Work-Life Counterbalance: Why Balance Isn’t the Goal with James Laughlin

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute to contribute to a greater cause, add value, have an impact in the lives of others. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that's bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily have to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish successes that contribute to the greater good of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You're often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is James Laughlin. He is a world renowned strategist in high performance, leadership and and personal mastery and he has Transformed top athletes, CEOs and organizations globally through his compelling international keynotes and coaching. A seven time world champion musician and history making team leader, he also serves as Canterbury's rugby's mental skills coach. James hosts the lead on On Purpose podcast, engaging with world political leaders and Fortune 500 CEOs to share insights on leading with conviction and achieving excellence. James, welcome to the podcast.

Gary, absolute pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

This is going to be fun. So tell everybody where are you right now?

Currently I'm in the south island of New Zealand. My accent might throw a spanner in the works for people listening because it's an Irish accent, but I've been living here for almost 20 years. Wow.

Okay, well, let's do this, let's let our audience get to know you. Let's go back in your life. Where were you born and what were you like growing up? What were you like in high school.

We call high school, to reflect on that. I don't get a chance often to reflect back to those days. It's always kind of like what's happening now and what's happening in the future. So, yeah, for me, growing up in Northern Ireland, that had its fair share of challenges. For those that are unfamiliar with Northern Ireland, it's divided between Protestants and Catholics and both arguably worshiping the same God, but have a very divisive relationship in Northern Ireland. And so I grew up in a Protestant working class town. The Union Jack, the British flag flew high and, you know, I went to a Protestant school and I started to learn about Catholics from my friends at school. Mom and dad tended to never mention religion. We didn't go to church, but they just said, you know, respect others. And they avoided the religion conversation. I had no reason to know why, but I found out through school that, you know, Catholics were not to be trusted. They were bad, they were all terrorists. And actually, you know, growing up, you start to see the world for what it is. They were literally saying what they had heard at home. So I grew up with this very skewed view of life, but always searching for answers. At the age of nine or ten, I was always often getting into fights at school, primary school. My headmaster gave me a set of drumsticks instead of sending me to detention. And that sent me down this path of learning to drum. And he knew I was pretty competitive. And so that sent me down this competition route where I was very fortunate to win the World Solo drumming championships at 13 and again at 14. And you know, I don't share that with you, the listener to press, but to impress upon that, hey, in a short space of time, when you're given an opportunity and someone believes in you, you know, I think great things can unfold. So, yeah, for me, drumming got me through my teenagehood. It got me through the chaos that was Northern Ireland at times. Parental divorce, that's that time as well. So certainly it was my passion. I was able to commit to it and it's led me to traveling the world.

I love that. So if we were to have seen you what we call high school, do you call it high school also in Northern. Okay, if we would have seen you in high school, what would we have.

Seen.

Towards the end of high school? You would have seen a disengaged student you would have seen.

Someone who was avoiding any deep sense of introspection or tapping into emotions. I was very future focused, avoiding anything that was painful or uncomfortable. I was drinking a lot, you know, in. In high school. I was drinking way too much with my friends. I was scraping by.

Yeah, I lacked. I lacked a clear sense of direction.

Drinking in Northern Ireland's different than maybe it is in the U.S. right. How would you describe. Yeah, how would you describe it?

Well, in Northern Ireland, certainly when I grew up, like, the bar is this height, and as soon as you're just a little bit above that height, you can generally get served. Gary. So I was dying at the bar or the pub with my uncle most Saturdays, and I would have been 12 or 13, and I was running hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of cash from the pub to the Gap, the bookie agent, where the horses were taking bets. I was drinking shandies back then, so a little beer with a little bit of lemonade. And it wasn't frowned upon, it wasn't unusual. So there is a bit of a cultural difference, I guess, in, in Ireland compared to North America. Certainly the age is different at 18, you can legally drink in Ireland versus 21 in most states. So definitely it was a little more relaxed, a lot more accepted, but still not healthy, not wise.

Yeah, so you were. You just made it through high school and then what happened to you after high school?

