Choose Your Next Identity

Welcome to Wabi Sabi. This is the art of imperfection and life journey everything goes on in our life and it's never perfect and the world is Feels like every week there's so much going on in our lives at the moment Not just like obviously personally but also worldwide that uh it's so unpredictable and it's almost like a soap opera and it's really hard to kind of know like how to navigate any of these things coming up as the world changes so so quickly, so Jim ah and I think that's a sort of ties into the theme of what we're kind of talking about today because last month, last week, last podcast, we talked a lot about just in being in transition and how that could be, you know, challenging for a lot of people. and now we're going to talk about like maybe the reasons why a lot of some people are in transition simply because maybe they have outgrown the model of their life or their business or their situation.

Yeah, it's a great point. You know how sometimes you can just move, but there's a particular theme that's keep reoccurring. So with, with a lot of the essence of a lot of the podcasts we record, some of them are built through our own experiences. And sometimes there's a recurring theme and this one keeps showing up. uh, it's, it's not repetitive in the, the message, but it's looking at it from little different nuance nuances. And, I guess the context and the backstory of this, particularly as I was saying to you, Lawrence, before we got on. to record was, you know, this week I've had quite a few invitations and, and people wanting to seek out my services in a variety of directions in areas that I had done previously, but I'm not really looking at doing. And It puts you in a quandary because a lot of the times you look at that and go, okay, here's this definite, like if you've got a business and you are doing a certain. So offering a product and service and it's quite lucrative and it's quite helpful. And it, it does the job and it fulfilled you previously or met a meta sort of a criteria, but you then decide that that's not what I want to do. You will have these invitations and temptations to just step back into that role every now and again. to do it because it's an easy thing to do, but what it does, and that's, and so I said no to quite a few invitations. Uh, that would have been really easy for me to just go through the motions and do, but I just didn't want to do that. And, uh, I really love to look at that, the discipline that it takes to do that. And as you said, you know, like it's not just letting go of the identity, but it's the steps and the cause and the stages that you have to go through to even take that step.

I think it's very, very hard for anybody to do that because I think we talked about this in previous podcasts is that the worlds that most of us live in, especially as you get older, you are defined by your identity and you're defined by sort of what you're already known for and what you already have created success for. So most of us have already spent, you know, 10, 20, maybe, you know, 30 years doing something. that, those 10, 20, 30 years, have created some sort of mastery. If you've done your job right, right? If you've done your focus right. And so what ends up happening is not just an identity that you also have to contend with, but it's also like a skill set and a mastery. And mastery sometimes, like most people don't think they're a master at any particular skill, but they're forgetting like the mastering of being able to be discerning in terms of how they see certain aspects of their job or their career. And so what I mean by that is that oftentimes at You know, just say you are a, I don't know, a chef, for example. And you've been doing it for 10 years. Now you might not be the best chef in the world. You might not be the best even in your city. And you just think that, you you're pretty good at it, right? But there's so many people better at it. But for someone who's not a chef, there are certain things you just know how to do naturally because you've done it for so long. And I think that's what we kind of forget sometimes is that that's what I mean by mastery. There's certain aspects of a job of something that you just you have so much detail over. And I think this is the nuance that um AI doesn't have just yet. Right. So for example, we talked about AI disruption last time. But the reality is this is that if you have had, you know, 10 years of experience at one thing, you're seeing things from a lens of repetitiveness. So a perfect example is driving a car. You know, we've all been driving cars, for both of us who've been driving cars for a long time, like there's this element of mastery of seeing the world and you know, if a child comes in on the corner, you'll be able to know how to do and how to react. Versus the first time I drove a car, I still remember I was driving with my dad and I was driving on these curvy, windy roads and I was staring like right, like maybe about two feet in front of the car because I didn't know where to look. So I was driving, I was like, I'm trying to keep the car in line. Right? And I'm, and I was so stressed. I'm like, how does anybody do this? Like, how does anybody see what else is going on when I just need to know to keep this car on the road? Not knowing what I was supposed to do was look ahead. Like I'm supposed to look further and my body's supposed to naturally know where to go. But that's, I didn't have the mastery. It was all brand new. I had like thinking about the radio. I to think about the lines. I to think about the other cars, the cars behind me, the cars in front of me. You know, there's just so much to deal with. And I think that's what we don't wanna go back to, right? Then that's the hardest part is like to let go of what you already know the masteries and identity to go do something completely different, which requires you to most of the time start from scratch, start from something new and learning something new. And that's very hard. So you're defining a new identity, also defining new skills.

So that totally makes sense. So I want to paint this scenario for you. I remember, remember ages ago reading about Billy Joel and people going to his concert and some of the most popular songs that he has recorded that people love, he's gone, I'm not recording that. I'm not singing that again. He's, I can't remember whether it's, I don't think it's Piano Man. It could be Up Down. I don't know which song it is. If we had a Jamie, Jamie, check that out. So, but, I've heard that. Okay. And what is it that gets us to that point? Right. So this is, this is the question that I'm sitting in is, know, if you, if you have a product or a service, if you are renowned for doing something and you are defined by that and you go, I want to change this, I want to change this. There's going to be some pushback. There's going to be some fear and uncertainty. Like you said, I'm to have to be like the starting again. But everybody goes, we know you as that guy. You know, it's like a character, anybody from Seinfeld, you watch him in every movie and you automatically go, you're from Seinfeld, right? It's really weird to see him in any other role. And you go, why should it be? They're an actor. They're allowed to adapt. And yet we pigeonhole them in that. So. That's where my mind was thinking is how do you break out of not only your own identity, but everybody else's identity of who you are and what you do.

