The Inversion Strategy to Success

Welcome to another exciting episode of Wabi Sabi, the arts of imperfection. In this podcast, we all talk about how imperfect life is and the challenges that comes along with it, but how to embrace that successfully. So Jim, today you have created a great topic. I think it was inspired by some reading. And that reading is really thought provoking in terms of the idea you want to bring to the table. So I'll let you lead this because I've never read this part. I've thought about it in some way, but I've never, I don't think I've ever dived. into something like this. mean, you probably do it unconsciously, but I really like the concept. So let's, uh, why don't you introduce today's idea.

Sure, well recently over the Christmas period, I a lot of reading, lot of recreational reading and I was reading Charlie Munger's... Why are you laughing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, pretty much it. I just go into hyper mode, hyper mode.

I knew this was where it's going. It's like, oh, you know, I'm just doing some reading, some recreational reading in quotation. I'm just reading Charlie Munger. Okay, so now we have a great insight of Jim and his reading habits. So what do do when you're serious reading, Jim?

But no, it's I just I love I follow my own curiosity, right? I I declared recently that I have no fiction books whatsoever. And the only way I get fiction is just through movies. But I just love the reason why I led with that. Don't worry. You're not the only one. It's like, dude, you got to get a life. You know, people will just

No, I'm, listen, to be honest with you, to be fair, to be fair, I am exactly like you. I cannot remember the last time I actually read a fictional book. And, you know, my kids laugh at me and it's great that all my family members read these fictional books, but I have not read a fictional book in a very, very long time. And to be honest with you, like, I don't even know what the last fictional book I

Yeah. I'm the same, I'm the same.

I think Da Vinci Code might be the last one I ever read. And even some fictional books that I read are like The Monk Who Sold My Ferrari or The Celestine Prophecy where there's actual meaning behind it. Exactly.

Yeah, I watched the movie. I never read the book. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, yeah, the parables, they're more parables than fiction. I have to, there's a good friend of ours here who lives in Scotland and we caught up with her over the Christmas period and she was talking about, you know, like reading the Harry Potter books, I go, I've never read them. She goes, what you talking about? I go, I've never read the Harry Potter books. She goes, you're now living in Scotland and Edinburgh, the inspiration of all these books. It is an embarrassment. go, listen, I'm probably the only one. I know I own it, I don't, don't. Yeah, go man. So, all right. That's why we, that's why you and I are on a podcast together, Lawrence. But anyway, I don't.

Nope, never read them, never read them, never read them. Yeah, to be honest, I haven't even finished all the movies. And to be honest with you, in two weeks time, I actually booked, we're going to London, the family's going to London, and then we're just, what plays are gonna watch? And the kids chose the Harry Potter, the something child, the camera, the cursed child. And then now the family's like, oh, should we watch all the Harry Potter? I'm like, are you kidding me? Like that seven, eight movies, like we do not have enough time to watch all those movies in one go, you know, two weeks before it's not happening.

Yeah.

Anyways, sorry, we detract.

No, but honestly, there were kindred spirits here, Lawrence. So I understand that. But I digress. So how I started. So my recreational reading was reading The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger written and the book was called Poor Charlie's Ominac. It was inspired by Ben Franklin's, who wrote a similar type of book where he just chronicled some of his wisdom. And one of the principles, were two fantastic quotes that I remember out of this book. Number one, Charlie said, you know, if anybody is aware of Charlie, he was very witty. He's got these dry shareholder meetings with, with Warren Buffett and you know, he's got these little folksy Midwestern humor and you know, you've got these boring finance meetings and you have these little jokes, the cracking jokes, the two of them. They'll like the The couple out of the muppets, if anybody remembers those two old blokes on the balcony, right? So it was just them. It was just them. But he says two things. Number one, goes, if ever I find out where I'm going to die, I'll just make sure I avoid that place totally. So that was one. But the other one, which was really the theme of what I want to talk about today, was the concept of invert, always invert. And what that means, what he talked about is quite often,

Yep. Yes. Hmm.

Whenever we're trying to problem solve, whenever we're trying to think about something, whenever we're trying to find a solution, we follow it from left to right, so to speak, or front to end. But a lot of the times, and so we caught up and say, how do I ensure that I succeed? Well, that's one way of framing a question. His concept, which I really found fascinating was go the other way and invert and go, how can you guarantee that you will fail? How do you ensure that you don't succeed?

Hmm.

because a lot of the times we sometimes, know, often we know what we need to do, but we've got to cycle through our own belief systems, our limitations, what we think is possible, and we may not communicate exactly what it would take to succeed. However, if you totally do it the other way and go, okay, how can you guarantee this would not work at all? You're not coming up with the same set of limitations and filters. So that's what I thought we could perhaps look at today.

Hmm. Yeah, definitely. think there's some pros and cons to that for sure. I think there's a great way of thinking because it's a contrarian review point because it's natural instincts to kind of go from point A to point B. You kind of go in a straight line. And I think it's really helpful to kind of often look at. There's a great book, I think it's called Disrupt. Really, how to disrupt yourself or something like that. Yeah, definitely no. Definitely not. No, actually, I think it's called How to Disrupt Yourself.

Is it a fiction book? Is it a fiction book? if it isn't, I haven't read it. Okay. Ah, yes.

