#55. Maria Pastorelli: No Time To Spare
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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 this podcast, go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe.

Now, my guest today helps people live more effectively. She does this by coaching individuals on time management, maximizing productivity, and communication skills. And really, this all boils down to helping people move out of their own way so they can be more effective in achieving their goals. If we really think about it, most of our issues come from within anyway.

So how do you redesign the architecture of your own mindset when it comes to your time, routine, your energy, or how you're communicating with others? Well, maybe, just maybe, you start by talking to people like my guest today. So in this episode, we really went for a ride. I mean, of course, we talked about time management, communication skills, self-awareness, but we even talked about the fear of vulnerability, the importance of being authentic, and

to debating whether or not we can even actually change as people. Personal burnout was a topic. And we also talked about herd-like mentality and cults. Yep, cults. I had a blast talking to her and she's super down to earth, no BS, and she has some great stuff to share. So without further ado, please give it up for Maria Pastorelli.

Is your last name Pastorelli? Yes, that's correct. Okay.

I didn't want to screw that. No, fair. And I do appreciate the American pronunciation because if you want to go with the Italian pronunciation, most people put on a very stereotypical Italian accent. That is kind of weird. Is it offensive? A little bit slightly offensive? It's not. Most of my friends do it and it's like, all right. But, you know, it's like some people just go all the way overboard with the Italian accent and it's like, it's not really necessary. Also, I can tell you all about when I introduce myself in English, I say my name differently.

How so? Because I say hi, hello, Maria. That's not how you pronounce my name in Italian. It's Maria with a rolling R. See, I'm really bad at the rolling R. I used to do Spanish. I can't roll the R. I don't introduce myself with a rolling R if I'm talking in English because it would feel so weird to switch like 100% in English and then you switch just for my name. So I just introduce myself as Maria. I guess the equivalent to that would be like if I were to talk to someone who's English and

And I would like pronounce my name like in Chinese and expect them to also pronounce it in Chinese, you know? Yeah, kind of. That would be like weird, right? Like, well, no, you could, but it's not, I think it's not a cultural faux pas, but it's just, it's weird. And I speak enough English with everybody that it doesn't really matter. Also, my name is pronounced in different ways in different cultures. So it doesn't really matter. Anyway, cheers, Maria. Cheers. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for coming on the show.

We're drinking the Mortlock 16. We are. Single malt scotch whiskey. Hey, it's pretty good. It is. And it isn't bad. I will add just a tiny bit splash of water. Yeah. So educate me a little bit because I feel like you probably know more about whiskey than I do. Which is interesting being that you host a whiskey drinking podcast. It is interesting. It's shameful. Shameful.

I'm not here to lecture anyone. I don't pretend to be an expert in anything. I just, I had the opportunity to just get to drink a bunch of whiskey. So what does adding a little bit of water do? It opens up the flavor? It does. And like, well, if you have, if you add ice, it actually dilutes it a lot. Because it's too much. It is too much. Yeah. That's why there's a thing called whiskey stones.

which are literally stones that you put in the freezer that you can add to your drink in order to make it cold but not diluted. Ooh, that's a brilliant idea. So they're stones. They're literally like... So they don't melt, they don't do anything. The ones I had were like cubes of stone. They come in a little sachet that you put in your freezer. Then you take them out, you put them in your drink, which makes it cold but not diluted.

That is brilliant. I'm going to look that up. I'm going to look that up. People who drink whiskey can be very pretentious about everything they do, so there's a lot of gadgets around. There's really a lot.

Well, Maria, thanks for coming on the show again. Thank you for having me. Thanks for taking the time. I guess today we can talk, I mean, we can talk about a lot of things with you. I mean, you're a big podcast fan yourself. I am. What kind of podcast do you listen to? I started by actually, funnily enough, listening to a productivity podcast called Cortex with CGP Grey and Mike Hurley on the podcast.

Relay Network. It's like British people. And Hello Internet, which is another CGP Grey podcast. And I realized that podcasts are cool because you get to listen to them while you do other things. They are cool. So you get to save time, which I'm a big fan of.

And then I evolved into a lot of like storytelling podcast, D&D slash role-playing game, tabletop role-playing game podcast. Like Dungeons & Dragons? So you're into Dungeons & Dragons? I haven't played...

But I would like to. Wow. I've never met someone who's into it but has never played it. Because I haven't found a group to play with. But I know how to play. I've listened to a lot of people play. What about magic? Have you heard magic? I heard about magic. I don't understand how magic works. A good friend of mine, her husband plays magic. And I understand there's cards involved. I don't know what that looks like.

I don't know either, but I used to collect magic cards when I was a kid. Okay. Just because everyone else was doing it. But I had no idea how to play it. I used to collect Pokemon cards. You remember those, you remember Pogs? Do you remember Pogs? Yeah. That was the dumbest thing, I think, ever invented. The little round things? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, kids collect everything. Just give them something to collect. You're like, I want it.

So how did you get into this line of work? So, okay, correct me if I'm wrong. Here's what I understand about you. Okay. You help people...

really kind of live more effectively, be more productive, manage their time better, and communicate more effectively. That's pretty much it. That's very well put. Yes. I shall steal that from my website. Well, was there something about productivity and time management that just really appealed to you? Was that a problem you had to solve?

had faced personally in your life that you had to get over? - So my productivity and time management interest is actually quite recent on a work level. I've started like last couple of years to really dive into that because I had to learn how to be an entrepreneur. I always worked on a nine to five for like, you know, a few years and then I got laid off and I was like, all right, so what should I do now?

And I decided maybe I can go into business for myself. But of course, I was very used to having like someone tell me what to do every day. I had, you know, client deadlines, but I also had a boss who was like, you have to do one, two, three. And then I didn't. And so I kind of had to understand how to manage my time.

And so I guess that's where it stemmed from. Like, okay, how do I get myself into a situation where I know how to manage better my time so that I can get things done? And then I started on a rabbit hole of productivity podcast and all the apps possible imaginable. And then I realized that that's not the important thing, but I had to go through that process to understand that an app is really not going to change your life unless you know how to use it. And that's what it stemmed. And that's where I still like super passionate about. So time management and like how to make people happy

get their act together and just like get things done without being miserable. So how do people do that? Well, the first, sorry. Well, the first step is actually to know what you want, like what do you want to achieve?

Because if you manage your time, you want to get things done, but you don't know where you're going, that's kind of pointless. Yeah. So that's usually the first step. Like, what do you want to achieve? Do you want to have a better life balance, life-work balance? Or do you want to get more done in your nine to five? Or do you want to make time to run that marathon that you've always wanted to? I don't know. It doesn't really matter. But you need to know what you're working towards. So you have to then work backwards.

And that's not as easy as it sounds because lots of people don't know what to do or what they want to do, I guess. Yeah. I mean, in a way, I'm almost in that boat myself, personally. Yeah.

So do you help people with that or is that something they just really have to figure out on their own before they can get to the time management part? - I'm actually designing a couple of like goal setting programs, which are like, you know, because a lot of people, at least in my line of work, I work in, you know, personal development and soft skills. And a lot of people say, I want to learn time management. Then when you talk to them, you're like, that's not your problem. Your problem is that you're not delegating. Your problem is that you don't know exactly what you're doing.

Time management and not having enough time is a problem that a lot of people see very practically, right? Oh, I ran out of time today and I didn't do X, Y, Z. But most of the time, that is not the root problem. The root problem is maybe that you're not working as efficiently as you should. Maybe you're doing the wrong things. Maybe you're working on the wrong things with the wrong people. And there's a whole different, like, sect of it. Yeah, I...

I see a lot of people kind of almost use time as almost an excuse of why they don't get things done. Like, oh, I just don't have enough time. I'm so busy. And yeah, they are busy. But at the same time, when something does come up and it's a priority for them, they find the time to get it done. But other things they don't. So from my view, it's almost about prioritizing.

Because if it's a priority for you, no matter how busy you are, you're going to find the time to get it done, to do it. Absolutely. But a lot of people, for things that aren't a priority and they don't get it done, they're like, oh, I just don't have enough time. I just don't have enough time. It's not really about the time. It's about, is this not important to you enough? Absolutely. I just, very topically, yesterday, I'm a big LinkedIn user. And I was talking to a friend of mine, Ali Zay. She's here in Shanghai. A couple of last week. And I text her.

Hey, I'm guessing you're very busy lately. Like, can we get lunch sometime? And she was like, she sent me a voice message saying, I don't tell people I'm busy anymore because I don't like that. So I'm good. Let's talk in a couple of weeks and we can make lunch. And so yesterday I was actually on LinkedIn and I wanted to share that because that resonated a lot with me. The fact that we do use I'm busy to just say, how are you? I'm busy.

"Yeah, but what are you busy doing?" And so I was actually reflecting on a lot of people say they're busy, but most of the time they don't realize what busyness is, because you just get into this autopilot kind of situation where you're like, "Yeah, you always done like that. Your routine has always been like that." But is that really serving you? Is that really making you do the right things? Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.

And so I've been trying, sorry, Mike, I've been trying to like stay, consciously stay away from saying busy. Yeah, people, there are some people, and I know some people that almost use busy as a source of pride. Oh, those. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like they're proud. It's almost like they want to say that they're really busy and the more busy they are, and they are very busy. They're not lying about it. They're very busy.

But they, it's almost a sense of pride when they say it. It's like, oh, I'm so busy. I'm so busy. It's like, well, you know, I don't think it's about being like what you're saying. Kind of, it's not about being so busy, but what are you actually doing with that time? Right. And are you actually being affected? Like, I mean, everyone can be busy. Right.

But that doesn't mean you're getting a lot done. True. And also I feel that busy is kind of like you said, like a pride thing or like a badge of honor, right? Because if I'm so busy, it means that of course I'm successful. Because like people who are not busy, it means they're not doing anything. Like the more busy they are, the more like successful. And I'm not saying that people can't be actually busy and have like full schedules. Because of course, if you're involved in all the projects, if you get a lot of things done,

Like we all have 24 hours in the day. You got to fill them somehow. But it's the same kind of people who take a lot of pride in like sleeping three hours a night because of the hustle, quote unquote. And I'm not a big fan of that. Everybody organizes their time in their life however they want to. I personally feel that sleeping three hours a night because you have so many things to do

It's not a productive way to survive because sleeping three hours a night, it's not physically sustainable for a long period of time.

Do you read about minimalism? Are you reading my mind right now? I do. I'm really, really interested in minimalism. I started with the very simple capsule wardrobe kind of thing. You know that? No, I'm not familiar with that one. So I started because I was organizing very, very simply. I was organizing my wardrobe and I was like, I have way too many clothes. I don't need all of this.

Also, nothing really matches. So why do I have all this stuff? And so I found this idea, which is called a capsule wardrobe, which basically means you have like 15 to 20 like stable pieces and then you can mix and match them, like regardless of like everything goes with everything. That's why I mostly wear black clothes

white, neutral colors, gray, and like burgundy. That's it. And like everything kind of matches with everything. And that has taken a huge like weight off my mind because I don't have to like wake up in the morning and decide, oh, I have this blue shirt and this yellow pants. And like, how do I make them work? I was like, no. And that is like very, very visual step to minimalism, which is like,

don't spend time thinking of things that don't really matter. Think of stiff jobs that always had the same pair of pants and the same black turtleneck. That's an idea. You don't have to spend time thinking of things that are not serving you. And then you can, what a word I'm looking for, you can decline that into everything. Time, projects,

personal life work life anything so it's really about like trimming the fat right like trimming the fat away from things that like you're saying aren't serving you and just taking up time i think that we live in a society where more is better yeah and i'm not here for it i don't like it i don't agree with it i think that we can always have more but i don't necessarily agree that more is better

I don't know, maybe it's anti-consumerism of some sort, but I don't know. That's kind of like reflecting on the fact that just wanting more and having more, it's advertised as the way of, you know, being successful and being happy, but

everyone who is rich and miserable can tell you that that's not necessarily true. Well, it's also one of the biggest sources of anxiety as well. A lot of studies, and I've spoken to many guests who have told me that as well. The idea of wanting more and never having enough is one of our biggest sources of anxiety. And we live in a society where it's designed to give you anxiety.

