Why we are impatient with Success

Welcome to Wabi Sabi. This is the art of imperfection. As always, it's been a great journey and a great life that we kind of live, but it's not always perfect though. Jim, how have you been? How things in life in your end?

Good to see Lawrence. It's a couple of weeks since we last caught up. Uh, I definitely want to catch up and see what you've been doing, but I, I, don't know. don't know whether I'm getting older and crotchety and, I just like normally we would have recorded a couple of days ago and probably just as well. didn't. I've had a couple of days. was just been a cranky mood. I don't know whether it was just, I put in a big couple of weeks of, um, training jujitsu and, particularly last week.

I saw that.

And I don't know whether I came back tired and just my threshold and tolerance for BS or excuses was really low, but I'm glad I've had a couple of days to catch up on some rest and recuperation. Cause I think I'm a lot more tolerable, a lot more accepting of things than I probably would have been a couple of days ago. I think that, yeah, I'd love to, I think, I think my, tolerance of

Are you talking about people in general or just like people in your life or what's happening?

Yeah, it's like, let's call it for it. It's probably a rant in some ways, but that's just me downloading. It was, I think it was more the perception that things should come easy for people, even when particularly in the starting out phases, because I know that there's, we've often spoken about the reward for effort and we talk about, know, what it takes to earn the right to be in a place where opportunities come where sometimes they feel like out of proportion to the effort you're doing right now. And, in the early pa phases of career, sometimes you'll building credits and you're not seeing the impact of all of those things immediately. And then after a while of working a lifestyle, 20 years, whatever it is for some people, you feel like you have a level of overnight success, which a lot of times. You know, in your mind, you you've heard that right, but to a perception externally, it's like you kind of parachuted into that. And I don't know whether it was. The work that I had been doing coupled with one of the hardest work weeks of training that I've had in years got me to a critical point in inflection when my tolerance for, for people who saw that as a, as an external got to a point where I just, needed to check out. that's, that was just me having that rent.

Yeah, that's interesting. I feel that way often, uh both sides, like your side and also the other side. So your side obviously is like, you know, people's expectation, but then I've also fallen into the trap many a times as I get older to be the person who expects things to come easy for me now. And so let's talk about that because that's probably more interesting, right? Because

Yeah, let's talk about that. a really, that's cause there's, there's really good perspectives on both sides.

Yeah, and I know it's wrong, but it doesn't mean that I don't fall into it, right? We just, because I, and I don't know if it's age, and you mentioned age earlier, and what I mean by that is that because when you've lived on this world for a next period of time, you kinda almost create this unnatural, or maybe natural, tendency to think that I put in my time already, why haven't I, things should become easier. And this could be anything. It could be, you your fitness level, it could be your financial level, or it could be your profession. You feel like you've done enough work that it should just come natural. And I don't know if it's because we've forgotten how much effort we needed to put in, or maybe we just don't see, because the past is almost just compressed into like, a short period of time, if that makes sense. But when you're going through it, because you have that perspective of knowing what it took to get to where you are, you don't have the same time perspective moving forward that it's going to take something similar to develop a new skill or new area. And this is a perfect example with of like with AI technology right now, right? Now, most of us have, well, most of us, would say 99 % of us have not grown up with AI, like technology, unless you're actually in that field. And so all AI technology is relatively new. Now the people who have advanced knowledge of the stuff are usually maybe, obviously the ones who have been working with AI. But the other advantage is any software engineers or computer science engineers or engineers in background, background engineer, they have a little bit of a leg up. simply because they kind of understand and they can probably see the systems and the thought process. It's almost like learning Portuguese if you're Spanish, you know, because you have like a bit of background of a Latin language versus like someone like me who's English trying to learn Portuguese is totally different or me trying to learn Japanese is like, you know, totally foreign. And so I feel like most of us are foreign to AI. so we, but because we are 50s and we think

Yeah.

Well, this should come easy, you know, but we forget that to learn a new language, it does take, you know, five, you know, whatever years to kind of get to any sort of use to us. But there's one more point I'll make it and I'll let you talk, which is the other side is just like we are filled with the immediacy of comparison. And we see all these people who are doing amazing things like we'll say with AI in this case.

Mmm.

