Why You are Not an Overnight Success

Welcome to WabiSabi, the art of imperfection. Like anything else in life, nothing ever goes to perfection always with small little imperfections. And uh Jim, you have a doozy today. I like it. I love the topic. So I want to hear you frame this.

Thanks, Lawrence. And just before, before I start, just before you hit record, you said, Hey, do you want to set it all up today? Which is, which you meant was the context of the conversation. I thought you meant the recording and I've never done the recording and you always do it. So I'm like, you talking about Lawrence? So, um, if, if I had this, the countdown was on, I'm like, how do I set this up? But I get, I'll get the context. thank you. Uh, really fascinating week, fascinating week in so many ways.

The countdown was already on. was like, oh.

really had me thinking about, in our situations where you look at someone and you, you look at this and go, they came out of nowhere. Or it was like this overnight success that people had, or you look at someone and think, geez, it'd be great to be in your shoes for a little while. must be great being your shoes, but we don't really realize what being in someone's role or shoes and tales. So I'd really like to dissect that today and have a look at, know, sometimes the grass isn't always greener on the other side. and what it takes to uh live a life of intention and design and responsibility and the consequences and the responsibilities that come.

There's so many times that, uh, I mean, I fall into that trap a lot, right? It's like, Oh yeah, you can only do that because you know, you have this or that, or if I only had that skill or only had that opportunity. Um, and it's so easy to pinpoint like one or two things, um, to say that if they just done that right, or if I just had that opportunity, I would. I think oftentimes that, you know, we forget that by doing that, you're basically naturally training your brain. to external circumstances that creates, um, you know, the opportunities versus like looking internally to try to see if you can improve your own internal opportunities and, uh, and creating those consequences or circumstances to allow you to do that. And I fall into that trap so much, right? Like you oftentimes you see, you know, someone, you know, have some success in their life, you know, like, oh yeah, but right. And that, that word comes out and it's almost like giving your And I think we do that because our brain just goes, well, we have to make an excuse here for why you haven't been performing. Um, so that, know, you feel better about yourself. And I think that that's where the natural inclination of, and you have to kind of catch that. You have to be intentional to be able to watch that. That's exactly what you're doing. Otherwise we do fall into that trap.

Hmm. Exactly. And I think you touched on a couple of points, you know, like a lot of us will do it. A lot of us have this gap in the perception of what it takes to do something as opposed to where we're currently at. I'd love to also explore the subconscious thing you're saying to yourself is that I don't know that I could do that. Or, or am I able enough to do that? Or I, do we rationalize it to say, yeah, it was easy for you as a, as an excuse for us not even trying.

You know, today I was uh playing paddle this morning and there was this, uh I think this shot that my opponent made and just put me in a bind and I had to reach for it I'm like, man, that was just like an almost impossible shot. And for whatever reason, I'm not sure it was because I had this like premonition that this is the topic that we're gonna talk about, but it just brought me to thinking of myself as an armchair quarterback. And so what I mean by that for those people who don't know what that term means is that armchair quarterback is like the fans like me who are watching television, watching a game, you know, in this case, like an NFL football game and you're watching it and someone makes a throw and the quarterback usually makes a throw and it's like way over the head of someone else. And you're like, what an idiot. Like you get paid $150 million and you do that. Like, what are you thinking? How can you not see this, you know, this person? And so we make these comments as if we are playing the game, as if we are actually the ones that could have done better, right? And I don't know why the thought of playing paddle reminded me of that, because I was thinking to myself, like, if someone watched that, I guarantee you it's like, why didn't you get that? Right? Because I think my head was like, why didn't I get that? But I realized I'm not a pro. You know, it's just a fun game. You know, this is not for a championship, but it just goes to this point of where it's so easy to criticize. the moment, criticize another person, right? Which is exactly the same thing as to criticize someone's success because of something, they were just lucky because their parents had the money or they were lucky because their parents raised them right or whatever. uh And I'm sure we were playing into this play, the first thing that comes to mind is that quote of Man in the Arena um by Teddy Roosevelt, which talks about the critics. me to talk one of the classic lines is not the critics who count, but this is exactly what happens, right? We, as critics of our own, our people's lives, we're just saying we could have done that better. And that's not how the game is played. And oftentimes we just are so critical of these external circumstances versus our own internal circumstances.

Yeah, it's quite relevant that you say that, Lawrence, because in Australia at the time of recording this week is trade week. And at the end of the season, they're starting to trade and it's fascinating. You know, I think we talked about, you know, like jockeying around and looking, you know, who's going to come in, who's going that kind of thing. And who's not even at the young talent, but it's fascinating. The number of people go, Oh, this bloke, no, get rid of him, bring him this guy in. Listen, I need to talk to the coach. Who's got their number as if. Some person who has no skill, no tool, no reference, other than being a fan, is he going to get a direct line to the coach and the recruiting staff because, Oh, thanks for that. I didn't even think of your idea. It's just fascinating how we got off and simplify the task that others have because of this perception or this gap in terms of our capacity or what, really is like to be in the arena. As you just said.