Yeah. And I think anybody should, know, I'm going to tell you the story about this and hopefully I'll condense it enough to make it relevant. But there's the story of Matthew McConaughey and he talks about this. You ever listen to an interview about when he tells a story, it's actually freaking fascinating. I don't know if he was on Joe Rogan or one of those podcasts, maybe Chris Williams. And he talked about how, you remember Matthew McConaughey, back in the day, he was the rom-com king. Okay, like he is the rom-com king like every how to lose guy. I don't know that was not the wrong way It was a different book, but he every movie it was a smash hit because of Matthew McConaughey was in it and basically he Like he was printing money the way he was doing it take his shirt off boom like instant hit right off the bat, right? And he got to a point in his career those goes There's got to be more right. It's gotta be more and he talks about how He refused, he goes, I'm not doing anymore. He told his agent, I'm not doing anymore. But that's all he was known for. And he didn't have work for a year. Because he said to his agent, I'm not taking any more RomCom contracts. I'm not taking any more. So he refused, refused, refused. And then there's this one that goes, come on Matthew, you gotta take this one. It's like five million dollar payday, whatever. He's like, no, I'm not doing it. And then they just came back with seven million dollars or nine million dollars. and at 10 million, I'm like, I'm not doing it. He was now out of work for like a year and a half now. And then I think when it got to about 10 minutes, okay, let me look at that script. Right? So it's like, I'll take a look at the script, but he's like, no, no, no, I got to stick to my guns. I got to stick with this and he got to stick with this. And he didn't work for like two years and he really, really struggled. You I can imagine, you can imagine like if you're not working, like you don't have a sense of purpose and you feel like, did I make the right decision here? And it was,

Yeah.

when I don't know which movie it was, I believe it was Dallas Buyers Club was the one that he kind of came. Well, he had to lose a lot of weight because he was playing someone with AIDS and I think he won an Academy Award and it was because of one of those movies then changed people's thought pattern of his identity of how we saw Matthew McConaughey, but it took a massive amount of courage, right? And I'm sure self doubt.

Yep. We lost a lot of weight.

to have easily flipped to go, you know what, fine, I'm just gonna do, like for $10 million, right? Whatever, I think it'll walk up to like 12 or 14, he refused it. But that's the thing, that's the courage that it requires and it's really, really difficult to do.

Mm. Yeah, totally. So I want to thank our good friend, Chat, who helped us with this answer. So the two most common songs that he's performing live is number one, Just the Way You Are. So he rarely performs it anymore, essentially dropped it in the regular set in the 80s because it was written for his first wife. And after their first divorce, he felt uncomfortable performing it. And the second one was Say Goodbye to Hollywood. He stopped performing it live.

Mmm.

But he's only just bought that back recently. So I remember reading that and you know, um, that song, um, just the way that's my wedding song. Right. And, and yeah, that's the one that, um, but turn it had as a wedding song. imagine me, I actually, uh, that, there was another one, I actually wrote one and had that recorded, but not by me seeing somebody else. Um, that was a special surprise one, but just the way you asked it. So imagine I go, Hey honey, it's our 35th and we're university love to take you to Billy Joel.

Interesting. Huh. Very nice.

We go and he goes, no, I stopped this in the eighties. Right. So, but like huge disappointment for me, but Billy Joel's congruent. And that's, that's where I was coming from is when we make these decisions that we're to become confronted about, you know, there'll be temptations. There'll be money. There'll be this and that we'll get to disappoint people, but it's holding steadfast to what you believe and what you want to um progress and move from.

Yeah.

That's really, I don't know, maybe that's what I'm sitting in at the moment right now. And I'm starting to make some really good, refined decisions about what I'm doing. And I remember you said last week that you, you know, from a particular professional point of view, you decrease taking clients in a particular area. That's a, that's a distinctive, discerning, decisive decision that, and you'll probably, that's what happened. You'll get an influx of people testing that and. you're gonna be tested as well too. Did I mean that or was I just saying?

Yeah, the universe is always gonna test your commitment to certain things and then you gotta make a decision. And it is very, yeah, I think we're both already sitting in that same space and it's really hard because there's a lot of uh pressures, whether it be financial, whether it be your head, purpose, vision, all of those things that are distracting. And um I think it takes, like I said, takes a lot of courage to even sit with it, to even like... think about those decisions. And this could be decisions about moving. It could be moving locations. It could be a decision ah on your career. It could be a decision on a business. It could be a decision on a relationship. um All of these things are really difficult. And most people will default to what's easiest. Most people will default to the least challenging thing. And I know that, know, ah let's call it a friend who just decided to separate from his wife. That's not an easy decision. And from the outside point of view, I kind of think like, what took so long? Because I could see it, I was just like, wow, you're just commendable that you're willing to just kind of stick it through. But obviously you get to this point of someone's realization is go, hmm, maybe not. They maybe have been sitting for too, too long. And I think that that's the reality of you know, that happens, but I can only imagine how difficult that is for someone to kind of come to that conclusion to go, you know what, after all these years, after 10, 20 years of relationship, that's very difficult to change because now you have new identity, new relationships, you know, you got kids involved, like it's not easy. It's not easy for anybody to make that decision. And you don't know what's going on in someone and people's personal lives. I'm sure they're great friends, but is that good enough?

Yeah.

