The Big Rocks

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the podcast about the art of imperfection. Today, we are talking about big gigantic rocks. I guess just coming back from Switzerland, we saw massive rocks, mountains, that not many people get to see. The Swim South is something to be fascinated by. Have you been to Switzerland?

Yes. Yep. I haven't been to Switzerland and definitely, you know, you would be okay in thinking that that's what would have been the catalyst for the discussion, the big rocks you saw in the mountains. But really it was, I was as important because we haven't even had a debrief about your trip yet. So we're hearing it as we go live. It was really about the big rocks in life. What are the most important things to ourselves and to our world? So you got an opportunity to live the big rocks amongst the big rocks.

Oh, I thought you wanted me to talk about the mountains. I didn't realize we were actually listening. No, no.

You can, you can, you can, man. If you want to talk about Switzerland and give us all a wonderful little tour of Switzerland, I haven't been yet actually, so keen to go, but I'd definitely bring that in because I think that's actually, well, that was it when you were there and I saw some of the information that you posted, it really galvanized the reason why I thought we could talk about this today because the big rocks really signify the most important thing. to us and you had an opportunity to go to Switzerland for one of the biggest rocks and biggest reasons that you can imagine so that was the catalyst that was the reason for it.

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I've been there a couple of times this year, or yeah, just recently in the last six months, and a beautiful country. There's a French side, there's a German side, depending on what part of Switzerland you go to, you gotta, you know, not understand the language a little bit. What else can I say? If you ever want to live in Switzerland, one of the big rocks that you probably need to set is some finances. Uh, cause it is expensive. Like when you, like when you, when you know, we've all heard of us with some of the expensive, but when you go there, you're like, Oh, you know, the kids are like, dad, are you sure we can order the huge shirt? We can order them like, listen, it's, it's just part of being in Switzerland. Like order what you need to order. Like let's try not to look at the price because it is, it is expensive.

Holy smoke! Holy smoke yeah! Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I remember when we went to Paris actually for just the anniversary and you're there and you're there going, holy smoke, this is just incredible. And it's like, you know what, if I'm going to worry about that, it's going to ruin the experience. So I get it. You have to just basically surrender to the process and surrender to the current currency exchange at the time. But yeah, I imagine it would be a bit of a That's part of the reason why most people shelter their offshore accounts in Switzerland.

Oh my goodness. It is absolutely amazing. You know, just to kind of give you a perspective, I guess, uh, you know, you can go out to a burger joint, say, um, not, you know, nothing fancy, just a regular, you know, fast food, not a McDonald's, a bit better fast food. Um, you know, burger joint. Oh, a burger will run you 16, $20 just for a burger. That's the way that fries, uh, that's just normal in Switzerland. Um, but yeah, great people, great food. great mountains, the views are just stunning, the lake, man, it's just a sensational, beautiful place. But.

Yeah, so talk to us about how you got to go there, Lawrence, because I think it's a beautiful story in and of itself. And then that's going to tie us in nicely into the theme for today.

Yeah. So the reason why we actually went, it was mostly because we, uh, we heard, you know, there's a school that was advertising, uh, here in, in Portugal, uh, for university. And we never actually thought about, we didn't know anything about these schools. And that's the thing. It's one of the challenges when you can move to Europe is that your options open up really wide and it's not about like which school you want to go to. It's more like which country, uh, or which region do you actually want to go to? Like my daughter has choice of Australia and Canada, obviously being citizens there, uh, and, or You know, have passports there, but then you have UK, you have all of Europe. And I'm talking Europe. There's multiple countries. You go to France, do you go to Germany? Do you go to Holland or do you know, you, you got, um, you know, Switzerland, you got all these places and then you got America. So it's really more choosing about, uh, regions and also what you want to do. So it's a lot of choices and that, you know, can be overwhelming. But one of the things that she kind of, my, my daughter is super smart. She knows exactly, uh, she can do anything she wants to do, but we're also really thinking about her, making sure that she enjoys. you know, school, the school experience. She enjoys what she's gonna study rather than just, you know, pushing her towards something that we all perceive to be more prestigious or to be more supposed to, the path supposed to, you're supposed to do. And really this kind of came up, there are some top luxury hospitality schools in Switzerland. And she thought, I don't know if I wanna do it. And so we thought, Well, why don't we just go there? We'll make a sort of a short family trip. We went there for four days and we'll just check out the school just to see whether or not it resonates with you. And, uh, and you know, worst, worst case scenario, we got a trip out of it. And that's it. We know. And we both, we all, the whole family got to experience something together. So that's the main reason why we went. We checked out two different schools and she got to experience, um, you know, two amazing, uh, events. They had open days and. You know, one of the schools had a Michelin star restaurant. Uh, you know, and overlooking Lake Geneva and it's freaking stunning. You know, you can go on my Instagram or Facebook, but you can just, it's, it's incredible. And the views, I mean, one of the kitchen was like literally looking at Lake Chavina and they like, this is where we make our sushi. And I'm like, how's anybody supposed to work when you look at this view out there? But they are, you know, everybody's all, you know, it's a certain element and you can just really tell they, they focus in on, you know, true hospitality, luxury branding, um,

Wow. Yeah.

And it's not just about restaurants and hotels. It's also about luxury brands like Cartier and those type of brands, not for the sake of just luxury, but just more about how do those companies work? How do they market? How do they run this business? It's a business degree, really, and on luxury branding and experiences.

