Harnessing Pressure for Personal Growth

Welcome to Wabi Sabi the art of imperfection and I gotta say we're smiling because we were just talking about you know What we're talk about today and like literally about 10 seconds ago about 10 seconds ago There was there was spark and there was like there was kindling and there was a bit of smoke and I jumped on him like Jim I didn't even tell him I actually just pressed record I'm like we're going on four three two one. So we're gone Jim. Let's take it away. This is gonna be hot I think I think we got a good episode here

you that you did. Yeah. uh I, it's really funny. was just saying to you before Lawrence, I spent the last two weeks in Ireland. I was covering for a friend of mine as a chiropractor. And for anybody who's been listening, I maintain my registration. so in order to maintain the requirements of recency of practice, I've got to practice for a certain number of weeks a year. And I do that. So I flew to Northern Ireland and it's really interesting. You know, had everything else to, I had to cover for a guy who, uh, was flying back to Australia. But in that, you know, for most people would consider that that's full time, but in addition to that, I had all my coaching, uh, and, uh I onboarded extra clients during that time. And I also run a finance company and I, and I, um, had inquiries there. So I was working all through those. then I just had so many other things. We've launched a process and product with my youngest son. And I just looked back and went, how the hell did I do that? How did I do that? And sometimes I guess this is what I verbalized just before we started. And you just stopped and started recording was, sometimes we don't know what we're capable of until we put under compression. Some people will. along the flight flight, if someone's put under compression, some people wilt away and they show away from it and we get fearful. And my default quite often is, yeah, I'll feel that fear, but something happens and I just, find another level and I found another level and one that I didn't, not that I didn't know that I have, but suddenly like, I thought I was going pretty good. I suddenly access another dimension. So perhaps we could open that up and go, know, what, what happens to us when we're put under compression and. And why the heck would something like that have happened to me last week?

So is that something that you have discovered recently in your life or have you always known that about you, that extra gear?

Nah, yeah. Yeah. Good point. Good point. You know, like, uh, okay. So I think I realized I was throwing myself under the bus and I've gone a coaching session, but yeah, there's parts of me that, um, there's certain things that I've done that I've done and have found easy. And I've, I had to have someone in my ear to go, you know what, just because you have comfortably done this, you've got another gear and another level and you're not accessing your top gear, you're, you're cruising, you know, and yeah, as I sit and reflect on it and it's quite confronting to go, yeah, there was probably an element where I was complicating it and convincing myself that that was hectic, but it wasn't, but when I was really under compression, just another level of hyper-focus comes through.

Hmm.

And I just shift, yeah, I shift into a different mindset. And interestingly, when most things get done in a short amount of time for me, it's when I'm in hyper-focus mode.

Yeah, I wonder if that's so the question I guess I, you know, I think most people are asking is that something you can develop or is that something that's ingrained? And I wonder, you know, the answer to for me, think it can be both. I mean, obviously some people are just designed and maybe have the DNA for it, but I think it's something you can learn, but it can't be learned and under like great amounts of pressure. So right now, like my son is currently it's summertime at the time of recording here. And my son's going to has gone away for. camp in Switzerland. It's the first time he's been away. He's 14 years old. It's first time he's been away. And, you know, a couple of days, you know, we've had a phone call from him each day so far. you know, I think the the energy I can hear on the phone, it's like he's not enjoying it that much, right? He's not enjoying because it's the first time being away from home, really, you know, that a totally different country. He's with his friend. ah But it's different. It's not for him. But at the same time, we're not worried about him. He's like, you know, he's enjoying the day. And I think just when He's getting a little bit melancholy when he actually, you know, actually has a phone call with us. And so he's sort of in that place of going, you know, I'm not enjoying this, but he also knows he can't do anything about it. And he needs to just make the most out of it. And that's pretty much the message we've been trying to send him. And for me, like it is a part process that he actually has to go through, right? Like he has to just be able to like learn at a young age. I know he's a little bit older now, but he's learning at that age of just going.

Yeah. Yeah.

what he likes, what he doesn't like. And maybe at the end of the week, he will be perfectly fine. And, or he might actually enjoy it, but he may not. Either way, it doesn't really matter. The whole point is that he's got to go through these situations to actually find like the rhythm for himself. And I think, you know, these are like the tests that we kind of necessarily need to put on our kids sometimes because let's face it, like if you live in today's world,

Yep.

If I was a kid, if I was a teenager, you have everything like if you have the means like if you're financially if your family has a financial stability, you have the means to kind of do anything you pretty much want, you know, and you're taking care of and there's not really unless you and if you don't play sport or the where there's competition, you're really just living a very crazy life and then all of sudden you get to this point where you're not feeling the pressure until maybe when you apply for university or maybe when you first apply for your job and that could be a little bit dangerously.

Yep. Yep. Hmm. uh

uh, to too long of a weight and that, pressure, um, becomes too much to handle when you're in your 20s. So I think having pressure at a young age is a good thing. And that's where my question would be is, that, it learned? Did you learn that from somewhere? Did you put yourself under pressure consciously or unconsciously, or was it just happened to you?