that we feel like we're falling behind and it feels like further and further because those 1 % who actually have the advantage just seems like they're picking up slower and faster, sorry. And then we feel like we're actually a lot slower. I don't know. Maybe that's sort of how I kind of rationalize maybe why we feel this discourse within ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I totally hear that. I, by nature, I'm impatient. Uh, and I'll own it. I, once I have, I want a trajectory, I have an expectation of self that I'll just plow through it and I'll work through it. And for most times it works except for it comes to technology for some reason, it just doesn't, I can't plow through that. Um, and, I obviously, I realized that's the case in there. I think more specifically about. It's not like you're right. AI is a new field. so pretty much everybody's a novice in one way, shape or form. And there's some people who have metamodels and background, which gives them an opportunity to kind of like what you said. Like if you've got a Latin base, it's easier to launch into Portuguese. I found it difficult as well, um, in Spanish, cause I didn't have a Latin background. And so I'm coming off uh a lower base. So I totally understand those as a process, but I think it was, and I'll put it down to probably fatigue. mean, I was training two or three times a day. And I've made a commitment to leveling up certain areas. think at the start of the year, everybody starts with a, I want to get better and tangibly new year, new me mindset. And it wasn't about that. was about consciously going, I need to invest even further. And, and I, and I think it was probably I've earned the right. In a lot of ways that I potentially could coast, but what I will realize, and I think in the previous podcast, I realized that that is helpful, but that's not getting me to my outcome on the timelines and expectations that I have of myself. And I think that that was probably, um, now that I reflect on it, it was, it was probably a case of like I'm putting in and, and you haven't even put in to be able to even think about taking it easy. Uh, and I think that that's probably was, it was a trigger event for me where I, uh, there's part, a part of me that understands that there's a process in everything and no matter what you do, you've got to earn the right and you've got to earn your stripes and put you in your reps, whatever that is, whatever that industry is. And I think that, I guess I have an intolerance of, want the outcome, but I'm prepared to put in the work if that's a priority. And I just, realized that that was because I was deep into putting energy and effort into something. It probably annoyed me that, uh, there was a perception that that should come easily and naturally when I understand that it doesn't, you know, and that the fitness is the classic, um, unfair thing where you could spend years working on something and you're out for two or three weeks in injury. And in some ways you feel like you're starting, you're not starting again, cause you've got the groove in the muscle memory, but your fitness base drops. And so that to me is the ultimate lesson that unless you're cultivating, you're working at something, you get slippage, you fall behind.

Yeah. Oh man. Yeah, I definitely say that I think is because you worked so hard last week, would imagine, you know, imagine the, can only imagine what the intensity you put in to it. And then when you came back, it's like the, I think the comparison, you know, when you start to see like, you know what you've done and then what other people are complaining about, it's like, what do you, what the F are you talking about? Right. Like, and I think that contrast probably kind of got to you, right. And yeah, I think, you know, fatigue is definitely a big thing. Like I'm so fatigued this week and, uh, you know, cause I came back.

Yeah.

on a trip, you know, I was in Vegas for a conference and, you know, talking about fitness, I went to my first workout, you know, the other day and I never usually give up on a workout. I gave up. I think I've done that like maybe twice in my life where I just like, you know, when I say give up, meaning, you know, I would slow down, like that's fine. That's not really giving up. I would still continue. No, I literally. kind of like midway, I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. And because my body just, I don't know, when I looked at the on the on the chart of what we're doing, like this isn't that hard. I'm like, this would be a perfect workout for me to get to. But it had like handstand walk, which I can't do. But I was like an upside down walk, at least or a stand. I think the combination of being on the bike and being tired and then go upside down. Like, I literally felt like I was going to puke in the middle of the workout. And I'm like, I can't do this. And and

Yeah. uh

It felt so like those thoughts you just said about fitness really crossed my mind. didn't, I worked out maybe like 10 minutes, like, the week I was away, you know, obviously indulging in food and I came back to like this body that just not functioning. And it was so like, I was in the middle of work. I'm like going, God, you're like, what happened? It's only been a week. Like it's only been like 10 days, maybe max.

Yeah.

And I just was feeling sorry for myself. Like, we just like all this head stuff. I was like, this is terrible. It was just like a really bad mindset. And I was playing paddle that day too. So I was like, maybe taking a little bit easy because I didn't want to double up on my first day. Yeah. So it's very challenging. My mental was ability to like kind of compensate or try to fight through the negative voices was really hard. It was testing those limits. And even like two days later now, I'm still feeling it. I'm still feeling like, well, what am I doing? Like I, I just feel like I'm I feel like I've been away for like three weeks, even though I've only been away for one, my physicality is just not there and I don't know what happened. And yeah, so I know, I understand that feeling.

Yeah. Okay. So, so what did you, yeah, I totally get that because I know you had a hectic week and, and interestingly, I sent you remember how during the week I sent you this private message. was Louis Howes who talked about going flying and the process of flying to watch a handball final in Europe from America. And I sent it to you and said, Hey, this looks like your 49ers trip. go, yeah, but they won and we didn't, but

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aside from that, I think that really highlighted to me what it took, you know, for there's a process, there's getting in a cab, there's booking it. There's the, there's all the stuff that is the behind the scenes that takes so much energy and time. Right. So for you to love you to just go, okay, yeah, it was a for a week, but feeling what you had to do in a week. Right. And then suddenly it's any wonder why you're tired.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it's just so much. I mean, my week was, you know, people say, oh, you got, you know, because what people see is like, oh my God, you got, you got to go to Vegas. Amazing, right? Yeah. But, you know, trip over there, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm working because like, I got to work this convention, um, because I'm part of the, you know, for my, for the tiger group. And I was there chosen as one of the, you know, 30 chairs that were there from around the world to really kind of help the members kind of integrate. it's like over a thousand of us. I'm kind of navigating in Vegas is so freaking big when you're in these hotels. And so I'm like up at whatever, like I to be ready to go at 715 in the morning and not going to bed till 1130 12. Not I'm not even gambling, not even seeing shows just like by the time dinner finishes and by time you wind down like I'm getting like five, six hours of sleep. I just you know, I just couldn't function and not function. I could get through it. But then when you come back on the other end jet lagged. That's sort of where, you know, that people don't see. And you're right, like there's a lot of things that happen that needs to kind of put into a trip, right? We're actually going to Japan next week. I take him to a family and Japan is one of those places, I've only been there for a couple of days. It's like, it's so foreign to most people. It's not just like, oh, we'll just go on Google Maps and figure it out. I'm like, it's so foreign that you literally need to spend some time to kind of figure out like, where are we going? What are we doing? And because it's such a crazy place, you kind of want to know what you're doing because there's so many things to see. It could be quite overwhelming the very first time. So my daughter has been doing, she's done an amazing job to like curate, you know, the events and the restaurants and everything else. But I know how long it takes to find a restaurant that all four of us likes, right? My son is gluten, I see the accurate, right? So he's got to be gluten free. You know, my wife doesn't like most foods, right? We're kind, will eat like, you know, we'll eat beef tongues and know, octopus, right? So it's like trying to find a restaurant that, you know, that we will all enjoy is so hard because you got to do the research, you got to find the area, you got to look at the menu. And like, that's what I mean by the tedious work that goes behind the scene that no one really appreciates, right? And I'm using this as an analogy for someone you seeing someone being successful in life. being successful in a business. You know, it's about all the work that they go, they do behind the scenes, but most of us just take it for granted. Most of us go, so you know what, I'll just copy that. I'll just do, I'll just do take that idea. But no, like there's usually a mastery that we fail to see. And I think mastery is the thing that we often negate on and which, which, what you talking about. And I feel like we don't do enough. ah

