#115. Deano Delpleash: Get Up Off Your Little Rock
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Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now we know. Now we know. It was fading away anyway. Yeah. No, because when we've had that before, my phone was all the way over there. Yeah, but that was before. Today is today. Okay. Okay. We talked about responsibility, taking responsibility for your fucking cell phone. All right. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. If you've been enjoying this show, go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe.

All right. We have a real cool guest for you guys today. He is a high performance coach. We talk about self-improvement, life improvement, and how to create change. And we talk about when you want to change your environment, you need to first start with changing yourself.

And it was really inspiring to hear him talk about his first time he had depression and how that became a catalyst for him to become who he is today. Yeah, he's a living, breathing example of his own teachings, of his own principles. It was super fun sitting down with him. So, without further ado, please give it up for Dino Del Plesche. ♪ Little guys don't die ♪ ♪ She's a living, breathing life ♪ ♪ We're at the center, right, right, right ♪

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I think that's the only thing that I love about this show as well. It's just an honest, straight conversation. Because even a lot of times when a lot of people go into creating podcasts, there's always an agenda. And sometimes it can take over from that authentic flow that is being created. So I really love this. Yeah, sometimes it feels a little forced, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, even with us, I mean, we're not perfect. Sometimes we force it a little too much. Yeah.

And then I realized the ones that we force and jump in with like, with an agenda we feel like we have to get to, at least to me personally, don't feel the most natural. And I always dislike that. - I feel you. - Yeah. Hey man, but welcome to the show, do you know? - Yeah, thank you, Justin. Thank you for having me. - So you mentioned before you went home and then you came back to China. Where is home?

Home is a very small island called St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Oh, St. Vincent. Yeah, you know St. Vincent? I used to do some work in the Caribbean. Easy, easy, easy. I used to do a show called Tempo. My man. I don't know if you ever heard of Tempo. No, I've never heard of Tempo, but it's a song like a Caribbean name.

Of course he's never heard of Tempo. It's under MTV. So I used to be in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. Okay, dope. We're literally east of Barbados. Yeah, yeah. Love it. I went to Barbados once. One of the best trips of my life. That was an awesome time. Did you make it for crap over? Huh?

Crap over the carnival No no The carnival is insane My man You know what I mean I'm on top of the buses I'm going nuts With Masha Lentano My man Soca Damn look at you That's what's up Damn Look at you Little side of Eden No look at you Little side of Eden

- No, look at you now. - To dance the soca. - My man. - Damn. - But you all are welcome, definitely. I think it's something that if you go to the Caribbean, you need to experience. - Yeah, the Caribbean, that's a whole different world over there. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - A whole different vibe, obviously. - It's seriously a whole different world. - Yeah, yeah. - You don't know unless you experience it. - Yes, sir, yes, sir. - Wait, wait, so you're chilling in the Caribbean. What makes you wanna come to China?

That's very interesting. You know, as a, as a youth, I was always involved in youth development, you know, so I've always loved friends. You know, my, I used to get in trouble for my friends a lot. And I can remember this one day I was at a friend's place and there are nine brothers. Yeah. And we're like family, man. I can remember that one day I'm there on that, a piece of rock. And I look across and I see my boys there playing marbles. And in my head, I'm,

I didn't see any way out for any of them. I knew that one, they're either going to be drug dealers, they're going to drop out of school. They're just going to get in some sort of trouble, you know, because I had friends that were really like troublemakers. And like, I just sat questioning myself, like, you know, how can I really be more influential to these guys? And like the answer just came back to me, you know,

I need to be somebody else. And for me to be that person, I need to leave this little rock, you know? And around that time, you know, I start, I was really good academically on the island. You know, it's just a hundred and about a hundred thousand people. So fortunately I did well in school. And at that point I was like, you know, let me start figuring out this scholarship thing, you know, go to the US or go somewhere. But China was never on my map, man. So I was the valedictorian at my school and my college.

So the school helped me apply to a few American universities, but the scholarships that I received was like 60%. So my parents still couldn't cover the 40%. And I remember one Saturday, man, I feel like all hope was lost. And I had a project in the Capitol that day and I canceled, you know. And as I was walking out my room, I saw the newspaper on my brother's floor and I never go in my brother's room, you know. But that day I just felt, you know, let me just go and check the newspaper and see what's up.

And I saw a full scholarship to China. I'm like, my man, China? I don't know anything about China, but what do I have to lose, you know? So I went and I applied, you know, and a couple of days after. And it's so funny. It was on a Saturday when I saw that, and the deadline was the following Friday. Yeah, and when I saw it, I applied. I took like three days to get everything, like Monday, three days to get everything together. And I sent it off to Washington. And it's like maybe a month after they contacted me, like, yo, full scholarship to China.

- Damn, it's almost like that. It's like those three days you got everything prepared, set it off. You just made that decision, like boom, I gotta do this. - Yeah, I felt like it was for me, because I felt so disappointed that I really try hard to get to a universe in America.

And I didn't want to pressure my parents on the financial side of things. So after they said, you know, like they can't come up with the money, I'm like, let me just leave that alone. So I really, I wanted them to be able to do it, to be honest in my heart. But you know how things is. So yeah, when I saw that, I'm like, okay, yeah, God is really speaking. This is for me. Damn. So you were valedictorian. So were you that kid in your area and neighborhood that everyone was like, oh, he's going to be somebody someday. He's going to make it out of here. Hmm.

Were you like that kid everyone thought was going to get out? A bit of a yes and a no. Yeah, because in primary school, I was never really that academic. And I end up going, like my friends were, to be honest. It's so crazy. I can remember when I did the, how to say, the primary school to go to the secondary school exam. I can remember that day during the exam.

I was at that school where all the students who fail goes to. I remember my friends looking at me and saying, bro, you don't need to leave here because this is where you're going to end up. Meaning my grade is not going to be good. So at that time, you know, it wasn't really fun with school. But after when I get over to that school and it was like that school, we were like the underdogs, but we were good in sports, table tennis, football. But something just clicked for me. You know, I realized when I do good in school, girls like me,

Yeah, so that was good. So I started studying, yeah? And starting studying, I realized it's not as hard as it looks, yeah? So I did well in high school, yeah? And then I ended up in a college where all the top students were. And that was seriously intimidating.

And it's so funny, I only lasted six months. Six months and I realized that I don't want to do this, man. I want to do something else. So that college was more for humanities, biology, chemistry. So I dropped out and I spent a year out of that college. And at that time, I was getting really curious about computers. I used to spend a lot of time with computers. I had a friend, he was like a whiz. So I used to learn a lot of things from him. So I already made up my mind that I would go to the technical college.

So the year after, that was like around where... So I graduated in 2020. That was like 2008. I went to the technical college and that's where things just opened up for me. And I can remember this one, the first assembly. I'm there and I'm like now maybe a year old than most of these guys. And I'm thinking, wow, all the top students are here as well. And all I'm thinking about getting a job after I graduate and I'm like, wait...

If I'm going to get a job, I need to be the best. Yeah. And that day made up my mind. I'm going to be the best. And I wasn't really thinking about, you know, doing good grade, but I just wanted to be the best. And in the end, my teacher told me that I'm going to be the valedictorian. I'm like, oh, wow. You know? So it was like, it was just like that. So it's not like I was always that kid that they still make it out of here, but I was, I was around those kids. So the probability of me making it out was much higher. Yeah. Well, I want to,

We're going to get to kind of a lot about what you coach. But I want to kind of just take a little detour here. Yeah, that's dope, man. And this is not what we have you here to talk about at all. But I want to ask you, because you're from the Caribbean. And I've always felt like, because I grew up in a pretty privileged household. And so we were able to take vacations, family trips, etc.

And I've always felt like whenever I went to places like Jamaica or Barbados or a lot of these kind of like these vacation islands or, you know, these vacation resort areas, there was always a side of me. Because when we get there as a tourist and as a traveler, you kind of see all the nice things. You see the resorts, right? And you see the tourist spots, the scenery. But then it just feels like there is this whole other side of the local community there, right?

that is probably really struggling. And I've always never felt sure whether...

appreciated the tourists there or not? Because I think to us who go there and spend money, we justify it as, oh, their economy is really driven by the tourism here. So they kind of want us here. But is that just a story we're telling ourselves to justify going there and just relaxing? Or like how in your personal experience does the local community react

really view like, you know, travelers and tourists who come and just... Well, the Caribbean is very welcoming. And as I said, like as you said, you know, economically, tourism is really great for the island. So,

when you look at the economics when tourists comes a lot of the hustlers get to make money whether it's the taxi drivers whether it's the guy on the side of the street selling coconut water whether it's the guy who you know go to the mountains and pick his coconut so definitely people get excited for tourists to come and even you know now airbnb is now a thing on the island so a lot of people start making their home into a space where they can welcome people so you know people tend to be quite hospitable

And I think it's something like, you know, when you are, when you have something, you don't really appreciate it as much as when you don't have it. I think that's what usually happen as a Caribbean, if I can say that, as a Vincentian, because we are surrounded by trees, mountains, waterfalls, beaches. We think that's normal. Yeah, that's our norm. Yeah. So we won't appreciate it as much as you who are coming and never experiencing something like that before. Yeah.

Yeah, but definitely, yeah. And we love to see foreigners come and enjoy the carnival and see how they react to it. Yeah, we can get a good laugh out of that, see somebody trying to dance, like, you know, like how we're doing it. So that's really fun as well. Or acts of war. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so definitely, yeah. That's fun.

