Another Move

Welcome to Wabi Sami, the art of imperfection. This podcast, Jim, we started this long time ago with the simple idea. And the simple idea was inspired by us taking the leap and making the move from Australia to Europe. And it's turned into this podcast of us chatting, talking away about how we navigated or how the thoughts of navigating through life.

Yep.

Um, as a backdrop to our move and the navigating through life and all the pluses and minuses of things that go on where how it's never perfect. So I'm bringing this up because here we are again, and we have a special announcement and we can finally talk about it. We've been holding off holding off, but so now we can finally talk about, so I'm going to hand the mic to you, Jim. Uh, you want to let our listeners know what's going

Yeah. Sure, Lawrence. And I want to apologize if it's sounding any echo -y today on my end, kind of like the first early days of when we started recording. It's because my room here, my office, aka the recording studio on my part, is very empty. I've packed my books and a whole lot of things are in my book, in my room, I should say, because we're moving and moving internationally again. Not back to Australia, which a lot of people may initially have thought was the case, but we're moving to Edinburgh in Scotland. you know, amazing, warm, beautiful weather is overrated apparently. So we are moving to Edinburgh to Scotland just to even it all out, just so that you don't get too complacent and comfortable in magnificent.

Ha Well, you're known for the man who does hard things and always talks about, you know, it's important to do hard things. I got to say, I was just in Edinburgh like literally five days ago and it's summertime. So that this time recording is actually in the middle of summer is the end of July and, uh, man, oh man, I got to say I was not, I left the country in t -shirts and shorts at about 23, 25 degrees to go to a country where I was in jeans, jumper and a jacket.

Yeah.

and an umbrella in the middle of summer.

Yep. Yeah. I was reading a statistic today that said that this is the wettest and coldest summer that the UK has had in 24 years. And someone who we both know posted that and I went, you be what a great time to be moving to the UK. So, yeah. So, know, it's all funny jokes aside. We'll unravel this and cause there's been a lot of learning, you know, like two years ago, two and a bit years ago.

Yup, I saw that too.

we moved and two and a half probably closer to you, we moved. But the machinations and the decisions and the process of moving this time was different two and a half years ago. So it's in a lot of ways a lot simpler, a lot simpler. So I definitely can reflect some of the learnings there because sometimes you do things and it's really difficult and then you get another opportunity to do that. And you take the learnings and you can condense that process so much faster you look at it and go, well, what was the big deal the first time around? really for us, the catalyst for moving was not dissatisfaction. to be honest, I love living in Spain. I love it. I love the lifestyle. But my wife, my beautiful wife, was offered a role to help run the program at Scotland College of Chiropractic. this was the catalyst for us coming to Barcelona in the first place. So a lot of people, because we didn't really, we talked about the move, but there weren't a lot of times where I really spoke about the role that Bettina was doing. Also, because I was on gag order too, like she said, listen, please don't talk about this a lot. So talk about Spain without saying what I'm doing specifically. So I dodged danced around the whole issue, but fundamentally we came here, she came in and took over a senior role at Barcelona College of Chiropractic. And the plan was to, the succession plan, to invariably end up being part of running the school. Now things didn't work out that way. And, you know, there was a tough decision Bettina had to make to step aside and walk away from that role because it wasn't a lot of how she thought it would be. So. That was for her, that was probably one of the toughest decisions she's ever made. And to leave something that we literally were all in for from relocating, was the sole major reason for us moving was to live a legacy and for her to do that. And I was able to incorporate and do that. So yeah, that was the reason why. And when she stepped away 12 months ago from that role, it was really, really difficult. So effectively she set of education for 12 months. And in the interim, there were rumblings on their opportunities or discussions about her possibly being recruited and headhunted for Scotland. Now, I remember talking to you about this, Lawrence, way before, you know, about October sometime, I said to her, there may be a change. And from that time, we've actually been going through the process and the machinations. And the only official announcement It really only happened about four weeks ago, but we only found out about five weeks ago. So in that time, we were holding space, we were waiting, we knew what our objective was, we knew when we were going back to Melbourne or back to Australia specifically, we just had to wait and wait for the opportunity to present itself and go through the process that we had to. pretty much the majority of things except for one final thing, which is just waiting on the visa to come through to allow us to move forward. Pretty much everything else has been done. we move out of our apartment in two days, hence the echo -y sound. We move into an Airbnb, we're doing a Lawrence trick for a while. And hopefully it's nowhere near as long as you were in Airbnb, Lawrence, because that's really... No, we did the same thing when we moved to Spain.

