Sliding Doors

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the podcast on around the arts of imperfection. I'm here today with Jim, my good buddy. And we're going to talk about something that I talk a lot about, which is called Sliding Doors. Now in 1998, for some of you, I know 98. Yes. And unfortunately, some of these people, some of the listeners are probably not having been even been born during that time, but that's fine. 1998, there was a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow. And she started this movie and Sliding Doors is about a movie about

Hmm. Is it 98? 98?

is really interesting, I found, because it was a movie where a character goes through the movie. And there's one part at the beginning of the movie where it's a sliding door, meaning like it was a subway train that she was about to get on. And the plot goes is that what if she made, she was late running through the sliding door and she kind of got caught in between the subway train. And then, so then the movie splits into two. One is that she makes it through. And the second part was that she doesn't make it through. And then what I think the brilliance of the movie is that it goes through her life on both parts as if she made it through and she didn't make it through. And that one moment changes her trajectory of life and how it turns out. And it really reminds us around all of us, I think, that we all have sliding door moments in our lives. And the longer you live, I think the more slagging door moments we have. But oftentimes sometimes we forget those moments. We don't really think about them. But I don't know, I've been, I think about that a lot. Like what if that happened? What if I, you know, took that job? Or what if I didn't go to that school? What if I went to this school instead? Or what if I met this other person? Or what if this, this best friend we never met? You know, all these things happen that in our lives that could really change the... multi -dimensional prospect of the multi -unit, multi -verse that Marvel talks a lot about is like, what could have happened? And that fascinates me. So I thought we'd talk about how important these sliding door moments are, what some of the sliding moments in our lives and how that might change our trajectory. And then we can kind of discuss maybe to help prompting you guys, the viewers and the listeners to think about your sliding door moments and to make sure that you create more in the future.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I love this topic, Lawrence, I really do. When you put it forward, I instantly went, yes, that's a great one. Because I think you nailed it. There are situations many times over in our lives where we look at this and go, if I'd gone left instead of right, what would have happened? And I remember watching that movie for the first time and I loved it. And I loved the significance of it. And it really, it created, when I think back to it, the hairs on my arms just raised because...

Hmm.

I've got a life -defining sliding doors moment that altered the whole trajectory of how my whole life would be. And I'm going to start it. I've actually spoken about this on stage. And I spoke about this probably last year, 12 months ago, for the first time, because it was quite traumatic. But I will share it now. It's actually in public.

Hmm. Okay, let's talk about it. Let's go. Mm.

domain. So when I was probably seven, eight, eight years old, eight or nine years old, my, my brother and I visited a friend of ours and a family friend. And have I told you this story? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, so, and that's when I shared that. So I want to, I'll share this and then we can expand on this. And long story short, we went into this house, we're playing in our friend's house and there's many, many moments, but this is the one that, that always.

I know where it's going. Yeah. Yeah, I think yeah.

raises it for me and going through our friend's house we playing hide and seek and I being mischievously ran into the my parents the parents of the friend's house and um hid behind the curtains found a gun in there and when I found a gun in there I thought it was really fantastic to play around didn't know uh at the time it was loaded and as I started chasing all the kids out afterwards I ran out and and went into the backyard with my brother and put the gun to his head. And in that moment, and I put the gun to his head and just as I was about to pull the trigger, I heard a voice that says, do not shoot, don't do this. And I listened to it and I turned around and fired into the air and the gun exploded and I dropped the gun and I was, you know, caught terror as a result of that. And I remember that really vividly because... my life would have been totally different had that happened. And I've forgotten that I shared it here, so thanks for reminding me. I know there haven't been many times I've spoken about it, but that was really life -defining for me because my life and everybody else's life around me would have been totally different had that happened. So that's the most, I guess, the most relevant and most, what's the word, the biggest example I have personally of that example.

Yeah. Well, and I don't want to detract from this conversation, but it just reminds me of a thought around my experience in a the prison that I was in, in high maximum security prison. And when I went to in LA, I was about three hours north of LA. This is several years ago, I was invited to an entrepreneur event where we got to go into a maximum security prison to really just teach and help inmates. or the prisoners that were there to really kind of help them with their ideas and just so that they had some sort of connection to the real world to really go through and these were prisoners who showed and demonstrate interest in reforming their life to a degree and to really just try to figure out, you know, develop ideas and how to when they get out, what would they do. So it was just like a program to kind of help. like bringing entrepreneurs in to help them, you know, retool, you know, their ideas, but also for the entrepreneurs that were going in, it helped us kind of realize that to just to remove the stigma of, of, you know, these, these, these, these inmates and these, these, these prisoners who are in this situation, that sometimes it's not necessarily of what we think we always think of these, you know, people in jail are always, you know, people that are bad. I'm not saying they weren't bad. I mean, I was in that gymnasium with rapists, murderers. And to be honest with you, I remember going through this and we went on one -on -ones. We would go one -on -one and then we'd just switch over and we'll go one -on -ones. It was just interesting to see how the thought process is. And I remember asking a couple of them, I was like, so when do you get out? Because, oh, no, I'm not getting out. I have life. And they're like, oh. But yet they were still driven somehow. keep themselves busy to think of these ideas, even though they have no chance of getting out. And it was really a fascinating experience because one of the things that we did, the facilitator was that we stood, all the prisoners would line up on one line. They have this tape line there and they would line up on one line. And then across from them was us. And we're about maybe, I don't know, a meter apart. And all the entrepreneurs would line up on the other side of the line. And... Basically, they would ask a question. It would be like, okay, how many of you have a brother? You know, if you have a brother, you step across the line. So then you can identify and you can look down that line to identify, okay, who has a brother? You know, who has a mother and so on. So obviously the basic questions were easy, right? But then when it comes to like, who has experienced death of a family member before 18? And then it went to 17, 16, whatever. And then who has experienced a friend being murdered? like, like, maybe one or two entrepreneurs out of 100. Right. And, you know, I would say 50 % of the prisoners would step forward. Right. And it went down to, you know, I think it was like, the youngest was like, nine years old, or something like that. You're like, wow. And so the reason I'm bringing this up is because sometimes, like some of them guaranteed are in there, most likely because of a sliding door moment. Right.