Good question. I think probably you're right about both because I have been through specific situations that I felt like were pressurized that I had to grow into. So that's definitely there. So it definitely came about. But I do have, I guess, another dimension where There's, you know, when you tap into the dark side of, of you, and I can, I can probably do that, that I can get into a, hyper-focused state. And I think that for myself, I can get very locked onto something, which is a skill, but I drop off everything else. So I've learned over time that, you know, very early on, I found that I could get so hyper-focused that I became so locked onto one thing that I couldn't basically focus on five things at the same time. And that was great when I wanted to deliver on that one outcome. But I realized over time that I couldn't be all in on one thing because a part of me just dropped everything else off. And so I think that I made a conscious decision not to go all in all the time because of the cost of what it would have. So I could have very easily have achieved like, know, when you hear someone go, Hey, I went all into my business and I achieved everything I wanted. And I looked around and no one was there. Um, that is so, that could so easily be me so easily be me because I can get so focused that it becomes the most important thing, but I had to make some big key learnings along the way where I had to temper that. I had to get to the point where I went, okay, so you're all in maybe a seven or eight out of 10, because what it means is that everything else in your life is in harmony and you have good relationships with people. and, but if I went to the 10, it's kind of like, you know, on these shows, when they go, don't crack in case of emergency or you are on this jet and you push it right to that. I think I have a gear that goes from seven to 10. But what it costs me personally is basically lack of awareness around everything else that's important.

You know, what's interesting about that, it's all relative, right? That thing that's what you're talking about, really, the relatively of your seven out of 10 might be someone else's 10 out of 10. And I think it's, and that is based on the experiences that each one of us has gone through. And one of the challenging things I think I find with this is that oftentimes we, I can see how we can get into that flow state. You know, I think I was talking, I don't know if I did this, said this in the podcast. I remember,

Yep.

maybe a couple months ago when I kind of got into a little bit of AI and I was like, just kind of see what AI was able to do. And I was, was not coding cause I don't know how to code, but I was actually asking like, you know, yeah. Right. And I was like, I was like, ah, you know, I was kind of vibe coding. So that's what they call it now, right? Vibe coding. like basically telling the AI to kind of create something for me and like, Oh, I want to tweet this. And I remember there was like moments where I was like, wow, how, how is that possible? Where

Yeah, you sent me stuff. You sent me some stuff when you doing that.

you know, things are just sort of, um know, they were, hog sparking, me a second.

That's...

All right, so that was a little bit of distraction. I actually had the doorbell ring. So that was affecting my vibe as we were talking about vibe coding. so that's a big break, a train of thought. But for me, when vibe coding, I was like into this, right? I was so into this vibe coding that I was, I was losing track of time. And I was like, wow, I got a glimpse, not I listen, I'm not, I'm definitely not have not been obsessed about it, but I got a glimpse of how coders, you know, just get like stuck in their thing in their art form.

Yeah.

And that's what I mean. It's just, there's this moment of like where they were just so focused, so dialed in into their coding. And that's what I was like, ah, like I can see how people go down these rabbit holes where they can't don't sleep for days, just coding something. But there's a cost to it. Like you said, there's a cost. And that's the thing that we're kind of talking about that the cost of all of that, what is the cost? And most people don't realize that um that cost can be detrimental and has secondary effects.

Yeah.

until it's all over too late. But I wanna preface this though, because the thing is what I noticed though, is that I think the cost needs to be tethered to the cycle of life that you're in at that moment or the season of life that you're in at the moment. And so what I mean by that is that, we're over 50, I can say that now. um We're in a different stage of our life, right?

you You can.

versus someone who's in their 30s versus someone who's in their 20s. And so oftentimes what I'm seeing, and I've said this a couple of times in the podcast, is that you gotta be careful when you're listening to podcasts or even watching something like what we're talking about is that you gotta recognize is like, is that fitting to where you're at at the moment to the listener right now? Because you and I are probably focusing on like, work-life balance, if there's even such thing as that existing, we can have a debate on that. Maybe we'll have a talk, guess what's on that. But just more like we're looking at other aspects of our lives and what find purpose. But I find like if you're 20 years old, there is no thing, I don't think there should be any work-life balance. I think it's about more work and finding who you are rather than trying to get that balance. The balance will come later in life. But that's just my opinion. How do you feel about that in terms of the intensity?

yet. Yeah, look, I agree. I agree. Totally. I agree totally because I think as time goes on, you, your focus and your priorities change and definitely we've talked about this before in our twenties, it was just all in like new business, new venture. got to go and I think that that life evens that out with you where it gives you the energy and the strength when you're going to need it the most. When you're, when you're growing, bringing kids up and also you've got your most amount of strength and energy is when you're going to need it the most. And so to me, that was, I definitely had that. What I realized is that as time goes on, I'm more interested in, yeah, for me, it's more quality, more appreciation. And I don't have a I don't want to get to a point where I wear myself out to the point where I, I'm totally depleted. And so the energy and the freneticness of what my twenties was like is not sustainable. And so to me, I realized that I was for a long period of time, I was probably getting 130 % out of myself. No question. But as time's gone on where I've used the outcomes that I've had, I've gone, how do I still... keep moving, multiply, but not at the expense and the detriment of my health and wellbeing. And so then I've been able to go to a multiplier of five X, 10 X, where previously I didn't have that understanding, but I think I needed the contrast. I needed to get to that one point of extreme to go this, you can do this, but this isn't good to force me to create change in how I looked at things. So I agree with you. think if you, if you're going to hustle, You do it in your 20s when you've got um so much ahead of you and you can set yourself up for what you want to do. No question.