All right. Well, let's get to what you do. Okay. So as far as I understand, you're a coach and your kind of main thing is to help people become successful, right? And I know that's a very vague thing to say, but you do it through kind of coaching high performance, right?

Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, run us through it. What is high performance? Well, high performance also is a practice. Having that drive in you to always want to improve your craft, 1%. How can you be as efficient as possible at what you're doing? It doesn't matter what that is, whether it's managing your podcast, whether it's leading a team, whether it's getting into the best shape of your life.

And it's so funny, as a high performance coach, I consider myself to be quite a lazy person. And the reason why I say that, I always want to find the most efficient way to get things done. And if I can put everything on automatic, that's how I want it to be.

So sometimes the term high performance would get miscued with the idea of being a workaholic. No, high performance, we're very future-oriented. We love connecting. We're connection-loving. But I think at its core, it's a practice. It's a part of your beingness, personally. That's how I define it. So what are the principles you use or teach? How...

What's your outlook on life? Because I'm trying to relate it to, because I know you teach other coaches, right? But I'm trying to relate it to the general us who aren't coaches and people in their everyday lives who might be struggling with different things, different aspects of their life. Well, before I answer the question directly, I want to take you guys back to around 2017. Yeah, and that's when I was doing my undergrad program.

And I can remember I was on the seventh floor of my school, the armatory. And this image is as clear as day for me. Yeah, I can even feel what it feels like for the wind to be blowing on my face. And I had my hands tightly wrapped around the rails. And there was one word going through my head. Jump. You know, jump. Just get it over with. That was the first time I ever had a thought of wanting to kill myself.

And it's funny that I'm saying this to you right now, because at that time it was a bit odd because I would have never imagined someone like me would have had a thought like that. And at that point, I know that something wasn't right.

And I didn't really know what to do at that time. So what I did, I spent most of my time in bed, scrolling through YouTube, because that's when I feel better than whatever is going on. Things just felt hopeless. It's a distraction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was scrolling through YouTube and I remember coming across this one speaker, Jim Rohn. I don't know if you guys know Jim Rohn, but it was as if he popped out of that screen and he spoke to me directly. And this is what he said. He said,

for things to change for you, you needed to change. You need to change. And that hit me right here. And I realized that what he's saying is true. If things are going to get better for me, I need to change personally. Yeah. At that point, I didn't know what to do. So I continued doing what anybody else would have done. I stayed in bed, continued scrolling.

And, you know, listening to these motivational speakers start to make me feel better, to be honest. It was like magic. They're speaking, but it just something inside of me just start building up. And then then he said this, learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your business. And that like no one has ever told me stuff like this before. And it makes so much sense. If I worked harder on myself personally than I do on school,

I'll perform better. Yeah. And I still didn't know what to do. And I stayed in bed, continue scrolling YouTube, consuming this content until he said this. This is what made the difference, Justin. He said, don't let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action.

And that's when I really got the message. I realized that if things were going to change for me, I needed to get up and move. You know, I couldn't just stay in bed, continue scrolling and just listening to what these guys are saying. So at that day, I made a commitment. And the commitment was that

every day every morning at 5 a.m i'm gonna get up i'm gonna go running to the playing field yeah during that time i broke up with my girlfriend yeah i owed money that i don't even know if i can make as well and so every morning i'll go running and their mornings i'm running i'm crying yeah and i am a martial artist so what i did i went back to the basics so i'll run i'll work out and during that time around i did that for three months straight

Yeah. And like, I literally started to change. Yeah. Every morning I'll run to the field, I'll work out. When I walk back, I'm listening to these tapes. And

and I listened to the same tape over and over, over and over and over again, just so it can sink deep inside of me. And I remember my friends start saying, yo, you're different. You know, the things you talk about are different. And then my body started to change. And then people, I can remember this one guy asked me if I can train him. And I never thought of myself as a trainer. And at that time I couldn't be bothered. So I was like,

the only way I'm going to train you is if you get up 5am in the morning and meet me at the playing field so I thought he won't have so 5am I'm there but a part of me wanted him to come so 5am I'm there, I'm looking at my time ok it's 10 past 5, let me start

After a few minutes, I saw that guy, Ron, coming. Yeah, this shiny guy. Yeah, and he ended up becoming one of my really close friends. And I started training him. And he invited some of his friends, and I started training them. And before you knew it, I created a community of over maybe 1,000 students around campus who was coming at the playing field to work out with me. I did not expect that number to come out. Yeah, yeah, that was crazy. That was crazy. And I think that's what really propelled my journey. And, you know, that's those three principles about

You know, you got to change if things are going to change for you. Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. Yeah. And as well as, you know, don't let your learning lead to knowledge. Let it lead to action. And even through that little project that came out of that space, yeah, by chance,

You know, that's when I get into entrepreneurship because I remember putting on an event. It was calisthenics I was doing at that time. A calisthenics event where I had some of the guys from the gym, some of my guys, some other guys who are practicing from the other university. We all came together and had an event.

yeah just to show what we've been doing and there was a chinese guy there who saw us and he was an angel investor and he liked what i was doing and he had some money and he was like you know fitness is kind of big let me let me throw some money around and see what we can make of this and that was my first ever entrepreneurial you know experience i didn't even know what entrepreneurship

was, but in the books I was reading, they were talking about entrepreneurship in a way. And I can remember, I don't know if you guys know Tim Ferriss. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things he'll usually say that 98% of first startups would fail. So in my head, I already know that, okay, if this is my first startup, I'm going to fail, but I was just enjoying the heck out of it.

And lo and behold, our startup was failing. Yeah. We were running out of money and no more investors wanted to invest. And lo and behold, my investor sent me a link to a scholarship that his previous university was offering in entrepreneurship and global leadership. And I was like, yeah, this is for me. Yeah.

And I'm like, this is what I'm gonna do. - Was that like the second time in your life with the scholarship thing coming in at the right moment? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. It was like so serendipity, man. - I'm seeing a pattern here. - Yeah, yeah. Man, I really wanna know how I'm creating these patterns so I can do it more. But it was as if things were just flowing, yeah?

Even though, you know, I had my dunks and then I had my ups and yeah, it's just that kind of motion to be honest. There's something you said that really resonates with me and probably us because it's something we've talked about in many of our earlier episodes. And I think it ties together because it's that, it's like bridging that gap between knowledge and action that you were talking about that I think a lot of us struggle with. I know I struggle with this.

And I think that gap is tough between knowledge and action. I think it's because it boils down to a fear of failure. I think we're afraid to fail. So therefore, if I don't take action and start it, I'll never fail at it. Right. And so you kind of prevent yourself from putting yourself in a position to fail in that respect. And yeah.

We've talked about this in our earlier episodes, an episode we titled The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And it's about the constant motion, right? About connecting dots and constantly being in motion. And

by being in motion, you're going to fail. You're going to try things, but don't let your failures stop you in your tracks and then you just become stagnant. But if you keep moving, eventually you're going to connect those dots and you're going to create opportunities for opportunities by being in motion. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And another thing that we got to, so there's a lot of,

are wrong, this whole idea of why sometimes we don't start. And I think clarity is a big one. A lot of times, if we're not clear about what we need to do specifically, then we won't start because we're leaving so much risk, so much room for risk. All those internal subconscious voice would be there preventing you from taking action. I remember this one friend who I met in Shenzhen. We were part of this

entrepreneurship accelerator. I can remember falling back up with him maybe two days. So he was doing a startup in Shenzhen and he was literally selling, how to say, papers for cigarettes or whatever you want to use it for.

And I remember having a conversation with him and he said something very interesting. He said, yo Dino, you know, when I went to Shenzhen to start my own company, it was scary, you know? And the funny thing is all the things that I was afraid that would happen, that I thought would have been hard, they weren't hard. It's all the things that I thought would have been easy end up being hard. Yeah. And that's usually some of the surprises that is waiting for us. And another thing is, you know,

Having that self-confidence, yeah? Sometimes we have these small habits that cause us to lack integrity in ourselves. And sometimes we don't really connect the dots and see that small task of saying you're going to do something, whether it's taking out the garbage and not doing it, affects the bigger task that you have. Because your unconscious mind, his responsibility is to make sure you're making the best decision based on the information you have.

So if your self-conscious mind realize you're the kind of person who say, I'm going to take the garbage out and don't do it. Yeah. Do you think you're going to start this company and get it done? Hell no. So that nigga is going to sabotage you. Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of fine variables. So there's like these little daily small things. Yeah. Kind of sabotage your bigger picture and your bigger ambitions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned clarity. Hmm.

How does one try to gain clarity? Well, this is one of my favorite topic. Yeah. And a lot of times we think that clarity is about getting specific about what exactly you need to do when that's a part of it.

But I think a higher level of clarity is becoming clear about who you are. What are your guiding principles as an individual? How would you like to interact with the world, whether it is with your wife, with your kids, with your friends? And what are the principles that you hold that makes you the most successful?

So let me ask you guys a question. Let's say you had to be having a conversation with your best possible self, the best possible version of yourself. And you're looking that person in their face right now. You're observing them. You're seeing every single bit of their essence. And I got to ask you, what are three words you'd use to describe that person? What would you say? And go, Justin. It's all me, huh?

I mean, I always suck at being put on the spot like this. Okay, so my best self, what would be three words I would describe my best self? Disciplined, ambitious, resourceful. Yeah. So now you have those three words, disciplined, ambitious, and resourceful. What if you start to approach life consistently from that point of view?

