Panic, Power Outages & the Power of Community

Yep.

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the arts of imperfection. And there's no better way, Jim, to start on this podcast than what has happened in the last 24 hours. Now, I know we don't like time stamping these things, but the reality is, is that this is hot off the press and it is the reality. Jim, after the last 24 hours, what has transpired is that you are going to be glad that you are not in Spain and you are in Scotland. So just to kind of update.

Yeah, yep, yep.

everybody depending on I'll see when you hear this podcast but today But 24 hours ago The power went off so I was sitting on my desk I was just sitting in the in the dining room table and I was just typing away I was just writing an email and all of sudden like the lights kind of just went off I'm like, ah, okay, the power is off. You know, there's nothing to it mean power goes off, you know once in a while that happens, especially when the weather gets warm and but then my wife comes up and goes, hey, the power's off. And I yeah. go, maybe I should sometimes find out just whether or not the neighborhood power is off. So I put it on our neighborhood WhatsApp channel and just like, you hey, is the power, is anybody else have power off? And I just, you know, went back to my email and then later on my wife was trying to text someone. It's like, hey, I have no internet. I have no like signal. I'm like, oh, that's weird. And I looked at my phone. I'm like, oh yeah, there's no signal. And I'm like, wait a second here. And this is where it starts to kind of like your worry starts kind of creeping up because the power goes off, no big deal, it happens. When the power and your phone line, like your mobile phone line goes off at the same time, you're thinking, there's like, what's going on? Is this like the end of the world? Is there like a nuclear bomb that went off that I had no idea? And how are you gonna contact with anybody that I can't contact and call someone? I can't go on the online or internet to find out what's actually happening. And that was the beginning of like, uh I don't know, it's just a dystopian kind of worldview for a little bit.

Yep. Okay.

I'm trying to like be positive and you know, we talk about be trying to be positive and don't jump to conclusion, but you could not help my, at least my mind to start thinking about worst case scenarios. What do we need to do? What kind of preparation do we need to do? Are we even prepared for this scenario? So anyways, I'll kind of leave it there and then we can kind of come back to any part of the story. Cause I have a lot to share what I went through for about 10 hours.

Eek. Eek. Eek. Yeah, man. I, yeah. Thank you for that because that was when I reached out to you this morning, uh, I got online. Uh, it's a beautiful sunny day here in Scotland. You'll notice I'm wearing a Barcelona t-shirt. I'm actually probably the second time in six months I'm wearing a t-shirt, uh, by itself. Uh, but, uh, but I got online this morning and I, and I read the news and I went, Holy smoke. What has gone? It felt like you said like Armageddon or something had gone on all the powers and, and. I instantly thought of cyber security. Uh, that was my first thought. And I've read since that they've ruled that out. But when you hear everything has gone off the grid, you know, you could, like you said, you've got contingencies for one thing, but then when power and phone go out, you realize how dependent we are on that. And that's why I reached out to you. Go, are you okay? Um, are you even able to record today? And you went, yeah, we just got back to it. So, uh, yeah, I'd love to, in real time. as much as possible, go back through and run us through what that was like. What was some of the thought processes that went through your mind and how did you cope and adapt under such uncertainty?

Yeah, so I think that's the, I think that that's where the real lessons is. So if you can just bear with me as I go through some parts of the day and, and how I was thinking this through, um, really what happened initially, I said it was, we just thought it was a local thing, but when the phone lines went down, that's where my fear, you know, at least the radar popped up. It wasn't like total massive fear because it was a beautiful sunny day yesterday. It was like 24 degrees and it was sunny. It's nice. So I went down to knock on some neighbors just to see if they had any power. But the funny thing is, if you've ever been to Portugal, most of our houses are behind fenced gates. It's not like you just walk up to the front door. So because there's no power, you can't ring the doorbell. So you're just knocking on fences. And there's a couple of neighbors that I know. I, yeah, they're electric doors. You're locked. Yeah.

They electric doors as well too. they, so suddenly like you're locked.

So obviously they couldn't hear me. So I'm like, okay, well, I'll just go back to my normal day-to-day life. But my mind starts ticking. It's amazing how your human brain just starts thinking the worst case scenarios. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean, that's how our brains and DNA is wired is to kind of not just like, you know, someone will figure it out, right? Because like I said, if it was the power going out, it's an inconvenience. But when the power and phone line goes out, it's like, whoa, something is deeper here. Like something is bigger. I had a call, I actually had a coaching call in about half an hour and I'm like, okay, so what did I do? So I basically, I was able to figure out how to unlock the gates to our house to go to manual. So was able to open the gates. I drove my car, I tried to like, maybe I was like, maybe just in this area. So maybe I'll just drive like a little bit further, like 10 minutes away, know, downtown cash guys or something like that. And maybe I'll get a signal somewhere else and just hotspot off my phone. So I was driving and traffic is busy. And uh I couldn't get a signal no matter where I went. I was like, wow, this is really weird. Like everything, and people are, some people are on the phone. I'm like, how are you getting a signal? And I'm not getting any signal. And I just like was kind of, I was watching people on the streets and you can tell no one has power because all the petrol stations, ah all the lights were gone. They were all closed. All the restaurant people, the workers were outside. So therefore there's no food. uh And some people were on phone. Some people weren't. Some people were trying to figure out how to, trying to figure out how to use Uber and all that stuff. can just tell. And anyways, I went back home and I couldn't get a signal. then eventually my neighbor, uh which we just recently, they just moved in. My wife and I were talking about, she worked in the hospital and she said, no, what's happened is that all of Spain and all of Portugal and including some parts of France was completely down. You're like, whoa, that's when it's like, okay, it's not even just my region. It's literally the whole country. And you think, wait a second. When does a whole country, two countries, two main power countries go out all at the same time, including your telecommunication? You're like, this could be insidious. You start to think of cyber attacks and stuff like that. Yeah.