Hmm.

due diligence in terms of how much mastery someone takes, all the paths that require to get there. And I find that the reason why we don't do that is because we want, we live in a society of quickness. We live in a society of just like wanting it so much faster. And this is in anything that we do, whether it be exercise, food, relationships, business, investments, it's like.

Hmm.

we it's very difficult to think long term, I find it difficult to think long term, we're always in the because we just get this new cycles of like, what's happening today? I mean, think about the new cycle, like whatever happened yesterday, we can talk about it. But it's gone tomorrow, because it's something else. And it's so fast. We're before at least the new cycles were a little longer. And I think because of that, we live in this world, there's so many things, so many things are happening, where we we have lost that ability to really think long term.

Look, there's a very valid point you raise because there's the immediacy of it. And then the new cycle is really quick. I was talking to a coaching client last week who had liquidated a silver holding and, uh, and I went, mate, that's fantastic. You got a great return. And then it went up further. And I spoke to him earlier today. I gee, I'm glad you liquidated when you did, cause it dropped 30 % of the day. Right? So there's a lot like I, I, I totally hear what you were saying. Like, I find sometimes when I go away at conventions, they're really exhausting. find really, they find them really tiring. When I flew to Australia and New Zealand last year, I came back and I like all I did, I mean, I traveled, I went to conferences, did an exercise, came back to me a week or so to recover, even though I physically didn't exercise at all. Didn't do anything. Um,

Hmm.

Last week was tiring because I went the other way, but there was a reward for it. Like I could look at that and go, yeah, well you are tired. You've done your training to me. I had, did. I trained, I did my whole schedule around that and there were additional demands. And so I know that it was an unusual week, just as it was for you. So we can look at that and go, okay, I'm tired because of this. This was unusual. This was an aberration. It doesn't happen all the time, but But, know, when I was running a practice and businesses and we had little kids and we were tired and exhausted, uh, the physical act of showing up in office, in practice, when, know, your kids have been on set, that also takes a level of resilience and capacity. And that was exhausting. And I had to keep reminding myself and the people that I work with now who've got young children to go, listen, I didn't think I had much more capacity for a whole lot of other things other than those prime things, which are where my mind thinks that.

Yeah.

prime things at the time. So you can become extended and feel like you're not progressing. you, if you're stretching multiple directions, but not really focusing on the prime things, but when you are focusing on the prime things, I think that that's that I reflect on the reason why it was because that was a really unusual week for me to deep dive into something that I love so much and so intensely that I almost resented the, flippant response that it's actually easy for you to be able to get up on a plane and get to Barcelona and train. And I just went, you don't know the half of the, what it took to get there. And I think that that's probably me. Just, I get cranky very often, um, like that, but I think that maybe just, it was the perfect storm of events and fatigue and all those kinds of things as well.

I also think that most of us have forgotten those hard weeks. you know, we know it's fresh right now. Like, so say your week last week, right? It's fresh. So you remember it. But let's project this 10 years out, right? I really doubt that you're going to remember maybe you will. I don't know, but I really doubt that you remember that, you know, in 2026 that one week you were just down and things weren't going well and you had low energy, right? Just as much as I don't, I know I can probably think that at some point in my life and practice in my business that I was struggling because I had so very little sleep and somehow I had to muster enough the energy to take care of all those patients that I used to see. But I can't tell you which week it was. can't tell you a memory of it. I just know that I definitely experienced it, but I've actually also erased it from my memory because I don't remember those weeks. It's not memorable enough for me to remember. do remember the great weeks though. You know, I do remember like, you know, highlights of when things went well. And I think that's how our human brain works, right? And I think this adds to this conversation because what we're talking about is that we forget to, remember I said, I started commenting is that we forget how hard it took to get to certain levels. And we have this expectation that everything should come easier now. And I think the re one of the other reasons now, now that I'm talking it out loud is because we've forgotten all the hardships usually, because they're not memorable and usually right unless it was really really hard it's the kind of sticks most of the time that just there's a lot of dead time there's a lot of times when you weren't motivated there's a lot of times that you just weren't really calculated or driven right you remember the times were that when you were driven so you think like it should come easy and i think we've forgotten all those times too as well like a perfect example i work or heading into the second month of this year and

Mm-hmm.