Yeah. Cause it doesn't mean that you can't hustle in your thirties and forties, but she's becomes harder. think I pick the biggest. Yep. Yeah.

No, it looks different. It looks different. You don't recover as quick. know, even it's funny, you know, like I went away and had it, you know, heading away as I was last week and I was sleeping. Like when I talk about hyper-focus, was, it was phenomenal. What I was getting done. You know, I was training every day. was just in a really hyper, but yet I was resting and I was sleeping and, and And I needed, was expending so much energy that I was depleted. So it was either working or I'm sleeping or I'm resting. So there was nothing in between and I didn't have that additional bandwidth. it was more just a reallocation of resources and time and energy that I learned that I could do.

Yeah, it's definitely a, a skill set and an experience that you actually have to go through. again, um, I know actually let's go back to, know, as we get older, I'm sure like every time we prepare for exercises now, like, you know, the 40 years and 50 year olds are stretching way more than a 20 year old needs to stretch. Right. Because uh

I'm like an old car in a cold morning there, mate. That's how I explain it. It takes me a while.

Yeah, it takes it's you just need to like spend a lot of time. You got to show up early. You got to really move the joints and you just can't just go and jump in, jump into a game or any type of exercise without any warm up. Right. And, and that's just, that's just how our bodies are built because recovery times is going to take a little longer. And I think that's, that's the, reason why you're 20s is, know, you should start to press, you know, press go and hustle. But also I think what it could do is it leads to this thing that you're talking about, which is when you are putting yourself into the pressure cooker.

Yeah. Yeah.

in your 20s, you know what you can handle, um what you can able to process. And there's one of the reasons why we made a decision to move to Portugal when my kids were 13 and 10, because I wanted to help them recognize that you don't have to live or stay where you're born or where you're from. I want you to recognize that you could move countries and you did it. so later on, when they decide to go to university or when they go take a job in Singapore or wherever they're to take a job from,

Yeah.

they go, oh, I've done this before. Like this is familiar territory. It's not like pleasant, but yet I've done it before. So it's not that big of a deal. Whereas for someone who's like for the first time leaving home, right? That could be a big challenge. And that's what we really want to kind of help them kind of develop and at least have that experience. So they either recognize that this is not, this is hard, but it's not that hard in comparison because you've done harder things before.

Yeah. mean, elements of that we've spoken about before is the coddling of, of kids, particularly doesn't serve them in the long-term. It doesn't help them. And we as humans need to be challenged. need to be uh stretched for us to keep growing. And if we don't, you know, like people are content and that's okay. uh However, when, when they are embraced, it's, it's the principle of crossfit. applied to life where if you don't have the uh experiences or the confidence to trust yourself in situations you haven't seen before because you've never put yourself in the scenarios where you're stretched, you're going to feel overwhelmed. And more often than not, you know, to me, when we look at leadership, sometimes you're navigating through things that you've got no map of. You don't know what it's going to look like. All you have is the ability to trust yourself to go, you know what? I don't know what's going to happen. I really don't, but I trust myself and this is the process that I'll go through. Now that you don't just parachute into that. You have to find, you have to pay your dues in some way, shape or form. And that's, yeah, I think you're right about international move because that forces you any, you looked at any exchange students, sorry, I interrupted there. Any exchange student used to go in and come to your school. You have to look at it and say, this kid's now doing what I'm doing, but.

Well, yeah.

They lived in another country and how much have they grown? like I was, I was, was admiring kids who did that. I didn't do that as an exchange student, but I could see how the other kids grew exponentially as it all that.

Yeah. And then what this type of pressure we're talking about, you know, you say you put yourself in this pressure and you can get, you can accomplish so much. Um, I want to talk about sustainability in a second, but before we kind of get there, it's like, I think there's two types of pressures, right? It could be one. It's either internally driven or internally created, meaning like you created that internal pressure that the timeframe or the pressure deadlines that you put into yourself, or it could be externally, uh, created means that it's under circumstances that you actually have to, um, operate in that pressure cooker. So meaning like, it's not something that you wanted to happen, but it had to happen because of these circumstances. So the first thing that comes to mind in case of emergency, right, if something happens in a case emergency car accident, you know, that that is an external pressure cooker that allows you and forces you to act accordingly. Actually, this reminds me of like what happened a couple weeks ago, I was uh I created this paddle tournament on a Friday, and we're having dinner and one of the ladies just stood up. And she

Yeah.

couldn't breathe. And she was choking on something. And you know, like there's that instance of like going in there doing the hamlet maneuver, trying to get her to breathe, like all those things kind of came back. I haven't done a hamlet maneuver, you know, in practice for guaranteed, you know, 35 years, you know, when I was a lifeguard practicing, you know, that, you know, that type of maneuver, and But like, that's what I mean. That's an external circumstance where internal pressures is something that you created in your head and like, this is the deadline, this is the pressure I'm putting in. I announced this thing that I'm going to do like this event or this program, and therefore it has to happen or look like a fool. Like those internal, which one, like, do you do you do this on a regular basis? mean, externally, we can't control but do you do this on a regular basis to create these internal pressured systems?

