Measuring Your Bandwidth

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection as we go through the journey of Jim and his adventure around the world. I just feel like this is the ongoing topic as we go through this. think it's fun topic, Jim. Sorry to make fun of it, but I think it is the topic of the day. And I think we need an update from you to see where you are in the world and what's happening. And then we can kind of get into our particular topic because I think it's relevant to exactly what we're going to talk about today.

Yeah. Well, it's an ongoing saga of the life and times. I feel like I'm chronicling this and I think I'll look back on this and I'll listen back to these recorded episodes and work out, you know, a diary of what I was doing. um, we were meant, I was just telling you just before we started, we were meant to be moving into our place yesterday. That didn't work out. There was some holdups, some technicalities. go, Hey, you've got no credit history. So how about you prepay 12 months of Uh, expenses and we said, about we don't do that and how about we come up with another solution? And we did, we found out with another solution and it worked. I don't want to prepay 12 months with the stuff. Um, if I don't have to. So effectively we got delayed by a few days and we had to move into another hotel and the other side of the city. And hopefully everything will happen tomorrow. So it's, it's, you know, like I couldn't, I couldn't make this stuff up. I really couldn't. Um, we're getting. to the pointy end of where we need to be. But then is entrenched in work and everything. And I'm just doing everything I can in the, in behind the scenes. So yeah, while everything above the surface is going nice and calm underneath the surface, we're paddling like crazy. And that's pretty much what's going on at the moment, Lawrence.

Well, I think it's great because it gives us really good content for at least a good six week period here of podcasts and keeping people engaged. And I love it because it's giving us topics to talk about and it's giving more material so we don't have to think too hard of what to discuss because it's literally live action, day to day, up to date of the gym show at the moment to figure out what's going on with him. I think it's great. But I mean, let's backtrack and kind of stick to the topic. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, great. Happy to be a content. I was gonna say happy to be the content.

So let's kind of go through that because yeah, well, I mean, really at the end of the day, like where you're at at the moment, the topic today is about measuring your bandwidth or understanding your bandwidth. And the reality is I think it's all of us is that we are, we all, when we planning and strategizing life and when we sit down and create and you and I, much create creators, we sit down and we have this execute, we have this plan and we go, okay, we're go and execute it. The problem is with any other, with everybody who creates a strategy is that it's very easy to create a strategy that you think is executable in the perfect circumstance. But this podcast is called Wabi Sal, which is the art of perfection, which is to recognize that life is never going to perfection. And I think a proper strategist is to recognize, I was actually coaching a client of mine today and they were trying to buy into this business. And I said to them, what you need to do is you need to create three scenarios here. You need to create like, this is the scenario when it's the ultimate scenario, like this will be amazing if this happened. And then you also got to create a scenario of like, what does most likely scenarios going to look like if this happened? And you also got to create almost like a worst case scenario, like a drop in, you know, 30 % drop off. What would that scenario kind of look like? And you need to measure, like you don't know which one's going to happen, but you got to plan for all three because you don't want to, most of us plan for the best case scenario and then be disappointed. and you got to plan for the worst, I would actually rather plan for the worst case scenario and be excited about the best case scenario. And so that's the thing that I want to kind of bring up today because we are in a situation where the execution, when we put the plan into execution, it doesn't always go our way. And this is the perfect example of what's going on with you and how it affects the bandwidth in your capability because we need to consider that regards to bandwidth. and also be able to execute. I'd love for you to kind of tap into some of

Yeah, look at that. I love what you said. And you know what I've learned through multiple avenues and areas of my life and world that you're right. You can plan things for a contingency, but you have to plan for the what ifs. What if this happens? What if that happens? And I found that gives me a level of comfort and certainty there because what it basically will mean is that if you are told this is going to take this amount of time and it's going to cost this amount of money, then it is much easier to double it. triple it in terms of the cost and expand the timeframe two or three times because anything within those parameters, you'll go, okay, I expected this. And I don't go into something expecting that it won't work, but I've just got it. I've realized that I couldn't have all my, um, hopes and dreams in just one, one outcome going my way necessarily. had to come up with alternative strategies. So it's not just a I'll double down on strategy and give it all, but I've got two, three, four, five in place. I've just, I've had to learn that. And this has been a classic case in point. I, I realized that the majority of the stress happens when you have a particular expectation and outcome by a certain time, when you, when you've only got one plan. And if you've got multiple plans, or at least I have it and I'm going all in on any one of those, I'll run it to the end until the point that it can't work. Then I've got one. Like a spare battery, ready to go. don't, I don't lose the time in the gap because that's, that's what she's up time and energy and bandwidth is just the stress of it all.

