have a bad week, bad month, bad, you know, quarter, I always know like, but I have access to that though. And that

Yep. Yeah.

cash flow, I think it's such a high and porn and I've been in times where, you know, everything's tied up and cash flow is really poor. And it's just like, I don't know what to do. And I'm stressed for you know, that week or that month, because I'm trying to scramble like every scrimping every little thing to try to figure out how to how do I pay this? You know, it's not like I can't afford it. But that means I have to sell this stock or how to sell you know, this shares or how to sell, you know, bit of this to, to compensate. That stresses me more out than just having that and like, okay, I just had this comfortable level of you know, 50k here just like just so I know I

Yep.

access to that cash. So I think sometimes like something like that is really important to know, to put yourself at ease. And everybody's different. Everybody has a different tolerant risk, right? Some people don't need that. I you know, I feel like I do. But some people just like, whatever, I figured out it's almost like, you know, you drive a Tesla or electric cars, like some people, I get stressed out if it gets below 50%. Right? Or some people like, whatever 10%, we got 10 % left. Don't worry about it. Like, you know,

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. But that's right. It's people's risk tolerance. You're right. It's funny because in reading Elon Musk's autobiography, there was a period where he literally went, he was about to go broke going into, I think it was either Christmas or New Year one year and a government contract came through with hundreds of millions of dollars. And so a lot of people don't realize is you're, yeah, you're the wealthiest guy in the world. However, there've been times where you've had to sleep on your buddy's couch because you had no cashflow. And so that's a risk tolerance. And it's been identified that Elon has one of the most aggressive risk tolerances out because he sells his stake in PayPal and just basically puts it all back into another venture. Now there's a lot of people who would never do that. And so fundamentally, yeah, pretty much.

Mm. 99 % of people wouldn't do that.

Pretty much. And so that's that part of that. But there's also, you know, Grant Cardone, who's in the real estate game in America, basically talks about every month, he's got, he lives on basically cashflow and he generates cashflow properties and every month he literally pretty much brings himself back to zero. And it's a deliberate ploy and strategy to energize himself to never to get comfortable and complacent. So.

Hmm.

There's different reasons why people do what they do. Some people need security. Some people need the drive to get things going. They thrive on that. You're back against the wall. I've got to find a solution. Even though it's not necessarily reality, you've just put yourself in that situation to bring about that response.

Yeah, and it's, you know, I work with a lot of high, high net worth individuals. And some of them, like when they exit in, you know, their companies is like, they're good, they're set for life. I don't need to work another day and then I'm watching all of them don't have to work in the day of their life. But some of them will actually do that. They're just like, whatever, I'm just going to travel on just going to really enjoy life. But some of them are just going like, no, I'm going to start a new venture. I'm going to hear I'm going to put myself back into the business, but I'm going to do it better this time. And, and, but they don't want to lose that. I just had a conversation with someone two days ago.

Yeah.

And they were saying the same thing, which is like, I don't want to be, I don't want to slow down. I don't want anybody to convince me to do that either. I really want to make sure that I can keep this going because I'm still young. I'm under 40. I want to make sure that I can really still push. I don't know if I can stop. Had lunch with a, with a woman yesterday. Same thing. Like she exited a couple of years ago and now she's trying to figure out like, what do I want to do? Like what's next for me? There's so many things I want to change and

Yep.

So many things I want to really, you know, focus on, I'm passionate about. I really, I can't sit still. My husband, she said, he's happy just to go surf and, you know, chill out and just take a break. And so, but everybody's wired differently. And it's about the realizing what you were sort of saying is that being, having the self -awareness. So what makes you tick? You know, what is, what drives you? What are your passions? And what someone else does isn't necessarily what you would do and you don't have to do that, but.

Yep.

And this is why advice is so hard sometimes because he's got to come from a person that the right advice is usually about about you applying it to your situation, your values, as you mentioned right from the beginning of this podcast. And unless it's applied to that, then it's really just bad advice coming from someone else who's you're trying to live on someone else's values and life. And that's not really the best way to kind of do that.