God, I hope not,

In an Airbnb, we thought it would just be for a week. It ended up being three weeks. So it's just one of those things that we have to control the controllables, do everything that we can to get us into position to be ready. we are effectively, the moment we get the visa approval, we can be very nimble and we can be gone very quickly. So, yeah, that's the short story. I'm sure there's plenty of threads and questions and learnings that you can extract out of that we can certainly discuss as

Yeah, you know, like one of first thing I highlight is, you know, it's, uh, it's your story around your mindset. And I think this is a, probably a good time to kind of bring in some of that, that the mindset, you know, that you have that we've been talking a lot about just in different ways. And the mindset is that you, know, you can just listen to Jim's story. There was no ever, ever any sayings of looking back and, know, uh, of any regret and, and, and that's some people sort of think of that, like, oh, you know, that's easy to do or that's because it's gym or, but I don't think so. I think it's something that's a learned response that it takes a long time for someone to really have really, I guess, shape their mind or thinking to kind of look forward and not look back. You can't change the past when you're looking forward. And so what I mean by that, the perfect example is that, you you're moving another time in two years and not just like a move. we're talking, you know, most people's move is like going from one house to another. We're talking about a move to a different country and requires different visas because it's no longer a part of the EU. And there's a lot of different things here. And you know, what's interesting to me is that you can see this and I know you didn't say this, which is the first move, the first move to Spain, although it didn't work out in a way in not in everything, but it worked. It kind of allowed this second move to actually happen. Like if you didn't move the first time, the second move may not have happened. And this is where I think it's important for when when we make decisions is that we think that the decision is like the world's decision, right? Like this is like, man, this is the only decision we're gonna need to make and it's gonna be a defining moment. And there are defining moments in life for sure. I'm not arguing with that, but really moving to Spain was the first decision of another decision in hindsight, right? And who knows like in two years time or three years or five years time, we might look back and go, man, like, with it's pain, without it's calling, and this other move or decision may not have happened and which opened another door. And so oftentimes I think we need to think past the first decision. Gotta understand and respect that it's probably the decisions afterwards that this first decision allowed us to make is what created that. And I think that's so important. I want to make one more point, which is I think there are certain decisions in life that are super important that if you make a wrong choice,

Yeah.

It does change, but there's not that many. I think one of them would be choosing your spouse, right? So choosing your spouse is definitely one important decision that you don't want to just jump into. like, ah, let's just give this a go, right? Like it's because that decision could really change the trajectory of your life. And you know, there's other ones, but I think those like, I just want to kind of point out the fact of decision -making here and how it leads to other decisions.

Yep. Yeah, you're right. think that the thing that I took out of what you said, it was very well articulated actually, was that the bigness of the move to Spain made the move that we're making now seem quite simple. It's like, it's not the other side of the world. I'm moving to a country that, you know, I've had a lot of people joke and say, listen, you'll have to change your Duolingo language from Spanish to Scottish, but at least it's English speaking, you know, and, It's given me some context and you'll have to adapt, but you know, I mean, I'm really clear on what we became here in the first place. So a couple of really big things that led to this. know, you talk about freedom a lot with a lot of people you coach. We ultimately had the freedom to choose. So if we weren't financially free or, or in a position where we could do that, but Tina would have been bound by that role. Right. And so she would have had to stay if it wasn't right. she could make a decision to go, listen, this is not right for me. This is not right. I'm not moving the needle the way I wanted to, I'm out. if we, so we did a couple of things, which in hindsight were really, really well strategic. So we didn't seek sponsorship to come to Spain, meaning that if you seek a role in a country, and this is really relevant for a lot of people who perhaps, are considering working overseas. We explored a lot of the options and went the difficult route to get my Greek passport, which I've spoken about before. We looked at a golden visa. We looked at all options because if Bettina, let's say, didn't like the role or things didn't work out, she was terminated in a role, we have to buy obligation and leave the country because you're sponsored and you come in. So we did it the other way around, which was engaged immigration lawyers and helped us. And we got my Greek passport. So I'm an EU citizen. So effectively I can live anywhere in the EU, basically. Haven't let go of Australian passport. So effectively to go forward and to be daring and brave, we had our basically our contingencies taken care of, our backstop. Like you always said, hey, I can always go back if that's what I want. Right. We took care of that and had made sure of that. And so we could sit it out. probably a bit of the story that I haven't shared was we weren't waiting. We weren't hinging everything on this movement in Scotland. We were like, listen, we've got a really great life here. Do we double down on the direction that we're already going or do you really want this role? Is this so big a legacy piece for you that you want to put everything into it? But then I had some big conversations, discussions as she said, I really want to pursue this. This is really important to me. was like, okay, let's do that. And we then went all in again on that process because I had a view I'd rather be disappointed with not succeeding than to be disappointed in not going all in. And we could deal with rejection if that wasn't going to be the case. And she had to go through a panel, an extensive panel, extensive interview process, had to pass. We had to go and sit. set of exams in the UK, Tina wanted to do it, had to do it. She thought, hey, what do you think about doing it as well? I went, sure. I've got nothing more to do than sit more board exams. But I did that as well. it was intentional, Lawrence. think it was like, it wasn't just we stumbled across it. We decided that, okay, if we're going to do this, we have to once again go all in no

Yeah. And that's the thing. That's another highlight of your mindset, right? It's just the ability to always do that. You always have this all in kind of mentality. And again, I want to reiterate how important that it is that we're sharing, we're using the story as a backdrop, but I think it's telling that the character of and decision -making that you have is based on years of work to get to this So it's not as simple as, we'll just one day just pick up and go, or just have an all in kind of attitude. No, like it's, it's gotta be worked from small things to medium, medium things, to long things or big things. Uh, that's how you get to this position to be able to make that move. And so for some people, um, you know, for them, what, what Jim and Bettina has done over the last 32 years and making two major moves, uh, maybe sounds crazy, but to others, it's Yeah, it's normal. That's what we do. And it's most not because they were smarter, better or whatever, or just braver than anybody else. It's more that they've done little things. They've done small things and they work themselves to have that mindset to allow that. And I love what you said about regret and living a life without no regret. And I think it's important for us to kind of recognize that. And I was walking, funny enough, and I was walking in the graveyards in Scotland. I don't know, there's a massive appeal to me to walk on graveyards in the UK, like, you know, Ireland and Scotland and England, just because there's so much history. Like, we're talking graveyards that are so old that you can't even read the gravestones anymore because it's so weathered and it's blank. And I was in this, actually, was in a graveyard in Ireland and in the Wickle Mountains. And there was this,

