What Three Weeks in Japan Taught Me About Myself

I went to Japan for three weeks thinking I was taking a trip.

I wasn’t.

I went during the biggest transition of my life at 39 years old, a brand new rebranded podcast, a public pivot away from everything I’d been building for years.  I thought Japan would give me great content.  What it actually gave me was something I didn’t expect and couldn’t fully plan for.

In this episode I’m talking about what happens when you take yourself somewhere completely unfamiliar and everything you use to define yourself stops working.  

And what’s left is just you.

Note… my laptop died mid-recording so this episode ends abruptly.  I thought about not posting it.  But that felt too clean for what this trip actually was.

Out Loud.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I'm recording this from Japan. Uh I've been in Japan now for two weeks. So I have four more days left, and then I'm headed back to the States. And right now I am in um Kyoto. I started off my trip in Japan. In Japan. I started off, it's been two weeks. I started off in Tokyo, and I was in Tokyo for seven days or so, and then from Tokyo went up to right around Mao Fuji. And I was there for four days. And the rest of my time in Japan will be here in Kyoto. Um at the time of this recording, it is May the 30th here in Japan, which means that it's the 29th back in the States, because I'm 16 hours ahead of the West Coast and 13 hours ahead of the east. And uh I'll be here until June the 3rd, and then I land in back in California on June the 3rd, which is a crazy concept. Um yesterday I did a day trip in Osaka, which is basically, if I can explain it, it's Vegas in Japan. It's basically if you took Vegas and put way more alleys and way more food places and way more people and put it in Japan. So I didn't know that my time in Japan, I didn't know that Japan apparently is the largest city in the world by population. It's like 41 million people. It's either like one or two, but it's like the top two most populated cities in the entire world, which is crazy. I didn't know that. And I'm somebody that never traveled growing up. Me, my family and I, we never really traveled anywhere outside of the, we never traveled outside of the U.S. unless it was Canada. But um, but even like going to different states, we didn't travel unless it was like funerals or weddings or some type of important uh reason for destination. But we never just said, hey, we're gonna go here for whatever. Like we never did that as a family too much. So traveling has always been foreign to me. And because traveling has been foreign to me, vacation has been foreign to me. So my first handful of days here, like the first seven days, was like really hard for me in a sense that one being 16 hours ahead of the rest of the world, took a while for me to get used to because when you wake up first thing in the morning here, like if I wake up, the sun rises very early in Japan, especially in Tokyo. Like in Tokyo, the sun was out at like 4 a.m., like out. And so I was up every day probably around 4:30. So by the time it's 4:30 in Japan, it's 3 p.m. in the East Coast and it's noon in the west. So you're waking up to pretty much a slew of messages and emails first thing in the morning, right? And then also like when you want to talk to family or friends, or like I have clients that I'm also coaching while I'm here. So I'm doing coaching calls here at like 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. in in Tokyo to make it, you know, feasible for East Coasts and the West Coast. So that took a while to get used to. But also, um, Japan is is very interesting, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to make this episode. If you see me look at my phone here, if you're watching this on YouTube, uh, I have notes here that I took down and I want to share just some of my thoughts about what Japan has revealed about me while being here. Now, because I'm not a traveler, because I wasn't a traveler, now I I love traveling now. I always love flying, but you know, I've traveled for work, you know, I've I've I've traveled around the country of the United States for speaking engagements and stuff within the last like four years, but I never like traveled for like leisure. That's like foreign to me. And one of the things that being in Japan has has revealed to me, which sparked me to make this episode, is I have a hard time just saying it's okay. And I'll it's funny, I was talking to a client today on one of our calls, and she asked me, you know, what has Japan taught you spiritually? And I was just like, damn, that's a good ass question. You know, like who's who's coaching who right now? But when she asked me that question, you know, the answer that I gave sparked me wanting to make this episode, which was, you know, Japan has taught me to say it's okay. And when I like when when it was decided to book this trip to go to Japan for 17 days, um it was really hard for me to tell my clients that I work with virtually and in person, like, yo, I'm only gone for two and a half weeks. Like it took a while for me to say that. And the reason why it took a while for me to say that is because I've never allowed myself to remove myself from work. Because whether it's, you know, I feel like I'm disappointing my clients or I felt like um, you know, it's not fair, that, you know, what whatever lack mentality um I have around that, you know, I I brought that into the equation of me taking a two and a half week vacation. Now, am I still doing my coaching calls? Yeah. I mean, it's you know, it's 45 minutes to an hour out of my day, which isn't too much to ask, right? Now, my in-person stuff is completely shut down for two and a half weeks. So I just have a handful of calls to do um over a 17-day period, which is nothing. And I enjoy it. But the the point that I'm making is I never really learned how to just be okay and just say it's okay. Like work will be there when you get back. The clients love you, like they're investing their money and good money because they they trust that what you do one is worth more than the money that they're investing in the services that you offer. They're not going anywhere. And what I realized is like a handful of my clients have been to Japan before, and they were more excited for me going than I was for myself. And they've been following my journey, like on stories, been texting in the group chat. And so that's been cool. And like talking to clients, talking to my family, like I've been doing like these mini vlogs, and then I sent it to the group chat that I'm in with my parents. And so, like them seeing like these two to three minute videos that I'm making has been cool. You know what I'm saying? And like sharing pictures and stuff in my family group chats and friends. And then it dawned on me, it's just like, yo, like a lot of people that I know are never gonna come to Japan. Like, because I didn't grow up a traveler, I didn't realize that Japan is such like a mothership of a spot to travel. And for me to say like I'm going to Japan for two and a half weeks, that's a big deal. You know? And being here now for 14 days, and so today it's Saturday here, so I leave Wednesday, Japan, and land in Wednesday in LA, right? But the point of me making this episode