It puts a shame the cafeterias that you and I probably had going through high school and university I saw I did see I did see both yours and Karen's posts about is it too late for me to go or Is it awkward if I turn up with Kaya as well and then sit next to her during this class? Yeah, I thought it would have been a bit awkward to be honest However, I can see why you would have been attracted to this as a venue to do some further study

Yeah. Oh, man, like, when they put out the program and they talk about what they're going to go through, like, so the one of the reasons why I actually like the school from the programming perspective, whether she goes or not, she's still two years away. So it's not a big deal. Like, you know, we're just exploring. But one of the great things about this, and I think this is really helpful from our understanding of what we do on our podcast. So there's eight semesters, three of the semesters, including the second semester. So you there just say you go to school with first time, you basically learn all the basics, the basics of how to cook. You basically do a whole month in the kitchen and the restaurant. They have a fine dining restaurant. And one of them, obviously one of them had a, the other school had a mission and star restaurant, you have to work in them, you have to work front desk. They do housekeeping. Uh, they have to do, you know, they've learned they're not there to train you to be one of them, but you need to understand the basics because they're trying to train you to be a manager. They're basically trying to gear you up to be a general manager of hotel. Uh, if that's the route you want to go into hospitality, she's not necessarily interested in hospitality, but like that's sort of the main thing. And what was key about that? was they are three of the semesters out of eight, they actually, they're supposed to work experiences. So you're not actually at the school. So they are, there's about a hundred different companies from like Four Seasons to the Marriott's to restaurants, luxury brands like Tag and all, they come to the school to hire these students because they have a reputation of strong hospitality and leadership skills. And two, second, fifth and eighth semesters, they have to go to work. So in one of the schools, you have an opportunity, not, not that most people do it, you have an opportunity to live in seven different countries in the span of four years, right? Just because the way it's set out, because you can actually go to different places of work and also at different places to study. It's just incredible. Um, what the opportunities, uh, can be for someone who loves to travel and who loves to kind of have, have a different experience and, and that's the key element is like the experience, like being able to like firsthand knowledge.

Wow.

while you're in school, rather than going through a degree, knowledge, and you come up like, okay, what do I do now? Where, you know, I went through the school like that when I went to university, which is study, work, study, work, and I got a resume built up before I graduated, which then most likely I could have gotten a job if I didn't go to chiropractic. I would have gotten a job with one of those companies because I would have worked my way through and developed a relationship. And I think that's a huge benefit when you're planning, you know, your career or path I think with anything now, everything's about experiential and learning rather than just theoretical learning because theoretical learning, let's face it, AI can probably dominate that.

Yeah, I mean, what a wonderful curriculum. And you're right, I can understand how he's so engaging. And I loved how, you know, you put up a post, which I thought was really fascinating about going out there and testing it out and trying it out and seeing what it's like and seeing if it's right for you, all those things, which is really why I thought. talking about the big rocks would be really important. And I guess we should just backtrack a little bit to explain what big rocks are. Cause if you're hearing this for the first time, you're gonna go, what are these guys talking about? Well, there was a, just for some context, years ago, there was a university professor who was trying to explain to people the intention of putting your energy and effort in the things that mean the most to you. And so what he uses as an analogy was having big rocks, little rocks, sand and water. And Basically, the big rocks signified the most important things in your life, in your world, whatever they are for you. They could be individualized, but fundamentally having a good understanding of what those are. The little rocks are the things that are not as important as those, but still relatively important in the grand scheme of things. Sand is less important and then leading down into water. And his analogy was that water tasks could be things that we use for escapism, or not really important, but they... burn up a lot of our time. If we were to fill up a fish tank with these four ingredients and try and get the most in there, what would you start with? And his argument was if you put water in there first, then you try and put the big rocks in, it will displace the water, things will get messy and you probably won't even get the big rocks first. So his analogy was when you put the big rocks in first, and you get all your big rocks positioned first, that's when you start then putting the little rocks in between the gaps of the big rocks. Then you put the sand in once you've packed that in. So even if you have only a little bit of water, in the grand scheme of it, it's not life-defining, it's not gonna make or break you, but it just means that you're only using the water or the filler times for things that are just supplement and prioritizing the main thing. And why I thought this was really great to expand on is from an outsider looking in, Lawrence, the direction of Kaya in terms of her career and you have supporting her in that as parents was really reinforcing the big rock and ensuring that the most important things to you and all of you are nurtured. So do you wanna expand on that and hopefully go somewhere that we can with this?

