#48. Ben Ivey: Enough Is Enough
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What's up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. You can always reach us at thehonestdrink at gmail.com. And if you've been enjoying the show, go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe.

Now, our guest today is an entrepreneur lifestyle expert. He's also an international speaker and mentor. He specializes in helping overwhelmed entrepreneurs create their ideal lifestyle in the quickest, most sustainable way possible. So this includes a lot of things from relationships to managing stress, building habits, identifying patterns,

really just helping you live a more fulfilled life. He's a really cool dude. I feel he's genuinely trying to help people and he's got a lot of really valuable things to say that are definitely worth taking the time to think more about. This was a great conversation. He's currently in the UK, so we did this one online over Zoom. But without further ado, please give it up for Ben Ivey. ♪ I love you, I love you, I love you so bad ♪

wipe your camera Justin your camera's damn dirty oh now it's even worse like your mind

let me uh so wait are people seeing video as well as audio or is it just uh yes we're gonna we're gonna record the video of the zoom cool sounds good are you standing i am yeah i find it easier than sitting down he's so good he's squatting the whole time i'm actually i'm actually just squatting right now it's just a little bit he is it's just gonna be a horse stance the whole the whole the whole podcast

It's crazy. Just doing some Wim Hof breathing whilst I do it. It'd be great. Okay. Cheers, guys. Virtual cheers. Virtual cheers. Virtual cheers. Got your little protein shake on? Are you sponsored? Are you sponsored by Hydrate? Yeah, that's the sponsor of today's talk. It's Hydrate. I think it's pretty intense what you do.

It's pretty fascinating because there's one thing that you said in one of your interviews that really hit me hard and I felt had a lot of depth into it. And I feel like it's kind of fitting maybe to start off the conversation asking you this, but you kind of, you said like you wanted to help people, you know, help people who are in like the worst places in their lives.

Right. People who are like really down in the dumps. You know, a lot of talks we have in this episode is more kind of everyday, you know, positive mindset, good habits, self-improvement, health and wellness, all these kind of things. But I think with your experience and your mission, you're really trying to help people who are in really, really bad places sometimes personally. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. So how did you get started on all this?

Sure. So previously I was running a business in Silicon Valley. And then what happened was I ended up losing my father to suicide. And that was pretty crazy because I saw him the day before. We were best friends. Like we were so close. He was so much fun, hilarious, a real entrepreneur. And it just entirely shook my world where...

I thought I knew someone so well, but it was as if there were these parallel worlds, like one which people would see and one which people wouldn't. And that really took me on this journey of discovery, number one, trying to figure out what happened. And then also, was it just my dad that experienced this or are there other people as well who experience these periods of depression whilst everyone else thinks they're fine?

So what, I mean, how long ago was this? So that was about six years ago. Wow. So what would you say you ended up learning from that experience then? Because you said that was a trigger for you and that kind of set everything in motion in terms of the journey you're on now, the work you do now. I guess, you know, from a personal standpoint, what can you say you've learned so far? Well,

I think one of the hardest things when dealing with a death in general or even something as bad as a suicide is how do you deal with it in a way which you're meant to? Because I feel like everyone has their own perspective on how to deal with things. So people will say you have to go through these five stages of grief or you don't want to get over it too soon.

And I found that one of the hardest things for me was being able to process the emotions that I was experiencing, whilst also being there for my family, like my brother, my sister, my mom, and all the other people around me. And I found it really, really challenging. I think if I'm honest, one of the hardest things that I experienced was my parents got divorced when I was 15. So there was always negativity there. And what was really hard is that my mom didn't get at the funeral. I

I had to be there with my family and it's always a very challenging period of time where you're at the funeral, there's people coming up to you saying sorry, like I can't remember some of them, they remember me and I'm attempting to be there for them. And then doing the eulogy was by far the hardest speech I've ever had to do. I've done a TEDx in Chinese, like that's a piece of cake compared to doing a eulogy for my dad. Like it was just incomparable.

So then when people ask me, you know, what's it like getting on stage in front of 400 people? I'm like, it's pretty easy compared to that because I have something to compare it to, right? But on the journey thereafter, it took me to a variety of different places. So I went to different self-development talks. I went to events. I started learning neuro-linguistic programming. It's kind of how the patterns of the mind, how they work. And I was a trainer in Shanghai.

I was teaching it, getting really good at it. And I thought one of the solutions to it was to be happy all the time and conditioning myself to do that. And the issue arose is that there was only so much emotion that I would experience. Like something bad could happen and I wouldn't really treat it as a negative way. I was kind of neutral.

And the issue was that although I wouldn't experience any negative emotions, I also wouldn't experience any of the higher emotions as well. And I really felt like I was just lacking that depth in life.

From there I realized I really got an issue. I don't want to go through a place where I'm emotionally detached to everything going on. Or you're just like numb to everything, right? Yeah, like I was numb and I could reframe things very quickly and I could change things. I just wouldn't experience these depth of these negative emotions because I wouldn't allow myself to feel it. And

When just going back, when dealing with suicide and depression and things like that, one of the key things that I used to do that I thought was very helpful was journaling about all the emotions that I was experiencing. So some days I'd feel angry, some days I'd feel sad. And I ended up just writing everything down. And I thought that was actually one of the best ways for me to deal with it, of just writing constantly all these things that were going on.

But when I got to that point of feeling emotionally detached, feeling quite numb, I actually went to an event by Tony Robbins. It was called Unleash the Power Within. And have any of you guys attended a Tony Robbins event?

No, but... Heard a lot of stories. Yeah, we've heard a lot of stories about Tony Robbins, though. So how was it? What was that experience like? Sure. So I flew down from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I paid like $1,500 for my ticket and I'm ready to go. I'm like, this is it. Let's do this. It's getting on.

So I arrived and I walked straight to the front and it's a huge stadium. There's like thousands of chairs. I remember walking straight to the front and sitting literally in the second row. I won't go first row, I'll go second row. Sit down and I'm like, I'm ready. And a person comes up to me and they say, excuse me, sir, you're in the wrong seat. And I go, I don't think so. I paid 1500 for this. I'm gold.

And they said, this is platinum. I said, what the hell's platinum? How much is platinum? Right? They told me how much platinum was. I was like, there's not a chance I'm platinum. I'll say that. How much is platinum? Like 25,000. It's just crazy. It's crazy. Jesus.

So is it a one day event or does it, is it a multiple day? It was a, it was a three and a half day event that I attended. So I was literally at the very back. Like I couldn't even see the stage. It was crazy. Like I've literally made a thousand five hundred. I'm watching a YouTube video pretty much like just like on the screen. It was wild. And I remember turning to the, to the guy next to me and thinking, okay, it's not that bad. Surely I can get a breakthrough here. And I was speaking to the guy next to me.

I was asking what he does. And he was saying that he was just recovering from being a drug addict. He's been doing heroin, all these different things. He's like, yeah, man, I just...

I just felt like I really need a breakthrough. Why are you here? I'm like, I'm numb. Like it was, it was pretty crazy. And it was through that experience. And I remained open that we did something called a fire walk where you walk on these like hot coals and it acts as a metaphor for breaking through something in your life. And for myself, it was to be able to open up more emotionally and,

And through that experience, it enabled me to then start helping people on a deeper level, because I found that when I was coaching people, I was still helping them a lot. But I found like there was a depth that I couldn't take them. There was something missing from the conversation that I feel that I couldn't really have that genuine connection. And after that, it

Completely transformed how I do things and I learned different techniques. I learned from Tony all different stuff and from there I basically expanded my business started helping more people and it's brought me to today So how much would you say that Tony Robbins event really helped you at the end of the day? Like is it was it worth the money in your opinion? Yeah, it was definitely worth the money I think the most important thing is that I went there with an intention and

And I knew that I would gain that intention. And I think that he has a lot of different things in place. I think Tony is amazing what he's doing. Like he's doing a Zoom virtual 3D event. If you watch the YouTube video, it's unreal some of the ways in which he's giving back. And I think there's a lot of things he does, which is amazing. I think there's some things that can be improved, but I think that's with everything that happens in life. But certainly at the time, it was exactly what I needed to move to the next level.