Yeah, and I think that if you don't calculate that appropriately, if you don't have those three structures of those three different plans, you're not going to allocate the right bandwidth for each individual one of those, right? Because if you go with just the perfect plan, you think that all I need is this bandwidth because you're expecting everything's going to go well. But if it doesn't go well, all of a sudden now you just, you know, two times or three times the amount of bandwidth required to even sustain the current process and the current trajectory. And all of sudden now, like, you're sacrificing other projects or other things in your life to keep the boat still floating and running. And so that's the thing that we're talking about. If your strategy, if you don't have a proper strategy, you're not really creating enough bandwidth for each different scenarios. And that's what could catch us all out of whack. And that's exactly sort of what happens because most of us, mean, at least in my life sometimes is that you say yes to things, right? And of course there's certain times where you do want to say yes to a lot of things, but the problem is that we say yes to things, yes to things, but that's always in the future. And all of a sudden, like, you get stuck in this situation, you realize, I'm like, oh, but I can say, I can attend all of these things, but the bandwidth for me to have the energy to show up for this meeting, this party, this, this, coming into this project, this webinar, this podcast, all of a sudden now it's burnt out and I never factor that in. into the thing, into the idea of this whole of the energy system, right? Because we're thinking about usually when we think of projects like, yes, that would be great because I see the impact on that. Yes, I'll get some new clients out of that. Or yes, I can see the profitability on that business. But what we don't factor is the energy and the bandwidth required to execute all of them well, right? And that's what we kind of what we're gonna what we got to have to consider that most of us don't think of.

Mmm. Yeah, I think you highlighted something very good here is that like I've been the expose of, know, this is what's going on for me. And we've been able to teach themes and, and progress that, but you highlighted pretty much something that is relevant is you can be in the same location and not doing the crazy things that I'm doing. And you can still have your capacity, your bandwidth capacity exceeded as well. When you've got, you're pulled in multiple directions, you've got kids, you've got family, you've got business, you've got social functions, you've got your own needs as well. And you know, that can be just as hectic. I definitely would love you to sort of shine some light on that specifically about what that's like. Look, because I acknowledge and appreciate that my current scenario and reality is unusual, right? It's not the norm. And a lot of people may have difficulty relating to what I'm working to. And perhaps they'll probably relate more to some of the things that you could discuss and talk about that may give them more perspective and more reality.

Sure, let's use a perfect example. One of the things that I find in common is that when I have a client who is a first time parent, especially, right? So I know that doesn't apply to everybody, but this is something that most of us will kind of go through. And I remember if it's a first time parent, being parents ourselves, when I became a first time parent, I didn't recognize this and that's why I know. in hindsight to what to kind of forewarn or teach. And I don't try to scare people, but it's more about just understanding. depending obviously if it's a male or female, because it affects them differently, but it's recognizing that I always say, you know, the month prior to, you know, when the baby's born and also the weeks after or the months after. So at least one month prior to the baby, you know, the due date and also like months after, two to three months after, especially those, that period of time, actually, well, probably three to six months after. you want to really, at least I tell my clients, is that I really want you to really kind of tone down most of the projects you're kind of working on, right? Or close up or finish off majority of the major projects and don't start anything typically new. Now, this is not for me to discourage someone to be, to not go after things or start things, but this is really about balancing the act of... understanding of the family dynamics or the possible family dynamics and also understanding that the possibly or what you may have to go through that you don't know what to expect because each child when they enter this world, we have no idea what's gonna happen and what kind of characteristics or personality they're gonna have and the toll it's gonna have on you. Now, I'd rather side on the cautionary side rather than booking, know, booking things too packed in there that you can't get yourself out of it. And most of my clients, I'm sure the same thing with you or Jim is that our clients are very ambitious, typically, right? They're usually the people that don't like to be told what to do. And they tend to like hear it, but they don't listen to it. then, and sometimes, I mean, I rather my client listen and then realize like, what are you talking about? This is easy. Great. Congratulations. You have one of those perfect babies, right?

