Growing Pains

Redefining Success On Your Own Terms

What if "falling behind" is actually exactly where you're supposed to be? In this episode of See Through, Dev and Roger get real about personal growth, career change, and the messy, nonlinear path to figuring out who you are. Roger opens up about leaving post secondary school to work in the same sawmill as his father, calling it "time on" instead of time off, and how that decision built the confidence to bet on himself again and again, eventually leading him from rural British Columbia to a new life in Ontario. Dev reflects on his early twenties, realizing how much of his life was shaped by simply following the crowd, and the intentional mindset shift that changed everything.

Together, they dig into the comparison trap, the pressure of keeping up with everyone around you, and why chasing bigger houses and nicer cars rarely brings real fulfillment. Roger shares how becoming a father reshaped his definition of success, while Dev offers two simple but powerful mindset shifts for self improvement and personal development. If you are navigating a career transition, questioning your life path, or just need a reminder that growth is not linear, this conversation about resilience, self awareness, and authentic living is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to See Through, a podcast designed to do one simple thing. Change your outlook on something you experience every day. Everything is on the table. There isn't a conversation we aren't willing to explore. Career, finances, politics, art, relationships, and even culture.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

When was the last time you changed your mind on something? The fact that you are taking the time to listen to our show tells me that you're willing, which is the first step. Come on this journey with us every week, where we discuss and see through topics that matter to you from our perspective. I'm not saying we have all the answers, but we are willing to ask the tough questions.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I'm your host, Dev.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

And I'm Roger.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

And welcome to today's episode, which we're going to be calling Growing Pains. In our first couple of episodes, we talked a lot about a variety of topics that really shaped who we are, how we think about the world, how we think about life. And so today we really wanted to see through being okay with life not being totally linear and share some of the ups and downs that we've both been on and where we are today. And a lot of people I've felt have this enormous pressure on themselves to do things at a certain way, at a certain time, whether it's to finish school or get a particular career, or maybe, you know, get married and have kids if that's what you want. And they often feel defeated when things don't go to plan. And so in today's episode, I thought we could just have an organic conversation, Roger, about that. How does that sound?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Sounds great to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

All right, so let's get started. And effectively, what that means is we want to just take a quick second to just really highlight something that really impacted us this past week that made us feel good, made us feel inspired, maybe something we read or something that we wrote that really energized us. And it was really as a way to kickstart our dialogue with some positivity. And so I'm really excited for this week's motivational minute. Um, I think you're all really gonna love it. Um, and so with that, I'll send it over to Roger.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Life is going to come at you. Some of it is going to be fun, light, and exciting. Some of it is going to be sad, dark, and deflating. Life is going to come at you. Some say you have to be prepared. Some say, what's there to be prepared for? Life is going to come at you. Some wish they had more. Some wish they had. Life is going to come at you. Some will finally make it there. Some won't even make it here. Life is going to come at you. Perspective. Sometimes it's the only thing that you will need to find yourself. Perspective. From perspective, this leads to interpretation. From understanding interpretation, we need to focus on communication. The use of communication is where we find the foundation. At the foundation is each of us. Our voice is who we are. Whether it's our internal or external, we have a voice. This is where we start. How do we find our inner voice? You know the one? The one that guides us to where we end up? We need to ask ourselves: do we see perspective? By see, I mean feel. At this depth of being, you open yourself to allow others in. Even for a moment, it allows you to be open. When we open ourselves to allow others in, we become vulnerable. This is an important word, vulnerable. We get taught that vulnerable, to be vulnerable, you must be weak. But in reality, vulnerability is the true essence of strength. One must be connected to themselves, to have the confidence and courage to approach with vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