So when you said you were walking over coals, like you were physically walking over hot coals? Yeah, so I volunteered at quite a few of the different events and I've done the fire team and it is crazy what you do. You basically build a huge fire with all these massive bits of wood. It burns down and then you have all these coals at the bottom.

and then you put the coals in the wheelbarrows and then they have these uh artificial well it's grass and you roll it out and then you put all the coals on top and people just walk straight over and they don't burn their feet because they're in the right state it's pretty amazing like if you look into fire walking events they will do the same thing and it's purely because you're so focused that you don't notice what's happening a pretty crazy experience wow yeah that's pretty crazy so like

I think a lot of us who live life, right, we're just looking for answers, right? We're looking for answers on how to be better, how to do better. You know, whatever you're doing in life, we're kind of just seeking these answers. And your job right now, I guess, is a lot to do with helping people find these answers for themselves, I guess, coaching them through it, motivating them.

But how much of it is also really just about your own personal growth and personal journey doing this? Because to me, it sounds like you were triggered by earlier events in your life, traumatic events in your life, and it kind of set you down this path. And is the work you do right now kind of tied to your own seeking of answers in a way?

Yeah, I think it certainly was to begin with. And I think one of the hardest things that I had, and I genuinely think a lot of coaches out there or people that want to help also experience is wanting to help someone, but also needing to monetize on that to be able to live your life as well. And one of the biggest challenges that I faced is when I work with people who are in these very

very challenging situations. Very often they're not in a financial place to afford high fees or to start to move things forward. So one of the best differentials I made was a give back versus a business. And what I found is that I work with people and I give back to them and I do whatever I can to help them in their lives.

And then I also monetize on other things where business owners who are doing very well, they're stressed and I can help them move forward. And that's been a very sustainable way for me to move forward. And the answers that I've seeked along the way, I can then help others to overcome those challenges.

what are some of the biggest issues that you've seen working with clients? Or in other words, actually let me ask this other question first, which is going back to kind of like

people beginning in pretty terrible places in their lives or when they're hit rock bottom. What are some examples in terms of experiences you've had with people you've worked with or people around you in terms of the kind of depth in which they started or like the kind of, like how bad was it where they started? You know, like can we get some context there? Yeah, of course. So let me give you an example. So I,

volunteered at one of the events in Los Angeles for Unleash the Power Within, actually the same event that I attended. And I was working with a variety of different volunteers. There's probably about 500 people who just give their time for free. And one of the guys I met was a man called Edwin. And he and I got on like fire. He was probably in his 50s, but we had a great laugh together.

And I knew him for probably about two and a half days until he asked what I did. And I was explaining what I did and he looked at me and he said, "Well, Ben, I'm suicidal." And I was thinking, "What? Like, this is crazy. I've just spent two and a half days with you. You seem like such a bubbly character. What's happening?"

And I remember being in a three-tiered stadium with Tony's there and his trainers and it goes up in these tiers and kind of like a concert where when you enter, you've got these huge walls on either side and then you go up to your seats and we were standing in between there. So there's music going on and he's telling me about these challenges that he's facing. And for him, he had a billion dollar business.

Lost everything. His wife had an affair. His best friend stole his private jet. Like just those things that I thought were just crazy. Like this is literally like the most crazy story I'm hearing right now. That's like a TV show. Yeah. Honestly, unreal. And I start talking to him. So what do you do now? And it's nothing. I've, I've been on edge. Like I feel like giving up and it was one of those crazy experiences. And yeah,

One of the things that I did there was a technique and I got him to close his eyes and we figured out when was the first time he was suicidal. Very often when people get very suicidal or depressed, there's often a trigger point that happens when they're younger. And he remember when he jumped off the bed and she attempted to get himself and just smashed his face in the glass. And that was actually one of the trigger points that stopped him. And that was one of the things we worked on just then.

And then at the end of the event, we ended up going for a glass of wine on a rooftop somewhere. And when we were chatting, I was saying that I'll happily work with him for free. I think it'd be a great experience for me to be able to help him. And working with him was probably one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had because seeing someone...

who is so lost with so many different aspects affecting their psyche to go through different stages has been pretty amazing. So one of the hardest things that I think people face when they are struggling is this story that they tell themselves.

Very often in life we have a story that repeats whether you're a victim, whether you're a hero of your own story and it's very often the story that we see repeating and being able to change that story is amazing because it gives the ability to you to move forward in a very different way.

So one of the main things that we spoke about was meaning. For example, he would see a skyscraper and think, I used to own one of those. And then he'd feel bad, right? As opposed to giving it a different meaning of saying, that's fantastic, I could work towards it or changing that meaning in a different way to allow him to experience different emotions.

Can you say that a lot of what you're doing is actually changing the way your perspective and that story that you tell yourself? I mean, changing that to benefit yourself, right? Because a lot of times we get stuck in our own narrative and we believe what we tell ourselves, even if it's really negative. Yeah, most certainly. I think that...

When we look into our minds and how we're all programmed, generally speaking, for the majority of the human race, we realize that our minds are not built to be happy, right? We're built to survive. If you look at the generations with how we've been created, we're constantly looking for things that are wrong. So what happens is in a society where we're pretty much safe, we think about other things to protect ourselves, right?

So it's actually going against the preconditioning of our mind to condition yourself to look for the things that are right, to allow yourself to move forward and gaining those perspectives and catching yourself when you're doing something wrong really allows you to move forward in a much more sustainable way. I think it's also really tied to like perspective, right? And mindset is really tied to

what you view as your own identity, right? We get stuck. I feel like, and I've caught myself a couple of times in this where you get caught up in your own identity and you believe that it's this, your fixed identity, this is who I am.

And all of a sudden, all your beliefs and your entire outlook is influenced by that identity. So for example, the guy you were just talking about, his identity was this successful businessman, millionaire, whatever. So his entire outlook, whenever he looked at things, even if he had lost his fortune, was still, I'm a successful businessman, I should be having these things. These are things that I used to have or I lost.

So I feel like a lot of it is like our identity should almost be fluctuating, I feel. And we should be very self-aware about...

you know, what we are. We are never fixed to any certain profession or calling. We're kind of, we're human beings, right? And we're going to be always influenced by our environment, things that happen around us and our experiences. And those experiences are always going to change. So the way we view these things almost has to be malleable and flexible to that. Otherwise, we're always going to be in a way going against the grain or fighting the current.

Is that accurate to say? Yeah, most certainly. One of the phrases or terms that I've used to explain exactly what you're mentioning is an externally linked identity. Very often I see people linking who they are to something outside of themselves. For example, their business success, their marriage, their children, the amount of money in their bank account. And what happens is when you have something that you link to yourself outside of your control, it can fluctuate no matter what is happening.

So very often when we're speaking about identity and we ask the question, who are you? I often flip the question around. And I think when someone asks, who are you? We very much look at the past to define who we are. Whereas if you always look to the past to define who you are, how could you be the person you need to be to live the life you want in the future?

So one of the questions that I often pose to people is who must you become in order to live the life that you desire? And what is very specific about that is about become and being. Very often people feel like they have to do a certain thing in order to be a certain way.

And I challenge these people that we're a human being, not a human doing. And very often we can encapsulate those traits that we want to develop in the future right now. And it can enable us to move forward in a way where we are really experiencing life at a whole different level. Can you clarify that a little bit? I'm a little bit confused in terms of this idea of becoming versus just being.

Is that just, yeah, is it just more of a urgent, like a sense of urgency instead of putting it off to be like, oh, I can become this later. And it's just more of a realization like, oh, I can become this now if I just take some action. Is that what you mean by that? Sure, let me clarify. So very often when I work with an entrepreneur, for example, they want to be a successful business owner. They want to be able to inspire other people. And what I share with them is that

If you were that person already, what would you be being this different? For example, a lot of people say, I'd love to be a leader. I'd love to be able to inspire. I'd love to be able to be more grateful for where I am. I'd love to be more of an influence. And what I said to these people is, if those are what you want to be, what would happen if you were those things now? If you started to be a leader, if you started to be more influential, if you started to be an inspiration?

And what happens is this jolts someone's mind to think about what is it that I actually want to be in order to move forward, despite what's happening externally. How could I encapsulate that within my personality and help me be a different person to be able to move forward? Does that make more sense? Yeah, it does. Is it also just about just being more proactive with your own life?

Yeah, I think proactivity is certainly part of it. I feel like a lot of people are waiting for something to happen in order to take control or to do something. I feel in the society we're in today, many people have that entitlement of this should happen because I've worked so hard, I've done all these things. And I see a lot of people waiting. And especially when we have things that we can get, like we can have so quickly, for example,

Amazon, you can order anything the next day. We look into China, you can get like, oh, no, you've got Didi's. Like everything happens so quickly that when there are things that require more time, such as developing your career, building up your finances, building a deep relationship with another human being, those things take much longer. And that's why a lot of people struggle because they're not used to something taking so long. Yeah, they're used to instant gratification, right? Like, yeah, just being able to have it right away.