Hmm. Hmm.

Rather, I'd rather have that scenario where you can add things to the bandwidth rather than being a situation like, yes, okay, well, I have the baby here. I still remember this. My wife makes fun of me all the time. My daughter was due on the first week of August, 2008. And on the eighth of the eighth of 2008 was the first day of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. And I thought, perfect, I have three weeks off, I'm gonna watch the Olympics. have finally in my life, I can actually have

Yep.

I don't have to be at work, I don't have to be at practice, I can watch two weeks of Olympics. That was my, that's exactly guilt free and that was my expectation that I was putting out into the universe. I'm like, this is how amazing of that. Do you know how much I watched of the Olympics that year? Zero, right? Because my dog was born on the fifth and I did not realize how much time, effort and how much sleepless nights that I had to endure, especially in those small firsts.

Guilt free. Guilt free. You

year and a half, but let's forget about that. That's so this is what I mean that you have certain expectation that you think you can do all these things. But sometimes, you know, like my daughter, she was a very terrible sleeper. It was such an overwhelming experience. Initially, and then therefore we didn't budget that. And I think this is where the precautionary things are rather be in that position. So that would be a perfect example of not, you know, not allowing the perspective of the bandwidth allocation properly.

Hmm

and preparing for what could happen. Because like I said, you can always add the things, but really hard to subtract. Because if you're committed, to say you committed to a speaking gig, you know, a month after your birth or your child, and you you're committed to working six days a week here and starting a new brand new podcast or a new project and people rely on you, you know, all of a sudden, like your wife needs you or you know, or something happens or you can't sleep and you're not the best, you're not then performing, your bandwidth is... Now allocating and you're doing terribly job, terrible job for all the projects you just started. And now you're accountable and you're letting other people down.

Yeah, I remember just as you were saying, I remember a client I was working with a few years ago who was going through, uh, they'll buying a business. Um, they're, they're, do for a baby. Um, they'll, they'll, uh, um, building a house and this guy decided that he wanted to do a triathlon, um, a little bit later. So pretty much all of these high, it didn't one of them have a giggle of your, of your part says it all because sometimes you just. you're, you're so oblivious to the impact that it's going to have in the rest of the world where just one of those by themselves would be stretching a lot of things, but to actually have four of those. And, you know, I don't know whether it's sometimes it's, you know, male bravado that thinks, Oh yeah, I can just plow through everything and I'll do that. okay. I'm Superman or super woman or whatever someone thinks. And then reality catches up with you and you just get. exhausted and overwhelmed. And I've been guilty of that before where I had huge demands on myself. And I got to a point where I went, dude, this, is not sustainable. This is not good. This is, this is going to cost you something. elements of your health or your relationship or your connection or someone's going to need you and you're not there. Um, there's a, there's a reality check that you sometimes have to get to. And sometimes someone needs to point out that blind spot to you. And sometimes you're going to find it out the hard way. But that's along the lines of what the bandwidth we're talking about really is you've got a finite amount and you know, if you use it up aggressively, you're going to get to a threshold and someone's got to give.

Yeah, and I think the challenge is as well is that you don't realize that every, sorry, the discussion I wanna have here is how do you know, because we talk a lot about it's important for us to push through, right? To push through like some of the difficulties in life and sometimes we are giving up too soon.

Mm

But there's the other side of the balance is when we are not recognizing that we're pushing too hard. And so therefore we're kind of creating this, like this stress on the bandwidth. And so how do you find the difference between, you know, knowing when to push harder and knowing when to kind of back off? Like how do you evaluate that?

That's a really good question and I'd love to say that I always get it right, but I don't and

Jim, I'm expecting answers from you, come on.