Yeah. short answer is yes, I do. Sometimes when I really want to load the bases up on myself, I do do that. put artificial constraints on so I can focus my attention. Sometimes, I mean, a lot of the times when I'm looking at doing something that's a stretch, I'll make a public declaration about it. So this is what I'm to do. And so that load the bases up on me. But interestingly, I'm reading a book and I can't remember the author of it. It's called, you know, performing well under pressure and and along those lines. And there's a big focus where people quite often will go from where people are under pressure. It's the rewiring and how they represent that to them. So if you can shift anxiety to excitement, it totally changes everything. And so you're going from an oh no to a let's go. You know, and to me, I've studied sports psychology like you have for a long time, Lawrence. And anytime a team has got a big opponent next coming up next week, they can either lose the mental game there. And then by going on, we've got these guys. We're bottom of the table. They're top of the table. They're going to trounce us or as has been increasingly been the case in interviews lately, where you hear someone say, listen, we look forward to the opportunity to test ourselves against a great opponent. And so that rewires the script and the narrative. So if you shift it from anxious and fear and pressure to excitement, there's something that you liberate kind of it's free energy versus stored energy, so to speak. And it allows you to access another cap. So, yeah, I play those mental games with myself all the time. I regularly try to rewire what's going on and shift to excitement because excitement then means I'm looking forward to this as opposed to I'm scared and I want to run away from it.

Hmm. And do you tend to, do you have a timeframe that you put yourself in, like in terms of how frequent this happens? So my thinking is like, there are obviously yearly goals we can put ourselves, but that's way too long, know, turn, that's not like, that's just impossible to put yourself in a pressure cook for a year. I don't think it's healthy for you. You know, then there's like quarterlies, you know, every three months. Then there's like this idea around six week cycles. Do you have like a...

Yeah, I do 30, I do 30 and 90 day. They're the two ones that I most commonly do. Yes, I've done the, the 75 hard, but I found there was a sweet spot 30 to 90 days. I'm my two preferred ones. So, um, with everybody that I work with, usually do a quarterly chair review. Uh, so we do all that, but sometimes even amongst that, you do a sprint goal. Um, so you basically go, we got a sprint for the next 30 days, no matter what go and, um, What that does is it, it shifts momentum. It's not something you can sustain forever, but it recalibrates up something that's possible for you in that 30 days. So, uh, yeah, I definitely will do that. I know, I know when we're working on something and I know the deadline is say 40 days, we'll put a goal of 30 days. So I want to, always want to be ahead of it. Um, you know, like I know some people rely on. the carrot and the stick and they need so much pressure on them to start. I find that I can perform like that if I have to, but I'm better. I'd rather start earlier and gain momentum so that I feel like I'm in control. Because then that way I'm focusing on all my intelligence rather than just the one. I said, I know who I become as a result and uh it gets stuff done, but it's just, I'm... I didn't realize how much I was dropping off when all I was focusing on was just that. Just the task.

Yeah, it's interesting. Everybody in and it's so hard because not hard, everybody's so different, right? So we work on quarterlies as well. And typically we kind of go quarterly, but also I've been toying around with six weeks and two weeks off. So it's almost like the six week sprint. So yeah, so it was like two weeks. So it's like six cycles in a year. Uh, and, uh, you work with six weeks and then you got two weeks break to kind of just recalibrate, you know, redo things. Um, I didn't, at the end of the day is that in order for that to happen though,

Yeah. Oh, okay. Gotcha. I gotcha. Mm-hmm.

any any of these whatever cycles you kind of choose to kind of run needs to have a purpose behind it, right? They could just can't be just doing for the sake of doing there has to be some sort of why behind the purpose because without that why it's unsustainable. Typically, you kind of run out of steam and run out of juice or run out of gas. Do you do you kind of focus on that too as well? Like in terms of what you need with

Yep, Yeah, so we do. we, I'll you an example. We've got a product launch in the US that we're working on and we've been working on it as a sprint. And we're working on that period of time and it's all hands on deck. And it's an artificially... Impose deadline to ensure that things get done because if you don't bring an urgency to something particularly Something that doesn't have a time frame specifically it blows out and before you know it you You know time momentum is all gone. So yeah, I will regularly impose self um timelines to put the the focus and the urgency on it to make sure stuff comes to fruition

What doesn't, like, what have you noticed in others who even with time pressure and pressure cooker, they actually can't perform or they just don't perform? What are some of the characteristics of those type of people?