What if when you shop in a room, those are the three words that you hold true to who you are? And guess what? There'll be days when you don't shop discipline, ambitious, resourceful. But if you make that a consistent practice, you're consistently closing the gaps. So whenever you have a decision to make, take out the garbage.

Yeah. Discipline is your word. That's what you're practicing. And you'd be like, okay, what would discipline me do? Yeah, I'll take out the garbage. Yeah. So we need to have these guiding principles because there's so many different,

person you can become. But if you hold true to who you are now, your best self, and start making decisions from that point of view, yeah, you will find clarity. You'll know exactly what you need to do next because the discipline you, the ambitious you, and the resourceful you, this is what they'll do. Yeah. So you kind of simplify the whole process and start with the little things, going back to the whole 1% rule. Yes, sir. Mm-hmm.

Does the – like, have you – is that 1% rule something you've really applied in your own life? Because I know it's helped me in a lot of facets. But is that really all it boils down to? Is it just as simple as that? Just like, hey, just try to get 1% better each day? Well –

I'll say that that's a framework that you can use to guide your decision making. Yeah. And for me personally, I love to use fitness as a very good metaphor. Yeah, because that's where I started. And one of the things that I've learned, learned that the rep that really counts is the one extra rep that you do after you're exhausted.

Yeah, and I was like, oh, wow. So if that works for fitness, maybe it works for other areas of my life as well. Yeah, whether it's in reading, whether it's in, you know, how I engage with my girlfriend, whether it's showing up more energetic and compassionate. Yeah, so the 1% rule does have merit in that sense. Yeah, and even though you don't want to apply that, sometimes you got to ask yourself, who do you really want to be when you're showing up in life? Yeah, do you just want to be going through the motion or do you want to really be fully into who you're capable of being?

Yeah, and I think these are the conversations that people who connect with the term high performance would agree with. While there's a lot of people who won't show up like that. They'd be like, yeah, let me just chill and relax. That's why most of my friends, they're still home chilling. Because they don't have that wefts in their life or that mindset moving forward. Well, that also brings me to kind of something. I'm going to be completely honest with you.

There's always a small part of me that is always a little bit skeptical of the use of a coach. Because I feel like there's so many things, I think, in life, especially in terms of if you want to live a better life, whatever that means and looks like to you.

it's gotta come from within. That decision has to come within. Like, how do you try to coach someone who doesn't really want to face and make the tough decisions and take those actions, right? Who's just going through the motions or just paying homage in terms of verbally, they're saying the right things, but you know deep down inside they're not ready.

Like is how, how do you confront that as a coach? I just feel like there's so many things that just really only that person can solve and you being from the outside helping them. Like, how do you overcome that? That's a, that's a really good question. And I love that question because I would always say that every, having a coach is useful, but everybody doesn't need a coach. Yeah. Having a coach shortens the gap.

I saw this one interesting quote that says that, you know, you can learn from your normal people learn from their own mistakes. Extraordinary people learn from the mistakes of others. Yeah. And as I said, I'm quite a lazy person. So I want I always want to shorten my learning curve. So how do I get to point B as fast as possible?

And I love to look at athletes. Yeah. Some of the greatest athletes who are super extraordinary what they do. They have coaches because they realize having somebody to cover their blind spot. Yeah. Makes increase the probability of success even more. And one thing that I'll even say to my clients, a lot of times I would fire a person before I even hire them.

Because sometimes some people are not at that stage where they're ready for this level of engagement. Maybe they need to go and maybe read a few books for us. Maybe they need to go and consume this type of content for us. Because there's this thing in the personal development world that we'll call ego. We believe that what we believe to be true.

is truth yeah and i believe there's no such thing as one truth we all have multiple different truth i will say you have your map of reality i have my map of reality but when we put those maps together we create an even bigger reality yeah so in the sense of having a coach is definitely a personal decision and coaches don't help you

help you they don't help you yeah but what what coaches do that we act as a guide so that you can discover your own emotional truth at the end of the day it's up to you to take action yeah yeah so what do you what in your kind of line of work in your experience have you found that people typically struggle with the most like what are the most common things well

There's a lot, but the most common is self-awareness is a big one. A lot of times someone will come and they feel they have a confidence issue, but not so much so it's confident because after exploring and asking a few questions, we realize that, wow, you have been quite confident in different areas of your life. It's just that you haven't really been given those areas, the attention that it needs. So I'll say the big one on a whole is just self-awareness.

And there's this other thing about, you know, as human beings, we take input into our eyes, our ears, our nose and what we feel, right? And consciously, we can only take in seven to nine bits of data at any one time. So right now, as I'm speaking to you here in my voice, you're seeing me and you're really present here.

But maybe your unconscious mind is taking in a song that the AC is making, and that is still input, and that affects our reality as well. But we're only conscious of what's happening here now. And those unconscious things affect the way we feel, and it affects the way we perform. And the moment we become aware of those other things, that's when we can make the changes we need.

And that's where a coach comes in and helps you make you aware of those other things? Exactly. I feel like a coach is just, for me, I've never had a coach before, but I'm just thinking for my type of personality, if I had a coach, he'd be constantly just on my ass reminding me, probably. You know what I mean? Because just like you said, Justin, it's like, for me, I'm probably just like you with this whole lazy kind of like, I'm more about the knowledge as opposed to the action. You know what I mean? That kind of person.

And I hate that about myself. But I feel like one of the biggest problems I have personally is that I'll forget. I'll be like so gung-ho one day and then all of a sudden, if I don't keep up those habits or don't create those habits, I forget. And then next thing you know, it's like, whoa, shit, what happened to that side of me? What happened to that fire and that hunger? I forgot it. So if you have somebody that's constantly on your ass, that's just constantly holding you,

to your words and to your actions. I feel like that's a huge benefit for a coach in one way, right? Besides covering the blank, the blind spots and stuff. - And there are different types of coaches actually. You can actually hire a coach just to hold you accountable. A friend can hold you accountable or maybe you can hire a coach for mindset. Or maybe you can hire a coach just for confidence. So it comes down to knowing exactly what you want.

Yeah. And, you know, it's also on the coach side of things to also become clear about what he wants from a client as well. Yeah, because that's something I see a lot of coaches get into trouble for is that they want to help everyone. Yeah. But even as a coach, you need to be conscious of who can I really serve best? And that's the place that I want to come from as well. And one of the things I realized that the people I want to serve best, you know, people who really, you know, have this passion,

spark yeah they always want to create something that would make an impact so that way i feel like you know i'm a part of something bigger than myself other than you know it's like maybe i don't know what to do those type of people don't really drive drive me yeah because i know we won't connect on that level and i see you guys have bleachers well yeah i enjoy coaching people who are into animation and who have that creative way of thinking yeah people who are really creative

Yeah. So that's another thing as well, because in a lot of my work, your imagination becomes very important for change. Yeah. So there's a lot of science that there's a lot of studies have been doing or be done around neuroscience. And maybe you guys have heard this one research where they had a group of basketball players where they had one one test group were literally practicing shots. Another test group was just imagining their self practicing shots.

and they record the time of imagining and actually practicing. And they had another test group that didn't do anything. And they realized the test group that was literally practice and the test group that was

using the imagination, the rate at which to improve was negligible. Yeah. Both groups improved significantly. Yeah. So in a lot of my work as like, I'm also a neuro-linguistic practitioner. A lot of my work as a neuro-linguistic practitioner is to help you use your imagination to do things even before you do them. And the crazy thing about this is that

It feels so naturally now when you go and do them as if you didn't, you have been doing it already. You know? So yeah, the client need to be clear about what they want from the relationship. And the coach also need to know, be clear about, you know, who's the best person that they can get, get value for, get results. That reminds me, what you just said reminds me of the movie, Old Boy.

Remember, did you see Oldboy? No, I've never seen it. That Korean movie where he's like locked up in a room for like what, like 20 years or something? He can't do anything. And all he does in that 20 years is shadow box. Oh, wow. Like in a room, right? By himself. And then when he gets out after those 20 years, he's saying to himself like, okay, 20 years of shadow boxing, does that make me an actual fighting expert now? Am I really good at fighting? Well, let's see. And then he just like beats up all these people. Yeah.

I need to watch that movie. Yeah, it's a classic. I think you'll probably like it. But yeah, I mean, I think there is a lot about the way our brains and our minds work that affect our ability and our potential that we have really yet to uncover. I think it's like we're just on the forefront of even just seeing how deep we can go in that rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. You know, this year I...

I started my master practitioners for neuro-linguistic programming. And one of the topics that we cover was hypnosis. You know, growing up as a kid, you know, you see hypnosis on TV and it seemed phony. Yeah. Yeah. But after I started reading and actually experiencing it for myself, I was like, wow, this is some really next level stuff.

And it made me scared in a way, and it made me excited in a way. Because this is a body of work that has been developed over years. And we see it on TV and people would make fun of it. But this thing literally is real. It definitely works. And

As an engineer, as a communication engineer, I remember having this one very interesting class about, it was about 4G. I'm not any conspiracy theorist or anything, but I remember this one particular class that we were doing on modulation. Yeah. And the whole idea is, is how do you take the information that is invisible and convert it in a form that is now humanly understand? Yeah. And in my head, I was like, wait a minute. So if we're taking, I can type information

Yeah. And then this device change the frequency of this input to an invisible signal. Yeah. And these are the same way it could be converted to the same wavelength that my brain is using. Can we actually send a thought to somebody? Like I actually asked that question and I'm looking at my teacher and

And I'm like, hmm, this is very interesting. Wait, am I understanding you because it's kind of like telekinesis kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, definitely like that. That's what I was thinking at that particular point in time. And that was like around, say, 2016, you know, undergrad. My communication engineering skills ain't that great. But I was just thinking if my little brain with my level of understanding is having a thought like this...