The name of the author escapes me here, has a podcast and I can see his face, glasses, weird hair from New York. Anyways, James Altucher, think that's it. I knew it was going to come to me as someone so I just kind of focus a little bit harder. again, the title may be different, but it'd be something like that. And he talked about like how to disrupt yourself, basically it's in the title, which is, know, find ways to know that, you know, in life is that you, we all think when we build a business,

Okay, yes.

we feel like it's gonna be successful and we all feel like it's gonna be, and especially if you got success, right? If you created a business and it has been successful, we feel like we can't ever lose. And this is exactly sort of where the contrarian thinking needs to actually almost have is how to actually disrupt yourself. If you had to disrupt your own business or your profession, what would that look like and how would you do it? people are, the human nature is very scared of. We tend to avoid that because it creates, well, you lose your identity, you lose your business and everything else. But it's a really smart way of thinking because that keeps you ahead of the game, keeps you ahead of what you need to navigate through the next little iteration. So for example, we all know the stories of Kodak, for example. They're the ones who invented the digital camera. I don't know, people don't realize that. But they invented the digital camera and they shelved it for 10, 20 years. thinking that, you know what, that will disrupt our chemical business or, you know, to make these films or the film business, which is our core of our business. So we don't want to do that, right? And therefore they shelve the shelf. Someone comes up with the idea and then boom, destroys them, right? Then you got, you know, another example, we blockbuster. We got this massive, you know, company, you know, that around the world renting DVDs. Why would anybody want to, you know, not do this? This will be forever. And then here comes a little company called Netflix who disrupts them two ways, right? One is they went DVDs by mail before the technology caught up to their original idea, which is then now do streaming. And now there is no Blockbuster. I think there's one video store in the UK. I think it was just like, there's a story on them. They're making a comeback. We'll see, right?

You

And so I think that way of thinking, it's helpful to think about how to disrupt yourself and how do you, what are some of the things that are going to affect you? And I was in a entrepreneurial event about, would say, I wanna say five years, but I guarantee you it probably seven or eight years ago. And the speaker, again, escapes my memory at the moment. He has a famous blog called Wait. But why? And he came and spoke on this topic on AI. And he's like, you don't understand the exponential scale of AI and the technology, and actually not just AI, technology itself. Like you think, you know, self-driving cars are years away, 10, 20, 30 years away. But the way exponential technology works, it's coming faster than you think. and he, you know, talk about AI and you know, how fast he's, and this is seven, eight years ago, right? Where he's talking about, AI will eliminate lawyers. They will eliminate radiographers. And you just start to think like, what? Because because like on also these all these people who work for PN, you know, these accounting firms, accountants, right? Because an AI can take that data and do that stuff way faster than a lawyer would to be able to research case studies and all that stuff, right? And now seven years later, where are we now? Right? And you think you know, this is happening. I remember, you know, after that talk, we had this discussion around like a couple of people was saying, how would that, you know, what do you think about your disruption in your business and your, you know, back then I was a chiropractor. And, you know, so we started talking about like how AI could potentially, you know, disrupt chiropractic as a profession or my, you know, my practice. And, but really gave me some thoughts. Now I'll leave you to talk, talk about this. It gave me some thought around the contrarian thinking of what may not be possible, but also, thinking way ahead than you think because the future is actually coming faster than we think.

Yeah, I like that. think that's a really sensible thing to do because, uh, you're starting to think about where things could not work out or what things you don't consider. Uh, and, interestingly, I use a frame used by, by Edward Debono a lot about the six hats principle. Now the six hat principle basically incorporates, you know how you start thinking about things and then you go, yeah, but this could happen and that could happen and disconnect me. How do I feel about this, et cetera? When you're analyzing a decision, the thing that I liked about Edward De Bono's principle is that quite often you have an idea and his idea is, okay, you put one particular hat colored on and you start thinking about the possibilities of this and you run it from start to end. You go all the way through and you don't corrupt it with. other things, but all you focus on is blue sky. What could possibly work really well? And then you might put another different cap on and you do that as a physical example. And you would say, okay, how do I feel about this? Does this fulfill my values? What I want to create, blah, blah, blah. And you just think about it through that filter. And then you start thinking about other things, but one of them is the black hat, which is effectively what could go wrong? What, where are the problems? Where are the limitations? Where are my blind spots? And I really love that because it ensures that you look at things from a 360 degree perspective or as much as you can. And it also means if you're part of a team, know, sometimes I'm a, like you and I, once we've had discussions before, we quite often are comfortable in the visionary, the idea part of it and the bigger picture. Now you need people who are really good with the minutiae and the details. Because a lot of the times the, the, the, the exciting part for people who are visionaries, I think about the big picture, but don't necessarily think about the practicalities of every step. And a lot of the times things either don't get completed or you miss things. And so I think that the, that kind of thinking is really good. It annoys the hell out of you when you're trying to think you're trying to get into the top gear and someone's bringing you back into first. However, it's crucial either in your own thinking or as part of a team. to be able to think, okay, great, awesome. After we've thought about everything that could be great, what could go wrong? Where are the blocks? Where are my blind spots? And where could this potentially just totally unravel? Or as you said, in terms of AI, how can this totally be disrupted before it even gets out of first gear?