That's where, honestly, I believe good fortune came in. So I got a phone call initially from Vancouver, Canada. It was the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. They were world champions at the very top level. That was the kind of drumming I was doing, was pipe band, Scottish dial drumming. And they said, hey, would you be interested in coming out? We need another drummer for our World Championship campaign. We'll pay you to come out, get you a bed to sleep in, cover your flights. So the last day of. Of high school, did my exam, went straight to the airport, headed to Vancouver, Canada, spent six weeks there, seen a whole different side of life, got really inspired about what was possible, got around people who were professionals, people in the band. Very few were students, most were adults. We had doctors, lawyers, accountants with people running businesses. We had creative entrepreneurs. And they all accepted me for who I was. And I started thinking I could do some of this stuff. This is pretty cool. So that really changed my life, that being in that band and winning more World Championship titles with them, understanding what hard work can achieve, that really set me in motion. And then, of course, the New Zealand thing came after that.

Okay, so yeah. So now you're in Vancouver, then you go back to New Zealand, Then you go to New Zealand from Vancouver.

That's right.

Did you go to more schooling?

No. So it was actually a private school in New Zealand who wanted to become the first ever World Champions out of New Zealand. Nobody had ever won the World Drumming or Piping championship. So they wanted me to come down and help build them a drumming program that could potentially be world class. And so in return, I got permanent residence. I was delighted with that. And they, in the end, it took about seven, eight years. They ended up winning their world championship in 2013. Arguably for me, you know, I think back to the seven world titles that I won, they were great and exhilarating and fun, but watching these students win their World Championship and rewrite history books and I didn't perform with them, they did all the performing themselves. That was the highlight of my drumming career. It was just so fulfilling to watch these kids just change, change history and build that self belief.

Yeah. And that's, that's so in alignment with the why of contribute, right, is to, you know, kind of be that pebble that starts the ripple effect that goes on and on in the lives of others, you know, how can I help them do even better than what I did? And so, okay, so as you were building that program, then what happened to you? So you spent seven years doing that in total?

It was about 13, 14, 30. Yeah. And probably three or four years before that finished, I decided like, hey, I'm a drummer and if I lose a hand or a finger or break a wrist and that sets things down, I can't put food on the table. So I went back to university and I'd never been to uni, so this was. I was 30 years old and I did what they call an applied prior management degree. So a lot of New Zealand, a lot of professional athletes do this. You know, they leave school, they go straight into a top sports team, they get to 26, 27, their sporting career is coming to an end. What next? They go into this applied prior management degree where they take the first two years and you don't have to do the first two years of the degree, you just do the last year. But what you've got to do is explain all the learnings and apply the theory of management and leadership to what you've done throughout your entire career. So it really gave me some belief that I had transferable skills. I came out with a distinction in that degree and it set me on this path of going, what's next. What else could I do and who else could I help? And I felt I could only help drummers, but actually, you know, local businesses and our local professional rugby team, they decided that there was some value to be had in what I had learned, what I'd helped others do. They felt that could be applicable to business and sport. So I went in feeling very much like an imposter and feeling like, what have I got to add here? But realizing very quickly that through feedback that I had a lot to offer these teams and these businesses. And so that set in motion this whole new direction where I'm now very fortunate to work with New Zealand army, with the top athletes, not only in New Zealand, but globally and to work with small and large businesses all around. High performance. What does it look like? How do we achieve it? What are the ingredients? And then how do we train the trainers? How do we have the leaders of the company take these ideas and frameworks and help others to become high performers?

How do you define a high performer?

To me, that's easy. It's someone who consistently exceeds the norms whilst maintaining healthy relationships and well being. And I feel that last bit is important. I didn't do it very well, Gary, you know, yeah, I might have won my seven world titles and a bunch of national titles, but actually I was drinking, I was out of shape, my marriage ended in divorce. That's not high performance. That's being so monomaniacally focused on one thing and wanting to win and succeed but forgetting about what's really important. And so through probably 10 years of self mastery, self development, like I feel like I'm still a learner, right. I started realizing the important stuff is my health, my well being, my relationship. So I believe high performance is consistently exceeding the norms, actually winning at what you do, but making sure that you prioritize healthy relationships and well being. Not perfect, but just healthy.

Could you have got where you got.

Doing it the way that you're talking about?

Yes.