Yeah. So I'm sorry. I'd love to know that, but he's, he's what made a lot of sense for me. A colleague of ours, James Chestnut always talked about the rocks in your backpack, you know, and he uses the analogy to say, when you've got a backpack and you're floating, you know, like the more rocks you put in your backpack, floating and staying afloat and treading water gets harder and harder. And so to me, I think the difference for me was if I'm feeling resistance and there aren't huge amounts of rocks in my backpack, then to me it's like, okay, you can push through this. You can work through this. This is your own limitations, your own fear, doubt, uncertainty coming through. But if I'm trying to work through things and I'm not sleeping as well and like, case in point right now, the last eight weeks I've been in a hotel room. I have not been able to cook and eat the way that we normally have. We have broken sleep in the scenario. So I know I'm not at 100 % threshold. So I've had to calibrate my training sessions. in such a way that I meet the level that I've got to expand. Otherwise I'm going to exceed that. So is that something that I want to do? Heck no. But it's something that the logical part of me has learned over time. You know what happens when you do this and you push too hard, you run yourself into the ground and you get exhausted. So I've had to use experience to learn that, Hey, you're going too hard here or you're overextending.

Hmm.

your fuel consumption based on what you'd normally would because you're tired, you're exhausted, et cetera. that to me before the fact, I probably wasn't as good at it as I've gotten better at this as I've gotten older because I've recognized these were the warning signs earlier on. And if I go too hard at these, look, something's going to give.

Hmm. Yeah, that's good. That's good. I think it is a definitely a very challenging thing. it's, it's about, it's about knowing the difference, right? It's like your ability to be able to know the difference between, uh, know, pushing too hard or not pushing hard enough. And I think it requires a couple of elements and there's no right answer. And that's why I don't think any of us can give us the answer, but it's actually number one. think number one is you have to understand yourself like without the understanding of self, uh, it's going to be very difficult to answer this question.

How about you? Yep.

Number two, I think you need to understand the severity of the consequences of either option. Because there's always gonna be a consequence, no matter what you do. There's nothing you do that will not have a consequence. So I think that's number two, you need to really fully understand the consequences of the action. And three, think, not necessarily in this order, but I think the third part is really understanding what is the true reason of why you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Now, and if you have an understanding of that, that's gonna help you really get a gauge of. Am I doing this because I'm I'm not doing this because I'm lazy? Am I am I not doing this because I'm afraid of something? Am I not doing this because I don't know what to do and not humble enough to ask for help? Like what is it that you're not doing? And are you are you not doing because you're trying to avoid right? Being honest with yourself is going to be really important here. And that's what that's I feel it's going to make a difference in terms of the decision whether you push forward hard, or you back off. I think it's also the other thing I think you need to think about maybe number four is to be able to see the well actually, I'll come back to the consequence. We'll come back to consequences. Consequences is also including is being able to project forward about what could happen if I continue. Like what are the consequences? But you have to value with number three, which is, I just making up these consequences because I'm trying to avoid or are these true consequences? And knowing the difference between that.

Yeah.

I think will help manage that balance. a case in point, I know let's do something very simple that happens to people every day. This morning, yesterday I was playing paddle, my hip was a little bit sore, I didn't warm up properly. Bad mistake. Last night, the kids weren't feeling the greatest, not like massively sick or anything, just like a little bit under the weather. I started feeling a bit under the weather as well. I woke up this morning, I'm supposed to work out at five o 'clock, 5 .30 this morning. And I'm like, you know, I don't know if this is the right call. Actually, it was at three o 'clock in the morning, I woke up and like, I'm like, I can probably go but I'm like, I don't know. And I looked at the workout and shouldn't be checking my phone at the three o 'clock in the morning. But that's, you know, is it whatever it was because it was like, because in my mind, and I was like, it's squats. I'm like, hip, not good. Let's I could have done it. But let's not push this right. So it's understanding even though it's like half asleep and going

Mmm.

you know, that's probably not a smart call. Missing one day of workout is probably not gonna be the end of me. you know, it's like those decision trees being fully aware, it's like, I'm not trying to avoid the workout. I could if I wanted to, but the injury to that were exacerbating the injury is probably not the best call. And I probably should have better sleep so that I can show up tomorrow in a bit of better position. And that was the decision making. I think it's having those three, understanding yourself, what you need.