It's designed to keep telling you you're not good enough. You don't have enough. There's always something better that you need. And it's instilling fear and jealousy and comparison and fear of missing out, all these things. Absolutely. Unless you just live everything and just go live in the woods, the society is not going to change radically anytime soon.

So I think that our responsibility is we got to deal with it as much as we can. And one of the reasons is because we have the power to deal with it. Like you can shut off your social media. You can decide not to talk to people who always try to, you know, compare their life with yours or something. So we can do things to avoid that, not in a systemic way, maybe like not on a big scale, not in a,

Maybe not on the short term, maybe in the long term, but that's definitely true. Like we get bombarded, like not just from advertisement, but just from like how people talk, right? Oh, I'm going to be happy when I'll have that promotion. I'm going to be successful when I have that house.

I wanna wait for Friday, I wanna wait for the holidays, I wanna wait for next year. And there's always this idea that like, unless you have X, Y, Z, you can't be happy. - It's never about the present, right? - It is. - Like everything you're saying, it's always about something external or something in the future.

It's never, ever about the present. No one's ever like, oh, I'm so happy right now in this present moment. No one, hardly anyone ever says that, right? And we go on living and we're always looking for like the next thing or that future date or, you know, and it's never about the here and now. And I don't know, I guess that can play into maybe our idea and perception of time, right?

I mean, what do you think it is about, I mean, going back to productivity and even minimalism, because I didn't think we were going to talk about minimalism, but I think that ties, that's very much...

related to kind of the nature of what you do as well in terms of you know just like being on track and just like the nuts and bolts of things and trim the fat away from everything right right um what do you think it is about the people that you work with or what you observe in society what do you think it is about like our relationship with time that needs um that can be improved the most

That's a big question. I think that a lot of people don't think about that enough. A lot of people, as I said before, go on autopilot, right? Because that's how everybody has ever always done. That's how your parents did things. That's how you find a job and then you have to wake up at that time and then you have to go to the office and then you leave at five, six, seven, whatever. And then you go home and then you always have this routine. And so a lot of people don't even stop and think about, huh, am I using my time properly?

as I want to. Like, am I quote unquote, the master of my own time? And of course, for me, I know I'm speaking from a place of privilege because having my own business and working independently, I can kind of make time for what I want. And you know, if you work in a nine to five, you are not necessarily the master of your time all the time. You have control over some parts of your time, but if you work, you know, you don't necessarily have all control.

Well, let me cut you off really quick right there because to that point, you know, it's strange because a lot of the people that tell me that they just don't have enough time and they're just up to their ears in like work and they just can't manage anything else besides like what they're doing. Yeah.

And many of them are owners of their own business, you know? And because the whole nine to five thing, you know, I get it, right? You're working for a company, you have a schedule and, you know, it's kind of fixed and you kind of have to be there. And so, but it's weird because like most of the people that tell me they're so busy are people who are running their own business. And of course, running your own business, being an entrepreneur, you're incredibly busy, incredibly, incredibly busy.

But it's those exact people who do have kind of domain over like the architecture of their time are the very ones that say they just can't, they just don't have enough time or they can't manage. Send them to me. I'll work with them. Yeah. Well, do you work with people like that a lot? I do. I do. And like, I'm trying to set up a more like entrepreneur focused like coaching program and coaching tools because a lot of people, as you said, I think that there's like the,

There's this concept that when you work for yourself, like, of course, you have to take on a huge number of responsibilities. You have to start by doing everything, you know, from payroll to marketing to design to content creation to product design to whatever you're doing. Right. And of course, a lot of people think that, well, it's my company. I'll do it myself. But that sometimes doesn't translate into how much time do you actually have to dedicate to each of those things?

Can you delegate any of those? Can you outsource? Can you automate something? Because that's something I personally didn't think about when I was starting. And I was like, well, it's me. Like, I don't have to pay anybody else. Of course, I'll do it at all. And it works up to a point. And then it doesn't. Because you realize that you can. I mean, everybody can do anything they want. It's just, is that really the best use of your time?

Recently, like with a project, I was the one doing like all the flyers, all the back end. Like it was not difficult work. I could do it. I can still do it. But I have outsourced that to someone who's, you know, very good at doing that. And I got, you know, three, four hours of my weeks back. That's not bad. Well, it's great in theory because when it comes to delegation, because I have this issue and it could be very much a me thing, you know, like I'm in my own head too much.

Welcome to the club. But the problem with delegation is sometimes when you really, like if it's your business, right? You care about it so much that there are certain things you just almost don't trust anyone else but yourself to do. Fair. I understand that. Right? Even though you know it can free you up massively in terms of time if you were to delegate. True. But I think that the deal with delegation is you have to do a little bit of work up front, right?

to make sure that you choose the right person to delegate to, that you're delegating the right tasks. Like I will never delegate my company's business strategy to anyone, right? Because that's me. But I can delegate designing a flyer because in the priority of things, that's important, but it's not as important that I don't trust anybody else.

And what you have to work on is setting up, and this is not easy. I'm saying this as theoretically, but it's not always super easy to do. You have to set up the right expectations, right? And be willing, and this is something I had to learn, be willing to give very honest feedback to

And not saying, oh, but you spend that time on that. I'll think it's going to be good enough. Like it's not. If you're not happy with it, just say it's not good and have them do it again until they know exactly what you expect, which means that the next time you have to spend less time.

checking it. And then the next time is going to be even less. And then you're just like, you don't even have to think about it because they already know what to expect from you. But that takes time. So that's an investment you have to make of energy and time that will save you time in the long run.

But that's something that you have to plan for it, right? You can't expect someone to do the job exactly as you would the first time around. Because something I learned, not everybody thinks like you. Guess what? Not everybody lives in your head. I know. Shocking. Well, that goes into communication, right? And what you're talking about is like, you know, how do you communicate effectively?

You know, you just kind of presented the example of setting the bar from the get-go. Setting the standards. So it's not just about if someone spends a lot of time doing something and you know they work really hard, they put their heart into it, but it's just not good enough. Well, you got to be honest and tell them, hey, that's not good enough because that's going to save you in the long run, right? Yeah, so that boils down to effective communication. That's another thing you do? I do. I do. So is that also because it's about...

Are you into effective communication because you dislike communication or is it also tied to the idea of saving time and being productive? I never thought about it that way, but I guess it all ties together, really. Communication and soft skills was my first topic of training and coaching. So I guess it fits, so it makes perfect sense. But I feel that the communication part is also between...

People and culture and just different perspectives and just the idea that we think that we communicate very clearly and then we marvel ourselves. Like, why did that person not get what I was wanting to say? And like, well, maybe you didn't communicate it clearly enough. Impossible. I'm the best communicator ever. Like, yeah, probably not. Because we don't think about how we communicate clearly.

very often at least i do but that's my job i think that like people who like just walk on the street don't think of their communication style and like how often they use you know should and would instead of can and could or whatever well they don't get out of their own heads either like you're saying right like like we we communicate and it's almost like i don't know i don't know how you can do it otherwise but we communicate in the idea of like in our own in our own um

And the way we understand things, right? Yeah. With the way we process things. But the whole point of communication is letting someone else understand what you're saying. That's the whole point after all. That is. That is. So it's like almost having to get out of our own head, step out of our own shoes when we communicate. And I guess maybe that goes in with like having a high EQ because everyone's going to be different. Every person you talk to is going to be different.

So you have to know how to communicate with different people. And that's like an EQ thing, maybe? Absolutely. I understand the whole EQ, IQ kind of thing. So the emotional quotient. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I just like to call it awareness, right? Just being aware of who you are and where you are and who you're talking to. That's the whole cross-cultural part of it because if you're talking to someone who was raised and has socialized and has experiences in a different country and different culture, how can you pretend that you're going to have exactly the same points of references? That's just not going to happen.

In every single, like even in one country, you have people who have lived in very different situations. Even in the same city, you have people with wildly different backgrounds.

who don't necessarily, even though they speak the same language, they don't necessarily have the same points of reference. And so it's going to be hard for them to just click instantly. So imagine people who were raised in different countries, like Europe and China, or like the US and Japan or Australia or like Africa. It doesn't... I think it's very...

presumptuous to think that like everyone just gets everyone and it's not really true and just

events and like news and everything just proves that people don't really think about that. Yeah. Well, I think on the surface, like everything we're talking about, you know, people know people like intellectually, they understand it. Sure. Sure. But it's, it's different in actual practice, right? Like we all, we all know these things. We can, when, you know, when you say these things, everyone's going to be like, yeah, yeah, I get it. I know that. Right. But I guess when it comes to like actualizing,

you know, our actual behavior. Um, it's a different story. Like, so how do you, like, how do you help people? Like, how do you help people?

people, I guess. Most of the time is just to talking in conversation because like a workshop is basically a facilitated discussion. Like you just get people into a room, you give them some inputs and then you have them think about things. So one of the, one of my favorite things to do, and I just found out that I will be doing this like in November is actually helping teams who come from different backgrounds, like to try and communicate better together.

And I work a lot through reasons I'm still not sure. I work a lot with Nordic companies, like Danish and Swedish companies. And if you ever talk to a Swede or a Dane, you know that they're extremely direct people. They don't beat around the bush. They're just like what they think, they say. It's all about efficiency. It's all about getting things done. And you can imagine when they come to China or when they have things going on with China...

they don't necessarily change the approach because their approach works wonderfully in their own country.

So if nobody tells them, they keep doing what they're doing because that's what we as humans are programmed to do. If something is working, why change it? Which is a fair approach. Well, it's also logical, right? Like to be direct, like I'm going to say how I feel and communicate exactly what I mean. And so it's logically, you know, it works. You've been in China long enough to know that that's not true. Well, I know it doesn't work here. Right.

But I'm saying for them. Oh, sure. Absolutely. Because I had the same issue. Right. Absolutely. And like, again, people are like habit, like creatures of habit. So anything that has worked before, like if nobody tells you it's not working, why change it? Yeah. And then when they arrive here, they go, especially like managers or like team leaders, they go and talk to their team. And maybe they're very, very honestly and earnestly point out in front of everybody that someone has made a mistake.

And that's where things get complicated because the team, especially in Asia and specifically in China, gets a little bit offended, gets, you know, like, why is this person trying? Yeah, you know, they lose face. And then, you know, there's a whole thing going on. And like,

The people don't like people, especially coming from Europe, they don't realize what they've done. They just noticed that the work doesn't get done, that people are not as helpful as they used to, or like it takes longer to get a decision and they wonder, you know, is it because of the business? Is it because of the strategy? And maybe sometimes it's just one wrong comment that sidetracked the whole relationship, you know, working relationship, like team dynamics, right?

And so having these honest conversations about, you know, in Europe and in these particular countries, people are used to be more direct. It's nothing against you is something that they're used to do. In China, people are used to be more indirect because they value more harmony and team dynamics over to necessarily bluntness. And so just letting people be aware of this can be a game changer. It doesn't necessarily improve things, you know.

one second from the other, but just knowing that that's a thing. Yeah, so they're not as offended because they know it's a cultural thing and it's not something directed personally towards them, right? Right, right. Yeah, I think that's so true. Just the very awareness of that goes, works wonders because it's almost like both sides are going to meet each other halfway in the middle now. Right. Like from, let's say, the Chinese side, they understand, oh, that's like a cultural thing with them. They're very direct. They don't mean it to like,

offend you they don't mean it to like single you out that's just how they work right but at the other side like if you're sweet or you know or anyone like an American or an American yeah exactly anyone that's in general and you have to understand like okay in China that's really culturally that's also not how it works either so everyone meets everyone in the middle

And just the very understanding of that, all of a sudden you're like, okay, you know, and then people can get along and work more effectively. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, it's not as easy. You know, sometimes there's a lot of like cultural, like deeper values that clash or just like company culture or like personalities. Like people have also personalities, not just about culture.