That's a really interesting thing to think about because I. A lot of people talk about the need for balance after they've been unbalanced for so long.

But you got to a level.

Have you seen somebody get to the level you got to doing it the way you're talking about versus what you.

Did multiple times across multiple industries. And that to me that's what I geek out on, Gary is like, that's why I want to help great people who are already great at what they do. That's who I kind of work with is people who are very good at what they do. And I want to help Great. And get them to greatest and greatest means. Yeah, they're greatest in their field, but also at home, also with their health. I firmly believe it's possible. I've seen it happen. And to me, I was just radically obsessed with winning and had no. I had no perspective. I had a blind spot. And of course, you don't know when you have a blind spot. And I had nobody there to tell me, hey, James, can you see what you're doing there? You could actually do it this way. And I still to this day don't believe in work life balance, but I do believe in work life counterbalance, where it's going. Hey, for the last three weeks I've done, you know, whatever, 75, 80 hour weeks and I'm building this thing or the project's happening. It's getting to the end of those three weeks and having a system of checking in and going cool. Looking good on the family front, o not looking good on the nutrition front. Okay, time to counterbalance. Time to take my eye off that prize for a moment and balance over here on the other important thing. So I believe in hydrobalancing. It's more of this pivoting back and forth. I don't think we'll ever get the balance right.

Yeah, that's. I'm glad you said that because that's what I was going to ask you next is, you know, people that achieve the incredibly lofty goals that they do, I don't know if they believe in balance because, you know, I was the world champion in racquetball. That was my sport. I don't think I could have got there without full focus. Right, Full focus. I mean, that, that's all the time you got to spend to do what you got to do to get where you want to get. If I had said, well, you know, I only have this amount of time for that and I got to spend all my. The other rest of time in these other stuff. I balance everything out. I don't know if I would have got there.

Yeah, I agree.

But counterbalance is interesting. Maybe dive a little bit more into that.

Yeah. So counterbalance could be different for different people. So let's say. So I've got clients in pga, I've got another friend who's coaching someone in a world tennis circuit right now. And it might be that for nine months a season or six months, whatever it might be, you are fully focused on your career and people don't get to see you much at Home, you're fully diving deep on that and everything else comes second. But at the end of that six or nine month season, it's about going, okay, stop.

What'S most important right now and taking a moment to reflect. Okay, for the last nine months, I haven't seen my parents, my partner, my kids, whatever it might be. Okay, what am I going to do with this next three months? How am I going to be intentional? Am I now going to go and do a world tour of podcasts and write the book? Or am I going to take these three months to really counterbalance the important things in my life? These, these pillars that actually give me substance. And so I think it's important for people to look at their cycles. For me right now, guy, if you looked at my calendar last week, this week and next week you will go, James, all you do is work. What on earth? Like, it's chaos. This is probably the three biggest weeks of the year for me. This is my kind of world championship per se. I got to focus and double down and it looks like I'm way out of whack. But prior to those three weeks, I was in Fiji for seven days with my family. No work, email, no, no work being done at all. After those three weeks, there'll be deep focus and family time. Cricket starts. So my son will be playing cricket. I'll be there every Saturday morning, surf life saving starts, summer here in New Zealand will be there every Sunday morning. It's like there will be balance. So I want people who are listening to go, what's my cycle? What's, you know, how intense do I need to be? Maybe it's three weeks a month that they're full noise and then the next week they can counterbalance. Maybe it's five days a week, that's their cycle. Monday to Friday, I go nuts. I do my 50, 60, whatever, how many hours. But then I rest hard from Friday afternoon to Sunday and I don't check my emails. So I think for everyone to counterbalance will be different. But you've got to get clear on what your priorities are. You know, for me it's family fitness, both mental and physical finance. You know though to me with the top three followed by learning and brand, but family fitness, finance, if I get those things and keep those in check, then I know that I've got some sense of certainty and stability.

So do you have a process maybe that you take people through and trying to help them figure that out? Because those are hard things to figure out for a lot of people.

I'm sure, very much so. I mean, it is simple when you get at it, but at first it seems quite daunting. Where do I start? So I actually, I have a very simple framework I use and it takes about three minutes a month to check in on yourself and it gives you a visual representation and go, whoa, that's out of whack. And it's actually what I'll do is if you want to put it in the show notes, I'll let everyone have a free copy of my high performance planner. And so it's all the models and frameworks that I use with my clients. So if that's suitable and you think it'd be valuable to the listener, I'll send you a link.