Right, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

one plaque was fascinating. He died in 1780 something. Right? Died in 17 something, right? And this is a great story. Guess how old he was 106, I think. That's incredible. Back in that day, I'm like, that's gotta be false. It's like, mean, man, like to live 106 or whatever. Now it's like pretty incredible. But back in the

Back in that day, that's incredible. Yeah, yeah.

like fascinating, but I'm bringing this up because there's a one of the my favorite, I have a token, you know, from Ryan Holiday and, and this coin. And but I've seen this a couple of times on one of the gravestone, it was called momentum more. And momentum more is in Latin. And it says, remember that you have to die. That's the exact translation. And it is that what you just sort of said about no regrets. And I think, yeah, exactly. Momentum Aure is just this memory of you got to know that we're all going to die. you know, and it really reminded me of, I need that once in a while, by the way, right? I don't know about you, like once in a while, I need to kind of feel that and going, yeah, I'm, wasting my life in a way. Like not in a bad way, but just thinking, man, come on, like go live this day, like go seize this day, go enjoy and, and, know, make this trek or go have this thing or whatever it is.

Seize the day, seize the day. Same thing, more, yeah.

just to remind myself that it's so important to go live for the moment. because one of the things that I would say is the biggest thing that we, it's not about all the things we accumulate that we'll miss. It's not about the things that we even experience in life. I think we'll be happy with those. think it's the regret that's gonna be burning us, right? It's not the thing that we forgot to buy or didn't buy or it's the regret of like meeting someone or talking to someone or experiencing something. And that's what Momentum More is really about. And you you're basically highlighting this right now. And these decisions are that. I think he's almost like, look, we talked about decision -making, which is about going backwards and go, am I going to regret this if I don't take a chance?

And that's what it was. was that, that so Bettina, when she sat, when she resigned and leading up to it, she went through a 28 day coaching process. Um, so we've got a, have mentioned, we've got a spiritual coach and she was just guided by spiritual coach, which is phenomenal because you're asking the big questions of life, you know? And so she went through a process, got super clear that there's unfinished business there. And so that was the catalyst for. her really wanting to pursue this process. And as you said, seize the day and not leave any stone unturned and not have the regrets of I could have, if I could just could have got past myself. And so she spent 28 days to get super clear that this was so important that she was prepared to go through whatever obstacle, whatever challenge, as Demartini says, travel whatever distance, pay whatever price to do that, because that was that important. And I was on board with that. that was really, you know, for me, it was like, Hey, either way we can do this. We can have an amazing experience in life. But this was a scenario for her that was really defining to go, okay, if you really want this, we have to go, we have to give it everything because you'll drive yourself crazy if you haven't pursued something that's that important to you. you know, knowing her as she knows me, I would, like I said, I'd much rather try and not succeed than not try at all. live with that regret. to me is just death by a thousand cuts.

And I think it's important to highlight the fact that you've thought through the risk consequences, I guess, because it's not just like simply like we're blindly going to Scotland and that's it. It's our only way. that's very, we can kind of, a lot of people can listen to that or watch this and say, oh yeah, they're going all in. But it's not like you haven't thought about, you know, what would happen if it didn't work out. And I think that's important for people to remember that, right?

Well, yeah. Yeah, well, when I said to before that we took the option of coming to Spain and we self -proclaimed ourselves as a visa, so we weren't dependent on that. We've actually done exactly the same thing in Scotland. So the easier process would have been a two or three week process to get sponsored by the college. We submitted, we hired our own immigration lawyers. I'll tell you what, Lawrence, after all this, I've gone in the last few years, I've set up companies in the US. We've gone through Spain. I've done all my passports in Greece with immigration, Spain and the UK. There'll be a whole lot of immigration lawyers, kids that'll go hungry, I think, over once if we stop moving around because we have paid them in every country. We're either not going to move or we're going to run out of countries. I don't know. you know, that's the dark. The warp sense of humor at me that just looked at this and goes, you know what, when you know that you know that you know you got to keep moving forward, whatever price you pay is enough to quieten down the voices in your head that says you settled, man. You gave up, you know you didn't, you know you wanted to, but you weren't prepared to do whatever it took, whatever it costs. And like I said, that's, and we talked about that when we interviewed each other about how biggest fear is that not. fulfilling our purpose or not really getting the best out of ourselves. And I think this is really it too. So yes, we were strategic. We did exactly the same game plan. It probably cost us five times what it would have if we took the safe route. But for us, was like, that was, that just gives us another level of dimensions that if it doesn't work out, we don't have to get kicked out of the country again. So we've got options.