was I came into Japan thinking one way, and I'm gonna be leaving Japan thinking another way. And this is what I mean by that. So when I decided to go to Japan, in my mind, I had all these ideas that the content I was gonna make, the videos I was gonna do, you know, there's just, you know, just thinking content, content, content. Now, while all this is going on, I've also been in a rebrand. So the kind of content that I've been making over the last like two months has been a shift from the content that I've been making for the last five to six years. And so the last month or so, the pivot that I've made has gained a lot of momentum for me social media-wise, with you know, the views, the followers, the engagement. It's really been being well received, and my content is being pushed to like 95% non-followers. So I'm giving social media what they want because the watch time of my videos has gone has gone up like crazy. That's besides the point. The reason why I bring that up is because of the content that I've been making recently, it's allowed me to express myself in a different way that I haven't been able to do, or at least I didn't give myself permission to do in the past. And so I was excited coming here to like do more documentation and like show where I'm going, show where I'm eating, you know, talking to people from Japan and learning the language and like making different kinds of videos that I've never made before because the content that I was making didn't really afford that opportunity for me, but now it is. And so once I started saying that I'm going to Japan, like my algorithm has been giving me nothing but Japan. Like my algorithm has been Japan and Bruno Mars. That's been my entire algorithm. And so I'm getting all this like Japan content of people who traveled there and like places where they've gone, like funny videos of what they've been doing, of um, you know, going to places and and doing like, you know, over captions of the videos of, you know, just leaving 7-Eleven, mispronouncing Arigato, uh Gojima, you know, for the thousandth time. So like it's been um really cool to get all this content. So I came to Japan with these, all these ideas of what I wanted to do, and I really haven't done any of that. And I posted a lot of my stories, you know, of like being in Tokyo and then being in uh Fuji, being Osaka, being Kyoto. So like I've been showing people kind of what I've been doing on my stories, but I haven't really been posting on my feed. And one of the main things I wanted to do was to was to really start, you know, I wanted to upload a lot of stuff on my feed. Now, some of you might be listening to this, or you might be listening to this like, Ace, what the fuck does this got to do with me? You know what I'm saying? And why I think this this could resonate with you is because this trip hasn't gone the way that I planned. Um not the trip itself. The trip has been amazing, right? Like I couldn't ask for like this has been a 20 out of 10. Like it's it's it's been the most everything about Japan has been amazing. So I'm gonna go to my notes here. Um but on the content side of things, it was kind of it's been kind of a letdown until I had this awakening, and this is what I'm gonna give to you.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Japan is a very different place.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Okay, so if you've never been to Japan, I'll explain it like this. I've lived in New York, I've lived in Detroit, and I lived in Los Angeles. All three of these places are metropolitan cities. Detroit is on the smaller side, then you got New York City, and then you got Los Angeles. All three of these spots have different vibes, okay? Detroit's more laid back, more gritty, um, more blue-collar. New York, greedy, way more fast paced. LA, way more chill. Big city, a lot to do, but you can kind of come and go at your own pace, right? Tokyo, like Japan, the country, is very, very structured. And they have a, they have whether they're whether they are actual rules and regulations or laws, there isn't there is an inherent way of being here that is completely different than any place that I've ever been to. For one, there's no trash cans outside. All right. So eating and drinking outside is not common. That's one. Two, um, like you have to, if you're going to, if you're going to, like, for example, taking the train here is is very common. It's like New York, right? If you're going to stand and not walk up the stairs like the escalator, you've got to be on one side. The other side is for people to move. Makes sense, right? But for Tokyo to be the biggest city in the world by populace, meaning there's a lot of people here, it's very, very quiet. And one of the things that I realized when I went to Tokyo and I went to downtown Tokyo, and it's crazy. It's it's I got so much footage of it. It's like bright lights, it's millions of people, it's insane, right? But I can have a conversation with someone that's next to me just regular, and we can hear each other just fine. So the pace of Tokyo, although there's so many people, is actually like very, very reserved. And so the reason why I say that is because the slower pace and the peacefulness of Japan has forced me to be way more present in the moments that I spend there rather than trying to make content. And I had this awakening yesterday where I was really disappointed, if I'm being honest, because I felt like, man, I should be creating way more content, like, or putting content out. Like I've been here for 14 days, and I think I've made like three or four videos on my feed. And I'm just like, man, this doesn't make any sense. And so I was really feeling a certain kind of way about that. But then I had this awakening, bro, when I was just like, yo, who said that you have to make content in the moment? Who said that your content had to be instant? Who said that your Japan stuff had to be right now? Like, not only do you have content for social media, you have content for the rest of your life. These videos aren't going anywhere. As long as Japan is speaking to my spirit and my heart, that content is always going to be relevant for social media. But what it really taught me was like, yo, it's okay to be present and to do nothing. And just like I was in Osaka yesterday, and I'm standing around, and there's so many people, and I'm just like, man, I'm just like taking videos and pictures and stuff. And then sometimes, bro, I was just like, you know what? It's like I'm taking a video and I'm looking through the camera of what I'm capturing instead of like looking at what I'm capturing in real time. And like the heart of this episode to me is like Japan is so different than any place that I've ever been that it's really revealed some things about me that I didn't know really existed that I'm gonna take back to the states. And I have these dreams and these visions of like just being a really big media juggernaut. And pop culture, sports, music, movies, the state of culture in general in America has always been at the forefront of dialogue with me and my family. That's like our love language.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Like I'm going home. Um I got I I have to go home at some point in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