But at least getting that awareness out can help at least ease the tensions, you know, that sometimes can be created. Yeah, I never thought about it that way. That seems very effective to me because, you know, a lot of times I guess we go about thinking, oh, we need to change the other person. We need to change these like deeply rooted cultural behaviors or biases or ways of thinking, whatever it is. But you're not going to change that, nor necessarily should you.

And so it's not about changing it, but it's just something as simple as

as having that conversation and bring awareness to both sides. So everyone knows like, oh, okay, so that's what's going on here. Oh, I thought it was this. I thought he was just being an asshole, but no, that's not. It's, oh, okay, I see now. And then everyone calms down. You know, everyone doesn't take it personally anymore, right? And there's not so much tension and frustration and anger. Everyone kind of gets it, even though they still might not change, but they're aware of what's happening at least, right?

And that could help. I mean, that could help greatly. Absolutely. And good luck changing people. Yeah, exactly. If they don't want to change, that's just not going to happen. You're wasting your time. You are. And you're also wasting energies because changing someone who doesn't understand or want to change, it's...

never going to happen. Like we have a hard time enough to change ourselves when we really, really want to think of anyone who wants to quit smoking or like start exercising. And we have a hundred percent of control over ourselves. Think about how hard it is to change someone else. So that's just not going to happen. What's your view? Are you an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to people really being able to change themselves?

I don't know, is there a halfway? Because I think that I used to be an extremely cynical person because I thought, well, the world is what it is and people can be bad and there's not a lot of good-natured people. But lately, especially maybe this year, has brought a lot of people just thinking and lockdowns and quarantines and whatnot. I honestly think that people can change if they really want to. It's just most of the time they're not motivated hard enough to change.

Anything about motivation? I think, well, I do run Monday Morning Motivation, so I kind of have to. But I don't think that like motivation itself is enough. I think that you have to, again, I think for me, it always gets down to like the goal, like where do you want to go? Because if you want to make a change, you have to be, you have to know why you're changing, right? For example, let's say I don't smoke, but like people who smoke, like they want to quit because they want to be healthier.

And everybody knows this, right? Everybody who smokes knows that smoking is unhealthy. Yeah, no one's smoking thinking it's healthy. Oh, that's bullshit. It's healthy. Right, but unless you have either someone telling you that you have a very serious disease, that if you don't quit smoking, it's going to be even worse. Unless you know someone who has a very serious disease. I actually would like to try the other one. Thank you very much. Awesome.

Go on. Yeah, so like in the grand scheme of things, everybody knows it intellectually. But unless you have a very personal shock, then you will not be motivated enough. Or it would not touch you personally. I was reading like yesterday about climate change. Everybody knows, well, most people acknowledge that climate change is a thing. Okay? We don't talk about the ones who don't. But unless it affects you like...

right where you are, you will not take as decisive action as you could because it's not close to you enough, right? Yeah, I know it's a thing, but like, it won't happen to me. - Yeah. - That's the whole thing, it won't happen to me mentality, which is scary, but also very human, so. - Well, yeah, well, that's what I mean, like as a whole, I mean, obviously individuals can change certain things about themselves, right?

But as a whole, I mean, I guess now we're talking about like more societal kind of changes on a larger scale. Like, I mean, I don't know. The more time that passes, the more kind of almost pessimistic I get about actual change being what happened. And you bring up a good point. Like this year has kind of really exposed a lot of things, whether it's climate crisis with all the fires going on, you know. And unless the fire is like burning down your house, right?

Like, no one really cares. It's just news. No one's really doing anything, right? Same thing with the protests that are going on, right? In terms of, like, we all know racism is out there. We all know, like, police brutality is out there. We all know these things are happening. But unless, like, it's really affecting us, like, are people really changing? I mean, it's easy to virtue signal. It's easy to be like, yes, of course, Black Lives Matter. Of course, these things are important. And it's easy to post, like, something on Instagram that's, you know, supporting that.

But like, what are you actually doing? I mean, are you really kind of going about changing yourself? Right. And are you, are you really on a day to day basis? I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm just talking out of school, but I just feel like a lot of these changes are so superficial sometimes. And, and then, you know, a few years go by and everyone forgets it happens. And here we go again. We're back to where we were, you know? I think that on a big picture kind of thing, like a change that big is going to take time.

But I think that everyone, like, yes, for example, social media, like it's so much easier just to post something on social media saying that you are supporting Black Lives Matter or you're supporting your LGBTQ community or you're supporting, you know, wear your mask or whatever.

And it's easy. So a lot of people do it. I do agree with you that actual change, like behavioral change, it's so much harder because it's physically harder. Like you have to change what you have done. With Monday Morning Motivation and like with Janine and a lot of other people that work with, we do a lot of like habits kind of, you know,

establishing. And I was in lockdown for four months in Italy and I had to change entirely my habits because I was not in Shanghai anymore. I was working with China that was six to seven hours ahead. It was ridiculous.

And I had to, you know, find a new routine and find new ways of working. And like, that's hard because you get into your routine and you know what you're doing. And then suddenly you have to change. And like your brain doesn't like it. Your body doesn't like it. And so it's hard. It's uncomfortable. And that's not even really you changing. You were forced to change by external events. Right. You didn't even have a choice in the matter. Right. And like, and the same thing goes for like, you know,

Things, as we said before, things that don't touch you directly. Why should you change the way you do things to help like a distant cause? I think that unfortunately for human beings, that's not an easy thing to do because we're very like, you know, cultivate your own garden kind of thing. And if it's not directly impacting your livelihood or someone you love or someone who's really close to you, you always think that, you know, but if others change, it's going to be enough. Yeah.

And unfortunately, that's not true. But I feel that a lot of people don't, again, maybe it comes down to awareness, right? And the whole, you know, do your little bit part that can help everybody. Yeah.

Because of my field of work, I have started since a few years ago to just change the way I speak about things, like using more inclusive language. Since then, I basically think in English. I've started using they as a gender-neutral pronoun when I'm talking about someone that I don't necessarily need to use their gender for.

And like, that's a very small thing. But that's something that it's more inclusive compared to just saying he or she, which is also it's longer, so it's stupid. But and that's a very, very small thing. And I'm not pretending to change the world with it. But that's one way that if everybody did that, it would be a slightly more inclusive world.

So I guess it's the idea of, like we were saying, everyone kind of doing their own little part and the accumulative effect, right? I guess. Increments. Right. Because, again, we can't change others. So, like, that's just energy wasted if you try to really force your views on others. And they don't care. They will never just change because you tell them. Mm-hmm.

What about even like changing yourself, though? Is it more is your philosophy more about like, you know, let's not think about making these like huge changes to our own character at first. It's more about small incremental changes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Anyone who has ever tried reinventing. Oh, this is really good.

I can smell the peatiness from here. We're drinking. We opened up another bottle of the Lafroi quarter task. Oh, this is so good. This is, I did enjoy the Mortlach a little bit too sweet for my taste, but still very enjoyable. This is my jam. Wow. Okay. This is your jam. I see the Lafroi. Okay. We got a real quick, I got to give a shout out to this because this was, this bottle was brought to me by our last guest, Troy Andrews. Yeah. He brought this bottle to the show. We drank something else.

on that episode so I kind of so thank you Troy thank you Troy yeah we'll try not to finish it and when you come back we'll continue doing it also I have to come back now because I haven't brought you anything and so I shouldn't no no no I wasn't saying that to kill you no no I'm very happy to come back with a bottle of something so I'll just make a note of that deal

So what were we talking about? Habits and incremental change. Okay. So, okay. Monday morning motivation. Right. So that's a group, a community that you and Janine started together, right? And so what is the mission with that? The mission is to share a little bit of Janine's wonderful enthusiasm and my positivity on like people can change.

be better and like improve themselves if they want to. And it's a community where we encourage people to, well, very, very practically to just wake up a little bit earlier on a Monday morning and join us on a Zoom call at 7am or 8am. The excuse for that is having great speakers that share with us their insights on whatever field they are experts on. And the idea is that just that

Waking up a little bit earlier can make your day a little bit better just because you have more time and because listening to inspiring people and things that may be learning new things can give you some insights on something that you want to change about yourself. So we started this in May 2019.

So it's been a year and a half now. We have about 2,000 something people on WeChat. So that's a community that's grown quite a lot. And I hate to say this, but it was thanks to the virus situation that we just skyrocketed during like February, March and April. Why? Why is that? People wanted to have some positivity in their lives. Yeah.

We in February and March, we had this daily check in thing where me and Janine would just open up a Zoom call and just check in with people. And it was wonderful because we really saw the community like, you know, coming to us and like asking, you know, how was it? And then I was locked in Italy and Janine was in China. So we, you know, we could communicate between ourselves. And also people were like trying to like find the place.

silver lining of all that dreadful time where everybody didn't really know what was going to happen and news were very bleak then China started to get better then Europe started to get quite bad and so there was like a lot of like anxiety going on um

And so a lot of people found it really useful. And most people are still there. So we do thank our whole community for actually, you know, being there. And that has given me personally a huge outlet to like support and manage this community that has given me a lot of like positivity back. Because even just saying this, I've been back in Shanghai for what now? A month and something? A month and a week? Yeah.

And having people, when I was not in China, just having Janine tell me, someone approached me and say, "Hey, are you from Monday Morning Motivation?" Just randomly in Shanghai. Like that's nice. - Yeah, it's gotta feel good, right? - Or like people say, "Oh, you're the one from Monday Morning Motivation. Oh, I really, really like your group." And like, even if they don't comment on the actual group, but you do know that even like you sending a little picture

That takes me, what, 30 seconds to send a picture in five WeChat groups that can help someone just brighten up their day a little bit. That's worth it. And, you know, I'm not into spiritualism and I'm not like, you know, energy and whatnot. But knowing that someone got their day just a little bit brighter and a little bit happier just because I took 30 seconds out of my life, I can live with that. It's like such a simple thing.

to just do and really quick, doesn't take any time, just to spread a little bit of positivity into a community, right? - And if this year has taught me anything, it's just that what goes around comes around. - Oh, so you believe in karma?

I didn't used to, but I'm kind of coming around to it. Really? Did something happen? No, not really. But I don't know. I've been seeing a lot more like coincidences. And me from a year ago would just be very, very confused right now. But I don't know what...

Yeah, there's a saying like people come into your life for a reason or whatever that is. I don't know, like very rom-com 90s kind of sentence. But I look at it the other way around is like that you can make the best of every situation, like in every person that like you meet and whether they are like positive or negative, you can still like learn something. So if you just try to approach it with the best possible outcome, which doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a positive outcome, I think that it doesn't hurt.

Like being always cynical and always being pessimistic. It has a place and there's, you know, times where you're like, everything is terrible and I don't want to talk to anybody and that's fair, but that doesn't do yourself any, any good. And so, you know, I don't know. Well, like, I mean, um,

Okay, so here's the whole thing with positivity, right? And obviously positivity is a great thing. And the more positivity and love you can spread, the better. I mean, obviously. Peace and love. Peace and love, right? But here's the thing with positivity. I mean, it only does so much though, right? True. At a certain point in time, everyone's going through their own problems and...

You know, just being, hey, stay positive, be positive, and just saying positive things. I mean, at a certain point, to some people, when they're really in the rut, I mean, it's almost like, shut up already. Like, you know, like, they don't want to hear it, right? No, I understand. I 100% understand. And they want to hear, like, solutions, or they want solutions, actual solutions they can act on, and real talk, instead of just, hey, positivity, positivity, sunshine, sunshine, rainbows all the time. So, like, you know, how do you...