Yeah, I think a lot of people what we tend to do when we, you know, go through this without, you know, no understanding that relationship of, you know, big rocks, pebbles and sand and water, we tend to put the sand and the water in first into the fish tank, and then you put the pebbles in. Because the reason why we do that is because they're easier. You know, it's easier to put sand in and water in and pebbles in first. And because they're flexible, and they're movable. But the problem is, once you have the sand, you just imagine a fish tank. and you put the sand in and then you put the pebbles in, you actually can't fit the big rocks into the fish pond anymore, or the fish bowl. And so the analogy is really important is that you have to establish your big rocks. And so for us, one of the important part of our, for our family is that it's about experience. So I kind of explained it earlier, is that we want our kids, both Christian and Kaia, to really experience of having to have enjoyment in life. of what I, what we don't want. And we've seen too many people, friends, colleagues, and other people's kids that they go take a degree because that's what their parents wanted. And, or that's what you're supposed to do. And we've all been there, you know, we've all been there. We know experiences of that. And sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes we don't. And oftentimes we can, we'll try to avert as much as possible. Now, am I saying that I'm going to avoid that? No, of course not. Like we don't know what's going to happen in the next four to five years. But the reality is what we want to do is try to narrow some of that down by helping hurt. helping them actually both Christian and Cuyahoga really just find something that they really enjoy. And because in my belief anyways, university is not a necessity, but it's a nice thing to do. And if they're gonna go to university or they're gonna go and study, you might as well study something you actually enjoy because then it doesn't become work, right? And it's like the whole proverb saying like, work shouldn't be, if it feels like work, it's probably not the thing you're supposed to do. And I think it's, it's really important. I think if we can help our kids find something that work when, when their work is actually becomes joyful, then I think they're going to have a better, better quality of life. And so for me, you know, establishing her career or starting her career is really to kind of figure out what does she actually want to consider doing and then working backwards because she has to make some choices now in school for a grade 11, grade 12 in terms of what classes she needs to take so that she ensures that takes the right courses so she can actually enter university with the right courses in mind. So we're kind of looking backwards. It's like setting your goals or where you want to be and then setting your milestones and then understanding that there's certain things you have to jump through. So that's sort of why we're doing it. And you know, although the trip was for Kaia, it was also for Christian too. Unconsciously, he might not know that but you know when he hears this, you know, maybe a couple years later, it's like yeah, it was for you too kid, right? Because you need to figure out it's like is this something you even want to consider?

Yep. Mm.

or doing and this is something you have to go through in a few years time, because he's gonna have to go through what he enjoys the most. And we did have a discussion about that. What does he like? What does he enjoy? And he's like, this is not for me. I'm like, of course, this is not for you. It doesn't have to be, why or why not? And we said, we had those kinds of discussions. So I think those are really important things when we are finding our way in life. Now, I know we've been talking about my kids, but the point is if you translate this to your life, this is exactly what happens, right?

That's my whole point. That was my whole point. Well, the whole point was, yeah, no, because really what we're trying to, I guess I really, I loved the story and I loved the experience and I loved the adventure you went onto. And also if people can see themselves in your story, that's really it. Like both of us, in a way, I love it. I'm a storyteller. I love story. My kids would tell me, listen, too many stories, but a lot of the times I'll set a story and sometimes people can see themselves in that.

Yeah, so why don't you bring that home? Because I don't want to make sure that you get to know.

And I would hope that a lot of people would see themselves in the story that you've shared that I wanted you to expand on because it was more than just about a trip to Switzerland. It was about supporting kids to follow their own path and curiosity, taking them and giving them options and opportunities to open up their refractive views to go, okay, what's out there for me? And what's the reference that I use to find decisions, knowing that you've got support. from mom and dad to explore that. I think that's fascinating. That's really cool. Like, I don't know that, you know, people who don't have that would look at this and go, that would have been awesome. And the kids and people who have that don't know any different. They don't know what it's like not to have followed their curiosity. So sometimes they're the ones who are incredibly balanced and happy and fulfilled when they're succeeding because they're succeeding as a metric on the terms that they wanted to rather than. finding, you know, the disconnect that I find and perhaps you can share on that, the distinction that you and I quite often will see, people are really successful but they're not fulfilled because they haven't got that avenue through which they started the journey and the process in the first place and to me it's beautiful experience that your kids will get to by finding their path that way.

Yeah, and I truly believe that I think if you find something you love to do, that you actually enjoy, like I think the monetary rewards will come over time. Like it will come to you. And it may not obviously be up with the money, but I think that oftentimes the value that you provide for people will come back. And that's why I think, I mean, when I made that comment in my post to say like, oh, you know, I wish I could go back to school, I wasn't actually joking. There was a part of me that I go, I can see myself here. I can see myself like going through this luxury hospitality and actually be really damn good at this too as well, right? And, you know, but I think that it's in a different life maybe, you know, but at the same time, I can still, but that actually, so that sparked a thought in my head. And I go, well, I kind of do that, don't I? Like I didn't, I may not have the schooling, I might not have the experience, so what they're teaching at.

Yeah. Yep.

but that's what I kind of create in my own retreats or that's what I create in my own events. And, you know, to a degree, and I'm actually looking forward, if she does decide to go there, great. Then she could maybe give me some hints on how to make up my experience. And I even said to her, why don't you consider working for me? You know, or like doing some projects when we run for, you know, for certain groups that I run and create events for there. And then you can W great resume for you. And so I think there's all these opportunities we can actually create.

Yep.

it's just about thinking outside the box. And I think for most people listening to is like, there are certain things that you've always wanted to try. But you may not go through the traditional route. Right? But why not give it a shot? But what can you do? Take the, for example, what I said about hospitality, although I'm not going to go into hospitality, you know, school to and then go into, I can utilize some of the things I desire about hospitality and then but how do I apply it in my current, you know, job or current Um, projects I'm working on to add to that, if that's what I'm interested in. And I think that's something to kind of consider is that there's always opportunity to add value to whatever you're doing, even if you're actually an employee of someone. Because that is what's going to distinguish you to the employer about how valuable you actually are.