There's some professors, a group of professors somewhere who's really deep in this, knowing how to make this possible. And now we have COVID happening and we have 5G and you hear all these conspiracy theories. I'm like, hmm, very interesting. And even with hypnosis itself, it's just a matter of using language to embed ideas. Using your voice. You can use stories to embed patterns, embed a particular habit.

And that could be used for good and it could be used for bad. So it's really incredible of what's possible when you understand how human subjective experience works. We are just like computers. We have inputs and we have outputs. Our inputs, our eyes, our smell, what we feel. I just want to back up for one second. You just said something I just want to clarify again. You're saying 5G and COVID...

Right? What do you mean by, why is that interesting? Well, no, around that time when COVID happened and 5G was, there was some theories around 5G and how it's affecting what happened in COVID. So I don't know if there's any truth to that. So I was just trying that out. Conspiracy stuff. Yeah, conspiracy stuff. I was like, wait a minute, where are you going with that?

No, wait, I've never heard that conspiracy. But I always believe there's truth to every lie. Yeah. There's a seed of truth somewhere, right? Yeah, there's a seed of truth somewhere to every lie. Okay, okay, okay. Are there any conspiracy theories that you do believe in? Like, I love conspiracy theories.

Not any that I can put my finger on, to be honest. I'm always intrigued by them, but I never hold them as truth. Because they are theories. And theories, they would remain theories until they're proven. So none that comes to mind. What about you? What's a conspiracy theory that you hold? Hold on. You're opening a bottle right now.

The can is opening. I don't know. I mean, there are some that are really juicy. Like, you have the classic ones, like the moon landing, right? I mean, I just feel like you can go, like, especially if you go on YouTube and you can get convinced. Justin thinks the earth is flat. I'm convinced that you can be convinced of anything if you just spend enough time watching

watching enough videos, right? Because whether it's a documentary or people putting up videos, they can always do it in a way where it's always very convincing. But,

Like at the end of the day, it's not really true or there's a whole nother side to it that they just didn't present that you just weren't aware of. So it seems really convincing at the time, but when you learn all the facts, you learn, oh wait, that's not convincing at all, right? So I'm convinced you can be convinced of anything. And I think part of the problem that we're seeing a lot in society is a lot of people are go down these dark rabbit holes, right? And they become convinced of a lot of

crazy, ludicrous things. But at the same time,

It's easy just to cast things off and label them conspiracy theory. Yeah. When in reality, there are real conspiracies. Yeah. That have been proven to be true. Conspiracies have actually happened. Like crazy shit does happen in this world. Right. Yeah. And so that's what makes the water so muddy in terms of deciphering. Okay. What's real? What's not? Yeah. And at the end of the day, everyone just becomes confused. Yeah.

and everyone just wants to believe what they believe in, which is fine. Everyone has the right to believe in whatever they want, but it almost becomes religious at that point in time where it just becomes ideology. - Well, I feel like it's also like a thin line between conspiracy theories and like scam artists, right? Because actually what I want to try to link into back to what you're saying is just recently I was, I started watching this guy who was a scam artist, right?

And if I use what you're saying in terms of self-awareness, building confidence, just basically being a motivational person, but then they're scamming people. It's just like this fine line where...

you can take it to a dark side, you could take it to a positive side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the person I'm talking about is called the Liver King. Did you guys hear about the Liver King? Oh, yeah. He got exposed, right? He was juicing up. Yeah, so basically he was... So his whole thing was he grew a huge...

fan base and he was promoting like fitness and health you know just eating raw meat and liver especially liver right and his whole family's eating liver and this guy's jacked jacked right and he's like I never touched any PEDs or anything like that but he got exposed yeah and so but what I'm saying is that like he had a legion of followers that you know that grew or like Andrew Tate or you have you have a whole bunch of people that are out there now creating content and

that have a legion of followers that are very motivational or very, you know what I mean? So I'm just, it's just one of those topics I think is very interesting to talk to, especially you as a leadership coach, like those like fine lines between going to the dark side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or even Alex, who was the astrologist that we had on the show, he, this ties right into what you're talking about. He was saying that,

You know, astrology for a long time was kind of like this hidden art. Like they didn't want to teach it to too many people because when you have, when you know how to help people, you can use those same things to hurt people. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. It just depends on the intention behind it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's like, um, a two edged sword. Yeah. Like in, in the Bible, you know, that there's life and death in the power of the tongue.

And we can use word to hurt or we can use word to nurture. I think it's the same with a lot of these tools as well. And that's why I mentioned hypnosis as well, because even before learning what I'm learning now, I used to think it's a joke. Yeah. And realizing that, oh, wow, it's not really that much of a joke. There's actually use case of this work. And there's a group of people who have been studying and mastering it throughout the years.

Do you know Limei? No, I'm not familiar with Limei. She's a hypnotherapist we've had on the show before. Oh, awesome. Okay, wow, awesome. Pretty early on, a while ago. She was mentioning that not everybody can be hypnotized. Some people are a lot more susceptible. We tried it on him. She tried to hypnotize us on the show, but we did it kind of just...

For fun, because we know it requires a lot more, the setting. It's like, you can't just like sit here in a studio and just hypnotize people. Yeah. And a lot of it, we, you know, we all have choice. Yeah. Whether we believe it or not, we have choice. And even when it comes to,

marketing, manipulation, hypnosis. Yeah. If you, you only would be hypnotized if you want to be hypnotized. You know, it's like having this attractive girl who you really like. Yeah. You nod your head at everything you said because you want her, you have a desire for her. Yes. And the same thing in coaching as well. You know,

The people who change is the people who want change. Yeah. So it doesn't matter how masterful I am of a coach, unless somebody really want to change, they would never change. And it's so funny that we're saying this, like I was actually telling this to my girlfriend this morning, you know, unless you want to change, you'll never change. It doesn't matter how many coaches you see, how much therapy you do, you know, it's up to you. It's a really internal conversation you need to have with yourself. Exactly. It's an internal conversation and it's,

It's one I think we lie to ourselves really often about because, you know, just from my personal experience, you know, there's one like saying you want to change whatever that change could be. Maybe you want to lose weight, right? Or whatever it is in your life that you want to change, right?

There's a big divide between saying it even to yourself and really believing it. Yeah, yeah. And I used to do this to myself all the time. I used to look myself in the mirror and say things like, I want this. I want this. But I didn't because I knew if I really did, I would go get it. Yeah. Right? You would go and do it. Yeah, yeah.

Because the things that we're talking about aren't like physically impossible to do. They're possible. They're totally in the realm and realistic possibility of your capabilities. And we often say and just pay, like just say it. But I know deep down we don't really believe it ourselves. And until you really truly make that decision internally –

No matter what you're saying to anybody else, it doesn't matter. Yeah. And it's interesting that you say that. I usually love to reference our human experience and body as a computer. And you said something about saying it and then really believing it. And words are output. And my words would be your input. And then believe in it. How do you know when you believe it?

Yeah. Maybe it's a feeling. You have this feeling on the inside. And where do you have that feeling specifically? Maybe it's in your chest. Maybe it's in your head. Maybe it could even be on your leg. Yeah. So, you know, our body usually store those emotional energies in our body. Some people may have it even down in their toe. They just feel this feeling in their toe and they realize that's how I know I believe it.

Yeah, maybe you create a picture inside, actually. So we all have our own independent subjective experience. And this is along the work of neuro-linguistic programming. How you know something to be true is an experience that you create on the inside. And it could be a feeling in your body, a picture in your mind, or maybe something you hear in your ears. And what's interesting is that

This can be programmed into you. If I have to spend some time with you and I understand how you create a particular feeling, we can replicate that feeling for other things, literally. If you're willing to experience it. Can you share more about what you were sharing earlier about these feelings and then how this relates to neuro-linguistic programming? Because it's a term that I've heard before and it seems interesting, but it doesn't seem like

I haven't met that many people that understand it deeply or have used it, and I would love to learn a little bit more.

NLP for short is all about modeling human subjective experience. Yeah. So if you understand a human subjective experience, then you can change it. Yeah. It's just like, if you understand a machine, you can fix it. You can repair it. Yeah. And so there's a lot of different frameworks within that you can use. And when I was talking about feelings and emotion and what you're feeling about, there's one particular technique that we use is called anchoring. Yeah. And there's a lot of anchors, what you smell.

what somebody say, maybe the sound of your wife voice and anchors create feelings. So

we already do this naturally all nlp does is make you aware of what you're doing and just do it yeah consciously yeah so you can use anchoring to create feeling of joy or feeling of bliss once you've experienced it before i even feel enough confidence like i have this one specific anchor when i snap my finger i'll feel what confidence feel like yeah because maybe i've said enough

connect with the feeling and anchor it to snap in my finger. - And that's you, that's a real thing for you? - Yeah, that's a real thing for me. And because we're already doing it naturally, it makes it easy for us to do it consciously when we become aware. - You feel a feeling of confidence. So you must be really, you've been snapping your fingers like crazy.