But like, since I can't remember, the main thing we talk about is pop culture, movies, shows, sports, you know, what's going on, politics, and stuff like that. Like, that's what we talk about. That's how we bond since I was a kid, and I'm the youngest of six boys, right? So I always picked up on conversations that were more so outside of my age bracket, meaning, like, in order for me to participate in certain conversations, I had I had to think and observe at a much more mature level than most of my friends. And to be honest with that, most of the friends that I had growing up were two years older than me. My best friends, you know what I'm saying, growing up were two age groups ahead of me. When I played sports, I was always playing two age, one to two age groups ahead of me. So all of my teammates were older than me, right? So I didn't grow up really with friends that were my age. All of my friends were older. On top of that, I had all brothers that are all older than me. You know what I'm saying? So like a lot of my conversations were always about things that people my age and my, you know, in my school and my class were weren't talking about. So I had this ability to really think at a higher level and a faster level than people my age because of the conversations I was having back home. So the content that I'm putting out now is really in more align to who I really am in my DNA. And but at the same time, because I've I've been wanting to do this for so long, like I'm I've been like holding on to it, you know what I'm saying? So like I I hold I take what I do so serious that sometimes I forget that like a part of having an abundant life and abundant career and abundant anything is to have a loose grip. You feel me? Like, and I coach clients, right? So I I coach I I it's so funny because it's like I'm I'm literally telling myself what I would be telling one of my clients. It's like the the closer you hold on to something, the further it's gonna get from you. It's crazy how that works because you would think the tighter you hold something, the more close it's gonna be. Whereas it's like, nah, the the tighter you hold on something, the further it's gonna go. It's like when you give a child so much rules and regulations, and you gotta do this and you can't do that, and they can't go out, they gotta be curfew. Like when you when you have such a tight grip on your kids, when they get to college, yo, they let loose because they have a taste of freedom. So the the closer you hold on to something, eventually it's going to start to get further away from you. And so what Japan has taught me is just like, yo, Japan isn't the content. I'm the content. It's not about, hey, this is what I'm doing in Japan. It's about here's what Japan has drough me. You know what I'm saying? It's my perspective on the world is the content. There's so many videos of like what I did in Japan, what not to eat in Japan, here's this in Japan, but there's only going to be one person that can give a perspective on how Japan has spoken to me, and that's me. And so it's important for me to say it's okay for me not to pull my phone out and feel like I have to make content 247 and let Japan create the Content in me. And so, like, the culture of Japan is so like the intentionality behind everything that they do. Listen, I'm telling you, and that this might feel scattered right now because I'm kind of like dumping my thoughts right now, and I have some things jotted down. But if you if this episode is for you, you'll feel the through line. I've been to McDonald's twice in Japan, right? Even like going to McDonald's, which is very good here, by the way, the precision of how their food looks, how hot the food is, how fresh it is, they take their work so serious here. Like everything that they do is like they try to be a master at that. I've been in four hotels since I've been in Japan, right? The first hotel was near Disney, then the Marriott and the Fuji in here. Yeah, so this is my fourth hotel I've been in in two weeks. Every single hotel I've been to, the service is top tier. Top tier. And so I'm in this outfit right now. So like the hotel I'm staying at is like a kind of more authentic Japanese style hotel. So I forget what these are called, but you wear these when you um when you go to their onsense. So every hotel that I've been to has an on-sense, which is basically like a spa. So there's hot tubs, there's cold tubs, there's saunas, there's steam rooms, there's, you know, it's it's it's incredible, right? They have men's and they have women's. So you wear these to go to the onsen or just to walk around in the lobby area. So I was about to go down to the on-sene, and like on the way to the on-sense here at this hotel, they have like eight massage chairs that are just