So as we get into today's episode, we wanted to talk about this journey. All of us are trying to kind of guess figure out, which is basically to make it or to figure out our purpose and feel successful by our own definitions. And so we just thought it would be fun to just have an organic conversation around how that's gone for us and how we've grown out of a limiting mindset that sometimes make things harder than they need to be. And so I thought we could kick things off with just maybe the last decade of our lives and how it's gone for us and kind of where we thought we would be versus where we actually are, and just some of the things that we've had to kind of overcome, which I think a lot of you may be able to relate in your own lives and in your own circumstances. And uh, we could maybe just start things there. So maybe, Roger, maybe how have things gone for you over this last decade and and when you think about where you thought you would be and kind of what you defined as success and where you expected to be, um, what have been your growing pains basically?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah, I love I love that question. And for me, it's gonna have to go longer, longer back than a decade. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Our age differences, because I'm 20 years your senior or elder. Yes. Um, but I know sort of the concept that we were we were thinking of before we started speaking to this. And it's really about, you know, you graduate high school, you've sort of got all these beautiful dreams and aspirations of who you think you're going to become, and then you leave sort of the school, you know, the home and high school sort of era, and you now graduate, if you will, pardon the pun, into reality and life. You know, for me, there was moments when the path wasn't clear. I did what normal, I think a lot of normal kids at that time were doing was picking out a bunch of courses in school and like post-secondary school and then going to post-secondary school.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Whether you get those brochures or you go to those fairs. I remember even like I went to all those fairs and you have to ask and you know, try and figure out what it is you want to do with 100% the next four years of your life, basically.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but because I had a lot of my friends and you know, even some of my relatives going off and they were picking out what they wanted to do. I, in fact, now that I think back and have like having had those conversations with them, they had no clue what they wanted to do, but they selected something. And so I followed suit as well. And I, you know, I selected a bunch of classes, and I think I was doing, yeah, I did business marketing classes, a little bit of business admin because I wasn't sure what I was gonna do. Ultimately, I I left that, right? I dropped out and that wasn't feeding me what I wanted. So I took a year and a half off of going to post-secondary school, and I went back to my small community. I started working in the same sawmill my dad worked in. So I instead of doing sort of summer cleanup in that sawmill, I said, you know what? Uh I don't know what I want to do, but I'm gonna go back here and I'll save some money and I'll figure out what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

You know what I love about that as we think about today's topic of growing pains? Um, it hurts to make those kinds of decisions. It really does. Yeah. Uh especially when, you know, your friends are probably still in school and you know, they're gonna ask you about it, or you know, they may not see you around as much. And, you know, it almost in a way feels like you're choosing not to progress.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

But it's weird because you know, you use this word like taking a year off. I I would say that I think a lot of people should reframe that as taking a year on.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Because taking a moment to catch your breath, no matter what stage of life you're growing through, whether it's right out of high school or whether it's right out of post-secondary or even later in life, I think is super important. So I love that you kind of made that decision young, even though it may have been a really scary decision to make in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Well, you think of it, you leave post-secondary and all of your peer group is actually in post-secondary. So you feel like a failure at that moment because you're unsure of what you want to do for yourself. So having a great mom and dad, to be honest with you, just telling them, hey, this isn't working out, I'm not, I'm not focused, it's not giving me what I want from a passion, they totally understood it. And they said, Well, you can come home and figure it out. But there's gonna be some rules with you coming home. And so I had to get a job, which I did. I started paying them, you know, a little bit of money. But more important than all the money, my dad said, Listen, if you're gonna be in the in the in and around the house, you're gonna have to do the chores. So you're gonna have to mow the lawns, wash the vehicles, take out the garbage, help your mom with the groceries, etc., etc., and be a contributor in the household. So even though I wasn't off getting a higher education from post-secondary, he immediately realized, okay, he's gonna live at home, he's gonna actually have a pretty decent paying job at the time. Um we can go 1993 at this point. I'm making $24 an hour working in a sawmill, $23 an hour, doing cleanup, and then obviously learning how to drive the forklifts and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

And for context, that's a lot of money at that time.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

If you go back into the 90s, that and then you just sort of do the math. That's yeah, that would probably be in the $40,000, $50,000 range in in dollars. Totally. But when you think of where the economy and inflation was, oh my god, and cost of living, the houses were so much cheaper. There were like, you know, $200,000 to buy.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