you Hmm. And that's a challenge, right? Because I mean, you know, we always talk about escape velocity, you know, on, you know, for rocket to, to launch the most amount of power and energy needed is usually the first initial phase to get off the ground. And once they built enough momentum as they getting further and further away from the center of the earth, it becomes lighter and lighter and easier, easier, because the air is thinner. You're, you know, you're escaping the gravity from the, from the earth's pole and you're going to have, you're to require less energy to kind of get past and outside the atmosphere. And so that's what you're kind of talking about here. And I think, you know, there's an example of fighter pilots and how they plan for the missions. And I may have mentioned this before in previous episodes, but I think it's important to kind of what they do is they do three scenarios, right? They go, what is, you know, they go to a mission, they go, okay, what's the best case scenario here? What's the most likely scenario? What's the worst case scenario? And I literally like that because that's how I kind of plan. And that's how I kind of think about things, because in order for me to go ahead and like most of us think of the best case scenario. Of course, like, I'm going to earn a million dollars or I'm going to like, you know, going to get there. There's no, no problems. And you always look at all the good stuff and all the exciting stuff you like to do, right? But never actually put any obstacles in the way. And I think there's, you know, the way of thinking around the contrary thinking of like, okay, what could go wrong or what would not make this work? You automatically create the roadblocks that's necessary for you to actually have to navigate. the challenge you need to understand though, I think is important is to recognize that Those are only only roadblocks and obstacles that you actually can identify. There is going to be plenty of obstacles and roadblocks that you haven't identified or cannot see them beforehand. And this is what I love about, you know, now that I, you know, hang out a little bit more with some startups in people from the startup world, they just got away a different way of thinking. It's almost like they expect, like, whatever my idea is, is never going to be the idea I end up with. They're almost the expectation is that this is going to be just, it's just step one.

Yeah.

of like 10, you know, whatever the general idea is like, I don't care, but like, would just get funding for this. then, but it, you know, eventually that the product is going be completely something completely different. think that's just a way of mentality that I never grew up with. And it's really interesting to kind of see like, because they kind of have this instilled in them when they're young, they, they almost like treat failure as a good thing, you know, cause they, they're, always looking for the next thing. And they can always challenge themselves to find the next thing. And they don't let the roadblock or unforeseen roadblocks or obstacles to stop them. And even if it's a dead end, they're willing to go, okay, well, if that didn't work, let's come back out of the street and let's go somewhere else.

Yeah, well that's, that's incumbent, particularly you said in startups and a lot of it, where you're looking at iterations of ideas that you start up with Mac one or version one. And by the time you have the, different versions of the updated versions, it could be, as you said, in a totally different form. Uh, so that's the process of iteration going from a, from a perspective of going, how do I keep improving all this? But I, I like the idea that you mentioned about. the concept of pilots, because you do have to concentrate and focus on, what if this goes south? What if this doesn't progress the way that I have? Am I still in the game? And I think, you know, a lot of quotes about entrepreneurship is basically having enough money to be able to handle a whole lot of setbacks and roadblocks and losses along the way. So you stay in the game for a lot longer. And I think that the key is how do you make sure you don't get taken out? That's really... Fundamentally the case because you don't know you can't anticipate and using Charlie Munger's mindset and you mentioned too is that you're Factoring in the things that could go wrong that are based on what your understanding is you don't even know the blind spots You don't know what's around the corner But it's a case of how do you still stay in the game? Even when you're navigating uncertain terrain that you've never either been for been through or no one ever has That that that's a skill set in itself

Yeah, so I do find a flaw in this way of thinking though. And so the thing that kind of came up for me as you kind of mentioned it is that the problem is it relies on an assumption. And then the assumption is that the person who's executing this is someone who is ambitious, ambitious enough and driven enough to not let the simple roadblocks stop them in their tracks. Because you and I both know there are a lot of people out there who goes, they actually put Roblox on themselves without even thinking the worst case scenario and they don't even start because of their idea, even if they're, that's their idea. So you know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about. We both have clients where like they came up with the idea and they already stopped themselves of even executing, even taking the first step of the idea because they've already goes, yeah, but.

Yeah. Yeah.

there's gonna be these problems that can never be done. And they're not even thinking the worst case, this is thinking the best case scenario, they already put roadblocks. So for someone to think, put in the worst case scenario, let's just say that's what we're doing, we're putting in the worst case scenario, what's not gonna make it work, it's almost like a guarantee of like, hell no, mean, not even a ball is starting. And so I think it takes a certain personality to be able to think the worst case scenario and still go, oh yeah, but now I know how to navigate through this.

Yeah.

It takes drive. think it takes like the purpose. It takes someone with purpose who's willing to go through the work despite all the challenges that are ahead. And I think it takes guts and it takes courage and all those things that's required. That's where I feel like it's not for everybody in this particular strategy.

Okay, so you're saying that the presupposition is that we're modeling this behavior on someone who's got the drive and ambition to work through it, no matter what, as opposed to someone who has already found out reasons why it won't work even before they've even attained this level.

Yeah, so my argument is that this, not theory, but this idea, right? This concept, this strategy, we'll call it the strategy, the Charlie Munger strategy, to think of the worst case scenario and why this wouldn't work will only work for someone with a personality who is driven, have courage, and willing to work through despite, like they have to have some purpose in this to be drawn to do it anyways despite the challenges that ahead. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I get it now. get it now. And so would it change or would it be any different if, for example, like what they do in the financial industry, in investment banking, is create sets of models or modeling based on assumptions or what if scenarios. So, for example, you know, let's say you want to take out a loan for a business or a house and the interest rates are X, for example. And so what they build in is what they call stress testing. So you effectively build in margins of an additional. So whatever you're to pay, they have an additional 3 % loading on top of that to calculate what your repayments would be, for example. And if you can manage that, then effectively they go, okay, great, we can do that. So even though you could do it based on its current scenario, they're loading the basis up to anticipate an artificial scenario. to ensure that the obstacles and things that you may not even know that are coming around the corner, you've got capacity for, right? So would what you're saying be different if you, instead of saying, what are the things that could go wrong? You build in something like, what if scenarios? So what if this happens? What if that happens? Because that to me implies a bit more of a nimbleness. Okay, so what happens here? You go, well, I'll do that. Okay, great. What if that happens? Okay, I'll do that. As opposed to, what could go wrong, is a lot more absolute in its statement.