Yeah, you got options, right? You can stay in Scotland, you can stay in England, I imagine, or you can go to, you know, Northern Ireland, if you want to, and practice and you've done all the exams. And so you can actually stay there if you choose to, you know, because you all of a sudden you decide to like the rain for whatever reason. And, and, or you can come back to the EU because you've already got your EU passport and you have all these countries to choose from to whatever degree and, or you can go back to Australia or you decide to move to a new country and get to start the visa process again. Right. And I think

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.

that's important for people to come and recognize is that, you know, you're not gung ho and in the sense of like, you didn't think this through, it's about I think it's important for people to see these big leaps and, but they don't really see the whole picture and the whole picture is is that yes, you thought through yes is a big deal. But you also have, you know, what ifs what would happen, you already thought that through and have those backup plans. I think, you know, at our age is a little bit different. I think we need to have those. think when you're younger, Um, in your twenties, you probably don't need less of that because you know, you're not, it's not that much of a fall. Like if you fall, you literally just going to start where you, you know, where you've started from. But sometimes if we fall, uh, when we're a little older, you know, you can break something and you want to kind of know that there's, there's a safety, uh, mechanism there to kind of know that you can kind of go back to. And I think that's important for people to understand that it's part of that decision process.

Yep. Yeah, and I think, just as you were saying that, I surround myself with both peers who are my age and have my certain experience, but I also spend a lot of time with a lot of younger people as well too. And that really influences elements of my decision -making where I build in, as you said, the decision -making of someone who's older and wiser. However, I always challenge my assumptions. by hanging around and younger people were going, do I really need that long a runway or do I really need everything to be exactly the way I need it? you know, just to remind myself, I've put up one of these Marcus Aurelius screensavers and says, you know, comfort is the enemy of greatness and all those kinds of things. Just to remind myself that I don't need the level of comfort that I think I do in order to proceed, to take action. And it's okay to move forward when everything certain, you don't know what that's like. I've got a level of tolerance for uncertainty that's better, that's gotten better, particularly, you know, we have mitigated a lot of the risks and yet there's still, there's still a gray area that we have to step into. And I'm okay with that because I've done it before I've gone, right. I know that what that is. So our speed of getting to this point was faster because it didn't have to look a certain way. didn't have the attachments to that I had previously before I could, know, the speed basically and momentum was much, simpler and

Like, let's go with a slight different directions. mean, how much easier, I know they already answered to this, but I wanted you to talk about it, is that how much easier it is to make this move now that you've actually unloaded a lot of stuff, I guess, attachments from the last move, physically and emotionally.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, very, very simple because like we, we contemplated the idea of, uh, doing exactly the same thing as we did before. It's like, Hey, we'll just pack things up and take them to the UK. And do you remember when we had this podcast episode where you and I both had our stuff arrive and then we paid a fortune for it to come across. then the end is like, wow. You know what? I could have probably left that or could have sold that. I didn't have to bring it over. So we were a lot more ruthless this time, a lot more ruthless. And so there were things that like today, even today, there was elements of furniture and furniture, bits and pieces, fridge, all those kinds of things. were like, Hey, they can get sold. I don't want to bring them across. That may not suit the place we're going to. So what an adventure. We'll just get new stuff and we could get to that very, very So today we, yeah, there was a lot of activity around their places. People came in and bought the furniture. We've just chosen not to transport that across because it may not match what we're looking for. And right now we don't even know what that looks like because we'll have to do what you did as well too is stay in Airbnb while we're on the other end of it as well up until the point we find a place As we were having a chuckle about it last time we recorded Lawrence when I was telling you about this, when I said we're going to hit Edinburgh, we're AirBnBs in Barcelona. It's the busiest, Portugal and Spain are the busiest places in Europe for summer. And then we're going to hit Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival at the most busy time. we're going to, yeah, we're basically, we're paying for the luxury of living in cities

and most expensive.

A lot of people want to visit at this time of year. And that's so it is. And you just got to take the whack and just smile and just move on.

Yeah. I mean, especially in Edinburgh, like it was busy. Like I could not believe how busy Edinburgh was just walking down, um, the, the Royal mile. And I was like, man, this is crazy. Like all the restaurants were booked. Every cafe stores just packed with people. And, uh, and I was talking about like, wow, man, you guys are, I avoided August for a reason, um, because I didn't want to, I mean, although it fringe, I heard is amazing, but at the same time, I just don't want to deal with that when knowing people.

Yeah.

And I was talking to some of the waitresses and stuff. goes, oh no, like I go fringe, is it like double? He goes, no, no, at least three times that. Oh my, oh man. So that, you know, the hotels and everything else is like four or five times more expensive in August in Embera than any time in the world. So not to put more salt in the wound, but like, just want to kind of put context for people to what's happening.