Yeah, it's this whole mentality of we could have done that better when we see someone else fail, but when someone else succeeds, it goes, oh, that's because we attribute it to something else. And it's amazing how our brain just automatically does that when someone else is succeeding. It's usually because they have some extraordinary gift or talents or circumstances or opportunities that we were not, we didn't have. But when it comes to our own downfall, it's always something. you know, that's usually because of downfall, because they're success, right? So it's usually because of something external. But if we, you know, are, we actually created some success in our life, it was all me, right? It's all because of me. It had nothing to do with the circumstances that was, you know, gifted to me either. So it's amazing. And they've done this study many times, I think with doctors specifically, with surgeons. I think, I can't remember the exact study where, you know, if something goes wrong, it was always like someone else in the room was, you know,

Yep, yep.

was fault, like either the nurses or like the music was too loud or the patient was unsavable. But if they did something amazing as a surgeon, it was always like, well, because I'm so I'm so good. And we laugh at that because we kind of make fun of the doctors and surgeons thing. But that's exactly how we all operate as a human being. And I think that that's we got to analyze that ourselves. And most likely, that's exactly what you do. And something else is that you didn't something wrong is usually you tend to attribute to something that's external to you.

Yeah

But when it's something that goes right, we tend to attribute that it's all on us.

Yeah. Have you seen in commentary in sports, particularly where they're cognizant of that, where they actually interview the person and say, Hey, you had a great game. He goes, look, you know, I'm grateful for the team. They, they set up opportunities that, so they're acutely aware of that. And I always am fascinated in terms of the commentary, the post game narratives that people have. And I've noticed that more and more and more where they take less You know, they praise the efforts of the team for helping them shine as opposed to saying that and an opposed to, the coach quite often will, even if it's a, it's a line ball scenario, someone needs to kick a goal or a point or something. And it's right on the, on the buzzer. They will go no one shot or what, no one, um, player wins or loses a game. So they're trying to take it away from that specifically for you. said, it's not to blame someone, but then also not to allow anybody to take all the credit.

And it is a team sport, right? The thing is, is that most things are a team sport, even in individual, you know, uh, in, even in the individual sports, there are a team usually behind them that created those success. I'm not saying the individual didn't help, you know, add it to that, but when it comes to especially around team sports, you do have to win as a team and you also have to lose as a team and sure individual players do have a massive impact. Like, unfortunately in my Niners, we just lost our second best player. for the season, like two players, like in our defense, which is incredible. Like we have had no team has ever had, and here we go, like here I'm blaming the external sexist, but it's basically like no team has ever lost that many players, like star players out, two of them being out for the season with a broken ankle and an ACL. You're like, wow, what is going on? But at the end of the day, you still have 11 games left in the season. You're gonna have to figure this out, right? It's a 53 man roster. And yes, you lost some players, but you're have to figure out how do you still try to win as a team because no one individual player, especially in a game of like say football, you don't win because of one dominating person. You do have to have a team mentality and also everything has to work together in order for you to win through all phases of the game. And I think that we forget that too in our lives that we do need to have a team mentality is that you are not the success on your own. Like sure, you and I produce whatever work that we're doing, but without our significant other, which we brought up many times to allow us to, you know, to perform what we do to show up is almost nearly impossible to do what we do and still have uh without actually them and their support and their backing on a day-to-day basis.

So what do think the disconnect is? You know, what do you think that stops people from really understanding what it's like to be the person in the arena or the man in the arena? You know, is it, is it a dissociation? Is it a romantic concept that they have in their mind that everything's going to magically be great once you have that role, that task, that position, that money, that location, that partner. that everything is going to go away. Is that, is that the illusion that a lot of us love to live in?

I think we live in two, there's two parts to that. I think one is that we live in a very short term world with the introduction of social medias and the way how everything in technology is so fast nowadays. just have, we are craving for instant gratification and we're also craving for, you know, just instant results. I think the second thing is that our human brains are designed for rationalization. So reasoning. And so what we, when something happens, we need to, our brain needs to find and create meaning in that. But we do it in such, because of the combination of the first thing I said, which is speed, and then the second, the need for reasoning, the two of them combined, we need to rationalize this moment really, really quickly. Now, the problem with the reasoning, not a problem, but it's just a fact of life, is that your reasoning is predicated by how you train that reasoning in the first place. So which means that if you were a pessimist most of your life and you've trained your body, trained your viewpoint and worldview as a pessimistic world, you're always going to have a filter of creating reasoning that this always happens to me, right? You noticed I even said it, I'm frankly very aware. It's like, oh my God, our team is the worst with worst luck. Okay, like I did say that. And it does feel that way because, know, over the last,

Yeah.

five, 10 seasons, it's like, it's ridiculous how much injuries that we get. Now, have I actually looked at the stats? Well, we're not the worst team, but we're definitely within the top three or five, but we're not the worst team, right? It's not like other teams don't have major injuries as well. But you can see through my lens, that's how I rationalize it. I reason that it's up because of bad luck and so on and so forth. So I think because of the two, one is the speed that we're chronic consecrating energy and the two is the rationale. I think there's a third element here that I think we need to kind of maybe talk about is that our human brains, ah not only do we need rationalization, but I think we don't like to make ourselves wrong, which means is that we don't want to make ourselves feel like we're the problem, right? I think it's a self-protection mechanism. We never wanna take responsibility. And this came up actually just recently. I can't remember exactly what the situation, but I remember my son, did something and I can't remember exactly what it was to what circumstances, but I was trying to teach him to like, you know, what we need to do is we always need to take stuff first, look at the situation and go, did you, where was your responsibility in this? Okay. And because that's how I've trained myself, not to say that I'm always wrong, but I'm always going like, what part did I play to create the situation? I'm trying to teach him this, but you know, he's young and he's like,

Hmm.