That would be great. And so when you started working with the rugby team and you said, didn't know if I had much to offer, but I found that I did.

What was it that you offered them that they were looking for?

So the word perspective comes to mind. So I walk into this, it's called Rugby park in Christchurch, New Zealand. It's the home of Canterbury Rugby. Canterbury Rugby has one of the largest numbers of players that go on to play in the All Blacks, which is our national team who are world champions. So there's a lot of mana as you walk in there, a lot of prestige and you feel the weight of it when you walk in. So I'm walking in there, I'm built like an equestrian jockey and I'm going and looking at these guys and there's a little Irish leprechaun here, you know, coming in and they're all, you know, six foot seven. I'm built pretty big, so I'm feeling out of place. But right away Gary the captain comes over, who of course is like a household name and face here in New Zealand, comes straight over and fist pumps me and goes, james, so nice to meet you. Heard so much. Can't wait to hear you today. Then the manager comes over, does the same. Every player within the first 20 minutes made me feel, hey, you're part of the team. Like, you're not a rookie, you're not a newbie, you're part of the squad. So right away I'm starting to shoulders dropping, feeling pretty good. And then when I get in and explain what mental skills look like from my perspective, everyone start up. And I made it very clear I think I'm not a rugby expert. I know very little about rugby. But what I do know about is how we respond under pressure and what we can do to prepare for that. And so at the end of that session, head coach come over and my first question, which is kind of like an imposter question, was, was that okay? Did that land okay for you? Was that what you wanted? He said, james, you literally had every single one of them. Even he says, even the naysayers around mental skills get every single one of them in the palm of your hands. And the relief I felt like, oh, Christ, like I can do something here that's valuable in some small way. And so I built my confidence week after week going in and seeing people implement some of the things that I did and seeing how it performed on the field. And of course there was things that didn't work and I learned from that. But honestly, it was definitely a confidence building scenario.

What do you think was the biggest benefit or teaching lesson that you brought to them?

You know what, where your focus goes, your energy flows. I was my mentor. Ramsey, who's a 80 years of age now, he taught me this many years ago. And it's just you got to keep the main thing, the main thing. And wherever you place your focus, all of your energy goes in that direction. So to me, that's still something I reinforce with them. In fact, I have one of the senior players, they're going into the semifinals this week and one of the senior players send me a voice note this morning just saying, hey, we obviously smashed the quarterfinals, it was great. However, this is another week, this is a different team, different day. And I know there's a bit of doubt and a bit of worry and what do I do? So I say, hey, where your focus goes, your energy flows, you're going to focus on the worry and the doubt. Are you going to focus on the process, focus on the discipline and the routines that you've got? So I always keep it very simple.

I love that. And now how did that then translate into working with or when did you start working with businesses then?

Yeah, about five, six years ago I started working with businesses and it was quite organic. I worked at a private school. I didn't grow up in a private school, but started working and teaching the drums, pipe band drums at the private school and of course the parents at that school. Very hard working parents, but many of them own businesses, small, medium and not so small. And very organically. They discovered what I was doing with rugby guys and other athletes. And a few of them over the course of a few months said, hey, would you mind coming in and speaking to our team? Got a team meeting, very small, like, you know, 20 people in a Room. And again, I said, no, I'm not the right guy. I don't know lots about business. I've run a small retail business selling drums, of course, but I don't know how big business works and there's no point having me in. And I mean, James, we don't need a business expert. We need someone who can come in and help our people perform better, help develop better culture. That's how we perform better. So I reluctantly went in and again came away with great positive feedback from the people that brought me in and realized there's something to this. Maybe I can operate in a different field. And so I then intentionally set out to go, okay, could I have a full time business doing this, helping others. And right before COVID I resigned from the safety of my private school job and moved into coaching and training and keynote speaking. And have to say, I didn't know Covid was coming, but it was a blessing. Forced me to focus, forced me to ask better questions of myself. And it's helped the business grow, that's for sure.

