Life Rewards Action

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the arts of imperfection. Jim, know, reflecting back on our journey here in this podcast, and I don't even know what episode we're under, but at the end of the day, we know we've done a lot of these now. We've been doing this for well over a year. And one of the things that, uh you know, I look back and reflect upon is that we could have waited, and we did wait for a little while, but there was a point where we reached and go, you know what? Forget about the name, forget about the thing, but let's just start and just record and let's just do this and just ship it out there or just deliver on this. And this is exactly what the topic we're gonna talk about, which is, would you suggest that, which was life rewards action? So I'd love for you to kind of frame that up and I set that up for you and let's maybe kind of continue on what brought you to this thought.

Yeah. You you you give me this nice little soft um hit for me to either overhead uh Smash it is a nice little one. I could feel that I could feel that I really I think it's it you know, ran an event on the weekend and you know, we had an opportunity to talk to people and it never ceases to amaze me the the stories that we tell ourselves about why we can take action why we can't and I've learned so over time that

This is a nice volley man, it's a nice little volley. Let's go.

taking action is important, you know, like, and life rewards that it will give you some feedback, whether it's the feedback you want to hear or what you don't, but we it's, it's built towards progress, momentum change. And if you want to live a life that's by designer intention, you need to take action and life will reward that in some way, or form. that's, that's really the catalyst of that.

You know, I like this particular topic and it resonated with me because I feel like and I'll admittedly say that I've been feel like I've been stagnating on taking action for the past month or so. And I don't know why. And it's actually, you maybe even a couple of months, a couple of months, not on everything, but on certain things. There's a certain project that I've been delaying and delaying and delaying in my head. It's in my to do list every single week. And I just, fail to execute, I fail to initiate. And I've been trying to reflect upon this and saying like, why? And it really comes down to, and I can relate to the people who might be listening goes, I'm the same way. And I want to fully admit that like, it's not like we have it all to figure out we're just actioning. It's not and I really struggle with this sometimes with certain things, like certain things I can action very quickly and easily and it's not a problem. But when certain things I find I struggle with the most is the things I have the most fear about on terms of judgment or fear if this is not gonna work or where's it gonna head, where it's gonna lead me. And I really have, yeah, really reflecting upon this like why? What am I so afraid of? And now a few months later, I'm like living in regret now, which is a different feeling, which is like, why didn't I do this like three months ago? Now I'm feeling a different pain.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And now it's actually more compounding. what life is not rewarding me, if that's actually punishing me now by adding more turmoil, by adding more stress or more guilt or regret onto this, which is not helping either because it make me actually want to go and do this either. So now I'm kind of stuck in this perpetual thing. And it was actually around today where I just going, okay, now you got a clear day today. You sure had a couple of few things, but I have a clear day other than this call and not a-

Hmm.

you know, other calls, I'm like, today is the day where you actually take some effing action and to start punching away on this, since there's no more dilly dallying on this particular item. So it's perfect timing. It's maybe this is uh a coaching session for me. And that's why I laugh when you send that message to me, the way.

Yeah. Maybe I just, I channel, I channeled, I channeled into it, but, you know, it's a lot of it's just, but you know what, that get, maybe it's top of mind, hot of press, you know, half the press, because we've talked about it most specifically, but yeah, there are definitely times where, uh, I've been sitting on something and I, and I wait and I don't take action. And I think at the forefront of it, you're right. Is fear, fear of what. What would this mean? What would it involve? Can I do this? You know, where will it lead me? All those kinds of things that the potentialities and you die a death of a thousand cuts because you're constantly running through your mind of all these, um, possibilities and scenarios and most of which never ever come true. So that to me is that that's a big learning of, holding back quite often is worse. So I think I've, I've learned about myself, you know, like I have momentum is really important to me. That perception of stagnation is something that I don't like at all. And if I feel that I am taking one step, even if it doesn't feel like that step is huge, I feel like the ratio or the dynamic is on my side. That's just something I know about myself, but The counter of that sometimes is that you are taking perpetual movement and taking action and it's not really moving you forward in the direction you want to go. You're kind of spinning your wheels because if you've got this perception of activity versus real progress and that can be, that's not fun or great either. So, uh

No, and that's a big challenge. It's a big challenge sometimes because you people get lost and I get lost into this like feeling like I'm actually doing work, but I'm actually not. I'm actually just doing busy work, not actual, actual work work. And I think that, you know, we often fail to see that because we human nature is that we take the easy road and not to say the easy road is actually at wrong route. You know, sometimes you need to build momentum that way, but then you do have to shift gears once in a while and take bigger risk and. take bigger challenges. And that's, and that's where, you know, I know, if I had to get out of a rut, I do have to start small, I can't do big things, right? It's just, it's just not ideal. I really want to start small, something, you know, gradual and build that momentum. And that's, that's been helpful. But then there's has to be a gear shift that you can't stay in, you know, gear number one, right in first gear the whole time, because you have to, you know, down gear to second gear. Otherwise, you're not going to gain

Yeah. Yep.

you're always going to be stuck, you know, at that particular speed. And so therefore there's that extra challenge that needs to happen that we all have to take that step to know when to shift to second to third to fourth to fifth. And if you notice, we don't really cruise until you get to fifth gear, right? There's, know, and there has to be a change. And oftentimes we just get stuck in first gear. We just never get out of first gear because, and some people don't even start. So we talked about that, but if you do start, we do have to figure out a way to get to second gear.