he immediately pushed back on that. He's like, what, are you saying it's always my fault? And I realized that, you know, at that moment it was like, oh, when I say it to him, that's exactly what I'm kind of implying is that it's always his fault, which is, that's on me, right? I apologize for that. you know, we had our heart to heart that. the sentiment still, I think still remains true, which is training your brain to kind of go on like, what part did I have or what role did I have in creating that situation? Now, again, I'm not taking full responsibility or taking my fault, but I do need to take some responsibility for that action. And I think for me at least, and I don't know, maybe you can agree or disagree, for me, I feel like that's a better way to live life simply for the fact that I wanna be in control of my circumstances. Meaning like if something bad goes wrong,

Hmm.

um I wanna know that it was also my fault partly, right? But it's something, which means the opposite is true, which means if something goes right, it was also because I made some wise or healthy or lucky decisions on that too. I rather live in a life of that versus a life where life is unpredictable and something, stuff just happens to me, right? And so anyways, that's sort of my three things.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, I get that. So I guess the distinction that I'm hearing is the difference between self-reflection and blame, right? Because what you're asking, and it's probably hard on a 14 year old kid to have uh self-reflection and wisdom. And that's probably tough because that's what they'll hear is like, uh you know, which part of it did you cause? I'll say you're blaming me. Look, I know at a 14 year old level, I would have heard that probably that. uh

Yep.

But as an older head, you can look at that and go, okay, what part of ownership can I take in this? And the, the truth is exactly what you're saying is a lot of, you know, we contribute to the situation, the SIG, the consequences, the, by virtue of what part we played, but we don't necessarily, we made it, you know, we may want to reject that. want to butt up against that. We may want to resist that in the cold heart, hard sort of time of day, we can look at it and go, okay, well, actually did contribute to that. Or I didn't see that or that was in a blind spot, but we don't have awareness. And of that situation when we're either highly emotive and, or we're, just, haven't, we're not mature enough, you know, like it's, but that that's the whole process. You can't put an old head on a young shoulders sort of thing. And then that's, that's where the process of wisdom comes from making mistakes, learning from them, hopefully doing better the next time.

Yeah. And that's what I think. Like, you know, your question was like, how, why do we do that? And I think those are the three reasons. I rationalization, you know, reasoning is such a huge element. think that's our brain at a constantly trying to create stories to make meaning of it. And the problem with that though, right. And there's obviously pluses, but the problem is that if we create a, we create a reasoning or create a story that is not true. Um, but it felt true in the moment. And then you stick with it because you always remember, go like, that's what happens when I trust people. Right? You get burned, right? And then therefore you just end up not trusting anybody for the rest of your life because you create this one story storyline in your head um that, you know, people should not be trusted.

Yeah. And that's, guess that that was always the distinction of causation versus correlation, where you basically saying this causes that as opposed to this happened and that happened at the same time, but they're not necessarily linked up. And what our brain does to seek meaning is to fuse those together to go, there's, there's just a short, there's, there's the hack. This equals that you got not really, it's, it's like, this is that like not all people are horrible. Not all people of a race are this or that or whatever, but we generalize sometimes for simplicity as an efficient process, but a lot of times they're built on wrong assumptions or incorrect base beliefs. And that's consequently sets us on a path when we tell ourselves a particular story about something.

Oh, can see it in the conflicts that we are dealing with right now in the world, right? And you can see like we're, because we live in such an echo chamber of our thoughts and we will only see one view. And it's really hard, right? It's really hard not to be able uh to see the other side because you have to allow yourself to be able to sit on the other side, sit with the other people. ah And that's becoming more more difficult, I think.

Hmm.

And I think this is, can sort of see it playing, you know, and this could be with left versus right, you know, politics to economies and finances. So I'm like, what's right? That can be, you put, let's take investment because it takes less emotions out of it, right? But if you had a, you know, and I see this a lot actually. So I see this in my tiger members, you know, when you put a, say a, uh someone who does the S &P 500, you know, versus someone who is a proponent of real estate. versus someone who's in venture capital is versus someone who's in say gold or commodities or, and then someone in Bitcoin, you're gonna have like six different opinions on what is best, right? And they can argue for hours and which is better, but I guarantee you at the end, no one's mind has changed except for maybe the person in the room who's like, hmm, I don't actually have a stake in the, no, I don't have a horse in this race. So therefore I'm just gonna listen and then make a decision on what's best for me in my situation. And that's healthy discussion. Those are, think those are really, really healthy discussion because you get insights from, you know, say someone who is in crypto to get insights around from someone who's in real estate and why real estate is a better investment over the next 10 years than it is for crypto. Then that person, you know, if you're willing to listen, you start to realize, I'm like, oh, I can see where that's, you know, makes sense. And then therefore you start to have, you know, proper perspective and then you either double down on your own bed or you start to make, I'm like, yeah, maybe I should learn a little bit more about that. And so, and that's exactly what you did, right? In the last week's episode, you sort of said you ventured into, you had to change your investment strategy because you were, you just kind of got some knowledge of something like field that like, okay, maybe this is what I should start to look into. And you looked into it and then made the call, right? So this, which is very interesting. And that's exactly how we need to deal with life itself is that we do need to evaluate our situation. need to evaluate our truths and and start to look and they're like, what's, you know, what is right and what is wrong? And this comes into business and personal life and relationships and how we think about the world.