Like, how do you balance that? I think there has to be, like, definitely a balance. Like, I think that I work very well with Janine because she, like, we're very different people. And I am much more, like, an honest and, like, down-to-earth, like, outlook on things. Like, I do agree that...

Putting a positive spin on things helps, but I'm not delusional. Like if someone is going through like a bout of depression, like I'm not just going to say, get yourself out of it because that's not how depression works.

So I think that comes down again to awareness and compassion and being understanding that like everyone has their own timing and everyone has their own issues. And all the time, just, you know, it depends where you are. If you're just like having a bad day, maybe what like reading a nice quote on WeChat or on Instagram or Facebook or whatever you are, maybe that can help.

If you have deep-rooted issues, like, that picture is not going to do anything for you. Actually, it's going to irritate you. Because, like, why is everybody being so nice and, like, everything sucks? And, like, I hate everybody. Then you feel so isolated because then you feel like, oh, I'm the only one that is, like, miserable. That's an excellent point. And I think that that's the key of things. Like, sharing that that is normal.

has a lot of power. What we were doing during Monday Morning Motivation during lockdown was actually trying to normalize that people were not okay. Because like very honestly, this is called the honest drink. We're drinking, we're being honest. It was draining to like be every day for 30 minutes on a Zoom call

motivating and like trying to look the bright side of things while I was under lockdown. I was in Italy, in Milan, we had 4,000 deaths a day. And I did not know, like my immediate family was okay, but I didn't know if things were going to be okay. I didn't know how long it was going to be under lockdown. I didn't know how the world was going to go. And I had to quote unquote, put a face on to, you know, try to be honest, sure. But you know,

I was hosting it, so I couldn't just be, you know, complaining about things. And I was happy to, like, provide a space for everybody to just share the fact that they were not okay. They were worried. They were anxious. And a lot of people found a lot of value on it. But for me personally, it was draining. That's why we didn't do it for too long. We did it for, like, three weeks. And then I spoke with Janine. I was like, look,

I don't think I can do this anymore because my mental health is on the line. Like I'm already dealing with, you know, like everybody was dealing with a lot of things and then added the idea of like, you know, putting on a quote unquote professional face. But I think that helped a lot of people because they recognized that everybody was feeling that way. And that was a place where I was trying to be more authentic and more vulnerable. And, you know, like,

Sure. I'm a person like everybody. I just go to bed not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring and whether I will be able to go back to China that has been my home for 10 years, where all my stuff is, where all my friends are, where my business is. And that's terrifying. And this year, I think, has taught us that a lot of people felt the same way. And people started opening up and everybody kind of realized, oh, it's not just me.

Or at least it's not just me that feels this way sometimes, right? And then some people feel it more often. Some people get through it and some people just relapse. But it's more about talking about this compared to just like pretending everything's okay when it's not. God, I love your mindset. I love your attitude because it's so important. And I agree with that 1000%. Like the idea of...

Like it's really draining when you're not being completely genuine and authentic. Absolutely. It's extremely draining. And I mean, in your line of work as well, like, you know, you're a coach, right? I mean, there are a lot of coaches out there and they're just not even coaches. There's a lot of people out there. Yeah. And it just feels like, it feels like, I don't know, I guess the analogy is like you're always on a job interview, right? Like you got to- You're always selling something. You're always selling something, right? And you got to put up your best front.

You got to put out like, yeah, exactly. You're on your best behavior or your image. Exactly. It's like you're constantly on a job interview or you're constantly on a first date. And that sounds terrible. Oh God. Yeah. Right. But it's so draining. And, but the more you do it,

like people see through it you know like people are a lot more intuitive than we give than we think yeah and you see through that and then there comes to a certain point even though a lot of these people mean well right um it comes to a certain point where they're not being as effective as they can be because you know you know there's a certain sense that this is sort of a performance right you know um

And it's the idea of being authentic that a lot of, I think, strikes fear in a lot of people. Because then they come out, then they're vulnerable. Yes. And this idea of vulnerability is extremely scary for people. Yeah. Extremely, extremely scary for people. But it's really, I think, the only way you're really going to affect change and get people on board because...

It's the idea of like making people feel like you don't have to change them, but as just something as simple as letting them feel that they're not alone in how they feel. Right. Can go a long, long way. Absolutely. Even in the beginning with this podcast, like, you know, like there were people telling me like, oh, you shouldn't be so personal on this podcast. You shouldn't like talk about so like personal things about yourself because I get very personal about myself in this podcast many times.

And, you know, so but I feel like, well, it's the honest drink. And the whole premise is like, look, you know, I don't know. I'm learning just just like everyone else. I'm looking for answers just like everyone else. But like, as long as I can be honest about like sharing my own struggles and challenges and things I've gone through, hey, maybe, you know, there are people that are listening that are feeling something similar.

And just that very feeling like, oh, I'm not alone in this. Because I know this from my own personal experience when I've felt that way, it's helped me a ton. Right. Right. But that only comes when you can kind of drop the wall, you know, lower your shields a little bit. Right. And just and just really kind of be authentic. But I mean, I guess in your line of work, it's it's got to be tough for a lot of people to feel vulnerable because they're out there trying to help people. So they feel like they can't be vulnerable.

It's very funny you say that because I've been toying with the idea when I wasn't under lockdown to have this style of coaching that I called honest coaching. I don't know if that's a thing. If that's a thing, I'm probably stealing from someone. Sorry. But the idea that like,

A coach, also a lot of people just have an idea of what a coach is. It's either someone who just tells you what to do and just with a little whistle, hey, you got to do one, two, three, or someone who just keeps asking you questions. And my philosophy on that, it's more about, look, I'm a person like you, but you probably need just an external coach

point of view to figure your things out. And so I can be that kind of person, right? Because whether I'm a friend or like, I'm just like a professional relationship, the idea is that talking things out loud can help. And you don't necessarily want to do that with your family because that can get uncomfortable. Like that's not their job.

Like your family's job is not, it's to support you, but like not necessarily like to help you work through things that you need. Like that's why therapists are a thing, right? You wouldn't go to your spouse when you had like a lot of mental health issues because you should go to a therapist, which is a professional person whose job is to help you through things. And the same thing with coaching, right?

Being honest about the idea that I don't necessarily know more than you, but I have my way of working through things and I can help you work through your own things just by being honest with you, but then you have to be honest with me and with yourself. And I think that that's the key. A lot of people are not willing to be honest with themselves because that's scary. Yeah. Oh, well, on both sides. Yeah.

Absolutely. You don't want people to see the vulnerable side of you. Absolutely. And then you don't want to see, you don't want people to see the vulnerable side of you. You don't want to see, you don't want to, you don't want people to see the ugly quote unquote side of you. And at the same time, you like, you don't want to get hurt because when you start getting vulnerable, you show things right. That are not perfect that you're, you know, whether your relationship or like your work or like the way you look at things. And, and,

And that's not what you present to the world. That's not the face that you present, you know, every day. And there's a reason why you have a face you present because you want people to think you're perfect. And spoiler alert, nobody's perfect. I'm 100% a perfectionist. So I'm like, this is literally me working through things in the last year and a half of trying to un-perfectionist myself.

And it's a hard work. I love it because it's like you're really like the first person I talked to that really came at it from that angle. Or at least openly. Okay. Right? Comes at it from that angle. And I really appreciate that because I would much rather seek help from a person who is human and that I can relate to. Right.

versus some perfect picture of a person who has got it all figured out. Because I can't really relate to that. And no one can really relate to that, right? You look at these motivating speakers and it's great, but they present themselves as these perfect people. And it's just like, I don't know. For me personally, if I were to seek help, I would much rather...

talk to someone that you can really kind of like be down to earth with and that they can like also talk about their issues as well. Right. And I think that it all comes down to like personality and like the way you look at things because, you know, in my line of work, there's a lot of like motivational speakers, like very famous coach, like Tony Robbins. I mean, any Tony Robbins fans out there just cover yours for a little bit. I don't like him. Yeah.

But I've been having this conversation with a friend and a coach of mine and he's a very big Tony Robbins fan. And I very often bash Tony Robbins. I can see his sales pitch like three miles away. I know what he's doing and like,

I understand that he comes at it with like, you know, potentially or hopefully like good intention angle. But I do see, you know, the speeches and the microphones and like the 2000 people stadiums. And you're like, is that really necessary? And the spoiler is that not everybody thinks like me.

There are people who genuinely think that someone who has their shit together is their model. And having someone to aspire to is motivating to them. It's not to me.

I'm very much like you. I prefer to get my insights. I'm very, very extremely fortunate to have a lot of friends in the same line of work. There are coaches where they gravitate towards personal development and I get to talk to them very often about all these kinds of things. And they are very honest with me and they're very vulnerable with me and I'm with them. And we get to have these conversations where we both get to grow. And that's wonderful. And I do wish that everybody can get that.

But I'm not motivated by the Tony Robbins's of the world because I, I don't know. I'm not a role model kind of person. I get this question a lot. Like, who's your role model? Like, I don't know. Someone, whatever, whoever comes to mind first. It doesn't really matter. Well, for me, like people like Tony Robbins, anyone kind of like that on that level, right? Like, it's not that, I mean, there's, I can't like settle my brain, quiet my brain enough to,

To have them help me because in the back of my mind, and I don't know, I mean, but in the back of my mind, I'm always like kind of, there's always like this nagging question in back of my mind, like, oh, is he for real? Or is he like... It might be just being sold to. Yeah, exactly. Like, is he just kind of like, is he just like...

It's just like a brilliant kind of like scam artist, you know, kind of thing? The answer is probably yes. But there are people who are willing to put up with it. Well, who knows? Well, I don't know, right? I mean, but the thing is... I say like scam artist like in the good way. Like because like he is definitely selling a product and the product is helping people. If you look at it from the result perspective, people...

are helped by whatever he's selling. Then what does it matter, right? What does it matter, right? It's just that some people have different, like the end goal is the same. I want to be more productive, be happier, be richer, be better at my relationships or whatever. If you get there, like who's to say that that's a bad thing? Yeah. I think that we, like, again, the awareness comes to be like, what is your preferred way to go at it?

- No, it's a very individual thing. - What is the process you want to get through? Like, do you want someone who just like motivates you, like every day just tells you what you have to do and like, you know, urges you on and like, quote unquote insults you, like if you don't do it, there are people who are genuinely motivated by that. And that's great for them. And that works. I'm not, I prefer to have a conversation with people. I prefer to like take my time and you know, have existential crisis every three days for like, what am I doing with my life?

And that's my process. And I'm not saying it's better than another process, but knowing what works for you, it's a huge game changer. But that takes time. Well, it's like televangelists too, right? I mean, okay, that's a different thing. But it's sort of the same thing. Those are scam artists. Those are 100% scam artists. Those are 1,000% scam artists. But like,

But it's the same thing. Like if a person's really getting like spiritual help watching a televangelist, like then where do you draw the line? Like at the end of the day, like is that, is it good or is it bad? You know what I mean? Like, well then it really becomes like, it becomes like an individual thing, right? I guess. My coach friend would actually say that that's about intention.

And again, you have to assume intention because unless you really go to Tony Robbins or to the televangelist, even if you ask, they will probably say, I'm doing it for the good of the people or whatever. Yeah.

But, you know, critical thinking comes into mind. And like, you know, that the televangelist was telling you that God wants him to have a yacht. It's probably not doing it for the good of the people. Okay. But, you know, if someone is doing it with the right intentions, even, and it's helping people, just because I don't like his methods doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Yeah.

Although there are, you know, then we can go into like cult territory, which is another like pet topic of mine. One of my favorite podcasts is about cults, cryptids, and conspiracies. It's literally the name of the podcast. Shout out to Chelsea and Christina. It's a very, very good podcast. I need to check that out. It's very good. It's very, very good. They talk about cults, cryptids, and conspiracies. It's very delightful. That's right up my alley. I'm going to check that out. Delightful.