You know, like you said earlier, we're all gung ho. Everybody's gung ho in the first, you know, first, first month of the year. I literally wrote this yesterday in my journal and I have this like one liner journal. I write one line every day and I literally said to him, like, Oh, I can feel slippage right now. I can feel like I am, I'm only one month in and I'm already feeling slippage that I, I'm fully aware that I need to get back to whatever habits I had that I was strong on at the first. you know, first of the year. I fully admit that at least I have awareness that I have slippage. So hopefully like that I would kind of get back into those routines. Yesterday was like one of those days where I didn't do a single thing that was really worthy of like, you know, reward mostly because I got hijacked by someone else's priority. And that's exactly what I wrote. Someone hijacked me with their priority and I just went scrambling for a whole entire day.

Yeah.

focusing on their priority and I lost track of my day and I just ended up giving myself like a three out of 10 on the on terms of like the day and and Right there. I just wrote down like that's the problem like because I haven't structure I lost track of my structure which I had maybe 30 days ago, right and the slippage is there and I think this is And the reason I'm pointing this out is what was just talking about is that I'm not gonna remember that day I'm not gonna remember yesterday, you know six months from now

Yeah.

but it did happen. those are the days we don't see. And I'm just, what I'm trying to highlight to you, to everyone is that, listen, we all have bad days. Well, you and I, we probably talk about our good stuff, but most of us do. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's also all the gap days in between, and probably more than 50 % in comparison to the good days. And in terms of like, right, and that's what we don't see. And that's what I think you're referring to is like, most people don't see the tough days because we see only the good stuff.

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because it was, it was two or three times a day of training last week. And I'm only just focusing on the physical side of things aside from all the other challenges. Oh, Lawrence, you know, love this. It's, it's, you know, it's not, not secretive by the time it gets released. It'd be case in there, but our son is with us at the moment and he's looking at, um, going, getting a mobility visa to Canada. So he's looking at moving to Toronto. Yeah. So he's got.

Oh.

an opportunity, uh, he's, he's been asked to take up a particular role. he's going, he's going through it. amongst all that logistically, he had, this is what we had, we were working on last week was, um, he had a youth mobility visa in the UK and had to expire. So he had to, uh, be out of the country when that happened. So This is what you can do right in Europe. So he's in the UK. goes, listen, I've got to go to France for three days to get out of the country, to then come back in the country. To then, so it's just insane. we're dealing with the logistics of all of that. And that's, that's, that's all the part of it, but my heart of session, like, and I happened to manage it to be in Barcelona when they're training for, um, national titles. So the three sessions a day, we weren't showing tell ones that were high level. competitors training three times a day. So it accelerated my game like a lot. And, and I was able to go in and within a week, get about four to six months of experience and exposure in a particular element of my game that accelerated it. And the hardest session for me was not the third one on Thursday, which is the last one I did in Barcelona. But when I flew back on Friday, I was, I had to go to my normal school Saturday. That was the hardest one. Why? Because I could easily have gone, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. can't be bothered. I've worked really hard. And honestly, I was like the death man, dead man walking. Like I was like, I don't want to go, don't want to go walking to, to class. And yet I, I went really exceptionally well and I could see the impact of that concentrated effort into going back to my normal environment. And I realized that, but I've been sleeping 10, 12 hours a day since, and I'm still exhausted and tired. So that's what it took out of me. I was prepared to pay the price. ah But yeah, I'm still catching up myself and I haven't caught up since.

Yeah. We talk about, you know, I talk about mastery, right? So I saw, uh, Ohs, think his name is Ohs, not Oz. Ohs. Oh, I can't remember his last name. Oh, he's the mentalist. All right. Um, slipped his mind. I don't know if you've ever seen him. I guarantee you to see him online somewhere. If you looked him up and, um, and Ohs, the mentalist is he's been on

Okay.

millions of views on YouTube and he's been on, you know, various, you know, talk shows and he's done a lot of a lot of different things. And I don't know if you ever seen a mentalist, they're such a performer, right? They are just absolutely amazing at what they do. And he's a perfect example, right? Like a performer who's out there, you know, he did his show in front of all the members and stuff and he was able to do some crazy stuff. You go, how is that possible? right? He wasn't he's not a magician. He's like, it's literally, you know, you know, supposedly reading your mind. And, and, but the, the mastery has to be is not just so I look at someone like that. It's the masteries. He's a performer. So he needs to be that he's got to have that uh skill as a Yeah, exactly. To to kind of like, manipulate people and to hold your attention. Like, that's a skill on its own, right?

Puzzles and skill, yeah.

