What would happen if…

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection. As we go through the life and journey of Jim and Lawrence, as your podcast host, we go through life. Yeah, the life of imperfection. We are highlighting some of the things that go along the way. Jim threw out this great question, and I love to kind of dive into this. I don't really know where this is gonna go, but Jim, I'll let you tee this off and see where this takes us.

as we go through the light. AKA the life of imperfection. Okay, so Lawrence, largely inspired by a lot of the work I've been doing the last couple of weeks, I found a lot of people have gotten into a place or a state of being quite stuck. And by stuck to the point where, yes, there's overwhelm, yes, there's not clear direction of what's next, but not really being able to empower themselves to change the trajectory in and of themselves. So I started, I wanted to bring this out. with you for discussion and that is largely by just asking a question or a thought, we can start changing the whole experience. And so you can quite often see people going down a rabbit hole, once one thought leads to another, it leads to another. But if we can pattern interrupt them and say, okay, hold it for a sec, what would happen if this wasn't true? Or what would happen if this happened? Or what would happen if you change this or that or that? Quite often, it will change the whole experience and the whole way they go about things. So I really wanted to,

Hmm.

expand and deep dive into this because I'm sure we both have experiences working with people even in our own worlds where we have found that By changing one specific thing by one degree we can change the whole thing

on, you know, like, let's start with our own world. Like, I mean, like, how many times can I, can I, you know, list of where the rabbit hole, you know, of, you know, thinking the worst case scenarios, that just gears us and steers us in the wrong direction and decision. I think as you get older, you start to realize these patterns a little bit better. I think that's where wisdom kind of comes into play. I don't actually maybe shouldn't call it wisdom. Maybe just experience. It starts kind of guiding you through these principles. But definitely when you're younger, you, you make

Yeah.

you make up stuff. And the problem with this, though, as well, as we get diving into this, I think the problem with this is that certain personalities and certain characters are more precluded to it, which means like you and I don't know why this happens. But maybe it's either one, it's, you know, the person they're born with this, and that's the character, or two, they have done this for so long, like it's a pattern that maybe their parents have, you know, given them that they've just learned this is the way to think and see the world. So I think of this type of topic, it really comes down to how you see the projection of your world. Like, so all of us, although the world is what we think, right, but the reality is that your world and my world and everybody else's who's listening to this world, it's not the same, right? The colors are slightly probably different, you know, especially if you're colorblind, right? So think of it that perspective, but it's just, it's just that we see it differently. And although we're maybe observing the same thing, we're most likely seeing it slightly different. And that's why our, So how we look at it, it's quite different. So I remember there's a mentor of mine, he was a great speaker and one of the things he said was just imagine, like instead of thinking that the world is coming to you and through your eyes and then through your brain and interpreting it, think of it, and just as an analogy, it's not exactly what happens, but think of the world you see as really more of a projector. And as you're basically projecting the world. And if you see like if you're watching a movie, just say you get watching a movie and there's like a piece of hair on the screen, you know, the tendency is to go up to the screen and try to like scratch it off, right? And start trying to remove the hair. But the reality is nothing to do with the screen because the hair is actually in the projector, right? The hair is right on the lens. And so what you gotta do is actually remove the hair from the projector itself. And so think of it that these, the projector is really your eyes and your filter. The thing that's been, you know, the filter is all, everything, your belief system. in the belief system you have, the belief system your parents have taught you, the belief system your teachers have taught you, the belief system that your friends have taught you, and society and what you consume, that changes that belief system. And so therefore, your projection of the world that you see is slightly different than the person next to you. And so all of a sudden now, we create this pattern, and this pattern is if you don't realize it's happening, you think that this is the truth, and this is actually a reality. And I think this is what you're kind of mentioning, and this is why I feel more, some people are more precluded to it.

Hmm. what you consume that changes the whole thing. Yeah.

than others.

Yeah, well, a classic example of this is when we talk about, and you touched on it earlier about conditioning, and that's definitely one part of it. In the example of anxiety, which is something that in society we're seeing more and more and more of, there's two different types of anxiety. One of it is basically a primal psych of somatic anxiety which is coming from a body where you get an experience and that creates a sense of anxiety. And there's other, the second type is a cognitive form. which fundamentally means that you get a thought and your thoughts then lead you to other thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. And really in these instances, I guess something that made a lot of sense for me years ago was that our minds and our brains are meaning seeking organisms. So effectively what our minds do is they seek to, if you have a thought, and I'm not sure if you just noticed just a moment ago for anybody who's just what.

Did you just think about balloons?