Yeah. You know, do you remember in high school in biology, I'm not sure if you did this same experiment. We had to do this experiment where we had like a turtle in a tank and we had to watch the turtle for about 50 minutes. And at every, you know, minute that went by, we had to document what the turtle was doing. And sometimes it was moving and you documented it. Sometimes it was eating and you documented it. Sometimes it didn't look like it was doing anything. And so you put nothing. But there was a law that I learned in biology that says, even when you're doing nothing, you're doing something. Right. And that's kind of stayed with me where a lot of the times when you're doing nothing, you're actually doing something and that is you're not taking action.

and

And to me, it wasn't like a, you're not doing anything as a zero. It's like, it's a, it's a, if you're choosing out of fear, out of inertia, out of overwhelm, whatever, not to do something that it's, I visualize it in my mind. That's what helps me take action is a shot clock and I'm kind of running out of time. And the longer I delay in taking action, I'm running out of air. And that is something that compels me to go, you know what? as uncomfortable as it is. maybe, have ever seen this guy called Felix Baumgartner, the guy that jumped from outer space? Have you ever seen that video? Yeah. So with a lot of the talks that I do, it's lot for anybody who sees me speaking, but one of my closes is I use an example of Felix got Baumgartner up in space, who literally jumped from outer space to the ground. it. He traveled the equivalent of about a marathon in four minutes.

Yes. Yep.

It's pretty astounding in terms of the speed and he passes out. ever want to, if you ever want to, you can Google it, but there's this scene where he's on this capsule just about to embark on the scariest one step I reckon anybody has ever made, but he has to take action because he's limited. He's got just enough oxygen to survive what he needs to do. So he can't just stay there. And I've got that on my phone. It's a constant reminder to say that. As scary as that first step will be, if you stay where you are longer than you need to be, you're going to run out of air or oxygen. And that propels me to take steps greater than how I feel sometimes. That's just how I frame it for myself.

That cap, I don't know if it's the capsule or something. Um, they had that at the Red Bull headquarters in Salzburg. Um, and I think it's all not Salzburg is a Salzburg. Yeah. Salzburg in Austria. I went there and actually, um, I told the kids about that story. It was actually, uh, fascinating, right? And spoiler alert, he survives. Um, just, uh, yeah, yeah, he does rise. Um,

Yeah, the Red Bull, Yeah, he's a keynote speaker and he does all things. So yeah, he survives.

The first step is such an important element and I agree, I need the shot clock and I don't know if it's this human nature of like putting some sort of deadline. So today's a perfect example, right? Cause you sent me this message, I don't know, say eight o'clock this morning, which is about, you know, four or five hours ago. And yeah, that's right. It's three seconds before. So you gave me a heads up. like, oh, this is a topic. like, I gave you a thumbs up and I went, oh, I know where this is going.

Which is a record actually, let's be honest, because sometimes, sometimes you get no heads up.

Oh, I have three hours to work today. I better get some work done today because I don't want to go on this podcast to say, you know what? I didn't get any rewards today. No. So it's proud to say that actually. So that's what I mean. It's like this hypothetical, right? We have to, because you didn't know I was working and you didn't know I was falling behind. You didn't know I was taking the first step, but today it was like, no, I have this podcast. I want to be congruent. And one of my biggest values in myself is integrity. And so the integrity is like, if I'm to talk about things, be life, be rewarding action.

Eh.

I better have to have done something today to move me forward in my business or my life or something. And I got a lot done today. Right. And the second little thing is like, what I've been doing lately is that I put a 20 minute timer on Pomodoro method, which is like, just put 20 minutes timer on anything that I'm doing on an email, an action item. so 20 minutes to me is that perfect balance between long enough to actually take some action on a particular project or thing. but short enough that I don't feel like, my God, I gotta spend an hour or an hour, 90 minutes on doing something. And most of the time I would say, I would say 80 % of the time I wanna continue that task after 20 minutes. I almost have to consciously either just go, okay, let's get up, move around a little bit and continue on that task, or I might downshift and go, no, I gave myself 20 minutes, I'm moving on to another task. So there's benefits on both actions because...

Hmm.

giving yourself only 20 minutes, you have to almost psychologically telling your brain to say, you have 20 minutes to get it done, so you move quicker. But you're almost forcing yourself to move to a different task in the next 20 minutes because it will reinforce the fact to your brain that you only have 20 minutes. Now, if you use the 20 minutes and then stop and then continue on with the task, you're basically telling your brain, like, oh, 20 minutes, doesn't really count 20 minutes. So it really depends on how your brain is wired. You might wanna choose one of those two methods depending on. how you uh want to affect yourself short term and long term too. So that's, you talking about the shot clock, that's my shot clock is having accountability to something, to someone or to a project or other people, maybe in someone in a team. And two is having a time accountability, the actual shot clock for me to kind of complete the task at hand.

That's great. mean, I do the same thing too. I set timers. All the time. In actual fact, if I, if I'm in a task that I lose myself in, I still have to set a timer because I'll lose all sense of perspective of time as well. And so I go, Hey, remember you've got this coming up. So I've got timers for all meetings, even our, our, um, our recordings calls, whatever I've got, I've got timers on to just basically go, okay, get back into game zone.

Hmm.