And I guess patience is a lost art right now, maybe. I almost feel like this should be a course in education, right? It's almost just as important as math and history and geology and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty crazy to think that

When we go through an education system, very often the skills that you're given is to be a cog in a machine. And that is what you do. You work hard, you earn your money, and then you start to build it up. And I feel, especially nowadays, people are seeing a whole different view, especially in lockdown with COVID happening in so many different places. This is an opportunity for people to really reflect and

what is it that I want to do with my life? Like, is this actually what I want to do? And I think it's actually a blessing in disguise in that there's so many people reflecting and thinking, is this actually what I want to do for the next 10, 20, 30 years? Yeah, and just to add on to that, I think what you've been discussing so far is all extremely important. It's an extremely important element to, I guess, self-reliance

growth and well-being, right? And you were saying before about NLP, and I feel like we can kind of, because what you were talking about before was parts of NLP, and I feel like maybe we can quickly define it a little bit and let the audience understand what NLP is and how that kind of, how you integrate that into what you do.

Sure, fantastic. So when we look into NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, it's looking into the patterns of the mind and what do successful people do and how can you break that down and implement that into your own life? Because if you look at any person that's an expert, they go through a series of processes. So NLP is breaking down those processes to enable you to move forward in a different way. For example...

One of the techniques that I use quite a lot is anchoring. So this is where before I go on stage, sometimes I'll be sitting down, not really getting ready to speak. So an anchor is something that is a trigger for me. So when I do something with my body and for me, it's when I

bring my thumb and my middle finger together and I squeeze it, that's actually that anchor of I need to get in state, I need to prepare to go on stage. And it's a very fast way for me to access the state that I desire to help me in that circumstance that I'm in. So that's one of the uses of it. But in essence, neurolinguistic programming is

is often a series of various techniques and it's up to you to see how you apply that to your life to help you achieve what it is that you desire.

- Is that also to do with a lot of the, have anything to do with like breaking out of patterns? 'Cause like human beings, we're always, we're creatures of habit, right? And we live in these patterns and some patterns can be good, but some can be very vicious cycles or bad patterns, right? And it's hard for us as regular people just to break out of them. Does NLP have anything to do with helping in that? Like breaking out of patterns?

Yeah, most certainly. When we look into NLP, it's a series of techniques to use to help people move forward and to break through their patterns. Generally speaking, when I work with someone and they have a negative pattern, there's a series of steps that I go through to enable them to break that pattern and move forward. So some of the steps include identifying the pattern,

So for example, let's say someone is overeating and they constantly do this and this has been happening for a long time in their life, right? So the first thing is you want to identify it and then you interrupt it because very often as creatures of habit, we have a certain way of thinking and we are wired in a specific way. Now, if you interrupt the pattern, it's as if you're scratching a disc and if you play the disc again, it doesn't sound the same.

And if you do that enough and you interrupt it, it then gives you an opportunity to redefine the problem in a solvable way. Very often people will believe they have a problem that they cannot solve, which is one of the biggest issues. Now, if they can see a way that they can solve it, suddenly there's an opportunity for them to do something different.

Then it's conditioning that, testing it, and then actually linking it to something above themselves. Because very often we would do more for other people than we would do for ourselves.

So when creating that lasting change, really it's that perspective shift or having that insight where someone says enough is enough. I'm actually going to do this. But the truth is most people don't experience enough pain to make that decision and take action on it. They're waiting. And when people tell me that change takes a long time, I tell them change actually happens very quickly. It just takes a very long time for people to get to the point where they say enough is enough. I need to change. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's also, like you said, I think there's a lot of truth in that is you have to go to like get to a breaking point first before you say enough is enough and decide to change. But even people who reach that point, a lot of times they still procrastinate and they still put it off because I think maybe they just don't believe that they can change. So people like you who work with them,

If you just give them a glimmer of hope, just show them a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel just to make them believe like, hey, it's actually possible. It's going to be tough, but it's possible. As long as they know that it can happen, that gives them a lot of motivation to actually take that first step in changing themselves. Whereas maybe many of us, we get stuck in believing, oh, this is the way I am. I'm never going to change.

Or, you know, it can be your own personal habits, personality problems, or even things like addiction, things like that, right? Yeah. I always find it fascinating speaking to different people and understanding their belief systems. And sometimes someone will speak to me and they'll say, Ben, this is impossible to change. I can't change it. Like, you can help me as much as you want, but I can't change it. And for someone like that, if they don't believe they can change, then there's always going to be something holding them back.

So they need to look for those little wins or where they're changing already and to start to see how you can build upon that to enable them to then take on the bigger challenges that they're facing in their lives. What are some of the most common issues that you see with people in your line of work? Sure. One of the big ones that I see now is procrastination.

On procrastinating on a variety of different things. And I was chatting about this yesterday evening. And what I was sharing with people is very often we procrastinate.

for the main reason of just a lack of alignment. What I mean by that is we say we procrastinate on things we don't want to do, but do you actually want to do it? Because very often we say, oh, I would love to do this. I'd love to do that. And we have a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves. And very often I tell people to just park something and just come back to it at another point. Why put so much pressure that you need to lose 50 pounds? You need to gain an extra minute. You need to do all these different things.

Whereas the truth is just taking it step by step makes it much easier. Well, does that go hand in hand with kind of, because I've listened to a talk that you gave before online and you were talking about, you know, sometimes we just have too many goals. You know, we have like 15, 20 goals, all these goals we want to achieve, but it's really more practical and more reasonable to just slash down on those goals and boil it down to like maybe two or three really core goals.

and important goals to you and just focus on those, right? Instead of me saying, oh, I would love to climb Mount Kilimanjaro someday, but do I really want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? Probably not, right? But I'll say I want to just because, of course, you're going to say you want to. It's easy to say it, right? Yeah, of course, I wish I could climb Mount Kilimanjaro one day. I wish I'm going to go skydiving one day and all these things. But do I really want to do these things? Probably not because if I did really want to, I probably would have done it already.

So, I guess it goes back to, I mean, does that go hand in hand, I guess, going back to the original question, is we kind of, we set less significance and importance on the word goal. We use the word goals too casually nowadays. Like, oh, this is a goal, that is a goal, where we should really be emphasizing the significance and importance of setting a goal or goals and not be so loose with that term.

Yeah. And I think that one of the most important things to lead up to a goal is actually the systems you have to have in place. So very often when we look into our lives, it's a series of little things that we do. So very often when I work with someone, I look into their habits that they do each day. Is there a small system that you can put in place that can actually genuinely help them get to where they need to be? So be it daily gratitude, be it

be it journaling, whatever that is, but something that allows people to reflect. One of my favorite things is weekly evaluations. So this is where on a weekly basis, you reflect and ask yourself a series of questions. And this is kind of coaching yourself because what happens is you ask yourself a question like, did I work on Chinese this week?

And the answer is no. Okay, I should probably do it, right? And if you ask yourself this every single week, what happens is this constant reminder of, okay, I've actually got something I need to work on. And that keeps you accountable because I feel many people just forget about things that they say. Like, I'd love to be able to do that. This is my yearly calendar year goal. I'd love to be able to achieve that. But the truth is when it comes to 12 months, we are terrible at estimating what we can do, generally speaking as humans.

We often overestimate what we can do in a year, but we underestimate what we can do in a decade. And I find that one of the ways...

Yeah. And I think one of the most powerful things that I have found is breaking my year into power years, which is three month periods of time. And I set myself a major and a couple of minors for those three months to actually focus on. What happens is I can make extreme progress in those areas whilst also having systems in place to manage other areas of my life. And it helps me make much more progress than if I were to set, you know,

10, 15 goals and attempt to do them a little bit and then end up getting disappointed that I'm not where I want to be. So you break down the year into quarters, right? Three months at a time, three month blocks. And within each three months, you have a different goal that you want to achieve? Yeah. So generally speaking, I will put a rough aim of this year, I'd love to be able to do that.

and then each three months I didn't do it in advance because things changed so quickly I could guess what I'm going to do in six months time but for example in January I thought I was going to have a very different year I was excited to come to China in May I had the speaking oh I was so excited things shifted right yeah so I had to

I had to pivot in different ways. And I think that's important to be adaptable and to change that. So I find three months is a fantastic period of time where you can make a lot of progress and see the difference you're making as you start to move forward. I think a big thing that, well, first of all, Eric is always saying this kind of stuff as well. And I mean, personally speaking, one of my biggest difficulties is not listing out even like

bite-sized chunks of things that i can get done quickly to get towards my bigger goal but it's it's like that gung-ho positive feeling for that first week or two i'm like ready really dedicated and all about it and then all of a sudden just slowly starts going down and down and down and then next you know it's like a month goes by like shit what happened to my habits what happened to the patterns i was trying to form yeah i feel like that's a pretty common thing though

Yeah, most certainly. And I think that when we start something, we're really motivated and we're excited.