Yeah, I still think that it requires a certain personality. Like I think it still requires a certain demeanor in a person that takes a stronger personality to be able to go to say, nothing's gonna stop me. It's good idea for me to explore the dark side of this, right? Where I find that some people can barely, here's the perfect scenario, right? Maybe not the perfect scenario, but an example. We know that there are certain people in this, who are, tend to focus on the negative. They tend to like view the world through its negativity. Now I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing either, right? It's just that they see the world in all its flaws. And actually this is probably the best contrast of this podcast, right? Maybe the listeners of this probably are not like this, right? That's why you wouldn't be listening to a podcast of imperfection if you don't see the other side of what we mean by imperfection. But you can understand that there's certain people in this world who sees imperfection and does nothing in this world. because of those imperfections. You just say, the world is just filled with problems and there's nothing I can do to actually make a difference or make a dent. And so they just have that filter, right? And sometimes it can serve, but what I'm saying though in this scenario, I think for those types of people, this strategy will probably prevent them from even engaging at all because their world is already set up in a way that already disengages them.

Okay, so if your world view is built around problems as opposed to solutions, you're going to look at things and opportunities in a totally different way.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. I think you and I are wired very differently. Like we see, like we see problems and we, but we see potential more so than problems, right? Like we, we will always see the good in everything negative, even if the worst thing that happened, like last time we talked about, you know, I think we talked about financial losses, our biggest financial losses, but I guarantee you both of us, we came out of that and go, sure, it was not pleasant, all right, experience at all. But at some point you're like, okay, well, this is what I learned from it though, right? Right? So it's like, whereas

Thank you. Yeah.

Some people would look at that and they're probably 20 years later and still going, I can't believe I lost that quarter million dollars. Like, man, like my life would be so different if it, but they never done anything with it. Like they just couldn't get out of that, get out of that story. Where we are always finding, and this is what the whole purpose of this podcast is like, how do we find the perfection in the imperfection, right? How do we find the good and the bad? How do we find the lessons? How do we draw from the lessons that we've learned from the negative things that have ever happened to our lives?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

and then switch that mindset to be able to find some good out of it, right? And really create an opportunity. But not everybody's wired like that, right?

Well, good point you say, because if your default will be say one or the other or a hybrid of both. So how hard is it to change it?

Hmm, that's a good question. That's a great question. Yeah, and I I think it's actually very difficult. In my opinion, this is my opinion. My opinion is that it's very difficult because most of us become aware of this later on in life. So meaning like, you know, we're probably not aware of it until we're probably in our late 30s or maybe 40 years. Now, is it impossible to change? No, absolutely not. Is it hard to like take longer? No, it's not absolutely. but I would put my bet on probability that is very difficult to change because number one, you have to be aware of it. Number two, you have to be willing to work at it and the pain has to be strong enough for you to have the desire to actually switch your mindset around it. And then three, you actually have to have the discipline to train your mind years in the making to get to that place to start seeing the shift. Now the shift is not like a light bulb, like a light switch where it's like on and off. I think it's more like a dial where it slowly, slowly, gradually starts to change its temperature in terms of flipping from one side to the other. And I'm, I'll admit that, yes, I do have a more of a positive slant in life. I tend to look at the negative, negative to positive, but do I see everything like that? No, I guarantee you have my flaws. And it's again, for you and I, we're just working towards, like we're slanted one way, but we're still working towards, and it's a never ending process. And so yeah, to answer your question, I feel like it can be difficult. I think it's difficult. I think it's because you have to go against the grain of how you've already been living life and everything that you have taught that has been instilled in you. You have to fight against all of that and you're rewiring. everything against your nature up to this point. Now, not impossible, right? So, but it would be very similar to someone who is like 300 pounds and then decide to be a bodybuilder and lose. Yeah, it's possible for sure. But the challenge is, a, it's a steep climb. Again, there has to be, there's, there's obviously cases and, it's a challenge and it's like the willingness to take on the challenge. Once that piece. that domino falls, I think the rest becomes easier. What are your thoughts? What are your opinion?

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Actually. And the reason why I ask you that question is that I, by nature, like culturally and by conditioning, there's pessimism built into my DNA, right? Pessimism. And I really like, have to, I've fought very hard against that. And so if I didn't consciously work at it, I could very easily adopt a pessimistic approach. Very easy. Right.

Hmm.

So that's why I asked that and, and man, it's taking me 30 years of just working through conditioning. So there's always the, you know, if my back's against the wall, I've got that mindset, but the obstacle, the first thought, it's not the second thought. It's, it, I heard this quote the other day. It's not your first thought. It's your second thought and your first action that you really look at because your first thought you go, Oh, that was the, I'm not going to, I'm going to ignore it. I'm going to put my thought to here. And then that governs it. And I've really put a lot of energy to not so much, um, ignoring my first thought, but not taking it on board. You know how they say in NLP, you are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of your thoughts. Well, some of them are just downright lousy, you know, and disempowering and I don't buy into those. So I've really had to let those cycles through and go, no, I choose this thought. And from this thought, that's where my action will go. But.