You know, is that what people want? um And that's, you have to sit with that. And some people get complacent and that's what happens, I think, to a lot of people. And, you know, I think I'm guilty of it in terms of business stuff. you know, when I said that I'm not really taking any more clients and it's mostly for that because I want to, I need to almost tell my own mind to go like, I'm pursuing something different and I need to kind of go all in on this to see where it takes me and it may fail. but at the same time is that if I don't try, then I wouldn't know. And I try to keep that in mind. Yeah, but this week's been a challenging week with some of the difficulties things like, you that's been happening, building it out. like, you you start wavering, you start like, man, am I doing the right thing here? But that's, I gotta remember that's normal though. Like that's supposed to happen. Like it's not supposed, if it was easy, I would have done it like five years ago or three years ago, but it's not. And I know that I have to ride through this and I think this is where having a purpose or vision is really important because I'm just reading this right now. You know, like I'm just reading my vision right there. Cause I'm like, yeah, I got to remember that that vision, that purpose right there is, it's got to carry me through hard times. And if I don't have that, it's going to easy to just go back to default.

Yep. Yeah. And you know, Lawrence, you, you, you, as a really good point, you know, like we're, we're in our fifties. You've only just ticked over. Uh, I've been there for a little while and you do, you get to a period of life where you do start questioning things and people do look around. when you talk about relationships, they do statistically, there's a high number of people who have gone through the hardest parts of what I perceive as life together. And then once they get there and they don't have the distraction of the commitments and the kids and the, suddenly go, well, who am I in this? And I'm not actually thriving. So it does happen, you know, like you and I moved to the other side of the world. When we started asking these deeper questions, other people buy sports cars or change careers or do whatever. Yeah. We've probably done all of those at any one time, but it's the reason behind that. It's like, what, what am I seeking to, to change? I'd love to, I'd love to get a take on your insight. Cause I've been thinking about this. I know, I know what I've my own view and I'll certainly share it afterwards, but you know, we geographically shifted and moved around and consequently to a degree, it's easier to change a new identity when you go somewhere else. Cause no one knows you there. You can rock up and go, right. I'm the new kid on the block and these are the skillsets that I have. And people go, okay. And they'll accept that. But if you're in your own environment and you consciously decide, want to change this. My sense is it would be a lot harder, you know, and a lot harder because people will keep you stuck in that identity against your will. You want to change with, we'll go, who are you, who are you to change? Right? So let's talk about that.

Yeah, Tony Robbins, I went to a Tony Robbins like maybe 20 years ago and he talked about this just before we kind of finished up. And he talked about this because, you know, when you go to an event like Tony Robbins or any personal development events, you know, there's going to be a sense of that you, you, you have changed, right? Or you feel like you transformed and, and, and I just love this analogy and I still use it to this day. We talks about like, when you go home, just remember that, um, You, he goes, okay, the best analogy is you are, just think of you are like either a triangle, a square, or a circle. Okay, and he does it pretty funny. Like, just say you're a triangle, and now you want to be a circle. Because triangle has edges, it's pretty sharp, you know, and it's only three points. I want to be like universal, you know, I want to be whole, you know, so you want to be a circle, so you become more of a circle. And then you start, you know, uh Eating donuts or you know you just become everything's all round and infinite and everything else you start going bigger Then you realize that because yeah, but circles like there's no end point. You know, don't know I what I think I should be is a square, know, cuz four inch, know four edges It's really a bit more even around and you know, it's got edges got boundaries and everything else and you and you start realizing I mean, no, no, no what I really like is You know being a triangle again, you know, because you know, I like eating Doritos and so he just goes on like you just we're just like as personal transformation, we just feel like we always wanted to be something else. Your triangles want to be a circle circle wants to be a square and so on and so forth. And he goes, the problem is that when you go back, you know, what you end up doing is that you sorry, there's two two stars. So when he goes, but what you really are is that if you're a triangle, when you transform, when you actually start becoming more self aware, you actually become a pyramid. Like you become more of a pyramid, a circle becomes more of a sphere and a square becomes more of a cube. It's like you're not changing who you are, you're actually becoming more of who you are, you see more dimensions. But when you go home and you start realizing it, now you're no longer a circle, you're a sphere, all of a sudden you act like a sphere. And the problem is that people have spent their whole entire life, or at least the time they know you, to figure out what are the buttons to press to make you pissed off or to love you or to love them. And so they've already know what worked. But when you transform, yeah.

Yeah. You've got a strategy, you've got a game plan, yeah, right?

It's unconscious, but the problem is now those because you're no longer circle, you're a freaking spear. Those buttons have changed and they don't like that because I just spent like 10 years with you knowing what buttons to press to make you angry or to do what you manipulate you in a certain way. And then now those buttons don't exist because you don't like, yeah, whatever. Like it's a water off the duck's back. And the challenge there is for them, it's like they don't like that. So they rebel against that. They don't like the change. So they want you to go back to a circle. They want to flatten you. And this that whole top of poppy syndrome. And that's the analogy. Like I still remember, like, that's what everybody does, because you're have to fight through that. Because people don't want you to change, not because they don't love you, because they don't want you to change, because they don't want to have to work now to relearn how to cope with the sphere instead of the circle. And I think that that's the best analogy that I've heard that makes sense to me of like, that's

Yeah, got it. Yeah, that's a great.

the resistance that you have to um work with if you stayed in the same environment and relationships that you have.