And we're motivated, we're moving forward. And what tends to happen with motivation is it deteriorates over time because you feel motivated, right? One of the things that I think is important is about inspiring yourself on a daily basis to actually keep yourself in the right state to do the things you want to do. And I think what's also a fundamental importance is that most people attempt to do something much bigger straight away. For example, let's say you're trying to read a book, right?

and you aim 20 pages every day, easy. And for the first week you're flying, you're like 25 pages, 30 pages, 40. This is easy. And then, you know, one day you forget. And then two days go by, you read a page and you're thinking, I'm never going to do this and you give up. And what happens when I tell people like this, I say, just read a sentence a day. Could you do that? And they're like, Ben, that's easy. Why would I do that? Just do a sentence a day. You can do more if you like, but just read a sentence. What happens is it's so small, suddenly...

it becomes much easier for you to move forward and i think very often we want to do these very very big things but the truth is it just comes from the very very simple habits that we put in place and i feel very often we make things more complex than they really have to be

It's almost like you read that first sentence, right? That's all you're going to take. Just read it, read a sentence. But that effort of reading the first sentence, it's almost like, okay, well I might as well just keep reading. I'll keep reading a little bit more. It's just that perspective of, Oh, it's just a sentence. So it's, yeah, I get what you're saying. That's probably really important. It's also like, um, it's like the difference between overachieving and underachieving, right? So if you're always setting these really large goals and high bars for yourself, um,

you get more and more disappointed 'cause you're always constantly underachieving on those goals. And the more you underachieve, the more disappointed and discouraged you get from doing it. And you're like, okay, I just give up. But if you set the bars lower, just a little bit lower into something that you know is achievable for you,

Instead of underachieving every day, you're constantly overachieving. You're breaking through those goals, just like with a sentence a day. Like instead of reading a sentence a day, no one's actually going to read just one sentence. They might read a paragraph or a page or whatever it is. So they get into a mindset of, oh, I'm overachieving. I'm actually doing more than what I set out to do. And that's a very encouraging mindset. And that actually builds, you know,

helps build, I guess, not only a better mindset, but it helps reinforce that habit into something that you actually enjoy doing versus something that brings you a negative emotion. Yeah, most certainly. And one of the, one of the, my main,

uh, takeaways when looking at goals previously is that when someone sets a goal, you either get it or you don't. Right. And I thought that that was kind of crazy because we spend so much time working towards this thing that we want to create that instead I, I usually break things down into targets because I feel you've got a target, you can kind of hit it. You can make a bit of progress towards it, but you're still making progress. Right. And, um,

when we look into achieving something, if you can break it down into those simple milestones and have those mini wins along the way, I think it's really important to help keep you motivated because otherwise you feel like you're so far away that you give up. And most people don't see that progress. And especially now when we expect progress to happen so quickly that we feel demotivated and just stick to what's comfortable.

Well, I'm going to get really honest with you for a second, Ben. And I'm curious as to maybe what advice you would give someone that has this mindset, right? And the thing is, like, I think if I was to be completely honest with myself about setting goals and accomplishing these goals, is that I think there is a part of me that

avoids setting small achievable goals and prefers to set these really grand large goals because by doing that it almost gives me an excuse a built-in excuse to actually fail at achieving these goals right like if I set something small and do it all the time something I know I can achieve I

Then that puts more onus on me in terms of having to achieve these because these are very achievable things. So there's really no excuse, right? But there's almost a comfort in setting really large goals because inherently, psychologically, I guess, you build in an excuse to almost be like, well, if I fail and I don't accomplish this, it's okay because this was a really grand and really large goal to begin with.

So it's almost a sense of laziness, I think. And that's just me being really honest. Like, what would you say to someone like me? Well, I think that when looking into those grand goals that you set, I'd be curious to understand when you set a goal like that, do you say by the end of this year and do you give it like a specific date that you'd love to be able to achieve something? I do sometimes, but not so often though. I don't set hard deadlines, I guess.

Because again, that's going back into the built-in excuse. I bet you just kind of like put this idea in your head. Like, I have this goal in my head. It's not like you can write it down. It's just like, okay, I want to do this. But again, it's all about like not holding myself accountable enough, right? Because if I put a hard deadline to it, then it's like, again, I have to achieve this by this deadline. And I don't have that excuse anymore not to achieve these things. So...

I think it's all related in that sense that why I don't give myself a deadline, why I prefer to set these really grand goals instead of smaller achievable ones. But I don't do this all the time. I'm just saying I do this. I have caught myself with this. Hey, Ben, related to this topic, can you give us an example of –

area of someone's life that you work with or even yourself where you started with something really small like reading one sentence a day where there wasn't necessarily an end point it was more like a behavior that was easily executable you didn't have to say I'm going to do this in three months because you could just sort of do it

And where this built into something that ended up being maybe a broader goal. That's sort of what Justin is talking about, where he doesn't, you know, he hasn't maybe set a date for it. Sure. So if we were to break it down into something simple, one of the things that I wanted to do, for example, for health and energy was to hydrate more. Because I realized that I wasn't drinking enough water and I was just very dehydrated day to day.

So I bought myself, as you saw, a big fat water bottle. And years and years ago when I first started doing this, it was a mini little challenge each day of, you know, can I finish two of those? And I started to build that habit of drinking more and getting used to a new standard in my life. And I think that...

When you set this standard of this is something that I do, and as we were speaking earlier, it becomes part of your identity, suddenly it doesn't become a challenge anymore because it's who you are. And I feel that when you start to build that up into I'm a person that does something like this, then suddenly it becomes...

much easier for you to follow through because you're saying, yeah, I do things like that. And, you know, an example that isn't about water, for example, could be Chinese, right?

So I remember struggling with Chinese for a while because it was incredibly challenging for myself being in and out of China twice a year and attempting to move things forward. And I'd give myself these mini goals of doing some stuff on Pleco, sorting out my Chinese teacher and I'd go three months. It was great. And then I would just go downhill because I had to focus on the business or there was something different there. And yeah,

I know for myself, sometimes if I've got something to work towards and I have a challenge, I know I'll rise to it because I'll force myself to do that. And I know with my personality, I enjoy those types of challenges. So one of the things that I said is I was going to do a TEDx in Chinese and I've set the date. Okay, well now I've got to do it. And suddenly there's this pressure, but it's good pressure. I've got time. I know what I need to do. And something like that is...

is what I thrive on. And I know that really works really well for me. And I, and I work sort of with myself to do that. And very often, if we look into our lives, there are some things we are great at. And I often challenge people to look at what you're doing right. And so how you can build upon that for something different. Like if you already do something every day, could you build something in to make it even easier that you do something different? And it's often these tiny changes that we make over time that are

actually build up to make momentous success it's not this next day suddenly I'm this brilliant person it's these small habits that build up and it's these 1% changes that actually make a huge impact where you don't even recognize the person you were last year because of all these very small things that you've built up over time

I just want to cut in real quickly because I'm just so curious because I heard this now twice. You did a TEDx in Chinese, right? Yeah. So what's your level of Chinese? I'm just so curious because if I were to do a TEDx in Chinese, I would freak out. Well, I saw your TED talk, Ben. I saw your TED talk in Chinese and you did awesome. It was very impressive. Thank you so much. Yeah, I watched the whole thing. Not only was the content great, but I feel like...