Mm -hmm.

circumstance, where they were born, who they were raised by. And sort of similar to your story. That's what triggered me is like, I'm not saying you would have went to prison or anything, but it's just more like, sometimes the environment controls the situation and they didn't have any choice. I'm not making excuses, by the way, right? I'm not saying that they did not not did not be promised or whatever. But they are and but the thing is, is that we also forget that they're also human being that maybe didn't have the best start or didn't have the right choices.

Yep. Yep.

And I met several people who who murdered people. But I remember actually having a conversation who he's out now. And remember having a conversation with him. And for him, like he's built an entrepreneurial life, he built a business and everything. But one of the things was he said he goes, it wasn't like he wanted to, but just because he was part of a gang, like he had his life or someone else's life. You know, and we can judge all we want. But the reality is, is that until we put in that situation, we don't know what we would do. Right? Given the circumstances, we can.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

we can project what we think we would do, but until we do it, until we put in that situation, we really don't know. And so I think these sliding door moments are so critical to recognize that not just that we each other have sliding door moments, but everybody we meet have those moments too. And I think that these moments are constantly there. Like every day we make a choice. Sure, the breakfast you ate this morning.

Hmm.

wasn't probably a sliding normal, whether you ate the omelet versus the poached eggs, right? That probably didn't change your life. Maybe it would, maybe it could have. But there are moments though, where whether you stepped across that road, or if you, I mean, how many of you have ever been driving a car and like, oh, you got delayed and you got pissed off, or maybe your wife delayed you by five minutes, and then the next thing you know, like there was a car accident, that would have happened five minutes earlier. You can tell, I would have been there. I mean, that's...

Yeah, yeah.

So many times that never happened, but you would never know. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, the whole, the whole movie to me talks about choice and consequences and in the moments of decisions, you know, Tony Robbins always says it's the moments of decisions that your destiny is determined, you know, and, and, and along those lines, you know, I agree with you, like, and it's a really interesting point you raised about people in prisons who fundamentally made decisions either through their circumstances or they made choices, sometimes good choices, sometimes bad choices.

Hmm. Mm -hmm.

And sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons. And that's really an important consideration. And I think to me that always highlights that. And something you mentioned about entrepreneurs is really interesting. I was just reading some content just recently talking about, they talk about the super normals, which are a group of highly performing people who operate at this huge, huge level, but sometimes they've got traumatic pasts. And a lot of the time, particularly the... chronicled entrepreneurs, they quite often find a solution by virtue of their overcompensation because of some kind of trauma or issue that allows them to excel and move forward in that regard. So a lot of the times, you know, the choices specifically could be that, hey, I continue on in this path or I go, no, I'm out. I just move on and either room, they're going to be uncomfortable. Either room, they're going to be difficult. And... Really, it's like you said about other people interacting with that as well. It's basically the randomness and the imperfection, which is essentially the wabi -sabi of life, which is the imperfection of everybody else's life, which carried together is kind of like this symphony of perfection of life altogether. So that's the way I see it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you think about the prison example, I mean, one of the questions was, you know, how many of you ever drunk and drive? You know, and you know, on both sides, both lines, obviously, there would be people across that line. And really, and that was really a highlighting one, because the next question was like, the difference between the person on one side of the line, and the other person on the other side of the line was because one, you know, you got lucky, right? The people are not in jail, you got lucky, you didn't hit anybody that day. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And that was like a, oh, like, whoa, that is, that's it. Like, that's a fine line, right? And, you know, and these moments are, you know, that experience that you talked about, but, you know, it gives me shivers every time I hear that. Like, it's kind of crazy. But I remember a friend of mine, Dan Martell, you know, amazing entrepreneur, wrote the book, Buy Back Time. You know, he was, he was a... as a teenager, he was a, he's a crazy man. Like he just basically, you know, bored, you know, robbing places and whatever. And then I think he stole the car when he was like 17 or 16. And yeah, and right. And Dan was driving a car and he was being chased by the cops. And he basically, you know, he was, he basically what? Crashed the car or something. And then he had a gun in the car and he said, I'm not going to get arrested. And so he was going to pull the gun and kill himself.