Yeah. Hmm, could you repeat that? Could you repeat that second thought first thought thing? Because I want to make sure everybody hears it I want to grasp it as well just because that's the first time I heard that

Yeah, very easily. Sure. Okay. Okay. So in, in neuro-linguistic program, they talk about the concept of you are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of your thoughts. And so at any one time we'll have a whole lot of ideas that go through. So if that as a premise is what happens, if you have your first thought, you don't buy into it. It's what your, your next thought is. Right? So your next thought is the discerning part of you that believes and buys into this. Is this true or not?

Mm-hmm.

And so consequently you shift it. And so you don't act based on your first thought, which is impulsiveness or fear or doubt, whatever, or reaction. It's the second thought. And then from your second thought, that's when you take action. So it's the second thought, first, first action principle. Yeah. And yeah. And it shows discernment and it shows the ability to think over and above your initial base, base fears or beliefs. So that's when people act.

For section. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like that.

greater than their fears or in spite of their fears.

Yeah, and I think it comes down to nature, right? The nature of our genetic disposition is that our first thought is always going to be in fear most of the time because it is in there to protect you from its safety, its comfort. It's making sure you live. I always kind of go back to like bungee jumping, right? Or doing like, I don't know. some stupid crazy things like walking on the top of CN Tower on the outside. Like, you know, like things that just goes against every nature in your bone. every time I'm even, even like walking the second store floor of a, of a shopping center looking down, like there's fear of me. Like I don't like heights, right? And I just remember like going through like, you know, all these height challenges that I've ever done in my life doesn't, it doesn't make it any easier. I still don't like it, but it's like, that's the first thought. The first thought is what are you doing? Right. even though like I'm harnessed in, everything's perfect and everything's fine, but your nature is to give you that first thought, which is you're stupid. What are you doing? Get off the edge, right? Like you shouldn't be here. Don't be stupid here, right? And that's the first thought. And then you're saying, it's like, I'm just using an example. It's like, is the rationalizing, I'm like, yeah, but this harness, I still remember this. I was at the top of the CN Tower and I did this also at the Auckland Tower too as well. CN Tower is way tall.

Yeah.

and you're on the outside and you're buckled in, like there's nothing, just like this buckle in the back and you're looking down, you're on the outside of the CN Tower, was, I think was the tallest freestanding building in the world, right before Dubai.

Mate, I'm sweating just thinking about that, Lawrence. You painted this.

Right? And like you're looking around like this is nuts. Like what are you doing? But then you go, okay, no, wait a second. Just think about this. Like you got a harness. This is a legit company you think, right? You should have a 99.9 % safety rating, right? For you to even do this. Like we're not in the middle of some third world country who just made this up, right? Yeah. So, you know, and then like the worst part just to kind of finish, finish the, it goes at one point you get to this at the top and you kind of look down and you can see the,

Check out the Google reviews, how many died?

I think it was Roger Center, it was a skydome to me when I was a kid, and you the baseball stadium just underneath it. And you look down and it goes, okay, now everybody just lean, lean across, like lean, like just lean, like 45 degrees, like on top. The only thing that's attached is, you know, pretty much this thing. then you're you're 45 degree hanging over the top of the entire looking down. Anybody from Toronto or anybody been to this entire, you know, it's a very tall building. And you just go on like, this is crazy. Like this is, it was nuts. But it's like that thinking, it's the secondary thinking, like everything rationally start, your rational brain starts kicking in and go. okay, this should be safe. But your initial thought is still there, like that rational being of safety. And I think that goes to, you know, that's the same brain or the same thinker, sorry, the thoughts that go through your brain is that, you know, whatever challenge that you're going to go up against is the fear of failure or the fear of whatever danger that's going to be there and that's trying to protect you. So I think that's great. That's why I want you to repeat it because it was a strategy or thought process to go through because it's, we tend to kind of default to our first thought and take action on the first thought.

Yep. And I remember Joe Rogan talks about it and in only Joe Rogan's style, where he says when they talk to him about getting into the cold plunge every day, and he's got it really cold, and people go, how the hell do do that? He goes, listen, my inner bitch is telling me all day every day, don't do this, don't do this. But at the end of the day, it's the general who controls the show, which is exactly the same thing. So it's a higher function that actually overrides.

Yes.

the thought that I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. to a degree, not to a degree, we all have that. We all have that.

Yeah. Oh, and it is it and it is really training like in so this thing I don't do it. I don't have a cold plunge. I've done it a couple of times. I do not like the cold. Hence I tend to stay in warmer climates in the world. But I have been doing cold showers for close to two years now I would say almost actually since I've been here in Portugal. Every day at the end of my showers, I will do a 30 second like just sit in cold no matter where I am in the world. And it gets scared every time I go to like a Northern country like England or something and going, okay, why the water is already cold no matter what. it's like, let's anyway, so I tend to like, I hate winter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it is cold and you know, obviously like I hate winter and cause it's worse than the winter and when it's really, really cold. Um, but that's the thing like it's, it's for me is that

You're trying to turn the hot hat hot tap off and they go hang on. It's got to get warmer than

I've trained my brain now, I know there's a three second delay between the time I turn that tap from hot to cold, that there's three seconds before that cold water hits me. But I've been doing this for like say two years, and I can tell you without a shadow of doubt, I still hate it. I did it this morning, I hate it, I hate it. I hate every moment of it.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. 100%. Yeah. I am, especially at our gym, there's a, uh, a steam room and a sauna. So I go and do that as often as I can. Right. And I, you know, I get in there and I really love it. And what I like, I have found that when I, whenever I did this at a, at at a retreat or a center, whenever they got a really cold plunge, I jump into that because I don't even, As soon as I get out of the sauna quickly, I'll just jump in the cold pool straight away because I don't like the idea of those three seconds. That's just messing with my mind. Like I still, I do the cold showers too, but those three seconds of like willingly going, I'm consciously making this harder for myself is just so to me, like, dude, just jump. And once you jump, it's out of control.

