Detours & Deep Talks: Resilience, Family, & Life’s Lessons

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the podcast on the art of imperfection and Jim, I got to tell you, there has no circumstances that I could, um, the setup of this conversation. I just got back from Bali and I flew to Bali and here's where all the imperfection started to show up. And, and I am so thankful for this podcast because the conversation we had helped me navigate through all those imperfections. That was like an onslaught. All at once so here's the situation I was in Bali I was running the retreat for my clients there and I flew in a day earlier just so I can adapt to you know time zone change because obviously I'm coming from all the way from Portugal that's a whole time or day so therefore I to just kind of set this up so I land and then later on that night Surprisingly someone one of my clients messaged me and go hey, there's a I can't fly in our flight got canceled or we'd be delayed Because there's a volcano And I'm like, what volcano? Cause I didn't hear a single thing. Then I started searching for it. I'm like, oh, not again. And that is correct. Not again, because this has actually happened to me before about seven years ago. And I had this event in Bali, same thing. My clients, my Nautra clients, we were supposed to have in Bali. Volcano erupts. By the way, the volcano is not erupting on the island. It's like hundreds of kilometers away or a thousand kilometers away or whatever.

Yeah. All right.

It's just that the volcanic ash that gets put into the atmosphere, certain airlines don't fly. And so it was a mad scramble the first time and we actually ended up moving it to the go coast within 24 hours. Notice it, but this time around I'm already on the island. I literally spent 24 hours on to the island. I'm not moving. I'm not going anywhere. And I had to just learn to play this out and see where the chips land over the next 24 to 48 hours after that. So that's the setup of our today's conversations of.

You ash gets the problem.

the multiple imperfections that happened where things didn't go to plan.

Yeah, it's interesting. Lawrence. I remember just in a, in a recent podcast, you were talking about that experience and here you were reliving that again, which is really fascinating. But I remember I said to you, when I heard about that in the news, I sent you a message. go, Hey Lawrence, how's this all going on? And before you actually said anything, you sent me this snapshot of Wabasaba. You'd seen some sign somewhere in Bali and, I looked at this and went,

You did.

Okay. I'm interpreting the story behind the story. And then you expand it on it and tell me what was going on. So I'd love you to talk about that process because from an outset, you know, like that's major logistical maneuvering and challenges and whatever. So first of all, can you just run us through, because you, you still made it work. You still, you adapted, you followed through, um, with some contingencies and changes, but can you run us through, I guess, the emotional roller coaster and the process of how you went around working around the obstacles that showed up for you.

Sure, so here's the thing, right? I gotta be very, very honest with you and this is not an ego stroke or anything else. So really when I found out on, was Tuesday night, I, Tuesday I landed, a few hours later a client messaged, I can't get in and the flight's canceled, we'll try tomorrow. I remember thinking to myself, I'm like, oh, not again. Like the funny thing is, oh, kind of backtracking with it, a week prior to that, one of my clients who was a client of mine like seven years ago, just happens to mention goes, I hope there's no volcano that rest because she was disrupted the first time around. And I'm like, I'd never even thought about that volcano for a long time. I never even thought it was that possibility of ever happening again. And she just brought it up. And sure enough, she jinxed it. I'm not blaming her, but there is the element of going, why did you even have to put that in the con my consciousness that actually happening? Because I'm all I am living in my own world. But anyways,

Hahaha!

So Tuesday night, went to, I remember thinking to myself, I remember sending a message to Karen, I'm like, you're not gonna guess there's gonna be volcano ash and flights are being canceled. The thing is though, Jim, here's my honesty around it. I wasn't panicking at that time because reality is, like, well, who knows, right? Sure, one couple of flights got canceled. Really, I'm gonna go to bed and we'll see what happens in the morning. Because there's nothing I can do anyways, right? And so when I woke up the morning, I slept in really late because I, you know, obviously flying didn't get my sleep and I slept until like eight, eight 30. I'd always turn my phone off like on silent mode and it's not silent mode, but actually off, off any wifi. So I turn it on and sure enough, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. All these messages kind of came through at around eight 30. Now remember I'm on Bali time. So it just like about three hours behind, you know, Sydney time. And, and that's when all the messages came through and I looked at my message and like without even

Ha

blinking, just knew like, okay, obviously this is bigger than it actually is. And here we go. Right. Um, and so really as I was going through it, you can see all these messages, people were just sort of panicking, like flights got canceled or flights got moved or, you know, not sure they're flying, but delay, delay, delay, delay. And I'm sitting there kind of contemplating my emotions and I'll talk about my emotions first, because I think that's most relevant. Really. It's at the first time it was like, and this is where it's a very big contrast from how I was. that moment in time compared to seven years ago or any years prior to that. I think seven years ago, was at the airport and I was panicking. I was like, oh my God, got 24 people coming in, what am gonna do? And I scrambled, scrambled, and because of that event, I was able to smooth that event, 24 people all shifted Bali into the Go Coast. So why is that important? Well, it's important because in that moment, I did it. And so now it creates an experience that I know I can pull off things if I need to. So when this happened, I didn't actually panic. There was actually no emotional rollercoaster as you would expect. that actually took me by surprise. And that's the big thing for me was that I was surprised. I was surprised that I wasn't more panicking at that moment. Because my brain just went to like, what am I supposed to do? Right? Sure, this sucks that I'm not going to have anybody, but I realized that there was actually a couple of people who already landed the same day I did. So they came in around the same time. I'll have some people, might not be, it was definitely not a full house. It might just be literally four five people sitting around in a room. The only thing was more like I booked accommodations. I, with my own money to book these accommodations. So now I'm on the hook for them. And that was, I mean, that was the only negative thing. I mean, other than people not being able to make it, like that was the negative thing from a financial point of view. like, oh, okay, like that's what I'm to be on the hook for. But what was helpful though, to kind of on contrast was Bitcoin was going at an all time high at that time. actually this is important for the context, right? Because I think this is where financial kind of comes into play. So when I got on the flight out of Portugal and I landed in Dubai and I looked at the index and the stock whatever, and I'm like, what the hell just happened? Like literally in that