Yeah, you know, I can totally understand what you're saying about the premium and luxury brands going to the school and head hunting people and students there to be part of their organization. So I totally get it. I remember years ago when we had the musical Cats, when we were living in country in New South Wales in Victoria, sorry, in New South Wales, it was, we didn't have a lot of shows that came out to the towns, but there was this one which the big, big top, it was a massive tent they came out. And they did this production of Cats, which was phenomenal. And it was the first time our son Sebastian sat still. He was a hyperkinetic kid, fully energized. He sat on my lap for like three hours for the whole show. Did not move. Admittedly, he was four or five at the time. So that made it a lot easier than he's, it wasn't an adult back then. But he sat through and loved the performance and loved the stage. And then we had another musical that came out. And he said, What do I have to do to do that? Literally five, six, and we went, okay, well, is that what you think you wanna do? He says, I'd love to. So when we moved to Melbourne, we moved to the city, there were performing arts schools. So we went and enrolled him in dance and singing and all those things. And what struck me was the young kids, and they were young kids, they were confident, they were upright, they'd look you in the eye, they had this presence about them. And he got to perform, he did a few things, he realized that was great, but I'd now move on. But he tried that, but what left an endearing memory in my mind was just the presence and the confidence that came about these kids that you could see, because they were following their own enthusiasm path, they were schooled in how to present themselves. So those skills that they're learning, they're learning are transferable to high level of service. And that's what people pay for. in luxury brands and that the expectations, let's be honest, when you're going to five star resorts, Michelin star hotels, restaurants, I should say, that's the expectation. That's not like a good to have. It's like that's a base minimum.

Yeah, well, not smart. If you tried really hard and got good grades, you're supposed to write by society standard to go apply for the toughest positions, right? Or the toughest university courses, you know. And in this case, yeah, Dr. Laura engineer. Yeah, exactly. You know, like, you know, the Harvard's or the yales or whatever. But in this case, like, this is a famous school. It's like the top, I think, second ranked hospitality school in the world. One of them was

Dr. Laura Engineer, basically.

and the other ones like top 10. And, but what was interesting about it is like, they don't really care about your grades. Well, they care, but they don't care. Like that's not the deciding point. They said they have rejected many top students like with almost, you know, I guess in Australian standard, it would be the ATARs like 98, 99s. And you know, almost perfect score. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A 43, 44 and an IB like, because they have no personality.

An almost perfect score basically in terms of... yeah.

And so because they're in hospitality, they said, you know, they can, you can be a smart, you can be book smart or whatever, but you don't have hospitality. They're not encouraging you to come to that school because you have to have the blend of both. And you have to be somewhat smart because you have to understand business and spreadsheets and other things to run a business, but at the same time, you also have to have the skills or at least have the potential, the skills to be able to hospitable and to be able to meet and greet and talk to people and, uh, and have that caring factor. So we jar, so now when you think back or going back to our topic about big rocks is that. Now you're set into stones and going, okay, what do I need to learn? What do I need to put in my resume? Right? What do I need to, like for her, to what do I need to put in a resume? What do I need to do over the next couple of years to ensure that my resume shines, you know, and that becomes her big rocks in doing things. This is what we're kind of talking about. So I think in life, it's the same thing when you're planning. If there's certain things you want to do, then you have to make it a rock, not a sand, right? So let's kind of go, let's bring this back to our topic here, right? So the thing is that when you're talking about like,

Yeah.

you want to get fit. Okay, great. When do you schedule your workouts? You can't just be saying, you know what, I'm going to work out more. That's a sand, right? Now you might say, Okay, I'm gonna work out three times a week. Okay, that's a pebble, because it's still movable. Right? Now you're saying I'm gonna go I'm gonna work out three days a week at 6am in the morning, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And I'm committed to going to this gym, right or this particular class every single week. three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday without fail for the next three months. That now becomes the rock, right? It means like it's immobile, immovable, because you already set the time, you already set the place. It's not like I'll do it when I have a chance. That's more of a pebble. And that's the difference between a rock, the pebble and the sand is because the rock is immovable. It's big stones. It you can move it. But it's very difficult to move it. So you put it in a place like it's really challenging.

Yep. Yep.

to move it. Sometimes you have to, right? Maybe it's a public holiday, or maybe you want to sleep in, or maybe you're injured. So you do have to move. You can, but it's just challenging. And I think that's when you don't let yourself off the hook. So I think it's important to put these big rocks into play so that you get to the goals that you want to.

I like how you went about that because it kind of like was constructing it and then and it was getting bigger and bigger and I was actually going to do it the other way around. So that's why I was really fascinated. Like I was just watching and going, yeah, I can see where he's going with this. This is really cool. So to me, like the big rocks are really, I'm going to go from a macro point of view and dial it down and then link it up to what you just said, because for me, it's like getting clear on what's most important to you, right? From a values perspective. And so once you're clear on that, that then becomes your priority. And then once something's a priority, you support it by your actions and the investment of time, energy, effort, and money into those areas. And that reinforces the importance of the big rocks to you. And the more energy and effort and priority you do, the more it becomes a big rock. The problem is for people when something is a big rock, but they're not allocating time, energy, effort, and money to it, and suddenly they're busy, but they're unfulfilled. because those most important things to them aren't nourished and nurtured. So for example, quite often you'll hear someone say, and I've been guilty of it in the past where, and I think it's come up before, where you're like, I'm doing this for you and I'm really busy and I'm working seven days a week for you and I've never stopped to ask my kids, what is it that you want? I just want time with you to kick the ball around or whatever. So that's why this is an important conversation piece. And The moment you get clear on the big rocks and the most important things to you, it stands to reason that you start allocating your time, energy and prioritizing those things to ensure that you hit the mark for those. Because if things are gonna drop off, they're gonna be the water and the sand items that aren't really going to be, you're not gonna shift your life totally. But if you drop or miss too many of these big rocks over time, you're gonna be this disconnect. You'll either... feel successful but unfulfilled, or you'll say that you're doing things for one reason but you're really not honoring it in a true sense.