But I'll use time as a lot because I find I can concentrate my focus and attention for shorter periods and really laser like and I get a lot done and then I'll walk away from it and I can come back and do that. So I agree with you that works really well for me as well.

Mm. Mm. You know, what's, what's been interesting for me, like I've been starting to dive into some, um, some, know, AI stuff and I've been sort of no coding. Um, so which means that, you know, AI now can code for you and I've been deep diving into some, creating some, you know, new products for my business and, for, you know, my clients and, uh, using AI and really creating some, some tools. And I just started doing this and what they call vibe coding now it's sort of like that's new word. And so I've just been coding and.

Mm-hmm.

without actually knowing any code whatsoever and building these things. I'm like, my God, I can't actually, can't believe I'm actually creating this. But what's interesting that happened is like, I get so lost in it. know, like I could literally spend hours and my head down focused on this. And next thing I know, I'm like, oh my God, I spent like a whole day doing this and really made me realize how these coders like.

Hmm. Yep.

you know, back in the day where they spent hours and they just get into flow. And you know how they talk about Zuckerberg or whatever. They've been like coding for days without even getting up without actually knowing. I get it. I kind of like, not to say I am them, but I get how they get into this position of flow where they're just coding and just nonstop and just focused and, um, and you know, creating these new things. Cause you just get lost in solving a particular problem. You just want to continue solving it. Like we're tweaking like little things. I thought, I thought that's fascinating. Cause I haven't been able to.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

really do that in a very long time in terms of anything in particular projects that you can just go, oh yeah, little tweaks here and there. So I find that really interesting feeling to kind of go through to get into Flow.

Mmm. To be able to follow your own curiosity and go down that path. That that's why I sent set those time as long as I get it because you know, I've had some scenarios where I've been in projects and devote of all time and it started off light and then it's gone dark. And I'm like, what's happening? I my head up. I'm like, there's five or six hours that have gone. And I was so into a task. So that's why, otherwise if I didn't do that, so how you forgot to pick up. the, not the kids anymore. Cause they're, they're, they're grown up. Hey, if you've to pick up the dog or this or that, I'm sorry. I was just so much in my world. And that to me is, but that's taking action and that's staying along the path. And part of the reason why I do that is because, uh, if you've ever, if you ever know you've got to make it cool and you're subconsciously going, Oh yeah. What time is it? What time is it? You check in and out, in and out, you don't actually get that deep state. So that's why I've got to have something external. to actually remind me to basically break me out of that focus, that hyper-focus state so that I can actually go, oh yeah, that's right, that's the commitment I had. But I totally get that. I totally understand being immersed in something so far that you lose all perspective of time and space and everything. Totally get it.

You know, I've been reflecting back, because I think, you know, the last couple of so's we talked about, it was my birthday recently, and I got, you know, it's my 50th, and I had a bunch of like letters, I still got a few that I haven't opened yet. I haven't got it, if I haven't responded back to you, then I haven't opened it, so was one of these last few ones here that you can tell. So I appreciate that. so I always, yeah.

Have you? I wrote one for you. I'm not sure if you've seen it yet. Ah, okay, okay, okay, okay. It's Karen you want to thank because that was, she was the organizer and the instigator of it all.

Yeah. And it's really interesting. uh couple of, there's been some common themes uh amongst a lot of these reflection. I'm not sure it was because the way the style of the question was framed or it was ah just the, maybe it's the repetitive, maybe it was a bit of both, right? And how people answer and the common theme it, know, when one of the questions was not the question, but one of the things that you could have wrote about, which was like, you know, remember this, if you've been, you know, if you're ever thinking, ah You know, if you're unsure of yourself or uncertainty about what to do next or something like that. And the common theme, which, which now it's really hitting me really hard now, because I've been trying to open one a day or whenever a couple of days. And every single time it's pretty much the same thing. It was like, you actually opened one from today, which was from my university, like best friend. was, he was my best man at my wedding. And you know, Gary, and he, basically said, you know, if he remembers you know, the first time he met me, you know, which was 1994. ah God, that sounds so old. Like what the hell, man? That's 30 years ago. 31 years ago. Anyways, and he just said, like, you if you look, remembers the moment when he first met me and compared it. And he said, if I could have projected to the Lawrence Tam that I see you now, 31 years later, there's no way I would have been able to have projected. that that version would have turned out to the person I am. And he said, remind yourself, and this is the common theme of every single person, maybe yours would be different, it's like of all the change and the decisions that you made, the chances, the risks you took to get you to this position and creating a life of experience. And I think it's relevant, right? We talked about how life rewards action. And when I think about those moments, and I mentioned this in previous podcasts, is that There are certain moments where there's been big decisions. talk about this, how we started this podcast was the big decision of moving and making that life change for us. I realized that, you know, it's a good reminder as I'm going back to fifth verse, 50 years of my life and people are writing this to me and reminding them like, I need to remember to do that every so often. I don't need to do it every day. Right. But it's important for me to like really take big leaps or big decisions. or just lean into it and don't be afraid of what comes next. Because for all of those decisions, right, I ever made, you know, moving to Australia, moving here, I could not have predicted any of those outcomes, right? You have an imagination of what those things would look like, but none of it ever came close to what came after and not necessarily the direct first effect, but the second in tertiary effects, order of effects that happened because of that one decision. And I think that's a really good, strong reminder for myself um that life rewards action. And I wanted to of bring that up into tied into today's broadcast, which is that important of making decisions and certain life decisions that could shape you, but you don't know what's on the other side. And the unknowingness is what's kind of thrilling, right? And it's also kind of like uncertain and having the courage to make those decisions.