So okay, so let's go through this, right? Because you said that we tend to, like the first instinct, the first thought is don't do this, but you're actioning on a second thought. Are you still actioning on a second thought, which is like don't be a, yeah, yeah.

Yep, yep. Yeah, it's the general. it's the general. Yeah, just basically override that. It's like, no, I am the, know, Tony Robbins always says, I am the voice. I'm the voice. So yeah, so I'm in control. So when you talk about Joe and go, I'm the general control to show. And so consequently,

Yeah. Yeah. I am control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that's exactly, that's the thinking that I have to go through every morning. The reason why I do the cold showers, I don't even know what the science behind it, I really don't care. It's not the science that I care about. It's actually, I love the thought process of what think what Joe Gerogen says, which is like, you do it because you're training, this is the training part. You're training your body that your brain, you are in control of your body, not the other way around.

Yeah.

And it's like these little habits, right? I'm not saying like all these cold showers and cold plunges would, you know, change my life. No, it doesn't. But it's a daily reminder to start the day that I'm in control. Like I'm in control of turning that tap. you know, comfort is what, if I let comfort go, no, not today. That's comfort, my body telling me, taking control of my body. I don't like that. I need to tell my body, you're gonna suffer, you know? And this is after going, you know, going to the gym, you're gonna suffer.

You bet, yeah.

Right? And this morning I'm like, I woke up and like 2 a.m., 4 a.m. this morning, I'm like, don't feel up to this. Like, I don't, like my body, like I shouldn't go to the gym today. Right? But I haven't been in gym all week last because I was unwell. And it's like, you know, and that voice at 4 a.m. in the morning, get your, go back to bed, get your lazy ass up in an hour. I don't care if you're going to do a hard workout or like, you're just going to go. For the sake of just going, don't stress about, you know.

Eh.

And it's just like this voice, you know, and it's like just rationalizing, because that voice is there every day. And I think the reason why we're highlighting is that that voice never goes away, right? And so you can see, if you, going back to your original question, which is like, can you train it? Yeah, you definitely can. But you can see what we have to do. Like we're even fighting this every single day of our life. You can imagine if someone's not aware of it or someone's not willing to work at and even to start being the process, it's almost impossible to shift, right? Because you literally, you just said 30 years it took you and your nature, your natural disposition is still to be pessimistic, right? And that takes many, many years of rewriting code, right, of software. And I think it takes a long time. Like for me, I'm still in work in progress is the best I could put it, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we all are. all are. And that's the thing, you know, like, so to me, if you, what I've realized is that fatigue makes coward of us all. Right. And so if you wait until you feel like it, you don't do it. So yeah, I've had to build in systems and automatic habits, which is what the whole James Clears Booker was a bull about to build into safeguard against. that tendency, for example. So it's like, I'm on my way. doing stuff without even feeling like I'm doing it because that's just part of who I am, my identity, et cetera, et cetera. And the whole mind over mattress thing in the morning, you know, like I get up and I fly, but I know a lot of people don't do that. So they've got to find a pathway to get up out of bed very early in the morning. And along the lines, along the lines of what we're talking about, when you mentioned about saying you're the one in control, like years ago, it was the the former editor of Success Magazine Darren Hardy always used to say that every so often he would go through a process like he used to like, you know, he used the example of coffee and I know, you know, some people drink coffee. I don't think you do. You've mentioned before, but he would routinely go through a period where he would withdraw from coffee and he would do that and he wouldn't go cold turkey because there are withdrawal effects, but he'd go through a process of decreasing it. So that he can teach his brain and mind, I'm actually in control. I don't rely on this. I'm not dependent on this. I'm not addicted to this. This doesn't have a hold on me. It's like, I am the voice. I'm the one that's running this show. And really powerful, really great ability to be able to do that, to create thoughts and control over and above your base desires or feelings or primal thoughts.

Yeah. So I want to bring this back to the original content, right? Or topic, which is relevant to this because, you know, we talked about like the strategy here, uh, the Charlie among us is, to, to look at like what could go wrong. What are all the things that could go wrong? And I guarantee you one of the things like what works is outlining is you, like you, you are the problem, right? You could go wrong here. And it's, and I'll admit that like, that's the first thing I would think is like my own laziness, um, my desire to be comfortable.

Yep. Yeah.

Uh, my desire not to want to be in pain, my desire to just rather play paddle and do nothing else. Uh, my desire to not work that hard. Uh, you know, the creature comforts, all of those things are really what's going to sabotage for me not accomplishing, you know, whatever goal I've set for myself. And I think that that's, this is why we're spending so much time. You might think like, they just went off in a total different 10. No, no, like not that we intended it, but this is where it naturally comes back to is like it is. is really us, right? It really comes down to us and how we navigate ourselves and the work that we need to do within ourselves. That's why, you know, we recommend you listen to our podcasts every single week. It's not because we're like telling, you know, it's not about just the insights and it's about reminding you, right, that we're all imperfect and finding those perfections in those imperfections, but also making sure that you got to do the work. And every single day you got to do the work. And we're not immune to that either.