Obviously, I know how difficult, I mean, I don't even know how difficult it is for you, but even for me, it would be extremely, extremely difficult. It would take so much preparation to do a TED Talk in Chinese. I felt like you did remarkably well, given that, I think you said it was quite last minute, or what was that talk?

in advance or prepared in advance or was it kind of a last minute thing? No, that definitely wasn't last minute. It's not a chance. No, there's not a chance I'd do that last minute. My Chinese is intermediate. I can get by. I make loads of grammar mistakes. My vocab's pretty good, but if you put me on stage now...

maybe a couple of sentences like you're really not going to get it not going to get much compared to what i did so when when i was planning this out and i was thinking about how on earth am i going to do this i was thinking right well how do i usually prepare for a speech so i read everything in english first and i wanted to get that checked out and then i got it redone in chinese and i figured i can't do it on the whim because i just won't have a clue so i'm actually going to have to learn the whole thing off by heart like we're just going to have to make it happen so

So I remember going through doing it always about 18 minutes and I was ready and I started learning it. And then I was speaking with the TEDx organizers and I've taught TEDx speaking for a while. So I kind of know what they're going to say. They're going to move some stuff around. And they were saying that I need to add some more jokes in for the Chinese audience. I need to add some different things in that would make it...

more relatable because I was using some Western examples. Like for example, with the differences between men and women and often in China, you have the men saying, you know, drink more hot water, everything will be fine. Right. You'll be fine. And something like that was something that I had to add in, but actually the most challenging part was not only just learning it off by heart,

because i could do that and i could recite it but it's not a presentation and the truth is when you're doing a talk it's not about what you say but it's about how you say it and how you deliver it so one of the most challenging things that for me was actually linking what i was saying with body language that would portray it in a fun way where people would actually really find it engaging and

And it was so much fun attempting to do it. And I remember I would do body language outside of what I'm saying, like, you know, these five things and the body language just wasn't the same. And it was it was really, really challenging. But as it started to come together, I really felt like I could I could do this and.

one of the things that I did is while swimming in a pool I would just do my TEDx in my head and it's crazy I just like literally go back and forth I'm like yeah I need a that's crazy and

And then I remember getting up on stage and yeah, I've done a lot of talks in English. And obviously when I give the eulogy for my father, that was very challenging, but this TED was TEDx was challenging in a different way. And I remember getting into my groove. I was in my flow. And then halfway through my talk, I went blank and I'm not sure if any of you saw. All right. But I literally went blank. So imagine this, right? So 400 people there. And I'm just like, there's nothing like diddly squat. Like, no,

No, no, you can literally watch it. Honestly, I'm real. And I'm there and I'm thinking, in my mind, I'm like, oh my God, what have I done? This is all happening like very, very quickly. So I'm smiling. And then I remember looking at someone in the audience. I wish you couldn't watch this. And I was like, soy woman's in my bank. And this guy was just like... And that was enough to trigger...

And that was enough to trigger me back on board. I was like, I actually know what I'm saying. And then I carried on. But it's moments like that, which is the sort of growth opportunities that I feel that we rise to. And if I'm honest, being able to work with someone to keep me accountable, to offer a different perspective and call me out when I'm not doing what I should be doing is one of the best things. Because the truth is everyone has blind spots. I know I have blind spots. Everyone does.

And having someone call that out, I think it's really important because it helps you rise to a different level. Because the truth is like,

A common example I give in talks is, you know, raise your hand as high as you can, right? And then someone raises their hand and they're like this. And I'm like, well, for example, if we were to do it now, if I'd ask you guys to raise your hand as high as you can and you would actually do it, right? And I say, no, actually as high as you can, like as high as you can. So suddenly you do something different, right? You go up, you stand on a chair, you do something different. And like, that is genuinely the simplest example I can give of having a mentor, a coach or someone in your life, because suddenly you do something different, right?

And I think that that is probably one of the most, the biggest blessings I've had of having people to be able to support me on my journey, to help me accelerate and give me different perspectives. And then I can also help other people with that too.

That's a great analogy. Yeah. Right? I was just thinking that. It's like, raise your hand and in your own mind, you think it's only here. It's as high as you can. But you're like, no, as high as you can. You're like, and you go here and then you're like, no, as high as you can. You're like, oh, and then it clicks. Oh, maybe I should stand up or maybe I should stand on my seat. Like you figure out ways and you get creative all of a sudden how to achieve goals that you would think would be completely impossible before. Right? Yeah.

A simple analogy as the hand raising thing. Yeah. How nervous were you before the TED talk on a scale of one to 10, 10 being like just shitting your pants? Like how, how nervous were you? Okay. So I didn't shit my pants. It's probably about 9.5. I'm just feeling quite nervous. And yeah,

I'm drinking water, I'm going to the toilet left, right and center, I'm hydrating, I've got wet my lips. It's crazy, honestly. But one of the hardest things is the anticipation of, okay, I've got to do this. I know I know what I'm doing, but I also don't want to screw up. And actually, this is one of the biggest things I tell people when they're starting in speaking as an example.

is to get out your own head and to realize why you're there. Because the reason most people screw up or they do something wrong, and I've done this loads of times on stage previously, is because I was in my head thinking, what happens if I say something wrong? Yeah. Whereas...

When I think of I've done this to impact people in Chinese because I know that I can't have the same impact in English. And I know the reason I'm here is to have a huge impact on them. Like, that's why I want to do this. Suddenly, it's not the same. Like, I'm excited to do it. Sorry? Then it's not about you, right?

Yeah, correct. It's not about me. And suddenly you're there for an audience and you're there to do something different and to allow them to gain a perspective or to move themselves forward. And that is why I'm there. Suddenly the nerves aren't so much of a hassle anymore. So Ben, you also go by the title of a fulfillment artist. Is that correct? Yes. So what is the art of fulfillment in your words?

Sure. So for me, the art of fulfillment is being able to create that picture for your life and make it a reality. And when...

So just a quick caveat. So Fulfillment Artist is what I was for maybe four or five years and what I did. And I now changed that branding to Entrepreneur Lifestyle because I felt that would portray more easily what I do online to affect different people. But certainly when I look into Fulfillment and why I came up with that name, it was very simple that...

I thought there were so many different coaches out there. And in China, you're seeing this a lot at the moment with self-development. Anyone can say they're a coach. Anyone can say they're doing different things. And I found it incredibly difficult to differentiate myself. And how do you differentiate yourself from someone that says that they're a coach or they do these different things? And I remember speaking with a mentor and he was saying, Ben, you can't be a life coach. What do you know about life? I'm in my 50s.

Right. I know more about life you could possibly imagine. I've gone through crap. I've done this. You can't teach me anything. And I said, well, that's probably true. I shouldn't be a life coach. But what I can do is to help people with patterns. And I'm very good at allowing them to see what they're doing that isn't allowing them to move forward. And that was the differential that I made back then and then pivoted literally in the past six months to entrepreneur lifestyle because I found online it is a better brand to be able to appeal to the people that I want to help to.

- But why entrepreneurs? Did you identify a lot of issues you saw with a lot of entrepreneurs recently? Is there something that drove you to go into that direction beyond just trying to differentiate yourself?

Of course. Well, I think generally speaking, I really enjoy working with entrepreneurial people because I think that the challenges they have, I can relate to in many different ways. There's things that they have to do, which you wouldn't have to do as an employee, such as managing your time in a different way, like managing your energetic state throughout the day. There's so many different factors that I find it challenging.

those people are really who I resonate with. Now, I still get people that come to me who are employees, but often have this entrepreneurial mindset of wanting to do something in a different way. And really it's living that great lifestyle whilst building a great business or living the life that you enjoy. And I found that that has really resonated with people. And then with the differential, the give back, like people that are suicidal or depressed or people that are struggling or other people out there that are

I want to help. I do it as a give back. So I help people for free. I take on mentees each year. It's an amazing thing. And I recommend that everyone does it. I don't care if you're a coach or a student, whatever. I really recommend to mentor someone because what happens is,

you teach everything that you are doing and it helps you become more accountable. That's a great piece of advice. I should do that. And you start to see the impact you have on someone. And the only reason you're there is to help them. And that is a beautiful thing, as opposed to someone paying for your services. This is a chance for me to just give back to someone who genuinely needs me and I can see their life transform. And that's one of the most amazing things.

With entrepreneurs, what do you see as a lot of the more common issues they face? Because just before this podcast, Howie and I were having this conversation. And in our minds, we think, because we've all been entrepreneurs. And there is this sense for, especially Howie and I, this sense that we don't have a work-life balance anymore.

And that when we get so fixated on the business of things and work, we start excluding a lot of the social interaction.

Social interactions, relationships, friendships almost become thrown to the wayside and are seen as not important anymore because they're not serving the goal of creating this business and making this business successful, quote unquote. So we feel like now as older people in our age, we feel like we've kind of put ourselves in this position now where we're hermits, we're very...

we don't socialize as much, we don't have maybe as nearly as much friends as we should.

And we don't really engage socially with the world anymore. And in a way, it's very depressing to see that in ourselves. So, I mean, is that something that you see a lot with entrepreneurs? Or is that just me and Howie? No, it's not just you and Howie. And that's actually one of the main reasons why...