Yeah, that's a great analogy. Funny enough, um, in the last week I've rewatched, am not a guru hadn't watched it since it first came out. So it's, it's great to, do, go back to people who've been influential in my life and, and, uh, revisit experience. I've done many of the programs with Tony as well too. uh, what I, I really, I really love that. I really love the fact that people will do that to preserve the, the familiarity, the game plan. What, what

Mmm.

they've got the strategy and everything all worked out. And I imagine you, this is the, this is the, guess the insight that I was going to have is this can also happen at a cultural level where if you try and take over a new business and we've seen that happen many times in people we've coached, right? Where someone comes in and the culture you won't create change and the organizational change structure resists that. And they want to preserve the status quo. And gosh, I know I've twice, we bought

Oh yeah.

practices that were long and established. And it was so difficult because from a, I guess, from a health paradigm perspective, we were very different and there were times that I've gone, would it have just been easier to start from scratch? Because, know, each of each has got its challenges, but at least I would have been congruent in the message that I wanted to communicate rather than having to. I'm the only people unlearn the message. didn't want them to, to articulate, to guide them and support them in the way that I want. to. So thoughts on that? How many times have you seen that happen in business?

It's so difficult. And this is the unknown measurement of when you're buying into someone else's business, right? And this is, because the culture needs to change. actually just, it's funny, um not funny, I actually was watching a little clip today and they were talking about, I think it's the Columbus Blue Jackets. I think it's the NHL team in Columbus, Ohio. And they talked about this interim coach. The head coach got fired like, you know, maybe, I don't know when, I don't really follow that, they were talking about this coach because he's the intern coach. And he's, quite famous, I think a Canadian former, um former Canadian coach or whatever. Anyways, he was talking about, he was doing a press conference after their game. It was their last game of the season and he was just losing it. It goes, that was the most despicable, um know, like effort. that this team had, they were out of the playoffs. was the last game of the season. But he was like, I'm just, the players are lucky they don't have practice tomorrow. Right? Because he would have taught, he goes, he goes, if I'm back, he was an interim coach, he goes, if I am back, we're changing the culture here. He goes, and he basically, what he was really pissed off was he goes, even if we're not making the playoffs, you don't just give up like that. Because they had a losing culture. And he just identified that if I'm gonna be back here to head coaches,

Mm. Hmm.

this culture, this team has to change in its work ethic that you work even if you're losing. And just like he just kept on going and it was just it was it's kind of gone a lot. guess a little viral in a sense. But I love that because at least he's passionate. You know, he was like passionate about of like what needs to happen. I think that that's the challenge with culture of a business or any part that because it could be part of the individual as well. Like I think in order for us to embrace a new business or a new venture, we actually have to learn to shed the old version of ourselves and change the new version. And that's so hard. Like I'm in the midst of that right now. And, you know, what I'm developing is using some AI tech right now. And, you know, I just changed a little bit of my LinkedIn recently and, you know, Claude has been telling me to like, okay, here's how you need to redo it. you you need to call yourself a founder. I'm like, I'm so uncomfortable with that word. Like, I don't see myself as a founder. But then at the same time, I know I need to rewire my brain to think of myself as a founder, because if I don't, then I'm just going to be, you know, I'm not really building a business here. I'm just sort of building, you know, some sort of fun tech, you know, software. And so if there's like, I'm caught. So this is the internal game that I'm playing here inside. And it's like this torn, like, oh, I don't see myself. But you need to. Like you need to kind of learn how to embrace that new identity because how is that identity going to just show up? Because the founder does ABC, right? They don't no longer do AXYZ. And I have to kind of wrestle in my head to embrace this new identity within myself. Otherwise, I'm just going to hold on to um the old Lawrence Tam as a coach trying to develop an AI tech company, which is not going to be, it's almost going to be impossible.

Yeah. Uh, you said something that you used sporting analogies and, and, uh, one of the, the football team that I support in Australia, Hawthorne football club has had an arch rival of Esalen football club. And, and during the 1980s, when I was growing up, it was like they'd win, win a premiership, they'd win a premiership. We'd lose. So it was just, there's a rivalry that goes back to the 1970s, 1980s and. In the early 2000s, our, when our kids were taking games, we weren't going very well. the Esedin were, Esedin kept dominating my team from, from an intimidation point of view. And one of the old legends of the club must have gone in and it's now called the line in the sand game. Where they actually called the line in the sand when they went, that's not from now on, it's never going to happen. And there were transgressions, their physicality. was kind of like one of these, I went to a boxing game and a hockey game match broke out type ones where the whole lot of players got cited. But from that point on, the football club changes ethos and Hawthorne then became the most successful period, football club in that period moving forward. I've won three premierships in the road with, which in the AFL is statistically almost impossible because They manipulate the draw so much so that it's an even competition. So there was something deeply cultural that happened as a result of that. was a line in the sand granted. started with a brawl, but it started with a decision to go no more. That's it. From this moment on things change. I change. And to a degree, it doesn't have to fall out into that, but there has to be that decisive moment. go, that's it. That's me before this. And that's me after this decision.