Yeah. Yeah. And when, if you go to consult, say a financial planner and you basically identify and say, he's where you are, he's wanting to get you great, awesome. Let's organise a plan. Just so I'm clear, what, what's important to you? What's your risk profile and tolerance? So are you comfortable, um, sit and forget, or do you want to be focused on it? Are you, are you prepared to say greater risks as a result of, of that to achieve an outcome? And I think it's really important to identify and get clear on who you are. Like you said, self -awareness is really, really, really important process. And if you don't match the profile with the strategy, then you create a lot of stress unnecessarily. Quite a few years ago, I did some Forex trading and I've got a lot of Forex trading friends who, for people who don't know, it's a 24 -7 market for six days a week. And at any time, at any second of the day, you have transactions occurring. And what I realized for me is that did not fit my profile because I'm a person who goes totally in and I found that myself that I just wasn't switching off. So, um, even though my foray into Forex was really positive and I make quite a lot of money, I looked at it and I went, this is not good for me longterm. And so I found different strategies and so I can.

Yeah.

I can get into the real estate game and I can sleep at night and I don't stress at all. However, a lot smaller numbers in a wrong vehicle for me was creating stress. And so I had to just go, no, I'm out. And yet I've got friends who are fund managers who deal with hundreds of million dollars who sleep like a baby every night. And because they're wired differently. And I just had to be clear that that's not my, that's not my forte. I'll just do it differently. or I'll give my money to you and you can manage that for me.

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is it's, you know, having the, again, you just basically, you know, made that decision based on your values too, you know, and also knowing yourself. And I think sometimes I, I'm the same way where, you know, been in situations where, you know, you could make a lot of money, but is that really what you want to do? Is it the money that you count or how happy you actually are? And it's, it applies to everything. And investing is one of those things. I remember starting getting investing, um, you know, a few years back and I realized like what I liked and what I didn't like, I didn't like that. I have to, uh, I wasn't. like you had to actually remember one of the lessons I learned right off the beginning was, and then you had to almost go through it before you actually came to this conclusion. So I do encourage people to actually invest, even if it's a small amount of a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars, because you don't really know until you put sort of some real money into the game. And so the, one of the things I recognize is like, I'm a, I'm more of a investor versus a trader. That's one lesson I took away, which means like, I don't want to trade. I don't want to go like buy, buy low and then sell high. Like just watching this, I think go up and down. Like my heart, isn't in that. I'd rather just go I want to put my money I just want to keep it and I just hope that it goes up. Like that's really what I want to do. I just want to leave it and set and forget it. And and I think that's identified identification like now you can just apply the same concept in other people's lives. For example, in health, right? I know like I know what myself is that one of the things that I know I can exercise on my own, I can always set on my own programming God, I was a chiropractor for and I did a kinesiology degree before that. So I know how to set my own program, but I don't want to.

Hmm. Thank you.

Right? I don't like it. I do not like setting my own programs. I just want someone to tell me what to do and make me hurt. Right? And I'd rather some of it. And that's why I go to a gym. I go to a CrossFit gym because I want someone else to set the program for me and just tell me what I have to do. And I just show up and every day I just go, Oh, I can't do that. There's no way I can do that. And then I always end up doing it. Right? I always end up finishing it. Why? Just because someone else told me that there's no way I would have programmed that for myself. And so I think it'll comply to every areas of your life.

Mm.

but just understanding how to do that properly.

Yeah. And you know, I was, I was thinking about this whole process as it relates when you were saying about, I don't like doing that. Um, sometimes, you know, my, my parents, Bettina's mom and dad were both chefs and, um, very good chefs and Bettina is an exceptionally good cook. So anytime that I went, Hey, listen, I'll organize something to cook. There's pressure there. There's absolute pressure, you know, it's like. What do you, what do you cook for people who do this for, uh, basically for, for Korea or are very good at it. But they got to the point where they actually really appreciated the fact that you were doing something for them and they didn't have to do it. And so for them, the hidden metric was, okay, I'll suffer through this horrible meal because someone gets to express, um, appreciation and joy and love through an action that I wouldn't have felt had I not let them do that. So.

Yeah.