I love it. All right, so for those of you that are listening, James's why is to contribute to a greater cause, right? Add value, have an impact on the lives of others. How he does that is by making things simple, easy to understand, easy to do, decreasing complexity. But ultimately, what he brings is the right way to get results. The structure, the processes, the systems around creating predictability and predictable results. And so when we first talked about that, James, how did that feel to you?

I had a big smile like I do right now. I was like, whoa. Gary has a little bit of an insight into my, like a psychographic, so to speak. I was a bit blown away and I was chuffed. Like, I was really delighted by it. I felt like it really depicts how I look at life, parenting, business. It really, it's like a needle that threads through them all. And you know, when I look at my podcast and the, you know, people that we get on there, why do I get them on? Well, one, I love learning, but two, I know the listeners just love it. Just like your listeners with the guests that you get on. I love to know that that's making a difference. I guess that's the contribution piece and then the simplify. My models are simple. My frameworks are simple. There's so you can just plug and play. And then, of course, the right way. I believe there are many ways to do things, but there's often only a small number of right ways to do things. Sometimes even only one right way. And So I geek out on, hey, how can we make it simple and how do we do it right? Yeah.

And that's such a power. What I have found over time is that people that have simplify in their why, how and what are able are make it easier to get results.

Because when things. Well, let me ask you, why is it important that things are simple?

Complexity kills execution. I see this on the sports arena, I see this in the boardroom, I see this at work. When things are complex, we just don't move, we procrastinate. I even feel this. If I get an item that I have to put together, whether it's one of Finn's new toys or whether it's an Ikea piece, if the instructions are complex, I'll be like, I'll do that tomorrow. But if it's like an Apple esque product and it's like open the box, it's like built for me, like an Irish guy can use it pretty easy. I'm like, cool, let's play. This is easy. So I think complexity kills execution.

Yeah. Can you think of a scenario? Could be sports, could be business. Either one where you've helped them have a bigger impact by simplifying things and bringing in the structure around, making it predictable and making it happen.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So two, two examples, one on the sports side, uh, so I had an individual who's a very talented rugby player who wanted to become an all black, which the way the black jersey in New Zealand is the ultimate, like you're, it's, it's world class, right? So he was a long way off and he was making poor decisions and being quite distracted. Still a great player, but was never on track to become one of the best. So I just said to him, hey, I've just got three questions and you can take as long as you want to answer them and if it takes you months, that's fine. But if you answer these questions, your outcome will appear. 1, what do you really want? What do you really want? And so he went on to answer that. Okay, number two, why? Why do you want it? Or you know, how badly do you want it? So he goes on to explain that, what it means to his family and his grandfather and proud. And it's like, okay, great, last question, arguably the most important question. How much are you willing to suffer? And that question a lot of people don't like hearing. For those that maybe don't like that directness, I changed the word suffer to sacrifice. How much are you willing to sacrifice? At the end of the day? If you want something that's huge and challenging and great and you want it really badly, there's some level of sacrifice or suffering. So this young player took the time to answer these questions, came back to me. Then we made a plan on how he would execute on that daily and weekly and arguably it could have been five years before he made the All Blacks. But he was called up in just over 12 months. So he shortchanged and shortcutted as his distance to getting into the team. Not my secret sauce, not my magic, just some simple tools that he applied that worked for him.

Three questions.

That's it. Free, simple.

What if you'd asked him 46 questions?

Complexity kills execution. You'd be, james, come back to me tomorrow. I'm too busy playing rugby.

Not a chance. Am I answering 46?

No, not going to happen.

And then you had another example.