I think this whole absolutism in thinking is sometimes, it gives you a level of identity and certainty and identity in a particular class, but it doesn't allow you to change. It doesn't allow you to, to iterate with there's more and more effective information that comes to light. And I think that's dangerous because, you know, the presupposition is that this is the only way. Or, and, and I guess, What I've, I've certainly come to learn and understand is that, um, if I stay open to it, it doesn't mean that I don't consider that information, but I, I guess I weigh it up against what I already believe. And if the evidence or proof that something is different is compelling, then obviously you have to test your, your view. And, and over time that may change and iterate, but I think I got to a point a while ago, maybe it was just getting older and, m I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to get to arguments of positional, um, to validate my point. If someone asks for an opinion, I'll give it, but to, to force someone or to prove them or, you at what point did arguing against someone ultimately change their mind? go, I'm sorry. You didn't sell that loud enough. All right. Now I get it. It doesn't work. You know? So I got to the point where I just went, you know what? Um, are you open to the possibility of something being different? If they go, no, I'll go, I'm not going to waste my time. I'm not going to. Waste my time. I can't get that time back. But if someone's genuinely interested in go, listen, tell me about this. I don't see this this way. Help me understand then, because that's how I approach it. I just go, help me understand.

Yeah. How do you think we got here though? Like, I mean, I've never seen it more, I've seen it within the chiropractic profession since I was young, but I definitely saw it across the world when 2020 hit, you know, in terms of positioning. And that's probably when I really go and it's like, okay, these are, it's not that I didn't have a stance. I just didn't want to argue it, right? And that's exactly, I think that's what you're saying. And then you see it now in all the political arenas right now, you know, whether it be, m you know, the war in Gaza, the war in, you know, Ukraine and Russia, like, there's always an opinion on everything, but that we've gone to this point is that you are to stand on one side or the other, and you're going to get berated if you don't believe in my side, or you get into this position that you have to like, stand towards one side or the other, and there's no gray area between other, and they're almost doubling down their whole identity towards one side. And yeah, how do we get here? That's what I'm actually really interested in to know.

Yeah, great point. Brené Brown uh wrote a book uh along a long, a while ago, along the lines of you're either with us or against us kind of mindset. And you're either for something or against something. can't be that, that decisiveness puts you in a particular camp and you then have to argue to reinforce that position. that middle ground of, listen, I'm not really sure I'm swayed that middle voter, that sway voter that talk about in politics. They're the ones that, they're the ones that most political parties chase is the swing voter. Someone who's actually considering, I could go this way, I could go that way. So to me, I think what happens is at times like this, where there's a lot of um volatility, uncertainty happens, populism tends to rise. So you tend to have people who have a particular extreme view one or the other because it gives them certainty. Um, and that's part of the reason why is just, just to go, this is the issue. So I swing totally the other way, but the middle ground is the, is the period of, to me, I've always tried to be in that middle area personally, where I'm going, okay, well, what do I think about this? No, really? You know, I value independence. I value autonomy. I value that. sometimes I'd go, well, that as a point makes sense to me, the other, but you know, like, oh

Mm-hmm.

in a really funny sort of a way, right? If you're, I think we've might've spoken about it before, but if you, if you have a, a football player and they play in your club colors, they can't do anything wrong. But the moment that that person goes to another team or someone does exactly the same thing, it's like that guy's the lowest crud on the earth. So it shows you, reinforces that bias, but it does take, but when you can watch a game of teams that aren't involving your team, you can see it be more objectively because you don't have the.

Yes.

Emotion and the identity linked up. that to me, you know, basic sense shows why that happens because we're too emotionally can invest it in our position and our, our, our reference. And we kind of do everything to reinforce that bias.

Yeah, I mean, for whatever reason you mentioned that it reminds me of like Wayne Gretzky. You know, he was like, he was, you know, obviously being a Canadian and, know, he played for the Edmonton orders and he was a star. And when he got traded to like the LA Kings, you know how many Canadians were just like crying and that as a kid, like what's happening, how do you lose your biggest superstar? You know, it was like trading Michael Jordan to like, you know, another team. And, and when he went to the LA Kings, you're almost like, you started to go like,

Yeah. Yeah.

but do I cheer for him or like do I, you and you're torn because you're like there's an affinity to your team, but there's also affinity to the player which bought you in love with the team in the first place. So you sort of like get this battle internally to like, I don't know if I'm supposed to cheer for this guy or not, right? And yeah, and that happens in the sport a lot. It happened even last night, you know, I won't bring it up, like, know, on sporting teams, but you're absolutely right. Sporting team is probably the,

Yeah, yeah.

the exact uh mirror analogy for how we go through life. It's almost like you're so stuck in your ways because you love your team, but as soon as that one player leaves, you start to question, do I still like that person? And I think this is exactly what happens in families, right? Just because you are one side or another, but one of your family member decides to vote for the other side, you're like, Do you protect your family? Do you love them as a family? Or do you protect the team that you're supporting in a way? And that's an interesting dynamics. that's uh depending on how firmly you believe. And I think that's where we lost. I've heard a lot of stories where families are torn just because of their political alliances. I'm like, what is going on to this world? What happened to like, I remember when I was young, our parents never talked about who they voted for, right? It was almost like, I always remember asking, I was a young kid, was 10, 12 years old or whatever, I'm like, dad, so which one did you vote for? And I remember my parents never, they tend to vote together on the same thing, but they never really, it's like there were times where one voted for the other, one liberal party and the other one for a conservative party, I was like, oh, this is interesting, right? And to me, they never fought about it, was just like they just voted for accordingly. It wasn't like a one family always voted for liberal or conservative. For me, it was interesting to watch. was like, we didn't talk about it. Like, even when we're young, even amongst adults, they don't talk about who they vote for. It's like, hey, this is my thing. But nowadays it's almost like, who did you vote for, right? I'm like, why do you care? You know, it shouldn't matter what I vote for or what you didn't do. Or it's the same happened to during 2020. Did you do it or did you not do it? By not giving a non-answer almost made you, you know, have this, they already knew what answer. It's like.