incredible. And I sat in one and then I realized, oh shit, I forgot my tattoo covers in the room, right? Because in this particular hotel, the last hotel I was in in Fuji, they were so I was so cool with them, they were so cool with me that they would say, don't even worry about it. But in a lot of places in Japan, in public places where you expose your body, you you can't have tattoos exposed. One, because of the gang and and the crime here with that. So uh every hotel will give you two tattoo covers, but I bought uh sleeves to cover my forearm tattoos, my arm tattoos, and then I have tattoo tape to cover one of my chests. But they give you two big tattoo covers at the front desk. So anyway, I realized today when I went down there, I didn't have my tattoo covers. And I was like, oh man, I'm going to dinner a little bit. So it's like, I'm not about to go all the way back upstairs, put the tattoo covers on and go back down. So I just wait to go to the onset after dinner. But everything here is like they really, really care about what they do here. And going into McDonald's, it was like, yo, like the pancakes, yo, were like perfect. They were just perfect. And I was thinking, though, this is probably the thing that I noticed the most about the people in Japan. And I hope if you're listening to this and you're from Japan or you know people from Japan, you don't take this personally. But this is one thing that I've noticed, though, in all the glory, right? Moo Fuji, the food, the customer service, the structure, the how clean it is, like how quiet and peaceful it is. Like, no complaints at all. But the one thing that I have noticed that has stood out when it comes to Japan is you don't really see people smiling or laughing a lot here. Because everything is so serious, because everything is so structured, because everything, and this is just my interpretation, because everything is so like this, it seems like there also is like there has to be a downside to something, right? You can't have you can't be elite at all this without something sacrificing. And so I feel like because everybody's so locked in to what they're doing, there also is this inability to be present in the moment. Because one of the things I also notice about people here is that everybody's on their phone. I didn't think that that was gonna be a thing. Like every one of the trains on the phone, when they're walking aside on the phone, to the point where it's just like they're not looking up. Like they're just here. And also another thing I noticed is being in Tokyo, being in Kyoto, being in Osaka, especially Osaka and Tokyo, which they're bigger cities and like way more stimulus, like the amount of bright lights, the amount of loud noise, amount of like loud picture, like in your face, everything in Tokyo and Osaka is like in your face, like food, games, it's like bright in your face, right? There's so much distraction as well here that when you go, I'm telling you, if you go to Tokyo or Yoga Saka, you walk, it's just a sea of people, and anything that you possibly would want is there. If you have a vice, any vice that you have is right there, right? Japan has shown me that, like, even when you are wanting to do good work, even when you want to be precise, even when you want to be cerebral, you you you want to be the best at what you do, which they are in a lot of ways. It's also important to be present, it's also important to laugh, it's also important to not be so serious. Because, and now that I've noticed it subconsciously, like I'm looking for it, and you don't really see a lot of people just smiling. And I remember when I went to Disneyland when we first got here, one of the comments that I made was just like, yo, like you don't really see kids act out or throw fits or tantrums or scream or you like you don't see it. Like you're not seeing kids throwing a hissy fit. It's quiet. Now, people are talking and you know, and I was like, oh man, like this is great. Like, you don't have you don't have kids laughing or screaming or like joking or like falling on a floor, flailing and crying.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

But then two weeks later, I was just like, man, I wish kids would laugh more here or joke around or feel like they could. And that's kind of like what has brought me to this episode, which is like I came here to use Japan almost as for content for me.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

But I'm leaving here allowing Japan to work within me for me to have bigger content for the world. And wherever you are in life, whether you're in Japan, you're in LA, you're in Detroit, you're in Saskatchewan, you know, you're in Wisconsin, it's important to like just be present. And yeah, take your pictures, yeah, do your thing, but don't