No, man, we knew that. We knew that. was just, it was the timing. So we just have to do it. If we get delayed, then we have the capacity to still keep, but still has the capacity to do the role for a while here. So it's not have to be gone by a certain time, which is really good. And we've been investigating places to stay and it's just familiarizing yourself very quickly with the city and getting your bearings. We'll do it. We'll be fine. We'll work it out. It's, you know, we don't have to do it around a language that I don't understand, which is so much easier than before. So, you know, I can talk to utility people and understand them. can, you know, have an idea. I'm looking for a screwdriver and I've got an idea of how to explain that. They're just the little things you don't realize, you know, that change can be difficult for people at the best of times. you know, with us, we were trying, like you, were trying to pick up an operation, self -employed operation, move it to other side of the world with, you know, hopefully with not too many glitches. And, you know, there were times where you and I were just hanging on by a thread in terms of technological savviness. And that was how it had to be. And it's just repeat and start again. So I It's the beginner's mindset that I think really helps me a lot because to me, I don't lament on what I'm letting go of. It's like, okay, here's another adventure. It's exciting. This is new. What's great about this? Be grateful for the gift of two amazing years living in a fantastic city. I'll still be back. I'll be back every four, six weeks to train Jiu Jitsu. So this is, yeah.

Yeah, I think I have to ask this for the listeners and you you gotta have some sort of like negative thought around like, man, I can't believe we're doing this again. did any of that type of thought come through in the last, you know, six months where just like, why is this happening? you know, like, cause I want to make this real, right? This whole podcast is about being real and about it. And cause it's easy for us to kind of, you know, talk about these things, you know, cause after in hindsight,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I do want to talk about like the reality of human, the human emotion around this is that, you know, there's going to be some thoughts around it. And I would love to know yes or no. And if there was what kind of thoughts were they and how did you navigate

Yeah, yeah, shoot, shoot. Any question you want to ask around this because I could see the value in that particularly for, for people listening who, who could probably look at this and go, how did you navigate that? Or how did you do that? So, um, look, it's not so much the having to move. That's the problem. It's more just the, okay. All right. We, we, we worked at something. We gave everything at it. It wasn't exactly the way we wanted. What are you going to do? Are you going to settle or are going to still keep exploring and moving? So to me, the big decision, interestingly, was not now. It was back in September when Bettina stepped down. That was the, I think that was the biggest piece. From then on, it was just process. It was like, so we, narrowed it down and I remember there's a book called Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bette David. And so for us, it was like the first move was going to be Are you going to stay in your current role or not? And the moment that was no, that chess piece fell, then that opened up other possibilities. So that was the hardest decision that the tenders have had to make to walk away from a role that she really wanted to do. she was motivated and inspired, aside from all the coaching that she does, but that was a big one. From then on, it was just a series of, do we stay in Spain or do we go somewhere else? And we were like, listen, until we really know this looks like we're staying put. We're not changing for change sake. So that I just want to make that really clear because sometimes the best decision is to stay exactly where you are and not just move or run away from something thinking that that's going to change the circumstances because you'll end up being that same person there. was for us. was like, you know what? We've got to, we've got to stay on this platform, waiting for the train, waiting for the right one. And for me, anybody knows me, that was the hardest part. The hardest part. is just the discipline pursuit of waiting when there are factors that are outside of your control. Once again, was the only part of it was that I feel like I was at the effect of diplomatic processes and visas again. And that's probably the only frustration, but the actual move itself. you know, to me, it's just process. It's just once the decision's done and I'm resolute and clear on that, the rest of us just, you know, GST gets you done. You just, got to get it done. That's, there's no point complaining about it. You chose this. This is what you have to do. And I can reconcile it in my mind a lot simpler. Once I'm clear on why I'm doing what

Yeah, no, that's really interesting because I think, you know, it's, uh, I mean, obviously I've been, have a little bit of privy to, you know, some of the, the, it's not, there wasn't anxiousness. was, it's just like that type of tension that you had during that whole process of the waiting game. And, um, you know, and it's not like anything anybody could say or do that will kind of navigate through. He's just going to learn to wait. Like yesterday, you know, I don't have any passport

Yeah.

And so therefore, when I came back on a flight from Ireland, you know, there was a massive, probably two flights ahead of me and I had to go through the, um, cause I had my kids, so couldn't go through the, the other, you know, passport check, the quick check, I my kids cause they can't go under 18 and here I am. there was at least hundreds of people, 16 lines, 16, yeah, about 16, uh, lines ahead of me, hundreds of people waiting. And it was moving at a decent tick. And I thought half an hour, my, my daughter's like, this is going to be an hour.

Yeah.

And then halfway through, it just literally stopped. And just like in a crawl space because all the people that working went down to two people. And like for the next 40 minutes, we were just moving like snail pace, snail pace. An hour and a half to two hours is what took to clear that line. And I was like, oh my God. And I was looking at this and I'm like, okay, there's a life lesson here. Like this is what it's like right here. And it's true

Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing.

you know, my wife and I are both complaining. This is ridiculous. Everybody's complaining, da da da. But then you go, how is my complaining actually moving this line faster? It is like, it's literally not moving. And my wife actually spoke to the whole people and they're apologetic and they're, you know, whatever. But the reality is, like, I can either use this time wisely, you know, maybe reflect upon, you know, the holiday that we had or grab my headphones and listen to a podcast and listen to a book and whatever.

It doesn't, yeah.

And that's the waiting game, right? The waiting game is just like, and you know, my driver's on the other side waiting for, you know, two hours. I feel bad, but that's life. And this is just the exact same thing. It's like sometimes you just can't force an answer to happen. And you've been in a waiting game, you know, for your answers and now it's finally happening and you're moving towards what was predicted, but you still have to wait.