Yeah, I think a lot of people sort of say like, Yeah, but I don't want I'm a loosey goosey, man. I don't like I don't like to be constrained. I want freedom. Yeah, great. How you get freedom is actually having big rocks is to learn how to be disciplined. It's like so counterintuitive. But the more you are disciplined, the more freedom you actually have. And so, you know, for both of us are one of our biggest rocks is our workouts. We've said it many, many times over the over and over again in this podcast, right? Mind's CrossFit.

Correct. Yeah.

yours is you know, your jujitsu. It's like those classes are so important because those classes are there. It's our rocks because it sets up our day. It sets up our mood. It sets up our brain. You know, I love sort of, you know, what Jaco kind of says like some I think it's Jaco who said, you know, when he talks about, he puts himself in hard situation, we do hard things, because we want to train our mind to saying you're not in control. Right? We think

Yep.

we don't we want to train our bodies. So that's what it was we trained our bodies to say you're not in control. We're trying to train our minds that our mind is in control, not the body. So when the body is hurting, and you still go and do it, and it's challenging, it's telling your body is like, Yes, I understand you're tired, but I'm in control of this. And not the pain. And I think that's the thing that we do that forces us so when we go training, that's what we're kind of training, we're training our brain mind and we're training our bodies. because it has this domino effect on affecting the rest of our lives, right? Our schedules, our lives, how we show up everything with our clients, how we show up with our parents, with our kids, our family, and show up with other people because we're having discipline in that area. We can, we demonstrated we got discipline in that area so that we can actually have the freedom to go eat a chocolate bar and a pie if we wanted to because we did actually work out, right? Not the other way around.

Hmm. Yeah. You know, Lawrence, I think what you just highlighted there for me, and I've never had the distinction about the big rock from the perspective, just as you were hearing about it, what I heard was you also have to be your own big rock because you have to choose yourself, right? So all this time that I've been aware of this, I'm thinking about the most important things, this and this and my family and whatever, but You also have to choose you. You have to find a place to nurture your own big rock and schedule that time appropriately so that you'd get to do the things that you love doing, that inspire you, that help you operate at your highest and most effective level to then show up for all the other big rocks. And then by extension, do everything else you need to do. So that was just a layer of distinction that I had just in hearing you talk there. Even though I've been acutely aware of the big rocks, It just dropped in right now as I was hearing you about the importance of becoming your own big rocker.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people forget about that too, as well. It's like, when you have a projection of where you want to be and what you want to do, oftentimes, it's, it's like aspirational goals, which means it's still pretty far away. And sometimes it's that we think that retirement is the perfect example, right? We go, you know, when I retire, I'll be able to do X, I'll travel the world, I will, you know, do all the bungee jumps and skydives and all the things I always wanted to do. But not right now, because I got to work right now. And the problem is with that is that you know, by the time you reach that age, your body is no longer the same body. If you didn't take care of it, right. And most people don't most people don't take care of their bodies. The thing is that when we when we go work out as you know, just from a workout perspective, we're not trying to get physical just for now, is we're trying to get physical so that we're trying to be, I want to be able to do those things when I'm 60 years old, right? And I want to be able to do those things with my kids when I'm six years, I don't want to be in a position where I can't function. I can't move or I can't I miss out on these opportunities because my body's no longer able to know. And it's also because I also hyperlia where that it's on the downhill, right? As we get older, like it's just harder, take longer to heal. And I can't fight that. That's just genetics, right? I can do everything I can do most things to try to counteract that

Yeah.

but that's the reality of biology. And so therefore I have to work extra hard to just maintain and not lose, you know, ground, right? Basically, all I'm doing is just trying to maintain. It's just maintaining what I have. Just to stay the same, yeah, exactly. I can't, it's not really about growing. It's actually just like making sure. And I'm always getting to that point where it's not even maintaining anymore. It's just like trying to slow the decline. And, but the thing is, is that it's thinking about long-term and putting yourself as a rock.

You You're working harder and harder just to stay in the same spot. Yep. Yeah.

and putting these rocks in place so that you can actually do those things with your family.

I saw when you were talking about deferring things for a long time, we've ever seen this picture. It might've been in socials that's been floating around. There's a gondola driver in Venice and he's going through a tunnel. He's got these two old people, quite old, they'd be in their 70s or 80s and they've fallen asleep and he says, here's the reason why you should never keep putting everything off until you're, you know, because there's a balance. There's a harmony of saying, how do I... happily achieve things, how do I enjoy them while I have the vitality while I can? And I think that that's probably one of the distinctions that I've made as well too, is that you go before you're ready sometimes, purely because you can. And you don't know necessarily that opportunity may be there in the future. So it's about having the consideration and going, okay, everything hasn't lined up right now, but I've got enough to go. and I need to take this opportunity while I can. So if it means that is a priority, you know, puts other things off or pushes them back a little bit, that's okay. It's a conscious decision because right now, this big rock suggests that I should be spending time with my kids, nurturing the schooling. Or for me, it was like going and spending an anniversary with your wife in a wonderful place that you've always wanted to get to, to get all those kinds of things are big rocks. And you can rationalize, that's what I've learned, you can rationalize everything to the point where you're going, what's the point of doing anything, if you constantly keep deferring and putting things off until a time when it's right, because a lot of times the time might be right.