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. I remember reading that, yeah.

But the gun got stuck. you know, and they arrested him. And through that story, obviously, he goes to prison, I want to ruin the story for him, because it's for him sort of tell, but it's like he wouldn't be where he is now. Like he is influencing so many people's lives. He's built a massive business, sold it. And now he's creating business for so many different people. And it's like, great guy, like such a heart of gold guy, you know, when I remember spending a week in Korea, share with his family, and like, it's just an awesome guy. He's a heart of gold. And it's, you know, at that moment, like, like you, like, just like that, you know, and You think about all those moments with your kids or how their life is gonna be changed. And we just, sometimes we make the choices, sometimes we don't. And I think the point is that we can't dictate the choices on the ones we can't make, that is sort of just happening to us. But there's also moments where, there's plenty of moments where it's our choice. And I think those are very impactful in terms of the life. And you're very lucky, obviously.

Hmm.

that you listened to your intuition or even intuition came through. And I mean, yeah, that's just a deviation of course. And we would have never known, you know, or met you and the people that you have influenced just because of that one moment, right?

Mm. That's the whole thing. Yeah, that's the whole thing. And it doesn't have to be like my situation or Dan's where it's literally life and death. You can look at it and look at, say, people who make a decision, am I going to spend the rest of my life with this person or not? And they go, no, or I'm going to university and I drop out of first year because I'm going to follow this dream. And that was a conventional path. You may have still done that, but you...

Mm.

you change the trajectory of things by going, no, I'm out like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, all those kinds of people who've done that. So it's a sliding doors moment at a different level. That's not life and death, but fundamentally we're talking the same thing.

Yes. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is like moments like I remember when I first met Karen, I was actually interested in another girl who happened to be a friend of hers. Right. And, and she ditched us and we met that the day before my birthday. It's like, it's just kind of like random and we just got talking and it was my next day was my 21st birthday. And so I invited her to my birthday and you know, and the fast forward, you know, whatever. And it's like, I remember slow dancing, you know, that used to do have three slow dance at the end of the night, whatever. And I remember I kissed her. I don't do things like that, you know,

Hmm.

But I did that night. And I remember asking for her phone number and she wouldn't give it to me. And I was like, I'm like, okay, she goes, you're gonna forget it. You're drunk. I'm like, no, I won't. I remember. And then and it Yeah, there's no one.

It's a funny back. I don't need to wrap you here because back when we grew up where there was no mobile phones, do you remember how you are that absolute ninja and remembering numbers as well? Like now I can't remember 99 % of the people's phone numbers that I had because it's plugged in my phone. But back then it was like I will die before I forget this number because you had to.

Yes. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, I have to remember a seven digit number, right? Seven digit number while I was being drunk on my 21st birthday at 2 a .m. in the morning. Okay, so that's the context. But I think about those moments. Like if I didn't take the action, right? Or kissing her or taking the action of asking for her number, who, like, I don't know, like, would that have happened? And the crazy story is this, right? I'll tell this, she would hate me if I tell this.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

But basically she goes, you're not gonna remember. And I said, I will remember it. As soon as she told me, I ran, right? Not because I was running away from her, because I didn't want to forget the number. So I told my best friend who was my roommate, my friend Gary. And he said, listen, you need to remember the seven digit number right now. He didn't drink that night because he was my bodyguard that night. He had, yeah, he was my bodyguard because my ex was there too. So I didn't want to make anything bad happen. So he remembered the number. The next day he woke up and then like, so I was saundered to him. Like, okay, can I have the number? He's like,

Eh. Yeah. Yeah, he was a clearhead. He was a clearhead. Yeah, yeah.

here's the number. I'm like, that's not the number. Right? So it's like, I'm like, no, no, that's not the number I gave you. That's the number you gave me. I'm like, that is definitely not the number. So we had this argument for like an hour. Then if I'm like, okay, I'm gonna call her. And he goes, no, no, you don't call her. Like, what do you mean you don't call? He goes, it's the three day rule, man. I'm like, what are you talking about a three day rule? You don't call the girl on three days. I'm like, and I was, listen, I tossed and turned over this three day rule, which I've never heard before. And this is like now 5pm.

Yeah.

Okay, so I waited all day. I'm like, I'm calling her no matter what. So I'm going to call this number and I called my number and it was the right one, by the way, right? My friend got it wrong. And, and yeah, she was pretty pissed that I didn't call all day. So if I another sliding door mode, if I did listen to my friend, who's got the wrong number in the first place, right? Anyway, so it's like, it's these these moments, right? There's the end is like, this the thing is, it's like one sliding door leads to another sliding door leads to another sliding door.

Yeah. You were slap him, slap him dude. You nearly rocked it up for me, buddy.

And the life that we all have is a collection of all the sliding doors that we've, we went through. And there's too many variables if one of those sliding doors didn't move the way it's supposed to. And so what do you think of this though, Jim? Like, you know, there's, there's, there's a thought process, obviously that we can, we control our destiny, right? So that's what we kind of talk about. We control that. But there's also another thought process that our life is already predetermined.