I didn't know I didn't think of balloons. They're the craziest shit happened just a moment ago. Is I was just talking to Lawrence and I put my finger up. I think it's this platform because look at this. If I put one thumbs up, it goes there. But if I put two, the whole background exposed. So I've worked it out. I've cracked the code Lawrence. But for anybody who was watching, I was just sitting here and suddenly all these balloons just came up on our screen. Bizarre thing possible. That's a filter. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Right, well that's the filter, right? So that's exactly what we're kind of talking about, right? So for those people who are listening to this podcast right now, can't see a thing. And so therefore you have no idea what the hell we're talking about. But for those of you actually watching this on YouTube, right, exactly. If you're watching the, you know, Spotify, or you know, on YouTube, you're actually watching this, all of a sudden you see like that thing and it changed the way you, the viewership of that, right? So you changed the video. And that in itself is what we're talking about, because for those people who are only on audio only,

We just think we just got off tangent, I've got off script.

didn't even know what happened, right? But the people who are watching this for the video, he saw what happened. So therefore all of a sudden your experience of this changes completely because of, you know, what you saw and what you're hearing at the same time. And that's exactly what we're talking about that, how the world we see sometimes is clouded with balloons for those people who are like, oh my God, this is amazing. And, or it's like lightning and everything's destruction and you've got a negativity, but everything's so bad and you're looking for all the cracks of this. And this is the purpose of the podcast, right? purpose of the podcast is they, hey, yes, acknowledge the imperfection in life, but also recognizing that there is some benefit from those imperfections that we can see and that's it without we're trying to really shift.

Yeah, that was quite surreal and bizarre. So it set me on a path of just saying, sometimes what happens is something will happen and, uh, an experience will happen. And the meaning you give to the experience becomes the experience is quite often said. So a lot of the times, uh, was circling back to was that if you have an initial thought and let's say it's a, it's either empowering or disempowering belief or an opinion or base belief about yourself.

Mm-hmm.

If you make that proclamation and statement and you put it out there, your brain then will look for references to support that assertion. So if you say to yourself, I am a confident person, it's gonna go through the database of experiences that you've had to look for examples that support that view. But if you go up and say, I'm not a confident person, it's going to list every time that you exhibited less than optimum confidence in that area. So it's kind of... tipping the scales in that direction. So the key is, and I guess that the real essence of what we're talking about today is, what would happen if by virtue of a story, a different belief, a different proclamation, a different direction, you could change the alteration of where things are going in an instant? That's really the essence of what I guess was the sort of the motivation in talking about this today.

The challenge I think for most people, I know is a challenge for me, is that you actually have to have awareness first. Like without awareness that you know, you know, without awareness of that you actually have an issue here, or that your story that you tell yourself is not necessarily correct. That story underlying will actually affect everything that you do and see and how you interpret the world. So you have to be wanting to take the self discipline to

Correct.

really want to work on yourself. And then we this is where proponent we've been talking about a lot since the beginning of this podcast, which is you really have to do some self work. Like I think it's really important for everybody to really self evaluate themselves on a regular basis to check in is this the reality? Is this reality true? And is the things I learned up to this point true? And oftentimes, we just take it for granted, because we're just such an information consuming brain and a body in a human experience, that we're just consuming this information without really thinking about you know, where's this information coming from? And is it true? And it's a shape and how it shapes our ideology and belief system? Is it actually true? We don't really spend the time because there's too much information. And so therefore, the if we don't spend the time to recognize that this could have a creating, this could create an internal bias, and how we see the world, it's very challenging for anybody who will ever want to change or even see the need to change.

Yeah. You highlight beautifully about the awareness and it's so true. I mean, you've used the example before where you're in a bottle and it's very hard to realize you're in a bottle to read the label on the outside because when you're in things, it's really difficult. So I guess a level of awareness in neurolinguistic programming, NLP, they talk about going meta on the situation, meaning like trying to elevate yourself above the situation and or have what's called an observer effect. So if you can... dissociate yourself, you can take yourself out of the situation and look to imagine you're watching you experiencing this thing. What would that experience be? And often it will, it will decrease and down regulate the emotional intensity of things, which will allow you to look at things a bit more rationally. But quite often it will give you a perspective that you wouldn't otherwise have had because you are, you are basically connected to it. So emotionally connected to it. You didn't have the perspective.

Yeah. And I think that the thing that you kind of brought up is the challenging for a lot of people. And I see this in myself, and I see this in other friends and also clients, obviously, is the, it's the how quickly that they can go down that rabbit hole. And I'm not, I'm talking like split seconds here. We're not talking seconds, we're talking like hundreds of a second. And, and it's also the other thing you need to consider is not how quickly they go down that rabbit hole, but it's also how far they go down that rabbit hole.

Yeah, exactly. Mmm.

So what from fear and triggers such an emotional state. You can imagine what's going on. Like for us as being healthcare professionals, we understand biologically what's going on here, right? Biologically, you are going from zero to 100 in terms of cortisol levels and your stress levels and everything just blows out. And you can imagine that happens multiple times a day, right? If that's happening at multiple times, this is disastrous, right? Because you're really kind of firing your adrenals on a regular basis and you wonder why you're tired.

Exactly.

You wonder why you're fatigued when you wonder why you can't make decisions. You wonder why you're scared of the world. Why do you wonder why you feel like the world is collapsing? It's really, really difficult, uh, to kind of navigate through that. And, and the other thing that, you know, that is problematic is that you tend to also search out for evidence to prove it. Right. Cause like you said, our brains kind of like look for meaningful, uh, creates meaning to it and so therefore you watch the news, you watch, you know, uh, YouTube videos, you watch. things to confirm that bias that you have, which only feeds into, right, that adrenal pumping thing that you're looking forward to, and you kind of need more and more of that adrenal, and it really wrecks your sense of viewpoint and sense of the world's, your perception of the world.