I was like, I noticed that. I was like, subconsciously noticed that. Does every snap make you like 10 times more confident? Well, I don't know the number. I've never measured it, but it gives me that feeling. And it's not just a feeling. It's a physiological change. I open my chest. I go back. Can you imagine like, okay, so he's, imagine he goes into this conference, right? And he's got to speak to like 10,000 people. It's like the big time, his biggest thing. And he's literally going up there like...

that's cool though because it reminds me of like a video game and then like whatever mario brothers and then you go through and there's like an energy like pellet or something yeah and then you then you or pac-man and then you become super strong so does that really work yeah it works for me it works for me and it works for some people and for some people it doesn't

Because you got to be open to change, as I said. Because all there is, is change. We're in a constant space of change. Unless you're open for it, it won't work for you. And it was quite interesting. I had this one very interesting experience where I was working around my relationship with my dad.

Yeah. And the technique was done, but not to go into most detail. And then I came back and the coach asked me, um, what happened? And I'm like, nothing happened. I didn't feel anything like people having this experience. I'm not. Yeah. And then she, she asked me this question. She said, who, who do you need? Who do you think you need to forgive?

Yeah. And I'm like, who do I need to forgive? I'm like, I was a bit confused. And I start asking the question over and over and then I just start crying. Man, I just start weeping uncontrollably. And the reason why I start crying at that moment, everything clicked. When I was two years old, I experienced my dad hitting my mom for the very, very first time. And I never forgave them for that.

Yeah. Unconsciously, I held that grudge in my heart towards him for that. Because what I was coaching on was my relationship with him. Yeah. We talk and, you know, but something just felt off. And at that point, that opened up a space for me to start having more honest conversations with my dad. Yeah. Really tell him back about that situation. And it's so funny. I was two years old and I remember that. And when I brought it up to my mom, she was surprised that I remembered it.

And that's when I had having my own experience, I realized it's a matter of awareness. The moment you become aware of that thing that is creating the problem, now it changes everything because now I can change it. I'm empowered. I think there is a whole deep ocean of things that we have repressed, our subconscious, all of that, that

That hold us back or drive us even in some cases, right? Like a lot of, I think our motivations and our drive comes probably from these places and these recesses in our mind that we're just not unaware of. And it's scary to think about in a way. It's scary to think about for myself, like, okay,

What are the kind of traumas in my mind that I've repressed that hold me back? You got a lot. No one has as much as I do. But I think it also ties into the idea of our, you mentioned this, our subjective experience. Because

At the end of the day, is that kind of all we are? Because we're all kind of... If we're all together, we're all basically experiencing the same objective reality. But we're interpreting it and soaking it in in a very, very different way. Me and you, we can experience the complete thing, but come out of it with completely two outcomes. Yeah. Right? And ways of feeling about it. And that's a tricky one because...

I think like when you communicate with people, when you work with people, when you build relationships with people, it's that it's everyone's individual subject and the difference in everyone's individual subjective experiences. That's really, really tough to account for because there's no way you can really know. You can't go in the mind of another person. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. I so love everything that you're saying. Yeah. Because it's things that I've always been curious about.

you know, being able to go into the mind of someone else. Yeah. And when you, when you realize that, you know, my subjective experience is different from all three of yours, it makes you curious, you know, what, what exactly is just an experience over there? Yeah. Yeah.

And there's this thing that we learn even in NLP. Most of what I do is NLP man, so I'll be saying this a lot. It's all about perceptual positioning. What's it called? Perceptual positioning. So there's three positions. There's first position, which is my position. Seeing the world out of my eyes from my perspective and really experiencing what I'm experiencing.

Then the next position is second position, which is the person who's across from me, which would be you and, you know, experiencing the world through your eyes, what you're feeling and, you know, how you're taking in the world. And then there's third position, which can be Eric's position. Yeah. He's observing us, you know, seeing, understanding how he's observing us and what that would feel like, you know, and, and these are things that has been mastered on many different levels. Yeah. But it's all happening unconsciously. But the thing is, it comes with practice, right?

I can have an idea of what it feels like for you to be over there observing me. And just mirroring your body movement, the way your hands is here. Maybe how much time you're blinking your eyes, getting really connected to your breath and really feeling as you breathe. How does that make you feel as well? And there are people who's masterful at this and it's a practice.

And as we age, as we go through life, we'd always hear the older we get, the harder is it for us to learn new things. But that's a big lie, man. Our human body can learn new things at any particular point in our age. And for some stranger, the older we get, maybe it takes a longer time for us to adapt to these things, but it's still possible.

- Yeah. - I just think the older we get, the more stubborn we get. - That's true as well. - So we make that up in terms of, oh, I just can't learn anything anymore. Well, it's because you don't want to learn. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a belief. That's another belief. - And it makes sense to me because I feel like the older we get, the more we experience and our experiences do make us wiser, right? Do make us just more overall experience with life.

And so why wouldn't that make us a little more cocky, a little more stubborn and set in our ways, right? Like it's natural that it would. But yeah, I think old people, like an old dog can learn new tricks. And maybe that's just a story that we tell ourselves that we can't.

The meaning that we give to what we feel creates emotion. For example, I have a big speech. A hundred people and I'm anxious. I'm like, oh, I'm going to mess up. What if I suck? What are they going to say? These are thoughts going through my head. But physiologically,

it's the same physiological experience as if I'm excited. And if I start changing the conversation in my head, like, I'm going to kill it. I'm really ready for this. Like, this is my time. This is my time. I got this. Automatically, I'll start gradually starting to feel excited because of the meaning I give. And that's just one example. But that's how we create emotions on a fundamental level. The meaning that we attach to these feelings.

And when you physiologically copy another human being and then start

your own meaning to that feeling, yeah, you're going to create similar emotions or maybe create different emotions, yeah? So it's really interesting what our body does when we're not really paying attention. Yeah, it's so true. It's like almost like you're, it's a subconscious mimicking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And based off of the person you're talking to or interacting with, their tone, all of a sudden you get brought down or brought up. Mmm.

I mean, personally for me, I've been in this situation a lot where when people first meet me, sometimes they get a little bit, get caught off guard because I'm very open and kind of like rambunctious at times. - Well, you usually don't wear your pants either. - And 'cause I've got this so many times at work where I'm always meeting new people.

and I'll be like, hey, how you doing? And I'm very like, that kind of person. And they're always like, whoa, kind of back off a little bit, but always after a couple of minutes getting to know me. But is that with local Chinese? I'm talking about local Chinese. That's more of a cultural thing. I'm talking about local Chinese. Yeah, for sure, local Chinese.

And then usually I'll get like that little smile out of them a little bit afterwards. Cause I'm always trying to make people smile and like, like laugh and stuff like that. And then they always tell me like later on after becoming friends with them, they're like, yeah, I remember the first time I met you, I thought you were like crazy, but it got me out of my shell, you know? So, so it's, I think like for me as in giving that out,

I've seen that kind of result, but I can also see when other people, just like even before in the room, when you guys got a little bit into it, all of a sudden I started getting bringing down, intense here. Right. So yeah, I totally see that. And you have to be aware. Yeah. You gotta be aware. You gotta be 100% aware. And it's an art. Yeah. Like how you said you, when you,

come with your rambunctious way and people kind of back off when it comes to communication we need to be artistic with how we use our energy so if we see people are more closed we we we meet them where they are and we can start off close and lead them to a more open yeah where if it been but the thing is we got to be aware of this so that we know that we are consciously choosing to be closed

And we know in the next few minutes, once we start mirroring, they start mirroring, we are going to start opening and bring them open as well. Yeah, because now we are like a global village, per se. Yeah, we're engaging with people from different culture. Yeah, so much more often than we did before. And yeah, now we need to...

manage people who have different beliefs different values yeah in one room yeah look at us here having a conversation i'm from a small island in the caribbean and i'm sure when you guys met you or even though you're asians you were living in different parts of america as well yeah yeah are you uh are you a big believer in this saying like you know um but you know be careful who you who you surround yourself with

Like, you know, a lot of people who like just surround yourself with successful, ambitious people, right? And or just surround yourself with positive people, whatever it is. And, you know, make sure the company you keep around you is what you want to be. And then you will also become that. Are you a big believer in that? 100%, man. 100%. And it's interesting you said that. My granny used to always say that to me. Yeah. Be mindful of the company you keep. Yeah. And I was...

Thinking about, you know, what I want to achieve and thinking about what's the fastest way for me to achieve that particular thing. And the immediate answer that came to my head was environment. Yeah, environment. Yeah, just put yourself in an environment where people are already achieved it or just moving towards it. That really makes a big difference. Like I'll give you an example. In 2019, yeah, I left China to go back home. And because my granny passed away at that time,

And when I was home, 2020 COVID happened. So now I'm questioning what should I do? So I was like, okay, let me really give this coaching business thing a try. Yeah. So I decided to go full force. And at that point,

I didn't really know much about how to make money. School taught me about entrepreneurship, you know, how to manage people and all this stuff. But it never really taught me about making money. Yeah, so that part was challenging. Yeah, so I decided, you know what, let me find a coach, yeah? Let me find somebody who's really teaching people how to do this. So I did. Yeah, and at that point, I was charging $97 for my program for three months. And now I go in a group with all these other coaches and they're charging $3,000, $2,000. I'm like, what the hell?

hell's going on here yeah and i felt guilty for charging 97 dollars to be honest i thought i was charging a lot yeah and now i'm in this group of people who's to charging even more and i realized that yo i'm even as good as these people even better yeah so you know definitely had that imposter syndrome yeah but as time goes by i start raising my rates yeah and i realize oh people still paying 200 for a three-month fitness program

start raising my rates even more and people are still paying for this. And yeah, that self-efficacy, yeah, I copied from these people around me, their habits, their way of thinking and being. Yeah, so definitely your environment do have a major effect on you. And we talk about copying physiological behaviors. Man, you're doing that even when you don't know you're doing that. So after I learned about these things in books, I realized that

It was very important what I'm listening to, who I'm around, and even, you know, things that I'm looking at is very important for who I'm becoming. Because these things are dictating my subjective experience without me having a say in it. Yeah, so yeah, I'm 100% a big believer of, you know, surrounding yourself with a group of people who embodies what you want to be.