That's a good question. think it's, sometimes it's the, you know, there's always uh the, one of the first things that we always do is that concept of above the line, below the line. And. Whenever I start working with someone, go, listen, here's a hypothetical line. Okay, below the line, these are value uh destroying traits and value enhancing states are the ones above the line. So imagine you draw a line and below the line, there's always things like excuses, reasons, justification and avoidance. Okay, they're below the line activities. Above the lines are things like accountability, results, responsibility and... outcomes, you know, so effectively to me, anybody that I find makes stuff happen is one who consciously lives above the line. And people who allow below the line activities, energy, focus to creep in is other people that don't get things done. So there's justifications, excuses, avoidance, all those kinds of things, which are disempowering traits that don't allow things to change. So if you want to change something, you have to access that. And while we sometimes get pushed back in life and we may feel sorry for ourselves. One of the things I say to myself is, okay, I'll allow myself to drop below the line, but there's a limited amount, how long I can stay there. And, you know, I might feel like excuses, really justification, but then I go, dude, this isn't going to change anything. And I consciously force myself to go above the line and, and in all our teams, our cultures, our environments, we adopted an environment of above the line. and outcomes. And so that to me has become a, I guess a reference or a standard upon which I aspire to live my journey in my life.

Hmm. So let's talk about consistency. Like we talked about sustainability, not consistency. So how sustainable is this in terms of, you know, this comp, this pressure cooker, you know, how long can it last for? Do you go through cycles? Cause I know I can tell you all my cycles, but like there's only so much I can go through it. And then, you know, I started to wither away.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's that yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right about the, you know, the 30 days to six weeks seems to be the upper limit. I seem to go really good for the 30, about the 30 to six week range. I get a little bit, you know, antsy and I'm starting to look for distractions. And so personally, that's what works really well for me. But I realized that... you can become too rigid as well. you, if it's so driven all the time and there's no joy, there's no pleasure, there's no fun in that element over a while, you'll start sabotaging yourself, destructing because it's not sustainable. So in answer to your question, I think of it like an interval. think of it as a sprint, relax, like you said, six weeks, two weeks, six weeks, that optimizes performance and keeps you moving forward, but it also allows you to recover. because if you don't, you'll just eventually run out of puff or you'll lose motivation or start sabotaging because you're not having your values or your needs met.

Yeah, I think you got to know your limit though. Yeah, because I don't I think it's going back to back to back. So let's just say you do 30 days. This for example, I think if you go 12 months or 12 x, you know, 30 days in a year, like that's, I don't know, I think after like, maybe the second sprint, I might be already kind of withering away. It's almost like a sprint, right? Like, that's what a sprint is, you can't be sprinting a marathon, right? You can't even sprint at 800 meters, really.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

You gotta learn to pace yourself, right? So sprints is a series of sprints. And I think that's what we're gonna have to think about it as. And oftentimes we, and then within that 30 days, you're also sprinting within those days. Like each day is a several sprints that kind of get to the end. And I've been actually putting in some pressure cooker on myself. I've been finding it actually, know, it's the Pumperd Aero method, but I've been more, you know, when I write my emails, I put, instead of just go, okay, I need to write my email now. I actually have, I put on a timer for 20 minutes.

Yep. Yep.

And so it gives me a countdown. I'm like, okay, I should be finishing now. I got five minutes left. Like I got to tie up this story. Whereas before I could like sit there and try to like weave in a better story or just take a bit of time. And, and then, you know, next thing I know is like, I'm, you know, 90 minutes in still writing one email, you know, creating one story. And so I think having certain times, like certain sprints within the day is also very, very helpful. Custard creates like this series of wins. I always kind of suggest to my clients is like, okay, if you have one hour.

Yep. oh Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Don't do one thing, do three things. You know, do three 20 minute blocks or two, two 25 minute blocks with a break. And the rule is that whatever you move to next has to be a different activity, meaning like it has to be a different project. So you can't work on the same project just have with a five minute break in between, because it forces your brain to go knowing that, okay, my limit is here and I got to stop so that I can actually move forward. I think that is healthier, a healthier way to look at it.

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. oh Yeah, I do agree. I use time as all the time for the same reason, Lawrence, you know, like in terms of even if I'm reading, I'll set a timer and I'll basically say to myself, right? Yeah. Because if I, if I'm reading, you how you talk to, I remember you talking about, uh, reading and so for me, I, I'll read and I'll go, right. If it's 40 minutes, I'm going to read for 30 minutes, whatever I set the timer and I'm not allowed to look at phone, anything else. I've got to be a hundred percent focused on it. And so

Ah, interesting.

What I found without doing that is occasionally I'd read it I'd go, oh, that's interesting. Let me check that. And then, then you suddenly go down the rabbit hole and you're not doing anything as effectively. So to me, the power of concentrated focus is really helpful. And then I apply that. And so if I've got, as you said, if I've got 20 minutes or half an hour, I'm going to get really focused on that. I'm not going to do something that I know it takes five hours. in a 20 minute slot because that creates, know, you've got to go, I'm to smash out these emails and I've got 20 minutes to do that go. And, and, and that increases your productivity. So that's how you can do it on a, on a, on a regular one. But when you talk about sustainability, I mentioned before, you know, having done 75 hard in the middle of COVID, I did it 75 and then I did another 75. So did 150. And then I got through my third, third consecutive cycle. So I was starting to get a bit obsessed by then it was about 160 something days. And I went, I'm going to stop this because I'm it's too rigid. And that's what I mean by I can tap into that dimension, which gets stuff done, but suddenly you're just going, what's the point? You know? So, I'm so, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So I lost some, I lost myself in that process in the pro that's what I mean. So.