Yeah, and you know, same person in two different situations can have a totally different experience and a meaning based on the state that they're in at that time. So if you're feeling quite solid, quite stable, quite grounded in yourself, an experience, something will come up and you'll find the meaning in it that'll be totally different. You'll have a different experience, different representation, probably different response to it. But if you're feeling fear, doubt, uncertainty, which are probably more primal brain or more in stress response. that potentially can take you down a pathway you wouldn't necessarily have had. So I think we can definitely come back to, circle back to some solutions later on, but I think I love that you said an awareness of here's what's going on. I'm noticing now this is taking me down a path. I may not feel, you might notice it in your body, others around you might notice it just, how you're speaking or thinking or the rapidity of your thoughts, those kinds of things, but they're very good clues as to what may be going on for you physiologically that may not be serving.

You know, the perfect example is actually, I just came back from London. So the perfect example is actually what happened during World War II, because during World War II, Germany was bombing the crap out of London, right? I think a million homes lost. Yeah. They bombed about a million homes. Even the Buckingham palace was a bomb. I didn't realize this. And so you can, and the goal of bombing London, you know, by Germany was to not only destroy the building, right? But it's obviously. actually, one of the goals was to try to break the will of the British people. And, but unfortunately, they were not successful. And that's the most surprising thing that came out of the war was that the British people just dealt with it. It gets like, it's almost like, okay, here's another bomb. It's like, okay, you know, sirens are going, let's go down to the shelters, let's go underground. And then they just moved on with our lives, which is unheard of, you know, because most people will be scared and petrified. And, and sure, I'm not saying they weren't, but when you're bombing so much. After a while, you kind of get used to it. And I think this is sort of similar to a story that I've heard in Christ church in New Zealand during those earthquakes. I'm sure devastating, terrible incidents, right? During that earthquake, I know about 10 years ago. Yeah. And, and, and I remember like people were telling me that

Hmm. Not just once, not just once, yeah.

when you know, as an outsider, you just start thinking, oh, like, wow, you know, you've got those earthquakes, you know, several times. They were experiencing an earthquake a day, like, you know, a couple of times a day for months, right? I didn't know that. That was not reported, because you hear the big one, right? But they were feeling tremors almost every day for a long time. Now, I could be, I could have my facts wrong in that, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what those people in the pressure. But to them, they got used to that. Like, you kind of get to a point sometimes when... the tragedy, the things that are happening around you, it becomes such a norm that you have to make a decision. You either scared of it or you just kind of live, you just deal with it and move on. And I think, I'm not saying that's good or bad, I'm just thinking about, you know, the life that we live right now, and I was listening to this podcast, I think it was Joe Rogan, they were talking about how one of the reasons why we kind of live in this decisive society, these people are, you know, the craziness of what we are living in, is that we're living in a society because there's really not, everybody's pretty comfortable, right? There's not really massive hardship for most people, right? So therefore, any little thing becomes a big hardship. And so therefore it becomes like a thing they need to like really kind of fight for. Whereas if you have like barely any food, you know, or you're barely surviving, or like when you live in like really treacherous places and environment, harsh environment, you kind of go... Yeah, like you're not you're not so stressed about your fingernail. You know what I mean? You're not so stressed about ideology because it's like, I'm just barely surviving here. You know, you're not you're not crushing it. And it's an interesting, it's an interesting kind of thought process, right? And the reason why we're able to have these talks and these beliefs and these discussions around all of these topics, because we like, if we take a step back, we live a pretty damn good life. Right? You know, I mean, we most of us live in a great life. We have so much technology, we have so much healthcare, we have peace and maybe there's a bit of war there, but I mean, most of us are safe. And so that's why we can have those things. But without hardship, I think that's what it kind of comes down to, which is hard because when you think about is that we need to put a bit of hardship in our life. It's almost like we need to have some of that hardship to be grateful for the things that we actually have.

Yeah. And I guess, I guess how I'm interpreting this as well to Lawrence from perspective of gratitude is what if things were worse or what if things are better or what if I was in this situation rather than the safety of where I am? What if, what if, what if can, can really be a powerful tool. It can be a negative. If you, it's kind of like a stallion that's not reined in. If you don't rain that in, it'll basically just. go anywhere, right? But breaking a horse in is fundamentally being able to get control over the horse itself. And it's the same thing with our thoughts, is that if you don't allow the thoughts to be so wild, you can rein them in, you can direct them in terms of where they need to go by just leading questions, leading statements, directing your mind into areas that you wanna go, but then also having perspective and contrast and comparing it to, you know, what would happen if I was five and this was difficult or what would happen? And it prepares you for contingencies and situations where you're prepared in advance because you've thought about all those things. And it's not designed to alarm you and go, this could happen or this could happen. But the power in being able to do that is if you can come up with multiple pathways and strategies and you've prepared for those in advance, when you are subjected to something that is potentially stressful, You can default to whichever pathway. You can run the play effortlessly and without having to think about it because you've done it so many times, you're comfortable. Hmm. Mmm.