And then you also have to have all the tricks that you're doing where he's literally reading people's minds or like knowing like the freaking number on someone's bill and on a dollar bill that's in someone's pocket, like, you know, or remembering someone's, uh I don't know, uh girlfriend name from like fifth grade, you know, and out of the blue. And even though the person hasn't even talked about it, I've never thought about this person for 40 somewhat years. And so like things like that, you just go like, how on earth is he doing that? And but as a performer, like that takes years, that takes years and years and years of practice. But yet, it's a one hour, one hour performance. And all of us are going, wow, blown away. You talk about it. But that's it, we move on, right? And this is the thing for him. He's got he can't do that over and over again, because really, people get tired, right? Just like anything else, like a magician or anything else. So he's gonna have to Not only does he have mastery to get to this point, right? That has now blown away millions and millions of people, but now he still has to master his craft, right? He still has to continue developing new skills, new tricks, new ways of doing things because there's other people that just want to be like him. Other people that are younger, maybe more talented, that's gonna come up the ranks. And if you don't continue moving forward, you're gonna get caught and it's gonna be suppressed. surpassed by those people. And this is the challenge that we all have in business, right? In business, there are you get to a certain level and you think you're at the top of the game, but if you stop at that top, someone else is going to come behind you. And then now you, you know, you live that life at the top for a little while, but at some point, you're going to feel left behind. And then now you didn't spend any time developing to kind of get to the next level. That climb is so much harder.

Yeah. And you know, at the time of recording last week, uh, they had the Australian open and Novak Djokovic played and he got, uh, he came running us up and never expected. said to get there, the, you listened to his speech at the, at the. Yeah. Phenomenal speech. thought, and in terms of just the pause, I've been a Novak fan for a while.

Hmm. Yes. ah I did watch it, yes. Mm-hmm.

And I loved how he handled himself, but to realize that you've been the top of the game. had a doll in the stands paying respect to him. But suddenly you've got as good as you are, there's, there's ravages of time. And, and had you not kept putting in, you're basically overtaken. So now you've actually got the generational changing of the guard that happens as good as you are. And there's that's it, you know, like time doesn't stand still. And I think that's the realization. And if you're not cultivating, if you're not putting energy and effort into your health, into your business, into your relationships, you can't stay stagnant. You'll actually start sliding. And I get what you're talking about slippage ah Lawrence because they're danger moments. Like I'll allow myself and go, right. I'll have one day. It's the second day. That's the danger because then it runs the risk of becoming a pattern and I could very easy. And that's part of, if I'm honest,

Hmm.

But the I'm terrified of not being consistent with training is because I don't know how easy it be to come back. If I, if I, if I let it go, I'm at a point where I could very rationally go pull the oars out of the boat and go, nah, it's too hard. But I'm, I'm probably scared that that could become a habit that is really hard to come back from, uh, as opposed to earlier on. So to me, the intention of trying to get better at something that is naturally harder. I love the fact that, um, I'm an old man doing a sport that young men give up in. Right. But I know that had I had, if I adopt the mindset of it's hard and I'll just stay home to that, I'm gone. I'm dead in the water. And I bring that to other elements where I go, okay, well, yeah, I'll have a bad day. I'll have a tough day. I'll get frustrated and want to do stuff, I've put me bumping the table there, but after a day, it becomes a habit. And it's a really hard one to come back from. I, if I let

Hmm.

if we let that go.

Ah, you just bought a realization of why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. Okay, so I came back. So I came back from Vegas and the very first day I really struggled. I was tired. it's not, it's not, I think literally I flew in that morning at 8 a.m. Flew in the red eye and I had to go and do an interview like that afternoon for like 20 minutes. Like I had to show up at school to do this interview.

Talk to me, whatever.

And I did that fine. And then the rest of day I was just like dead tired. And then the next two days I didn't, I don't usually get jet lagged. And the next two days I slept, I got woke up at one o'clock in the morning and I couldn't, I couldn't go back to bed for like till 5 a.m. in the morning. So I only slept like four hours a day for the next two days, which was really strange. Even though I slept 12 hours the first night. And I was getting worried, but no. So here's the pain I was experiencing. I was like, my wife was like, what's wrong? What's wrong with you? And I'm like, I was like, I'm just.

Hmm.

I'm and she goes, what are you stressed about? I'm stressed with the markets and everything else, but I'm also stressed with like, I don't have a lot of time. I feel like I don't have a lot of time and because I'm leaving next week, right? So I'm going away. Like, so I had like literally two weeks, less than two, 12 days before I had my next trip. But when you just said that, I just realized what's happening is because when I go away, I lose all my routines. I lose all my natural routines that I usually go to like workout in the mornings.

Yeah. you

come back, you know, do whatever and then you know, get back to routines. But because I'm away for a week, sure, it's fun. But it's a week away from my natural routines, right? The work being at home because you're just doing other things you want to explore you want to do all those things. And I knew only had 12 days to get back to routine and then I'm out of it again. And so which means like I'm literally out of like, you know how hard that would be like 12 days is nothing you can't really get back to any routine and to actually get anything done. So I know this month is a total write off almost.

Yeah. Yeah.