Yep. Yeah, it's that whole predeterminism versus free will argument.

Yeah, there's another movie with Matt Damon in it. What's it's, uh, the adjustment bureau, right? The adjustment bureau. So where it's like your path is already determined and like it's already kind of fixed. So like, what do you, where do you stand on this in terms of, uh,

Yeah, Justin, if you're here. As chiropractors, we all thought it was about chiropractic, but it wasn't at all. It was about that. It's actually, it's very interesting because like a lot of it comes into your, I guess your belief systems and a lot of it comes from a spiritual part. So you tend to find people who have got a very spiritual and religious and higher power beliefs a bit more strongly in a predetermined component, the universe, this is how it works out, et cetera, et cetera. And there's also the people who either feel like it's all on me.

Hmm.

have more of a free will kind of a component. I actually believe it's a bit of both. And that's the one I'm most comfortable with because I do believe there's order and in the universe, I really believe that whatever that is for somebody, whether there's a denomination to it or not, I do believe in the order of the universe and there are laws that are reproducible, et cetera. So that's the part of it that I'm comfortable with and it makes sense in and philosophically resonates.

Yeah.

But I also feel like I have some say in the matter as well too, because if I just choose to stay in bed all day, I'm not exercising my free will. I'm not exercising my talents, whatever they may be, to give myself every opportunity. So to me, it feels more comfortable with me as a combination of both.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I, I, I, I, I'm similar to that. I believe that there's, uh, I do believe in both, but one of the things I, I, you know, I don't know if it's different, but I think it's probably the same. Whereas I think the fundamentals, the foundation is, is moving in one direction. I do like to think that we have free choice and free will that nothing is determined. So, which means it's like, it's almost like the, the, the, the, we have like, like, here you go, here, build something.

Yeah, yeah.

But you can only build it with Lego blocks. So the foundation is the Lego blocks and each block is a predetermined block size. And so therefore, but what you do with those blocks is up to you. And so I feel like that it's like certain things are determined mostly because the constraint and I think those are the constraints of you know, universal laws. We can only work within the laws that we got time moving forward, speed of light, you know, those things are the constraints that we actually have. But what you do with that is on your own determination. I think that's

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

that part of it, the ability for your free will versus my free will and how our paths have crossed because of the different choices we made throughout our entire life. We made it, you know, hundreds of thousands of choices in our lifetime to meet at a certain point, to do this podcast, to be able to say these things and talk about these things is kind of freaking ridiculous, right?

Yeah. Well, if you look at this and if I didn't listen to my intuition and you've forgotten that seven digit number, it wouldn't happen. It wouldn't have happened, right? So it's totally different trajectory, different paths.

No, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And those decisions are such a, like, the main, one of the main sliding door moments for me was making a decision that after my wedding, that I would go to this conference, a student conference in Sydney. So I, both my wife and I got married and then we went to Hawaii for a honeymoon and I went to Sydney where she went back to Toronto. I mean, so long ago that I don't even remember it, like that, you know, how crazy that actually sounds. I left my wife, like she actually went home to Toronto on her own. on our honeymoon and I just continued on my journey. I mean, I was a student though, I couldn't afford to go back to Toronto and then fly across the world to go to Australia. But that one trip though, made me realize how much of the world that I haven't seen and that I should maybe consider going to Australia, you know, after we graduated. And that's what we did. And that one choice changed a lot. I was expecting to go there for a year and that turned into 20. Like, you know, now that I can call myself Australian, Canadian and Australian, it's like, wow, like that's, I don't know, to me, I just feel like that is something that would have changed if I didn't. If I stayed in Toronto, I definitely don't think I would be here in this moment in time if I stayed in Canada versus, anyways, but yeah, that was a Steinbauer movement for me.