But like, you know, cult leaders are very influential people and like they are very good at getting people to do what they want for their own good 99% of the time. Whether they're aware of it or not, it doesn't matter.

they indoctrinate people about whatever they think is the law of whatever religious figure they choose to follow and usually it doesn't end that well. It never ends well. But like, where do you draw the line, right? Because...

I mean, there are a lot of really big and successful motivational speakers. I'm going to bring up Tony Robbins just because that's kind of the only one I know. He's the biggest one. He's the biggest one. But there's a lot of big ones. He's the embodiment of a lot of people who do. Like on YouTube, you'll find a lot of really big ones that are making millions and millions of dollars doing what they do. It's just that I just know the name Tony Robbins. But anyway, yeah.

when it comes to him and his followings and other people like him and their followings, there is, you know, people, some people define them as a cult as well. Absolutely. Like, I mean, what's the difference, right? Again, shout out to cults, cryptids, and conspiracies. Chelsea and Christina would say that like what it means

is like the behaviors that people are forced into for a cult. Like, yes, some ideologies can, let's say, be cult-like because anyone who's like blindly following just one source, like,

you could theoretically say that they're like indoctrinated, right? Someone who just like blindly follows like one source of news, someone who just blindly follows what one friend always says, and like someone who blindly follows whatever their boss or their parents or their church leader or their podcast host or whatever. Like that's just the brain not getting any information from any other sources, right?

Like to be in a cult, technically, like there's a checklist. If you go on the internet, you'll find like a cult checklist, which basically means, you know, what kind of behaviors are people forced into? Like there's sleep deprivation. Like what are you supposed to wear? A cult cut or your ties with your family. Like a lot of like dietary restrictions. Like who are you supposed to have relationships with?

And like, how is your day scheduled? Because of course, if your day is scheduled very tightly, you don't have time to think. And that makes you like think of things they want you to think and they don't leave enough time for critical thinking. And then physical work, which makes you exhausted, which makes you less likely to question why things are happening. So I guess it boils down to how much control they implement. Yes, that's correct. So I would say that going to a motivational speaker's like three-day seminar is,

You could feel like someone is trying to sell, quote unquote, their view of the world. But as long as you're able to get home and do whatever you want with it, I think that's okay. Yeah, I guess according to that cult checklist then, it wouldn't be a cult at all then because you're totally free to just live your life. There's no control. Right. I guess where it becomes shady is, well, not shady, but where a lot of people question, oh, is this kind of a cult-like behavior? Yeah.

is when people are just kind of like blindly like paying ridiculous sums of money for every product, every seminar, every event that this person puts out, right? And they're just like throwing their money at them. Absorbent amount of money. It's like, we're not talking about like, you know, a few hundred dollars. Have you ever heard of Apple? No.

Apple, you mean Apple? Yeah. Company Apple? Yeah. How many people do blindly throw money at... We're going there now. We are. I'm not an Apple fan. Ooh, okay. How many people do blindly throw a ridiculous amount of money for the newest iPhone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, again, I'm not an iPhone fan. I have nothing against the iPhone per se. It's just that how better is that phone for that price compared to any other phone?

Most people don't buy an iPhone because it's a better phone. Most people buy an iPhone because it's an iPhone. And I'm very... I get you. I get you. I'm happy to be wrong. But like as someone who doesn't buy Apple products because they're kind of a cult. Okay. I'm struggling here. All right. Because... Sorry? No, no, no. You have nothing to apologize for. I'm only struggling. I'm struggling because I kind of agree with you. Mm-hmm.

But that's only because if I didn't agree with you at all, I wouldn't be struggling. I just tell you. But here's where I'm on the fence. Because Apple genuinely does. Well, I mean, maybe they've been slipping in the past year or a few, ever since Steve Jobs passed, maybe. But I mean, before that, they were putting out the best, most innovative products.

and most user-friendly, best-looking devices out there. Like, I mean, they were. Fair. No, that's fair. Nobody questions, like... Yeah, so that's fair. So, like, by putting out the best stuff out there, they got the demand for it, and they got, like, a loyal customer base for that, which is completely fair. I mean, that's capitalism, right? That's capitalism. That's a business, right. So, it's like, I equate that to, like, kind of like Nike. Like, I mean, like, people are buying Nike sneakers. Well, then you can say Nike fans...

people who buy Nike sneakers are a cult. You can say they're cult following because they only buy the Nike sneakers because they're Nikes, right? I mean, they're not, the quality isn't really any different than an Adidas. - Right, I think that it still comes down to intention. Like what you just said is like, you buy, are you an Apple fan? Like, do you have Apple products? - Yeah, I have an iPhone. - Okay, all right. - I mean, I'm not diehard. - Why did you buy your iPhone?

I bought my iPhone just because of convenience. Okay. Yeah. Because of the Apple system? Yes, because of the Apple system. Also because, okay, so here's a funny story. Before this phone, I just bought, because I just bought a new iPhone. Okay. I tried to switch to the Samsung S20. Okay. Because I wanted to try Android.

But then I forgot about the fact that the China Samsung phones and like international Samsung phones, like you have different access, right?

So I couldn't like download, like I couldn't get access to like the Western app store to download VPN and all that stuff. So it was kind of like unusable for me. So I sold that and we went back to Apple just because of the convenience of it. And there's Apple stores everywhere and you know, this is whatever. And I'm familiar with it. Fair. And like, but like you are making all those reasonings.

And that's fair. But I'm not like diehard. Like I don't have to have. No, no, no. But like that's like you like to me that's like enough to justify the choice because you're thinking about that choice. There are people who are genuinely buy an iPhone just because they have to have an iPhone because it looks better because their friends will judge them if they don't buy an iPhone. That's what I'm criticizing.

That's what I'm saying, like, that's cult-like. Because if you're honestly, like, comparing different technology or different ideology or, you know, take the metaphor, whatever you want, if you're honestly comparing and deciding that this one suits you better...

power to you. Like that's all what critical thinking is about. But if you're just saying, oh, well, everybody has an iPhone, so I'm a loser if I don't get an iPhone. That's what a cult-like mentality comes into. Is that cult though? Or is that just name brand? Because that's with any big name brand. I think Apple has become, especially here in China, right? It's become such a name brand item. It's like a luxury product to have an iPhone, right? It's like, oh, I have the newest iPhone. It's like having like a Chanel bag or something like that.

like that I don't know but it's a fucking name brand right it is and at the same point you're right maybe that's not cult that's just capitalism yeah well that's just brand identity right but like I had and this is true I swear I have a Xiaomi phone I had Xiaomi phones for the past like four years

I have a Dell computer, I have a Xiaomi pad. - I heard good things about the Xiaomi phones. - The Xiaomi phones are pretty okay. You can put the Google store in it and that works pretty okay. - But pretty okay isn't exactly selling people on the Xiaomi phone. - I'm not a Xiaomi diehard fan. So far for the price I'm paying, I'm getting very good quality and I never had an issue with it. If tomorrow a different brand comes out that has better quality and cheaper price,

I'll buy it. Like, again, I... So you're rogue. You're just... I have a lot of Xiaomi products because, again, their system is working and, like, for the price I'm paying, I get very good value. Yeah, yeah. But I'm not... Like, I won't defend Xiaomi to the death if they start doing crappy phones. Yeah.

But I had someone, and this is, I swear it's true, someone, a Chinese colleague of mine, looking, because Xiaomi's, to be fair, they do look a lot like iPhones because they're very, very similar. And I was looking at my phone and she was like, oh, what phone is that? Is that an iPhone? And I was like, no, it's not. It's a Xiaomi. And she looked at me bewildered. And she was like, you have a Xiaomi phone? I was like, I do. Thank you.

I do. And she was like, oh, it's okay. You're allowed. Why? So you can afford it. And I was like, this is cheaper than an iPhone. And she was like, yeah, but like, if you buy a Xiaomi, it's good and it's cool. If a Chinese person buys a Xiaomi, it's like, it's not as good as having an iPhone. And I was like, I don't understand where this is going. And I'm very confused, but I'll just go away now. I kind of can get what they're saying. Right. Yeah.

Is that like a face thing? Is that like a status thing? No, no, no. It's more of like... This is very good, by the way. It is good, isn't it? Yeah, Kordakask is extremely good. No, it's more... I think what they're saying, I think it's more about like being like...

non-mainstream, like out of the norm, rebellious, in the know, like underground, you know, it's about being cool, right? So like for a Lao Wai, because Xiaomi is a Chinese brand,

right so so for a law why to buy a xiaomi it's like oh they're being cool because like they're going against like the grain right right being a little bit rebellious they're going against the grain not what you would typically expect and getting a xiaomi um you would expect the locals to buy into xiaomi because that is a chinese brand you know xiaomi is huge right um so for them to buy xiaomi it's almost like okay that's expected it's almost like

It's almost like typical. So for them to, I don't know. Is that where like buying Apple goes against the grain? But like everybody has an Apple. Exactly. So like it only, that example only works for a lot of ways. I see. Because Apple is so mainstream. Right. That it is the grain. Right. We're not going against the grain. Right. Everybody has an iPhone like that. There's nothing to rebel against. Although Apple is think different. And I think that it's very erotic right now.

Apple's like motto is think different. Well, okay. So can you explain that? No, I get, I saw your smirk and I know what you're getting at, which is like, yes, Apple does think differently because they did invent the iPhone and nobody knew that we needed a smartphone until we got one.

Yeah, well, also because that slogan was, it's not like a new slogan. They had that back in the 80s. I know, exactly. And they have made extremely good progress with technology. Well, again, inventing whatever we have in our pockets right now, we didn't know we needed it until like what?

10 years ago. They created the iPhone, the smartphone market. Right, exactly. And like, we all cannot live without it. And that's extremely true. And like, they thought different enough and we all got this new need. And honestly, I don't think I could live without a smartphone. Yeah. But at the same time, if you think about, let's say, the majority of people who buy into Apple, right?

They all do it because it's cool and because they want to have the pretty thing and because they want, you know, like if you're at a meeting and someone puts up a laptop and it's a Mac, it looks cooler. Like I don't have a Mac and it still looks cooler. Like my Dell laptop is adorable and I love it.

but it doesn't look as cool as a Mac. - Oh, these Windows PC things, they're ridiculous. They still look like ancient technology. - My Dell laptop has been with me for four years. I use it like 10 hours a day. Knock on wood, it's still with me for a long time. But no, it doesn't look as cool as a Mac. If you have an iPad, it looks very cool.

And then again, there's a lot of people who do and choose it because of their technology, because of their specs, because it works with digital and design and whatnot. There's a lot of people who just want to have the pretty thing. And that's not thinking differently. That's just thinking with the mainstream. And again, everybody does their own thing. I'm just here judging suddenly. See, I love that honesty of yours. Cheers. But like, it sounds like... All right, let's take a sip of this. Mm-hmm.

That's good. This is so good. It is really good. This Lafoye quarter cast. Again, shout out to Troy. Thank you, Troy. But it sounds like you have more of an issue with,

with Apple fans than you do with the company. Because it's no fault of Apple. No, exactly. I mean, if people are like swarming to buy their products, I mean, they're a company, they're a business. No, exactly. Kudos to them for making money, honestly. Good marketing. It's more the mentality of the fans. I think I probably like inherently have a problem with people not exercising critical thinking. Yeah. You know, but that's... Because I...

I think that the idea of just blindly following something because whatever reason, it's not exercising your free will as you can. And that's something that I've always been, you know, maybe I was brought up with, you know, a lot of like, you have to think about your choices and like you have to, you know, consider things and that you have, you can do whatever you want as long as you think about it for, you know, three seconds and not just decide whatever. Well, okay. Yeah.

This kind of ties into something that really fascinates me and I think it's really relevant with the times right now. And the idea of like critical, your own critical thinking, right? Because I've stated on this podcast several times, this is a kind of a topic we frequently talk about as well. I mean, it's like the herd, that sheep mentality. Mm-hmm.