Yeah, but you know what's really amazing? This is the part that I almost get to the point where it's funny because there's things that I've been working on and I have this huge period of waiting and then suddenly one piece goes and they all fall into line within like days of each other. Have ever noticed that as well? Where you're like waiting for six things and you're like, you're going crazy in the process. And then it shifts and they all come together. It's kind of like, okay, one was dependent on the other, but I've had in other areas of my life and world, I've had things move so fast and so quickly that went from concept to idea to practicality, innovation in a nanosecond. And I'm like, that's amazing. If we could just bring some of that momentum into this area, that'd be great. But that's the paradox of life. know, as they say in the army, you hurry up and wait. You get into position and you, you, you, and you wait. And that's to me, that's, that's what I've learned is the having the patience. It's the Mr. Miyagi clipping his little bonsai tree, teaching himself the art of being present and patients. And that has been, you know, I'm grateful to life that has, that has taught me the importance of being patient because I'm a totally different human now, though I was in my twenties. And I The gift for me is that I'm doing this now at this age because I wouldn't have navigated it as well. I would have handled it as well in my twenties as I'm handling it

Hmm. So true. So true. And these things, when they all line up and the world's, you know, line up, sometimes it does take something to take a long time, like you said, but sometimes it's in the smallest things too, as well. It's not always in the big things. I'll give you one quick example. was in Ireland on my last day and, uh, and everybody's eating dinner already and I haven't eaten dinner because I was so full. And I was just like, you know what? I'm going to wait. This is one restaurant I've been dying to go to. And it was booked out the night before. And, so I dropped the family off and I just drove and I was going to park and

Mmm.

was like a 40 minute walk, but I'm like, no, I'm gonna drive closer just to see if there's any parking like just by chance drove in the middle of Ireland, Dublin and you know, and I was like, oh, there was a parking spot. Perfect. And I looked up and like, oh, no, you know, no meter parking at all. No, you know, after sevens, like perfect. And I'm like, where's this? Oh, like literally one minute around the corner. I walked in and I'm like, I just my daughter actually tried to call she tried to get in as well. But and I walked in, I'm like, listen, she says there was no more tables. And I said, I just need a table for And it's like, then a couple just walked up and like, yeah, be one, one second sat down, had the best meal in Ireland. It was like, it was just perfect. You know? And so sometimes like, that's what I mean. Sometimes you got to appreciate those moments and where everything lines up. know it's a simple story, but if you don't appreciate those alignments and appreciate and give thanks and gratitude for those small things, um, you're going to miss

PINGAR. Yep. Yep. But you've got to put yourself in a position where those kind of things happen. Lawrence, you know, like you've to be prepared to take the shot and sometimes the shot goes in and sometimes it doesn't, but you, had to take the risk and the chance of driving right into the city. It's like, Hey, what do you know? There's a parking spot. Hey, what do you know that's in it? And like, had you been at home complaining that you can't get into the restaurant and calling them, you would have kept on getting no, no, no. So sometimes There's an amazing thing about momentum and inertia, you know, and if you get up and start moving, something will happen. And I'm a big believer in that. And so, you know, I talked a lot about channeling my energy and frustration into areas that I had control over. And that was my training. Um, months and months and months ago, when we've spoken about that, that was just a healthy channeling of. the frustrations. And so I can talk to you now and go, yeah, I've got this under control, but it's only because I was able, I used something in a healthy way rather than just allowing it to implode and allowing myself to implode. So I really had to work on that to go, dude, you got an hour and a half, like you said, in the line. I was in Ireland probably a month ago as well. I was lining up in Belfast for an airport. I've got a 6 .30 flight. I get to the airport at four o 'clock or something. I'm in a notorious early. attendee at an airport and I've rocked up and there's like there's like 500 people in the line already. I'm like you gotta be kidding me here. They had you know multiple flights and even with me being early, I still was in line for an hour. I'm like this is insane. You know and and and then you know the people who were like late, know they're always hey last call last call to Barcelona. Is there any Barcelona the guy who slept at?

Jump the line.

extra and extra 55 minutes of sleep come straight to the front. So I'm then going, know, funny how life sometimes rewards these things. And when you're going through the process of your own management, you know, so that was the thing that I'm laughing about because I've just gone, I've gotten here an hour earlier. I'm lying in the skew and you know, Bozo over there has just had an extra hour sleep and he's going to get on his plane before I

Yeah, but on the flip side of that too, as well, I kind of look at that as like, I know we're notoriously early on our flights as well, mostly because we've done close, like really close. We've done like really, well, that's what I was going to say. Like you got to know your die self, right? The know that self is recognizing like, what do you like? I mean, my wife is notoriously, just like you just want to be there early. I'm like, it's going to be fine. And she hates it. I got a way that, do I want to hear

Same, I don't like that feeling. I don't like that feeling. Yeah.

all day, like leading up to it of her anxiety, or, you know, and also dealing with my own anxiety, because now I'd be like, oh crap, did I put myself and my family in this position? Or, and then you kind of go through that loop, or do I just show up early and just suck it up and wake up a little earlier, right? And those are the things that happen. So I think you got to know that self in regards to this is recognizing what kind of pain are you willing to kind of suffer through? And I think for you and my wife, and also me to an extent,

You Yeah Yeah.