That's why I thought about it straight away. That's what I went. I went, you don't take a whole country out or two countries, two and three countries nearly without one of those thoughts going, hang on, what's going on here? That's honestly, that's the first thing that went through my mind.

Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, is that you also start hearing rumors and this is where, okay, we'll go to the, think it was slightly, this is where I think misinformation and the speed of the internet can be bad thing because what happens to happening is that you get a spread of like untruths, right? There was like rumors of people, there was a cyber attack, there's a CNN report, you know, but then again, like right away that was debunked pretty quickly, but that little message gets spent. really, really quickly all around the WhatsApp channels. Everybody thinks of cyber attack. Oh crap, what are we going to do? And creates this massive panic in the community of people, what they need to do. And then you hear about like 14 countries were down. You're like, Oh my God, as a whole Europe down, these rumors get started and it passed on by one person and one person. And this is how things kind of escalate. I think during times like this, you need to kind of take a step back and really going, okay, what do we know as facts? rather than trying to like speculate and just pass on rumors because it's in human nature for us to kind of be fearful about things, be worried about things, and then also kind of warn other people about it. I think that's how we're, that's why the news spreads so quickly. And I think that's why it's so important to kind of take solace, take a pulse of like, what do you know for sure is true before we actually pass it on? And I think that's important, you know, in situations like this. Yeah, I don't know if you want to comment on that at all. uh

Yeah, I think, I think you're spot on. Like you've got, you've got a situation, then you've got your emotional response to the situation. And sometimes it's not the tragedy. That's the problem. It's the human response to it. That's, that's a drama. So, uh, you know, I some friends yesterday who got caught, uh, trapped on a train between, uh, Madrid and Sevilla. And you can just imagine, I could just visualize the train just coming to a halt and just stopping and then going there. And so there's no air conditioning. A lot of them couldn't open the doors. And they're stuck for 10 hours. Uh, a lot of them, they'll stranded and you know that I've been on, know, thankfully this wasn't in the middle of August where it's the hottest time, know, but, but I've been on a train for a while and it gets stifling and to, be able to, and then there were people who were trying to get off the train. were told for your own safety and there's all of protocols. You've got to stay on there. So people are starting to get emotional and starting to get quite. agitated, then that's when mistakes start happening. That's when it's really difficult to maintain and keep your cool head when you've got this emotional response that's going on a primal response in a lot of ways, you know, Hey, I don't feel like I can breathe. I'm starting to get erratic. And I think that's managing those people in those situations just as important.

Yeah, I think the reality is that, you know, it's easy to kind of like go back and go, how should I thought this differently? But during the moments, I remember I was, I in two brains, right? One part you're like dealing with like the situation and then, but also trying to be rational about the same time. So my emotion around this whole thing was one was like, I have nothing to worry about. You know, I, we drove to the school just to kind of make sure the kids are okay. Cause we couldn't. contact the school, whether the school was out or not, and what should we do? But at the same time, my instinct just went, okay, let's make sure we get the family, and we gather the family. That was instinct number one. But I couldn't help myself in the back of my brain, like, what if this was worse? Like, what if this was a cyber attack, right? How long is this gonna take to restore everything back? And that unknown fact was sitting in the back of my mind, not like massively fearful. but also just being trying to be precautionary. Like what do you need to do to ensure like the safety and for at least the next few days? Because this could take, we weren't sure if it's gonna be a few hours. Was it gonna be 24 hours or days or weeks or even a month? Like there was some fears about, know, because I've seen this happen in Canada, where during the ice storms, um you know, where, you know, there's no power to a situation for like a week.

You don't know.

you know, in the middle of winter. And I heard that I'm like, man, like, what do we need to do to prepare? And, and that's the fear of the contingency plans, right? Because we have no connection to the outside world. I couldn't even contact my clients to say, Hey, listen, I'm not going to be on the call. So I figured, know what, it's worldwide news. They should hear about it for whatever reason they didn't. Right. Um, I couldn't contact anybody else and there was no internet access. Some people had internet, which was, which was interesting enough. Some, some telecommunications were on some. somewhere depending on what network are you on. But for me, we went, okay, we should probably go to grocery shop, right? Because we fridge, let's just say, just predict this being 2448 hours. Well, the stuff in the fridge is going to have to go off. What you'll we everything in our house is electric. have no gas. have a barbecue. So we can go okay, we can barbecue the meat tonight. That's fine. But like, what food can you get? You know, the grocery store was packed, like it was lined up at the door. Right?

Yeah, yeah, you get a run on them. You get a run on them.

Exactly. So we were there, at least there was a grocery store at the school and we went, okay, let's get some water, like just some, you know, not like, not overdo it, but let's buy some bottles of water, making sure that at least we have a little bit for the next few days. Canned food, right? Those are the other contingencies fans. Okay. Cause really it's like tuna, you know, canned sardines and stuff like that. Um, but the rest of the stuff is just like, okay, protein bars. I'm like, okay, I can get my family fed. I can eat on protein. I can live on protein bars or, you know, protein cereals or whatever. Uh, I think I can survive and you get some like. you know, maybe some fresh fruits and veggies just to hold you over just in case. But really much like there's nothing else you can do when you think about there's no fridge to or freezers or enough ice to really help you prolong this more than 24 or 48 hours, right? For any for any meat and stuff. So you really got to have to start with going with canned foods, beans and protein and so on so forth. And there was a massive run on that. We went to the we we went to the my daughter actually had an exam. She goes, okay, you're to have to go back and write that exam before and we'll kind of pick you up later. So we went to the shopping center and the shopping center was totally closed. The lineup out of the continent, you know, like the grocery store was out the door. Like I've never seen that out into the mall into the like, we're not bothered going in there. That's just crazy. But that's the thing. Like your, your brain just goes to kind of fear and panic. And you start, and what was interesting, you start watching what other people are buying and you start realizing like, okay, maybe I should need that too. So

Yeah.