Hmm.

Number two, understanding the consequences or the impact, the possible impact on that. And number three, which is really fully understanding the, I can't remember what the third thing was. I just blanked on me. But anyways, you get the point. I'm sure people can rewind to go through it.

Yeah, I think you, you highlight a really good point about knowing yourself and listening to yourself and listening to what your body's telling you. I think that's a really important factor. You're right. There are times where I haven't listened to that and that's when I've pushed through and that's why I've gotten injured or I, I didn't listen to my instinct that says, you know what, this isn't great. So I'm, In answer to your question, second, I've gotten better at taking that feedback alive. And I think you're right. If you've got a, if you've got a sore hip and you've got a, uh, a tough workout that's coming, you have to have the awareness and the honesty and that self reflection to go, okay, this isn't good. This isn't, it's not a slight on me. You know, if you know you're motivated and you're finding reasons not to do something, you've got to examine the reason behind it. It could be that you're. tired, you're exhausted mentally, physically, you're carrying an injury. part of that, that, you know, the carrot or the stick, the stick part of you just goes, you've got to go because you said you would, whatever you're going to, you're going to this. I'm going to turn out really well. And I think that that's, that's what has been an important component, a really good personal trainer that I had once always, always, always calibrated where we were on the day. And always did a metric and said, out of 10, where are you right now? I go, I'm a five. Okay, great. So we're going to do a training session that meets you where you are at a five. Is that five because you're lethargic, lazy, haven't slept or is it just that, you know, and, and he was really good because you, you know, it always ended up being a training session that met where you were. If I was a three out of 10 and he gave me a 10 out of 10 session, I'd be blown out of the water. I'd be depleted. Et cetera, et cetera. But if I was a 10 and he gave me a two workout, then I go, I didn't do anything. So there's a key in you knowing yourself, but there's also a key in people around you recognizing you and go, Hey, Lawrence, or Hey Jim, you don't look like you're at your best. Is everything okay? Um, do you need to back off a little bit or, or why don't you just sit out or take a day off and whatever, freshen up. And that's what really good coaches used to do and have done. I know for me. when they could see something that I couldn't see in myself. And I had the faith and trust in them to go, they know better. I'll rest up for a couple of days, catch up some sleep and come back again. It always worked out really well that way.

I just had a client recently over the summertime. You know, he, he was reaching, we were having a call and he said, Oh man, Lawrence, I think I'm, I'm a little bit too unwell today. I don't think I'm going to be able to, to really get on the call. I just, this, you know, this bug. then, and I said to him, like, does this happen a lot? You know, when every time you take a holiday, you get sick. He's like, yeah, it actually happens every single time. I'm like, Okay, like that's a sign. And he knew where I was getting at. It's like, it's right away. Like that's a perfect sign of like you are burnt out every single time. You're burning yourself through the times when you're not on holiday. And then your holiday, your body's just basically saying, okay, well you've ignored this all this time. So here you go. You're have to pay attention to this. So that's one. The second thing I was like, why are we having a call on your holiday? you know, like, was like, that was, and I literally had to just call him and go, we're not, I'm not rescheduling this.

Hmm.

we're gonna reschedule this until you, when you get back. There's no need to have a call while you're in Hollywood with your family. And that's when we just call a call and he's like, okay, point taken. Because I get it. know, like I'm like this too. takes me, I don't know about you, Jim, but for me, when I go on breaks, it takes a while. It takes a while to unwind. It takes a while to kind of get to this point of like equilibrium of going like, I'm on break. I'm getting better with it now that I'm a little older and more aware of it. But when I was like,

Mm. Mm. Yeah.

you know, younger in my thirties, man, it would take me at least a good sometimes five to six days to like unwind. I just like didn't know what to do with myself. It's weird.

Yeah. Yeah. Same. Yeah. It's funny. It's funny. said that because we used to, we used have a running joke that would, I'd have to go for a minimum of two weeks because, I realized that's when I was tired. Cause the first week was just about recalibrating back into relaxation. The second week was relaxing. And that's when we just about to, if I stayed longer, I'd forget my name. I was just like, nah, I've gone too far now. It's so the fun, that happy medium between resting up and still staying innovated.