Yeah, I was going to bring it up. I was going to say support and challenge. Life does that, right?

10 hours I flew and then I get back on a plane an hour and a half later and then fly to Bali and then it's like another search like literally went to multiple all-time highs from the 24 hours I left I'm like this is insane right and so I remember saying to a friend of mine it goes like are you worried I'm like dude bitcoins up what am I what else I'm like what am I stressed about right now

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I wanted to check that because there's two things that happen, right? That, that is number one, right? That's the whole thing. I was going to bring in that's Bitcoin. I'm so glad you brought that up, but it's the whole life philosophy of support and challenge. What you lose on the road about you going on the swings. So whether you think that helped you or whether the fact that you had a similar experience to

Yes.

something before that you could hang your hat on and go, I've been here before because sometimes there's a difference between I'm comfortable because I've seen this before as opposed to I'm comfortable because I've just got a view of life that helps me work through that. So what do think it was? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

would say there's a combination of things. I think there's a combination of things. I think the experience of previous experiences helped. I think the experience of knowing that I have literally nothing I can do to control the situation helps. Also knowing like panicking, worrying about something that I can't control really doesn't help anybody. And I why I put myself through that. That morning I was actually supposed to be attending and I did go and attend my friend's 40th birthday party who he, like his wife arranged so that I can actually attend. And so it was kind of worked around me. so like I had other things to kind of, you know, to attend or to attend to. And yeah, did the Bitcoin rally at that time make a difference in my mindset? Definitely. Like I definitely wasn't worried about, you know, the thousands or a few thousand dollars are going to be on the hook for, uh, for the accommodation and worrying about that because it balanced out in my mind. It's like, okay, it's almost like the humor is saying like, don't worry about it. Like we got it sorted. We got it handled. Um, you're fine.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I think if Bitcoin went the other way, if it crashed, you know, I probably would have been a little bit more panicky mode. And this goes to show how sometimes our emotions are really affected by the circumstances that are actually totally outside our control. And I can easily get caught up in that. So it just so happens in that moment of time, which is that things were going up and certain things were going down, but at the same time as like it evens out for me at that moment in time. there's moments I'm sure there when things are going down, if, just say the stock market crashed, Bitcoin went down and, and all of those things are happening. I probably felt like what the hell is happening to me? Like why me? Like, I'm sure I would have gone into that state. I don't know if that's true or not, but I would imagine I could easily have gone into that state because we, get caught up in these moments. And so, yeah, so I can't accredit all to like, I'm so good. I was keeping my emotional roller coaster, but I definitely feel like that, you know, having that positive upswing. definitely created that balance in my life and created that, you know, that the world is okay. It's not the end of the world and you're going to be just fine. Um, so that really helped me, uh, just to balance that out, just to, see some great things. And I think that's the truth about life is that if we only see the negatives, you're going to find it because that's what you're looking for. And if you actually take a step back and look for like, what are the good things that are actually happening in this moment in time, you're going to find those too. And I think that's important when things are going. not the direction that you're supposed to be for you to actually pull back a little bit and go, what are some good things in the life? Doesn't mean that you're going to swing all of a sudden be happy again, but at least minimize it sometimes. That's what you need to do is to not let the negative be such a downfall to bring you down further and further down the hole. So it actually kind of makes you kind of stay, I try to kind of stay even keel as best as I possibly can. Obviously there's some ups and downs there, but like try to maintain this balance. so that I don't get lost in my emotions.

Yeah, loads of years ago, I did this program was called the way of the wealthy, which was like a six day retreat. was like looking at the psychology of finance, our emotional states. And then they had all these fantastic world-class speakers talking about specific asset classes, you know, and everybody was a subject matter expert. They came in and talked about their whole thing. But what left me with this amazing, uh, memory was they talked about the capacity to emotionally regulate. ourselves and they used wealth in this case because they looked at the wealth set point and they go look we've got this wealth set point and if you go beyond what they found plus or minus 10 % of that range in your nervous system it sets off this alarm reaction right and so when like if Bitcoin was rallying like it has and that was the only side of the equation the natural the natural essence or sense would be you'd have euphoria and so that your nervous system goes, hey, this is outside the normal range. Something's happening here and it would create like an alarm reaction, right? Alternatively, it goes the other way. If it dropped by that equivalent amount outside that range that your nervous system's comfortable, then you go and shut down. so what they talked about was irrespective of what happened, the good, the bad is adapting to that and just not creating an alarm reaction in your body and just normalize it, which is kind of what you in a way you're doing. It's like, hey,

Hmm.

roundabout and swings, okay, I, you know, I, had this major challenge here, but it's been offset by that. So your alarm reaction in your nervous system wasn't triggered. wasn't for, uh, basically didn't get this demand. So suddenly that's what, that's what I'm hearing in this scenario. That's where you could be cool under pressure considering that, okay, the up and down ranges of both of those experiences kept your nervous system within a, within an acceptable range.

Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what happened. and the, and the top it off as I was, went for a walk that day. Um, I saw a business sign called Wabi Salvi and that's why I took the photo and then sent it to you. in, I didn't send the second photo, which is like walked into a bookstore and I saw a book called Wabi Salvi and I did take a photo, but I didn't send it to you, but it just, was everywhere. And, and this is the, the moments of, of like, recognizing like there's nothing I actually can do. And these are the life challenges that are going to be thrown at me. And I was happy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

to just accept the fact that sure, did I help my clients navigate? Hey, listen, may cancel this air. someone did mention this, which is really smart, which was to say, one of my clients has said, what they need to do is like, don't worry about going to get your refund for your ticket because they're going to give it to you. There's no point standing in line trying to get your refund. What you should do is actually go to the other airline and try to book another ticket to get here. Because that will be refunded at some point. Don't have to wait in line for a hundred people to get a refund. go to another line, try to buy a ticket and get on the next flight on an airline that would fly here. And that's exactly what happened for some people. Like, someone person was coming from New Zealand and he's like, Lawrence, that's what, in the morning, this is the message I woke up to, was like, the flight to Bali is canceled, but should I still go to Melbourne? Because it was a Melbourne flight that was canceled to Bali. And I'm like, well, what else? Like, your choice is stay in New Zealand or go to Melbourne and even if you can't make it, you got a weekend in Melbourne, go to Melbourne, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, and you, you're already taking the time off for anyway. So you already blocked off your schedule. You know, like it might as well just go to Melbourne and just enjoy time there and have a great time there. And that's exactly what he did. And luckily in that particular story it happened because he actually found when he landed, he actually went to the counter to Geruda airlines and then found a ticket and was able to hop on a flight to Geruda right off the bat. Now, if he wasn't in Melbourne from way to the next day, he wouldn't have been able to do that. And so that's the thing of sometimes like.

Perfect. Yeah.

That's an analogy for me. like, sometimes like you might not get to the final destination, but if you keep moving forward, right, you might have, you might have the opportunity to carve a different way. And that's exactly what he did. And he, got so much out of it and, and, uh, I had a great weekend. So it's something like that where some people, um, you know, it's interesting to see clients and how they behave sometimes like, ah, like I canceled. That's too hard. You know, forget about it. I'm not going to come like there was, you know, and just like, and I'm not saying this is right or wrong. It's just sometimes like there's also family circumstances and. and kid circumstances, like sometimes it is just, it gets too hard. And so it really depends on, I knew I was out of control in a sense. So I don't have control of how much effort someone's going to put in, but I can only give alternatives and then let the chips where they fall and, and you know, where they decide to kind of take it. And some people were able to get on certain flights. Like some people were actually, they came over. Some people just didn't make it a third of my clients who couldn't make it. It is what it is. And, and I had to just accept, I just have to, the emotion I had was like, just needed to really just go, no matter who comes, whoever comes, whoever can make it here, we're gonna have a great event with those people. And it just worked out that way. And you know, to balance this out, which is, I had one guest speaker speaking, one of my friends who lives in Bali at the moment, and so he kind of came and speak. And it was really strange, was because another person sent, you know, sent a message to me and said, hey, Lawrence, I'm in Bali too. I'm like, oh, no way. I'm like, oh, do you want to come and talk, speak? And what ended up, I ended up having three speakers at my event, you know, which was not the plan, but it was so serendipitously that, know, I actually had three people come and speak and the person that wasn't even supposed to be there spoke and he was like one of the, clients just loved his talk or his, his energy and the interview style that we did. Cause and just really got a lot out of it. And so some like, that's what I mean by, know, we talk about balance. And that was the perfect balance, know, the perfect blend of just things working out the way it's supposed to work out.

I'd love to hear you say serendipity a few times really quickly. and, uh, and, uh, you know, I, you're 100 % correct about this, um, this point that you raised in that sometimes what happens is if you want to get from point A to point B, your only point of reference is I'm starting at point A, right? Or let's say C, cause that'll be a better example, but sometimes you've got to get to B and, and than from B it's just clear runway.

Yeah.

But because, so if you ask someone a great question, a straight question, um, can I get from A to C directly? They say, no, it's not possible. But if you ask them different question, is there another way that I can get to see starting from where I am? Sure. You can go to B and if you go to B, there's no obstructions. And I don't know if you remember, um, I mentioned last, was it last year? year, I think I went to some event in London and we had the. We had it as a podcast episode, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, when I had to get from London back to, and we had, and what we did is that based on the available information that we had, we wanted to get from one point to another. It was impossible to get through. But what we asked someone is, do you know if there's any possible way? And this person said, yeah, if you can do this and this and this, you run away. And we were prepared to run it and see how that went. And it worked out perfectly. So we figured that

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

We've got nothing to lose. I'm going to run this out. I'm prepared to do that. But I got get comfort in just asking a different question. And I think that that's what I heard from that person.