More than enough. That was more than enough.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

It was a lot.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

That was more than enough.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, what I say to you is I learned how to save that money. I bought my car, I bought a motorcycle, and my parents lived in um in rural BC. It would, I would equate it to in the GTA, we call it cottage country. Right. So where my parents were were scrub north, born and raised? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

It was lots of natural environment.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Like fishing, hunting, yeah, camping, yeah, four by fouring, snowmobiling, right? All Lake a day, as long as you could stay, was the motto of the little community we grew up in. So I got to enjoy that. It was actually probably the most profound time in my life. And the reason I say that is I'm by age an adult now, so my parents don't and couldn't put a curfew on me.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Well, I'm sure they tried. They tried. Like every parent, every parent, every Indian parent. Every Indian parent, absolutely Indian parent.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

But they knew that wasn't gonna go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

And so here I am, fully capable, have my own vehicle. I'm making money to put gas in there, right? And I'm fully self-sufficient. So I really got to explore the interior of BC with you know some of my friends that decided to stay home in those in those um years. And I wouldn't change it for anything because it shaped and sort of helped me really figure out what it is that I wanted. And that lasted probably about two years. I was able to save some money and sort of do that. And I would travel to see my friends that were off at university and sort of graduating at that point. And then I went back to school, right? But I moved to the lower mainland. I moved to Vancouver at the time and then ended up living there for many years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

What I really love about that, and I think more people need to recognize that no decision that you make, especially when you're growing up and kind of figuring out your life or figuring out whatever it is that you want to do that makes you feel the most alive. No decision that you're making is ever permanent, right? And so I think there's a lot of weight sometimes, and I love that kind of little anecdote of like you can make any decision. Now, two years is a long time, but when you look back, it also feels like such a short amount of time. Yeah, absolutely. I I think there's been so many moments in my life I've also reflected and that, oh man, it's gonna take me a year before I'm able to do this. And it, of course, does feel like that is a very significant amount of time, but then it goes by in a blink of an eye because time is so quick. And I also really love that as you're growing up, you have to give yourself the permission to allow yourself to figure things out in your own time versus feeling like you need to kind of work off of other people's agendas. And I love that you didn't waste your parents' money or your resources pursuing an education that you weren't passionate about. And I think you've quickly realized you weren't going to do anything with what was it, marketing business or whatever you just said. Yeah. Um, and so I think that's also important too, is like I think there's also uh almost a sign of respect for yourself for sure when you make a decision to not waste your time on anything, on anyone, on any situation that's not serving your what you feel like at least is your bigger purpose. So that's really great.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