Yeah, the things that you want to have more of in your life. Or else, man, you will have to settle for what you're getting. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me. I just feel like it's got to be tough to balance, right? In terms of...

Because there's one side of it that just seems very opportunistic, right? Like, oh, if you see someone that kind of embodies in your mind what you want to be, your vision of success or whatever, oh, let me befriend that person and keep them around. And, you know, you keep doing that.

But versus just being friends with them. There's some people I really enjoy being around, I really like, but they're not necessarily my model of success. But I just want to be friends with them. And that's perfectly fine. As I said, we have choice. And there's a lot of different way of going about doing things.

you know, like, um, I, I'm a fan of Tim Ferriss. And one, one, the thing he said that, you know, when, when somebody asked him to mentor, to be their mentor, he'll, he'll ask them like for them to be his mentor. Yeah. Because this is a relationship. Yeah. And, and that's what I believe. And I believe in relationship. So when I see people who,

are doing things that i want to do and they're doing it on a whole new level yeah i'm coming from a space like yo i really want to get to know you yeah because maybe i think that's what i want but then i get to know you and then your crap in my book then i'm wasting my time yeah so there's always two sides to the coin right yeah there are people who can be opportunistic and really be strategic about it and then you can really be honestly genuine about wanting to understand you know what this person does yeah and how would they show personally

Because another thing about having goals and having ambition is that, yeah, you have an idea of what it is, but living it, maybe you don't want it. So that becomes very important. Yeah, it's not that sort of simple. Yeah. You know, like one way, you got to kind of,

peel things back a little bit and apply them. And one way, one element of it is just the inverse of it, which is for sure you don't want to spend time with people that don't represent what you're looking for. I think that's really important. I think sometimes the concept that you're talking about, Justin, because like we're talking about like one concept, but people write like 20 books on it. So it's kind of, it deserves some unpacking.

whatever that concept is, right? There's a lot to it. But I think we would all agree that you don't want to hang out with people that are like doing drugs every day. I mean, unless you want to do drugs, right? I mean, seriously, people who love doing drugs and they're cool with it, whatever, then they're going to go find people that do drugs because they have access to it. And at the same time, I think... So it proves the concept, right? Because if you do, you'll get drugs if that's what you want.

In a way it does. And they'll also reinforce your beliefs as well. They reinforce the values that you have as well. And then you'll hold those to be true. So when you apply the principle, then it's okay. Number one, you can probably sit back and reflect on, well, who do I actually spend a lot of time with? What kind of organization do I work with? What do I do on the weekends? How do I spend my time? Not just who I spend my time with, but how do I spend my time?

And then you can see how much coherence or congruence there is to kind of what you envision to be your best self, your aspirational self versus what you're actually doing. So I think that's probably something useful. And the other piece, it's maybe less opportunistic in the sense that it's not like...

um, so opportunistic. Like I'm going to go hang out with this particular person because he has something that I want. It's, I think it's more general. It's like, okay, you know, I want to get into fitness. Um, so I'd like to go and hang out with people who run or it's like just common interest, like a hobby or something like that.

And there is that natural gravitational pull, but I feel like what you're saying is, or what both of you are talking about is just being a little bit more mindful of it and understanding like what it is that you're kind of going after. And then you'll kind of find out because you might go and hang out with this group of people and then decide, yeah, that's not really for me. But I am curious to go back to all of this because there is sort of this

there was this unsaid thing in the beginning about maybe high performance. Maybe that's one of the themes. It's like, why is high performance so important to you? And I don't know, we're kind of struggling with it a little bit as well. It's like, we want to change, but do we want to change? We don't want to change. But all of it is generally like change to be better. Like no one's like, I just want to be more lazy. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we're pushing ourselves to be better, right?

And I'm curious, you personally, why that's important to you? And then why do you think it should be important to anyone? That's a really good question. And I like the first question, why high performance? And I remember the end of 2020,

When at that point in my life, I realized that I never wanted to be a fitness coach. Yeah, I love fitness, but I never wanted to be a fitness coach. So I realized I don't want to do this for business. And I was pondering, then what kind of coach would I be? Life coach didn't really seem like the thing that fit me. And then I remember reading this book from Brendan Burchard. It was the high performance habits, the habits of the world most extraordinary people. And I was like, that's it.

I'm going to be a high performance coach. And the reason why I want to be a high performance coach, because when I read that book, it was as if this is exactly what I personally need. Yeah. And the people who were studied in this book, these are the exact people who I want to be around. Yeah. So when I position myself as a high performance coach, personally, I'm literally hunting for my tribe. Yeah. Because growing up on an island, we usually see a small rock. Yeah. Yeah.

I was always a misfit, meaning the way I think was different. The things I say was considered to be stupid or outrageous. And I never thought, like, really, is something wrong with me? Until I moved outside and I realized, oh, there are other people who think, and it's a bit crazy, like me as well. And I'm like, wait, there's more of these people exist? So when I start reading, I realize, wow, there's even more of these people who I'm not immediately connected to.

So if I start having this conversation around high performance, I know there are people going to be like, oh, wow, really? You really believe those stuff too? So that's my reason for wanting high performance. And the next thing is, Eric, everything that I do, I do for my kids. And I don't have kids. And the reason why I say that because...

I can be very reflective in terms of, you know, looking at my own life and seeing where things kind of went sideways. And the number one reason was that, you know, things went sideways with my parents. Things went sideways with their parents and their parents before them.

And I'm thinking about, okay, you know, it would be really challenging for me to bring another human into this world. And then there are not things in place that is going to make sure that they're ready for this world. Yeah. A lot of people would look at the way how I grew up as being difficult, but the struggles that I've had was some of the best. Yeah. Whether it's, you know, my dad wasn't around, so I was free to roam and hang out with guys who I shouldn't hang out with, you know.

Most of my friends were doing drugs. Yeah. So sometimes I'm the guy who's moving stuff back and forth and it was dangerous, but guess what? It opened me to a world that most people doesn't know exists and is clueless of, you know? So my street sense was on point. Yeah. And the post I've become, yeah, it made me a bit more, as you said, I have that

EQ so I understand people a bit more I know when people are not honest I know when people are real yeah because I've been hanging out with real people and when I go to school and I see these rich kids I know when they're not real you know so I've had the opportunity of being in both worlds and in my head I'm like shit

I won't want my kids to do that, you know, but that was needed. So how can I create an environment for them where, you know, they are consistently striving to be more and not coming from a place of survival, but they are still grateful for what they have. Yeah. And that whole idea of consistent improvement and consistent making yourself better. I believe that that is the edge.

Yeah, because if I did grow up in a home where, you know, everything was normal and everything was neat and nice, I would have no desire to want more, would I? But because I grew up in a home where, you know, I got to survive and I got to get up and I got to go, I got to move. I have that hustler mentality. So how do we program that mentality in without, you know, leaving your kids exposed to, you know, the dangers that life have to offer? So that's the place that I'm coming from personally.

And when it comes to others and why I think others need it as well, you know,

it comes to a point in our life where we need to take 100% responsibility for everything that we're experiencing in life. Yeah. If, if, if your girlfriend or wife says something that offends you, what was your 1% part in that? Yeah. How could you have shopped better differently so that you won't create that? Yeah. So I think we need to be responsible for these type of behaviors, habits that we can create the environment that we want personally, instead of complaining and blaming everybody else. Yeah.

Because there are people who genuinely want to change and they don't know how to. Yeah. So that's my take on that. Oh, you're saying so many things. So many. Boom. So many. Yeah, right. So many. So many. Let's go to the one that I think Howie and I were jumping at before. You were talking about, you know, you view it in terms of your kids, but you don't have kids, right? Yeah.

Howie and I are recent parents. We have kids that are just a little over one month old now. Thank you. And we often talk about, half-jokingly, talk about, okay, well, how do we want to raise our kids? Do we want to intentionally give them some struggles early on just so, like you said, they bank that into learning?

Into their experience, right? Into their pool of experiences that they can pull on later and build that drive, that hustle. Or do we kind of want to just like pamper them and spoil them and just give them everything they want? Because that's kind of like what we as parents want to do, right? Like picture for a second, okay, you have a kid now.

What's your philosophy going to be? I'm happy that you asked that question because it's one that I always ponder. And we have this saying back home, and maybe you guys have heard this as well. Kids don't do what you say, they do what you do.

So as a father, it'll be my responsibility to become the model for Junior. So when he sees how I navigate the world, my habits, my beliefs, what I say, how I say, how I treat people, it becomes automatic for him. Yeah, I remember growing up as a kid and me and some of my friends, we were more free. Our parents wasn't really as strict as maybe another group of our friends were.