Listen, I'm going to have some fun. I'm have some great fun and great experiences. But from a work perspective, it is totally out of whack. And I think that's what I was stressed about. I just couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. But it's that. was just that these trips, although they're fun, I lose all productivity um because I just can't get anything done. so that's the realization. That's sort of where I'm at. And that's the realization is that getting back on the routine is really difficult and that you're exactly right, which I wanna comment on. You say you never let two days happen in a row because you know that that becomes hard. I would love to know, because I have the same thing. Like for me, like I don't want to lose that, it comes to physical stuff is easier to get back into the gym as quickly as possible, even if I'm not gonna be a hundred percent, I wanna get back in the gym, because I wanna, I know if I don't, that slippage is gonna be really, really hard. But what makes us go and do that versus someone who doesn't? it has to be, like, you know what I'm asking? Because that's the important part, right? This is the lesson that we need to learn that I need to apply back into like business where I don't want to have less slippage.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah. So the, really great bit of wisdom that helped me was that mindset of if you can't sprint, you run, if you can't run, you walk, if you can't walk, crawl. And it's about doing something. So, you know, there've been times when I've been injured and, uh, I haven't been able to train, but what I did is I made sure that I kept up the discipline of going to training and watching. And the reason why I did that is because if I was off for a month and I got out of the habit of going to training, I would then have to get both the routine of training and, um, fitness back. there's two things and they're really difficult. So to me, if I don't feel like, if I don't feel like trying my body saw, I can't do it. can't get to training either. I'll physically get there or I'll do an alternative. That allows me to feel like I'm doing something. It's the discipline of, of that it's, it's like, could push myself. I've pushed myself in the past to do the workout that I'm planning to do, but it wasn't right. So earlier this week, for example, uh, was it was today, Thursday, yesterday, um, Wednesday, Tuesday was meant to be a gym session. You know, I, I go to Jitsu about four or five times a week and I'm doing yoga. Now I've incorporated, I'm giving two lifting sessions a week. It was meant to be a lifting session on Tuesday and I couldn't, I just went to the gym though. But I went into the steam room and the sauna. It was recovery. So I could have easily stayed home. And in my mind, it was like, no, um, that what's the point if you're not going to go, but I did it because I kept the discipline of that. And to me, it's the habits and the routines that are more important than the quality. And I remember years ago doing a, a 40 day, um, And he told me that often people feel that they're going to turn up and they've to do a personal best every session. That's not the trade. It's the discipline of showing up. That's more important than the magnitude of the workout. So there were days that I would rock up with this guy and go, dude, I'm sore as he goes. That's okay. You still showed up. Let's walk. Let's walk for 30 minutes, go home. The next day was great. But if I tried to push through with and not regulate the workout, based on where I was at, that was the problem. So I was disciplined more than anything.

you know, I'll add a layer to that. I think I found the answer to that, which I talked a lot about. And it just kind of now synced into me as we were just chatting. Yes, it's discipline. But I think what drives the discipline is identity. Because without that identity, and I'll come to that in a second, you can have all this when you want, but then this becomes a will. But I think it's the identity that drives your discipline. What I mean by that is you have an identity of being, we'll call it an athlete.

Hmm.

Okay, because if your identity of an athlete is this what athlete

or a delusion sometimes, oh but it's true though. It's true.

But I think it, I don't think it's a delusion. I think it is, you and I are athletes. And my wife laughs at me when I said that to her, like maybe a couple months ago. She goes, what do mean you're an athlete? I'm like, I'm not saying I'm a professional athlete, but I'm an athlete, right? Because I realized that I adopted this. I can't remember who said this. It was a carp actor who at a talk said, you know, he tells his patients that you're an athlete. And I was like, that's really smart. Because what you're doing is you're training your patients to be like, this is the identity. of who you need to be and we're all athletes. Well, again, like we have this perception of athletes like Nike, know, professional, you get paid millions. No, no, we're an athlete because we show up every day and you need to be an athlete. What does athlete do? We work out. We do hard things. We look after our bodies. Not all the time, right? There are slippages, there are days when we don't, there are days when we don't. But as an athlete, this is what we do. This is the mindset of the identity and I think that that's important because you know, I think that identity of us will call it an athlete is that what drives us to know that we as athlete know if we let too many days slip when we don't work out, it is so much harder to climb. Right? When an athlete uh like I know my 49ers, know, poor souls like they broken bones, know, tore Achilles like they're just been a mess. But when I see them get carted off the field, most of them are not screaming in pain. after they torn their Achilles, broke it, they tore their ankle, broke their ankles. You know what they see? I see in them, it's sadness. It's sadness. As they get carded, they're not crying. They're just sad. And the sad and disappointment on their face, I know that feeling. You know what it is? Is they know that I think anyways, I mean, obviously not them, but I know when I injured my ankle, maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago, where I twisted my ankle. I was in pain, but I was so angry and frustrated, not at the pain. I was so angry and frustrated with knowing that this is a recovery that's going to take six to eight weeks. And the flash that I had instantly was all the things I'm going to miss out, all the training I was going to miss, all the paddle games I was going to miss because of this injury. didn't even, like the pain was whatever.

Yes. Hmm.

Like it wasn't the pain. was like, that's the first thought that I had was like, oh my God, now like the road to recovery is going to be a pain in the ass. And that's what I feel like I see that in athletes is of, of, of that. And I think that that's because they know how hard it is to come back, you know, not that they can't, but it's like the amount of training and effort is it's a different path. And I think that that's why we have this discipline.