I changed to entrepreneur lifestyle because I wanted people to understand that it's not about creating a successful business and then living a lifestyle that you enjoy after that. It's about creating a lifestyle that you enjoy along the way whilst you build your business.

And there are a few elements that I found have been amazing to do that, such as business boundaries. So making sure that there's a boundary of like, I don't want to pass this hour, or I'm actually going to put some things in place that allows me to have that lifestyle that I'd enjoy as if I was in normal work. And yes, you may not be able to do this 20% of the time, but 80% of the time, if you can actually realize that lifestyle you'd love to live as an entrepreneur,

I feel like what happens is you can start to love that entrepreneurial journey as a vehicle to what it is that you want to do, be it freedom, be it money. I'm not sure why people like why you guys, for example, have got into entrepreneurship, but ultimately to enjoy that journey and not have this be this isolated burden that it very much often is for many entrepreneurs. And certainly for myself when I first started. Yeah. I just feel like it's, it's a balance that's needed and yeah,

The younger me, when I had started my business, I didn't really think about it that way, right? Because when you're young, you're kind of just so tunnel visioned on trying to be successful, trying to make a mark, trying to make a name for yourself, right? And you get so tunnel visioned by that. But later, when you get older, you look back and I felt like I probably went about things in a very wrong way.

in that respect. But a part of it is also just because I'm very introverted to begin with. I'm not naturally an extroverted person and this goes with Howie as well. We're just both very naturally introverted people so it was a very natural tendency for us to kind of gravitate towards just being antisocial

But at the end of the day, being antisocial really hurts you. You know, it really hurts you because I think relationships, I mean, I think a lot of people have said this before too. I mean, relationships, healthy relationships are really the foundation of happiness, right? It's not,

It's not financial things. It's not necessarily about your career and accomplishment. It's about having, building healthy relationships around you. That is probably the most correlated thing to overall happiness. Do you find that true? Yeah. I mean, have you guys heard of the grant study? Yeah. Cool. So when we look into the conclusion of the grant study, happiness is love full stop. Yeah.

I find that relationships is a source of happiness. And actually those deep, meaningful relationships is what I often tell people. Like you don't need to have thousands of friends, hundreds of friends. You just need to have like a cool group of people. It can be like up to 10 people that you genuinely care about, that you connect with and you share what's going on. I feel like it's very easy as entrepreneurs to...

the optimistic of everything's going great. It's all good. Everything's fine. And you need that to a degree. But then with friends, if you don't share what's going on, that's where you have these parallel worlds of what I want people to see in the reality. And I think it's important to allow people in, especially other entrepreneurs, because then I find that that's a way that you can connect with people on, once again, a different level because you're showing that vulnerability, having that courage and allows you to relate to people as well. And you realize you're not alone.

Well, do you see that in a lot of entrepreneurs you work with? Like they're sacrificing relationships and friendships to achieve what they think is success? Yeah. So a prime example is one of my long-term clients, Ragesh, when I met him, he's a pharmaceutical company. He said that he needs to be successful in business in order to have money because when he has money, then he can spend time with his family.

And often we have this, what I call that when I have this, then addiction. When I have this, then I'll do that. When I have this, yeah, then I'll spend some time off. Then I'll go on holiday. Then I'll do these different things. And for him, I tell him very simply, I was like, well, you can do that and you could get money and you could do that. But wouldn't it be worth spending time with your family now? And he realized he was actually much closer to doing what he really wanted to begin with. And there wasn't this prerequisite that he had to do something in order to do something else.

And that's where he started spending more time with his family, saved his marriage and started to move himself forward because he wasn't seeking this external goal or this external validation to then enable him to have what he really wanted. Going to the grant study for the listeners, correct me if I'm wrong, this was a study that started in the 1930s. Was that correct? Yeah, so it was...

where they followed about 138 Harvard graduates and then about 200 plus people from one of the neighboring areas. And they followed them for like 70, over 70 years of their life, measuring basically every different aspect of their life, their social interactions, their income, just everything you could possibly imagine. It was crazy. And by the end of it, Grant Veylant, the guy who led the last few decades, basically said that the entire study could be summed up in five words. Happiness is love full stop.

and they found that it doesn't matter about the income it doesn't matter about all these different things whether you have a mother or a father whether they're there it's it's about love in your life that enables you to move forward and actually you know when we look into love i really feel that one of the biggest issues that we face as a society is not loving ourselves enough yeah yeah i would agree with that but that that's often misconstrued as kind of um

ego or arrogance or self entitlement, right? But it's a, it's a very different thing to love yourself. I think is, is being number one, firstly, being very self-aware of who you are. And I think self-awareness is something that's very lacking in my, in my observations, at least people's general level of self-awareness today. But one is being able to self-aware and then being able to accept what

the good and bad things about you and understand how to encourage yourself to move forward even despite those bad things. I mean, this is just what I think for myself. How would you describe it? - Well, I think self-love is, for me, it's just giving yourself a break. I feel that there are so many people nowadays that work so hard. You look at, for example, Shanghai or in China, and people are just working and working and hustling and hustling.

I think that's fantastic to a degree. I also think it's nice to chill out, go in nature, relax, give yourself a break, pat yourself on the back, go for a massage. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's so important to actually treat yourself kindly and figure out, you know what, it's okay. You're doing the best you can as opposed to feeling like when you have that, then you can give yourself that break.

I definitely think it's a... I mean, in particular in China, that's a huge thing, right? Because, I mean, in the States and I guess where you are now in the UK, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a bit more of that conversation of having that work-life balance, respecting times, you know, like, you know, no work after 7 p.m., 8 p.m., whatever. But here...

I just feel like there's still a long way to go. I feel like in general, people are just like you say, they're just hustling and hustling. And I mean, even in my industry, people are expecting you to reply to texts at like 2 o'clock in the morning, 1 o'clock in the morning. They're like 24-hour on call, which is very unhealthy, right? In terms of having that work-life balance.

Yeah. And, and I think that especially out in China, there's, there's a lot of different factors that I think are very different in the West and that in China, you have got family pressures very often. Yeah. If, if, if you're a single child, like you, they expect you to do a certain thing and you have all these expectations placed upon you. And,

especially for example in women in their 30s like the pressure to get married the pressure to you know have that it's just crazy and I don't think western people can really relate to that in that in western society very much independent and it's up to you and and the family bonds are nowhere near the same it's more about me me me as an individual right correct and

Even though there's the me, me, me aspect, it's not that you don't care about your family, but it's a separate thing. Whereas I feel a lot of families in China, you are the family, you are together, you are one. And I think that...

puts a lot of pressure on people. And then that's why I feel that you have so many people burning out, getting stressed out of their minds, working so hard because they feel if they have that, then they're doing what their families desire. And I often feel that there's that generational difference of, of what is expected and what you want. And I feel that there's a lot of conflict that can occur there. Yeah. I mean, one thing that I've definitely heard is,

is for example in the States if you hear somebody say like for example if I'm in the States and I say if I say something like oh man I've been working overtime for the past I don't know four weeks and just like I haven't had a day off most people would be like oh you got to find a day off I mean you got to you got to take some time to take a break and

I'm here. I've been in this type of situation a couple of times around like my wife's family members or other people that are, you know, around through peers and stuff like that. They'd be like, well, you know, do it while you're young. You know, this is when you're supposed to be, you know, killing yourself pretty much.

you know yeah fucking weird yeah i can i can definitely relate and when i was in silicon valley i was definitely of that mindset and i would genuinely see people going out on weekends and i was thinking they are lazy they're literally lazy well they're having a drink lazy and genuinely that was what i was thinking and i was thinking i had a 70 hour work week boom they had 60 hours nothing right and it's almost if there's a competition pride strange like you're proud of it you're

You're proud. Like I'm burning the midnight oil, you know? Yeah, correct. And it's like, yeah, I stayed up till 2 a.m. working. Like, and it was this competition. And I feel like now people are...

starting to to change especially in lockdown because people aren't commuting they're at home they're starting to have those different uh influences but it's definitely a massive challenge in china that i think people are starting to overcome but it's still very much a crux of of society and it's still there well going back to uh something we talked about in the very beginning that you mentioned and that's obviously very personal to you but do you feel this um

This idea of there's a lower levels of self-love have anything to do with, you know, suicide rates and rising suicide rates throughout the recent years? Yeah. So when we look into suicide, generally speaking, there are two main factors that will cause someone to be suicidal. So one is finances and two is relationships.