And it's very interesting that like when, when we reach high school, we realize that the kids on the block was more protected. Man, high school eat them alive. Yeah. And not eat them alive where they got bullied, but eat them alive where they went on a whole not an extreme because now they had freedom as a teenager. It doesn't never know what that was like. Yeah. So, so that's scary, you know? And, and,

When you're also protected, there are just certain struggles that you need to experience growing up. And it's a challenge to model that for your children. But I believe the best way is to be their best model. You be the model personally because they're going to copy you and they're always watching. And you can tell them,

stop playing with their cell phone but if you're playing with your cell phone man they're gonna want to play with their cell phone as well yeah so that's that's my take on that there's no golden nugget maybe in the next decade this come my conversation is gonna change about this isn't there a quote i mean maybe you're cool maybe you got this um something like like like tough time make tough

men or the tough men make soft times and the soft times make soft men. Something like that. There's this one author, Joseph Campbell, I don't know if you're familiar with him, the Hero's Journey guy. His body of work is really, really impressive. He came up with the whole Hero's Journey. It's a continuous journey of being a hero. You're leaving home. You're

learning something new, you fall into the dungeon, yeah, then you come back out, you learn new skills, you fight the dragon and you, you know, come back home and then you want to teach and then you go through the whole cycle over and over again. And what's, what's important about this journey is that

making sure that you have the skills that the hero needs to have to slay the fucking dragon. Because if you don't, the dragon is going to eat your ass. And that is life, right? If we're not responsible about who we need to be, the skills we need to have, the group that we need to be around, a dragon somewhere along your life is going to eat you up. That's very important. And that comes back to the whole idea of high performance as well. I'm the kind of guy, I'll say...

The kind of people I want around me is the kind of people, if I go into a particular area and a group of guys show up and they really want to front, the kind of people I want around me is the kind of people who won't budge, who would really stand firm, hold their face, and go back to back with these guys with me. A big one for me is a term that you've brought up repeatedly,

on this episode. And I think in terms like going back to the hero's journey thing, I think the hero to me has to be someone that takes responsibility. And you had mentioned that. And that almost resonates with me is I guess maybe, you know, the people I would want to surround myself with

are people who take responsibility. I mean, it's as simple as that. Like, I don't need too much from you, but as long as you take responsibility, you are the type that owns responsibility and not sheds responsibility. I think that I see as probably one of the single biggest things that you, like traits that you can have that really inspire change, because I think that the decision to change yourself

has to start with some sort of responsibility, right? Feeling a responsibility. If you don't, you'll never take that step to change in the first place. You might just say so, but you never really will.

Like even one thing that motivated me to get into coaching was the athletes who I admire. Yeah. I always ask the question, like these guys are the best at what they do. Why the hell do they still need somebody to coach them? Yeah. Even if they're not on a team, you know, coming up, they'll actually go and seek out the best coach so that they can improve their craft. Yeah. So, you know, and that's them taking responsibility of the results that they want to create. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, we were talking about the group of people who we hang out with. So I really love that you said that the group of people who you love is people who take responsibility. And this doesn't necessarily need to be somebody who have a million dollars or somebody who was driving a Bentley. It could even be the guy in the black who have netty and who live in a shack. Well, it goes back to what you even said about your friends. Like if someone, another group of people kind of

run up on you, you want to be surrounded by people who stand firm. They're standing firm, not maybe because they're not scared or they can fight or maybe they can't do any of those things. And maybe they are very scared, but they know they're responsible. Everyone owns that. They're responsible for your wellbeing. They're responsible for each other's wellbeing, for their own. So they know to make that decision to stand there. I think that all stems from that sense of responsibility. I think if you don't have that sense,

You would be the one to run. I don't know. It's funny. No, those are some interesting thoughts. And then I, like on a kind of more comical side, the three of us have been in situations where, you know, where we were in some confrontational situations. And I think that, you know, in addition to like taking responsibility and standing firm, it is nice if you actually can fight. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. And not just get like knocked out the first punch. Are you still practicing martial arts? What kind of martial arts were you doing? Taekwondo. Okay. Do you still practice? Do you still train? Not as often as I should. I must be honest. One of the things I try to do is to keep my body in a state. So when I start training again, it's quite easy. Oh, wait. Taekwondo. Yeah, yeah.

Really? This guy. This guy. You knew it was coming, Ali. You knew it was... You were just waiting. He loves to joke and laugh at me because when I used to study Taekwondo, because you have... I don't know when you study, but when I study, there's fighting, there's forms, and there's breaking. He always has to explain himself. Sparring, sparring, poomsae. Yeah, yeah. And I was all about the forms. How is the classical example of where the learning led to knowledge but not to action?

Literally, like I totally forgot he did Taekwondo because all my memories of it just like us being in some kind of confrontation and him being the first to go down. I'm like the smallest of the three of us by far. The skinniest, the lightest weight, the weakest.

But no, he was always the first one to go down. But he knows all the forms. But I must say, I must say, taking responsibility is also knowing when to fight and when to run. Yeah, that's also important. Yeah, it's not just about, if you have not a choice, then you have to fight. Yeah, but if you do have a choice not to fight, don't fight. Like point blank. And Sun Tzu said that in his artist war as well. So,

But there comes a time when you have to take a few punches and you have to give a few as well. And even, it's interesting, when I started Taekwondo, I started to learn because I want to learn how to fight because I was a small guy. And I know growing up where I grew up, you'll have to fight eventually. Was it a dangerous place to grow up? Yeah.

somewhat yeah it was quite dangerous yeah dangerous is quite relative but maybe come for for most people you would say it's quite dangerous compared to like jingan district yeah compared to jingan district yeah yeah yeah so when i when i started fighting actually learning taekwondo i fought less

I got into less confrontation. Because now, as I said, awareness. I now become aware of what's possible. I start to realize that I can hurt people to a point where even though they throw a first punch, then I would be responsible because maybe I can kill this individual. 100%. Exactly. Is that you, Howie? Is that why? Exactly. So how do you, like, what are your days like?

Well, usually I'll be up at 6.30. I'll get up, pray, meditate. And after, I'll hang out with my girlfriend a while. After, maybe it depends on the day, we'll go for a walk or we'll do breakfast. And then we go straight into work or maybe...

I'll do some stretching. Yeah. If, if not that, then, you know, just, just enjoy the day. Yeah. And at round nine, usually have my first coaching session, you know, kick that out. So all that was before nine o'clock. Yeah. In my mind, I was, I was expecting him to say, so around like one 30, I would have my first coaching. So all that happened already. And then nine o'clock. He listened to the whole day's events before. Now that is productive and efficient. Well,

Well, I've had my awakening moment, you know, after, you know, going through that state of depression and having to pull myself out. My anchor was that 5 a.m.,

So I realized that, you know, this is my thing. Yeah, I don't work up at 5 a.m. now, but I know when I wake up early, I feel more productive. And sleeping earlier. Yeah, and sleeping earlier as well. And that really helped with your depression? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And the funny thing that you're saying, depression, is really, really weird, hair and depression. I never thought I was depressed. I never even know that was a thing.

until learning what I'm learning now, you know, I realized, oh, wow, I was depressed, yo. Yeah, feeling hopeless, feeling like you want to take your own life and stuff like that. So, yeah, yeah. How else, I mean, I don't mean to dredge it up, and I know we're kind of wrapping up here, but like, you know, I just, it's something that, you know, is powerful to me is like, you know, depression, like how else did you pull yourself out of it? Or did it just gradually kind of fade away? Yeah.

Or was it all just about the working out at 5 a.m. thing? How did you really pull yourself out of that dark hole? I think it was for us making a conscious decision.

yeah to move yeah it wasn't even thinking about the dark hole or even what the other side was looking like it's just knowing that i know i want to change i know i don't want to be where i am yeah and just consistently getting up and moving and i was having a conversation with an old friend and i was going back to that same story

And one of the things that I did to increase my probability of getting up at five, even during the winter was the night before I'll make sure my workout clothes is right next to my bed. Like my, my clothes are my shoes right next to my bed. So that means when I get off my bed, it's going on a

moving if that's not there there's a high probability i'm staying in bed yeah yeah like any little resistance yeah any little resistance yeah it's already cold yeah so that was a really big anchor for me personally and it's so funny like i'll tell people that you know the feeling never goes away yeah it's just that i've get to a point in my life where i can handle this now and i'm i'm in control yeah because there are times when i feel like you know i just

I just don't want to do anything. Like, why am I doing all this? You know, like, I just want to chill. And then I'll maybe get to a place of boredom and I realize, okay, what's the easiest thing I can do? Get up in the morning, go and walk.

Get up in the morning, go and walk. And after I start walking, I'll start running. After I run, I start working out. And then, yeah, then I'll be back again. Yeah, so the idea is to find the smallest, simplest thing that you can start doing. And it doesn't have to be working out. It doesn't have to be running. It doesn't have to be waking up at five. It could be anything. It could be drawing. It could be

Having a particular time where you just sit with your kids and just being present with them. Yeah. And even this year, I've also tried to make a more commitment to be more mindful, having a mindfulness practice because my body was created from a state, a place of pain. Yeah. And if that pain wasn't there, I wouldn't get involved in fitness as, as much as I've done. And I was thinking to myself,

Like, what if I made a conscious decision to really work on my mind as much as my body? How much more would I be able to do? Yeah, so another thing that I've been trying to practice is being pretty mindful, you know, having time where I literally meditate.

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be meditate. Maybe meditation can be something that we're trained around there, but just being present, man, like really just being there with yourself. Yeah. What are you thinking? Feeling your toes, become aware of your breath, listening to your heart. Just, just, you know, just being. And I think it's something that is being downplayed a lot. And as I said, it's a practice because when you develop a practice for being, when you're in all the noise, being becomes easy.