No, totally. And you know, you were talking about laziness before Lawrence. I read that this, um, this founder of a company looks to hire CEOs who are lazy. And then you look at it you go, huh, how does that make sense? Well, because the person who says, yeah, I fundamentally are lazy is always going to look for efficiencies. Always going to look for a way of optimizing the resources they have to get the best out of that. So if you think about it from a superpower, it's like, why do Why make 18 steps when I can condense it down to three? And interestingly, what I was reading about FedEx a while ago, that what they did is that when they, um, when it first came out, when they were basically having all these parcels to deliver and they were paying people by the hour, things weren't happening. Things weren't getting done. There were holdups and whatever. Once they changed their whole policy and they said, right, we're paying you on the shift. And as long as the job gets done, if you do that and it takes you eight hours, um, you'll get paid the same as if you get it all done in three, guess how quickly they got to do the task. So effectively they, they found efficiencies in that pathway because there was a, there was a benefit to it. And so if the worst case is, okay, what's the worst, how could this guarantee that it'll fail? It could be that you're, you're blocking it yourself. Like you just said, if you just optimize it. So if you look at If you're judging yourself, I know that's a little bit of tangential thing, but there are benefits and superpowers in all things if you look for it. For the kid that has found ways to make things work more efficiently, they can use that as a skill rather than a deficit.

Yeah, and I think that it goes close to the employee mentality, right? The employee mentality is like, you know, and this is the fault of the employer as well. And oftentimes the employer is looking for like, you know, I'm paying you 40 hours a week, you should do 40 hours of work, right? But there's no incentive to drive that person to work any more efficient and faster, because you know, the more they know that the faster they work, they're just going have to do more work because you're paying them by the hour, right? Whereas I always had the mentality of thinking for my team is that, you know, I rather pay you for the results that you provide for me, regardless of how many hours you do. So I'm not going to be a stickler on like, did you work all 40 hours? I care that when I have a task or project, you complete those tasks. And if you don't complete the task, then we have a problem. But if you complete the task, I'm not going to ask you like what happened to those five hours you didn't do, where were you? You know, and I know that's a different way of thinking, but you know, you're, they're not incentivized to work faster, right? They're not incentivized to be more efficient. And so if you want an employee,

Yeah.

who wants to be more efficient, you have to kind of maybe change the metrics on how you actually incentivize them. And that could be paid time off or whatever, but that's, you're exactly right about efficiency. It's so important. It starts out very young. I remember when my daughter used to come home, even my son comes home and it's like, and when you do a math problem, even I remember this when I was a kid, it's like, okay, the answer is this. And I would lose points because that didn't show the work. And I'm like, But it's there, I saw the answers like right there. And he goes, no, but you need to show your work. I'm like, come on teacher, like seriously, know, Mrs. Whatever. Like it's not, doesn't take a genius for me to do this in my head because now you got to show your work, right? Yeah, yeah. So like penalize me, okay, I get it. Penalize me if I get it wrong, okay? And I lose marks because I didn't show the work, but you know, if I got the right answer, you know, then.

Mrs. Longvision.

You know, I get the benefits of both sides. Like showing your work allows you to see where your faults are. But there's the, like, it was already, like, as a little kid, I was doing that and I can see the kids in me, was like, they're all like, how do I do this faster? And as a parent, you're kind of like, okay, like, you you're trying to teach them, you know, the reason why you showed the work, but also understanding like, okay, you know, don't have to play by the rules, right? So it's like, it's trying to, you know, thread that line. But going back to that, I do want to make a comment on kids is that you mentioned earlier like about changing habits and how changing and pessimistic to optimistic views or, you know, just are seeing the world differently. The worldview is it hard to change? I do. And I see the natural tendency of human beings, even in my kids. And I'm not sure if you happen to see your kids this way, but my kids have a tendency. I'm not sure if it's society or, you know, what they're exposed to, but you know, even living in a... you know, I feel like it's a relatively positive household. Like they still see the world negatively. You know, I don't know if it's friends or the teachers or whatever. And I catch them all the time. And I know I won't be able to catch them, you know, all the time, but it's like, I'm trying to instill this, but it's so hard, even that 13 or 16, to try to remind them like, hey, like the world's not that bad. You know, you got to see the world. And it's like training them at a young age. So I can only imagine, like, I'm hoping, like, I mean, only time will tell. hoping that in the future that this will build enough foundation or enough juice that they will take this on and grow something. There's no guarantee, right? Maybe it's genetics, maybe it's whatever, I don't know. But I can only imagine if the kids who are not getting any of that, right, and their starting foot is already in that pessimistic state and you compound that by another 10 years on their own between 20 and 30, Like you can see how this becomes a very, very difficult mountain to override to go back the other way.

Yeah, if you're all your support structures, your societal structures, your friendship groups all have a particular belief about things, it would be very hard to break out of that. so, you know, witnessed by a lot of, you know, welfare states and welfare countries. So if you're statistically have had dad and mom and grandparents on welfare, the chances of you breaking out of that go plummet significant. It's because you're conditioning and what your normal normalization you've normalized. This is how it is for us. So to be able to override that takes something exceptional. It really does. And you know, like I I've been there because I was the first in my extended family, whoever went to, uh, tertiary education for some of them, high school education. And so you're breaking out as the first one in my extended family that married outside of my ethnic group. Right. So you're you're bright. And that may not sound huge now, but 30 odd years ago, that was that was massive, you know. And so and so you you start and a lot of you can imagine that was my hey, this is what I want to do coupled against people's what's the worst that can happen if they were projecting the worst that can happen on that. Naturally, you're to have cultures, you're to have belief systems, you're going to have

Hmm. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's huge.

values that collide. I think, you know, one of the things that I took out of that, and I guess I'd probably summarize it as we start closing out is anticipate what could go wrong, but don't be bound by it. You know, don't look at it as an inevitable eventuation and, you know, ending because you have the capacity to rewrite that. can have, you can rewrite that by value, by virtue of your beliefs. your values, your conviction, your ability to ask different questions and your reframing. I think that that's really take it on board, but don't take it as gospel. It'd be what I'd summarize it at.