And maybe because our last episode with Troy Andrews, he mentioned a principle of persuasion. One is social proof. So people go, like people do and think and behave the way most people are thinking and behaving.

And why is that? Because they want to fit in, I guess. You know, I don't know. It's safer. It's safer, right? In China, they have the saying that like, you know, the nail that sticks out, it's going to get hammered down. Yeah. And it's true. Like people who think differently do stand out. But even in society, it's like even in like, let's say America, right? Like, you know, America is known for its like rebellious nature, individualism, right? It's a freedom of like creative thought, right? Yeah.

But even there, disguised behind this idea of inclusion,

is really people just swarming with the masses as well. Like, I think it's just human nature. No matter where you are, no one really wants to take a stand against the grain. They want to go with what's popular, right? Sure. And, you know, this ties in with political correctness. Sure. This ties in with a lot of things. But it's the idea of, like, you know, one of my...

I try not to ever use the word hate a lot because I think that's a really strong word and it's like there's really no reason to hate a lot of things. Disagree, judge. Yeah, you can disagree, you can judge, but there's not that many things in this world that I think is truly worth hating. I mean, there are some things, but not most things. Like hate, we hate hate. Yeah, I guess I really dislike...

People who just are not willing to be that nail that stands out. And a certain part of that comes from like why I dislike it so much is that, I don't know, I just feel like if you're not, if you don't have like the balls to like even stand up for your own honest beliefs, then you're never going to have my back. Right. You know, you're not going to have anyone else's back if you can't even stand up for yourself. If you're too afraid of that.

You're going to be that guy that runs away when shit hits the fan. And that's just like... I'm going into my own personal shit right now. But anyway. But I just feel like that is...

That is a plague right now in terms of... I guess that was a really wrong choice of words to use in this time. But it really... I mean, whatever comes to mind, so probably. But it is, though, right? Because it's almost like everyone's walking on eggshells right now. And what happens is no one wants to...

really voice honestly what they're thinking out of fear of being canceled, retaliated, losing their job or being unpopular or whatever it is, you know? And so, so what happens is you create this culture in this environment of,

everyone being fake right of fakeness and just going along with the popular opinion at the time and not standing out and that doesn't help that doesn't that doesn't really create progress true very that doesn't create an environment to have an actual conversation about things right agree or disagree right but it's just about like i'm so fearful of

That I'm just going to go and a lot of people are doing this without really even knowing. Yeah, absolutely. If there's something I can offer is like when I work in cross-cultural communication, again, my very good colleague, Annette from Denmark, she has a very good model to work with this. And one of the aspects that she works with is risk. Like how high is the risk in a society? Take the Nordic countries. Like if you lose your job, the state has your back.

You can be honest because your boss knows that if you're honest and even if you criticize them, they don't take it personally. Take a country like China or like Asia, Japan, Korea. A lot of people, if they stand out, they risk to lose everything. They lose their job. They might lose their income. They might lose their house. And this is just a perspective. I'm not necessarily agreeing with all of it. But at the same time,

Not everybody is in the position to be able to disagree with the bigger thing all the time. I think that is probably a duty of people who, duty is a strong word, I think it's a responsibility or an opportunity for people who are not constrained by any risk to speak out. But it's a position of privilege. Yeah.

Like, as foreigners in China, I know that I personally, as a white woman in China, I have some liberties that other people don't have. The other day, I work with a popcorn club. Shout out to Davey. Popcorn club. You know them? Yeah. I was doing a Pride and Prejudice club, which means we're talking about the wonderful movie and marvelous book. And...

I'm a white woman in my 30s and who really doesn't want to get married or have children.

This is shocking to like a lot of Chinese people. It was like, wait, what? You can choose not to get married? Like, is that a thing? Like, yeah. Like that was a choice? Right. Yeah, it is. And like, I know that I'm privileged enough because I come from a background, like regardless of coming from Italy, like my family has always been relatively progressive. Like my parents got married when I was five. Right.

I was the ring girl, ring bearer girl of my parents' wedding. Oh, wow. Okay. In Italy in the 90s, that was definitely not like a common thing. Yeah. And my parents got married in City Hall, didn't get married in a church. And again, I come from Milan, which is a relatively progressive and modern city. But still, like that was definitely not.

the normal thing. And so I know that my upbringing and my family had an influence of like my values and how I think. And so that's a position of privilege where like I told my family, I don't want kids and I don't want to get married. And my mom was like, okay, all right. And I know that Chinese, especially women who try to say that to their family don't necessarily get the same support, right? They're like, no, you're 25 and you're not married. Like what's wrong with you? Just go and find a husband. Right.

And it's hard to say no to family because family loves you and family supports you and they've been there for you your whole life. And you don't want them to be sad or disappointed. And that's the whole, you know, Sunday morning, people's park, Remingonyuan, marriage market thing. Like where you're 25, you don't have a husband or a wife and you've got to find one. Tell me you've been to the marriage market in People's Square. No, I have no idea what you're talking about right now. Excuse me?

I have no idea what you're talking about right now. I'm educating so many people about this. The marriage market? Yeah. What? Okay. Anybody who has time on a Sunday morning. Okay. This was pre-COVID. I'm guessing they still have it. I don't know. I haven't been recently. So I might be a little bit outdated. But they used to have in People's Square a marriage market.

Which means that you have aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas with umbrellas on the ground. The umbrellas are open. And on the umbrellas, you have stocked out a bunch of CVs of people who are looking for partners. Resumes? Yes. What's on these resumes? It's like a professional resume? So if you don't read Chinese, it's a little bit less interesting because it's all in Chinese because they don't really go for foreigners. It's like...

age, occupation, salary, house holding, you know, if you have a house or not, like how tall you are, how much your weight is, what are you looking for? Just like the nuts and bolts of everything. Yeah, like no fluff, no frills. Personality doesn't matter. Your appearance doesn't really matter. You know, if you were born in 85, you're... Do you have a house? How much do you make? Right, exactly. And like this is...

To be honest, it's a refreshing take and a very practical take on marriage. Not something necessarily I agree with, but for people who want to get something done, I appreciate the effectiveness of it. And again, it's not the girls and the boys who are actually there, it's mostly their relatives who, with or without their consent, that I can say, are out there trying to find a good match. And that's the cute- They're being like brokers. Right, and that's the cute part. Then you have the agencies, right?

Where like people actually pay someone to be like a matchmaker. Right. And I've been told that that's like more effective because they have like a larger pool to draw from. And again, this is all like anecdotal, but I heard from people who were like, yeah, I would use a matchmaker. I don't have time to find a spouse. Like I'm too busy with my work to actually go out and date. And look, dating is a whole thing. So like...

Well, I guess it's not that different than just going on a website like, you know, match.com. Or plenty of fish or whatever. Yeah, whatever the sites are. I don't even know what the sites are these days. But, you know, I guess it's no different because the websites and the apps, they're acting as like brokers and hedge makers for you. Right, exactly.

I guess, again, there's an idea of intention. Like a lot of people, especially in China or in Asia, they date or they want a relationship to get married. If both people are on the same page and they want to date with the intention of getting married, why not get all the cards like on the table? Like, okay, this is what I want. This is what you want. Let's talk about it. And let's see if we, you know, if we match.

It does take the romance out of it. I won't lie. But, you know, if both people are okay with it, who am I to say anything? I wouldn't do it because, again, no intention of getting married. But I'm sure it works for some people. I didn't know about that. Yeah, that's fun. And, like, you know, in China, unfortunately, and this is as a woman, I'm very advocate, very vocal about it, that the idea of, like, leftover women is...

which is a terrible idea and nobody should feel left over just because they're over 27 and not married it's a terrible term it's so demeaning and it's like what does that even mean like defining a woman just because she doesn't have a partner it's ridiculous to me but I understand as a person who understands cross culture I understand what it comes from I also understand that a lot of

women like nowadays are not happy about it and they're trying to make a, you know, try to take a stand. I do though, like through my, my various experience, like talking to people, I do see that there's slight change in how people are thinking. Like the younger generation, I do see, especially like through Popcorn Club, like the younger generation, they do feel

differently compared to like, you know, the 20 year olds, like young Chinese 20 year olds. They do think differently from their 35 year olds counterparts. So like whatever education, you know, whatever cramming, whatever like international fancy MBA kindergartens, because I swear to God, I've seen an MBA kindergarten. I don't know what that means. It just freaked me out and I don't know what it was.

it wants to be i just was like i don't know what it means i i don't whatever nba so nba kindergartens whatever that means i don't know but apparently people are paying a lot of money to put their children into it and like whatever that's doing and how much expensive it is it is doing something so like people of the younger generation and again not everybody but like

they are starting to get new skills. I was talking to a friend of mine, Italian, and she has two children. One child, the boy, he's five, and the girl, she's like one and a half. Yesterday we were talking about, she's thinking of enrolling her child into school, right? Because he's five, so next year, in two years, he's gonna go to primary school.

And they were thinking, you know, choosing which school to get. You can go international school, you can go local school and whatnot. And they were like, some schools are just talking about public speaking, right?

And my friend was like, well, do you, you do public speaking training? Don't you? I was like, I do. So if every child goes through public speaking training while they're like six years old, you will be out of a job in 10 years or 15 years. I was like, probably, but I'll be happy to be out of a job if everybody goes through public speaking and like, you know, soft skills training while they're in school, which means that they don't have to learn it when they're 25 to 35, because that's so much harder, right?

But I disagree that you'd be out of a job. Oh, okay. Well, thank you. I think business would go up just because there will be more of a – because if everyone's going through public speaking training when they're young –

that ingrains into the culture, into the system, and into people's mentalities that public speaking is a real life skill that you need. Instead of just like an add-on that it's kind of nice to have? Yeah, because otherwise, if not, like right now, how many people are really thinking about public speaking as something they need to learn? Not that many. But everybody should. Everybody should learn public speaking. This is a PSA. I agree. Okay.

But like if it was ingrained in the system at an early age where, okay, public speaking is a life skill that you need, just like math, just like understanding, like, you know, you know, like basic chemistry, whatever it is, you would need it. And then, so as people age and get older, I mean, they're not going to be perfect. Just like, of course, like I went, I went, you know, I had history class in high school. Am I a historian? No. You know, I learned math. Am I a math wizard? No. Right.

But like, if I want to improve at these things now, I would still have to seek help. So I would think, you know, I would think it would be good for people like you who are coaching public speaking. I wouldn't think it would take away. Right. Okay. Well, I appreciate the confidence. And also I agree with that because a lot of people I think are just, I think a lot of people I come across like, you know, in their from 25 to 30 to like their 40s when

when they are in a corporate job or they're in entrepreneurship, a lot of people are starting to realize that a lot of skills they need, they were never taught in school. You see a lot on the internet, like, if I only learn how to do taxes at school, I will be a happier person, which is true. If that's a life skill you need, why are you not taught in school? Critical thinking is

in Western countries is not even thought as like an extra thing is like weaved into everything you do, right? So you can criticize your teacher, you know, in the realms of like being nice and polite, but you can ask question to a teacher and the teacher's responsibility is to convince you that whatever they're talking about is correct.

Do that in China and you'll get detention or whatever the equivalent is. I know because I did that and my Chinese teacher in university hated me because I kept questioning him.

To be fair, he was a very sweet teacher. He was just out of teacher school. He did not know what he was going into, like just getting into a bunch of foreigners. And me specifically is like, hi, I really want to learn this. Can you please tell me why? And he was like, because. I was like, that's not good enough. You got to do better. It was like,

but I don't know. It was like, well, not my problem. You're the teacher. So I kind of gave him a hard time. I'm sorry. She loves you. Uh, but, uh, you know, like that's what, at least I, like my personality and how I was brought up is if I don't understand something, I'm going to ask you about it because I want to learn more. And sometimes that makes people uncomfortable, but it's all right. Well, the whole idea of critical thinking, I mean, and we were talking about this earlier, but like,

It's worth going back to is that there is almost this sense of... It's almost a lost art now. And it's everywhere. It's not just China. Oh, absolutely. I don't know Europe. I'm not from Europe. I don't really know anyone in Europe. But I grew up in the United States. Where are you from? New Jersey. Okay. So...