Yeah, you're tries to find that meaning and justify that meaning. But in order for you to question that you're wrong, every part of your body will say, no, I'm not wrong. No one will actually will ever admit to that wrong, right? Everybody's gonna say I'm right. And so therefore it's really challenging to go, what if I'm wrong? How would I interpret this differently? How would I see the world differently? How would I act differently? And I think we don't do enough of that, right? And then this is the problem in our world, I think, is that we're not having enough, we're not having enough viewpoints from the other side. And we're not because we're not having intellectual debates and conversations because we get shut down immediately And get canceled before anything ever gets spoken. It's almost like we just throw words into Discussions rather than actually having a discussion and I don't think that that's great for society when we can't have discussions on topics Because without that we never see the other side We only are going to dig our heels in on the same side that we always believed in

Yep.

and we would continue to dig and dig and dig. And then all of a sudden now you're in a position where you can't now not take something back because now you make yourself wrong. And none of us wanna make ourselves wrong. And that creates a really, really challenging problem. And these are strongly held beliefs in your mind. And the stronger they are, the longer you hold them for and the challenges that most likely you're not gonna change your mind.

Yeah. And that's a, that's a great point you raise Lawrence, because it's quite often they've said, you know, cognitive dissonance is the ability to have two opposing views in your mind at the same time and being able to look at things from another perspective. And the thing about dogma is that you only think one way and that's it. That's like, I'm not even considering the possibility of something else, but you know, like you and I have seen that so many times where we're coaching someone and perhaps it's just in, even in in their business and they've done things in a particular pathway, in a particular strategy, have gone a particular route. And you just ask them, well, what would happen if you did things differently? What would happen if you turned left instead of right? I don't know. And they've gone, I've always done this way. It's like, okay, great, awesome. Well, I get that has always been what you have done. And that by extension has been why you're getting the kind of outcomes and results and the effects you have now. But... If you're open to the possibility of doing something different, what would happen if you did something this way? Are you open to it? And that really is, it's not trying to make someone wrong. It's trying to keep them in a safe place because the natural thing that I have found is if you see something that someone is doing, telling them that that's not correct isn't always greatly appreciated. It's allowing them to have the awareness that hey, there could be another way. And leading them to that answer, that's the essence and fundamentals of coaching, right? Where people can get their whole perspectives and understand that. However, if you can open them up to another way of thinking that may be more effective and efficient, that could really change their world and transform whatever problem they're experiencing because they felt safe enough, but then open enough to try something new.

The challenge of course is that the person actually has to want to see that side. So we already talked about awareness, but they also have to catch it in the act. Meaning like you have to have the awareness that this is happening and then you have to catch it enough. And remember the momentum there is really strong, right? The momentum is that you're going in that direction every single time towards that negativity or, or the least, uh, you know, going down that rabbit hole and you have to stop mid

Mmm. Yeah. Hmm.

mid-break, which is members, a split of a second to go, whoa, wait a second here. Like, do I have to go extreme here? Do I have to catastrophize everything? And that's really hard because you, even by the time you actually say it and pause, you're already down that rabbit hole about three quarters of the way. And so I think that that's the challenge most people have is not just awareness, but is actually catching yourself in the act.

Yeah, and sometimes this is what I found too. And this is why they do this a lot in executive coaching for like CEOs and high-level organizations where they have what's the 360 degree feedback model where you're getting it from every perspective. A coach will look at not only just the person, but they'll get the perspective from their employer. They might get there from their team. They might get there from their family, et cetera, et cetera. So suddenly, how you're gonna be at home may be different to how you are at work. And how you're showing up one way may be different to the other. It may be that how you do one thing is how you do all things. But a lot of the times, being open enough and transparent enough, and as you said, being prepared to, I guess, illuminate that, hey, I want to have a look at this. I can't see my blind spots. I may be acting by default in something that is just automatic. So I don't even see it. And that to me has been the big, the, the biggest one, certainly in my case, where I thought I'm behaving one particular way, but then I realized, holy smoke, this has revealed something to me that I didn't even realize. And sometimes it's an experience. Yes, it can be words and perspective, but sometimes if you, that's why I love experiential learning, because it gives you an experience. You see what your default response is, and then you actually can. break it down, dissect it and integrate that learning because you've got an emotion and a learning fuse at the same time.

And I think it's a good reminder for people that, you know, when you get feedback like this, it's not always negative. It's sometimes actually, these feedback can be very positive because you might be getting an experience and I've had many times where the experiences that, or how I'm behaving or the perception of me is not what I expected in a good way. Like I thought that people thought me of X, but they actually see me as Y, or they see me in a different light than I thought or imagined myself. And when you're able to be, if you're open to that interpretation, that feedback, then you're able to kind of really learn from you know, maybe leaning into something that you already naturally gifted at, for example. So for example, if you're a really good speaker, but you don't think you are, and all of a sudden people keep on telling you, and if you actually listen to that, it goes, well, oh man, if I am a really good speaker, and I don't think so, but if everybody says I am, then what if I actually leaned into that? Which is already what you already naturally do, so therefore it actually becomes more natural, and that could be really helpful, versus about, you know, you trying to course correct and change something with you, right?

Yep.