The panic sets in when one person starts, that's why you get a run on things, right? One person buys and the next person, surprisingly, like it really reminded me of COVID. Like it really reminded me of what happened in COVID. This time though, there was no toilet paper bought. It was mostly food and water, but it was definitely sort of this add-on effect when you're watching else other people doing it, you start to realize how unprepared we actually are, right? In terms of flashlights, know, candles and things like that. We just so reliant on technology.

Yeah. oh Yeah.

And I realized I have an electric car. So what I was thankful for, I'm like, okay, I have a couple of battery packs like for my phone. I have my electric car. I can use wires. I can use the car battery to charge my phone and my iPad. If anything, but not that I can get a signal, but at least I have my phone. So I'm like, okay, and I have to minimize driving, right? Let's not waste all this battery just in case this lasts more than a week. Like those are all the thoughts that kind of went through my head, contingency plans of exactly what would happen. And I don't think we do this enough.

Yeah.

regards to our life. And we don't do this enough regards to our business because we never think this will ever happen. And this has made me really rethink about what, what are we not prepared for and how can we prepare better? Like my barbecue, I had this gut feeling all week that I need to change this. This should be over soon. And of course the day without power, you're like, Oh, I better check this. And it was like, it's on the bottom. got one meal out there and maybe we would have got a second meal today. But, and, but the

Yeah... Guess.

the petrol station are closed. So I can't like go and exchange it because they're closed because their terminals not working. You can't pay anything with and I only have like, you know, 100 euros in cash because I'm always paying with card. Right. And this is like

Yeah. Yeah, that was the, that was the thing. That was the thing. Like it was, it's not just like you said, the traditional, like, know, a few months ago here, we had massive storms in the UK. And so you get this run on the supermarkets, right? So people prepare for that. go, okay. Um, it's going to be windy. You need to stay home. You get your food, your everything, your good, your safe. You're in your castle. Great. But in your scenario, what happens is that your power's out, your phone's out. So even if you are. want to be proactive and go out and get things you can't unless you're carrying cash. So so many, wasn't just a electric, it's a, a point of service, um, problem. Everything's so reliant on that, you know, like it was just a perfect storm in so many ways without the storm this time, you know, and it highlights how dependent we are, like exactly, like for the, for the longest time, I always carry cash and, uh

Hmm. Yep.

You know, you never know. And in the period of time, like in this scenario where I probably carried less cash than normal, I've suddenly gone, Oh wow. What would I have done too? So it exposes that. you know, in the, in the, in the banking system, in the finance system, what they do is that they, they have a concept called stress testing, which is anytime you go out and apply for a loan, they say, if the loans, if the rates are say at 6%, they'll always hypothetically stress test your mortgage at 3%.

Hmm.

higher. So they're playing the what ifs. Yeah. What if you get uh downsized? What if the economy happens? What if, you know, and all those kinds of things. And if only after you handle what is deemed to be an inordinate amount of obstacles and you can demonstrate that you'd be okay, that's when I'll give it to you. And, and perhaps as you said, it's probably highlighted that we may think one step or two, but we're not stress testing our lives in our systems far enough for the one out of, uh 100 year lifetime uh problem that shows up that happens three years in a row that you didn't anticipate.

That's exactly, you know, I literally wrote, I did a video on a post about this last week when I injured my shin and it was like, you know, these things happen, you know, and you don't realize, you know, it's not like you wish it upon yourself that you injure yourself. And, and I talked about how, you know, most of us are not prepared for an injury. You know, no, none of us are prepared for something like this happened. And then this week, you know, when all the electricity goes out, you don't, you forget how reliant we are. on this whole entire system and how networks and networks and networks all rely on this one stress point. And what for me was a disconnect. I wrote about it this morning, which is the disconnect of the community. And that's where it was really uneasy all day for me yesterday. Like I know I was safe. I knew everything was fine, but not being able to be in touch with the outside world was kind of freaky. So on one hand,

Hmm.

There was a part of me that says, this is great. I'm disconnected. I feel like I was on a cruise ship, right? Like when there's no internet access and the only, got my family's it's fine. And I, I'm totally disconnected. And we all know the power of being disconnected and not being distracted by social media. went for a really long walk yesterday with my dog and my, and my wife. And I saw a whole bunch of people like kids actually playing outside, not distracted from. So on the one hand, just unplug is really, really healthy. So it really brought to my attention like how important that actually is. However though, there is a benefit of social interaction. There is a benefit of social media and the connection that we have because you have a sense that you belong to a community of people. And what was really interesting to me was that this feeling, overwhelming feeling that I had was being disconnected to the rest of the world. Like I can't contact any, I couldn't contact you, I couldn't contact my parents or my dad or can't contact anyone. I can't even find out what the hell's going on in the news.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

right? Actually, there was one way I actually figured out how to turn on the radio, which I haven't listened to in like, I don't know, 10 years on my Tesla, but is in Portuguese, right? So there I'm disconnected by language. And Karen's like trying to listen to it was like something's going on with the airport. And they're shutting down. It's like, so I was totally disconnected, right? It was funny how they go, Oh, well, you know, we announced it on on the schools like, we announced we sent you an email like I can't get access to my email. We you know, it's on the news. Well,

Yeah. Ha ha ha ha! Yeah.

can't get access to any power to watch the news. what are we talking about here? So that whole disconnect of a community of just being, and I felt alone. I felt really ah isolated. And I just went like that. It was just that feeling. wasn't like, of course I knew I was fine, but it was also like not knowing what was happening around the world or how this is affecting when things are coming up. That disconnect, I was like, wow, this is really interesting feeling to be so disconnected to the world.