Okay. That's a big one. It's a big one. And you know what I am curious about Lawrence is, you know, imagine going up to the edge of the edge of a cliff or the ledge. What is it that stops people deciding to change? You know, like there's got to be something that, you know, if you're on a path and let's put us, let's paint a scenario where someone is their second, third generation, whatever industry, it could be healthcare. It could be. a law firm, it could be a plumber and, and you're following this path because your father, your grandfather, your mother, your grandmother have always done this. And this is what's always been done. And you can follow that path or you can actually say, I need to change course because if I follow my path, this is what it's going to be like. And I'll have this moment of decision. What is it that stops people from making that change? And what is it do you think that makes them lean into that change?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think there's a lot of factors. I think there's a, it's fear, obviously, that's the one thing. And that fear comes from a lot of, a lot of layers. I think one of the layers is also obviously based on how they grew up, you know, whatever, how their parents raised them in terms of what they had to do or what they should be doing or what they're expected of doing. So that expectation of the parents is huge. I think the second big major factor is the expectation of the society of what societal beliefs that they actually have that they supposed to do. I fall into that trap. I'm sure you have to, for example, as a chiropractor, you know, you have the, the, the, the expectation of the profession of what you're supposed to do. And, and so that I think there's peer pressure, or there's at least professional pressure for you or society pressure to affect you. So I think, you know, your parents, your, your, your relatives, your close, your close friends, and, and, and even your spouse. partners, all those things have a factor, the society has a factor. And then you have your own internal factors. I think your internal factors of, you know, your fear of your risk tolerance, everybody has a different scale of risk. Some people are risk adverse and where some people are risk can be risk takers. And so the challenge of how what stops people is usually of the thought the thought process, the internal thought process and how vivid they are. And the vivid the reason why I say is vivid because some people's thought process is so vivid that they would say, you know, the the change is too painful, then, then the change itself. So meaning like, that the fear of the unknown is too scared, too risky, comparatively to the benefit of what they think they might get. Whereas, if I look back in my life, the the challenges and the changes that I made is usually because the fear. of not doing anything scares me more than the fear of the unknown. Right? Moving to Portugal, for example, was like the fear of having the same life for the next five years was way too scary for me. Then the unknown of what life was going to look like on the other side of the world.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, so along the lines of a moving towards versus a moving away from kind of a motivation because some people will be inspired to want to move forward and do great things. Other people want to go, I'll go and run away from this because this is not good for me, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, it's a combination of both. I think that there's, there has to be some sort of, so I remember we talking about this during decision -making we went in previous episodes and how I make decisions on big decisions anyways, it's never about the gain because the gain is given. Like if I stay here, I gained something. If I go there, I'm going to gain something and the gains probably outweigh each other. Like, you know, sort of like balance each other out. I mean, so therefore there's no win there because you, you're going to both, both decisions are going to be. helpful, but I find that it's better to look at the consequences of not doing, consequences of staying or consequences of going. So like choice between choice A and B. And the consequences is what you need to deal with because the consequences is gonna happen. If you stay, these are things that are gonna happen. If you go, these are the things that are gonna happen. And I always ask the question is like, which consequence are you willing to live with? Because you're gonna live with it anyways, right? So, it might as well make... make choice based on that. And for me, like say, we'll talk about moving, me staying in Sydney had a consequence of just not being able to live a full life of experience of European life and, and, you know, knowing exactly what's going to happen where a consequence of coming to Portugal is don't know a single soul. Don't know if I'm going to like it. Am I going to adjust? Don't know the language, all that stuff. Yeah, I'd rather deal with that. Right. And some people might think that's crazy. Like that's so much unknown. So I go, yeah, but Like I said, the scariness, the fear of just staying the same and living the next 10, 20, 30 years of my life in the same house scares me way more than all those unknown factors.

Yeah. And that was a catalyst for you to make a change and make a decision. I guess it'd be really interesting to think about and reflect. Let's say, and I can't remember the autobiography that I read, but I've read of, you know, a cyclist training for the Olympics who is traveling through the blue mountains in Sydney and then gets cleaned up and becomes a quadriplegic, you know, and suddenly their whole life goes.

Mm.

on a totally different trajectory and path than they previously had had. And there's a period of adjustment, there's a period of having to let go of an alternative reality. And I guess in reading those kind of autobiographies, I was fascinated by how people adapt. What's their story? What's their origin story? And what's their progressive story? And the people who are the best adjusted were the ones that embraced and

Hmm.

got to a level of acceptance of where things were and, okay, that was what happened and that was on my path, but this is my life now. And I think that they're the type of people that I've seen have been the best adjusted to what's going on for them, as opposed to the ones who live in the regret of life happened to me or for me, and it didn't go the way I wanted. And so consequently, then they've got the churn, the internal sort of, Basically the gears are grinding because they don't feel like this was my predetermined path or my destiny and something knocked me off a path.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's important for people to realize that, for those people that are for listeners to viewers to kind of think about is that doesn't mean that they don't have bad days or ever thought bad thoughts. It's not like they go, okay, accept this. It wasn't easy. It's a process, right? And, you know, I can speak to a little bit of that because my, I don't know, I'm pretty sure I told the story somewhere in the past that when my father in law became a quadriplegic. Yeah. And so,

Yes.

I mean, he came to retire to Australia, you know, after, you know, finishing work and he came in him and his wife, my mother -in -law, father -in -law came and retired in Australia and six weeks in, he became a quadriplegic underserved. And that's a, it was a life changing trajectory for all of us. I mean, for him, obviously, and for all of us, that's not the life we planned and that's not the life you planned for retirement either. And, you know, it still impacts me to this day. It was really interesting because yesterday we were just walking on the beach. and my wife and I, my family, and we're walking the dog, and we're just saying like, hey, you know, we lived in Australia for so long, and we used to come to the beach almost every day. We don't do that anymore. This is probably maybe the fifth time we went to the beach in the last two years in Portugal. And we only live like three minutes away, five minutes away. And we're like, why don't we do that? And I'm like, you know, and one of the things that kind of came up is like, you know what? It's like ever since that accident, I haven't been in the water very much. I have been in the water, but I've never body surfed again. I've never, you know, I never, I kind of did like one or two surf lessons, that's about it. But I, you know, I never actually went in that water the same way as I did. You know, that was what, 17 years ago, 16 years ago. And, and so, so it still impacts me, you know, I accepted it, but it has the scarring effect in a way for both of us. I don't think I think Karen has literally been in the water, maybe less than 10 times. Next you go to the beach.