I think the other thing too, as well, that I think, you know, going back to the 360 feedback, the challenge of course though is, will people really tell you the truth? Right? And I mean that when you're assuming that the feedback you're getting is the actual truth of how they really feel about you. And I found that most reality is that most people, most people, I don't say all, but most people wouldn't necessarily tell you the truth because they're just nice people, right? They're nice people. They would never really say, the negative things that they might say behind your back. And so we gotta be cautious about some of those feedbacks because this feedback may or may not be the actual feedback that you're supposed to be getting. And so I think we gotta be cautious with that too as well because that feedback may be a filtered feedback because they're on the other side. And this is, they're on the other side is thinking, well, as a human being, I don't wanna be nasty and he or she is my boss. So I wanna make sure I say, the nicest negative feedback I can give to that person. So I think what I mean by that is like, we have to, this is where you really have to be self-reflective, right? You gotta know with yourself and going, is this really true or is there deeper meaning or is there deeper things that I need to kind of look into, which is very difficult to do.

Thanks. Mmm. Yeah, you're right. I think that the biggest impact that I've noticed is that when I've worked on that for myself and I have supported people to ask that question of themselves, as opposed to me pointing it out to them, it's more and more impactful. So, you know, I've used that as an examples where I've said to someone and even to myself, Hey, if my natural default is to hold back in these situations, what would happen if I step forward? What would happen if, and I made, it's interesting because I made that declaration when I moved to Spain, is there were certain things that I went, okay, here's how I've always done this. What would happen if I turn up in Spain and I show up as a elevated, more expansive version of myself, what would happen there? And as a result, I've seen different outcomes that I may not have had before because of the previous version of myself, the gym 1.0 version had a particular response or reaction. And to me, I think this is where I'm going with this is if you have an identity upgrade by virtue of asking yourself some questions, you will show up differently. And by virtue of that, that may have different outcomes. And, but it's about, I think it's, I've mentioned it before when Brendan Bouchard always says that for things to change, something either has to come into your life or something has to come out of you. And sometimes this coming out of you is a self reflection to ask yourself, what would happen if I did life differently? I showed up differently. I asked better questions. I started exercising. I started re all those kinds of things that could lead to parts of improved.

Hmm Well, it's funny because I had the same experience. Like when I first moved to Portugal, I remember Karen and I really had to make an effort and we made a commitment to ourselves that we're going to do this differently, you know, compared to what we did in Sydney. And the difference is that in Sydney, like we didn't really go out of our way to go meet people. We didn't go out of our way to, uh, engage in the community. We just hope that it would naturally happen. Now, barring that though, at the same time, our kids were young, you know, they were you know, five years old and three, two years old or something. So we were at a different stage of our life, but now we just going, we don't know a single soul here and it is important for us to say yes, then versus the amount of nos that we say, you know, and we have to get past, um, being uncomfortable in social situations. Or, and, and we don't tend to like say yes to, you know, parties or invitations to barbecues and they, and we, and I recognize that the you know, not that people didn't ever, not that many people offered it to us, mostly because we said no enough times, they probably don't bother. And so therefore, so we gotta be very cautious at saying we have to say yes to more things. And we were very intentional in that first year. And sure enough, like, you know, like this is the same question, like what would happen if we did say yes? And we, you know, obviously got more invites, we met more people, funny enough, right? And you're more connected and more people know us. And You know, I met more friends and connections here than I had, you know, in six months than I ever had in eight years in Sydney. Why? Not because one was better than the other, it was because I opened up or we opened up. So therefore we engaged more. And yes, is it difficult? Hell yeah, it's difficult. You know, is it challenging? Yeah, because we're both introverts. And so therefore it's like, you don't want to take every invitation, but you know, by saying no to this, you know, you're closing a door that you don't know what door you're closing, like three doors ahead, right?

Hmm. Hmm. Mmm. Mmm.

And so you have to open up to the opportunity, then be discerning later once you kind of figure it out, you know, whether you resonate with these people a lot. It's almost like dating, right? It's almost like you've got to figure it out over time. You can't just assume on the first date that you're going to marry this person. So oftentimes it takes a bit of time. And so I think this is sort of that same scenario. Like what would happen if we said yes? And that's the thing, you know, now I run a paddle club of like, you know, close to 500 members, you know, and you know, I, you know.

Yep.

I got into situations and opportunities and networks that I never thought I would have if I didn't make an intention of meeting certain people and sticking around and saying hi to people. And yes, it's time consuming. Yes, it's, um, you know, it takes effort. Yes, you have to get uncomfortable, but all of those things, though, it's easier to say no, especially when you're older. Right. Um, and I would encourage anybody who's listening, like who's in their twenties, you got to say yes to more things.

Yep.

than anybody else. Like your 20s, you're supposed to figure it out, right? And you know, I had to become like that 20 year old again. I had to, you know, like almost like going to university the first time. It's like, because we changed, like when I went to university, similar thing I would imagine for you is almost like, no one knows me here, right? I could become whoever I want. And that's exactly what I said to myself. Like, no one knows me in Portugal, you know? Sure, you know, there's a social media thing, whatever, people know me to a certain extent, but I go, but no one knows me who I am. And most of my friends here,

Mm. Yep. Mmm. Hmm.

don't have social, they don't have my social media friends, right, most of them are actually not on social media. And we don't engage that way. So all they know is what they see and hear from me every day versus like the people who know me here on this podcast probably see me on social, so you know and hear me from based on my social. So you have a certain bias and a certain perception of who I am. And, you know, I remember as an example, I was a paddle terminator organized and you know, I was doing some presentations. I was like, you know, I was presenting all day.