Yeah. get. Yeah, it's interesting that what I've realized too is the power of curiosity has decreased because you know, like if you think back to a hundred years ago, you'd hear this boom crash and you'd go, I wonder what that is. And that's about as far as it'll go. Whereas now you hear this bang and crash. And if you're like most people, you get on the Twitter or X and you'll find out within three minutes exactly what has happened and transpired. So we have this immediacy. of being able to find that solution. So, um, if I have a thought now, I don't, you know, I've caught myself. don't sit and go, I'm gonna spend the next three hours trying to work this out or trying to think about it. Well, I'm just going to go, I want the answer now. And I have that and you have this immediacy. So you don't sit in the whole, um, I don't know. I have no idea what's going on around me. That gave you an insight into probably how dependent we all are on, on just being able to find out exactly what's going on. Hey, how do you get from here to here? Well, Yeah, think about it. You just get the coordinates and you get the answer straight away. Whereas this is a totally different game.

Yes. I use a stupid example. Yeah. I'll use a stupid example. Right. So like I was barbecuing chicken, some chicken, and say we had some chicken breasts. I'm like, okay, we got to use this. Otherwise we're going to go, let's go to spoil. So it might as well eat it. So turn on the barcure. Now what I typically do, if most people don't realize this, I use a sous vide. So a sous vide is like a slow cook, right? So it cooks the chicken, the steak, salmon, all like up to perfection. Yeah.

At the time of recording it's about lunch time now, just saying right? So if you see me salivating, it's probably because I'm just about due for lunch.

All right, I, know, the sous vide I find is like, you know, it just cooks the meat to perfection. I don't have to worry whether it's too done or too overcooked or not cooked, right? Especially my steak. I'm not gonna spend this much money on a steak. I don't wanna, like, I hate overcooking a steak, right? So what I do is I put in a sous vide and I just use the barbecue just to grill the sides just to kind of finish it off, right? So the chicken's the same thing, because it's juicy, it's moist. I hate putting on a grill when it's just, you know, rather. So I'm like, okay, so I can't use a sous vide because.

Yeah.

Well, one, we don't have time and two, we don't have electricity to sub you. I'm like, okay, so I'm have to barbecue this. And then my next time I go, how long do I barbecue for? Because I haven't barbecue meat for that's not subi for like years. I'm like, oh crap, let me just use chat. Oh, wait a you can't do that. Oh, can't go to, oh, I'm have to go basic, basic, you know, fundamentals of going like, okay, well, let's see if this is done, trial and error.

You Yeah, I can't. Yeah. Trial and error. Yeah. eh

Exactly. Now I know that's a stupid example, but it's the little things, right? I was like literally barbecuing like, is this done? Is this done? I don't know. I have to cut it open. I'm like, yeah, that's done.

Hey, Lawrence, I've got to throw myself under the bus here. Like when you said about the stakes, I, when you and I went, uh, and had dinner and stuff. I'm, I, I like my stakes cooked more than the average person. And to the point where I'll have chefs refused to cook them to the level I'm the other, I'm that guy. Right. And, and, but honestly, I get no end of ribbing for it. Um, we just went out recently and, yeah, I think I've mentioned to you, Hey,

Oh, you're the well-done person.

We went, had venison and try visit them for the first time. And for all our vegetarians and vegans out there, look, you might just want to block out the next couple of minutes, but had venison, but Tana just looked at me before she goes, do not even ask them to cook it too much. Honestly, I will just disown you and walk away. So I just, I experienced it the way that it is, but I do. I'm that guy. So I would have trial and error it and got to the,

Yeah. Yeah, I remember this. I remember when we were in Madrid and we had to like go went to this Japanese place and we were we're supposed to eat this wagyu beef pretty much raw. And you're like, can we cook this all the way through?

Yeah, and I just want to put it on a bit more. And you've burnt it. No, no, no, no, I've got it just about right.

Oh man, oh that's too funny. Yeah, go for it. No, no, just felt this, uh the sense of exclusion and the sense of community reminded me just so how important it actually is to be connected to the world and to people. I think, know, my reflection upon this was like, you know, social media, all this stuff can be a negative thing if...

So you know, you go, keep going. Oh no, I just took you off group. Please go with what you say.

you're using it to distract yourself and using it to pull away from communities. But I think it's a very, very useful tool for you to connect with communities. You can tell, like, there was, it's funny, when I'm driving from my house to the freeway, there's a spot on the freeway. As I drive through it, I literally got hundreds of messages, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, because there was a spot where I got internet for just like a split second. and all these messages and I was reading it on the other side once I got to the school reading these messages, but I couldn't respond. So I'm like, how on earth are you guys all responding? was like, I was, there was frustration. There was like envy, but what was interesting was like everybody, but I was the only one in isolation, right? Or I felt I was the only one in isolation because everybody was having a conversation. Everybody's screaming. Yeah. And I wasn't connected and it was like, but I wanted information. I couldn't get information. I can only read past, you know, information of what people are doing. Um, it was, it was just an interesting.