Yeah, one of the best books around this is a book called Die With Zero. And, uh, if it's, I mean, I just encourage anybody to read that. I, cause it really. Really? Oh.

I haven't read it. I haven't read it. I think you've mentioned it before. Yeah, but I'm going to jot it down. I'll jot it down.

Yeah, it's a great book, it's a short book, and it just talks exactly about this. It talks about why, you know, most of us defer a lot of things until retirement. But then we're thinking like a, you know, say a 30 or 40 year old thinking that we're going to be exactly the same. You know, and you desire the same thing when you're 60. It's just not true. And so, I mean, of course, we have to balance that with, you know, not spending everything because then you still got to live. So it's a fine balance. But

Yep.

It makes a lot of sense, you know, for so many levels, but we'll save that for a different topic. But, you know, when coming back to, actually, here's a question for you. What are your biggest rocks in life, Jim?

I was about to ask you the same thing. So how do we work out a big rock? For me, 100%, it's my family, my relationship, my family, my health are really important consideration. And also the, interestingly, growth and personal growth and progress are really important to me as metrics. So top values for me would be love, growth.

Mm-hmm.

And I've got to feel like I'm moving forward. So they're really important big rocks for me. So a hundred percent. And how I know that to be true and really clear on those is because back when I was studying with Bettina, so going back what, 35 years ago, when we were first year chiropractic students, when we first started dating, and I'm not sure if it was you, if it happened with you Lawrence, but it certainly happened for us. Just when you're working each other out, you're having these conversations and can, you know. arguments for want of a better word. And we had something that was unresolved. And we had an exam the next day. And with the argument, we just couldn't get past the argument to study. So we made the decision, we're going to stay here and we're going to get resolution before we can study. And we did eventually. And it took us many hours before we could get to study. And Patina ended up passing that exam. I ended up failing and I had to sit the exam again. But it taught me that I was clear that was the highest priority. And for me, that relationship and how we went about things was very important. So that's always my North Star for me. What about you?

Yeah, that's really interesting. Uh, you know, that's obviously the, the importance of it. We actually have a similar rule that, um, Karen and I, if we ever have any arguments or disagreements, uh, our promise to each other since probably since when we first started dating like 27 years ago, uh, was that we, um, never go to bed. Uh, angry. Uh, that's our rule. I think we've only done it once ever. Um, and it was, yeah, it's, we always have to. Like we always made agreement someone's gonna have to give in and we're both pretty stubborn So it can go on a late night before someone goes. Okay, that's enough is enough less. I'm tired now Let's just kind of you know Fine forgiveness here somewhere But yeah, and anyways so going for back to big rocks. So here's how I look at big rocks, right? So I Show this with my client I should I do this with my clients every year and what we do is we plan out the calendar for the next year

Yep.

And when we do that, what we do is we go, okay, before we put anything on that calendar, we actually have to identify the big rocks, the pebbles and the sand. And we have to put in the calendar, the big rocks in your calendar first. And you put it in the calendar. Because here's why this—I'm going to come to my big rocks in a second. The reason why that is, is because the big rocks are immovable. And the pebbles, remember, can fall between the cracks of the big rocks. So therefore these big rocks are needs to be very high priority because you're going to have to plant them in your calendar over the 365 days in the next year. And you want to put them in the place because everything else now the actions and you know, events that you run or whatever has to fall within those big rocks. So for example, there's obviously personal big rocks and there's like business big rocks, right? So our personal big rocks, you know, ideally, I mean, not everybody cares, but let's just say wife's birthday. That's a big rock, right? You want to plant that, right, in the calendar. Wedding anniversaries, plant that in the calendar, right? So those are the big rocks that you want. Christmas, you know, if it matters to you. You know, Easter is a mess. So these are like the big rocks. Now, when you start doing this, you might think, oh, that's kind of silly. Everybody knows that, but no, trust me. When you start putting these big rocks, you don't realize how many, you have 52 weekends, right? And when you put these big rocks in the play,

That's a massive rock, you don't want to miss that one.

you lose probably like five or six of them, right? Just by doing that. And so you realize you're now down to like 45, you know, weekends. And that's challenging, right? So then if you're, you know, someone who travels a lot for work, man, you gotta add those in. Like I remember having to, for me was, I would travel a lot when I was in Australia and I traveled around the world. So I would be gone for like five, a week at a time sometimes. And, but my promise was to never travel two weekends in a row. Okay, well now I just eliminated 26 weeks by doing that. With that one rule, 26 weeks gone. Now minus all the holiday weekends, school holidays, birthday, anniversary, weekend, so now I'm down to like maybe 10 weekends that I get to choose from of when I can put these things. And then you go eliminate summer, right? So you can see how like fast, and these are just rocks. We haven't even touched the pebbles yet. And so this is why rocks are so important. You got to put it in there. So birthdays, anniversaries, special days are really important to you. So for me,

Yep.

Those are obviously important. The other thing, which is the value system of what you mentioned about families and relationship. The other rocks for me is actually holidays. I tend to want to plan about one break every quarter. I'm not sure how, actually, I've probably done too much of a better job. I don't know how you say that, but I'm probably planning way too many breaks. Then, yeah, I've excelled at, yeah, yeah. Being in Europe is a, like, you know, I'm...

You've excelled. Is that what you're saying? You've nailed it. I've nailed it.