Yeah, on the corporate side. So the Corporate had about 3 or 400 staff in New Zealand alone. They're global, global company and sales is a big part of their business, like at most businesses. And if the sales team aren't performing well, the business doesn't thrive. So they're looking at this. We'll bring in this program and we'll give them access to this digital thing and we'll get them this book to read and God, just press pause. Let's for the next three to six months talk. No, no, no, we need to run it out right now, we need to get going. So let's pause. If you're willing to be patient, I'm sure we'll get the right solution to this problem. So we spend a lot of time questioning what is the problem? Is that the problem? Are you sure that's the problem? Let's get to the root of what the problem is down to one thing, what's the one problem? And that's that simplification. Right. So we realized that this problem was that they were having self doubt, they doubted themselves. That was the key problem. Okay, well what's the solution to that? Well self belief not allows you to take action and execute. So I developed a program based around the seven pillars of high performance and spent about three months with them in person. Digital follow ups of course, the high performance planner implementing that on the daily. And their results went through the roof. But not only that, yes, they got better results. But I went in a year later I was just walking through the lobby, it was up in Auckland and three or four people who I hadn't seen in a year came up and said James, do you know That I haven't drunk alcohol since that program we did. James, do you know that I've actually spent every weekend with my kids playing sports since that? So it wasn't, hey, James, we've made billions of dollars. Yeah, they had increase in the revenue and market share, but the individuals were coming up saying, hey, that stuff helped me to get clearer on what's most important. And that's what I get a kick out of, seeing people, you know, focus on what's most important. Wow.

Well, you were talking about the seven pillars of high performance. What are those seven pillars?

Yeah, this is the. Essentially the, the. This is the foundational kind of thesis of everything that I do. And the program that we're running this week, which is our annual event that was talking prior to us going live, it's around these seven pillars. So number one, vision. Vision precedes victory. We got to be clear on where we're headed. You know, Stephen Covey probably would have said something like, start with the end in mind, you know, get clear on what success looks like. High performers do that really well. And that's why I ask those questions, you know, what do you really want? Why do you want it? Get clear. Next is desire. That's the second pillar of high performance. A lot of people are driven extrinsically. Money, power, status, saying that will get us to do so many things and go so far. But generally it's not sustainable. It doesn't end well. So in our high performance program, we look at how do we build intrinsic desire? How do we multiply our motivation? And we do that by making sure that we've got a clear understanding of why we do what we do. There's got to be a deep purpose, a sense of mastery, sense of always learning and growing. Then a third, which is always quite confronting for people. I start with this. I say, gary, you're full of bs and people go, excuse me, belief systems, right? Belief is the third pillar. And it's these beliefs that drive our behaviors and of course, our actions and our outcomes. So we look at what kind of beliefs do we need to have about who we are to get the results that we want. Self discipline is the next win. Because I've never met a high performer that lacks self discipline. Then we look at self evaluation, the ability to stop, pause, reflect, and of course, off the back of that, make plans. Then high performance habits. You know, I think people like to jump straight to that. When I get hired to speak generally, it's like, James, could you come in and do a high performance Habits keynote for us. That's exactly what we need. I'm like, yep, it'll get people fired up, but it's not going to get you the results like we need to. We need to start with the important stuff. So high performance habits. We are habits, creatures of habit. So we need habits to drive our success. Last but not least, growth. High performers and high performing teams are either rotting or ripening. And you're growing or decaying. It's a choice. You know, growth is up to you. And so we look at these pillars, we look at how to implement them, and generally when I work with a team, Gary, that takes a couple of days to go through that. And I'm a big storyteller, so I like to take time on each pillar, get people out of their heads, into their hearts. I don't want to be there. Being a theorist, there's lots of theory out there that we can look at. It's like we want to take action. So that's, that's the seven pillars of high performance.

And how did you come up with the seven pillars of high performance?

This took about three years to figure out. And I was working with a strategist who was trying to help me get out of my head and into my heart and onto the page and go, okay, how did you achieve seven world titles? How did you achieve, you know, 14 national titles? How did you then help others achieve their world titles in music and sport? Okay, how did you help others develop high performance? I said, oh, well, there was this thing. And then I guess we looked at this thing and I guess, well, this was really important for me. I was doing this pretty poorly myself. So we started to realize there were pillars or themes across all of these. And so we started to kind of fact check those. And so part of the reason we started the podcast was, could I meet the best in the world and ask them questions that could help me define if they also were using these pillars? And so from prime ministers to presidents to formula one teams to bestselling authors, I get them on the podcast and time and time again, they verify and confirm that, yep, they've got a vision, they have a deep sense of belief, they're rewiring their beliefs, they're motivated to succeed, they're very self disciplined. And all the pillars show up.

Of the seven, is there one that stands out more than the rest or you gotta have all seven Vision?