It's a Truman Show, mate. It's a Truman Show. oh

emotional thing and I remember last night I was meditating. We went to bed early thinking like, okay, well, might as well pack it in or, when the sunlight goes down, let's pack it in early and go to bed early. And I just started meditating last night just before I went to bed. And I was like, wow, like what would happen? You know, I thinking about like, what would happen if this is three or four days long? ah And you know, what would you do? And, you know, I was just contemplating. I'm like, okay, let's just wish this power to come back on. Like I just really wish that. So I don't have to work. The thing is I was worried about was water actually, because I was worried if the power goes out, the internet goes out and water goes out, now we're screwed. And there was different places that water was out too, but I can see, sure, hot water I don't care about. So much was just water itself. We can't wash ourselves, we can't go to the toilet and it's not, just imagine this leads to this massive problem. And luckily enough, about five minutes after I meditated, the power went off. I'm not saying it was me that I turned it back on, but... oh

Yeah. There's an old saying that says, is there ever that saying if a miracle happens within five kilometers of you claim it. So you had that thought there were probably 20 million, 10 million people at the same time having that same thought. So it's that collective consciousness, all just coming together and, and, doing that. know, as I was thinking about that as well. And, you know, I had footage of some friends of mine. one of my friends, she, she was on a train and she documented over time what was happening, you know, and.

It was just... oh Yeah.

You know, at this time at this time, at this time, and it showed, you know, initially the, um, the ambiguity that, huh, what's going on or the curiosity and then the frustration building. was documenting it in a socials, which was really amazing. And then she got to the point where of massive frustration. And then some people started to go, you know what? Uh, we've got an option. We could either walk to the closest town or we'll have buses come in. And some people were like, okay, the bus will be here now. Let's dance. Other people were like stewing, you know, like it was really a fascinating thing in.

Yes.

in social uh studies and, it reminded me back to the time. And then, sorry, there was other uh footage that she showed where people from neighboring towns came in and gave people food and water. So there's that community element that was there. And it reminded me of back, you know, whenever there's tragedies, you know, either a manmade or just natural and how the community can often rally together to support people, you know, anytime someone's in danger. The whole area goes, Hey, we've got to survive. We're going to save this person. Or I remember, you know, the New York, particularly the, the culture and the bond about New York around, around survival and getting people through was, was huge. around tragedy, sometimes some amazing things happen in terms of people just getting out of their own way and then thinking, how can I best serve?

Yeah. There's definitely that, that the communal bond and you can see the human emotions. I there's videos of in Portugal when, uh, Lisbon had their power back on. Like it was like a rolling and the lights were starting to come on and you can hear the cheers and the crowds just sort of, you know, cheering from the rooftops and just praying and clapping and screaming. Um, when the power came on and yeah, there's, there's people definitely sort of mentioning about how some people just went to the beach and just had like a nice day off and. and took it off and, and which was interesting because that's not where my brain went. My brain was just not like, well, let's just, oh, this is awesome. Let's disconnect. And I was thinking, I was literally just going, okay, you guys, understand about just cheering and, and like just taking the day off. I'm like, but are you really prepared though? Like if this lasts more than 10 hours, your assumption is that this is going to be over soon. But if your assumption is wrong, you've just wasted all this time because here's my thought, actually, if we didn't say this, when I was in the grocery store, I was like,

It's your turn. Yeah,

you Karen was talking to a few people and you know, cause obviously we were at the school and so people, know, talking and meeting up with everybody, what's trying to figure out what's going on. And I'm like, Karen, we gotta get out of here. Like I got it because I don't know how long the power generators in the grocery store was going to last. I don't know how long those credit cards stalls terminals are going to be working. I've goes, I had a really bad feeling that if we don't get out of here in time, we're going to have to then can't take any of this stuff because I don't have that much cash on me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I rather just use the credit card when it's there. We can talk afterwards once we purchase our stuff. But it was just that these feelings, I was looking at all the catastrophes of possibilities of where it was heading and where it could go wrong. And that's where my brain went. It's just more of a protection. Maybe it's the, you know, the male instinct of protection or survival. I'm not sure what it was, but for me it was, I was in panic. It was just more of a choice of just making sure, okay, once I get the safety, then we can kind of worry about, you know, other things or other.

Yeah... No.

priorities.

Yeah, because if it's not in your awareness, right, you're not even thinking about it. You don't know what you don't know. And that's, and that's blissful. And that's probably those people that went to the beach. It's like, yeah, sure. No worries. What are the consequences of that? You know, I remember, I remember Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian says, you know, within every person, there's day guy and night guy and night guy is the guy who wants to stay up all night, late party, whatever, and have fun. But it's morning guy has to wake up after the morning after. And have the, have the effects and the consequences of that. And not guys all just thinking about the here and now in the moment, the morning guy has to basically anticipate or even handle the consequences of that kind of behavior. So there's a fine line between that. There's about, totally get it. I would have been exactly like you. My thought wouldn't have been initially, um, you know, I'm great. Now I've got nothing to do. I'll go to the beach. I wouldn't have done that either. I would have just gone again. What will happen if. This happens for a week or whatever, how I got to make sure that, you know, I'm good. And once I do that, I mean, I go into a restaurant, honestly, I do that. Uh, anybody who knows in there, I'll walk in and I'll scope out the restaurant for exits, uh, straight away. Yeah, it is. It is. can't help it. I've been doing that forever. I walk in and I walk in, I look for exits, looks well being in the continue in the scenario. I was at my back to a wall with possible always do that. It's just instinctive.

Interesting. Former spy, hey? Former spy. Wow. Where does that come from?

Look, I think as a kid, know, like I grew up in some Mariah, as well as some, you know, some pretty tough and rough, uh, it's trained into me in terms of, uh, I guess a martial artist, but I never, I always survey a scene. So I never go into a restaurant. And interestingly, the other day, uh, I noticed it myself when I went out for, um, over on Sunday, I think, and it was a really busy restaurant and the, the,

interesting.