Yeah, I think culture matters a lot if you exporting sporting examples, like if you look at most teams, ah I know I follow the NFL and like, there no matter how great some of the their acquisitions are from a trade or signing sometimes these poor teams just are terrible all the time. Like, it's, you know, namely, like the New York Jets, you know, this is Cleveland Browns, like, no matter how many big signings they have, they're still terrible. And I think it starts from the owners and it starts owners down that they just create a culture that is not a winning culture. You know, at least I'm very thankful that I support the Niners because right currently for the last, I would say at least 15 years um or 20 years now almost, hopefully that their culture is a winning culture. Now, sure, we haven't won any titles. We came close a couple of times, but we're in it. you know, more like would say 80 % of the time, 80 % of the seasons in the last 15 years. And which means there's a winning culture. And I think that that matters a lot, you know, having the right coach, having the right ownership, having the right coach, and then having the right players who embodies that, you know, who embodies that type of culture. And I think that's why, you know, we forget sometimes that bringing some of these old veterans, you know, that are players that are a little bit too old now, past their prime, but they bring in you sign them because they bring in some sort of culture and work ethic that young players don't necessarily have. And you kind of want to, you don't want to have just a pure young team because a pure young team doesn't, don't know any different. You need to kind of have like some established veterans on the team to go like, here's the standard we're setting ourselves, you know, from a physicality, from a rehab, from, know, how we show up games, how we show up for our fans. Like that's, that, that needs to be there. And I think, you know, if you apply that type of mentality into our lives, You know, the question is, is it, we have that in our lives? Do we have someone demonstrating to us of what it takes to succeed? What it takes to kind of push past, you know, your limits or being able to contain, you know, you know, the new identity you're trying to embrace and not let the old identity kind of creep in. That's very difficult. It's very challenging. Most, because most of us are solopreneurs or work on a small team. It's very, very difficult to do that. And those standards are what you set, and most of the times, we kind of set lower standards for ourselves, unless you're a very, very highly driven person. And so oftentimes, sometimes we need someone else kind of telling us what to do.

Yeah. You mentioned about a team in, and I read a book years ago, fantastic book called five dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lincey only, which I love. And I use this as a frame for a lot of people. And I was thinking about when you're talking about the NHL coach. About if he, we don't know whether he's gotten the gig the next year, but Patrick Lindsay only talks about five stages. I'd love to just share on, just pulled it up here, just so I make sure I quote him correctly. But I always know that the first foundational principle is the absence of trust. So if you don't have trust in a team and, if you, if you can't count on the left person on the left and the right to do what they need to do, suddenly that deteriorates into protection and self preservation. And it doesn't really, doesn't really help from that, from a team perspective. The second one was fear of conflict. So if you're not going to perform well, you're going to be scared about if you have trust, you can lean in and have honest conversations. And this equally applies when you are in a family, a team of two, as in a primary relationship, or whether in your team of a sporting team or whether in a work environment. So the third one is a lack of commitment. So if people aren't committed to the process and put energy and effort into that, that will have an impact in the results of teams gets. The further one, fourth one is avoidance of accountability. people... Say what they mean, mean what they say and do what they say by when they say they were going to do them. And finally, in the tension of results. So if we're not using metrics to monitor how well we're performing, often we're hiding. Often we're not really being realistic and that we tend to underperform. And I've done, I've done programs with this, uh, where we do experiential programs with this and, foundationally you've got to get to a level of trust, right? And sometimes that level of trust is trust of self.

Yeah, trust of self is the hardest one because you're doing it all on your own. know, uh unless you're part of a team, right? And so it's helpful when you're part of a team because you guys can kind of lean on each other. But when you're doing it, when you're usually the sole entrepreneur or the sole owner, sole founder, like you're on your own. And so which means you got to sit in all the demons, the darks, the dark.

Yeah.

times on your own and you have to make hard decisions. And the thing is that, you know, I gotta be careful. We talked a lot about, you know, the success stories, but there's a lot of stories that we don't hear because they weren't successful. You know, there's a lot of times when people make those shifts and they don't make it and they have to start all over again. And so it's not painting that you should, but you, and the only person who can make that decision is you. Like, know, when you gotta make a choice, but. I did hear something this morning which is sort of relevant to this. Like Nvidia is one of the largest company right now as we speak, right? At the time of recording. But I saw something today that I didn't, I've forgotten about, but Nvidia was a PC gaming company when it first started. It wasn't like the super chip manufacturer that it is at. No, no, they've been around for a long time. What's his name, is it Justin?

Hmm. No, I thought they just came out of left field.

I can't remember the CEO, can't remember who the CEO is, let me just go back. And he made a switch maybe about 20 years ago. Jensen, Jensen Wing. Yeah, Jensen Wing. And he basically made a switch, I just want to show you, around 2006, 2007, when they kind of.

The CEO. Good, that's right.

decided to change to AI computing platform. this is like, we think like they come out of nowhere, but it's actually a decision that was made like 20 years ago that kind of moved in towards where they're positioning right now. And I think that we forget sometimes that we don't, it's like hitting that golf ball, right? Like hitting a golf ball by changing us, you know, just a couple of millimeters at the beginning of hitting that ball. Sure, it's only millimeters at the beginning, but when you project it 200, 300 yards after the difference in where the ball lands is massive, even if you're a small little change at the beginning. And I think that that's the reminder we must have sometimes is that when you're in tuition, which is what we talked about maybe a couple of episodes ago, we talked about intuition, you gotta follow through with your intuition sometimes and then knowing that you're making the right choice, but you gotta continue with that and allow the ball to land where it lands, knowing that you're not gonna see the benefits for many, many years ahead. And I think the perfect example is our kids. You're probably starting to see the fruits of your labor, of the amount of energy and the love and the effort. Where I'm sort of in that phase of the tail end of the influence, where I'm seeing some benefits for it, but I don't know what the full trajectory of that's gonna be. But when you're starting, when they're five years old or three years old, they... You can talk to them. I used to talk to them all the time and just give them encouragement. I have no idea. It's almost like, oh, this is not making a difference. And you could have easily just stopped. But no, I remember the simple things is that when our kids used to be, when they were very, very young, was like, please and thank yous, always. I don't care who it is, even as at home, if it's just us. When we're out in public, look people in the eye, please and thank you, look people in the eye and talk to them. And we pushed them.