What exactly in the London tube system is one of the perfect examples of that, right? Because there's multiple routes to get to your destination. And I remember like I had a meeting, I was in London this year and I had a meeting to get to, and I thought it would only take me, you know, 20 minutes, but, uh, but it actually took me 40. And I remember going to the train line. was, they were on strike or something was happening with the train line. was packed. And I'm like, I can't, I can't be late for this meeting. And. And I'm like, on my phone it says this is the only way, but I'm like, I'm sure there's gotta be another way, another line somewhere. And I remember taking, I went all the way upstairs, changed a different line, got onto this other thing, and then somehow I got there, like, you know, within half an hour, and like, oh, like there's multiple routes where, you know, sometimes you only think that there's only one way to get there, then you're always gonna get stuck. And that's why I think you always should have, you know, sometimes you need to kind of create multiple routes. And hence, I always talk about my clients to always say to them, it's like, What is the actual outcome you actually want? You know, sometimes most people kind of give you like, I want to take train A. That's what I really want to do. I go, but for what purpose? You know, and usually it's not until you ask them a couple of times, goes, well, cause I need to get to, you know, know, West Ham. I'm like, okay, great. If you really want to get to West Ham, you know, you can take train B or C to get there. might take you a little longer or you might have to walk five minutes, but you can still get there because train A right now is stuck. And so I think it's important for people to realize what is the actual outcome. And for this, in this circumstances for me, was like the actual outcome was to have a great event, to make sure that the clients who are here get the most out of the experience that we actually got, rather than focus on people and being disappointed by the people who couldn't make it. And that's a choice, and that's like a flip of the switch sometimes, but you need to kind of make that natural choice. And oftentimes we lose sight of where we're going and we still focus on the strategy or the plan to get us there.

Yeah. You know, along those lines, one of my, one of my favorite apps is a map called city mapper. I'm not sure if you use it at all. It, Oh, I highly recommend it. Right. City mapper has pretty much every, um, city in the world. It's bus, train, um, metric and time tables and everything like that. And so you plug in those are the coordinations and he says, sure. How do you want to get there by car, by train, by bus?

Hmm, no. Okay. Okay?

which way you want to do this or do you want to walk? And it gives you all these multiple options and what it's kind of like Google and it'll coordinate, but this is just brilliant, right? My son put me onto it, you know, and it shows you every bus route, every schedule. And it says, leave here, walk here. This is the bus. This is the entry. It's phenomenal. But what I also love about it is if you miss a turn, it, deviates and just the whole thing. So, okay, Dunderhead, you missed this turn. So now you've gone one extra block. you've got to reach. it shows you multiple ways of getting to the end point by multiple routes. And to me as an analogy of what we're talking about, you just got to find the city mapper. You just got to ask yourself, if I can't, if I'm only planning on driving it and my car breaks down, what other options do I have to get to my destination? Factoring all possibilities, not just the only one that I can. So I've got no shares in City Mapper. I've got no shares in City Mapper, but it's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant app.

Yeah, and it's so important to do that, to actually have, yeah. I just downloaded it and I remember it just brings me another time in London. I was like where I was, I was, I had to catch a really early flight. And I remember my friends, it's always just go down here, go take this train and you you'll get to the airport. And, uh, sure enough, I went to the train station and I'm like, I was on a different platform. Like, I'm sure that's the train that's supposed to be on. And then by the time I recognized it and that train took off and I realized like they changed the platform on me without telling me. I'm like, God damn it.

You're wiping, bye bye.

And so now like a few of us were stuck and I'm like, all right, well, like instead of just worrying and panic, that's like a moment of panic, right? It's like, all right, I'm gonna miss this flight. What am gonna do? And I just remember like, okay, well Uber, like let's just grab a taxi. And I asked anybody who was around me, I'm like, okay, well I'm going to the airport. looks like you're going to airport too. Do you want to just share an Uber? Like, you know, and some people took me up on an offer and just like went and you know, just paid for it. Like it doesn't really matter because I got to pay for it anyway. So it's like. go and we got there. And sometimes like the exact route that you wanted to go through. But if you got stuck and like, oh, I need to take this train. Damn it, I missed that train. Now I have to wait for the next train. No, you don't. You can find alternative routes. Sometimes it doesn't always happen, but in this case, we kind of can. this feeling around emotions around this is all about perspective. And I'd like to kind of bring in your story this from this week, which is really interesting about perspective because perspective is this, Like you were in Scotland and you saw snow and you were so excited like a little kid.

Yeah.

I'm seeing snow and the perspective and I remember reading all the comments and everybody's like, oh, this is amazing. Like it's so magical. And we're here I am. I'm thinking that's not my perspective of snow. So I'm to make a comment. I know it's kind of flippant, but it was kind of joking way, but it's like, I had the complete opposite aspect of snow. Like sure, snow can be magical, but most of the time it's a pain in the ass for me because I grew up in snow. And so this is like the contrast of perspective, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me, let me, let me give it context. Yeah. Let's give it contrast. So, um, so we woke up, right. And it just started snowing and, and I've been to the snow when it's already snowed. I've flown in and it's already like snow covered, but to actually see the process, it was really fascinating. Right. It was really wonderful. Um, and it was magical. just, our whole backyard and transformed within a matter of two or three hours and you know, it's, dried out now it's back to his normal lush green or greenish tinge, but it was a magical experience purely because I didn't have a reference and I did giggle when I saw your comment. went, here's someone who suffered through that. So the postscript to that story is when it'll stop snowing, we went, Hey, listen, we really probably we're doing 75 hard at the moment. Right. Well, I pretend we're not. So we're day 31 and we have to go outside and have a walk. So

Right.