Yeah.

so that I could actually do that. But it took me, you're right, it took me, you know, I would say the same thing five, six days to just really get into the groove where I, and I knew that when I'd go, right, I'm going to hold on. Here's these 17 books that I'm taking with me. And if I read one, was lucky. It was just the overachiever in me. Yeah. So I do a lot of reading this and this and this. And I love reading, man. I love it.

Why do we do that? Why do we take so many books on holidays?

But I was just putting so much big demand and then I'd sit in the deck chair and I'd just fall asleep. I was so tired and was cooked and exhausted, but it was the, it was the overachiever competing with the guy who's really exhausted and finally slowed down because the kids are now in kids club and you can rest up. So that was, that's what happened.

Yeah, that's the funniest thing, isn't it? Like when you take, you know, all these books, I remember he did take books, all these podcasts or whatever, and go, yes, I'm going to go on holiday and read all this stuff. And then you're like, you never touched it because all you're doing is just watching your kids in the pool. And like, not really like, this is not restful at all.

Yeah, because you know little Johnny's just beating up this other kid and you're jumping in and out and that's so you don't you really don't and I The only time we were able to do it was when we had done. I said we went to kids club We booked the kids in the clip cup. had a ball And then we could go and go, right, let's just sit down. What do we do most times? We slept. We caught up. you know, it was just, just fatigue. You're running on empty a lot of times with young families and kids. And that's what we did. So.

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing with bandwidth, It's actually recognizing like how, it's funny, we're talking about bandwidth on holidays. Sometimes we think we have like all the bandwidth in the world when you're on break, but the reality is that, you know, on break you're still doing stuff. There's still obligations, especially with young families. I remember that's what we were just talking about, the young families. Whenever we had a young family, it's just like your holidays are just not the same, you know, in comparison to, you know, maybe now with my kids or teenagers, it's a little bit different type of holiday because they can kind of do things on their own a little bit more. and you have a bit more leeway and bandwidth. But I mean, that took years, 16 years we're at at the moment before we can sort of feel like, okay, they can kind of do things on their own now. And so the bandwidth is such an important element because it is recognizing your bandwidth within a certain period of time, like whether it be an hour or within understanding like you're in a call or a session of like 90 minutes. Then there's also bandwidth in the morning or afternoon or nighttime.

Yeah.

and then understanding the bandwidth through the day, the week, the month, the years, quarters, and then the years. Like bandwidth is all around us and it's recognizing it in those moments and also constantly adapting. There's workouts, for example, where you're gonna go in, you just recognize like, today's not my day, so don't be a hero. Just dial it down and take some weights off, don't go hard, and you gotta recognize that. And some days I'm like, okay, like I'm... I've been trying to push and I'm trying to get stronger and better. Like this is maybe just to push your limit a little bit and see test, you know, your limitations of your physical body sometimes. So like it's recognizing those bandwidth and how much you can push and how much you can't. And also, you know, factoring in all the other things that are going around you because everybody has a different life. You know, your family has certain demands of you, your business have certain demands of you. your clients have so much demand on you and then you gotta leave room for yourself to be able to know how to take care of yourself because you're the person that they rely on. And if you're not in your tip -shop form, then all of those people, your family, your business, your clients are all gonna suffer.

Yeah, and exactly the way that I always wanted to test those boundaries that was just my nature and I've learned the rules the laws of the universe Reproducible and they kind of they say the same irrespective of how many times you try to expand on those but if I've got to understand that if you had X as a capacity and X was what you had available and that's let's just say that was a hundred units of energy if The emotions or lack of sleep is drawing up 30 or 40 of those. You don't have the reserves that you think you do. If you're to get to a hundred and if you've got stress, you've got anxiety, got financial pressure, you've got demands with family and activities and business, you're at the 80 before you actually even have anything left for yourself. And if at that point you don't recognize it, I've used 80 of my allow or a hundred units right now, you can then overextend yourself and run yourself into the ground. And it's not really. Helpable. You really need to acknowledge all those elements of life and how much of a toll they're taking on you to work out. Am I at a threshold? Because there may be times where you'd be able to go to 105, 110, but that's not really something that you can maintain for a long period of time. You know, at a, at a threshold level, at a sustainable level, you've got to be around that 70 or 80 range. So if things get really hectic, you can spike up. But if you're running, I found that if you're running on empty or if you're running at a hundred, for long periods of time, something's going to give and you don't even necessarily realize it. And the scariest ones are the ones that blindside you and you don't even see them coming. um, you know, it could be a, it could be a health issue. could be, uh, something like that, that an injury that, takes you out, it's because you were running at too high a revolution and your body just wasn't recharging and it wasn't.