Yes. Yep.

you know, the awards and everything. And someone came to me and was like, what are you, do you work on like news or something? Like you're so confident on the stage in front of these, you know, 32 people. I'm thinking 32 people, that's nothing. I can't believe you said that. Thousands of people, like, what are you talking about? But then, exactly, but you know, for me, I remembered at that point, it was like, yeah, but they have no clue because they don't know that part of my life. Because we don't engage in that. We don't talk about work per se. Or, you know, that's not part of the, their only know is through the one-on-one conversations. You know.

Hundreds and hundreds and thousands.

that they have, so they never knew that part of me. So I find that interesting, because it's like, it's just, you're sharing, you have different parts of your life. It's kind of cool to be able to see that.

Yeah. Well, it's beautiful that you've said, you know, like, because you effectively within the period of time that you've been in Portugal, you started saying, yes, you reminded me of Jim Carey and yes, man, who just opened up and said, right for the next bit, I'm just going to say yes to everything, right? And that's all cool. But, but conversely too, like I see the other, the other thing you touched on briefly where what would happen if you started saying no to things and started saying no to things that were obligations, that were defaults, that were habits, that were

Mmm.

I remember years ago in the lead up to Christmas, it's such a frenetic time that everybody, you don't see someone for 11 and a half months and yet there's this expectation that we're all gonna catch up before Christmas. And it's like, hang on a sec, man, this is ridiculous. This is crazy. There's only so much time. There's so many meals that we can have before Christmas. What would happen if we just caught up afterwards? Is that okay? And we started doing that. And because we were finding our lead up to Christmas was just chaotic. And we just said, look, what would happen if we started saying no to things and started scheduling them after Christmas, after new year, and a lot of people said, actually, that's a really great idea. Let's do that when things are less hectic. That's all it took. And by virtue of being prepared to do that, you sometimes, you know, you're going to feel like you're rejecting people or rejecting situations, et cetera, but you're just coming up to situations that suit you better. And that potentially can, you know, take some of the rocks out of your backpack and make life so much simpler because you're just prepared to ask something and just say no and simplify as opposed to create more complexity.

You know, thanks for the contrast, because I think that's what's important. Like I wanted people, you know, I'm thanking you for that because I think, I don't want people to take away as like, yes, say yes to everything. Hell no, like no, that's not what I'm saying. It's because the question is, what if I said yes to everything? And you basically threw in, what if it happens if I said no to things? And I think this is the contrast that you need to have, but it's very different for everybody in a different situation, different age, different circumstances, different environment, but you gotta apply the right question in the right context. And I think that's what we're trying to talk about, right? Because the right context is what's so important as being applied.

Yeah, and because I found in life too, we're either contracting or we're expanding. And that's a condition you continue. You contract when you're wanting to be safe and you wanna close in everything and things are getting hard and you're expanding when you're growing. And I think a really important thing is, I've seen this a lot and I guess part of the motivation today was talking to people who've been hurt in relationships. And the natural default is to actually start generalizing about people.

Hmm.

all men this or women that. And as a result of that, you're starting to close yourself off to the experience and the possibility that there could be someone out there. And all these people that I know who by virtue of business they've been bankrupted. And as a result, now they've got an experience that has jarred them or scarred them. So they're not prepared to try that again. And this whole, what would happen if you... could open your heart a little bit more. What could happen if you tried one more time? What would happen if you learned from this experience? It doesn't define you, but you use this as tool to help you get better, more efficient, et cetera. That can totally revolutionize people's life and world. And to me, particularly when you're closing yourself up to life and possibility, it's like you're basically saying, that's as good as it'll ever get. And I don't believe that to be true.

Hmm. Yeah, we can probably rant off about how different questions and we should maybe do that. I would say, what would happen if you're not a special snowflake? What would happen if the world doesn't revolve around you? But on contrast, what if happens if you are an impactful person and you actually can create value for people? What happens if your skillsets and your experience in your life...

Yeah. Yeah.

is the only, you're the only person who can deliver on that. And what if you actually share that to the world and how would that change? How would you act differently? So I think there's these types of questions are so important because you can just based on what I just said there, I could give you three or four different kinds of questions. And all of a sudden, each one of them would have led you to feel something different. And I think that's the beauty of it. And this is what we're talking about. If you are able to literally change your emotion and how you feel and how you approach things just by

Yep.

Asking a question? Man, shouldn't you be asking a question to start the day, every single day? Because that could literally change how you perceive the world.

I'll give you an example, Lawrence. And this is one that you've shared. You shared your story a few, quite a few episodes ago about your 49ers. And so, uh, I don't run you, yeah. We're only by this. So I was, I'm going to ask you, you know, a series of questions with the 49ers as the theme, right. And just to show that the meaning you put on the experience becomes experience. So what would happen if the 49ers are in the next five Super Bowls?

Hmm. Oh, it was the most incredible experience in the world. Yeah.

Okay, okay. What would happen if they went bankrupted and couldn't basically play anymore?