Hmm, that's perfect. That's a great summary of it. And it's funny you mentioned about, you know, marrying outside your ethnicity, right? And for people, yeah, I wasn't the first one in my home tire family. On one side of the family, yes, but not on the other side. On the outside, my cousins actually all married interracially. But it's funny because, you know, and today's generation is like, well, what are you talking about? Like, that's not a thing. But back when we were young, I'm a world now.

Did you get that too? Yep. Yep.

to be able to say like, yeah, it was a thing. Like, not like a massive thing, like it was in the 60s or some 70s or something, but it was still a thing. Like I still remember getting looks. I still remember getting looks for, you know, even nowadays I get a little bit, but not as much as it was say 10 years ago, 20 years ago from other people. But it's funny, my comment was, you know, isn't it crazy like interracial marriage is not that big of a thing or, you know, inter ethnicity, but now it's like marrying because of different politics, that's even a bigger thing.

Oh, that, yeah. Yeah, we have a, yeah. Yeah. I actually, I actually, I actually read a forum recently. This is we have a mixed marriage. Is it possible to have Democrats and Republicans marry? Um, is it possible? And ideologically, you know, like it's really interesting, you know, like you, become the average of the people, but if your ability to be able to have, I'm not sure recently if you saw some footage of, um,

It's like it's how do we go forward or backwards here? Yeah.

Jimmy Carter's funeral. yeah, and not that I, you know, watch in its entirety, but it was really fascinating when you had Donald Trump next to Barack Obama and they're joking and having a, you know, and to me, that really messed with people's heads. You know, that is like, how is that possible? And when you talk about, you know, when you talk to politicians from yesteryear, they would actually still have really good associations and friendships.

I saw some of it, yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

but they will just debate the politics. So that doesn't happen anymore. Now it's like you're drawn upon party lines. It's like us and them. Yeah. No.

Yeah, well... It's crazy. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry to go on a little bit of a rant at this podcast, right? But I think it's important to kind of, you know, I mean, a year ago, it was about a year ago when I was on in a conference where George W. Bush was sitting next to Bill Clinton, right? So if anybody who does not know US politics is one's a Democrat, one's Republican, one follow the other, right? The media would paint them to be like mortal enemies, right? But in reality, they were on stage together. They're like best friends. They're like the best buddies. They're joking, taking the piss out of each other. It is absolutely fascinating. I'm like, that really opened my eyes and going, you know what, like whatever the media feeds us, it's actual utter BS. Like most of the time they are actually not, you know, that there's no conflict there. They were definitely really good friends. They knew each other really, really well. And they still talk to each other, even though they were, you know, from, you know, different kind of politics. And, you know, this is the, I don't want to start, you know, conspiracy.

Yeah.

thoughts or like, you know, because I'm, is it not fact checked? But I just recently read a post from a friend of mine who, who I know in the LA during the LA fires and they were just talking about how, um, you know, they were, they were asking for some help to get the internet because there was no wifi, no, because all of a the power's down and the internet was down and they needed some help. And so he was connected to Elon Musk. And so he contacted Elon Musk and, say, Hey, you know, they need some help, the firefighters need some help over here. Could we get some cyber trucks so they can actually charge some batteries, use the cyber truck to draw the batteries and then also use, you know, set up some Starlink so that they can have, you know, they can coordinate the efforts to actually fight these fires. And so they did that. They actually created that to happen. was like boom, like, you know, Starlink and Tesla were able to do that right away. And then there was an assistant from the mayor's office. contacted them and go, Hey, could you, I heard you have an in with Elon. Do you mind? Do you think that, you know, they can do the same for the mayors because they're trying, they're losing their, their internet. And he goes, uh, Elon has said that he's actually contacted the mayor's office, had not gotten a reply. goes, no, that's impossible. So he goes, me a second. He goes back, talks to the mayor and then comes back and says, actually, you're right. Um, they, the mayor has said that she is not going to get any help if it comes from Elon. And it's like, what world do we live in here where you know, your politics overrides the needs of humanity. Now again, I wanna pre-frame this on this podcast to say like, I don't know if like this is fact or fiction or whatever, but what I'm saying at the whole of the point is, it's not whatever the story, but the story is like, we have gone to this place of where we have now created all these, I guess, conflicts with each other based on a belief system that may or may not be true as we just talked about how we live our entire lives to get to a certain point. which have been indoctrinated to us by certain beliefs from our parents or friends or people we hang out with. And we are just talking about how we possibly may need to reevaluate those stories that we have ahead and how long that takes. Because this is an example of how certain belief system are actually now hindering the greater picture because we're more affected by our bruised ego. And that's the thing that we need to kind of overcome. And the worst case scenario in this case is like, what happens? What is going to be the problem? And I think... having all these plans and emergency plans to be built into our pursuit of goals, could be super important.

I don't leave it at that Lawrence, think because this is just, can, it's just going to open up another file and perhaps we can use it for another. Stay tuned or we'll continue.

All right guys, so I hope that's, yeah, yeah, we'll continue and see as the development goes. This is the Wabi Sabi. Siri, Siri, Siri's listening. So this is Wabi Sabi, this is the art of perfection. As we just demonstrated, nothing always goes to perfection. All right, so see you guys in the next episode. Take care.

Sorry that was Siri telling me. You