You know, I I had a really involved father, right? He was uh inspirational, motivational, but he was also very spiritual. And he allowed me to open my eyes and see life and humanity from a completely different lens. He allowed me to see some of the experiences he went through. He was an immigrant to Canada, moved from a small village in India to northern, right, rural BC, um, in the interior of a small community of 7,000 or 8,000 people, right? So he went through his um hardships as well. And he thrived, right? He had a vision with my mom and they worked hard, they had children, they established themselves in the community. Um, so I always thought, and he always said to me, if I can do this, you have no excuse. You're born and raised in Canada and you can speak English without an accent. And for me, that positive reinforcement of it's okay that you haven't figured out you will one day because you've already got a leg up on me, because you're born and raised here. And that confidence in me sort of allowed me to try different things, right? I didn't set my path in one way and say, I'm going here and that'll be the end all be all. And so I tried a bunch of different things. I changed careers, I gave myself the freedom to say if I didn't feel like I loved what I did, I can do a 180, go in a completely different direction and try something else. You know, it's funny, I was having a conversation with um a gentleman, and he was just he's a sports guy, right? He watches a lot of hockey, watches a lot of basketball, and he's a betting man, he bets on games and stuff. And then, you know, I make fun of him because he's a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, and I'm not, I'm a Vancouver Canucks fan. But the Toronto Maple Leafs are good. But when we were having this conversation, they weren't a good team at the time. And he said, Listen, I don't, I don't bet on Toronto. And I said, Oh, so who do you bet on? And without even batting an eye, he said, I always bet on myself. And then we had a deeper conversation around what that meant to him and sort of how he's always landed on his feet, even though he didn't have a plan, he trusted that he would make the right decisions when the decisions mattered. And that type of influence, those type of conversations, really made me start thinking and behaving similarly. And I've always said to myself, well, if a plumber can plumb, why can't I? If an electrician can do electrical work, now I'm not a certified electrician, but how hard is it? And I would watch and sort of have people over when they did the work. And, you know, people pay big dollars for home renovations. I said, Well, if they can do it, why can't I? So then a friend of mine, you know, he bought a house with his wife and he and I did all the work. We absolutely demolished everything out of the house and rebuilt it, and then had certified trades come in to certify the work that we had done and them sign off that yeah, it met code. So it really built the confidence in us as young men figuring things out that you don't have to be linear to your point in what it is that you're about to do for your the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Yeah, I think I really resonate with that because I think a lot of people don't trust themselves to figure it out. And I think that creates a lot of fear and uncertainty of, oh my God, if I'm in a situation and let's say I don't have a security blanket or a safety net, which in most cases are your parents or your siblings or the people that you know you call it consider family. Can I figure this out? Can I make this work? Can I find a solution to something? And I think that's like a big part of growing up. And it's one of the tough truths and maybe the most painful part of the whole thing, which is really facing whatever is preventing you from fully believing in your own abilities to always find a way to succeed. And, you know, I love that betting on yourself. I think it's the only person you can really rely on is yourself to show up for you every single day. For sure. And ultimately, every decision you make, but more importantly, every decision you don't make, you're the one that's gonna have to deal with the outcome of that. And for me growing up, I think that's kind of what I learned really quickly, which was if I don't make a decision, I'm actually making a decision in that moment. Yeah, very well. And so, like a lot of the times, I had to think about what I was choosing not to do versus the things that I was choosing to do because it was really easy to do the things that just everybody else was doing. So, you know, if everyone else was going to, you know, go to this party or, you know, go watch this movie, you know, I you don't really have to think. You can just follow the crowd and you're gonna have a good time and you know, you're gonna feel like you're living life. But in making those decisions, I think that really caught up to me kind of in my early 20s as I was finishing my undergrad because I started to recognize that every decision that I was making, while I believed it was me that was making them, I in fact was not. I was in fact following all the decisions that were happening around me. And it took me a little bit of time to really see that. And it happened so frequently from the foods that I would eat to the TV shows that I would watch to the music that I would enjoy. And I had to really ask myself, like, do I actually really like any of this stuff? Or is it because my four closest friends to me all really like this show? And I need to make the decision to watch this show every day and waste my time, even though I could be studying or even though I could be advancing my career. And so I would say, like growing up, I think the thing that really snapped me out of that was just kind of seeing people that did take things into their own control and really not let the circumstances of the situation define how the outcome was. And that really inspired me, especially when I would see someone in a much worse life situation than me. You know, I think I grew up in a in a quite a privileged, you know, lifestyle. And the fact that I lived in Canada and, you know, I had a roof over my head, and you know, I I, for the most part, had a pretty solid childhood and and got most of the things that most, you know, children around me were able to receive. Um, but what I also discovered is there also created this complacency in that because I got really comfortable in, you know, always being at home and always having food on the table and always having my laundry done. And when I would see somebody that doesn't have those things, they always had this kind of, I would say, kind of more of like an ambitious mindset. And that's for me where those decisions come down to is, you know, a big growing pain for me was when I really decided to take my life a bit more seriously in terms of recognizing that I needed to architect it the way that I wanted it to be. And if I didn't make those decisions, nobody was making them for me. And eventually those decisions would catch up to me if I stopped making them. And that was that kind of trigger for me that really like kind of shifted that mindset. It was a very painful two years when I kind of had to go through this really big transition. But I think it's really natural. And I think it really stems off what you were saying too.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, there's a saying, right? You are the average of the people you surround yourself with.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, totally, totally.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