Oh man, that was mostly a depressing moment of my life. Like I was just like not being able to watch that, watch my team play. Yeah, that's, that would be a heartbreak.

Yeah. What would happen if they merged with another club? Who is the team that you despise the most? Okay. So, so that's, you know, just, I know we're being silly about that, but it shows you the what would happen ifs and how impactful you had three different experiences and three different thoughts from euphoria to no over my dead body to man. That'd be, and so it shows you the power.

That's not gonna happen. Ha ha ha. Yeah, of course. Yes.

and the capacity to be able to change something in an instant if you have the awareness in self and the skills and tools to guide yourself. And it's really, really difficult to change that trajectory. And I remember, you know, a lot of great coaches, Tony Robbins always use this, whenever you're in the thick of the hardest, most challenging situation, John Demartini, one of our mentors as well, I say that as well, is ask yourself a question, what's great about this? And the natural default initial will be like nothing. It's like, okay, yeah, but what could be great about this? Maybe not right now, but in a week, a month, a year, what could be great about this? And that gives a different experience and a meaning that can totally change that all around. I don't wanna see your 49ers go, all right, so just, I don't wanna tempt fate, but it was just to show you how quickly you can change in an instant.

You know it. Well, I'm turning 49 in a couple of days and it's the year. I'm finally gonna be a 49er for one full year. No, so you raised a really interesting point and I wanna kind of address it. So like, I know we're kind of poking fun at this, but the reality is how many times, like I've gone through this many times so I can use me as an excuse, but just the recent Super Bowl and many other Super Bowl losses we've ever had in the last five to six years, our last 10 years.

It's your year, it's going to happen.

which we've never won, I always ask myself, what if, what would happen if they caught that ball? What if that didn't happen? Like what if, you know, they just didn't muff that field goal kick? Like all of these things would have changed the trajectory of that game. But the thing is what I wanna highlight here is because I have those thoughts and it's so frustrating. And it's like eats at me and you start to, and the worst case about it, I didn't even play in the game. Right? I didn't do anything to do this. And yet I'm so like heartbroken or like feeling, I don't know, I'm not depressed or it's just like down about it. And he's just like frustrated and all these emotions kind of come out on something. One, I had no influence on. Two, I can't go back and change time. Like, it's not like I can go reverse it. It's already happened. But yet it still affects me, my inner emotion and how I approach things. Now use that same thing to something that is really happening in your real life.

Okay.

Right? And the question you're always throwing, most of us kind of throw, I say, what if happened if I didn't go through that door? What if it happened if I didn't meet this person? Or what happened if I did? And you stew on that and that alternate reality. But the reality is, like, I had to really kind of go back to this, you have to get to this point of going, but it didn't happen. So therefore, like, how long am I gonna hold on to this thought of this alternate reality?

Mmm.

you know, before I really kind of start to talk to like, it's like, I can try to create and live in this alternate reality of what ifs, but it never did happen. So therefore, like, one, let's get back to reality here on the thing that actually happened. And and just move on from it rather than wishing that I didn't go through that sliding door moment, which we had a conversation.

Yeah, good point because we talked about the, what would happen if in an empowering way, but if you're finding that your thoughts are running away from you, there's gonna be a level, we talked about awareness before, but I think there's also has to be a point of acceptance to go, it happened. It is, I could have water shooter, all these things are great, but I will drive myself to distraction if I just keep focusing on things that are outside of the control. It happened, I've learned from that, what if that'll be?

Yes.

A lot of the work that I've done in the past is about getting to a point of acceptance and appreciation, not appreciation of something happening, for example. Let's just say it's traumatic, but it's an appreciation of what you've learned and who you've become as a result of that experience. So rather than be bound by the trauma of a story or an experience, what you can do to transcend that is to actually get to acceptance, appreciation. of who you have become or learnt from that and how you've evolved as a person. And that quite often can help you move forward where otherwise you might be trapped in your old story.

Yeah, acceptance is really difficult. And I don't want to minimize this that you can just go easily accept things. I'm not saying that at all. Like sometimes acceptance takes years. But all I'm saying is that the sooner the quicker or you to kind of find peace in that acceptance will help you move on. Living the real world of how then you can actually use it for good. I'm sure all of us can share stories of how

Mmm. Yeah.

we wish certain things didn't happen in our lives. But at the same time, you know, what you said about Demartini talks about is like, what good can come out of it? And the answer for those tragic things, there is the immediate response is nothing. Like how can anything good come out of it? But you can choose to live a life where you choose to believe that nothing good came out of something bad, or you can choose to live a life to find things that was actually good, even though it was painful. but you can try to choose things that can maybe shift and shape the rest of your life. Those are two different alternate realities you can live and that moment of decision happens every single day. Like you literally have a choice every day to either carry on this what if scenario or you can choose to accept that it actually happened and go, how can I learn from it so that I can grow and empower others by accepting, by being accepting of. the situation. That's very difficult, right? When especially when it comes to a death in the family, someone younger, maybe or tragedy in the family, which we all have experienced. And or most of us experience and it's hard. It's hardship. It's painful.