These are just some, so we've talked about the hard ones, but I wanna talk about the observable, so the hidden metrics of the benefits or the losses to relationships specifically. So that was an example that showed that for them, sometimes we've just got to appreciate and observe that things may come in a different form and we may not even realize them unless we actually open up our mind to things being a different way, right?

Hmm. Yeah, I think us males really are terrible at this. I'm generalizing, but I think a lot of, yeah, okay, all right, all right.

That's where I was going, Lawrence. That's where I was going. It was kind of just gradually pulling the bandaid off and just throwing both of us under the bus.

Yeah. Yeah. Like as a male, we have a tendency to want to solve problems, right? And that's our nat. It's within our nature. Now I know some people are saying, well, that's just, come on, that's not always true. I'm like, well, whatever. I know in my observable life, I have a tendency to want to solve problems. I am built for it. I was a chiropractor who solved health problems. I'm a coach. who solves people's problems. So I'm wired, not even just as a male thing, my whole career has been helping people solve problems. And so, you know, when my wife asked me a question, I'm there to solve the problem. Like it's just geared towards that. So that's, but you know, as we all know, my wife doesn't necessarily want me to solve the problem. She just wants to tell me the problem. And so that I can consult her and allow her to, you know, feel the problem and...

Yeah. Yep.

sit with the problem and just be pissed off about the problem. For me, that's really difficult, because I don't like to dwell into victimhood or I don't like that type of thing. I just really want to just get involved and just like, let's just fix the problem. Okay, I see the issue here. Let's just kind of solve it. And yeah, so I think that's it. So the hidden, hidden metrics here is don't solve all your wife's problems, because they just want to be heard.

Yep, yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Totally, totally. And it's a lot of that we've got to the point of our relationship to where if we're talking about the general conference, I say something, I go, listen, she asked me bring something to my attention. I go, listen, I'm just curious. Is this a share or do you want my opinion on this? She goes, no, it's just a share. I went, okay. So I just zip it. I just shut up. I just listen. And she just goes, thank you. I feel great. And I'll go, awesome, done. That's just what I do. And I haven't opened my mouth up at all. So you're right. That was the part of me. And it, and. It just triggered a memory years ago that I went to a program and it was all about personal empowerment. You know, like people who, uh, the, you know, when I talked about shadow values, well, I used to get validation through being a particular identity. You know, you talk about validation as a coach, as a chiropractor, you get validation for, Hey, I get significance by helping solve these problems. Right. And I had this real reality check. When I went to this personal growth workshop once where there's a guy who would probably be the person who didn't lean into those kinds of feelings and step back and always stood back. And, you know, a scenario presented itself, we're doing some experiential learning and I was just jumping in. I just jumped in and I realized that I used to get validation and significance in doing that. And when I was talking to this guy, he goes, you know, The gift for me was that I just stood back one time and allowed him to move forward. And he said, I appreciate it. He goes, because a lot of the times when you do that or you, when you rescue me or people like me, you never empower us to do it for ourselves. And I just went, whoa. I just thought I was a really nice person. I'm doing stuff, but what I was really doing it, it was acting out of my shadow. I was getting significance. And at the same time I'm robbing you of.

Mm -hmm.

the ability to learn this for yourself or empower yourself. So when you've got kids and you, and that's where my mind's went straight away. It is where it's like, yeah, here, let me do this for you. It's like, no, if I do it for you, I'll always be doing it for you and you won't learn. So it's a very humbling process to actually allow that process to work itself out so that people can identify and learn that skill for themselves.

Yep. Oh, so hard. So hard. Yeah, even that happened like maybe a couple hours ago. I was picking my kids and you know, my, my son was asking me, I asked him like how's school and how's this going? And he's like, he's got this, you know, this, this thing that he has to do at school, uh, you know, like changing a modernized, uh, an old Shakespeare play into, uh, into a modernized play. Like, so, you know, some ideas I'm like, Oh, which we know what do you have to do? And, and so we got, so he's, he's like, you know, this, like Tamiya the shrew was one of them. I'm like, okay, well then easy. I was like, Oh, I got this idea. And I was like, I was just about to blurt it out. I'm like, wait a second. So, uh, Kaia who was in the car, I'm like, do you have any ideas? It's like, but it was so hard. I'm like, I had this great idea in my head. I really just want to tell you that's a great idea. But it had to pull back and just go like, well, maybe I should let her, you know, come up with some ideas or let him come, you know, come up with some ideas before I sort of, you know, put my ideas together and, and, and let them have, feel the power. But like, again, it's like a day to day conversation that we have to go through. And it's.