But we're not prepared, right? Because we haven't got waterproof shoes. So I've got to tell you, I saw what you meant because it sucked. Because we had 45 minute walk to the shopping center, which took us closer to an hour because we were walking like we couldn't be sure footed and we're walking around. By the time we got there, my shoes were soaked. My socks were soaked. I bought the waterproof shoes. I had to change them there. Another way back, it was like, OK, this is better. So I got what you were talking about.

Yep.

And if it was purely, if I could have skied from my house to the shopping center, well good. But if I got to walk through, trudge through that and yeah, I can see why it was like, okay, I'm over it. You know, I could totally get where you were coming from. Oh, it's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's gorgeous. Yeah. But up until the point where you got to walk through it, buddy. And then when I did, it was like, this sucks. I got to go buy.

Yeah. See, I told you it lasts about a day and then you get back to normal.

new shoes, new waterproof shoes and stuff. So yeah, that's what we had to do. waterproof shoes.

Yeah. My, my kids still haven't seen. So I get that feeling because my kids have never seen, they've seen snow, but they've never seen snow falling and they do miss that. And so they, know, when the, when the day comes at one point, I'm sure there'll be, you know, going through the magic of like, Oh my God, this is the most amazing thing in the world. Um, but I, my, I'm haunted by memories of having to get up in the early in the morning, have to break through the ice to get inside the car so I can open the door and then turn the car on.

Ha ha ha!

to heat the car up for about five minutes so you can defrost the whole thing and then go back inside and then get ready and then come back outside to like scrape all the ice and snow off the ground and shovel the driveway before I can even leave with the car. Like those are the memories of like, this is why snow sucks. All right, so.

Yeah, that's what you remember. But by contrast too, right? So we went out to dinner on Saturday with some friends and some of them were Aussies and they talked to me about exactly that. It was like, hey, you got to see snow. What was it like? said, awesome. Just your point of reference. go, and they came from a part of Australia, it's quite hot. And the contrast in Australia, and this person was talking about, was cracking up laughing. She goes, used to be so hot that I'd have to break up my bed into threes, in thirds and just shift across.

Shift across.

to try and stay cool. And then you had that magical moment when you turn your pillow over and it's cool, you know, and it's like, and so, so it's all just what's normal to you. Cause then people who are like cold go, I just want the heat. It'd be wonderful. It'd be warm. But when you're in like 30 degrees trying to sleep and it's really hot, that sucks as well. So it's just, it's just your point of reference. It's, know, I think we're, we're, we're attached to the romantic idea of something as opposed to the practicality of it sometimes.

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

And that's a, that was that situation. So I want to go on a, sorry, go on. What were you gonna say? I was just going to change, change gears a little bit and say, so while you were also there, I saw you caught up with your dad as well too. And you certainly posted about some great reflections in there. Would you, would you be okay to just share some of those specifically and what, was great about that experience with your dad?