Yeah, what? What am I proving? oh

to me, but that only comes from experience where you go, okay, I have that ability to hyper-focus, but is it good? It's kind of like if anybody ever watched Get Smart, and no one's gonna be our vintage, but you know, they say if only they could use this for good rather than evil. Well, that's what I had to learn about self-awareness is to go, dude, use this and this is helpful, but careful. You know, it's like uranium. You've gotta be, it's dangerous if it's in the wrong hands.

Yeah, but see, that's the thing though, Jim, like the fine line is like, you know, because the counter argument is like, well, how do you know that's your limit, right? Like there's always that argument. And there's no true answer to this, by the way, like I know this, but it's like, that's the thing, right? Because we're relying on ourselves to make that judgment call, like, is this too much, right? And let's use a workout as an example, because that's kind of easier to kind of process, but it's similar, right?

Yeah, all right. Yeah. Yeah.

So sometimes when you're pushing through a workout, you're like, okay, I just need this like five seconds just to breathe, catch my breath and catch the next thing, right? But there's also that part of your brain, like you're wasting time, like keep going, right? And it's like that fine line of where like, if I push it too hard, I could freaking puke here or, you know, that's when you can go, okay, maybe I should pack off a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And I've done that a couple of times where I'm like, oh, I think I pushed it a little bit too much. Where the other time I'm like, you know, the time goes, I'm like,

Yeah. Yeah. Too bad, too bad. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Damn it, I missed it by one or two reps. And if I just pushed those five freaking seconds in the back there where I definitely could have, instead of pacing myself, I could have just finished on like, so there's always that balance and always this game. Um, there's a sort of a fun game to kind of process, but it's like putting yourself, putting yourself in those situations. It's not life or death, but it is something that you gotta find the limits of your body.

It is. And, and yeah, and sometimes you'll get there before somebody else will as well. so anybody who's had a coach, uh, particularly, and I've had elite, some elite trainers who've trained me. Um, uh, one time in, she, I had a birthday present, which was, uh, um, uh, 45 days straight of training with a military, you know, special forces sort of guy and That was like super fit period of time. But what I learned when you just meant about consistency is the importance of consistency means that sometimes you don't go out every day and you score a personal best. Right. That was a big key. And I assume it because he says, you know, sometimes you're to rock up and you've only got a three out 10 available. I just want to see that three out of 10. I want to get 100 percent of that three out of 10. And I went all gold.

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yep.

And, but my understanding was every day had to be a pedal to the metal day. And sometimes that's not the case. You don't progress if you, if you are overextended and that was a really critical lesson. look back on that now and go, okay. So I had another trainer who I would get to what I thought was my theoretical level and he'd go, no. And there was another two levels. That's what I'm talking about at the start of the, where someone can see something in you that you can't see in yourself. That's different, but. If you go in there and go today, I did the best I could with what I had, and that was enough. And tomorrow I'll show up again. That to me is consistency. And you can't always do PBs every day. It's just, it's not going to happen.

I mean, that's a really great statement about you can't do a PBs every day. But I think it's like uh having it. I think what also needs is an evaluation of yourself, of the event or the thing. So let's just keep it on the task of the exercise. Like, you know, you go do a workout at the end of it, you should give yourself a score. Like, did you give it your best today? Like the best of what's available to you today? And sometimes being, and not just go, yeah, yeah, I did. No, like really give yourself a score and go, you know what? I could have gone a little faster or I could have picked up a little heavier weight, but I didn't. And, but not to like beat yourself up about it and go like, man, what a, you I should have done better or lifted heavier. More just like, okay, next time I know that I'm, I need to push a little harder or go a little faster because like, no, I could, because I was nowhere near, it only 70 % of my capacity today. And so it's, it's being, having that constant evaluation, I think it's helpful. I was listening to this podcast and this one line kind of stuck up for me this week, which was like, think of business like a sport. And I was like, Ooh, I like that. Right. It's like, and I don't necessarily think of business like a sport. I wish I did. Like, cause I love sport. love playing sport and you know, win or lose you have, as long as you have fun and you know that you gave it your best, you know, I, played paddle this morning and you know, we chose the teams away. Like the two best player out of the four was against the, know, against the two players, me and.

Hmm.

me and someone else. And it was like, do we want to start that way? Because yeah, then we like, yeah, we want to start this way. Because it's almost like, we wanted to test ourselves. We freaking lost six one first game. Like, no, no, let's screw around. We lost six to the next round. But it was it was still it was that pressure of going, hey, you know, the score didn't do justice, but we played great. Like, I think we don't think we did done better. But it's almost like putting yourself under that pressure of going that we need to kind of always not always make it fair, but always kind of go. We need to challenge ourselves once in a while. I think, but it's an evaluation afterwards. I'm like, okay, what could we have done better? And if the, like, I don't think we could have done any better. was just like, they were just better players, you know, they just put it under pressure and then that's the answer. I'm like, okay, well, like, you know, unless we get more training or get more lessons or whatever, I'm not going to get any better. So we're just always going to get hammered. And that's the only way to kind of move past this, but we had fun in the process, but that evaluation though is super important. Right. And I think if we don't evaluate ourselves, we just going to continue just

Yep.

going through the same cycle. And I think applying your business like a sport, which means that you're to have good days and bad days. But at the end of the day, like, what's the outcome? What are we trying to do is not trying to win every day and not as PB every day. But to recognize them, like, what are all the things that we're not doing? And I think that, know, clients, I've seen it a lot. It's like, they never, they're always chasing the thing, but they never really evaluate, like, what is actually missing? Like, what are some of the things that you're not doing or refusing to do, or just trying to ignore, simply because you don't want to do it.