Yeah.

It's hard because when you're so natural to do one thing, it's really difficult to put yourself in that position to monitor your self behavior, to hone it in a little bit and allow it to naturally occur.

Yeah, it happens a lot with science projects, kids science projects where these kids are given a task and the parents go, yeah, I'll help you. And suddenly the parents taken over the project and comes up with this elaborate idea only to get this really bad grade. Or an accent. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Yeah. Or worse yet, they get a really good grade and now the expectation of the teacher is up here and they can only perform here, right? So that could be a backfire on you too.

But it can, it can, because even, you know, like even the pressure of being a kid who has to excel and have a particular type of an outcome, we were talking about this before, you know, our kids, interestingly, like we actually didn't put pressure on them at all. Like it was like, okay, we're here, I want to encourage you, but it's on you. If you want this, it's up to you. And they found a way of, um, finding their own curiosity and drive to now they're very driven guys, but they found it through, they didn't have an external, um, force on it. And I think it helped our relationship because we allowed them to develop in themselves. Now, were there moments where like, dude, you got to test tomorrow and I'd really love you to study. You may fail, but if you fail, you've learned a really tough lesson and you're going to incorporate that to get better. And when they did, or sometimes when they. didn't put the energy and preparation into it, they learned a harsh lesson and they learnt from that and regrouped. And so they're the kind of things that observable and the hidden metrics where you feel like you're helping your child excel, but what you're doing is you're corroding the relationship, or you're sometimes too lenient on them and don't hold them to standards and boundaries. Consequently, they never learned that for themselves either. So it's that happy medium of, How do you get it right? Tough, tough gig. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you can't. I don't think I think, you know, to me, it's always about the question of it's never going to be fully right. It's just going to be, I think someone told me this, one of my mentors always said that no matter what you do with your kids, you're always going to have them up. And, and I'm like, okay, like I can sit with that and go, you're absolutely right. Because if you coddle them too much, we know the consequence of that. But if you don't do anything, I go like, okay, well, just let them sort of themselves out. Well, there's, there's also some consequences with that too.

Yeah. Yeah.

and you go down the middle, there's always consequences on both sides. And so I think he's absolutely right where I think no matter what you do, there's always gonna be something that's gonna be missing. There's always something that your kids most likely gonna say, hmm, I wish my parents did this because they're comparing themselves with other kids or whatever. So you're never gonna be able to get it perfect because you can't. There's not enough time in the world, nor do you have the skills or the thing unless you're dedicating your whole entire life. And even then, maybe it's too much because you never gave them any freedom.

Mmm. Yep. Yep.

to do to allow them to kind of be the person that they're meant to be. So there's so many factors that are involved there. And I think that's what life is about. And this is why this whole podcast exists because there is no perfect way. It's about the imperfections and we learn from those imperfections and by allowing ourselves to have those imperfections.

Yeah, there was a book written a little while ago called The Coddling of the American Mind. And it talked a lot about the impacts and the effects of, I guess, simplifying things and not encouraging our kids to do tough things and hard things. And really everybody gets a trophy kind of mentality or philosophy where they never were challenged to develop that part of themselves. And now we are looking at the impacts of that.