Hmm. Hmm. Yep.

is because we know we need that. We know we need that discipline so that, um you know, to come back or to get better. But I think it stems from this identity that drives them. There's a sense of purpose and this sense of knowing that I'm trying to achieve something. And without that, I think is really hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Good point. And, and, know, interesting. I reflect, you know, whenever someone gets injured around a sporting team, yes, they've got to do their rehabilitation, but very smart sports psychologists and team personnel keep the people engaged as much as possible with a bigger group. You're sure they've got to go off and do their recovery, but you don't want to be disconnected from the group because there's so much identity around being part of a team. And a very interesting thing is one of the guys that I train with in Barcelona. really exceptionally high, high level guy has aggravated his meniscus and he's been out of action. our sensei there was really intelligent. goes, listen, you know, you're professional. Why don't you come in and work in the school and by work it's just be around people because I don't want you going AWOL and then have to find your way back to this. So let's keep you engaged and get you doing it. You can't train. Okay. You can't train. But you don't have to isolate yourself from this and have to isolate yourself from the routine. You have to isolate yourself from the thinking around this because you can do things mentally up until the point where your body can catch up. And so, you know, when you talk about, uh, days when you're exhausted, if I can't physically train, I'll watch videos of techniques because I'm keeping my mind active. I'm engaged. You're right. If you're an athlete, you're all in. And that doesn't always mean personal best every session. means you're. your approach to it. So it could be, okay, if I'm, if I want to be great at my craft, I've got a skill I've got to learn. I've got to study. I've got to go. I've got to do my tiny always used to say, and this is what I was thinking about when I sent that video to you, John, do my tedious say, I'll do whatever it takes travel any distance, pay any price. And that to me is the, is the willingness to be masterful. Is you're prepared to pay the price, whatever that price is. Sometimes it's physical, sometimes emotional, sometimes financial. Sometimes it's traveling massive distances and that's what you'd have to do. Uh, you had to go to Vegas. had to go to Barcelona because it would be really convenient if the school that I needed to would be three suburbs up, but it's not, you know, and I'm paying the equivalent of a yearly registration for four days to be able to, um, do that, but that's intentional because that's important to me. And that's, and that's what governs our decisions, but

Yeah. Yeah.

To me, I was thinking about that when I was watching um Lewis Howe's video and I sent it to you. um Cause you do, you're paying, you travel any distance, you pay any price. If that is important to you and you sometimes have to pay in advance before you see any outcome or reward.

this house. That is so true. mean, that's exactly, you know, that we often miss. And I think that we need to remind, be reminded of it. I know I need to, because you forget that that's what it takes, right? You got it. That's what it takes. You got to like do whatever it takes to kind of get there. but that assumption that there's an assumption there is that you know what you, where you're going. And I think that I know I've been in the past, ah you know, and I'm probably guilty of that, you know, at some point, some

Same, same.

many points in my life where I don't know what I'm actually trying to achieve. And so when you're in that state, that becomes very, very difficult because you're not pointing at anything. And so therefore you don't see the value of what I'm currently doing. And this is where people get lost, right? There's just no sense of, there's no sense of urgency for sure, because you don't have urgency to get anywhere. And there's no sense of purpose every day because you don't know even know what you're doing this for. And that's when you live too many days in that. that can be really hard. And that's the trouble. And I think you mentioned about community. This is exactly what happens to a lot of people, especially in the Navy SEALs, right? The Brotherhood of the Army. You know, these guys are spent years together. They spent every single day fighting for each other, looking after each other. And there's this natural brotherhood that's in a team. They call it the SEAL team. And when you don't have that anymore, like you just feel like, you you lost a part of your family. And then when you try to integrate, yeah, who am I? that's just, I mean, I spoke in one of my friends that I stayed in Vegas, his name is Phil Rendozo. He runs a charity that he was inspired to create after 9-11 because he wanted to enlist, but they wouldn't let him because he had an old knee injury. So he wanted to be part of, you know, still be part of the service.

Yeah, who am I?

And one of the service he created was being something on a charity called American Dream You. And he's funded it this whole time for what, 25 years now. And the whole part of the American Dream You is to ensure how to help the uh military veterans to transition back to civilian life. Because he saw that all these people are committing suicide because they lose this sense of brotherhood. They lose this sense of community. And that's the only time I've been to Japan was when he invited me to go to speak at this army base in Japan. And you can see it because it's like they lived this brotherhood life, they don't want to, they almost don't want to leave because sometimes they have to leave or it's time. They've done enough of the service, but then they go, I've lived here or this life, this army life where someone's always told me what to do. How am supposed to go back to the civilian life? We've all seen Shawshank Redemption, right?

Yeah.

you know, and where Shawshank with the, you know, Brooks, he, you know, after, I don't know, 60 years or 70 years in prison, he's finally let go to go back to civilian life. He's bagging groceries and he's asking the permission. He's like, can I go to the toilet? Because you don't need to ask me to go to the toilet. But he doesn't know that because for 60 years he's been, he had to ask permission to go, you know, to the toilet and, and he doesn't know how to integrate. And this is exactly what happens to us when we are, when we lose sense of community. And I think

Yeah.

know, chiropractic has that too, because we come to a brotherhood of understanding each other in a conference. But when we go back to our own little lives, to our own practices, we kind of lose that sense. And this happens to accountants or lawyers or whatever, because we all alone in our own little space. And this is why conventions or communities coming together are so important, because you start to at least see each other to not just like uh to motivate and inspire each other, but also to recognize that, we also are here are the problems that we're also dealing with. And I'm like, oh, you have those same problems too? You understand me and then you start to then can actually have better conversations and depth. And I think that's where the community is such an important element to kind of bring us together. But we're losing uh a lot simply because of, I was talking to someone yesterday about this and it was like, because of everything online. because everything we can do, Uber Eats or DoorDash or whatever, you have Netflix, you don't have to leave your home, right? You don't have to go meet your neighbors. You can literally spend 24 seven in your own house and survive and have a life. That's not the life we choose to have, but that sense of community is kind of lost because of the technology that we actually have. We don't have to interact with anybody if we don't choose not to.