Yep, absolutely. Go for it. No, no, Go for Yeah. So for, for point of reference, like, um, I haven't, you know, really seen my dad much obviously since COVID and, my dad used to, my parents both used to live in Australia and, for about 10 years during my 20 years stint there. So I used to get to see them a little bit, but then we moved and, uh, they moved, they both moved back to Canada and then, uh, COVID hit my mom passed away. And then, so I don't really get to see my dad very often. It was probably a period of five years where I didn't get to see him and I got to see him last summer came over for. Portugal for winter time, but then, you know, it's been a year since I've seen him. So, you know, when you live in different continents, it is challenging for sure to kind of see. However, what ended up really, you know, I spent this time, he was actually happy to do a three month stint in Asia Pacific, in Hong Kong and China and Australia. And he happened to be in Perth, which is obviously very close to Bali. And so I said to him, like, are you willing to come to Bali and I'll buy you a ticket over so you can come and we'll spend, you know, three days together. I can't stay too long because I was going to get back to my family, but you know, and he accepted. So, you know, it was great to have him over. you know, during the reflective back, I mean, I don't think I spent a day like any time like that with my dad on a trip specifically with my dad since I was 18. So that was like 30 years ago. And so it just kind of brought back a lot of memories. And then I remember it's funny enough, actually, one of the guys, one of the speakers were having dinner and he said, so you wrote a post about this one time and. And it really kind of brought back some of the memories of this particular post that I, you know, maybe did a long time ago, which was talking about, um, how much time you actually get to spend with your kids. And, you know, they said, I think from memory, basically, what it says is that 90 % of the time you, parent gets to spend with their child, um, happens 90 % of the time happens between the zero or the ages of zero and 18. And, and it's shocking to most people, right? When you actually first hear that step, when you really kind of dive into the numbers, it's really true. because, know, by the time you hit 18, you go to your way from university and you know, this is average. So some people, most people don't actually come back to, home. Right. So most people actually will have their own jobs and then they actually live there, you know, maybe in a different city, maybe they actually then starting dating and they're to have a family of their own. Like, so your time moments spent with your parent now is now very, you know, now down to the last 10, 10%. And so the post I kind of made was mostly that, you know, my dad's 81 now. And I feel like, you know, I don't get to see him very often. And I know that, know this when I, you know, when they start to think about it, cause there were different continents, the amount of times I get to see my dad, I, know, between now and the rest of the site. Now I'm obviously, I don't have a crystal ball, but the chances are is probably less than these two hands. Um, you know, fingers on this. And when you put it in that perspective, it seems like this is kind of crazy. No, it doesn't mean that we don't talk. It doesn't mean I don't have enough phone, but I'm talking about like physically being in the same location with him, um, being in two different continents, it's probably less than 10. And now that means that that 10 % now obviously I'm much older than 18, but it's like now we're down to like the last 1%, maybe even stretching that as much as possible. So that moment, I took a reflection because what do we do in Bali? Because I remember thinking to myself, not until I actually got to Bali, I'm like, the roads are crap. Like it's hot during the day, so humid and hot. My dad's 81, like he's functional, he can walk and everything, but I'm like, what am I going to do with him? Like that thought came to my mind, like what am going to do with it? I haven't thought that part of, thought that through. But I realized I'm like, you know what? I didn't book on accommodation yet until, you know, actually it was in Bali. I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to book a resort because worst case, worst kind of worst. We just stay three days in resort and he'll probably be happy. We'll just go out to nice dinners and nice lunches. Um, we don't actually have to do anything. And that's exactly what we kind of did. We just walked into the shopping mall or whatever, but reality was just spending time with him. And I think we don't realize how important actually that is for him. Um, and for me to just, just do nothing and had conversations around life and. conversations around, you what happens post-life in terms of what, you know, you know, all the logistical things that we probably never get a chance to kind of really talk about. instead of filling time with busy time, I really just felt like we spent some time just to kind of connect. And, you know, so I think that, so that really, that the post was really the reflection of that, you know, the thoughts around, you know, that moment in time and the... And that changed me a little bit because not only the post was a reflection for what I was feeling at the moment, but it kind of realized, made me realize like, I only have two more years with Kaia, less than two years now. And you know, my son's 13, but like, you know, and I got five more years there, but it's, it really, really, obviously I was away for 10 days and it's like, man, you know, how much time do I spend on my computer? How much time I spend working or how much time I, you know, like all these things.

Yeah. Yeah.

you know, just on social media or whatever I'm doing and realizing like, I couldn't really just put that phone down. And I really could just not watch this video right now and spend some time and just hang out or go for a walk with them. And sometimes that's challenging that it's easier said than done, right? Because these are habits that you formed and you got to break through those habits. I'm guilty of them always, but at the same time also too, you need to not only break the old habits, but you actually have to establish new ones, right? So, you know, the new ones meaning like you actually have to be intentional about putting the phone away or putting the stuff away and being intentional just to sit and have conversation with your kids or with your partner, being intentional about having a walk with them because they don't know that how important life is. They don't know how short of a period of time they have with you. They don't wanna know because to them, it's like if they knew, they would actually get them more upset. And so I just wanna just get them to realize like, this is true life and I wanna spend as much time as possible. Obviously. And when I say him as much, doesn't mean that as I spent all the time, it's not like it's the end of the world, but it is recognizing that time is limited, um, with my daughter now, cause she's, she's, you know, 16 and she's most likely going away. Well, she's definitely going to be going away for university. He's not staying time here. And then my son still got five more years. So it's, it's sort of like that moment. And these are the reflections of the emotions that kind of came up for us. So if you want to talk about the contrast of the volcano and this one, like this was actually way more emotional to me than it was the volcano.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's correct. Correct. That's why. knowing that that's what has going through that's and I thank you for that because that's what I wanted to create this platform is to show you the the the contrast of it because I put to you that in 10 years time, 20 years time, you know, Bitcoin have rallied. You've made any money that you would have basically had had covered. But I put to you that what you'll think and remind yourself and remember of that trip in Bali was the three days you spent with your dad. Right. And so so that was why the that's why I wanted to just play that out, because in amongst all the drama of day to day, we sometimes have these magical moments and we sometimes we know it, but we don't realize how magical they are. And I think there's the old saying there's being in the right place at the right time, but more importantly, knowing it and understanding and realizing

Oh, yeah, definitely by far.

the specialness and the gift in there. And that's a gift of three days. know, yeah, my dad's been gone for four or five years now. And, you know, I'd give up a lot to spend three days with him. So, and particularly for him when he was in his final days, you know, that was when I'd go and visit him in a nursing home, we wouldn't do much other than just sit around and talk. And they were, I remember those conversations. And so you do,

Hmm.

I'm in a unique scenario where, you know, my kids have now grown up and left home and living their own lives. So I'm at a point a little bit further ahead where you are where I've lived that whole feeling of they're gone and they're not there. something happens to you too, when when you've been the protector and the guardian and the looking after them that you realize that they're OK and they're going to be OK. So there's so there's a process that you have to go through in yourself where you're starting to analyze your own.