Vision is crucial to me. People who are, you know, people who have a vague vision generally drive vague results. They get results, but they're Generally not powerful and not the ones that they want. So I believe it's got to start with vision. It's got to start with where we headed. And like anything in life, we've got to know where we're headed. And if we don't, we're going to get lost, we're going to go around in circles, we're going to waste time. And you and I talked before we hit record on how quickly this year has gone, how fast time seems to go. So to me, if anybody took anything from this, just get, get radically clear on where you're headed.

I love that. Yeah. I could see how people would want to jump right into the growth or high habits.

Right.

I mean, they want to skip all that other shot. I want to go to self discipline and self evaluation.

I mean, what the heck, Just give.

Me the fun stuff 100%.

A hundred percent. Yeah.

If I'm bringing you in to speak to my people, make me the fun stuff and we'll deal with that other stuff another time. I don't care if we get results is fire them up.

Yep, you got it. Time and time again.

Yeah. And so when you speak at events, do you normally cover all seven? Is it kind of or just the one that they want to talk about?

Yeah, generally. So I like to speak a lot about a little rather than a little about a lot. So if I was to come in and do a keynote for an hour and cover all seven, it would be like, wham, bam, that was so quick. And what, what was that about? I like to pick one theme that ties in with their greatest challenge that they're having in their company or organization at the time and go, okay, they've got a vision problem or oh, they've actually got a desire problem or actually, you know what? They don't self reflect and slow down and plan very effectively. They've got a self evaluation problem. And so I'll define which one of those is most applicable and then I'll design stories around what's going to be most powerful for their people so that in the hour we can actually make a difference.

I like that. All right, last question for you. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

Well, this is an easy one for me. My grandfather, who thankfully is still alive, reminds me and has reminded me since I was a kid. James, life is not a dress rehearsal. Get after it. Go. Take action, Take risks. Follow your dreams. You know, I love hearing that from him. And he still says, I was home speaking at an event in Ireland in, I think it was June. And I went, I was staying with my grandparents and he was having a whiskey and he said, son, never forget. It's not a dress rehearsal. I was like, yeah, you're right, Granda, you're right. You know, he just encourages me to keep going and keep, keep striving. So that's something I try and encourage others to think of is, you know, go for it. Like, today's not guaranteed to be a tomorrow. Today's the day. Like, go, go seize it.

I love that. That's a hard thing to remember.

Because, you know, everything gets in cloud it, right?

100%. We again, it's that complexity piece, right? When we've got so many options, it makes a tyrant out of us. Get clear on what's the most important thing. What's the one thing I call it mvp, Gary. Most valued priority every day. And I've got my journal, you know, I've got. What's my MVP today? I need to know that. And that's what I get after. And that's, you know, there's no dress rehearsal. Get after that one thing. Get it done early in the day and get moving.

Well, you got a busy. A big week this week, right?

Massive week.

Tell everybody what you got going on.

Yeah. So Monday, which was yesterday for us, I was up in Auckland speaking at an event today. I submitted my book to HarperCollins Publishers, which was kind of like saying waving goodbye to a child heading off to university. Kind of bit of fear, bit of excitement. Tomorrow I'm working with the senior leaders of the international airport. And then Thursday is our annual event, the annual HPL High Performance Leadership Event. We've got Sir Wayne Smith, who's one of the top rugby coaches on the planet. We've got Zeon Armstrong, who used to be the president of Adidas North America. And we've got Arahia Bennett. She's our third guest who ran one of New Zealand's largest companies. Plus, I'll weave in the seven pillars of high performance. So we've got hundreds of people coming along and I'm excited, apprehensive. But hey, it's got to get done. I've got to get up on that stage. It's not a dress rehearsal, right?

Yes, 100%.

Awesome. James, thank you for taking the time out. I can't believe all the, you know, because we talk months ago and now we're here on your busiest week. So thank you for taking time out of your busiest week to be here with us, and I'm sure you're going to have an amazing event, and I really look forward to us staying in contact as we move forward in our journey. So thanks for being here today.

Absolute pleasure, Gary. Anytime. And keep up your amazing work with Yos. I'm looking forward to taking that around the world with me and helping others discover their Yoshi.

I love it. Thanks, James.

Cheers.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.