Yeah.

going to be taking that reflecting the back end. And that's what's been motivating me to lean into some of those decisions for my projects and business.

Yeah. And, but, but when you hear the word rewards action, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're to have everything that you want. It's all going to go to plan. It could reward you with an amazing lesson or it could remind her with, it's going to reward you with meeting someone who is pivotal in your life. You've just taken action. You've taken some step to me. It's less about whether you choose to go left or right, but rather whether you actually make a choice to go left or right, rather than stay where you are. And if, and if you're consciously staying where you are, cause that's the biggest job, then that's the action you're taking. So that to me is how it looks. And, and, and so many ways, you know, I've got a really amazing friend called Errol and Errol and I lived together while we studied, um, at Chiropractic college. And, know, we, he, you know, we've basically both lived in different countries of the world and different States. And even though he's one of my greatest mates. We've never lived in the same state after we moved out of home, know, out of living together. And we've kind of like, he's now back in Melbourne. But we have these phenomenal conversations and I'm talking to him on Thursday, because we've teed up, we've got a really busy life. So we've got to coordinate it. And he's got these parallel things that happen in his life. It's really fascinating that as I'm having this, he's having this almost parallel experience.

Hmm.

And then we get together and go, Hey, this is what I'm going through. Me too. And we just talk about that and, um, you know, how we work through that. But at both, both stages and every conversation, we had to come to a decision. had to take an action. have to make some step or take some step, I should say that led us. And sometimes it led us in totally different directions. Even though was the same scenario, we made a different call and yet it was rewarded us in different ways in different, um, situations. um, I'm always, yeah, I'm always curious about the whole, what if, what if, what if I'd done this instead of that? What if you don't know? And will it work? You know, what if I do this and it doesn't work out? Well, you'll do something else. What if it doesn't work out? Okay. I get it. You would have learned something there. They're all the feedback and the learnings that we don't know. And I think that there has to be an element of preparedness to try those things because that's where we grow. then also, um, you know, it could be just as simple as trying a new restaurant and going, we always go to this restaurant. What would happen if we go this? Well, let's try something else. And you suddenly go, that's my new, new favorite restaurant. don't know. You don't know. And this is coming from a good, yeah. You know,

Yeah, that's what I tell my wife all the time. It's like, how do you know when your next dish, your next favorite dish might be just around the corner if you just made a different decision to.

Yeah. Yeah. And it is, and it's really, really important. And it's a good reminder for that. And, and, you know, our kids are constantly trying different things and I, and the older person in me looks back and goes, yeah, I remember the time where I'm, still considered, I'd still consider myself daring, but I've gotten more, you know, they, my, boys call it soft as times goes on, but, but, but compared to the 20 year old version of myself, um, You know, there's probably more at stake. So I make more considered decisions, but I think it's through more, whereas, you know, not that it wasn't necessarily impulsive earlier on, but that need for movement and speed before was like insatiable almost. And now I don't have that to the same extent, but I still like to feel like I'm moving forward because I feel like I'm in control.

Yeah. There was a period for about, I don't know, maybe 10 years, probably like, let's say maybe thirties, uh, where I maybe mid thirties or mid forties, where I just felt I needed to put myself in like situations once a year and kind of situations where it's scary, you know, whether it be, uh, jumping off. think that first started with like jumping off the new Zealand sky tower from the top.

Mmm.

There was like one thing you can actually just bungee jump down. Like there's, that's a control bungee. Like you jumped, literally jumped from the sky tower. So anybody knows that New Zealand sky tower is like this tall tower and you jump off and you've land down there, which is freaking long way. Then it's like, you know, whether it be bungee jumping, skydiving, or going on top of the CN tower, which is one time was the highest and tallest, uh, structural building, you know, before that Dubai building. And, you get to walk on top of it you can walk on.

Yep. Yep.

top, which is all this one, like things like that. used to put myself in situations just to not scare myself, but just to challenge myself to do like some, you know, something that's, uh, that's challenging. That's crazy. Um, but just to remind myself that I need to continually to do that. Uh, and I think that's important. think once in a while we need to put ourselves in this situation. Otherwise we just live in a very comfortable, secure. safe life and you don't realize what you can test your limits and knowing that survival that you can be okay, or you can survive, or you can do this. And I think if we don't ever challenge ourselves at all and take these actions or steps and decisions, like you said, you're rewarded with feedback. And oftentimes we don't know what that looks like until we actually um put it out there and actually take that decision. And the feedback is what's most important, not necessarily the actual destinations, the journey that you go through, the challenge, the failures or the success that comes along with it. That's then who you become is what matters the most. And this is to me, what coaching is all about. When I coach my clients and always say to them, like, it's regardless of whether you get to the goal or not. And I mean, of course it matters, but I care more about not the number. I care more about the person you becoming because that... who you become doesn't change. that now that becomes forever you like that change and transformation is there. The number though, you can hit a target, but it can go down tomorrow. And that may change that still fluctuates, but what will stay with you is like an elastic band that stretched too far. It will never go back to its original shape. And that's what I care most about when I'm coaching clients.