Hmm.

repairing and it wasn't, it wasn't able to optimize and how it's operating. So there are times I know right now I'm running at 105 and 10 minimum, and I know it's not sustainable. Um, and I know that what happens is, know, we're moving house. Hopefully by the end of this week, we know we had invitations. Hey, that's the other part. You know, like you enter, um, another country and unlike Spain, where we didn't know as many people, we know a lot of people in Scotland and they're like, Hey, Why don't you come over for dinner and we're going to do this. And we want to balance being nice and sociable with the idea of, listen, I can, I can overextend. can give out of an empty cup and I'll get depleted. So there are times where we've had to go, thank you. Can we do this later? Because right now we need to get into our home, get settled, get things organized, regroup, recharge, and then we can come back. the The people please a part of us would go, yeah, let's go and do this, but we're only really going to deplete ourselves. So that's, that's the learning that we've had to, um, take on board. And it sometimes feels, and we've said this before on the podcast, two lines where you sometimes go say no to things. And this is a time for us and recognizing that because we're both at 110%, if we keep extending ourselves and take every social interaction on board, we're going to run ourselves into the ground. That's not, that's not good for anybody.

Yeah, you know, the question I would have for you is right now, like you talked about being 105, 110 % right now, and you know it's temporary. You know, what strategies or what plans, or maybe you don't have plans, maybe you're just going to speak to this us live, are you going to do to, over the next few weeks, to rebuild or recover from this, you know, exhaustion of the bandwidth?

Great question. I think it's just for me going back to my basics and you know, it's being able, like being in a hotel, like we're limited in terms of what we can eat, you know, and, and when I say Lee, you're sometimes at the mercy of that, of what's around you because there are no cooking facilities in the hotel that I'm in right now. And there is a shopping center about two kilometers away and there's a hotel down here and the foods are okay, but not really ones that I would normally eat. So for me, it's getting back to my normal sleep cycles, normal patterns of exercise, normal eating. That's going to be really important and start to simplify, know, to decompress. That's definitely going be a case going out, walking, perhaps just calibrate my training back and go, you know what? A month ago you were just lifting this and you were training that it's about resetting and going, okay, assume today was day one. Assume today was day one. Forget about where you were a month ago. Right now, right now is where you're right now. And start with the objective of you're starting this based on your current energy demands, not what you had, not what you think you should have. So that to me is going to be that. you're go back to the basics of what helps me thrive and be my best and rebuild from those. Get plenty of sleep and rest. They're the strategies that I use. Always go back to basics. Movement, nutrition, sleep, rest.

Hmm.

and just unwind as much as possible and let go of stuff that I don't have to do.

Yeah. So I guess you don't want my recommendations for my favorite bakery and, and, and Numbra and, uh, and food places right now.

Don't worry. I'll keep them on. I'll keep on advisement and I'll systematically work through those over timelines I just don't need to do them in the next two weeks because I've done my own reconnaissance missions and and Yeah, I found some some amazing eating places but you know after a while when you've been on the road for a while and After a while you got all I want all I want is just a home -cooked meal and just simplicity. I just want