Yep. Yep. A great concept. I love that. That's really good. know, Clint Eastwood always said, you know, man's got to know his limitations. that's a hard thing to recognise in and of yourself. But there's another frame that someone shared with me a while ago. I thought it was really helpful. He says, it is better to fall short than to pull up short. All right.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Love that.

And so this is what we're talking about because if you look at it and go, Hey, if you did the best you can do and okay, you didn't win. You didn't get the outcome you wanted. You can look yourself in the mirror and go, listen, I did the best I could. genuinely did. There's a gap of improvement. need to go back, lick my wounds, take, take whatever lesson I get. But if you're pulling up short, you got to look at why. So when you said earlier on about, you know, If you didn't lift the weight that you did, you very well be tired. You may be for, but if you do that consistently, you go, well, where else am I doing this? You know? And to me, think that, I think that the pulling up short is, you know, and every, and every time I I've done that, you know, if I've gone to training and I've gone, man, it was a hard round. I think I'm going to sit this one out. Um, that's me pulling up short. If I don't want to push myself, push myself, but then someone invariable will go, Hey, let's have a round. I'll go, yes.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so if it was up to me, I would have said, I'll sit this one out, but because someone else tested you, just, and then suddenly I'll go, wow, I had that in me. didn't realize I had that. So this is about sometimes our blind spots because we may not be performing to our best because something's within our blind spot. Granted, that's where assistance, guidance, support, coaching, mentors, collaborate, whatever come into play. And that's really helpful. But if you know of yourself that you've got more to give and you're pulling up, that's when you got to ask yourself some questions.

think that's the self-awareness that everybody needs to explore, right? The self-awareness is that you gotta know, like you already know this about yourself, Jim. It's like you know that if you, you can go into that dark space, right? That dark cubbyhole, that dark cave, you can put yourself in there. But you know the downside of that is that you get lost. a lot of things get ignored and sacrifices are made. But you know that about yourself. So therefore you know like,

Yeah. Yep.

how far you can go and stay in there without actually getting yourself into trouble. And I think, that's through discovery, not because you're smarter than anybody else, it's because you've been there. You've been in that dark cave long enough and the consequences were painful, right?

No. And I've known myself, yeah, you're right. You know yourself more. The only way you get experience is making mistakes and learning from them.

Yeah. Right. And then you also got to know that there's other people like, you know, might be going like, Oh, yeah, you know what, I'm just gonna do the minimum, right? I'm always gonna do this weight and never go up. And I was like that for a while in CrossFit like, Oh, I got poor shoulders, or I got ping pong legs. So therefore, like, I'm never going to like, squat or deadlift, you know, anything heavier than X, whatever that X is. And it wasn't until like, later on when I'm like, why do I do that? Like, why do I just like, always go below of what I think, rather than actually going like, what if I fail? Like it should be okay to fail and not finish a workout, right? Like to be able to go, I don't have to finish this. The goal isn't to finish. The goal is to like, maybe just do the technique properly, you know, and like really suffer through the like not being able to do it. And hence like I start, when I started doing that, I realized I'm like, oh, I'm actually stronger than I think I actually am, right? And yeah, I'm still slow.

Yeah.

but also know my limitations. But if I don't actually put the pressure on it, I'll never get any better either, right? You for me it's like the shoulders, like anything above the shoulders, like I'm just not very strong. Well, that's because I never train it, right? Because I never push myself harder, because I always keep up lighter when it comes to shoulder work. But if I don't push myself in those realms or lift those heavier weights, I'm never gonna get better. And I gotta be able to suck the ego to be able to go, yeah, I'm not gonna finish this one. But at least I know I'm going to feel like I...

Yeah.

pushed myself harder than I did if I just completed the exercise with a lighter weight. I think that self-awareness though needs to be there for all of us to discover, to figure out, because I think a lot of times we just need to know what our weaknesses are in terms of what our blind spots are. And I think we do know if we actually had that proper self-evaluation of ourselves. Some people may not, but most of us who've been living long enough, you know what they are. You just got to figure out how to navigate around that. And hence surrounding yourself with the right people who will... not compensate, but to actually will help you get past that weakness or that that blind spot. That's the partner that you want to have, right? And that doesn't have to be a romantic partner, because that's the partner that you know, the friendship or the someone who supports you that you want to have in your corner.