Hmm.

identity and who am I here to do? What am I here to do? And it really kick starts into it. But also while my kids were just at the at the point of that, I got to fast track it and talk to my dad about that process because he got to see that through me as well. So I'm kind of in the middle where I'm going through my kids are becoming independent and I'm fast tracking it in a period of window that I had with my dad to work out what was it like for him to see that for me. So what I realized is over time,

Hmm.

The natural affinity is when you're trying to encourage your kids to go out there and explore and live the best of their lives. And they naturally will be that they'll move away. They'll do things. They'll follow through. And there's a growth that happens to you in there. But what I've realized that the magical part for me is that if you've set these fantastic foundations with your kids, they come back and they come back in a different capacity and relationship. They come back as the adult who wants to just hang around and just realize and appreciate. the time with you that they have. And that's what's happening with us. know, our kids, I think it was a week and a half ago, some random Sunday afternoon, we worked out, we just played this, when they were kids, we used to play cashflow, Robert Kiyosaki's game, cashflow. And we used to play it all the time. Now you can play it online and yeah, you can play it online and it's faster and quicker and it's really cool. So we had the scenario where we were in three different countries playing.

Hmm, great game. Oh really?

cashflow on a Sunday afternoon with our kids who are in their late twenties who just went, Hey, I really feel like connecting with you. Um, and that's what we did. And it was just amazing and special. And I, that was like gold to me. So I think if you can have those, those experiences amongst, you know, and I think that's what, what's so amazing about having a dog is that you can get, you'll be getting your butt kicked.

Nice. Hmm.

on a day to day and having these highs and lows and whatever, and you come home and they just love you unconditionally. And it just reminds you about that. And what I took out of your whole experience was, okay, you're creating great environments for your clients to grow. you've got the retreats you're running and they're getting there. this is one of those scenarios where, you know, there was a deviation to the plan. You're supported by the ups and downs that the contrast support challenge of life. but you had this magical experience in three days that I think that are probably priceless that you can look back on.

And, and it's what I think that like the setup of that too, as well as that it would have been so much easy. Like it's, it was been easy for me to have said, you know, it's too hard. I know we're close. I know we're only three hours apart, but it's still far. to logistic, like the logistical, um, of me either going to Australia or him coming over here, like, you know, like it's quite challenging. mean, you take an 81 year old, I know he's functional and everything else, but you got to think about the amount of visas. Like there was like four different. websites and visas you have to get into when you come to Bali and have to pay for this and and I have to make sure that he's gonna be able to get on the right, you know, know, taxi and stuff like that. It's just like you know, any moment those moments I could just like, oh, this is too hard. This is not this. I'll see you next time. I'm you know, whatever that could have been. And the crazy thing was, as he had an earlier flight, his flight was at 4pm. And my flight was at seven. So I, know, and he said he was fine to go to the airport by himself. So I got him a taxi and, and sent him on his way. And then as I was about to head to my gate in, um, uh, in Bali to catch my flight all the way to Portugal around say seven to six o'clock or something. Um, I walked by and I look over and there was my dad sitting there eating dinner. I'm like, what the hell are you doing here? Like you're supposed to been on a plane two hours ago. And sure enough, he was waiting at the gate. because I knew he texted me, he's been waiting at the gate, but he missed his flight because he didn't realize the gate was at 6B or something, which was downstairs and he was sitting upstairs. And you're like, oh, this is why, know, like these are all the reasons why I don't let an 81 year old travel by himself. And so then I felt so bad, but I'm like, I gotta catch my flight. So what happened?

Yeah.

He had to go all the way back out and had to buy a ticket. Like he was able to sort himself out. Like I said, my dad is very, he travels a lot, but it's just been the last couple of years he hasn't traveled as much and this is doing it by himself. So like I do have that worry, but he figured it out. He was going to get into Perth like 1 a.m. or whatever. And, but yeah, but I think he was almost too embarrassed to let me know. Cause I was like, we were at the airport the whole time together for whatever the two hours. Like he could have just told me if we could have gotten, you know, could have ate dinner together or whatever. He didn't tell me.

Good.

Why didn't you tell me? So anyways, what is what it is. And so that's the whole thing. What I'm saying is that there's moments planning this trip that could have been easy, like, oh, you know what? I'm already away from my family for four or five days. I better get home. I could have easily done that. You know, to ask my kids and Karen, is it okay if I spend a couple extra days later? And those are conversations we have to have. But the reality is that it would have been so much easier to just not make it work.

Yep. Yep.

but I'm so glad we just kind of stuck to my guns. like, I kept that going on in mind. Like this is going months before, which is like, how many times, like how many more times am I actually really gonna see my dad again? And as sad as that sounds, but that's just reality. But when I think about these things though, Jim, I find the saddest part about that is like, as I watch my dad get older, it's actually me. It's like, I see myself, like that's gonna be me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

in 20, 30 years and that makes me really sad. I was like, oh my God, you know, and that makes me like just filled with these emotions in me, just like, man, like my kids are be my age at some point. They're gonna have their own kids at some point and I'm gonna be my dad. And those, like these are the feelings that kind of pop up, which is, you know, in one point it could be very depressing and sad, but I also take it from the other point of view too, to balance myself out because well, you have something, you can do a whole bunch of things.