Yeah. Yeah.

but she literally hasn't actually been in the water and swam in it much ever since the accident where we used to go almost every, you know, every other day when we're young and this is before kids. So we can make a whole bunch of excuses, but there's definitely something there.

100 % they're the subconscious, they're the subliminal sort of wounds, scars, references to the turn -off. Sorry, that's exactly right. So that then, that's the ripple effect where you accept things to a degree, but there's still the ripple effect, right? And you think back to, okay, what would life have been in there? But that's what I meant. Like, that's my observation is the people who not so much at peace, but the ones that said, okay, here's where it's at. And I... adapt to this. This is what's going on. You know, given a choice, did I want this? No. However, this is how it is. And I choose to get fully engaged in this life now, because this is where my path is. No.

because you can't change it. And that's the acceptance we're talking about. And so I think for everybody listening, it's like, no matter what's actually happening to you, I don't know your story. None of us do. But the reality is that you have a choice at any given moment to accept that you are where you are. Because that's the thing we got to remember is that we can't go back to the past. As much as we want to change the past and we could or should have made a different decision, The reality for all of us, unless you have a time machine, is that we can't go back to the past. What's done is done. And so therefore, you today, wherever you are, you are a collection of all the decisions you made up to this point. And that's where you're at. And the acceptance is, I think, is an eternal, consistent thing we have to go through every day. Which means we have to accept where we are today, no matter what. No matter how unfit you are, or how unhealthy you are, or... Maybe you haven't saved enough or how successful you are, whatever the thing is, you are who you are today and you have to accept that. And so therefore, but there's the challenge. You can go back to change the past, but you can change this moment right now. And you can change every single decision moving forward from this point on right now. Again, though, the law, as we talked about before, you can't change the past though. Right? So therefore all those decisions you've already made is consistent, is already done, written in stone. but you can change right now this decision. I'm going to go to the gym today. Now that's not going to effectively wipe out all the thing that you just done. No, of course not. You can go to the gym tomorrow. You can go to the gym the next day. But sooner or later, like the trajectory will change slightly, but you still can't work the past. That's the reminder that I have to constantly have. And that that accident really shifted my mindset. Yes, it was terrible. And it happened, you know, scarred me to a degree in water, blah, blah, blah. But one of the things that I always leave in my mind, it's like, I only got one life to live. And so I think it definitely shaped me in terms of decisions I make. It has definitely shaped me in my experiences I want to have because I always remember at any given moment, a big accident could happen and my life could just change in an instant. And that's why I need to bring that in when I kind of make decisions. because I need to remember that yes, I am scared of this, but what I really have to lose, you know? And I think it comes down to is that one of the biggest thing that I don't wanna have is I don't wanna have any regrets at the end of my life. Hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. And, you know, we talked about sliding doors as a great reference for this. One of the greatest trilogies of all time, Back to the Future, in my opinion, talks about this exactly. And it plays it out perfectly. That shows you the consequences and the ripple effect of little subtle choices that have to be massive choices that can be, hey, I go up to the basically the counter and I choose water or a soft drink. And I consistently do that over time and then consequently I have different experiences and different outcomes. So they're all the sum total of sometimes little choices that continue on in a slight deviation that over time yield a bigger change, a bigger possibility. And I agree with you about the regrets because there's the duality of being able to acknowledge and accept our mortality, but then also lean into the fear. and not be scared, you know, because it's very easy to go. If you ever spoken to an actuary or I had a friend of mine who just statistically memorized the chances of everybody dying, but you were so trapped in that, that he forgot to live, you know, so this is what you're saying. So the duality and the fine balance between what are the risks and what are the rewards? What am I giving up and what am I chasing? All those kinds of things are really important with these sliding doors because.

Mm -hmm.

Just because something is a roadblock doesn't mean it's the end of the journey. It's a case of how do I keep moving that forward? But how do I not be paralyzed by the fear of not leaning into something and yet still knowing that even when I do, I'm still going to come up against fear and that uncomfortable feeling because I'll admit, you know, you feel fear regularly. And basically Rocky Balboa always used to say, Freddy fear is a fighter's greatest

Yeah. Well, if you really think about sort of like our lives, so we you know, we talked about is a collection of decisions that we make. And I think one of the challenges, I think when we're in our early 20s, we have a most of us have this ambition to figure out who we are. Because we're kind of leaving the home and you got to figure out you got to figure out your life like who are you in this world because no longer you don't have the same comfort of your parents and you sort of you just kind of caught in limbo.

alo, because if you don't feel it, you're numb to your true feelings. And the key, the key is actually feeling those and acting in spite of that, as opposed to allowing that to dictate whether you progress forward.