Waiter escorted us and score to be pertaining to this cubicle. I'm a back expose everybody. I hated it. I just couldn't. was really tense. Um, and, and so that to me is that what I can quiet and down my brain to do is once I've, I've anticipated options and I've gone, okay, is this a life or death? Can you get out here? You have water. Can you have this? And the moment I do that, then I can go, okay, right. I've got that covered. Now I can see clearly, but I immediately go to, um,

Hmm.

You know, what's the worst case scenario here? Um, just by nature as stress testing. Yeah, but I do. So I get what you.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I have a little bit of that. Yeah. I have a little bit of that for sure. Cause I, there's a part of me that doesn't like having my back exposed to the restaurant. I like to be, I would like to see, uh, you know, the people in front of me and definitely want to be on that side. But sometimes the kids take all the, couches on that side on the back. I'm like, I don't like this. I don't like being exposed.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly. So I'm a site. I would say, but I generally do. I'll walk in and I'll always have, yeah, I'll look at always the exit plans and stuff. So I just, cause it gives it quietens down that part of my brain, the primal brain that makes me feel comfortable and safe. that's why interestingly, you know, when we're funny enough, when we're coaching people and car breakers, particularly I always ask them, I go, whenever someone is coming into your place or your environment, anticipate what thoughts, doubts they've got. And how do you subconsciously, how do you quiet down the subconscious conversation, someone's brain by going, Hey, welcome, whatever. Here's the escape routes, here's whatever. And they can go, okay, great. I'm in safe place. So to, to a same degree, we just have demonstrated just in this conversation. What subconsciously goes on for people in situations that are new, that are. volatile that are uncertain and what you can do to help them feel more comfortable and safe.

Well, that's perfect communication, right? So perfect communication is that you also, even when you're selling, for example, let's just talk about selling communication, right? It's important to actually not recognize that everybody goes through their script, but the reality is the script is a good basic foundation and structure for you to kind of have a conversation. But the reality is that each person coming in, you have to be able to read the body language, you have to read their tone and their fears. And also try to understand that they might be in a situation they're not really comfortable with. And if you don't, there's no way you can talk about let's use chiropractic as we're both chiropractors. Like there's no way to talk about maintenance care and wellness care and all that stuff about the benefits of chiropractic if their fear right now is like, should I even be here or is this going to hurt? And you sometimes that's what that really means when we're trying to meet people where they're at, right? People meet where they're at. It's like, we're going to have to alleviate those fears, those initial fears and frustrations first before we can actually have even for them to even be attentive enough to even hear.

Correct. Yeah.

other scenarios, right? If you don't address the primary concern, again, we don't necessarily have to be that that's the only thing we talk about, we do have to alleviate, alleviate that so that we can lower that barrier, you know, to even allow you to have a conversation because that's front in mind. And for yesterday's, you know, when everything's going on, like people have certain fears, you know, they're panicking, they're not sure what's actually what to do. And a lot of people like there were, there was people in that grocery store. It was funny, there's some teachers and some, you know, staff members, they saw us like, you know, water to any water to like you can just tell like they had no clue. Not that I had any clue what I was supposed to be getting. But I'm just going down the aisle. Like, okay, is this gonna be important? This is not gonna be important. And people like lose all sense of like judgment. uh And awesome. I did anything right. But I was just sort of thinking, okay, like, what can we do? I just anything that I saw that could be useful. I just grabbed like wasn't thinking about money. I wasn't thinking about how much is going to cost. You know, you just you just kind of just go, hey, in a certain situations, you're gonna do whatever needs necessary to take care of yourself. And then when you take care of yourself, then you have an opportunity to go take care of others. And I think that, you know, these situations that if you don't, you talk about stress tests, this is what I try to kind of encourage my clients or even my kids is that you have to put yourself in these situations. Like if we constantly protect you from making decisions or constantly protect you from not being able to feel the stress and we take care of everything, you're going to grow up, you know, especially my kids, you're going to grow up not realizing how stressful the world is. You're not going to need to, you won't be able to cope. If you can't cope when you're my biggest fears, like if they can't cope when they're 15 years old or 16 years old, how are they going to cope when they're 25 when the stakes are a lot higher? And this is the thing that you know, we live in this world, like I've been speaking to a lot of young practitioners recently, and they're like mid 20, 25 years old. And they just, they have no clue, man. Like, I'm just, I don't know how bluntly I can put this. It's like they have no clue. And you're like, well, how, did you get this far? Like without ever

Hmm. Hmm. Mmm.

having to experience any difficulty or thought or clarity of what life's going to bring you. you know, some people are, it was funny because I was speaking to two people and they were completely different, same age. One was like, Oh, this is what I want to have. And this is the life I want to have. Okay, so at least they have some sort of like goal or target or vision. But I'm going like, but how are going to get there? And you're like looking at the time they work. like, how on earth are you ever, how did you ever think this is just the dream you just made up in your head, which is fine. This is good. At least it's stepping stone number one, but

Yeah.

you do not see like this doesn't correlate like the hours you actually want to work to the money you actually want to make it does this a match versus on the other person was like, Oh, I'm really good. I'm like, I'm I'm cruisy. I'm happy and I'm comfortable right now. I'm like, don't you live at home? Yep. You have a girlfriend? Yeah. Do you plan to get married? Yep. I don't know if your girlfriend is going to want you to be living at home. And I don't think that's her vision of a life to be moving with your parents, right? It was just like that no

Yep. m Yeah. Yeah. oh Yeah. Yeah.