Yeah.

how did we get into this position where like, why you care so much about others people? But I think for me, at least in my justification was because people needed to justify their stance, you know, that they voted for or did the right thing. And hence like they're sort of in that position. And I've always been in the camp of like, you know, for me voting politically was always, you know, I'm gonna be on the best candidate that's available in that mode. I wasn't up to one party, was like,

Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

One year I did vote for this and one year I vote for the other, totally different party. Cause I believe that that candidate was better. Cause I mean, that's, you I was definitely the swing vote, you know? And I think that we don't have, I know, I feel like we don't do that as much anymore in today's society.

Hmm. You know, within our family, there's four adults and all of us, you know, have, there's a continuum, you know, from one part to another. It's really fascinating and interesting. And, um, both our sons have different perspectives, you know? Um, and I remember, I remember one of our sons saying, what would it take for you to change your position? And it was a really good question, you know, because. If you are so entrenched in an ideology or belief, then you, aren't allowing yourself to stay open to a possibility of something could be different. That doesn't mean you have to change, but it, so it really got me thinking. So, and, and a lot of the times if we fall in love with identity politics and we assign it to the person as opposed to what's going on, then that in my mind, that's dangerous. Cause that's the fallibility of man that we're, that we're basically pinning everything on and people are fallible. And people make mistakes. And so to me, that's, that's where it, where it starts from a lot of the times is the whole identity. We have fixed a particular personality to a particular belief and we like or dislike that person. So consequently blinds us to what they're saying or, or, uh, positive or negative. And so constantly, we don't keep looking any further. We don't keep asking our own questions to get to what it is that that makes sense to us.

I agree. And I think that, you know, if you're listening to this and are watching this and saying, like, why are we talking about politics? Actually, this has nothing to do with politics, which is using politics as a an analogy, because if you apply the same logic to um yourself, like in terms of, you know, your identity with anything, it could be maybe the identity of like, I have to be in this particular profession, because that's what I graduated with.

So.

or I have to be in this business because that's always what I've always done. Or I can never be uh an entrepreneur or I can never start a business or go into this career because that's not what I've, that's not what I signed up for in the beginning of my career. So these are all the things that we're talking the same thing. These are the ideology, it's not even just identical policies, but it's identity of yourself. And I questioned this myself a lot. I've been saying that to me, it's like, I've been questioning this one question I've been reflecting upon is like, do I need to do what I continually to do what I've been doing for the last 10 years? Or do I have an opportunity here to maybe change identity? And that's not an easy question to answer, nor is it, I don't have an answer to that by the way, but it's not an easy thing to kind of process as well because I spent, you know, a lot of my time focused on doing this one thing and gone really good at it. But the problem is, that, you know, m Does it, will this be the same identity that I wanna carry for the next 10 years of my life? And I think those are questions that at least I'm well, think, you people need to start having with themselves to really start to recognize otherwise they, like I know my biggest fear is that, you know, 20, 30 years down the road when I'm like 80 years old looking back, I'm like, did I take that chance? You know, did I take that chance to change my identity?

Hmm.

Even though I've done it many, you know, a few times in my life already, but it's like, you know, do I do I risk it, you know, and, you know, same thing like your brain's gonna go, well, I'm too old, I'm 50 years old, I don't have, you know, opportunities to risk that or I can't do that. Again, like anytime you say you can't, like that is usually an identity we often create. I'm not saying all can'ts, right? But sometimes I know I just can't pay professional basketball. Okay, I accept that, right?

Hmm.

But there's certain things that we do have to question like, know, what do mean you can't, you know, is it a possibility or these are the identity that we need to start asking ourselves because this is where, um this is what we kind of started out the conversation with is looking at that identity itself and seeing like other people can do it. What is it that's, what do you need to do behind the scenes to kind of be able to get to that level?

Yeah. You know, Lawrence and me just clearing my throat. Now it was genuinely, I needed to clear my throat, not because I was part of me laughing at anything else that you were saying, you know, um, something that came to mind when you were talking just recently about politics and then also identity, I'm to go a different track. I'm going to go down to Greek mythology of all places because there's the story of the sword of Democles in Greek mythology. And for anybody who doesn't know that, um, Democles was always, uh, he was always a charmer. He was around the time of King Dionysius and he was always flattering and doing this and that and always aspiring to be in the throne and going, must be great for you. Or, uh, I'd love to be in that situation. This would be awesome. Great. So King Dionysius says, okay, fine. Sit in the chair thinking that great must be great. I've got power control wealth, everything that I could ever want. Um, and then when he looked up, there was a sword above, um, his head suspended by a horse here. And he realized the consequences of sitting on the throne. Right. He realized that it's not all the glitters is not gold. And for every situation, every decision we make good better other way, there are consequences and you have to be comfortable with that. And in the end, he was begging King Dionysus to get him off the chair. He couldn't handle that. What it meant, what it asked of him and the, and the expectations that he had. to me, That's the power of identity sometimes. That's the power of how strong and powerful it is because we think we want to change to something or we stay in a particular identity, but there are effects and consequences of that. So do you want to expand on that, Lawrence?