Yeah, no good. Sorry, Lawrence. If I was distracting you, I thought it was about the sneeze and you were in this really big zone. I didn't want to stop you. And I was trying to do everything I could. you know, cause you, life was rewarding you with the action of speaking some wonderful snippets of information. I didn't want to interrupt you there. So sorry if I distracted you. Um, what, um, that, that, that makes so much sense to me, you know, I'd love to share. Um,

No, no, no, no.

how this can play out. you just, the action is just reaching out and telling someone how you feel about them. Is being vulnerable enough to open your heart and say, Hey, I care about you. I'd like to know, get to know you a bit more, or I'm interested in you. I do a bit more? Or would you be open to a conversation? And, and sometimes that's going to be met with no thank you. And for a lot of people, that's where it stops. Right. But anybody who's involved in sales knows that Okay. That's not always the end point. And so there's the action and the follow-up action and the follow-up action quite often creates opportunities you wouldn't. So there's an element of taking action and you might not get the result immediately, but you've already gone, okay, I've started this. I'm going to persevere with this. I'm going to continue in this. And that over time chips away and moves you closer to where you want to go. Right. I, I got a classic example that's happened just this week. Uh, my. son Sebastian was at the Qatar economic forum. I might've mentioned to you last time Lawrence. uh So there is some, there's a guy, I'm not going to mention names, but there's a guy who's uh a very heavy hitter in the finance world. Well, two actually. One, he's been trying to have a conversation with, he's probably sent him, I don't know, 40 emails over four years. And only in the last six months, He got one word responses to right and he went yes. No, maybe that's that's all he's getting He's got crickets and and suddenly he's gone. Okay This is this is a really this is an important part I'm gonna keep going on there So he knew this guy was going to the economic and he reached out to him He says are you going to here? Is there any chance I can meet with you and the guy said no, I'm really busy can't do it and he goes, okay, so He long story short, just kept for want of a better word, pounding. Um, finally ends up catching up with this guy in the elevator and he goes, you're the guy who's emailed me 40 times, aren't you? goes, or 40, but he goes, yes, I am. goes, he goes, can we have five minutes? And the guy goes, I'll give you three. They're having a chat. And this conversation went incredibly well. They lasted, ended up speaking for 40 minutes. Um, There's opened up opportunities for him to have further discussion. And it was just the, the, the life rewarding persistence in that situation. And so many times that, that rejection slip that you get from someone who says, no, this idea won't pass this book deal, this record that so many people pass on that you go, no, there's something more to this. You persevere with eventually basically finds its home when someone believes in the concept and.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I'm always inspired by that, you know, those stories of someone who, kept going when the voices and the, vision on the outside from people went, no, no, no, this isn't possible. kept going and ultimately found what they're looking for. So you want to talk about that Lawrence?

Yeah. I mean, the, the challenge of sometimes like not to take no for an answer and continue and pers persevere. It's a, it's a skill that most of us don't have. And sometimes, I mean, it takes a lot of practice and experience to be able, or maybe in activity to, to, to just not let that stop you and just keep going and, and playing the long game. It's very difficult for most, right? Because it's not what we're trained to do. We're kind of trained, um, to just follow the rules and. And I think I've always been afraid of that too as well, because we talk about our kids and building them to always have manners and to respect the rule and respect the law. And also too, I also countered against that because there's always a saying like, if you know the most successful person in high school is usually the valedictorian, but also to the... But if you actually project the most successful people outside of university is never the Valley of Victorian usually. And there's reasons why because the Valley of Victorian is usually the one who follows the rules, follows what the needs that the teachers want them to do. And they follow that and they get rewarded that way, but they don't necessarily take the necessary risks to go outside of what been told. And I know that. And what's interesting was because my kids, especially my daughter, she's on pace to kind of be like that valedictorian kind of thing. And I'm always kind of afraid of that too. Like one is I'm proud that she has that tenacity and be able to have the discipline to be academic. But I'm also afraid that if she follows that route too well, um, that she might just follow how you're supposed to behave and follow the rules. And this is what you, you know, stay within the lines and colored within the lines. Um, luckily, unfortunately for me is that she actually now

Yeah.

in the last couple years has learned to buck the system, right? She she found the system. She goes, Okay, I'll play the system. But I don't have to. I'll play within the rules that you've given me, but I don't have to like it. And so there's always this pushback or the little bit of resistance, which is great, right, which is what you were kind of talking about, just because someone says no, like she's when it goes, Okay, not yet. Right. So she is like a reframe in her mind, that I'll find another way. Oh, I know. And she doesn't give up on that. And so I think

Yeah. Yep.

that ability is you have to have not a certain personality, but I think it's just to have a certain mindset, you know, how you reframe it rather than, you know, letting something stop you. And, you know, some people have it better than others, but it doesn't mean it's not trainable. It doesn't mean you don't have that opportunity. And I think it's important to kind of pursue those avenues. And I've had that with clients, for example, or prospects where, you know, there's no way. And then all of sudden, like later on it's like, Oh, there was

Yeah.

you know, they are interested or, know, cause I, you know, I kept on putting out there. It wasn't really, it wasn't aiming for them, but, know, so there's so all these moments of tenacity and consistency that needs to be there. But I think as long, I think the main thing for me, for those people who do that is that they're stay, um, humble to the task and the purpose. And they're not, then the purpose isn't just to get that one person purpose to stay on their path and who they are. And when the time comes, that person would be rewarded. by their international intentionality.