Hmm.

across the board. So that's huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

we're living in it. Like we're literally living in it right now. Right? Like just think about all the things that are going on is like, everybody's got to be, you know, and it's local call it politically correct. Because now like if you don't, you're going to get canceled, then also like there's those pressure and then now we're now in a stomach, we can't even have opinions. And no, because we can't have those arguments. Whereas before, at least we can have arguments and then just just just admit that we disagree, we don't like each other, we don't disagree. But whatever we just

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

we just are prepared. But now it's like, no, no, you don't disagree with you, it's not gonna make you pay. And then, you know, and then so now we just go everybody's just nice to each other. But the hidden, like that's the observable, oh, we're just nice to each other, we're just gonna be playing nice and everything. But the hidden thing, right, is like, I really don't think that that's right. But I'm not gonna say anything, because I don't want to get canceled, I don't want to, and then that leads to this thing that never gets said. And we now living in a false reality of, of society. And I think that could be a huge problem. And we're kind of living in it right now, I think.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Correct. Yeah. Yep. I totally agree because to me having, you know, it's rampant in universities and it's really impacting on that because traditionally people went to university to create an environment to develop themselves and their mind and work out the world. Whereas now if you come up with someone who says something, you're a lecturer who gets up and communicates something, you're kicked out. You're basically, your career is gone because someone didn't like what you said. Not.

Yes.

to challenge you on it, not to go, hey, where about this? It's like, no, I'm making you wrong. And as a result of that, it's, you know, people then are doing exactly what you just said. It's like, okay, I'm not saying these things anymore. It hasn't changed how I feel, but now I don't have an avenue to express my truth. So consequently of this repressed and frustration building, and it can only just basically escalate at some point, 100%. Yeah.

gonna come out somewhere. Yeah, it's gonna come out somewhere. And that's a massive issue. And you're absolutely right, the university thing, like it's, I remember, you know, one of the best things, you know, and through, you know, when I went through Chiropractic College, there was massive debates amongst the students between, you know, one side versus another. And I really took away, I didn't like it at the time, but also like, you know, you got passionate about it. And you start to realize, you know, if I can go backwards and go, yeah, you know what, I probably shouldn't have said those things, or those things I said was probably, you know, I really didn't know what I was talking about. But you know what, those healthy debates was actually what shaped me. I kind of got convictions on certain things that I never would have gotten conviction if I didn't have those arguments. But at the same time, I also recognized where I was fault and I was wrong in those some of those arguments later on. And I don't know if I would have been able to go through that if I having those great arguments back and forth. If I was shut down right off the beginning, you know, saying that, you know, you can't do this or you can't say this, then I don't know if I would have been able to figure that on my own. and I would just have to follow what everybody says is supposed to happen.

Yep. Yep. And our kids went to alternative education. So they went through Steiner education. And one of the philosophies that I loved about that is that whenever they had two kids that would not get along, traditionally now it's like, okay, if you guys are arguing, we're going to separate you and you're not going to actually be anywhere near each other. Whereas the Steiner philosophy was you just put these two kids together and they're actually going to work it out. So the rough edges of each of them would eventually... find a happy medium, whether it was like acceptance of each other. And it happened 100 % of the strike rate. It was like, we found a resolution by leaning into the healthy conflict. And as a result of that, we got to tolerance and understanding and appreciation. I can see your side. I can see my side. Okay, great. We may not necessarily want your, see your will, but at least I now have an awareness around that. And it was that willingness, I guess, especially with us, with kids is, we allowed our kids to lean into that. We had strong boundaries, but we allowed them the expression of just going, okay, I want you to say, I want you to feel comfortable and basically being honest. But sometimes honesty was like, as a parent, it's like, I'm gonna hear stuff I don't wanna hear. So I can either shut you down or I can encourage that process. And when I remember my oldest son's now, he's approaching 28 years old. I think when he was 22, He came to us and said, you know, when you're a teenager, you get, you go through a phase where you feel like, you know, when you're a little kid, you go, my parents are the smartest people in the world. And then you go through a phase where you go, they are the dumbest people in the world. And so I can cycle through it. He goes, now that I'm through at the other end, I can actually appreciate that when I was at a teenager, you weren't the parents that I wanted, but you're the parents that I needed. And that that's the biggest gift that I've actually gotten from my, from my son.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, great. Yeah.

to go, we held the line, but that would have been the consequences or that would have been the metrics that we were focusing on. And had we not, had we not held the line or encouraged those kinds of things, the things that we would have compromised would have been all the other things that now I think we're coming across into in society where people were scared to be honest and communicate their truth.