Yeah, I think that's a very powerful way to explain that. one of the things that I recognize that we oftentimes we look at people's successes from the outside and we only see that all the things that are pros, right? That are coming along with that. In this case, obviously being the king and the power and the money and all the influence. But what we never do is we never see the sacrifices that is required or what all the responsibility that comes with all that power as well. You know, oftentimes, you know, example that comes to my mind is like, you know, being a Hollywood star, wouldn't it be amazing to have all these people looking up at you and, know, taking pictures and just like everywhere you go, people are like just, you know, screaming your name and, you know, be a rock star, you know, like, but then you go, but you have no privacy ever again in your life, you know, every time, every, you got to make sure that every time you look out, go outside the door, you're to have to be dressed, you know,

Correct.

appropriately or you're just going to get snapped in that bad shot and something, you it's going to be all over the tabloids. um You have no privacy going out to a dinner or vacation anywhere. And it's, it's so we don't see that negative side. And oftentimes we look at, know, uh let's just say, for me, like I just started, you know, started actually just doing some long form YouTube from a YouTube channel. And, also obviously investigating a little bit about you know, what are some of the best formats out there and try to understand the game a little bit because I've, you know, haven't done YouTube ever. Usually I just uploading videos, but never really done it sort of thinking about it as a, as a tool. And so I started looking at it and you start to realize, I'm like, when you start seeing people like a lot of, you know, who've been YouTube influencers for a long time, they say, okay, you got to play the long game. It's like, you got to, when I'm thinking long game, like, okay, we've got to this for three months, right. But then when they, when, when I listen to every single person, They're talking a long game. It's like, you got to do this minimum one to two years. I'm like, oh, they're talking long, long game, right? It's, know, they have to post every week or for at least over a year before you get any traction. like, oh, and what that did for me was changing the understanding of what long game meant and also changing understanding of the goal posts that I needed to have to think, you know, internally. Now there's no different than, you know, podcasts, you know, people like, oh,

Yep.

you know, let's grab a mic and just computer and let's just talk. Yeah, sure, right. But you know, how many episodes does someone actually have to do to actually get any traction, you know? And actually, funnily enough, just before this podcast released, I was eating some lunch and I just happened to be on YouTube and Chris Williamson, who's one of the top podcasters in the world, you know, I think he just filmed his 1000 episode, you know? And I'm thinking, wow, that's incredible. Like a thousand episodes,

Mmm. Yeah.

That's a long time, right? That's a long time. And it's not, when I say long time, we talk about if you just done, know, once, you know, one a week, say we'll do 52 weeks. I mean, that's, that took what, what close to what, eight, nine years to kind of get to that level to do film a thousand episodes. And so you think about those 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell talks about. And I think, you know, for me reflecting upon, you know, what the challenges I've been going through is that,

Yep.

is recognizing the long play, meaning that I got to remember I got here not overnight. I got here for many decades of work and failures. And uh that got me to this position, which means that if I am going to climb a different mountain, I got to be clear that the expectation that I need to have is I got to put in the work for years, not thinking that 90 day cycle or plan is going to get me.

Yep.

um get me to the same level of success or even come close to the success I already had in other fields. So that's something I've been literally toying with and trying to ingrain in my brain to remind myself on a daily basis that it's just, you gotta think longer term and not get stuck. And this goes with investments and everything else in my life too.

Yeah, it's, it's a great point, Lawrence. And you're right. It's a difficult process to descend the mountain that may have previously given you a level of success validation and certainty to go down into the valley to then determine what the next mountain is. Right. but, um, think it's Bill Brooks who talks about that, Mike Brooks, sorry, talks about the mountains that you have to go through and basically having to follow through the second mountain is often the one that is, is a more fulfilling one because you have to come down from the first mountain that gave you validation to then go down the uncertainty to escalate and climb another mountain. And, know, interestingly, when I, I've had a couple of variations and iterations, you know, and interestingly, I, when I, for a period of time when I wasn't comfortable with those identity shifts and changes, people would say, you know, they're all classic. What do you do? And I'm like, Listen, I'm more than what I do, but who am I? That's, that's tricky. How do I identify with that? You know, so you get a bit wobbly and whenever you're trying to change this around, it's not like when so much of your identity is linked to your brand, your profession, what you do, and it has given you validation. It's not like, Oh, I used to be a shop assistant. Now I'm a courier driver. It's not a job. It's an identity. It's got a little, the roots are so much deeper that they take a little while to, to, um,

Mm-hmm.

clear those routes to change, to progress. so, uh, to me, that process for, for what it may be worth is there's a period of time where you, you have to, um, sort of pull up the anchor to allow movement to then start determining where you're going to start laying the next anchor. But for that period of time, you're going to feel, or you do feel like you're at the mercy or the effect of the elements. And you can be a bit wobbly and don't feel as grounded up until the point you go, yeah, I'm, this is the path I'm going. And after a while. it becomes clearer, I'm under no illusion that that's not an easy process at all.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's that one, oftentimes where we talked about this already is that when the, when the mountain is clear and you're close to the top, you look back, I'm like, man, this is awesome. Right? Of course, because that's when you've already done the climb, you've already done the hard work. You're absolutely the hardest part is the, the, the send of one mountain being lost in the valley, in the rain, in the fog and

Yeah. Go. uh

you're lost and have no idea where in the jungle you are, and you're just wandering, trying to figure out where is the next mountain, and that feels like the longest grind of your life. And that's sort of like, sometimes you get moments of like, oh, I see a little bit of sunshine, then you realize, no, I'm still in the clouds. ah And I think that's the hardest part. And this is, I mean, I see that in a workout, right? You know, if you have like eight rounds or something, like rounds five, six, and seven are just torturous because it's not where near anywhere in the beginning. You know where you're not at the end, but you're just stuck in the middle and just kind of how do I maintain this? And that that's always the toughest part. Yeah.