Yep. Totally. Because you mentioned a really good point too. You you can be a valedictorian and also challenge convention. You you can do that, right? It's the abrasiveness that is what holds people back. you know, a diplomat or someone who's got amazing political skills.

That is cool. Yeah.

can still challenge a convention, but they're sophisticated enough to know how to communicate that so that you're not getting rejection. So there's a skill and an art in putting an argument forward that someone goes no, and then still being able to find an ability to work with that to still keep advancing and moving forward. That's taking action. That's not stopping you. You know, if you're waiting for yes, answers only, and if it's a solid no, if you stop in your tracks, then that will sometimes be where you go, but If you can ask a different question and say, okay, okay, it's no, would it ever be a yes? Could it ever be a yes? What would that look like that you're then starting to take action in a different pathway because you know, if we've been conditioned to think the fastest point, the fastest route between two points is the direct line. Great. That makes sense. But if there's a massive obstacle in front of your way, the most appropriate action may be a way around that over it. rather than try and run through it. And so if life will reward that by basically opening up other pathways and tributaries, if you ask different questions and say, okay, it's a no here, but it could be a maybe that way. Okay, great. Let me entertain that. That to me is how innovation happens. You constantly ask questions and it's having the capacity to keep going. Even if you get despondent, even you get disappointed and, and, and you get setbacks, you might just ask different questions in different ways, follow different paths. And often you'll find an alternative pathway. It might take longer than you thought, but it's still possible.

I think it's also expectation, right? The expectation can be a debilitating problem. Meaning like um when you go into a particular project or decision, you have a certain expectation of an outcome and that expectation could be false. It could be unrealistic, but you're going to measure that success based on that expectation. so depending on that expectation you have, which is whether true or not, it could really derail your thinking and derail what your thoughts are going to be or how you, sorry, your emotions.

Hmm.

emotional reaction to that. And that could be very challenging. So what I mean by that, for example, if you just make it a decision to say, uh start a new particular project, and you expect that everybody's gonna love it, and which means that, oh, maybe 100 of people is gonna buy it. And then, you know, when you put it out there, only 10 people buy it. And you're like, because you have this expectation of 100, you're 90 short, you're 90 % short, you only made 10 % of your target. Whereas if you just had a lower expectation, let's just say it's 50. All of sudden you're 20 % and you only got 80 % rejected. So it really depends on, sorry, 60%, sorry. I'm doing my math correctly. Or sorry, did I say 10, 50? Doesn't really matter, you know what I'm talking about. So the thing is, the expectation you have, whether it be 10 out of 100 or 10 out of 50, all of sudden that changes the game. Or maybe your expectation is like, I don't even know if anybody's gonna buy this.

Yeah, more people.

I'm just going to see in like 10 people, wow, 10 people bought this. I expected like no one wanted this. All of sudden like that is a complete difference if you had a hundred versus 50 or zero. And I think so what I mean by that is like the expectation you have of the outcome and the more attached you are to the expectation rather than the outcome, all of a sudden, like it changes the emotional state because if you expecting a hundred people to buy this and only 10 came, you can maybe despondent and you go like, oh, no one likes this. No one likes me. This project must suck. Right? Versus the person is like, oh my God, 10 people actually want this. You now have this opportunity to actually go build more, maybe iterations go, okay, well, how do I get more people like this? And then you might now have this idea to kind of change the trajectory of it. And I think that's a really interesting kind of thought process to kind of go through is to look at what is your expectation? Is your expectation too high? Is it realistic or do you even need to have an expectation? What if it's just a testing thing to see if anybody wants to buy? I say this out loud all the time, which is, you know, I tell my clients all the time about, know, I think it's rather, I rather you sell something rather than building it first. Right? It's like, instead of building this thing that you want to build and then try to sell it, no, no one wants that. get real time feedback, right? Where you wasted all that time and energy, whereas if you just kind of sold it and then go, wow, people actually want this. Now I'll go and build it. And I think that, I think it makes a massive difference in terms of. time energy spent and that's why they spend a lot of time building the MVP, right? The minimal viable product is not always the perfect product. iPhone 1 was not the perfect product, even though it was a game changer. And I still remember, like, I think it was iPhone 4 before they even had copy and paste. You know, like, I was like, how do you move this stuff? And I think that's really... important to recognize that you don't have to be like the market changer right off the bat. Sometimes you've got to put stuff out there and just see what the market bears and whether or not this is a success or

It's a great point you raise Lawrence, because a lot of times people think that the, have to create something new and yet you, uh, a lot of the times, you know, those things don't pan out, don't work. You know, I read a book recently called Main Street Millionaire by, uh, Cody Sanchez. And she talks about the concept of buying established, um, businesses that are bulletproof. They've been around for so many years who are now. You know, the baby boomer owners are getting old and I want to sell out and they're perfectly right for people who bring in, bring in automations and AI and bring them into the 21st century and optimize those. And it talks a lot about that is it's the willingness to go out there and explore and find opportunities that are available, but also the willingness to look at different things other than what you may have thought. And you know, that, that opened my mind.