Yeah.

now to ensure that those next 30, 40 years are going to be freaking amazing life that you get to have.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great point you raised because it does, it makes you very contemplative. Uh, we're currently going through a situation where Bettina's mom is, she says she's the last grandparent of our kids, uh, who's surviving and she's going through some of her own health challenges and our kids see that and you watch the decline and you're right. It puts you in touch with your own mortality. Cause you suddenly go, that's going to be me one day. And I think it does one of two things. They usually say it's Things are either a lesson or a warning. And, know, both Bettina and I are looking at the inconvenience of everything. And, and, and you'd be the same too. You realize the gap, the distance when someone's unwell, you know, out of, out of all the times it's, it's all well and good to say, yeah, we're living on the side of the world. But you know, when stuff gets really real and complicated and there are health challenges, gosh, you feel that distance. And so we're currently working through that right now with, uh, with Bettina's mom and,

Mm. Mm, yes.

trying to take steps to make sure that she's safe and nurtured and taken care of from the other side of world. And it's hard, know, and, but, but you do, it does. You do bump into that mortality. You do bump into those ideas of what's coming. and I think for me, like you, it makes me be decisive and just get intentional about where I spend my time, effort and money. And a lot of it's got to be around.

Yeah.

experiences and time and relationships with ones that matter to me. So I think out of all of this, this is what I take out of your experience. And that is just being intentional and decide where you put your time because it's limited and you'll always have areas where you can waste it and spend it in times that don't nurture and fulfill you and you'll miss out on the big juice of life. And so to me, that's, that's what I take out of your whole experience.

Yeah. I've been using, you've been using a lot of these emotions to leverage against my own fears. You know, like the fears that are popping up. I'm starting a new project and you know, there's certain things that I'm starting and working on, but there's all the whole bunch of like a wall of fear there. And what's interesting is like, I'm trying to utilize this to kind of fuel me and go like, well, what else you got to lose, man? Like, you know, are you gonna, and that's sort of like the lesson I'm taking away is to kind of every time those fear pops up and the guys just remind you like, there's not much time left. Like so. take away, not to say I'm gonna die tomorrow, but it's just more going like, what, like, what are you so afraid of? And at contrast and balance that fear with just reality, the reality is like, okay, well, are you gonna be, are you gonna live in regret or not? And it's funny enough, as I was preparing for my, the retreat that I have, which was I pulled out the five regrets from the book, the top five regrets of dying, yeah, Bonnie Ware, and, and, you know, and I stated that, right, at sort of near the beginning of my retreat, because

Yeah, Bonnie way, Bonnie way. Yeah.

I wanted the people to kind of really think about those five regrets before they actually had any indication about setting your goals for the next year or the next three years because sometimes what we do is we set the same goals or we set the same kind of objectives simply because they're the ones that are front and mind. But if you know that there's these regrets that you don't want to have, that may change the way you see things. And so that's been really kind of contemplating on my mind over the last couple of weeks and been utilizing it. So I think sometimes the contemplation of death and, you know, is not a bad thing. you know, this is the coin I have on my desk, which I might've shown before, but it's like momentum more, right? And it just means that, you know, we shall die. We will all die at some point. And just a good reminder that, you know, life is temporary, not permanent, but we often live like life is permanent. And so it's a good reminder on always,

Yeah. Yeah.

to recognize that the life can be very flating and we just gotta take each decision. Not only you need to live your whole entire life that way, but it's important to remind yourself mostly because we don't think about mortality that much.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really good. Uh, good summary to start closing out on before we finish Lawrence. I want to find out this passport scenario with you. Cause last time, one of the recordings we had last time you were up in the air about your passport and you're like, I don't know if I can get out of the country. So what happened to having to do? I obviously got home. So spoiler alert. Yeah. Was it was a bit of a like a Jason Bourne scenario. It wasn't, it wasn't like a CA.

Yeah, I got home. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess like it is a I actually wasn't there was no troubles. Yeah. No, there was no troubles at all. I, actually looked it up. I actually made a mistake because I was going to use my Canadian passport to kind of, you know, and leave the country and enter country. But I realized that they would have no record of me entering the country with my Canadian passport. So that probably wouldn't have worked. Because they're like, how did you even get in the first place? But anyways, I

Okay. Oh. Yeah. You can sit back to Canada to then actually enter it legally.

Yeah, everything was fine. I actually looked at the Emirates website and actually had, you know, did say that from Portugal. were, you know, they knew about it, so which was good. So then there was no stoppage at all. So yeah, so I'm back.

Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's wrap up. Thank you for just, yeah, open, opening up that platform for discussion because I think that there's a lot of great themes that came out of that in terms of adapting, finding alternative pathways to route to your outcome and also appreciating some magical moments you have in there as well. That's really what I took out of today.

Yeah, appreciate that. Appreciate asking the questions. Thanks for indulging me to reflect upon my last couple of weeks. I actually took a lot away from just remembering some of those things and what it meant to me. Gives time, some time to kind of put some, uh, the emotions to, you know, uh, thoughts that could lead to some action. So we should really appreciate it. So I hope that you guys got a lot of time out of that. And in terms of obviously not, but it's not about listening stories about my life, but it's more about how, can you take away? What can you learn about, you know, the life of just being you know, that life is not always perfect and this what this whole podcast is about. So I hope you enjoy that podcast and activate some of those lessons into your life. This is Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection. So until next episode, we'll see you then. Take care.