Hmm. Yeah, totally, totally. So it started with a rant Lawrence, but I, where we've gone with this, it's actually been really helpful for me too, to understand part of the reason why that was, you know, affected me to the way that it did. I'll definitely own that it was a fatigue and acknowledgement of that. realized how much. You know, there's an element of perception of what work looks like and expectations I have of myself and other people have also got a better understanding in terms of why I, I do that because it's to uphold a sense of identity. like you said, I, when I talk about the delusion, there was a running joke. In our family that, I'm just an athlete preparing for the next Olympic game, whatever it is. And that allowed me to uphold the psychology of someone who approached things with that mindset. Even if the, there's a gap between thought and, uh, and, and talent that was relevant to me. was just the psychology with which I was bringing to that. And it was the psychology I've bought to be honest, when I look at it oh in all other areas where I'm going, am I showing up as a professional? I'm an amateur. the way that I'm showing up in my office, in my practice, in my relationship, my investment, whatever it is, it's applicable multi-dimensionally in multiple avenues and just, you know, talking it through, talking it out, help me understand how and why. So, um, I really, really appreciate that. And that's given me some clarity. been a great opportunity to just download that frustration and, uh, love to hear what's coming up for you in the next little while. Cause I know you said you're traveling and, uh, you've got some speaking gigs coming up. So what's coming up for you.

Uh, yeah. So I got traveling with the family to go to Japan and, uh I've, I was only in Tokyo. Like I mentioned, I was only Tokyo for like two days and I just fell in love with it. And we were supposed to take the family maybe around the COVID times and unfortunately COVID happened and we never did. And we moved away from that area or region. was like, Oh man, so far. And it's been like on a bucket list to go do. And you know, we've been thinking about it as you talk about the expenses is so hard and, know, and the timing and, and then I just. you know, back in like at the end in January, I said, you know, like my daughter's graduating next year, like this year, and she's, you know, going to university and I'm not sure if we're gonna have another chance. Like, I'm sure we will have other chances, but it just becomes a little bit more logistically, because I don't know when her exam schedules are. And I'm like, you know what? Screw it. I'm just gonna put this through and just gonna go and do it. And we just created this like 10 day experience that we're gonna do. and they're all excited. the one thing I asked about my kids, I'm like, you know, where's one place you want to go if you had to choose? And you would do it independently. I don't want anybody influencing each other. And they all picked Tokyo, so Japan. So we're going to do a 10 day trip. But yeah, I got a lot of speaking gigs coming up, actually. got, you know, I'm speaking up north and northern UK. In May, I'm actually flying to Canada to speak in Canada for a conference, which I haven't been back for probably a good 20 years to speak at a conference there. um And then I'm speaking in the UK back in October. So yeah, a lot of talks lined up this year. What about yourself? What's going on with you? What's coming up?

No. Yeah. So, uh, similar sort of things. I've made a commitment. I'm going to get to Barcelona three times this year. So step one, I also, too, I've also got some, uh, speaking gigs coming up. uh More, more, more in Europe based in Germany and, and, the like, we're running a retreat later in the year. And I've got some pro particularly, we'll probably be making some impromptu trips to Canada ourselves with, uh, if, know, everything goes through Xavier as well too. uh, uh, it's interesting you said about Japan because when we came back from New York last year, uh, I said to a family as well, look, I'd really like to visit Japan and if we can work it out. it's on our radar as well too, not only just your families and my families, but. Everybody else and it's becoming harder and harder to coordinate all these things, particularly now that we'll be in three different countries again. Uh, so yeah, look, there's a lot that's going on. Some of it's planned, but the, the, the imperfection of life is that sometimes opportunities will come and situations come where you have to change that. So I'd plan some trips to Greece during the summer, um, and the like, so I'm taking a lot more breaks this year compared to last year. So.

Yeah.

That's been the filter through which I've filtered things. So yeah, I'm doing a lot and less at the same time, if that makes sense.

It's a, it is. I think of those as rocks, like those are the things I've listed. There are rocks that are ahead of me. And then unfortunately there's a whole bunch of pebble trips that are already filtering in between the two. And like, uh you know, I got to go to Morocco, you know, next month. And there's just like another trip to go to Greece, to Turkey. Like it's just, and listen, I'm not complaining. And then people are listening and I'm not complaining, but again, going back to what I said earlier is like these trips, you know, really kind of messes up.

Yeah.

like the routines or the things that I'm trying to build. I'm trying to build some AI stuff that is, you know, I feel like it's going to be absolutely amazing. But like, you know, that takes time. That takes mastery. That takes this effort. And these things are taking time. And this is like the imperfection of life is like, how do you fit them all in? How do you put them priorities? And this year I said, no, I'm to stay focused. it's, it's like we're one month in and I already feel like I'm so all over the place. So we'll check back in in a month's time and we'll see.

Yeah. Yeah.

whether or not I've got a grip or a handle to this bow. So until next time, I hope you guys enjoyed this and I hope that this is really a good reminder for everybody listening is like, hey, if you have some slippage, this might be the time to kind of tighten up, get back on it so that you don't let the whole entire year slip away. All right, until next time, I'll talk to you soon.

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