And very often when these two are intertwined or you've got someone going to a divorce, losing lots of money, like that's when someone feels life isn't worth living. And it's very tough because very often someone will numb themselves with alcohol. They'll numb themselves with substances. What happens is they don't think clearly or they'll take antidepressants and that makes them feel suicidal. Like they just have on the bottle. You may feel suicidal if you take this. And what happens is people go on these downward spirals.

And the hardest thing is that they don't see a way out and they don't see a compelling future to work towards. Very often people in the circumstance feel like it's better if I'm gone. And that's where they start to go down and have these very, very negative thought patterns and they start to beat themselves up. And they enter this very, very dark place that can be very challenging to move people out of and

One of the one of actually the scariest coaching sessions that I've ever had to give was one of the clients that I worked with in China who is suicidal. And I was doing a parts integration where you have someone speak to different parts of themselves, because very often we have a different part of ourselves. Right. Someone who's like, yeah, let's go do this. The driver, you have someone that's a lover. And I was speaking to these different parts and I was speaking to the depressed side of her.

And she was like, I just want to kill myself. Like, I just want enough is enough. Like, I just want to go. And like, it's in those moments where I'm thinking like, this is pressure. You know what I mean? Like I'm literally speaking about someone's life here. Like this is, this is crazy to be having that conversation. And it's in those moments that you really see the difficulties and challenges and the pain that people experience that they feel is genuinely better for me to go than to stay.

For example, with her, what I think is very important, and I use this analogy quite a lot, is kill Godzilla when it's young. What I mean by that is that very often people will start going down and down, it gets worse and worse, and it becomes this really big thing. So one of the ways that I find to interrupt that is actually understanding the questions that we ask ourselves.

One of the things that we have is a question that generally speaking, we ask ourselves daily and we constantly ask ourselves and it causes us to think in a certain way. So one of the ones for me was, what did I do wrong? So whatever would happen in my life, someone wouldn't reply back or a client would say they're in trouble or something like that. And I would think, what did I do wrong? And that would lead me down this negative spiral in this negative thought pattern that would cause me to feel a certain way.

So one of the things that I think is very powerful is doing the antithesis and actually changing that and to say the opposite. So instead of what did I do wrong, I now ask the question, how could I enjoy the perfection of this moment even more right now?

And that completely switches the focus and what I'm doing to allow me to move forward in a different way. And I've had clients that have found that's one of the best ways to manage their emotional state during these challenging times is actually becoming aware. And just as you were saying, that self-awareness to then do something about it. I see. Yeah.

So what kind of like going to you for a second, I mean, what are some of the struggles that you face personally for yourself? Like we're all human, right? We all have our struggles. We're all or each all on our own kind of self-growth journey. You know, what are some things that you find that you struggle with most?

So one of the biggest challenges that I had was relationships and maintaining them, especially when I was traveling so much. Because previously, before this year, I would travel every two months to different places. And I found it incredibly challenging to manage relationships.

my partner, so Evelyn, who was in Los Angeles. I had my family in the UK. I'd been doing the majority of my business in China. And that was incredibly challenging of being stretched in so many different directions and really not knowing what to do. And then on top of that, attempting to look after myself in the process. And one of the things

One of the hardest things that I had to do that is actually still a challenge now in some degree is about managing my health and energy whilst also spending time with other people.

For example, Evelyn loves to cook dumplings and burgers and all these different things. But then I also need to manage my energy. So I know that's not good for me. And I would experience this internal conflict. And one of the ways to deal with that I have found is having a lifestyle day where I'm focused on the energy versus...

Having a day where I can just let myself go, chill out and relax. And that's been very helpful for me. But the truth is that no one is perfect. And 80% of the time I get it right. 20% of the time it won't go that way. And I have to take it with a pinch of salt and say, you know what, that's okay. That's a pretty good ratio. I think 80-20 is a pretty damn good ratio. You can get it right 80% of the time.

Well, yeah. Well, the reason why I say 80-20 is because of the Pareto principle. So very often, 20% of what we do creates 80% of the results, right? If you're 80% on track, that's pretty much good enough. And that stops me from attempting to make everything perfect and trying to make it all work and instead being able to take a step back and say, you know what, it's okay.

Do you think there's a role for perfectionism? Do you think it can be a good thing or is perfectionism always kind of something that's negative in your mind?

I think that there's a time and a place in which to do something like that. I am terrible when it comes to small details. I'm not very good at managing the small little details that happen. Very much I'm big picture. Now, when you look at someone that's a perfectionist, they're very often looking at every single detail like very securely and making sure it works. For example, coding.

where everything needs to be in place someone who likes to get those things in place that is a fantastic time to do that and the reason why i know this is like one of my clients he is a software engineer and he has a software company and one of the biggest challenges he had was perfectionism but not with coding because in coding you need to have it perfect because it needs to work but applying that to a different area for example marketing because

Because he wanted everything to be so perfect with marketing, he wouldn't do it. And that would be a real challenge for him. So I feel that with everything that we have, take it with a pinch of salt because sometimes things can be, it's a good thing for you to do that. Yeah, I think perfectionism is good when applied to very specific applications, right? Very specific jobs or things, right? But as an overall lifestyle, perfectionism is probably not a very good thing at all.

I mean, I've seen you talk about a lot of different lifestyle kind of, how do you say, lifestyle paradigms or lifestyle structures. I've heard you talk about minimalism as a certain way to live. Like, how would you describe your own personal lifestyle at the moment?

Well, at the moment, I can say it was pretty hectic. I had Evelyn flying over in COVID, attempting to find a new apartment. No, but I mean, like, what's your ethos? Like, what's your lifestyle ethos that you try to live by at least 80% of the time?

So, so for me, I have a list of lifestyle principles that I have that I want to stick to 80% of the time. And if I do that, I know I'm going to stay on track. So be that what I eat, like how, like the food I eat, like what I drink, what I do day to day, when I get up in the morning, like I want to, for me, I know I'm an early bird. I like getting up at half five. That works well for me. And it's,

Yeah. So I used to get up at five, but that didn't work when Evelyn wants to stay up slightly later. And I figured, you know what? I'm here at half five. I'm not going to get up at six, but I get by half five. And that's working at the moment. Maybe it'll change. I don't know. What time do you usually go to bed? So I usually end up in a bed at around 10. Wow. I think that works out. It's funny, Ben. I'm just about 30 minutes offset from you. I'm probably sleeping by 1030 and I'm up by six. Similar schedule. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think everyone finds what works for that. Right. And is it like that all the time? Like I went to bed at like midnight last night. I got up at like seven 30. I found that principle, um, to, to also be very effective. And I, but I like what you, I liked how you kind of linked it to the Pareto principle, um,

But we don't need to be perfect and it's that perfection. And it's not really perfection, it's just, it's probably more like this inability to forgive ourselves for not executing on something 100% of the time. And what I found really helpful was that, you know, getting to 60%, getting to 70% was much better than 0%. And I think, you know, but I really like what you said about 80%. I think that's a pretty good number.

to kind of strive for because you don't want to be perfect but you just want to be in motion all the time yeah and i think that the most important thing to realize is progress is often equated to happiness in that when we feel like we're making progress we generally feel happier in our lives so if you can see areas where you feel like you're making progress and you have that momentum suddenly you feel better because you know that you're moving forward as opposed to feeling stuck

I have a quick question. I mean, I don't know if you have an answer off the bat, but this is really for the listeners out here.

If you can tell the listeners maybe if they had, for example, a couple of questions that they can ask themselves or something where they can really understand if they are in the right place, if they have room for improvement or based off of all the things that you're saying right now, if I'm a listener, how do I know if I'm in a good place right now? How can I be better, et cetera?

Okay, so I just want to relay back the question, because I'm not sure if I understood it clearly. Are you saying that what question is it that someone could ask themselves to become more self-aware, whether they wanted to improve or not? Am I understanding that correctly? Yeah, like, you know, one thing we're talking about is a lot of people's lack of self-awareness, right? So are there certain type of

questions or any type of processes that a person can go through or ask themselves to get to a certain place where they can realize well okay maybe I do need to improve myself or maybe I maybe I do need to change you know something I guess like a little quiz someone yeah or something got it got it okay

So there are a few different things that I recommend that I think are pretty powerful. So the first thing is something called morning pages. So this is a technique developed by Julia Cameron for creativity. But I find that it's actually a fantastic technique to understand the patterns of the mind. And I'll explain how it works. Basically, when you wake up in the morning, you write three pages of like A4, whatever you like, right? Or three pages of a book. Oh, yeah.