I don't like being late. I've been late for a plane once, didn't get on and it cost me. And I don't want to, I don't like that feeling. I'd rather be there early and just know. And the stress, the feeling of the stress is not worth, you know, the feeling of like, oh crap, I made it.

True. Yeah. Yeah. The feeling of getting ripped for a sandwich and a drink to me far outweighs the stress of, yeah, of, cause there's, you know, not, not great lounges like you used to have back in Australia, like the Corners Club and the, so that's the biggest part. So I'd get there and I'd get there. I'd have a snack. I'd eat, the paper, do some work. It'd be fantastic. Whereas there's no such thing or you can, and like for these short hour flights, it's not worth

Yeah, yeah. It's not worth it.

going into the lounge, not with the lounge. So you suck it up and you're around and you go, hey, a bottle of water and a sandwich is like 18 euro or 20 euro. And you go, you know what? I would still do that rather than the stress of just rushing and just haltering a whole experience and being stressed, getting onto a plane. I don't know, that's just me. So it just gives me peace of mind and I'm calmer for it as a

That's fantastic. um, last question, guess is, know, how are, you know, what are your thoughts on the, the, um, you know, you and Bettina in terms of, you know, navigating through this emotionally leaving, do you feel sad and how, you know, do you, there any sort of, not doubts, but like, you know, what, are some of things you're to miss about Spain? Other than the weather.

100%. Yeah. Well, the weather's definitely the one, although Bettina doesn't handle the humidity and heat as well as I do. So for her, she is like, I'm so looking forward to, um, colder weather. She prefers cooler weather, um, to, to me. So she's going to get that in spades. She's going to get that in spades. So we have an agreement, you know, she was like, okay, we can go and you can get to Barcelona as often as you need to for, you know, three, four days at a

Right. Oh man, she's gonna get that 12 months a year.

train, but also just for out. um, that's, that's really, and the moment that was, that was done, it is just, you know, it was just one of those things. was a, another little chess piece and the chess move that it'd be, that'd be up. But interesting, you know, what, what, was, what was funny enough was causing stress for me was our dog now is an incredibly well traveled international traveler and, uh, getting her to, um, Scotland was. another consideration and it was like, how are going to do this and whatever. And I realized that, um, you know how sometimes there's the subconscious conversation that goes on in your head. Sometimes you don't even know that that's the case. Well, was funny enough out of all things, that was what was causing me more stress. It was like, Hey, I hope that dog's going to be okay. Um, who's going to look after her if we've just got to get up and go, uh, we try, how are we going to get her across? And we found there are multiple options. We've got friends who will do this.

Yeah, absolutely.

The woman who looks after our dog when we go away loves her, treats her incredibly well. And she said, oh, listen, I'll take care of her for as long as you need and I'll get her. And that is funny enough, that was the piece that just made everything else okay for me. so, which reinforces to me that the basis of the values that why they're important because sometimes you do the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for the right reasons. that can either increase or decrease your stress levels. And for me, knowing that my dog, my kids are okay, meant that everything else was like process. I didn't have to get emotional. It was just, you know, get stuff done. That's what you just got to do. That's it is what it is. But yeah, I think that that was probably the most thing. So I don't ever regret. We're looking at transport options. There's no quarantine process in Scotland, which is really cool.

Are you going to fly her fly her over or

We have an option of actually either flying or by road, is an option which we didn't have before. Our preference is to fly, but a lot of times it's just our availability this time of year may be bit tricky with a lot of transport stuff. So at least we've got an option of her being driven across, which is not ideal, but that's an option. So we can look at that.

Yeah. That our dog was driven from the UK to, to Portugal. Um, yeah, it's just, I think it was two days from memory. Um, I think it was two drivers and they just pretty much went, you know, all the way through. So, um, but yeah, it's, it's, I understand. I understand that the feeling, cause it's, it's hard, you know, to think about, I remember thinking about my dog, you know, traveling from Australia to, to, to Portugal was.

Right, yeah, yeah. How long did it take? Yeah.

I think it was three days because they to stop in Dubai and that this test made the night in Dubai. And she was so old at that time. She was 16 and I can't, she even going to survive, you know? And, yeah, you worry about those things, but you know, sometimes I, it's the same thing, you know, with our puppy just being away for a week. And for us is I literally have to block it out of my mind almost because I can't think about it. Right. Cause it's like, you know, although I miss her and you know, all the kids and my wife and I just like, okay, there's no point.

Yeah.

thinking about it because the more I think about it, the more I just gonna because I'm nothing, but that doesn't change anything. doesn't really, again, going back to its controllables, it's like, it doesn't really change anything, right? So by, you know, hoping to just trust that she's okay and she's well looked after. And then on the other side, you just, you know, you just gotta hope and pray and then that's all you can do really, because that's the results.

Yep. Yeah, and she traveled really well last time. It took her about a week, 10 days to really, you could see the toll that the trip took. And I think that we're not planning on moving to Australia at any stage. I think we've made the decision that we will probably be based in Europe. Depending on what happens career wise at some stage, there may be another move, but we don't see it being in Australia. We have to face that reality. we don't think that she'd necessarily be able to make that trip back to Australia. so, yeah, so we're committed to stay put for a while for no other reason other than we don't want the arduous process of transporting pets across, which can sound really petty for people who don't relate to that, but for the people that it matters to, it matters to them a lot. And yeah, so it's a consideration.