Yeah. And you know, you're right about your own. Um, you don't know, you don't know until you test yourself. And that doesn't have to be a physical thing. could be anything. There's so many situations where we can talk ourselves out of even trying because they're not going to be great at it. We're new to it. It's difficult, but that's where you expand and grow. And that's, that was, that's what I learned. And, and, but that could be at an internet intellectual campaign, you know, like I was reading an article of, of a 102 year old neurologist today who's still involved in in some way, shape or form in something in terms of consulting. And he also got he passed his bar exam in his 80s. And he's someone who tested themselves consistently on an academic level and he's thriving at 102. And to me, that's that's what I mean by if we don't challenge ourselves, we basically retract, we start contracting and and Maybe it's because I, whether it's conscious or not, I'm not trying to find the easy path because, you know, for the longest time. This is a bit of a thing that I've had to unpack as well is because I had this high capacity for work. I sometimes didn't feel like it was worthy if it wasn't hard work. Right. And so that meant that in situations where it came easier, I just went, it's too trivial. can't be important enough and not worry about it. So I always found the hard way of doing things and I have to totally rewire that. But now I've met a stage in my life where I'm going, listen, just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's wrong.

Hmm.

And so I'm now fighting against, you know, when life's pushing back on you and say, Hey, it's really hard to do this exercise. I lean into that. go, well, if I can't, then I must. I've got to find a way of doing this because my brain is just trying to close down.

Yeah.

trying to circle the wagons and go, you know what, people your age shouldn't be doing what you're doing. So just, it's okay. Come into this corner here. It's okay. It's safe. And to a degree, you have to listen to that. You have to be sensible and not be reckless, but you also have to just keep challenging that to go, that's just my primal brain trying to keep me safe, but I can't grow and expand while contracting at the same time. So How about I keep taking care of my health and wellbeing, but I'm just going to keep stretching here. And to me, I think that that pre prefaces how I try and approach life, you know, where I know there are limitations. I can't go out and do what I could physically you and I can't do that, but heck, you know, we're still showing up. I'll take that every day. I'll take that every day.

Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the biggest, I mean, this is my opinion, of course, and you may or disagree or agree. For me, I find the emotional push or a challenge is way harder than the physical. So what I mean by like pushing yourself like psychologically or emotionally or spiritually to do something that goes against, you know, the, I guess, things that are hard, you know, could be a confrontation or a relationship.

Yep.

conversation you need to have, I think, or even something in business, you know, a critical decision or leaning into something I find that hard to do. So a path to get there, and this is mostly for the people who are like thinking about them, like, yeah, I know I need, you know, you need to do better in terms of your business or your life, your relationship, but you're afraid to lean in. I find like the path to get there, one of the paths does not a guarantee, but I think the path is physical, like meaning like,

Yeah. Hmm.

if you put yourself under physical uh constraints and or stress, and I find like if you can do that, it's a it's a path to kind of rewire your brain to have an opportunity at the psychological and the relationship and the business strategies. And this is my opinion, of course. So what I mean by that is like, one of the easiest things to do is that to train your brain to say like, I'm in control, meaning like, my brain is in control of my physical body, not the other way around. So which means that when you go do a workout, it's like your brain is telling you can do this and you will go through this pain. The body is telling you stop, please, I don't want to do this anymore. But you're going, no, I'm going to finish. And that's the brain telling the body, you know, that what you're capable of doing, right? It's like taking cold showers, like no one freaking loves a cold shower. Like no one likes, you know, going on ice bath, but that's your brain telling like, you're gonna do this and you'll be handling you'll be okay. But you're everything in resistance. It's like jumping out of a plane or, or jumping on a bungee jump. Like your body says, what are you doing? You stupid, like you know, we're not supposed to jump, right? But you do it anyways, because you're trying to train your brain is like, I know, right? I got this. I know you're not supposed to you're fighting every instinct. So I think, I don't know if you believe that, but I feel like

Yeah.

That's the thing, it's a pathway, because then you can translate some of that to your brain to go, hey, yeah, but that's the same thing on this business decision, or that's the same thing here when it to a relationship, when maybe you're in a toxic relationship that you need to get out of. I think the pathway is through physical. Not always, but I think it's an easier way.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you're, think you're spot on. think um there's a brilliant book called the Chimp Paradox. I feel if you've come across it before, when it talks about the chimp mind and fundamentally it's basically saying, you know, and other people talk about the general meaning your cognitive has got to tell the chimp who's in charge. And that is the process when you can regularly override and take

Yes. Yep. Yep. Hmm.

steps when your chimp scream me out saying I don't want to do this you teach it to quiet and pipe down because we're gonna do I'm running the show not you and a lot of it will be fear-based a lot of the reasons we make our fear based and if we can override those that helps out Lauren says we can start winding down because it looks sounds like there's a phone you got to pick up there as well in the background we should come off

Yeah, for sure. That's my wife. That's the bell saying, that's my timer saying we should come off this podcast and this is the end. All right guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast and I hope that it inspired you to actually take some action and put yourself into some sort of pressure cooker over the next 30 days and let's see what comes out of it on the other end. Whatever timeframe were you listening to this, maybe make a commitment to yourself. Like what's one thing you can put yourself under pressure cooker uh pressure for 30 days? or 45 days, depending on whether you want to follow Jim's advice or my advice, it doesn't really matter, but just pick a day, pick something, pick a timeline, and then let's see what happens. Let's see what comes out of it and how you feel and evaluate it. And love for it, hear more comments about that, on how that makes you feel, whether it be business, relationship, or physical, I think is a good challenge to be, for us to kind of lay down here. So until next time, guys, until the next Wabi Sabi podcast, this is the Art of Imperfection, recognizing that nothing is perfect and you don't have to do a PB every single day. Take care.