Mm.

at such a young age, um but you're not gonna see that. You feel like you're a nagging parent, but you're not gonna see the ultimate benefit until much, much, much later. know, when now you get the criticism, not the criticism, but the feedback of like, wow, your kids are so polite or your kids are so nice. Like, you're not gonna hear that. You know, that's 10 years later. I don't know that that was gonna happen. That's not our intention. We didn't do it for the praise, but it's like, that's the, my point is that some of the success.

Hmm Yeah.

of your decisions now, you're not gonna see until much, much later.

Yeah. It's interesting you say that about kids too, because I remember years ago we had, uh when we were living in country, New South Wales in a country town, had these, um, touring tents. had cats, they had Greece as a musical came to Dubbo, the place we were living at. was like this big tent. was kind of like a great showman.

Mm-hmm.

was fantastic vibe and environment. And our son, you know, our youngest son at the time he was five was very energetic and you know, run around everywhere. He started watching grace and he sat on my lap for like, well, it might've been cats actually. Um, he sat on my lap for nearly three hours. Didn't move. I went, Whoa, he riveted. then. Uh, that's really surprising. And then it must've been about six months later, they had Greece tour. We went and watched that as well. And after that, he turned around and goes, what do I have to do to do that? I went, Oh, that's interesting. You know, so when we moved back to Melbourne, I said, you know, that, that comment, did you really mean that? goes, yep. So he did performing arts and he did that for two years. And, uh, what, what our other son Sebastian was able to do is he didn't go on with that, but he took the skillsets. So posturally he could actually then walk into any room, any environment when he did his modeling, he could just own the room. But when he, he actually just had the ability to look someone in the eye and irrespective of who they were command presence. remember watching a 16, 17 year old young men and women when we, when I was taking him to class, who would look in the eye, I had this level of confidence about him. went, you can do anything if you show up that way.

Interesting.

And the irony is that you and I comment on it now, it's not the norm anymore. You don't see that happening and how impactful and how remarkable worthy of a remark as Seth Godin says, is that when you can look someone in the eye, shake their hand, and that feels like the exception rather than the rule.

No. But you can't and how hard is it if you want to correct it now? If like my my son just turned 15 and it's like if I had to correct them now, it's like how how many years would it take to try to change that behavior identity like it's so difficult. I mean he's not perfect at it, but at least he can you know I still have to remind him over because I still feel these years are reminding him out. Hopefully we'll do him just here. Something will like switch in his head but.

Yeah.

it's so difficult to be able to change it if you don't do it now, when you're young age and the longer you wait, again, it's not impossible, but it's definitely will take a lot of um dedication to do it. there's, I mean, I'm thinking now, this is, I I went to a physio last week, by the way, and ah because like my shoulder is not bad, but it's just, wasn't getting like fully better. And I just thought I was gonna get a second opinion on this and just seeing, you know, am I missing? I'm working on a freaking every day and and uh oh my god, I've never been in so much pain for 50 minutes of my life. She tortured me like I was in tears multiple times. um In all parts of my body, like not even the shoulder like it was worse was like, like she freaking rubbed my toes like in such a way I'm like, what are you doing now there? Right? But she was like, she had, I guess, I'm going back tomorrow. So I'll tell you more. But she didn't, she was just working through my fascia all the way from like, to my toes, inside my jaw. And I'm like, no one, she barely looked at my shoulder. But she, but she was like working through, she's like, you are so tight everywhere. And I realized I'm like, yeah, I knew that for a long time. But I'm not doing much about it. You know, I stretch, but I don't really really stretch.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I also realized I'm like, oh man, you know, I'm 50 years old now and I really should, like, because my muscles, because I do CrossFit as well, which is like short and tightening muscles. I don't do enough for flexibility. And I know as I'm getting older, like my ligaments are tightening up as well, which is like a double whammy. And it's the same thing. I'm, I'm guilty of this is where I have this expectation that if I stretch enough or a week or two, everything's going to be fine. But like the reality is I'm probably going to stretch over a year and I still won't get much.

Yeah, collection, it's a collection. Yeah, yeah.

I don't feel like I'm gonna get much further ahead. However, the long run though will probably be that my body will thank me in 10 years time. But it's just like those things that we just forget to do, because there's so many things we need to kind of work on.

Yep. You, you're so right. Some things that you used to take for granted. Oh, this would be okay. Suddenly you're getting some feedback going, this isn't going to serve you. If you keep doing what you're doing, you actually have to put more energy into just staying where you are. Uh, so that you don't decline even further. Uh, it's so funny you say that, you know, like one of the, have you ever had the, um, the, are they called though? The stripping with the metal for physio? uh

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know what that's called. But I've never I don't think I've had I think I had someone do that to me once or twice. Yeah.