a concept of like what the next one to two years is going to bring. And there was no drive or hunger to even achieve anything. I would just come whenever it comes in. Like I was pulling my hair. I was like, I try not to show my frustration live as I was walking them through this, but I was like, how on earth did you get this far? Uh, I know you're still young, but this is not a good sign for the next five years. If, if nothing shifts in you.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's funny. I saw, um, uh, I saw a Gary V real the other day, uh, yesterday, actually my son said to me, it was, and it was Gary, Gary V just teeing off on, on something as he usually does. This one was really good because it was talking about, um, uh, he goes, the thing with boomers is they ha they thought things through, they plan stuff, they organize things and they thought long range. goes, Um, he goes, what I'm finding out, you're talking specifically in a particular age category. They're like, they're saying, um, if they, if they didn't have the money, they would just, they cook at home. They wouldn't go out. They do this. They plan. They organize it. Yeah. But what about the differences? You know, and the question that really was, uh, uh, nailed it for me was he goes, yeah, but what about the argument about enjoying your life? goes, great. Awesome. Do your life, but don't complain when you don't have what you want. And so it's, it's.

Yes.

It's those scenarios where you're, you're being tested and, and in these, in these situations where you go, you got infinite opportunities and possibilities. have to be decided. It's probably no different to when you're under stress, you're to default to where you're clear and where you're, where your direction needs to go. If you're going to be distracted and taken off, off track by multiple opportunities and options based on how you feel, sometimes it's not going to serve you really well. So I, I do, I do get that as well. And.

Yeah, this is...

You do, sometimes feel like the person who tells people about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. And you just feel really horrible. We'll go, listen, I don't want to, I don't want to smash the illusion, but, I, I'm very big into big picture thinking, but how do you see this playing out? How do you say this playing out? Have you thought this through? Not from a, don't like the word realistic. You know, like there's, it's a trigger word for me. I just, don't like it at all. but. But I still have to appreciate the laws of gravity. So that's what I mean by realistic, know, so, so, so the realistic, but some just what someone think is possible and what I think is possible may be different. And I don't like the containment of you have to be realistic. No, don't. can actually challenge convention and do things, but yeah, sorry. I didn't even know where I was going on.

Yeah, well, listen, as a 50 year old Chinese, you ah know, human being, I'm not going to make the NBA anytime soon or probably in any near future, right? that's being, yeah, and that's just certain realities that you just have to face, you know, I'm not going to. And so I might make it to maybe like a lawn bowling if I, you know, if I really tried hard, you know, at this age, but I'm not making any, you know, paddle tournaments, you know, on the Olympics or side, you know, representing Australia anytime soon. But I think so. Yeah, realistic is a trigger word. get it.

And I'm not gonna be a jockey. And I'm not gonna be a jockey.

but I think it is about reality. I love the fact that you just mentioned about gravity. It's like, you can ignore gravity all you want, but gravity exists, right? And you can't define that, I'm defy it. And the thing for me with that complaint is, I actually just wrote about this recently too, about which was the work-life balance lie, like the lie of the work-life balance. And here are all these 20 year olds thinking about work-life balance and what they want. I'm like, okay, I get that you want it. But where you're hearing this from is all the people who are Gen X, who've actually earned their money to try and get their work-life balance after. Like how many people have you ever seen succeed in life that did not have out of balance lives to kind of get their first place before this happens? And I'm not saying that's not achievable to have a work-life balance and also achieve work, but I find it really, it's not as uh static as it looks. I think it's more like a dynamic. I always use homeostasis as the. the point because it's always dynamics, there's certain periods of time where you're to be out of balance majority of the time to get back striving dynamically towards a balanced life. But you know what happens, you know, you and I both know this because we live long enough is usually like, liberal too much steering to the left, you know, and then you start to realize I got to steer a bit to the right, oh, maybe too much to the right. And you're always trying to get back to center. how often are you actually in the center, which is the whole airplane thing, right? 99 % of the flight you're off offline, but you're always trying to kind of steer towards that. And that's to me is the balance, not so much of like, has to be staying on that line, you're trying to stay as close to the line as possible and try not to have multiple, multiple deviation. But trying to have a life that is constantly on that line path. I think it's nearly impossible.

You know, it's really funny. I am the parent of two 20 year old and 20 somethings, you know, in their twenties. And it's really funny. One is 25 and one's approaching 28. And they, they're really funny. They've got this real old school mindset about drive and hustle and, and, know, and they, they've got this really strong and it's really funny when I hear my son in New York going. Just talking to these guys, you know, like it just can't, what is it? You know, what are these young blokes? And I'm like, I'm laughing. I'm laughing so hard. It's not funny. He goes, we're laughing. I go, you don't understand. Like you're talking, you welcome to my world. This is a, so, and, and, but he, but what they do is like, they can see it within their own subgroup. And, and it's, you know, sure. You know, like I get it. I've done it. I don't, I can't imagine what it's like to have.

Yeah.

Growing up and being a 25 year old now, I totally get it because I've got my own point of reference, but just like my, you know, family and grandparents would look at us and go, these guys, how are they ever going to like when my dad was preparing for, um, the contingencies about, you know, like no power. Like I think I might've mentioned ages ago, he grew up in the war. so you'd go into it as shed at home and he'd be like, have three months of stash, you know, like you're talking, um, conserves and food and.

Hmm.

paper and water, like he'd have it all. was good. Right. And so my, my backup plan might've been a week of that. had three months of that. He'd look at me and go, huh, you're just so naive. It's not funny. And we're just down the line to the point where no one is prepared for anything basically.