Like you're thrust into this world and whether you're prepared or not, it's happening. And now you got to live in this world that could be really fast pace moving. And so now you've got to figure out on your own. So I think there's a little bit of, and your hormones are changing and you're figuring this out. So there's a little emptiness, right? To kind of figure that out. But as we get older in our thirties and we have families in forties, you do the things you're supposed to do. And then, you know, supposed to. I think the challenges, I think, especially in today's society, when we have the comfort, of creature comforts of what we have in life, comfort of entertainment, that we can literally be home and not be bored in any moment of time because of the internet and streaming services. You can be home for a whole six months and not be bored and be entertained and find something new to entertain yourself. I think we're leading to a point of where as we get older, why would we want to change? Like the fear of like removing self from comfort. to do something ambitious and that's scary, that's unknown, is way, the gap is becoming too hard, if that makes sense. And I wonder if that's leading to a society where we're not willing to take so many chances. That because of that gap, because of the comfort, because of the creature comforts, where in the past, you know, like, let's think back of our kids' childhood, we didn't have like, I mean, I had pains, but it wasn't like, we weren't addicted, because it weren't so real, you can only play for so long, you know what I mean? We had to force ourselves to play outside.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah. And so like that, if you translate that same thing to adulthood, I think that's sort of where we're at. We're getting to this point where we don't need to, we can be sedated by the comfort. Trust me, I, you know, I'm guilty of that many a times, but I have myself that the sliding door moments are happening all the time. And I gotta make sure I jump through some of them. You know, I gotta go through one of these, you know, some of these doors once in a while. And it's scary.

Yeah. And it was a punishment to be in your room, right? I remember the only video games that we had were if you went to some takeaway store and they had the little Atari game that you had to pay 20 cents to play and you might get a go. That was the idea. But for us, it was like the worst thing you could do to a kid is banish them into their room and not let them go and play outside.

It is exciting. It is uncomfortable. Because you most of the time you have to something from scratch. Some of the times you have to do something you don't know. Sometimes you don't know what's going to happen. And but that is the part of what sliding door moments can be. And I still feel that the more people go through those doors that they feel like they should, and go after it. I think a better life is lived. And I think less will be living a life, sorry, there will be less people living a life of red.

Yeah, I think you put it perfectly there in that it's the constant process of making decisions and choices and where they go. You make a decision and it veers you over to the left and then that one veers you further to the left and the other one to the... So it's the consequent, the process of making choices and decisions and kind of following your own and choosing your own adventure along the way. You might have a rough idea of where you want to get to, but sometimes...

Hmm.

You don't end up there, not because of anything that went wrong, but life took you on another path because of one reason or another. It could have been, as Brendan Bashar says, something come into your life or something comes out of you. And in that process, that leads you on a trajectory that may be have been different to the one you had. And that's to me why I guess the, the movie and the theme of what we're talking about today really resonates well, because there are going to be situations where. choices are made for you and they send you off a path. There are other moments, defining moments that are really huge that alter the whole pathway and trajectory of your life. And sometimes they're little micro ones that feel insignificant that like two boats basically, you know, going along a path the same time. If you've deviate one of the boats by one degree, it's imperceptible in the first little stages, but over a period of time, you realize the gap between them. And that to me,

Yeah, it's, and I was thinking about this analogy of where first door that you jump through is never the pivotal moment. It is the pivotal because it changes the don't know effect, but it's usually the fourth or fifth door that you actually enter because you went through the first door. Because I always think about you entering one door and there's always three other choices and you want those. And then after that, when you still have three other choices and it's like, then you go through that and then make a choice and through another one. And it's like the fourth or fifth door that you ended up with. Then you look back and go, Oh yeah, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't make.

signifies the sliding doors moments. They don't have to be massive and huge. They can be just incremental little subsequent changes that follow on the momentum of the ones before that led you on a path that you may either have never known or have led you on a path that you wouldn't have thought possible because you got stuck in staying where you were.

the first choice in the first place. And think that's what we're working on, that's exactly what you're saying. And that we don't know it because we're always expecting that that one choice is gonna be everything. No, it's not. It's like so many other choices that you make, you know, going back to my wife, sure, I asked her for that date. That's one moment. But if there's a whole bunch of other doors I have to jump through in order for us to be married and be together for, you know, 28 years, right?

Yeah.

you know, it didn't just happen. It just, there's so many doors we have to jump through to kind of get to the place that we're at at the moment. And so I think that's really important is to recognize, don't get caught up on making the choice so big that you don't even make the choice at all. And that's a choice. Reminding yourself, you don't make a choice, that is a choice. And I think that's really important for...

Yes, exactly.

Right. Right. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a real, and I know someone's listening to this. I know someone's watching this and listening to this and, and you're telling yourself like, yeah, that's me. Like that's me who have, who constantly have never who stalling decision that you know, you should be making, but you're making every excuses in the world to tell you to try to remind yourself, like, don't do this, don't do this, but your gut or something is telling you that this you need to make a choice. And I really would caution you not caution, but I would love you to explore.

Yeah. Do you remember back in biology class? I'm not sure if you guys did this experiment, but you used to have to watch this turtle. We have a turtle in a, in a, in a tank and you'd have to watch it for 15 minutes and plot what it was doing. And minute one, it's moving minute two, it's drinking minute three, it's doing nothing minutes for nothing. And so what I took out of that was in biology, even when the turtle's doing nothing, it's doing something. Right.