Man, I've that on my, my, um, TFL cause I've had hip trouble. I gotta tell you, I've never, I was speaking Korean, um, on that day. I was so sore. It was so uncomfortable, but it felt brilliant afterwards. Right. And it was really, really helpful. I remember that was what I looked at and I went, I need to go through this. I, this is a priority. This is a process I have to have to work on. I've got to let go of, you're not. 10 foot tall and bulletproof anymore. you, you know, work through this and gosh, in the last two weeks I've gotten really like super strict on diet as well too. And not that I was off the rails, but I've just really been really clear and I'm going through a cleanse right now. You know, like it's just that urge that detox where I'm like, okay, decreased. Not that I was having much sugar anyway, but I'm like, I must've been somewhere, but You feel that yet, but I had to get to a point where I went, that's it. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to do this. was pulling up sore after training. That was more sore than I thought I was. And I've had to take stock. I've got an aura ring that's coming tomorrow. I know I've spoken before about the metrics, but I'm going all in Lawrence. I'm going, um, not, not from a, not from an obsessive point of view, but I just, need to look at, uh, what's going on because, um, Yeah, I was getting in inflammation, inflammation in my body and I couldn't work out why I kept on looking. I'm going, I don't feel I'm stressed. My metrics tell me so I'm actually taking those steps, but I had to get to the point where I go, that's it. can't, I'm going to change. where I would go and do a training session, my recovery, I'm needing more recovery sessions than I used to need. And now I'm actually doing more recovery than actually training. And I go, this is ridiculous. But is this the new norm? Is this the new reality? Do I have to do this? Okay, if I have to, I'll work it out, but I've had to go through this journey to what you're going through.

Well, and I think that this is like, this is good reminder that, you know, if you are thinking about doing whatever you're to be doing, you know, whether it be small or big or large or a big transition, um you know, being in that place where you were at the moment is really, really difficult. It's really challenging what we talked about. It takes a massive amount of courage. you know, it's just like us grinding. Like I know tomorrow I'll be squirming on that freaking table and crying and and I'll have to somehow like go to a different part of my brain to kind of going, this is good for me. But yet, like, I'm suffering here and um I got to have to contend with like this is just physical pain. Like this is not the word and I just got to go through that. Yeah, exactly, It's infiltrating my body right now.

Yeah. Pain is just weakness leaving the body. And I'll go, yeah, not now. I've got a lot of weakness that's leaving my body right now.

And that's the challenge, I know that I'm gonna have to kind of go through, but the huge part around all that psychology is also recognizing that, like you gotta remember the future and you gotta know that the things that you're doing today impacts the future. I don't think we think enough, and I'm very guilty of this, I don't think we don't think long enough or enough times about the end of life. And I know it sounds very morbid, but we don't. think about because the reality is that most of us, I would say 99 % of us know that or have a feeling that we're going to be here tomorrow. So we don't really think about how this shortness of life, right? um I just had this relatively famous and porn entrepreneur here in in Portugal like his wife just passed away and he's been writing stories and been following up with him and And his wife just passed. But he's been writing these stories and he's been sending it to me directly. And every time I read it, I'm like, it's just like another reminder that life is short, right? Like another reminder that, but most of us will, including me, I'll just default. For that moment, I feel like, oh yeah, okay, good reminder. And I'll default right back to what my daily routines are. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just good. It's just that that's what it is. And I have them on my phone, for example, I have this app called, I think it's left. And if I swipe over, tells me like how much time I have 32 years left. it tells me it could based on my age and everything. It's like I have 32 years left. And it's like, it's just, and you know, I have a coin, you know, that I stare at sometimes it's called momentum more like, you know, it just remind me that, you know, we will all die. Like that's, you know, that's the coin that's sitting there. So it's like, I'm trying to always remind, I now even have a countdown and like I've 10 hours left today. I have 14 left 14 day that's on my screen, screensaver.

ever again. Yeah.

you know, 14 days left of this month. And it's like, you know, whatever it is, it's just that this constant reminder that, hey, like this is, there's ends. And if I don't remind myself of this, that I may not do what I'm supposed to be doing today. And I need to constantly like find ways to, I know it seems weird, it seems morbid, but it's not. It just means like, it's just like, I want to make sure I try to squeeze that out of myself, you know?

Hmm. I get, yeah, I get what you're doing. If you, if you want to, if you want to optimize the time you have available, if you want to do the things you love doing for as long as possible, I think that's what I'm talking about. You know, like I'm consciously making decisions now because I want to be enjoying the things that I'm doing for as long as possible. You know, like I don't expect that I'm going to, know, like, I'm not going to go, I'm going to be healthy and dark. Like, like I understand that there's a great deterioration of time, but I want to prolong that as long as possible. You know, so I'm using things now, you know, and, and, know, it's this whole thing about, you know, Stephen Cubby always talked about things that are non-urgent, but are important that we don't focus on early enough that actually are the ones that really make the biggest difference. We are focused and refer to the urgent and the not important sometimes, or the urgent and important, but neglect the really important stuff. And I think the easy thing is to defer looking after yourself longer.

Yes.

And not deciding I need to change my habits and be, I'm not 25 year old party boy or girl anymore. I'm, I'm someone in my fifties. takes me five days to get over a late night. I've got to take steps. I've got to do that. What it takes to look after myself um and find, and it's not just the physical, it's actually, how do I fuel my soul? Right? This leads back to if someone's in their fifties, their kids have grown up and they've got to go, I've potentially got 25 more years left of life. Do I want to be with this person? That's the question people are asking. really the big confronting questions, you know, and then you go to yourself, okay, well, what do I need to do as a result of that? Um, you know, that's, you know, I had, I saw this parody a while ago from some, from some Aussie podcast is really, really hilarious and funny when it talks, you know, it talks about cold plunging and stuff, you know, and, and how it increases your mindset. And there's these three or four guys that run this, um, podcast and they go, you know, do you think that there was a point? in the Titanic, where people will jump off the Titanic, where they were technically healthier before they died. And you just haven't been, it's morbid, right? But you suddenly go, that's what people think. And I was in stitches when I went, it's not going to preserve that, but it's going to, it's going to give you quality of life for as long as possible.

you Yeah, no, think the actions of what you do today will have a massive impact on the future and someone else's future. And I got a really humbled reminder this past week, actually. So I've been posting a little bit more. And I made this one post. I'm not sure if you got a chance to see it. But I made this one post about, I don't know, how many patients I was seeing.

did see that. I did see that. acknowledge that. That was a good practice. That was a great post. Yeah. Yeah.