Yeah. You just got to grunt it out, grunt through, grunt through, and sometimes not even grunt through, know, like that's sometimes it's surrender. Sometimes it's, it's, uh, lift the oars up out of the boat, out of the water and just drift until you get, uh, some clarity. It's really destabilizing, particularly when you have had so much reference to what previously worked well to, to courageously go. You know, like in, jujitsu, there are times where you have a really powerful situation and you've got control of the situation and someone will swing that pivot their hips or put change their, their grips. And suddenly what was a really good position for you has suddenly become very dangerous. And unless you are prepared to go, the people get in trouble, the people that just go, I'm following this through from start to finish, no matter what. They don't read the play that don't read the circumstances have changed. they continue on that path, realizing that right now I need to just step right back. I need to abort. I need to, because if I follow them as path, it's going to turn out really badly for me. But people often don't, you know, the, the higher level that you get to, you can recognize I need to make a tactical retreat right now, rather than just go heavy in and just.

Mmm.

doubled down on this particular belief because I'm in danger now and really I to, I'd love to touch on this because, um, yeah, you mentioned about me changing my view and perspective in terms of investing last week. it's going to timestamp this a little bit, but this week in the crypto world was the biggest liquidity event ever. Right. Ever. Which is something like a correct me if I'm wrong, something like

Ever. Ever.

20 billion, no, $20 billion in a really short period of time. Yeah, 30 minutes. was just insane how something, and these aren't people that are like a lot, 1.6 million people got liquidated, got basically bankrupted uh within overnight, uh which is just hard to believe, really hard to believe, you know? And there were a lot of people who are hurting right now.

in like 30 minutes or something or like an hour, yeah.

And I guess that's the question I've got to ask is like the power of having a particular view and not having perspective of, it be something else or, or there's, there's a whole lot of factors. So do you get where I'm going with that?

Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because, okay, so for me, I came on the podcast before we started recording and asking, how are you feeling? Because knowing one thing, which is that you're very new, like you're literally new to this crypto world with maybe like less than a month. Okay. And so

It's actually probably longer. It's probably about five months, four or five months that I've been in there. yeah.

Okay, right. So, right. but this is the first, I mean, it was the biggest drawdown. It's funny, the perspective is, I didn't even know it was the biggest drawdown, because I didn't feel a thing. In a sense, emotionally. If anything, I saw it, I'm like, oh, I bought it. I actually bought more. Because I was like, all right, let's go. Like, I'm ready to go. And, um and I had some cat powder kegs ready to go. And like, all right, let's, let's, let's, let's do some buying. And

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, the reason why I'm saying this is because I have a different perspective, because I have a five-year perspective in a sense. I've been in this since 2020. And so sure, the drawdown was never been this much in one day. But for me, I've seen, I've dropped over 50 % of my holdings over a span of a few, like, if, mean, 10%, I think it was less than, I mean, it was 10 % maybe for a bit, 12, was it 12 %?

12. Yep.

Yeah, that was a blip. Like that is a blip for me because of my previous experience. Right now, for those of you who, for those who have never gone through that, that's going to be like, Oh my God, what did I just do? Especially people who just bought it recently or something. Um, that would be a scary thing because they have a different perspective. And I think, so this is the, this is the knowing part, right? So we used about the analogy of like being lost in the mountain is like, sometimes you just need to know I'm like, Whoa, we need to reevaluate this. And I think that will be a smart thing to do. Like if you were just got involved in crypto, you probably want to hold back a little bit and just go, wait a second, like, let me understand this, you know? But for someone who's got a bit of experience, like, no, this is nothing. Don't worry about it. Let's keep going. That's it from a different, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying this is how the emotions were playing out based on perspective during those situations. And so for me, I think it has come down to that. And I see this, mean, I always can come back to like living life experiences, right? And, you know, I was just last yesterday's workout was the same. I was like, it was like the last part of the workout was like a grueling, grueling, grueling workout. And it was like the last sort of four minutes of it, I had to like ride the bike. I put a towel on the bike. So didn't see how many you know, how long I had to ride for because I knew this was going to be a grind. And when I say a grind, it was like a grind of like three minutes, right? I'm grinding away. thinking in my head. I'm like, okay, I should be halfway, should be about halfway. I just gotta say, I'm not gonna look, I'm not gonna look. I'm like, okay, this should be time for me to look this check and I'm halfway. And I looked at it, I was only a quarter. And my brain just went WTF, right? Exactly. And you know what the funny thing was? My body just gave up. Like literally just went slow right down, like you're not gonna make it dude. You're not gonna, and that like the self doubt started creeping in. It was brutal. And I like, I had to like fight through like for at least

Felt forever. Yeah.

five seconds there, my body just slowed right. I was riding like this, and then I was just went like this. And I'm like, dude, you're nowhere close. Keep going here. Like, you know, and I had to like talk myself back into this. So I think it's sometimes, and again, it's circumstantial dependent. Sometimes it is right to go, let's stop, let's not hurt ourselves. Sometimes it's like, you got to talk yourself like, keep going, right? You're on the right path. So I don't know, I'd love to hear how your perspective went because you're new in this.