The thought, what if, right? Like what's on the other side? Like what are you really losing? Like is it the end of the world? And this goes back to us when we moved, it's like we sold up everything. Both of us sold us everything and we just moved. But people are like, man, that's crazy. But crazy for who? It's not like we can't go back. It's not like we got kicked out of the country, you know? We can go back any time. It's not like we don't have a plan.

And so fundamentally that in itself is a sliding doors moment in that if you choose not to do anything, that's actually a decision, right? You don't have to be in perpetual motion to feel like, yeah, I'm making sliding doors, but the decision to not do anything is in the decision in itself and deferring it. Yeah.

And people think that there's there's no plan B. Of course, there's a plan B. Right. I just don't want to think about plan B because I want to execute plan A. I want to see how plan A figures out. Of course, I don't know. You know, not there's not many things I do just without a secondary plan. Right. There's not anything I just go all in without an escape route.

Yeah.

Yes. afterwards. Hmm. Yeah, it's so many years later. It's so many years later.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, but that's actually mitigating your risks and also following that through. But it's about saying, listen, we are all in on this plan. And if we get to a juncture and we decide this is not serving us anymore, what are our options? We stay here and do the same thing you did in Australia, or I change it. So to me, it's the procession of choices and sliding doors moments that ultimately you look back on and... you know, Stephen jobs always said, you know, the dots always line up afterwards. You can look back and go, oh, now I can see why I had to live in Canada. Now I know what I had to go to, to, to Australia. Now I know where they won't always make, make sense as you're moving forwards and all, all sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you sometimes go, okay, well, you know, you're guided by intuition, curiosity. Uh, free will, wanting to, whatever that is, and that can be a guiding force to keep moving forward. But sometimes, like I recently looked at, like I've had an unconventional path in terms of career and changes, and it's not because I'm flippant, it's not because I'm impulsive, it's just like I go, no, this actually feels like really important. So I followed this path and...

Yeah, I think the one other advice I would give is that when you do make the decision, do go all in on it in a sense of, because there's going to be moments in the process of after the decision, when you're actually going through those doors, there'll be moments of thoughts of like, why am I doing this? And I think that's just your voice, your inner voice, you know, your human brain, and if Jess Spencer talks about it, is your human brain trying to protect you so that you don't get injured.

Sometimes and only in the last couple of weeks there's some choices that I've made over the last 25 years that I go now I can see why that's leading up that now that Lines up it didn't make sense at the time other than at the time. I enjoyed it It fulfilled me I felt juiced up about it and I went I'm going and I had to face all those things that you're talking about the fear or except but I still knew that Man, it makes no sense. I don't know why but I still have to follow this through. That's the part of the universal

but the reality is that you gotta give it a go. You gotta explore what's on the other side. You can't just go halfway and then stop. You already made a decision, like go through with it, find out what's on the other side, then make a decision whether you wanna come back through that hole again. But I think if you don't, you'll always live in that regret. And so just recognize that just because you made a decision, that's not enough. It's making the decision and then going through with it. That's the hard part. That's the challenge because that's when you have to fight those inner demons that stop you.

thing that I buy into that makes sense to me that goes, okay, you won't always know the plan. It will unfold as you're going along, but you have to be taking that step for that next part of the unfolding to show it to reveal itself to you. And that to me, that's what I mean by the duality of the both that works for me.

And we all do it. Like, I mean, we all face it. Like, you know, what you just said, Jim. And I think that it's important for us to kind of recognize that it's always gonna be there. It doesn't go away. But it's really important that you stick it through to see what's on the other side. Because I guarantee you, most of the time, the other side will open up. And whether it, maybe it didn't turn out the way you're supposed to expect it. But it gives you an answer. It gives you an answer like, well, maybe not this door. Right? Maybe the other two doors would work better and then you'd come back. and then you might open a different door. But that is an answer, right? That's the acceptance we talked about earlier. It's like accepting, like, yeah, that wasn't a good choice, but it was a choice. And that choice didn't lead to where I wanted to be, so therefore I'm going back. And that's important for people to recognize. I know a lot of my classmates that went to Australia. Some of them went back, some of them are still there, and some like me have moved on. And there's nothing wrong with either that, because it's just, we're all not the same. right? And so therefore, it's important to recognize that you may be one of those things. But what do you get to lose? The gain is there you gain in knowledge, you get insight, you get experience to recognize and now how can you utilize that to leverage the next move. And I think that is so much more powerful. Excellent, guys, I hope that you enjoy this episode around sliding doors. Love to know about your sliding door moments and maybe it's a good time to evaluate the sliding door moments that you might have had just so that you can reflect upon it and recognizing your life where it is now is because of those moments and decisions that you made and the collection of all those decisions. I think that's a really good reflection to do because you recognize how and appreciate those moments, the decisions you made have got you to where you are now and just think. about the decisions that will appear today, tomorrow, and the next few days, and the next few years that will shape the person you will or can be if you choose the right decisions and the right sliding doors to jump through. So this is the Wabi Sabi Podcast and recognizing that also those sliding doors may have imperfection in them. And this is the podcast that teaches you how to embrace them. We'll see you next time.

Yep. Yep. I think that's, I don't, I haven't got anything more to add to that, Lawrence. I think that pretty much wraps up the essence of what we're talking about and I'm complete.