Yeah. Because you've been practicing. Yeah. Yeah. I have two reflections and I know we're, first of all, we, we tend to have like longer form. And while I, you know, I enjoy our sessions, I have a little bit of like impatience and like ADHD. And so most of the time I'm like,

looking at my watch and I'm trying to give hand signals like, hey, we've been doing this like two hours. Today, the time literally went by. I feel like we're just in the first half of the show. So for me, I know it's probably a long trip to get over here, but I truly enjoyed it. Yeah, me too, me too. In a way that it helped me overcome any kind of normal impatience that I have. But I had two thoughts before maybe Justin closes this out. And one is just,

you know, you made the comment that you never really even realized you were depressed until you really got depressed. So there probably was this kind of low grade lingering thing, maybe at different points in your life. And maybe we all have some of that. And I have to think that if you're like that, like there are certainly like naturally optimistic people are just always happy. And like, I don't know if those people have that thing in them that will drive them to go

to constantly want to change themselves to aspire to high performance because it's almost like this drive that you have or that we have, I feel like I have a little bit of it, is it's an antidote

to that negative feeling and that kind of that depression that can spiral on itself. It's not a static thing. It's not like it's just a little thing there. Other things in your life, other setbacks can spiral

can amplify it. And so it's almost like this constantly learning new things, trying to improve yourself, pushing yourself is an antidote. It's to kind of inoculate yourself against this possibility of it going the other direction. So you need to maintain some movement because it could go either way. And I think...

you know, and I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that people are just naturally happy. Maybe they just, that's a more of a steady state. But if they do hit some kind of major setback, that sometimes triggers them then to get into this mindset. Um,

And then I think the other piece that you mentioned that I really liked, and I've always felt, I've always thought this in terms of fitness, because I do some of the same things. Like, you remove any type of mental resistance. Because, like, waking up at five or six or whatever, it's just hard enough. So if you have to go and find your clothes when it's fucking freezing in your house, like...

that's a barrier and all of these barriers eventually you'll fail at one of them and you won't go out like oh i didn't book the appointment or like i don't have my shoes ready like there's a million excuses and so you're trying to remove all those excuses so that okay you maximize the chance that you're going to go out and do it and sometimes you still don't end up doing it the thing that i did in addition to having my clothes ready

was that I would just tell myself, in my old building, I lived on the whatever floor, 20-something floor, and I said, just take the elevator down to the bottom of the building, okay? Just put all your stuff on and go down there. And once you get down there, if you really, like if it's a shitty day, you don't want to do it, then just go back up to your apartment.

And I don't recall a single time that if I made it down to the bottom that I didn't work out because I would be like so fucking embarrassed. I'm like, your ass fucking went down on the ground floor and you went back to, what a fucking loser. The walk of shame. Right. And so I can kind of relate to that. And,

It's hard to go from zero to a hundred instantly. Anything requires momentum. And so like putting your clothes on, that was like a little bit of momentum. Then you get down to the ground floor, take the elevator and all of those baby steps are easy. Then go walk five minutes or 10 minutes. So none of that, all of that stuff is like we can do without too much mental resistance. It's when you think about, oh, I'm gonna go sprint for 10K.

then you create that sort of mental barrier. And so I do very much buy into this notion of creating these small, simple steps to generate momentum. And it doesn't even necessarily have to be fitness related. It's just like we wake up and we're groggy and we're not in this highly motivated state. And if we stay that way all day, we'll just get less and less motivated. But just do like, you know, take a shower or whatever it is, do little things that are somewhat enjoyable,

And then eventually you'll kind of build up momentum. And then one thing will lead to another. And I think that's a metaphor for even people who start successful businesses. Yeah, sure. They didn't like...

you know, go into and be like, I'm going to start a $20 billion business. They were just like, I'm just going to go in there and get my first customer. And so they broke it down to a step that was achievable and gave them some positive like feedback or recognition. And then it kind of built up. So a lot of times I think we, we, we, we overcomplicate things. We make it, we make it into this huge dragon.

And there's this children's book that I can share in a bit. And it's just about like, when you don't acknowledge that dragon, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And it basically gets to a point where you can't even handle it. And so it's about actually fighting those little dragons every single day. And then eventually you'll be able to kind of get to the big ones. But I find myself struggling with this thing. And I've achieved...

very small amount of positive momentum. So I know it's possible, but I still continue to struggle with it. Mm-hmm.

What would you say is the thing specifically that you struggle with? What specifically is that? Making it too big. Rather than just starting and not thinking about it in such a complicated, overwhelming way. Just saying, okay, just take the first step. Don't think about trying to finish everything at once. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that you said that. And I think it's something that everybody struggles with.

Yeah. Yeah. This is like, it's a norm. It's a human experience. And I love this one concept that this one guy I heard shared and he was talking about time horizon. He said, if you look at the most successful people, look at Elon Musk, for example, his goal is what?

yeah to put humans on mars right colonies yeah set up calling in mars and that's like a 100 year time horizon not even in his time yeah so if you look at the thing that would really get elon musk pissed uh get elon musk worked up is you know it has to be something really big yeah to really throw him off and if you look at a homeless guy

Yeah, his goal is what? To find food or find a shelter. And that's like in the day. Yeah, so you can just imagine how stressed he is to really, you know, get into that flow. And sometimes what happens is that we give ourselves unrealistic timelines for the things that we want to create. Yeah, like you're talking about that big task, maybe you give yourself a week.

And when that big task realistically needed at least three weeks to a month to accomplish. So it always comes back to awareness. Become aware of

The resources that you have right now and the time you give yourself to complete that thing. So we got to be real with ourselves. And that comes through practice. And the best place to look for resources is from what you have already done as somebody else. Who is an expert in this particular thing? And this is where there's a thin line between coaching and mentorship as well. You mentor somebody who have already done what you did and they guide you into how you can get that done.

So that's one approach, definitely. And there's this other quote that I like. You know, most people would usually...

overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in three. Yeah. And even for me, myself, you know, I would see myself getting worked up about, you know, what I need to accomplish. Yeah. I want to finish a presentation. I give myself 30 minutes and this presentation would literally take me two hours to complete. If I literally give myself that two hours, I would have been a bit more at ease. I realized, you know, okay, let me just first get the outline done. Okay. That would take 30 minutes. Then let me, yeah, like that. So yeah,

We got to be aware of the timeline that we give ourselves to get these things done. And I think that way, that kind of made the jargon a less big, yeah? Let's leave it at this, okay? And I know this is probably another huge can of worms. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you have a definition for success? Like, what does that look like for you? For me personally, that is peace.

Yeah. Peace. Yeah. Peace. Yeah. And when I say peace is, is like when you said about, you know, is one thing to say it and the next to believe it, but to embody it. Yeah. Being at peace in my heart with myself and with everything that I'm engaging with. Yeah. And you know, you're right. Success changes for everybody else. Everybody else have their own definition. I know. And I also like to say that, you know, setting goals is,

are useful but they're not important yeah because when you set a goal it's motivating something to move towards and you get excited it becomes a really useful tool but when you get to the goal there's something else you want to aspire to something else and that's fun and it's good to have fun it's fun to bring that fun energy so we go back to the whole idea of responsibility we gotta be responsible about what are the things that really create that type of excitement in our life yeah if it's for you setting goals is your thing

Set goals, man. If setting goals is not your thing, don't burst your head about that, but figure out what your thing is. And it comes all the way back to self-awareness. Become aware of you, what works for you, and how you can get your juices flowing as much as possible. It's really interesting that you're saying that to you, success is peace. Because I was reading this article about how the general public

If they were asked, what do you think the rest of the world rates are the top three qualities of success? And in general, people would reply, wealth, fame, you know, that power, these kind of words that we all come to know. But then if you were to ask the same people, okay, now for you,

Personally, what do you think success is? And the most popular one is family. Love, like a good family, for example. And so it's just really weird. And then the last on the ranking is wealth, fame, power for the general public. And it's just so funny because as a society, you get kind of...

almost brainwashed in a way, right? People mix up the means with the end. Yeah. And I think part of the study was about how the younger generation now are even getting veered more towards the wealth, power, fame with social media, TikTok and all that stuff. And it's almost blinding it to the way where now they really are believing that as opposed to our generation, a little bit older generation,

are not like that which actually that's very interesting because because they view those things new things as like the new metrics of success i think it's even more and more discouraging because when they find out oh i can't be famous oh i can't make 10 million bucks or like or or not they can't but like they're nowhere near it right

Then they get very discouraged. And I think it also creates this whole, like in China, we call it the tamping kind of culture, right? The lay flat thing. Because they're like, well, if I can't get there, why even bother trying anymore? And then they lay flat. It's like this brainwashed projected ways of living, you know? And another scary thing is when they get there and they realize this is not what I actually wanted.

Yeah. That's another scary thing. Yeah. They've worked so hard, spent so much time and have been getting more sacrifice. Yeah. And then they find out, oh, I'm here. Yeah. I'm still not happy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a scary thing. Wow. I think that's the most negative note we've ever had to show. Yeah.

I came here for a real conversation and I wasn't even one. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Hey Dino, it's a pleasure having you on the show. You got to come back sometime. You're not far. Yeah, definitely. There's so much more to talk about. If you ever miss Shanghai, just come back. Yes, sir. We're over here. Whenever you feel like drinking, come over here. Okay, I'll come and test my limits.

get you drunk on the show that'll be fun that'll be a special one the first the first episode was to just feel the vibe the second episode yeah we're gonna turn things up a notch yeah turn it up a notch okay you promised you promised alright well thanks again for coming man thanks for having me alright that's it for today folks I'm Justin I'm Howie and I'm gonna be snapping my fingers Eric alright be good be well peace

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