Yeah. Yep. So, you know, in those situations, really, that's right, there has to be an appropriate time for mourning, for going through that. You never quite, it's not a case of get over it. It's a case of just accepting that, you know, in those situations that person is no longer here or this has now gone that was previously there and the great moments as opposed to the pain. Yeah, I don't, I can't reference that. Yes, I've lost parents. You know, I know you've spoken about your losses as well too. So we don't get to like this, it's not like you just flippantly go great, move on next. It's really a case of going through an appropriate process of mourning and cycling through it. But the point at which things start to change is when you start reconciling those bits. Whenever that is right for you, whenever you start being able to accept, start to appreciate, start to, I guess, they're the tools and the metrics to gauge how it'll happen. What we don't necessarily have control over is the timeline of that. And that varies with different people and depending on the severity of what they've gone through.

I remember, you know, it kind of reminds me of the story where we were, when I was doing the Wellness Guys podcast and there was this listener that was listening to us. And they sent us, you know, they were big fans, the mother and the mother I think encouraged the kids to listen to us. And out of the blue, I can't, I think it was the brother, like the son or the mom reached out to us and just said, you know, I just wanted to let you know, like, you know, your podcasts was empowering and just very helpful through life. But it's especially during our tough time because our daughter just died in a car crash. I think she was 18 or 20 years old, very young. And Richardson is the last name there. And she died because she was texting and driving. And it was tragic. It was brutal. This is early days. This is one of the early, early days of the wellness guys. And... I mean, I didn't know this family, but it was just like, it was heartbreak to just even receive this. And, um, but that mother went on to, to form an organization to try to get the message out. She took the pain of losing her daughter, which is, man, I just don't want that to ever happen, but I know it does. Uh, it's so tragic to lose someone, you know, that you're, you're kids. Uh, it's just, it's just heartbreaking. But yet, yeah, it's so hard, right. And, but she took that pain, you know,

I can't imagine it, yeah.

Um, and changed it to, so for something good, you know, she, she created campaign and organization to try to encourage teenagers, uh, a campaign to don't text and drive. And I think that, you know, that was, I believe that's in Victoria. And I remember actually, you know, acknowledging that on a, on stage at the wellness summit once. And she came over and, you know, and, and she, you know, said hi to me. And it was just awesome. It was such a grateful experience, uh, to, to actually finally meet her in person several years later. And she looked awesome. She was great. You know, it just, and her, you know, I still hear from her once in a while on Facebook and it's, that's what I mean. It's like the ability, of course it doesn't take the pain away. Right. I'm not saying that it's supposed to, it's not like you forget, you know, I still remember it's still feel the pain for her. And you know, I didn't even know this person at the beginning until she mentioned it, but I can understand and empathize as a parent on what that might feel like. And the thing is, is that she took that pain and did something good with it. And that's what I mean, well, I think that's what we mean by acceptance. Acceptance doesn't mean that you forget. Acceptance means that it's happened. I can't go back and change it, but how can I move on and learn from it so that I, my life, the rest of my life is, um, in a way that's productive to society.

Yeah. And, and the, you know, that, that's such a heartbreaking story. And I guess the context of that would be someone saying, I can't imagine what that's like for you right now. What, what would happen if you could use that hurt to create a change so that no one ever experiences what you're experiencing, that can be a force and a movement, which quite often is for people to create phenomenal pathways. for change that helps general society through a lot of the difficulties and pain someone individually may feel.

And she would never know the amount of kids she saved. Right. And that's the that's the point. Like it's not it's but she didn't do it for that reason. Right. She just felt empowered to do something about it. And I think that's we all have that ability to make a change.

Yeah. Hmm. to do that. Yeah, Lawrence, there's so many directions that this could go. I initially was bringing it to the perspective of just people being stuck, but we can see there's so many tributaries and so many pathways and so many offshoots that this could go, that it's probably a great tool and a reference to refer back to whenever you find that you're kind of stuck in a situation or a story and you can't necessarily see a perspective. Just asking yourself that question may really be helpful to direct your thoughts and minds in a different pathway for you.

Yeah, well, I quickly summarized, I think three things I think might be helpful. And, and, you know, we kind of use these words. I didn't use the last one, but let's kind of tee it up. Number one is having awareness, having awareness of, you know, that you're going through something like that, or how are you seeing the world? Um, that's the first step to, to do anything. And then I think we talked about acceptance. I think that I like that too, acceptance of, you know, creating an accepted moment of the questions you ask yourself to recognize to move forward. And then I think lastly is that we didn't kind of hint at it. And we talked about it. It's actually a lining. like aligning your thoughts to something that is actually productive towards where you actually wanna go, you know, to a better purpose in life, but aligning better to where you wanna grow, rather than aligning your thoughts towards something that's destructive and actually see the world in a more negative way. I think we need, in this world, we need more positivity. I think we need to see the commonalities amongst human beings and the acceptance of each other and also, you know, having better conversations rather than constantly fighting. against each other. I think that if we can get to that place by simply by you asking a question to start the day and changing your mood, we already demonstrate through this podcast. I think that could go a long way of seeing the world into such a different light. So I hope that's been helpful for you and please, you know, share this podcast if you feel like someone who's been going through some stuff or they might need a shift. This might be a good podcast for them to listen to. So this is Jim and I on the WabiSabi podcast on the art of imperfection. We'll see you

Yep.

next episode.