Yeah, he's the thing you want. It's so strange though, isn't it? It's so funny how our body adapts to that. It's like after about a week, I would say about for me, it's about a week to seven, 10 days where I can eat out, but there's a point where I was just going, okay, enough is enough. I just want a simple salad, a simple home cooked meal where my body doesn't feel like full all the time. It's amazing how you just sort of crave that, you know, normalcy and yeah, it's really good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we also should probably touch on this too as well. There's different types of bandwidth. think, you know, we can highlight a few here that there's bandwidth, obviously from a physical point of view, we kind of talked about that. There's the emotional bandwidth, you know, that we have to contend with, the spiritual bandwidth. We also got to contend with also relationship bandwidth, you know, because there's strains on that too as well in terms of your family, your kids or your wife or your partner, whoever that might be. And I think there's, so it's not just measuring bandwidth as we kind of put bandwidth. as like one thing, but I think there's different things because your physical bandwidth could be perfectly fine, but your relationship bandwidth might be taking a toll based on, you know, certain things you're doing or your emotional bandwidth may not be handling things well, even though all the other things are going really well. you know, I know that oftentimes when we're really work focused, as an example, our relationship might be perfectly fine, our physicality might be perfectly fine, but the work as putting a toll on the emotional stress on your body, and it's affecting you to think clearly to kind of get the most out of yourself. So these are things we kind of need to consider when we think about bandwidth is it's a collection of all those things as we mentioned, rather than just as one thing and just putting a name to it, thinking that that's all it is. It's like, oh, I feel good though. Yeah, but you might feel good physically, but how are you emotionally or how is your relationship bandwidth and so on and so forth.

Yeah. Great point, Lawrence. I think perhaps we can start winding down on these key points, particularly about, I'm glad you mentioned the emotional one because it's, I'd forgotten about it, but it's something that I had a conversation with someone about this week where we talked about this specifically. If someone comes to you and they need some support and you know, in yourself that you, you're at threshold, sometimes the biggest disservice you can give them is to just go through the motions and hear it rather than saying, listen, um, Can I be upfront and honest with you? I'm not at a hundred percent right now. Um, is there any way that we can come back to this in an hour or two or tomorrow? Um, I don't want to shortchange you or don't want to, uh, trivialize what it needs to do, but I just, I don't have much to give. Is that okay? And some, you know, I don't know about you, but sometimes when I've not been aware of that and I've gone through it, sometimes it's left a bad impression on someone. it might have come across as indifferent or not caring or rough or when I say rough as in abrupt. And then I've got to clean that up as well too. So sometimes just having that awareness to go, I'm at threshold, can we come back to this? Would have made all the difference.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I think the the topic is important because I feel like we deal with this on a regular basis and but we don't spend a lot of time thinking about or measuring it. And this is why hence the topic itself because we we do we feel burnt out. And by the time we actually feel it, we've already gone past that point. And I think it's recognizing that every decision you make, it's important to consider the bandwidth your ability is not about your ability to be able to do the thing or not do the thing. It's about do you have the mental, the emotional, the relationship, the, you know, the spiritual capital or the bandwidth to be able to handle and withstand it. And also the sacrifices that have to go into it how much energy you actually have to pour into that particular project if you decide to do it. I think we need to factor that in into the decision rather than just saying, well, that project sounds great. I think I can do it. It's about all the things that requires you. to muster up to do it. And especially on things that, this is why sometimes people say, you know, like if it's a hell yeah, if it's a hell, if it's not a hell yes, you shouldn't do it. It's because usually if it's a project that's a hell yes, it's a lot easier to put in the bandwidth because the energy, because doing the work is actually fulfilling enough that that actually may create almost like a regenerative energy, you know, to create that. Whereas if you're doing something that's like, eh, then that actually requires a lot of bandwidth from you physically. and emotionally to keep that ball, you know, floating or keep that, you know, boat moving along because it's a slog. And that's why it's so important to actually consider the bandwidth when we make decisions and, before we turn and take action. So all of this, all of this, having said and done is that nothing is perfect. We never measure it. We don't always make perfect on our measurements, but it's something that we definitely should consider when we're making decisions moving forward. Guys, hope you've enjoyed this podcast. hope that you got some, lot of takeaways from this. Most importantly, please share this with other people who may be struggling with their bandwidth. And, uh, as we continue this journey of how gym ends up and we'll continue this next week to see where he lands and hopefully is actually as in a house and not in a hotel and he's eating better and we'll be, we'll see a different gym. I'm sure when, he actually has a home cooked meal and, I'm sure we'll talk about that. All right, guys, I hope that you enjoy it. This is Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection. We'll talk to you on the next.

That'll be great.

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