And just talking about connection and how I connected with patients. then, but I got like probably a couple of like negative like pushbacks on like they're non caros, right? And they just, you know, they're just like, how, wait, how many people do you see? You see a hundred people in a day. You count that. That's something like you've worked 10 hours. You're like, that's six minutes per patient. how on, it's just like criticizing me, right? And then, but what I didn't expect was all my old patients. Now remember I've left practice 12 years ago.

Yeah.

So these, and people were, like my patients came on and commented, like, and defended me out of the blue. Like, I mean, I'm trying to look at my comments, I'm like, who are you actually defending? But they were just making comments on how, like how much they appreciated me. this one woman was from like my very first, my first job. So this was going back 20, 25 years, about 24 years ago, maybe. And she was, I haven't seen her. you know, as a patient since like 2004. So yeah, 22 years, but she still remembers me and she made comments. But this one, like one particular woman yesterday, I was in a cafe reading this, that brought me to tears. She wrote this massive long post about how I made her feel when I first walked in. And she, I wasn't even her chiropractor. I just, happened to be like, I don't know, maybe I was taking over for someone or something. And then she eventually moved towards me and, And then she continues like she was breached and I helped her with her first breach. I helped her with a second breach. Then she stopped coming in because she couldn't afford because she's building a house. She started talking to me uh about um that. I called her, you know, because she hasn't been in just wanted to check in on her. And she's like, oh, listen. And she was she was like, I just kind of for I'm like, just come in. I know you need it. So come on. And I took care of her for I don't know how long. I don't remember any of this, by the way, because this is like this her recollection, because I mean, when you see the house of the patient, you don't remember every single story. But I mean, I was thinking about like, did I do that? Like, I don't remember this. But in her mind, she like, she remembered all these things I did for her and how it changed her life. And that really, that just hit me really hard yesterday because it just reminded me, I'm like, I wasn't doing it for like my future me. I wasn't doing it for, you know, for anybody's praise or anything. I did it because I felt like it was the right thing to do at the time. And I think that that's the important element of what I kind of want to bring this back in here is just that

Mm-hmm.

There's that intuition we kind of talked about that serving others and doing the right thing, or if this feels like the next move that you need to do, I think it's about honoring that. Like whether it's successful or not, it's honoring the move, right? And of course I'm talking to people who are like a little bit afraid right now, who's just a little bit afraid and needs a little bit of encouragement, encouraged to go, maybe I should lean into it. Again, Jim and I are not saying that you're gonna be successful at this, but I guarantee you, you're gonna learn something from you know, whatever it is. And I feel like if you're, mean, I can't tell you what it is, because obviously we're talking to general generalized people, but if you feel in your gut of guts that this is some action that you need to take, I think sometimes you just need to know like doing this action, the future you will probably thank you for the things that you, because you took that action if it feels right. I just want to just, so yesterday's story just reminded me all of those things that just, it felt right to me at the time and. I didn't realize I changed that woman's life ah for the better, for all those little things that I did for her.

Yeah. And you know, Lawrence, I didn't see that post. was a beautiful post basically. And I, and I did read through the comments and I could, I could feel you were touched there. And I remember the last day of my practice, uh, before I finished up, um, our personal assistant had gotten everybody to come in and write a note, you know, thank you. They knew I was finishing up and I've got a bound book with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thank you notes. Uh, and. What you and I've just shared speaks to just how hard that transition and identity change is because we knew that it was a time in there. But like, if you can get moved by it 20 odd years later, you know, it hopefully gives you an insight. Imagine you've got that much of an impact in people's lives. You are playing such a huge role in someone's life. You have the lifestyle that you want, the homes that you like, the experiences you like, the money or whatever it is, whatever you consider to success.

Mm-hmm

Lawrence and I have had that in that particular identity. And we willingly chose to step away from that and move to the other side of the world to do something that would be killing us to the unknown. at this point, if you're thinking, you guys are nuts, granted, I'll give you that. But it just speaks to just that whole process of, Lawrence and I probably going, actually, how bad was it back there? No, me put it that way. But, but but it speaks to that and

for something unknown. Yeah. Yeah, wait a second, maybe.

If you decide to make a decision, you will get reminders like that out of the blue and go, you know what? Back in that identity, this is the impact that had in my life. And you, and I think that what I take out of that is you can have a moment where you go, thank you. I really appreciate that. And I take that with me moving forward as opposed to wanting to go back to that. So that was, it just speaks to how big that transition and shift is. And it was for both of us.

Yeah, and these are only people who tell you, right? And forget about the hundreds of people that never said anything, you know? And yeah, it is such a huge thing for anybody to leave. And of course, but that's why it's so hard. um And the challenge is that you got to recognize whether or not it is right for you and no one can tell you otherwise because you're the only sole decision maker of your life. And you got to factor those in. And at the end of the days, I think I kind of go to is, you at the end of days of days, you know, am I going to look back? Am I going to regret?

Yeah.

not making that decision. um Anyways, so I hope that that's been helpful. I hope that it kinda gives you some encouragement and courage to find what your next thing is, if that is the right thing for you to do. If not, then continue doing what you do and continue being on the path until something else comes up for you. So I hope that you guys enjoyed this podcast because the road ahead is gonna be imperfect and this is what Wabi Sabi is all about. See you on the next episode.

Yeah, thanks.