I know in the United States, there are, I don't know, I think there's a sense of like lack of critical thinking there as well now. But it's trickier because it's veiled under this idea of freedom of thought, freedom of speech. And when you're raised there, you're almost brainwashed in a way to think that

Like Okay You're the best country in the world You guys are Have the most free culture Freedom, freedom, freedom You know Everything you guys do Is the best You know And there's all this creativity And you know Some of that is true But

You're brought up to believe that so much that you almost get lazy in your thought. So you get lazy because you just take everything for granted. And you're like, okay, well, of course, what the message being put out there by the media and...

And, you know, authority figures is going to be true. And of course, you know, American democracy is the best thing in the world. Of course. Of course, we're the most free country in the world. And of course, you know. Insert ego screeching sound. Exactly. Of course, we have like the best, you know, thinkers here. And of course, like, you know, all the other countries are, you know, lower, you know. Sure. American under one. American superiority, right? Right.

And we get lazy in our thought in that we end up taking these things for granted. And we stop thinking critically for ourselves and be like, wait a minute. Maybe a lot of these ideas and principles that I'm raised thinking are not 100% accurate. Right. And that doesn't mean they're not true. Right. But maybe they're not 100% accurate. Right. And I feel like...

With how divided America is now, there is this need for

to take sides. You have to be on this side or that side. If you're not with us, you're against us. And that breeds even more lack of, I think, critical thinking because now everyone's instinctually just trying to take sides, like out of impulse, out of fear, out of whatever, resentment for the other side. They just want to take sides and stake their flag in the ground.

And that is, I think, diminishing kind of personal and individual critical thought in terms of, okay, what's really going on here? And even if people are thinking critically, there's this other idea now of like, you know, again, you know, political correctness of like, okay, well, even if I do think differently...

I'm not going to voice it. I'm just going to go with what's popular. Right. What's safe. Because people don't like to be unliked, right? Everybody likes to be popular. Everybody likes to be, you know, everybody wants to have an echo chamber who they have like, yeah, sure, you're right. Of course you're right. You know, like again, going back to, again, my favorite podcast, conspiracy theories, right? I did a popcorn club about conspiracy theories and it was the best,

best thing I've ever done recently because I had this like you know local Chinese people who were like why do people believe in conspiracy theories and I was like well what do you think and like we had this great discussion about critical thinking and like

echo chamber and like only trusting one new source. And like, if your friends all believe in the same thing, you trust your friends. So of course, you're going to go with whatever your friends who you love and trust, you know, tell you to think about, right? But that's the danger of not being aware of like all the possibilities. Yeah.

That's the danger of like only trusting one source, like we're talking about before in the cults, right? If you always only trust one source for all your information, I think regardless whether that information is good or bad, that's too dangerous to just trust everything you think.

just one source, one person. - But people do it because it's comfortable, it's familiar, it's easy. - It is, it's absolutely easy. - To break out of, and I agree, echo chambers are probably like one of the biggest threats to actual critical thinking because when you're in an echo chamber, it's just feedback of like, you're right and everyone's saying the same thing you are. So there's no more need to kind of play devil's advocate, let's say, right?

And so that's one of the biggest threats to actual critical thinking. But it's also, but it's easy. You know, it takes less effort to actually break out of an echo chamber and to really question yourself. I mean, that's a lot of work. It is. It's uncomfortable. It is. It's a lot of work and energy and effort to do it.

And I think a lot of people are just very honestly, like humans are like, okay, I don't have a degree in neuroscience, but like throughout my work, I've been dabbling into understanding, you know, how the brain works and I have the neurons and whatnot. It's like our brain is designed to feel pleasure.

Our brain doesn't like pain. That's why learning a new thing is uncomfortable. Learning to wake up at 4:30 in the morning for whatever reason you want to. I don't advocate it, but apparently that's a lot of successful people wake up at 4:30 in the morning, sure.

But like that's uncomfortable because you have to change and change is uncomfortable. It means changing the way you think and you do. And our brain is not wired for that. Our brain is, look, things are crazy enough around me. If I find something that works, I just want to stick with it because that just simplifies my life. And like that's how our brain works.

But a lot of people, I think, take that to the extreme. It's like anything that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, it's bad. I'm sure you heard about, you know, like the comfort zone, like growth zone and like, you know, whatever. And again, I think it just I'm just going to repeat myself like a broken record. But like awareness is the key. Like if you literally stop and like analyze where you're at, like

And you'd realize like maybe what you're doing is just a little bit too much in your comfort zone and it's not getting you what you want to. Then maybe that's time to, you know, put your big boy pants and like just try and be a little bit uncomfortable. And that's going to suck. Yes, absolutely. It's not going to be nice.

But that's the only way to get what you want. Like I remember my former boss, she had a book that I don't remember who is it from. I'm sure people can figure it out. It was like, what got you here won't get you there. Which is like, you got here doing something. And if you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep staying here. If you want to like step up, elevate, change things, you got to do something different. Right?

And that something different is going to be uncomfortable? Probably. It's going to be scary? Sure. But if you don't do it, then nothing's going to change. And I'm saying this as a person who's extremely afraid of, like, change. And I have physically forced myself in to change something to get, you know, where I want to go. Like, I...

Regardless of whoever is listening thinks of me, I'm an extremely introverted person. I don't necessarily like people. Like I'm not a fan of like big crowds. Yes, my work requires me to talk to a lot of people daily. I am very aware of it.

That's why when I get to relax, I just stay home and do nothing because I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm the same way. Right? But it means that the first time I delivered a workshop, I was so scared. Why are these people listening to me? Why are they going to trust me? What am I supposed to give them as value? I'm a nobody. Why are they supposed to take my word as whatever? And

that is scary putting yourself out there putting yourself you know as an expert or like someone who they should listen to that's scary also imposter syndrome and whatnot but

By the time that you tried it once, it's scary. The second time you try it, it's just a tiny less scary. And you go and you go and now I have absolutely no problem talking to like 100 and 200 people. And I know that that's a huge accomplishment for like people that maybe they dread even talking to two people in a meeting room. Right? Yeah.

But like that doesn't happen just because it happens because you try and you fail and failure sucks and it makes you feel bad. But there's no other way. Well, the reason you even tried in the first place, because we're going back to like our earlier topic of like, can people really change? Right. And.

Yeah, I guess people can change when it starts really affecting them personally. So, I mean, you were on this path career-wise and personally. I mean, like, it was touching you personally where you, okay, you have to get into that, like, uncomfortable zone of, like, actually forcing yourself to change as an introvert. And, you know, it comes incrementally.

But for most people, when we're talking about these changes and changes of like the way they think about things, their attitude towards things, for the most part, there is no consequence. Right? We're talking about echo chambers. For most people, there is no consequence of them being an echo chamber. There is no immediate threat of them. It's not touching them. It's actually comfortable. It's not affecting them in any way. Right.

So there's no demand. There's no feeling of necessity to actually change. So they don't. There's not that trigger, that spark that forces them to change, which we kind of maybe we both agree on is like people need that in order to change. Otherwise, it'll never really happen. Right. We'll go back to priorities, right? Again, saying this probably for the 10th time today, but like this year, I think, has been a very...

It's been a weird year, to put it mildly, but it's been a year where a lot of people have started, whether by choice or by being forced to,

think of what their priorities are. I heard a lot of people pivoting their business, a lot of people quitting their jobs, a lot of people deciding that whatever they were doing was not working. And it sucks that we had to have a global pandemic for everybody to just kind of reevaluate their life choices. I wish we didn't have to have such a destructive and painful event

to make everybody just sit and like think for five minutes about what their life is going, you know. But we had and nobody can change that now. But a lot of people took that time to just reassess, okay, what are my priorities? Do I really want to spend 50 hours, 70 hours, 80 hours in my office and never see my family again? No, I don't. So I'll quit my job.

Am I really doing whatever I want with my life? No, I want to create my own business. Great, do that. Do I really want to be in this relationship because I really don't like it? No, then go. But whatever the priority is, you'll make it important. And a lot of people, I think, again, on this broken record, come back to reflecting and being aware.

honest talk when I was in lockdown I took under the suggestion of a good coach and friend Rachel she's in Shanghai and she suggested to me that every day I just start with a thought dump like just take a piece of paper just write down everything you're thinking about whether it's about work whether it's about your body your relationships the world it doesn't matter just write that down

Look at what you're thinking about and choose a couple of things that you want either to focus on or you can do something about it and just use that as a tiny reflection way to start your day. So you just don't go on autopilot, but you actually take a little bit of time.

I started doing that also because being in Italy, I would wake up at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. and I would turn my phone off immediately, turn on my phone immediately. And I had like 300 WeChat messages because China was seven hours ahead. And that was not sustainable. That was not a great way to start your day with just like a bunch of like mostly work, but also personal, you know, like WeChat messages. And like there's way too much to think about.

So I would shut my phone until I had my like reflection and like my cup of tea and like my thought dump. And I was like, I sit at my desk very like mindfully. I'm not a meditation person, but that's the closest I would get to like turn my phone. I was like, all right, now I'm ready to face the world. And like and I was forced into it because of my circumstance. But I'm still doing that most days.

Because I feel that taking some time intentionally to just like slow down is so important to just like figure yourself out. And unfortunately, there's nobody who can do that for you.

Right. Nobody can just say, hey, Justin, this is how you are. It would be really lovely, but it doesn't work that way. No one can do that for you. Not even a coach, not even like the best motivational speaker of coach can just figure yourself out. What they can do is just help you, you know, take some tools or like ask you some questions, provoke some thoughts. But in the end, you only can do whatever discovery you want.

you work you can do. Like nobody can do that for you. And that's, I think like the best thing about the work I do is like, I am super aware that I can help people, but there's a limit to what I can do. And I think that that's what the honesty comes in. Like, dude, I can help you, but I cannot change for you. So if you want to change, great. If you don't,

Stop wasting my time and yours and just don't. That's the thing. I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions with coaching and coaches out there.

Is that a lot of people are expecting, oh, you know, I'm going to find a coach. I'm going to pay a coach and they're just going to give me the answers. Right. You know. That's absolutely 100% not how coaching works. Exactly. Like once you understand that, it's really not how it works. And it makes sense that it wouldn't work that way because only the answers are in you. Like, I mean, that's so corny to say. That's a very platonic. Yeah, but it's really true. And I've always believed that the answers aren't external answers.

I mean, you can use external things as like a reflection point. Absolutely. But the answers are ultimately within you. You have to find your own answers. And coaching can help you find those answers, but they can't just give you those answers, you know? And that's a big misconception. A lot of people think, okay, coaches, okay, draw a game plan for me. Tell me A, B, and C, exactly what I need to do and what the answers are and where to find them.

And that's not how it works and nor should it work that way because then you're just, again, we're going to like cult behavior, then you're just buying into what someone else is telling you instead of finding the answers for yourself, which is way more cathartic, way more powerful. - True. Again, going back to the, if you're always too busy and you keep doing things because you want to be busy, you're never making time for reflection.

And again, people have tried to make me meditate. I'm not a meditation person and maybe that's just me convincing myself that I'm a meditation person, but...

So reflection is, and writing is what I do. Like if I need to process things, I just shut down everything, I shut my phone, like I told you, I shut my phone, it's on airplane mode. I just sit down and just write whatever is happening in my mind. And that usually helps me like with the, you know, putting things black and white and just like reflecting.