Mm-hmm.

to that a lot, you know, so sometimes the willingness to ask different questions and yes, you can innovate, you can create, there's a lot of energy, but if something's already been done, and the only reason I mentioned that is because you just said sometimes it's easier to sell something that's there rather than to create it. uh If something's been around for 30 years and they're an established product and you can find a way to optimize their operations, that's kind of like a really good. heads up that that will be already, it's already been successful. You can just keep that going by improving on some functionality of it or some operations that could keep you moving forward without having to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah. So I mean, Cody Sanchez, I never read the book, but I know her, her, and I know her concepts. Right. So it's like laundry, uh, laundry businesses, car washes, you know, the things that are, are, are kind of, um, just the staples that you would never think, you know, and like, even like, I know I remember meeting, um, the CEO of, or the co-founder of like, um, 1-800-GOD junk, right? Like, and, and their business is just, you know, buying trucks.

Yeah. Yep.

than getting rid of your junk, right? And that they made a multimillion dollar business all across the world, in the US anyways, but it's definitely all around the world. But garbage businesses and stuff like that, just most people would never want to do, but there's a massive business in that too as well. To contrast that, you got, I remember hearing this one business I thought was kind of cool, which was like, just think about like, what are some of the essential tools of every single home that you need to have? You need a vacuum cleaner, you need an iron. you need a, um, you know, uh, an ironing board, right? And so this person was thinking like what they do. The idea was like, instead of like every single person in this apartment, let's say there's 50 people, 50 homes in this apartment, right? 50 apartments, instead of having 50 different ironing boards and ironing irons and vacuum cleaner, why don't you just buy several vacuum cleaners and several irons and ironing boards and so on and so forth and have it as like a kiosk at the bottom where you can rent it. you know, you rent it when you need it, you know, so there's, say there's five ironing boards and five iron. So when you need to just go downstairs, pay your thing, and then you grab it, go upstairs and return it, right? And I was like, wow, that's actually, that's a really smart thing because that saves time, you know, I mean, think about it, if each, every single person had to buy one of those things, it's expensive, right? And I think that's a.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll be, I've been ruined because I've, we've had a Dyson. And once you've had Dyson, it's like, Oh my gosh, that's a wonderful vacuum cleaner. but, they're an expensive item compared to, if you've got a, if you're living in an apartment, you haven't got a lot of space. Yeah. It's a, it's a big item to have to outlay for.

Yeah, exactly. So there's, there's all of these types of business that are just around that could really be a game changer. And I think your, your thought around not having to reinvent the wheel is so such an important element, which brought me to thought around, you know, I, I've been in tiger for just over a year now. And, and, you know, I met a lot of tiger members and these guys are, you know, former founders or wealth creators and businesses. And when I kind of read their bio or meet them and then find out, you know, the types of business they were in. You're like, like, the first thing that goes to my mind, like none of them are traditional, right? None of them, like you, you, you made money from that. It was the, is the thing that I went through my head. Like really, there's a business in that? Like how on earth did you even come up? It wasn't like a new idea, but it was just like an idea. Like how did you make so much money? Like eight, nine figures from that business. like, it boggles my mind how people make their money.

Hmm. Mmm.

And it's fascinating to me to not realize this. I wish I can go back time and take this knowledge and go implanted up to the 30, you know, 30 years ago back to the Lawrence Tam in 1994 and go, hey, there's some opportunities here that you might want to consider. it's not that I have any problems with my life now, but it's funny how we just don't know. Cause there's just so many things that, you know, and we know the famous ones, the Uber, the Airbnb's, right? We all, we know those, famous ones, but. there's so many other ones you just never heard of that it gets acquired by a company, you know, and, and they do just do all this research. I got an opportunity recently to invest in this company that, potentially could be, you know, bought up by a large major company that we all know. But it was like, you know, it was like a device that, you know, tests sweat or something like that. You know, like what really? you know, and, and

Hmm.

It just blows my mind where, you know, someone probably just thought, Oh, this would be a good idea. We can test glucose, you know, through the skin and, then, you know, save diabetes. And all of sudden, like it just goes down this rabbit hole. As we said, we took action one thing and then one experiment led to another. Now you, now you have maybe, you know, half a billion dollar company, you know, evaluation that could, you know, sell to one of the largest firms for all the tech devices now that you can incorporate. And you can start to think, wow, like that's possible. And oftentimes we don't think like that. You know, most of us kind of think.

Hmm Yep.

what we're traditionally taught, you know, go to school, go to university and then get a good business or, you know, go work for someone, have a career, but life is changing. And when you really think about the people who are ultra wealthy or ultra successful, they do unconventional things. They took action somewhere, they had a passion for something and they just dove into it. And they just leaned into something that, you know, excited them and they were rewarded by that particular, you know, interest or purpose.

Yeah, there's multiple times people have come up with a problem and it comes, a lot of times comes out of frustration, right? It comes out of frustration where they're doing things and they're coming up against a problem and they'll go, someone should do this. Someone should organize something like this. And they have this idea. And then six months down the line, down the track, they walk into a hardware store or something and they see the exact same thing that they had in their mind. They said, huh, that's my idea. No, it wasn't. It was the other bloke's idea. And he took action. You didn't, you know, and there's this.

Mm-hmm.

I remember, I remember talking about this with one of our mentors. says, you know, these ideas sprinkle through the universe and they'll come to you. And if you don't do anything about it, the universe is going to pass it on to the next guy and he'll do something about it. So if you get these ideas, take action, you know, that was, that was the message that I remember loud and clear from that. And yeah, there's, know, at any, at any stage, there could be, could be multiple teams and groups working on the same problem throughout the world. um

Yes. Yeah.