And you write down everything that's going on in your mind. And I remember doing this thinking, writing down, this is stupid. Why am I writing? My hand hurts. I'm tired. Yeah. And it's basically a brain dump. But you do three pages, no more, no less. And what happens is...

And clients have told me that this is one of the best practices they've ever done because it allows them to see how they think. And they start to see their patterns like, you know, why do I feel like this? I feel shitty. You know, could I feel grateful for? I suppose I could feel grateful for. And you start to see your own pattern. So I find doing that, especially when I'm overwhelmed and I get overwhelmed too with different things happening, that

Doing something like that is a fantastic way to sort of deload and externalize everything that's going on in my mind. And it allows me to reflect of what's going on, what's happening. Why am I feeling a certain way? I find that's very, very powerful. I'm not a meditator. I don't do meditation very often. I find something like that for me is more active. That actually allows me to really understand what's going on, the processes of my subconscious.

Now, go on, please. I'm sorry. Do you do that in the morning when you first wake up? Yeah. So first wake up to start brain dumping, like trying to open one eye and I find that's very powerful. I do have some people that do in the evening too. So it kind of varies on your personal preference, but I recommend doing it a couple of times. I have clients tell me, I don't have time for that. That's stupid. They do it. And then three times later, they're saying it's one of the best things that they've ever done.

The other thing that I previously mentioned was about that weekly evaluation. I genuinely think that is one of the most powerful things that I have ever come up with that has helped me stay on track and build momentum because the questions that you ask yourself are to allow you to reflect. So perhaps it's, you know, how did I do this week? How could I improve next week?

And by asking these very small, simple questions, what happens is it allows yourself to reflect and then think about what you want to do moving forward. And by doing this 52 times in a year, I think you get quite a lot of self-awareness. And let's say you do 80 percent. I don't know. You do about 35 or 40. You're still going to really move yourself forward. And for myself, I do it pretty much every Sunday. I say pretty much because there's some Sundays where I haven't done it. But generally speaking, like this is one of the most important habits that I have.

that it enables me to, to move forward and think in a different way. Uh, the last thing, uh, sorry, Justin, did you want to say something? No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. The last thing that I wanted to mention was something called thinking time. This is a, uh, a habit that I learned of a guy called Keith Cunningham. And you can use this as a business or you can use it for yourself, but you have a question and you basically think about that question for 45 minutes and you just write everything down with regards to that question. So maybe it's,

How could I improve myself to help me achieve more goals this year? And you just write down everything. And by the end of it, you've got loads of different ideas. You've thought about different things and you're actually using your brain to analyze a question and you're giving yourself that time. And that, once again, enables you to think more clearly and to move forward in a different way. How often would you say...

How often would you advise someone to do that? The last thing you were talking about, about posing a question to yourself and then really thinking to answer that question. Is that a daily habit?

Or is that a monthly habit or does it matter? It depends on you. Keith Cunningham, I think he does it like twice a week for myself. I think twice a week is too much. I think a lot. Once a week is fine with me. And I find it's really helpful whether it's business, whether it's myself reflecting. I think it's a fantastic time just to actually spend some time really reflecting and thinking about something specific.

So, I mean, I think the things that you're saying all go back to just being more aware of who you are and where your mind is at. Right. And just to recap, it's like three things. Right. One is brain dumping. Write three pages. Just don't censor yourself. Just write and just whatever comes out, comes out and then see what kind of patterns come out. Right.

Number two is your weekly recap. See how you're doing during the week, how you can improve, what you've done well. And the third is answering a question. And every different angle, every different facet of answering that question, you answer it. And you do that, like I say, once a week. So through these processes, you can find a better answer of, well, where am I right now? How am I right now? Who am I right now? All that, right? Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that brings a lot of clarity. And one of the things, taking a slightly different tangent on here, that I find is that there's a lot of people who are lacking clarity. They don't know what they want to do with their lives, right? They're feeling unsure. This is a huge issue that I find. And I share an analogy with them that I'd like to share now. And that is, we need to imagine that everyone is on a boat and they're circling an island.

And everyone's there with a telescope and they're looking for their diamond, like the diamond, like their beautiful diamond. And they're there and they're searching and the boat just goes round and round the island. Right. Until one day someone decides to jump off the boat, start swimming to the island and start searching and looking for it. And I feel like that really resonates with people in life and that they're still sitting on the boat. They're there with a telescope. They're watching everything and they're waiting for this diamond to appear. Right.

And I often challenge these people, maybe it's time that they actually do something. And if it's not right, great. At least it's a step in the right direction. That's a beautiful example, illustration right there. That really is. And I think it's linked to, I'm going to quote you here. Well, I think this is something you've said. You said, life is not a dress rehearsal.

Is that something you said before? I think that's where I got it from. And that really struck me too because I think a lot of us live life as if we're preparing for something, as if we're preparing for a big moment later in life or our next big opportunity or our next big thing when we can really take front and center stage and the spotlight will be on us and then it's going to be do or die. But that's a later thing. That's something we're preparing ourselves for.

I prepared all my life for this. So it's almost as if we're living our present life as if it is a dress rehearsal, as if it's not the main show yet. But every second, this very moment right now that we're having is life. It is not the dress rehearsal. It is the main show. The spotlight is already on. The audience is already there. So I think that kind of really put into context, I guess, into kind of how...

how urgent, I don't want to use the word dire, but like how urgent things are to really act now and to really act and not just be thinking about it and not just be talking about it. Oh, it'll be nice one day. No, like right now, jump off that boat and start swimming towards that Island and start digging in that sand, you know, looking for that diamond now. Yeah. That's really beautiful.

Yeah, thank you so much. I genuinely think it's so true. Like, even for myself, when I reflect of before I was doing the TEDx and my level of Chinese, like, I was thinking, I'm going to do it. And every year I'd say, I'm going to get better, I'm going to do something. But it wasn't until I put that stick in the sand and said, all right, man up and let's do this. But I actually started to move forward in a different way. And I do have those moments. And I find that they...

are amazing to have and it helps me move forward. For example, I know we were chatting previously about when I gained a bit of weight and did a bit of a transformation, right? Now there's a funny story as to actually why I gained that weight, which I want to share with you. So when my other half and I first started going out, we're in America,

In America, you probably know the plates are twice as big. As a British person, right? It's polite to finish all of your food, right? Because I'm British. That's what we do, right? There are starving people in the world. You have to finish everything. This is how I've been brought up. So we're going out for lunch and dinners and I'm having this huge plate and I finish everything. But in Asian culture, which I didn't understand at the time, is that

you need to over deliver on food. And because that's a sign of love, really giving that food. So what's happening is I finished these things. I finished my plate and then Evelyn's family would give me more food. And I was thinking they were challenging me. And I was like, this is a challenge. I need to rise to this challenge. Where was this? This was in San Diego. Oh, in San Diego. Oh, but she has a Chinese family. She's Chinese? Yeah, so she's Taiwanese. Okay, Taiwanese. Okay.

Okay. So in their culture, they were trying to overfeed you and serving you a lot of food. Correct. Anyway, I literally just popped out. I was like, where did this belly come from? And, um,

Yeah. And then obviously body pain and things like that occurred. And it wasn't until a point where I just said, you know what? Enough is enough. And I feel like we don't have enough of those moments in our lives of enough is enough. I need to do something about this because when we do that, that's when life changes. And I feel that if you can bring more of those moments to you of enough pain of saying, I need to change this and do something, you move forward. And I feel that there's so many people that are so comfortable nowadays that

that it stops us actually moving forward and challenging ourselves in a different way. Yeah, I agree. Well, look, Ben, I don't want to take up any more of your time than we already did. This was a really great conversation. This was a really good one. I love this one a lot. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for being here and being on our show.

Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much for allowing me to share and asking such great questions. And I hope that the listeners, if they spent their time with us so far, I really thank them because I think time is very precious. And I hope that they can take away something from today and allow it to positively impact their lives. Well, look, Ben, next time you're in Shanghai, which obviously none of us know when exactly that will be.

But hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. But who knows? But next time you're in Shanghai, we got to get together in person. You got to come into our studio, have a proper drink and do this again. Yeah, definitely looking forward to that. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I'm sure being live in person and chasing you will be a lot of fun. We got some good whiskey waiting here for you. So anytime. Don't drink all of that. All right, Ben, thanks a lot.

All right, folks. Take care. That's it today. That was Ben Ivey. I'm Justin. I'm Howie. I'm Eric. All right, guys. Peace. Love you. Cheers.