Yeah, the guards do. I mean, the thing that you were talking about, the differences and, uh, from an observable thing, like I don't know if I mentioned this, uh, in a previous podcast or not, but recently I was at an event where, um, the two former presidents were speaking, uh, and the two former presidents that were speaking was Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Now for anybody who is, you know, non -American, you know, there are two of the most, like there are two presidents, um, that followed each other, but there were opposing parties. One's a Republican, one's a Democrat. And, you know, when I saw the speaker line, I'm like, you got to be kidding me, like, two, like, are they speaking separately? No, they were speaking together. And so the observable thing most for most people is that they are, they should be enemies left versus right, especially nowadays, like, you know, can't have that Democrats versus Republicans, right. But you know, what's reality was, was that when you see them together, they were joking. They're like best friend, not that I wouldn't say they're best friends, but they were really good friends with each other. After we came after they finished the presidency, George W. Bush. you know, definitely called on Bill Clinton a few times for for for help or advice or favors, you know, and even though on the observable thing, we're supposed to fight against each other. But in reality, which is the hidden thing is that they actually got along and they got along great. And you should have seen them on stage, they were like, taking the piss out of each other. Like they were just laughing. And, and so what I what I saw and observed, I'm like, wow, like, this is the stuff that most people will never get to see, because the media doesn't allow us to see this version.

Mm, mm, yeah.

right? They don't want us to feel like we actually have more in common than what things we have to square. I'm not like they both disagreed on, you know, against each other in terms of certain policies. But the reality fundamentally, though, they have their own arguments for, but they all fundamentally understand, like they go, this is what I believe because of these things, but they could still have common ground. They can still have these common things. And I think this is what happens in our lifetime is that we probably have more in common with each other than the things we disagree about. But the problem is that the way the media

Yep.

and the way society has pushed us towards is to look, is to go for, to make it observable all the differences and hide all the common metrics, right, that we're actually common about. And they think that's the problem that we're kind of leading into boards. And we've got to be very careful to start looking for, you know, it's just starting to realize that us human beings as a society function the way we function, we need to be able to find common grounds. We also need to appreciate. there's another side that we may not agree, but it's okay that they exist. And so that we can actually find that we may just disagree. Your way is not necessarily the best way. I understand, I have certain beliefs and certain systems, but I also recognize that I'm not right. I'm not always right, I'm definitely not right. But this is what I'm trying to believe, and you may be able to change my mind, I don't know. But at the same time, unless I explore, and be open -minded to hear your side of the argument, there's no way I'm gonna be able to, I'm gonna be stuck in my own echo chamber, and I think that's what creates the rest of society.

Yeah, I think there's so many ways that this could keep going, Lawrence. And I think we've tapped into multiple, we pulled threads along multiple areas. But I think in closing that out, I think, I think the biggest learning that I've taken even just in discussion with you today is about the awareness. Self -awareness to me is the really important factor. You know, I talked earlier on about values, but I think self -awareness is a really important component to actually go here's. how I'm behaving, this is why I'm following this path and whatever, that's all well and good. It's like, why am I doing this and what impact will it have is a really important, I guess, self -awareness to have to understand what that is and whether you're prepared to pay that price. And if you are, and it's along the lines with your values, awesome. If it's gonna bring you in conflict with your highest values, and it's going to create an issue or, or basically a contradiction in terms of things, then it may be something you need to be aware of. And I think that was the, the intention of having this conversation in the first place. So look, I'm complete. Anything you want to wrap up with Lawrence, I'll leave it to you.

Yeah, I think I'll summarize in really kind of two points. Be aware of the observable metrics that we talked about is the right metrics you're actually measuring. And number two is bringing awareness to the hidden metrics that you should be measuring because they matter too. I think that's probably the summary I want to make sure that, you know, highlight from what we were talking about today. So guys, I hope you enjoy this particular podcast. And like always, one of the metrics for us is how... that helps the channel is really for you to share with someone. So if you enjoyed this podcast or any other episodes before, please share with others because that's one way for us to kind of keep doing what we're doing. And so that we can actually share and try to impact as many people as possible live a life of just not trying to be perfect, but to live a life of imperfection. So this is Jim and I ending off the Wabi Sabi podcast for today and we'll see you next week. Take care.