And whoever takes action, the most decisive action and keeps persevering is quite often the ones that had the breakthroughs. So that's, that's, uh, just a constant reminder of what's possible if you just immerse yourself in that as a process.

Well, just think about this new company, right? I don't know if you heard this about Poppy. Have you heard of Poppy? Oh my God. So you just think about what's existing and then it's not inventing something new, but just maybe finding a new blue ocean. Right? So Poppy P O P P I Pepsi Cola just acquired them. It's basically Poppy is a soda brand, right? That it's a trendy soda brand that uses, they just added pre probiotic, prebiotic into the soda. Right? You know how much they sold for in

No. Okay.

just this year, which closed like just this month, $1.95 billion, $1.2 billion for soda pop probiotics. You're like, that's insane. Right. And they started, this person, I was just reading it now. It was like, uh, they started in a kitchen, right? They brewed apple cider vinegar sodas to address her health needs. She had some health issues.

Wow. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.

And so they handmade this remedy and evolved the farmer's market favor leading to a pivotal experience on shark 10 2018 and sold this as a beverage. You know, I actually, one of my, uh one of the, you know, groups, entrepreneur groups I belong to and I met her once or once or twice. And I just saw her, she's just creating the soda brand um that has college in it. Right. So it's like, wow. Like it's just, and you look at the trends, right? The trend is that the world, the young, the younger, um the youth or the younger generation.

Right.

is consuming less and less alcohol. Right? And there's gotta be there's a trend there, right? And so what's the trend, though, but they're still they're still drinking, they're still drinking something. And so what are they drinking? And there's like, and all of a sudden, like these kind of divergence starts to merge together, right? And then there's there creates the trend. And, you know, sometimes you got to look at where it's going. Sometimes you can follow the trend, sometimes you just got to be ahead of the trend, and the trend catches up to you.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And all these things start to kind of blend into each other. You know, who knows? We really don't know where the future is going to hold. So I think that's what we're talking about is sometimes it's best to focus on your purpose or what you think your purpose is. don't never going to find out exactly what it is, but if you have a certain passion and you're constantly working at it, maybe it's not always going to work, but maybe something will come behind you that will kind of you swell up in the wave. And, but you've been working at it and it finally rewards you at the end.

Yep. So I guess in, in closing, as a summary from my perspective, Lawrence, I'd look at it and say, the importance of taking action is that it leads you on a path that you may not know where it will lead, but it leads you on some kind of path, right? And it may give you validation and confirmation that you're on the right track, or it may tell you that, this isn't the track for you. You need to circle back, but you'll try something else. And you know, there may be one, two, five, 10 times where you try that, that consistently doesn't work, but refining your value proposition, refining what you do, taking the learnings and moving it forward is it's not wasted energy. It's basically research. It's, it's your, your due diligence, if you will, that you need to do to find out what doesn't work before you can work out what does. And I think that's things can only happen once you take momentum action and take that first step into whatever direction you go to reveal to you what the answer or the solution to that is. once you start.

Yeah. And most of the time you don't know, definitely don't know what the future steps going to hold, you know, and these are essential skills. You know, for example, just being good on camera or just being able to speak and communicate and talk to people like that's a skill that most people are afraid to do and to lean in. But the reality is that you take practice and if you practice enough, now you have this opportunity to maybe make something happen when the time is required. You can't now, you know, practice, learn how to speak for the first time. If an opportunity just came up. Like you almost have to do the work beforehand leading up to those. And I think that's such an important element. I try to teach my kids, it's like, you know, no matter one skill that you need to learn is you need to learn to speak to people. You need to learn to be able to speak to adults. You gotta have to be able to be comfortable on a stage, you know, as much as, you know, as much as we don't like it, but at the same time, you gotta get as comfortable as possible because that skill most people are not willing to do. So if you are willing to lean into it now as a young age, you're gonna be on top of, you'll be a top 1%.

Yeah.

guaranteed in that one realm. And that's going to shine. That's going to shine in your job interview. That's going to shine in an opportunity on stage and pitching or whatever. That's going to make you stand out because your degree, just like everybody else who came from that school or another school, it's going to be the same. But what's going to stand out is the distinction and the character and the reps and sets you built ah in high school and also in university and also in your life experience. And I think those are the things that we don't take into account is that it's the accumulation of those skills, the accumulation of those passions. that actually help you get to that one point where you do need it and then you can action it. It's like, I guess the one analogy I'll leave with you is like, if there was a person who needs emergency help right there and needs CPR, you can't Google it and chat GPT it right there on the spot. You can, but it's probably a little bit too late. Whereas if you had some practice in that CPR, it'd probably come to you a lot faster and you can probably save that person's life. And it's a sort of similar analogy of what happens is that you need to kind of go through. uh Life to actually build on some of those experience. You can't be great at everything can't be a master of all But you do have to spend some time, you know developing the things that you already love and passionate about because those are the easiest All right. I hope that you've been that's been helpful and as our title suggests wabi-sabi Which is really the meaning about shipping and getting stuff out there when it's not perfect when it's 70 % perfect It's important to deliver and this is what this title of this particular broadcast is about life rewards action That's exactly what our podcast title is all about

Yep.

So until next time, go do some crazy stuff and go take some action and let's find out and get some feedback. Take care and we'll see you in the next episode.