Yeah, I actually, no, I, I, I took to this particular, um, uh, asset class, but I actually didn't lose any sleep at all because, uh I've, I've shared on a previous podcast that I used to trade and, um basically took some really uh important lessons, uh, from that experience. And so I went about this totally differently this time. So for me, um, I started the journey about five. five months ago, particularly, and have spent a lot of time educating self and not just listening, not just looking at the um Bitcoin bros talking about it, because they're the ones that are like, they'll story of influences, basically committing suicide. When you talk about identity change, you know, a guy loses 65 million bucks um in 30 minutes and he committed suicide, right? Yeah, committed suicide.

Yeah. Oh really? I didn't hear that.

Yeah. And so he was a guy who had, you know, had pulled money and literally, yeah, he was leverage. It's all, it's all leverage. So, so I learned that lesson, um, when I was trading, um, uh, basically currencies, like 10, 12 years ago, 13 years ago. And I always said to myself, okay, when you get back into this asset class, you got to take the lessons and the learning. So I did, and I have, and so effectively what I've been doing Lawrence is doing exactly what you said. I've been dollar cost averaging, um,

Leveraged? So I'll never change.

So not actually, so I've basically I've gone about it strategically. And so when there was a, uh, blip I bought up even further. So I understand that process, but I've been modeling. I've, I've been getting work and coaching and guidance from people who have, have done that, you know, everything that when people come to us and go, can you help illuminate the path for me? I followed that pathway as well. So that's what I've been doing. And they said, listen, expect this can be, to be the case. Um, And I've gone fine. So to me, it's like, okay, all right, that's part of the process. I understand it. so, but that's the thing is I learned, didn't let my emotions run and I've automated the process as much as possible. So effectively that took a lot of the emotion out of it for me.

Well, which is, which is one of the key lessons here is that you actually had a plan and a strategy going into this, right? And that's the thing, like if we don't have a plan or a strategy going into something, you're going to feel when you're lost in the valley, you're going to feel so alone and become really problematic. And I think that's the key, right? Here's like, is designing a plan. Like if you were in the valley and knowing like, you know, if I just keep going at this, I'll find that mountain sooner or later. If I just keep my compass says this is the right path and that's zooming out, right? Which is what you know, at least investing for me have taught me a lot is, you know, when things are like heated in the moment is not to get swept up in the emotion, because it's where the money is actually lost is I've done this several times now, we're just like, I got swept up in the moment, like, oh, my god, everything's going down, better sell, sell, sell. And then you're like, there's like, wait a second, like, why did I do that? Like lasted? mean, this drop lasted two, maybe 24 hours, you know, and it's back right back up there again now, right. And all that gain, what it did was flush out all the leveraged

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

uh people, all that money was lost and the people got wiped. But people who are just holding for the long term and wouldn't was a leverage, they're fine. And uh

Yeah, they got, they got, Yep. Yep. So there's, so, so there's, there's what it taught me too, is that there's, there's bigger plays at it as well, you know, and the whole, the, the, manipulation. Yeah. When someone just basically, basically shorts shorts cryptocurrency just before president Trump issues a hundred percent tariff on China and they make $200 million. uh That's that's market manipulation. And so that's that.

Manipulation you mean? Yeah.

That talks about their unpredictability because there were people who, um, just before that was sitting on $30 million in their accounts, in the, in their leverage account that suddenly got wiped out. And these weren't people, interestingly, these weren't people who were new to it, who, who put in, these were people who had been around the industry who were over leveraged. Um, and just at the unpredictability of it, this was a black swan event for them. Um, but. man, what a brutal lesson to get a shakedown from, you know, um, this is off camera. I'll send you a video that, um, that I watched a YouTube clip, which was phenomenal. that, that literally I watched a day before this all panned out and it all happened exactly. This is what said. So.

And that's the scary thing, that's the one thing that I don't like about all of this is that, which is reality, right? Which is like, oftentimes we just, as regular human beings, we tend to just put our head in the ground and just like, la la la, I don't wanna hear it. But the reality is that we're being played, like left, right and center in every financial situation or any situation that is out there. And we just don't know it, we just don't wanna hear about it. But when you see it, you're like, well,

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But on the other side of that, though, Jim, maybe it's another different topic. It's like, what are we going to do about it? Right. Because it is what it is. And you got to protect yourself to make sure that you're not going to get caught because there are other market manipulators out there that can swing the votes one way or another from many different fronts. But we have no control over it. And we just got to live through it. And we got to make the best choices as we go through it. So again, this is the life of imperfection.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big topic. Big. It is, it is, it is. Hey Lawrence, we are at the time we're catching up this weekend. This is the first time I think we see each other live in about 18 months. Yeah. About 18 months. So we're in Birmingham this weekend. So I look forward to catching up with you live.

It has been over a year, right? Yeah. Yes, we might just spend more time just talking to each other and actually going into any conference, but we'll see. We'll see. I'm looking forward to seeing you and hopefully we'll catch up next week and we'll give you guys another episode. I hope you guys enjoy this. Make sure you do. If you do love this stuff, please uh either one, tell a friend about it. And number two, maybe send us a message so that we know that it's more than our kids or our parents listening to this podcast. I'm just joking. This is why we saw me the art of imperfection. We'll see you in the next episode. Take care.

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