Yeah, you definitely think about

Yeah, so that was honestly out of all the things that were the hassle, no furniture, no stuff, nothing was an issue, which was really, I surprised myself the first time, but this time it was like almost clinical. It was almost like, nah, not even worry about it. But that was the only piece that was a challenge. And look, I've been like your paddle group. You get great strong connections with them. it's probably for me, the people. that I'll miss the most, the people that I'm training with. I feel good that I'll be coming back to Barcelona, I've been to connect with the people, because that to me, it's about the relationships and the connections, but everything else is replaceable. Everything else is, you know, in a different form. If you look for it, same things that we talked about in the first place, I can't compare back to, oh, it's warm in Spain, it's cold here. It's just, as they say, you know, have you ever heard the people in the UK justify it? Where they go, listen, there's no bad weather, just poor, poor choices of clothing. I'm like, yeah, you've got to say that when you live in an environment that it rains all the time. But, to me, it's just, it is what it is. And if I worried about what the weather was, I never would have gone anywhere.

Well, think, I think exactly. Yeah. mean, exactly. So, I mean, if you're looking for dry summer heat, then come to Portugal. Um, we got no, it's no humidity in the summertime. Uh, so it's always calling if you want to come warmer weather. Uh, but no, I mean, like my, my daughter, we went to St. Andrews, uh, just an hour outside of, Edinburgh and, to look at that university of St. Andrews and she, she loved it. Yeah. Yeah. She loved it. Yeah. She loved it. And, and so.

Yeah, I was about to say that was for the uni, right? That was, was, yeah.

you know, if there's a possibility of her going there, like, you know, she knows, like that's what she has to accept. You know, the weather, she grew up in Australia, she lives in Portugal. So she doesn't know anything about the cold, but you know, I think, you know, then I told her, go at the end of the day, like when you're in your, you know, your teens or in twenties or whatever, like you want to go and do all those things. You know, you, you know, you go, go and explore and, and, and, find, find what's right. And don't worry about the weather. The weather will, it's temporary. It's temporary. You'll figure it out. And, um, you know, notice from when first moved to Australia, when I was like 40 degrees.

Yeah.

what is this? Like what in the world is this 40 degree weather? But you know, after a while you're like, okay, it's just, you know, it's not 40 every day, but it's, you know, it just gets, it's just used to it and you get to choose. I think as an adult, you get to choose a little bit later on in your life. So this is where, you know, this is the adventure to you, the experience, the adventure, the challenge is more exciting than for you, which is, you know, for you than the weather

Yeah. And you know what's really funny when I saw that you were in Scotland, I had this really funny, I even mentioned to Patrion, said, how funny would it be if decides to go and study in Scotland and Lawrence is coming over to Edinburgh all the time and we're recording episodes in Scotland or I'm flying across. So I just had this really funny feeling because you know how you just have a vision and you go, gee, that's really funny if it plays out that way. And sometimes it does. I had this feeling that you're going to be spending more time in Scotland as a result of that, if that was the case. So yeah, it was really, really quite funny. Yeah.

It is definitely a strong possibility. know, like one of my, my closest friend from elementary school, her, his daughter is, um, is going to Scott is St. Andrews and, and, and when my daughter, that's why we actually put it on the map and my daughter actually, she loved it. She loves St. Andrews. Um, the small town, uh, the small town few, it's a small university. The town is small, um, but it's on a beach, which is unexpected. And, um, yeah, it's kind of cute hotel. get

Wow.

It's a little further away. It's hard to get to in a way, cause it's an hour, you know, get to Edinburgh, then you got to get out from there. So, but you know, if, if the, if it happens, it happens, but you know, it's definitely a strong contingency at the moment. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yep. Funny things have happened. Hey, funnier things have happened. So, look, thank you for the opportunity to talk through that, we did, I flagged it with you months and months and months ago, and thank you for your patience and sitting on that because you'd say, can we talk about this now? I'll go, no, we can't talk about this yet. It's not official. The college has asked us to, you basically be quiet. want to control the narrative. So you've been sitting on it for a while. So thank you. And, you know, by the time that this is released, we'll have hopefully been settled in. Oh, well, that's what I'm hoping. I'm definitely hoping man. I hope I'm not doing an Lawrence and Airbnb for six months because that will be, that will be tough, but it'll be what it'll be and we'll be

You definitely moved them well and, uh, yeah, settled. Yeah. Well, thanks Jim for sharing that and thanks for being open your thoughts and energy and the navigation and the challenges that are facing you ahead of you or in the past and also that will be ahead of you. So I think a lot of people can learn a lot from that. And this is the whole point. Art of imperfection is recognizing that everything's gonna be perfect and this is about how you navigate and how do you handle yourself, how you behave during these circumstances that's gonna make you and shape you and not about just talking about good results and great results. Jim, thank you very much. And guys, I hope you enjoy this particular podcast. You learned a lot from it. And if like always, please share this podcast with others. I think it's really important for us to, to kind of grow and to actually get this message out to more, as more people as possible so that we can help others navigate through life, through the imperfection of life. So we'll talk to you soon until next week. This is Jim and I we'll see you on the next episode of Wabi Sabi.

Bye.