But that's me. And I wish that it worked for everybody, but it just doesn't. But everybody finding their own way to reflect at least a tiny bit, not every day, not all the time, but just take some time.

to just pause and think, where am I going? Am I going on autopilot or am I actually doing things intentionally? Yeah. I think that's very important. And I think too frequently we're on autopilot and we just don't even notice it. Right. Because that's just how our brain works, right? Right. It's easier to do that. Of course. We do it without thinking, hence autopilot. But I think like,

The idea of like the brain dump, you know, first thing in the morning. That's a really good idea. I was speaking to Ben Ivey on a previous episode. Of course. Hi, Ben. And he was saying the same thing. He has adopted that practice too and you found it to work wonders for him. But I think, you know, I guess when we're talking about like change and finding your way, it's really...

In a way, it comes back down to like your like relationship with time. Can I share something? Yeah. You're talking to someone who scheduled her own breakdown. Did you? I did. You scheduled your own breakdown? I did. How does that work? How does that work?

You had a breakdown, first of all? I did, yeah. So I had two major break... Well, major. To me, they felt like major breakdowns when I was in lockdown in Italy. Because again, I originally went to Italy for a three-week vacation thing in mid-January, and then I found myself trapped. And very luckily and very comfortably in my childhood home with my parents who were taking care of me, but I was out of China. I was not...

not in my apartment who I kept paying for in China. I was not where my clients were. I was not where my friends were. I haven't lived in Italy for 10 years. So I was just there with like no like physical support system and everybody was on lockdown. So, you know, the added stress of a global pandemic and whatever. So at some point, everything just got too much. And I kept

talking again I'm extremely fortunate to have very very good friends like check in with me and like who I can talk to about stuff and I was like one of this was Janine and

And at some point I was just like completely out of it. I was like, I don't have the energy to deal with any of this. Like Janine, I think I'm having a burnout. Like what do I do? And she talked me through it and she was like, are you experiencing X, Y, Z? Are you experiencing like anxiety? Do you not want to do anything? Do you feel like the world is spinning? Like you not have energy? Do you don't want to do any of your normal hobbies? I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to everything. She was like, how about you take some time? And I was like,

I was feeling like that I was like almost there, like to the edge of like breaking down. And then I decided I'm just going to because being in lockdown, my relationship with technology changed.

So everything had to go through my phone. My work, my personal life, my good relationships, like my friend's relationship, but everything had to go through my phone and computer because, of course, I was in lockdown and I had my parents who I could talk to in person, but everybody else was either in the same city but couldn't see or was like 8,000 kilometers away in China. So I had that really, really...

deep and very troublesome relationship with my phone because my phone was my everything. And so the only thing I could think about was like, I'm going to shut my phone down for like two days and like, don't open it. And of course, because I'm a conscientious person, I told the people I was dealing business with, I was like, look,

I'm going to get back to you on Monday, like Thursday and Friday. I'm just taking a time off. My phone is going to be off. I'm alive. I'm okay. I'm just not looking at my phone for two days. And that's how I schedule my breakdown. I was like, I'm realizing I'm getting there. And I just want to take some time to just first disconnect with technology because I genuinely think that technology is doing us wrong.

a major service by existing, but also it's slaving us into like being slave to it. Like we believe that we owe our lives to our phones and we really don't.

But because so much goes through it, then you just feel that you always have to be like, your phone is always like at the corner of your eye. Like you always have to pay attention. Your phone's more valuable than your wallet now. Yeah. Also your phone is your wallet. Yeah, exactly. And so I shut my phone down and like I told people, like a couple of people that I was like very close to, everybody else could wait. It doesn't matter. Yeah.

I transferred all my WeChat groups to Janine. Like everything was fine. And then I just took this couple of days of like not turning my phone on.

And I thought I was going to have a meltdown. I thought I was going to like freak out. I thought I was going to like crave my phone, but I just felt like a relief. Like I went to the supermarket, you know, during lockdown and whatnot, which is not necessarily fun. But like I took a walk. I just read a book. I just spent some time baking bread with my mom, which I haven't done in 10 years or even baking bread because that was a quarantine thing.

And the world kept spinning, like nothing really changed. People were still there when I turned my phone on, you know, business was still there. A couple of days didn't really change that much. But my mindset was like, okay, I can do this once in a while. It's okay to take some time to just deal with whatever you're dealing with and not necessarily like put a strong face and like pretending everything's okay. Yeah.

And yeah, that's the story how I scheduled my own mental breakdown. That's really good. But what does that say about like, I guess, what does that say about like our relationship with technology then? Huh? You know? How much time do you have? Oh, yeah, I guess. I mean, that's a whole nother podcast, right? Like, but like, because you're not the first person to want to go on and like a technology detox, right? Right.

And so that idea has been out there. Right, of course. As a very good friend of mine would say, there's nothing new under the sun. We're not just inventing anything. Everybody just takes whatever is best for them and tries to make it work. And technology has become such a big part of our life.

that sometimes again, we don't recognize how much we are glued to our phone, how much we just, we depended. The dopamine rush of like just getting a new message or like checking your status and like see all the likes and like see whoever's sharing, like it's addictive for a reason. Like every social media, like how many people, you know, just take the subway at 6 p.m. in Shanghai, right?

And how many people do you see not looking at their phone? Like nobody. Nobody.

Right? I'm so glad you said that because I've done this several times where I stand there and just look around. Oh my God. Dude, people watching is my favorite sport. Like I just like people watching. I'm not really on my phone in the subway to be honest. I can't because I get motion sick really fast. And so I can't watch, I can't read, I can't watch my phone on a moving car, train or like subway or anything. I'm listening to music, but I'm not like physically looking at my phone. I listen to podcasts.

So like, yeah, I've done this several times. You look around and you can do this in New York. You can do this anywhere. You look around the subway. Any city, absolutely. How many people are not looking, like heads down, staring at their phone? Literally everyone is. You know the Chinese word for that, right? No, what's the Chinese word? It's just like the group of people who like...

yeah put their put their head down because it's like the people who just can't not stopping and watching it i'm sure there's a different and when you do it it's wild it's a wild feeling right like do you get that like tingly feeling through your body like when you see that you're like oh wow like like like it's almost like surreal it's almost like a scene out of a movie it's uncanny valley right it's like am i the weird one

Well, it's not only the way we're like, yes, it is like that, but it's also just like a scene out of like a sci-fi movie. It's like a scene out of Black Mirror where you're just like realizing, oh, damn, like, like we say this, we say, we talk about technology. Everyone talks about this. But when you really see like that image of like when you're actually the one looking around and you realize you're the only one out of this entire train of subway cars that's not looking at their phone at this moment.

Like all of a sudden this feeling strikes you like, oh, this is real. Like it's not just an abstract thought. No, that's true. Also, have you seen that tweet going around? It's like, kudos to Black Mirror season six for having us experience it instead of just watching it on TV. Which is like how wild this like 2020 has been. It's like we feel like in a Black Mirror episode, which fair. Kudos to, I don't know who it is. Just look it up on Twitter. But I agree. And like,

That I keep going back to awareness because like maybe I'm a too much self-aware person and that's going back to like being too much in your head kind of thing. But like I do look at people's behavior. Like I do watch people a lot.

And I do realize that a lot of people are doing things without thinking. And it's not judging or shaming anyone because I think, again, I'm way too on this side of the spectrum, like constantly analyzing what I'm doing and like, you know, social anxiety and whatnot. And like, oh, people think I'm weird. Like, what should I do? What should I do?

But on the other side, there's the other like extreme with like completely going again on autopilot because, you know, you have a stressful. I have like a set time management workshop that I do very often, which is like, what's your excuse for not making time? And people say I'm busy or like I need time to relax.

Which, fair, I understand the need for, like, decompress. Because if you have a very demanding job or if you have very, you know, like, mentally challenging work or, like, family, of course you need some time to decompress. But, like, how much decompressing looking at your WeChat moment is it really decompressing? Like, you're just getting more information. Yeah. Like, a lot.

I tried to go on like a low information diet this year and it's not going super well, but I tried the idea of like, try to build a dam where your information is coming from. You don't need to know everything. You know what's ironic? What? Because we talked about time.

Are we over time? This is probably like one of the longest podcasts we've ever done. I'm not mad about it. Oh God. It's 10 to six. We started this at like three 20 or something. No, no. I really, I really enjoyed the conversation. That's why I'm not mad about it at all.

I'm just saying it's ironic, it's funny. - It is, but at the same time, we never started with the intention of having like a short podcast. - Exactly. - So it doesn't really matter. - Exactly. No, but it goes back to the idea of like authenticity. One of the main premises of this podcast is authenticity. And I think in your line of work and what I do with this podcast,

it all rings true. It's like being authentic, being honest, being real is really the only way to really connect with people, to truly connect with people. Otherwise, you're constantly in a state of selling, right? And when you can do away with that mentality where like that pressure, where like, okay, I don't have to sell something here. I don't have to sell myself here. I can just be myself. That frees you up to,

So many things you just never thought were that easy before that become all of a sudden so much easier to do, I feel. Like when you said that, I just realized that like that's how my recent whole life has been set up. Like I'm extremely, going back to time, I'm extremely protective of my time. Like I've been known to just say no to people about, you know, a meeting or whatever because I'm,

I don't think I can make the time for it. Well, I know when you walked in before we even started recording, you came in and you had this whole mentality of like, okay, three o'clock hit, boom, like everything, like you're in podcast mode. Yeah, exactly. You had a certain amount of time to do it. It was like, it was just like, it was like a switch that flipped. Like, but that's me because like I have,

And this is something I've been working on. Like being more authentic means that I can talk about it. But at the same time, like I have a private self and a work self. Like I do have a more outgoing and like more quote unquote, you know, extrovert work persona. A switchy complex. Yeah, exactly. That is not my personal introverted self. And I think that lately those two things are like

mashing a bit, like it's not so clear cut as it was before. Because again, working like as an entrepreneur, like most of my friends are also my business partners. So where do you draw the line between like, you know, being authentic and like sharing your worst fears with your friends? Like, well, now we talk business, like that's a hard switch to flip. But at the same time, I'm extremely protective with my time, which means like, if it's in my calendar, it will happen. If it's not, well, good luck.

And I said no to clients extremely recently because like I don't think I can make the time. And I kind of feel guilty about it because, of course, money is good, right? You do want clients to pay you. That's the whole point of being in business.

But the more I do it, the more I realize I'm making time for like other things. And again, this is coming back to me not really believing in karma, but kind of believing in like things happening for some kind of reason. Like when I say no to things, then other things come to me.

And again, I'm not a karma person, but like, whatever that means, it means that I'm freeing up time for other things to be a possibility. And then me accepting that possibility is like, you know, yes or no. It depends on me. But when I say no to something, then...

A couple of days later, a week later, a month later, like something else like, hey, do you have time for this? Like, you know what? I actually do. And I like this so much better than whatever option A was. But going back to time, Maria, thank you for your time. No worries. I had a great conversation and I hope you have time in the future. We can do this again. Look, I enjoyed this. If...

Like even last year, Mio, like five years ago, Mio would say, what are you going to do in 2020? Drink whiskey and be interviewed on a podcast for quote unquote work? I would not have believed myself. I just don't understand why everyone isn't doing this. Look, you get the idea. It's a wonderful idea. I wish I could have stolen this idea from you because I think it's... You can do it too. You can still do it.

That would lead to a lot of drinking and a lot of talking. So thank you for having me. It was fantastic. This Laphroaig quarter cask is way too lovely for not being finished. Hey, look, we put a good dent in this bottle. Yes, we did. We put a good dent in this bottle.

Yeah. And yeah, you're welcome back anytime. I feel like this was like a warm up round. And the next time we do it, we can just like dive deep, like hit the ground running. Happy to come back anytime you want me. Like I enjoyed this so much. So I really, really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Maria. All right, folks. That's Maria. I'm Justin. Love you all. Bye. Peace.

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