I'm gone to London, like I'm back for three days in London this weekend, it's like, it's kind of crazy. But yeah, so it's, I usually try to plan at least one break every quarter. I think it's important. And because you have something to look forward to, you know, your brain is subconscious, okay, I got 90 days to work at this and I know I got a break. Now, a lot of times, and this is really important guys, because I speak to my clients about this all the time and this one client said to me, you know, he said, my goal... is that I wanna, my goal for this year, one of my objective is to make sure I have four weeks holiday. Okay, great. After one quarter of the year happened, I'm like, so how many breaks have you taken so far? Oh, none. I go, okay, have you planned anything yet? I go, no. I go, dude, you got nine months left and you gotta make four weeks out of it. How, like your timeframe is getting shorter and shorter and we're just planning for the second quarter, the next quarter. And it's like, do you have any plans yet? No. I'm like, if you don't make a plan, it's not gonna happen. And guess what? Now you're six months in, and now you have four weeks, you're gonna have to squeeze that in. Now the, do you see the pressure though now? Because you made an objective, now you got this pressure of fulfilling, that's not healthy. And I said, you know, listen, most likely you're gonna take two weeks off at Christmas time. So now you're already down to two, right? So then you go, I think it was maybe six weeks you wanted to take off. So then you go, you gotta slot, you gotta have to take two weeks this quarter, right? If you don't, you're never gonna reach this goal, and you're not gonna get the breaks that you need. So you started thinking.

Yeah.

because that's exactly what happens. The reason why I'm telling you that story is because time goes by so fast, right? When you're planning it, it doesn't seem like it, but if you don't plan it, you start to realize, like it just goes by, you're like, what happened to that quarter? What happened to that year? And you go like, I didn't take a break. It's because you didn't put it in the calendar. So my advice for anybody who needs, who you know who you are, when you need to take a holiday, you know what you need to do is that you need to pencil it in. I don't care if you take it at that week.

Yep.

But you need to say, go, you know what, this week in March, I'm going to pencil it in. You don't have to put in a marker, but go, that's what I'm going to plan. You know what, 90% of the time, you're probably going to take that week. Just because you, now you can't change it, give or take one week or so. But I think that's really important.

Yeah. I think that's really important too because what that does is if you think of it as time is open and it can be savored, it can be spent and cherished or wasted and if you don't have a plan for where you want to direct your focus and attention to the things that are most important to you, it will get taken up by other things and suddenly like you said you're a quarter in and you haven't taken a break because you haven't made it a priority, you haven't... put into play, pull into action, the priority that says that's how it's gonna work. And I've found that we always used to the same thing as well too, is schedule those first, always in advance. Yes, when you've got kids, it's a little bit easy because you go school holidays, yes, we'll do that. I've got some more flexibility now, but the danger of that is that you can get out of that habit, so it has to be deliberate. But what I find is that when I'm... doing those things when I plan my week, when I plan my day. If random events come up, I always refer to my calendar and my diary and go, this sounds great, but I can only do it on Thursday afternoon, not today, because I've got these other things. And that doesn't work out really badly at all. If someone just calls up, unless it's an emergency that someone needs attention, you drop everything. You go, hey, let me help you. But if someone calls up and say, I'd love to have it. a chat or catch up for a cup of coffee. If you don't have an idea of what the most important things you could have missed something that was really important to somebody else to you that day, because you gave priority to the first opportunity that came. And otherwise I've had many situations so I go, love to catch up, but I can't do it today. Let's talk to them in two or three days or a week. We schedule it, you're my priority, I'll get that done. And to me, it does two things. It number one, keeps you focused on the most important things to you. And also for the people who are at the effect of that, they feel special too, particularly if you're busy, if they know that you're choosing them, if you're choosing a task, they know how important they are to you because you're allocating the energy and time to make.

Yeah, these rocks of allocations that you make really allows you to, I think, get excited about things, right. So for me, like, I'm, you know, I'm going to London this weekend, and next month, I'm going to Bath to check out a different university with the family, you know, and then we're gonna go celebrate Kyle's birthday. And then, like, the I already have like this in place of where we were planning to going, that just gets me excited. So which means like, it's not a grind anymore. Like, not nothing that, you know, works that much of a grind, but it's more like have, I get to work and I know I get to play, I get to work and then I get to play. I think that's why it's important because that's what life is about. Like if life is all about work, and it's no fun, and what are you working for? Right? What are you working towards? And I think it doesn't have to be these fancy trips and all that stuff. I'm just talking like, maybe it's a weekend camping, you know, it's a way maybe it's just like, going to, I don't know, a theme park with your kids. I don't know what it is that you guys enjoy. But it's important that you got to find something that you enjoy, right? Something that you look forward to even like

Yep. Yeah.

Sometimes I look at the, you know, as crazy as it sounds, like, you know, my love for the 49ers. I'll literally, when the schedule comes out, you know, I know it's all the way in the States, even in Australia, I'll go, okay, there's the schedule. One of the home games. And am I going to be able to have a chance of making? I could somehow head to San Francisco for a weekend for a game. And trust me, I've been to a game every single year, probably for the last, I don't know, six or seven years, barring COVID years.

Is there a chance? Is there a chance? Yeah.

but I've, you know, I've been to a lot of games and it just so happens somehow, magically, that happens on the weekends that I have to be flying to attend an event. Is it the game that made me attend that event or the other way around? Who knows? No one would ever know and no one would find out.