They're not prepared for the next half a day, let alone, like the amount of comments like, oh, damn it, ah I didn't charge my battery pack. You know, it's like they can't.

Yeah. So what we're basically saying is there's been generally a dumbing down of generations from before us and after us. we've, we're kind of somewhere along the line in the middle where we've just looked up the line and people were like, I can't believe your dumb ass that you're doing this, which is probably what I'm thinking as well.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm- Yeah. Well, I, I'm embarrassed like to be saying like really I wasn't prepared for it. And, and you know, we'll survive and, it was definitely a weird experience to go through. And it does make me think about, you know, like today we just went to Amazon. Okay. Let's order some flashlights because we just realized we didn't have any, used to have them in Australia, but obviously when we did the move, we just never bought them like, we don't need those things. But, know, and I'm like, I don't care what kind of flashlights we don't need him. Like we just need them just to have it in the house. People are buying batteries. I'm like, what do you buy batteries for? realize, okay, yeah, probably for flashlights that we didn't have. That's why we didn't buy any.

No, but you know, you're social proof. I reckon it's worthwhile doing it. If you just look at what, and do people think what they need or they just act by instinct because this whole toilet paper run back in COVID makes no sense. I still don't understand it. I reckon it probably started with someone who had diarrhea and had an issue and they just got, someone saw them do that and they just followed it along. And then suddenly it just went through the whole world and everybody's buying paper. But sometimes we haven't thinking it through because we're reacting to a situation. We're not able to access a higher cortical areas of our brain to go, I get we're under stress, but does this make sense? But at that moment, we're just reacting and jumping in shadows basically.

Yeah, and I think like, you know, there was such an interesting times, right? This is where the conspiracy starts going off where Europe like not about I think it was a month ago when the president Europe or one of the European leaders was saying, Hey, you should have a contingency plan for you know, at least a three or four day emergency pack. And then now a month later, this happens. You're like, what do you know that we don't know? Like, what's going on here? Like, how is this? Why did you say that? And I wonder first heard her that I'm like, what do know about the war that's

Yeah. Yeah.

you know, in Russia and Ukraine that we don't we should be prepared for like, what is going on here? Anyway, so this this is, but it does rethink I'm like, you know what, having a three day supply of food and water is probably not a bad thing, you know, because not too much that's out of pocket. But it's, you know, all this water, I'm like, you know what, if I don't use it, I mean, we ran out of water for 24 hours once and we bought extra water and I still have that one big can like five liters of water. And I just today I probably bought about 20 liters of water just to have it in the house and

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Just in case, Like I said, like if it was that big when I knocked out a whole entire country, you start realizing like, okay, this could be a massive problem, even if it's not for us, but even if it's for our neighbors or whoever, like at least we'll have something and we were literally somewhat prepared. Food wise, we're definitely not prepared. Like we're definitely not prepared for enough food. And we've got to start really thinking, okay, canned foods, canned beans or corn or whatever, like just to, what can we do to kind of protect ourselves that way? I think so having that. That's, that's why we got the flashlight today. You know, today I probably going to go get the propane tank changed on care of it's a quarter left. I just want to be safe and just be able to put that away. And these are a good contingency plans. I listen, I'm not saying that you all need to be doomed days preppers or anything like this, but what I'm saying though, it is important to kind of consider, okay, what else in our lives do we need to somewhat prepare for? You know, and I think it's important to kind of look at some different scenarios or when something happens and like, and ask yourself, like I know this didn't happen to anybody outside of Portugal and Spain, but what if it did, right? Or like, what if, if you hear someone like a parent passed away or maybe didn't, they had an accident of some sort, or they had like a diagnosis of some, okay, well just play in that scenario in your head. Like, what if that happened to you or your family? What would you do? What would your contingency plans be? And I think if we thought through those situations, the scenarios through our head, like on a rolling. uh on a rolling continual basis. think we then we are slowly start the plan for those contingency. They may never happen, but you know, how can we stockpile those? Not stockpile, but just to be able to prepare for different scenarios.

Yeah, totally. I think that's a really good, um, overview and, and wisdom there. And, know, I've come to realize over time that no one gets through life unscathed. There's always going to be an experience. You're to be inconvenienced. You know, like, um, I was reading, you know, about all the people that were disrupted at the airports and all the flights canceled. I'm, I'm, I'm on a flight tomorrow to Spain. Um, and you know, I was there going, didn't get caught on this one. I didn't get caught on that one, but there's been times where I have and there's been times where I go, Hey, the blackout didn't happen here. happened in Spain. And if I was in Barcelona, that would have been me and flow in there, but roundabout and swings, you know, and, as you said, you, you feel you have this diplomatic immunity sometimes where it didn't happen on my watch. So I'm okay. It just comes around in a different form. And I think that if you take on board what you've just said about. review situations and stress those things in prepare. It's put you in pretty good stead to handle whatever happens when you can't, can't. Yeah. Yeah. You can't, you can't anticipate everything. However, how do you sustain, um, your adaptability under the circumstances? It's whole, I guess the whole get the essence of what we talk about.

Yeah, in both business and personal, right? Yeah. So guys, I hope that you took away from something. I hope you learned from some of the lessons that, you know, I went through in the emotional state and I, you know, I hope it captures sort of some of the things that do happen in our brains and unconscious and how you stay focused during those times of uh need. And Jim, you have a safe flight to Spain and hope you get to chance to go, you know, do some Jiu-Jitsu with your friends and uh your senseis. And hopefully that will help hear more information about what happens then. So guys, this is the Art of Imperfection, the Wabi-Sabi. as we continue our journey of lives of imperfection lives and moments continuously on a regular basis and we broadcast it here on Mabee Sabe. Take care. See ya.