That's, but how, but Lawrence, how, how interesting is that? Because a couple of times you and I've gone, right, let's, let's get a, an event. And we're running an event later in the year, but we lie our calendars and we go, we've got, I've got, I've got this weekend, that weekend and that weekend. That's it. And we go, Oh, okay. That one. And, but what it means is that we're not hoping for the best and like we've cross referenced it, made sure that all that big rocks are taken care of. You've got the, your teams.

Yes. It's a nightmare!

window open just in case and you that's a block of blackout zone that one there's no one nothing gets into there but it just means that we can honor all those things that are big rocks and when opportunities come like if your team happens to get into the to basically the playoffs you've created the space to make it happen and that doesn't happen accidentally it's deliberate intent yeah

Yeah. Well, that goes to speak to you about when you're planning, you want to plan so that it's tight, but you don't want to plan so tight that there's no flexibility for you to add new things to it. Okay. So that's important, I think is important. Just like my coach always talked to me like, you want to schedule your calendar, like, you know, rigidly put down the big rocks, so that the pebbles and the sand could fall into place. So something you might go, like you said, mentioned, like, hey, there's this new seminar, this speaker is coming through, you're like, Oh, can you make it? It's like, oh, hmm, actually, I probably could, I could probably fit it in there. Because the other things you know the big stuff is already taken care of, you have a free weekend here, right? And so that's why it's so important to do the planning. But if you don't put those things in, though guess what, those big rocks would never happen. If you don't plan it, they're never gonna happen, right? And I think that's why it's so important that your holidays go in there, your big business things, certain big business events. If you're driven by a certain amount of events you do, you wanna plan those events in advance.

Yeah.

If you are in sales or something and you actually have big conventions that you go to, and you know those two conventions you go to every year are gonna give you the biggest sales, you wanna make sure that's in the calendar so you don't book anything else off, right? And these are.

Yeah, commit to those energetically and commit to them in terms of the timeframe, even if you register later, but just block it so that you know, yeah, that's what I need to do. And then you work backwards and you'll, so all those kinds of things is, I agree with you. It's just planning and preparation.

Yeah, like I might target 21 group, you know, we already planned for the next 12 months, we know exactly when our meeting dates are, because we all sat down and aligned all of our calendars, like you can imagine like lining up, you know, you know, a dozen people on a calendar, you know, high, high value clients here and very busy people with travel plans, it was pretty difficult, you know, to kind of go, okay, these Wednesdays, are we going to meet? And then if we need to shift one or two, we've done that. So now it's all in the calendar. So now everything works around it, like energetically, what it does It's it I have to work around those things. You know, Jim said, hey, I'm coming on Wednesday. I'm like, oh, dude, I got this. I gotta run though. Like it's not gonna work. Come the day before, come the day after, maybe, you know.

It's not gonna work. Yeah. We're even in the recording of our podcast too, Lauren. So you're traveling, you traveled last weekend, you're traveling this weekend. I'm traveling tomorrow as well. And so we, for the last couple of weeks where we've done recordings, which we'd normally have our schedule and it's locked in, we've gone, hey, that's not gonna work. Let's shift it to this time. We found a common time and we've committed to that. And it meant that we can keep the momentum going. Because if we didn't, then the wheels fall off and you're out of rhythm and momentum. And suddenly you go. We haven't recorded anything for weeks.

That's right. Exactly. Is it we just move the mountain just slightly one day or so and then to make paint to make it work. So we because it's still a rock for us like recording these podcasts as a rock for us, because we want to maintain the momentum. We want to maintain that the you know, the dialogue so that it's not like three weeks, we missed two weeks. It's like now three weeks apart since we last talk, so much can happen, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. So Lawrence, I think just closing out the real motivation for me in suggesting that we talk about this was to help people highlight what a big rock represents to them. And I can say to you, from an outsider looking in, I got the sense that finding the right school for Kaya and for Christian eventually... and giving them a pathway is a big rock. And it's hitting quite a few of the metrics, travel, connection, family, supporting kids, all those things in one. And I thought it was a beautiful way to segue into what we could talk about today. So thank you for going there and sharing that experience. And hopefully people can see themselves in that experience as well.

You know, and true Wabi Sabi style, the reality is that these are all the plans we like to make, but is it gonna go to perfection? Probably not. And the reality is that we're gonna roll the punches. Like, you know, we're starting two years before even university starts, and people think, are you crazy? I'm like, well, it's like, what's the harm? What's the harm in just taking a look? We've already looked at London for a couple schools, and we're going, but we're making a trip out of it. It's not like we're just only going just for university, like, only going to do that. We're doing it, we're kind of blending the family vacation.

Yeah. Yep.

The experiences because actually going back to the rock. That's what I like. I like experiences We know one of the promises we made to ourselves with their families to not go back if we can help it to the same City or you know that we've already been to you know, because Europe is so open. There's so many things we've seen There's you know, it's so easy to go back. Oh, let's go back to Paris. Let's go back to you know to Milan But if we can help it, we're gonna try to choose something we haven't been to and haven't experienced so that we can actually continue collecting experiences of the family before they're off to university and doing their own thing.

Love it. And that's gonna happen in no time, man. That's just gonna be before you know it. In a blink of an eye, they're there and you suddenly go, where did that go? So.

I know, blink of an eye. Yeah, we're talking about our grandkids going to certain universities.

Correct, correct. So, well, have a great trip.

All right, guys, I hope that was, thank you. And you too have a safe trip there. And guys, as always, this is Wabi Sabi, the art of perfection. Go enjoy your life as we struggle through our infections of the journey. Take care.