And so you have to take stock at some point in your life and ask yourself, right, you sort of touched on it. Am I influenced by the people I'm surrounding myself with? Am I listening to the music because they are? Am I eating the foods that they're eating? Sure, of course, in the moments you're going to be, but at some point you have to take stock of everything that's happening around you and why it's happening. It's because of those influences. And that's what really what that means. But then you have decisions to make, right? If you're not sure the path that you're on is going to take you to the happiness you seek or the fulfillment you're looking for, then it's okay to change the characters in your story as well, not just the path. Um, because you might see a different, different sort of journey for yourself at a certain point of life, right? And that's sort of, you know, the other piece I wanted to share is I'm born and raised in beautiful British Columbia. And I moved to Ontario at the age of around 30, right? Uh my father had passed away, and the job market wasn't the best. I wasn't in the best of head spaces, and I knew I needed a clean slate. I also always sort of live life to my own beat. And I never felt I had some really good intimate friendships in in British Columbia, and I still do. Some of those guys that I grew up with are still my best friends. But I just knew that I wasn't going to get what I was looking for, staying put there, even though it was a beautiful place. And so that brought me to Toronto. And, you know, when I think of the journey I've had here, it's been nothing but a life lesson. Um, all the ups and downs. I wouldn't trade it for anything. And it comes back to what that gentleman, when I asked him who he does bet on, he said, I bet on myself. That's sort of the mindset I've had to have while being in Ontario. I didn't have the safety net. You spoke of family. I didn't have any family here. So the roof I put over my head was the roof I put over my head, right? And there's a confidence that you build in who you are as an individual. And sometimes the path wasn't clear when I was here. And I just continued to do the right work for myself. If I felt happy, I was content in that, right? I wasn't putting too much um too much pressure on myself. And then slowly things started happening. You know, when I think of my own sort of um success story, yeah, those kind of moments came through. I surrounded myself with the right people. If I didn't know something, I made sure. I sought out the people that knew the things that I was wanting to learn. So it might not have been the traditional way of schooling at that point in my life because the post-secondary sort of lifestyle was already over. I'm now in my 30s, you know, mid-30s while I was living here and sort of really needing to figure out what it is that I wanted to do. And the path I chose was leadership in a bunch of different companies, really honing my skills and inspiring and motivating and finding my sort of fears of failure and overcoming those and not worrying about the mistakes I was about to make.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah, listen, it can be really tough. And I don't think like the advice here is like just distance yourself from everyone or you know, to isolate yourself. But I think there is a really strong component of making sure the people that are around you are also motivating you to want to become a better version of yourself. And I remember growing up, it was really painful to also maybe see my friends at the time not have the same growth mindset that I had and recognize that they maybe were holding me back, they weren't pushing me forward. And that doesn't mean they're bad people or that they're bad friends. I'm sure you know they were really, you know, important people in my life. But I also think that if you don't allow yourself the opportunity to build new connections or at least surround yourself with people that are all kind of getting to the same goals, then you also don't improve over time. And that's a very painful part of growing up, is maybe seeing the people that you once idolize or maybe seeing the people that you maybe even consider um the people closest to you not maybe help you achieve your goals and your dreams. And they don't do that by preventing you from doing anything, they do that more by not giving you the opportunities to maybe allow yourself to grow the way you want. And like for me, a great example like is growing up, I have always kind of struggled with my health and fitness and my body image and and wanting to, you know, I've never really been the guy that's like cared about like my aesthetic and and wanting to be in the gym. But I remember growing up that a lot of my friends and a lot of the people I surrounded myself with, um, they didn't care about that stuff either. And there came a point, I think it was right around I was exiting university, I really wanted to kind of become in better physical shape, only just based on for my own kind of health and just kind of figuring out my life. And, you know, I found that health also really affects kind of your overall mentality and mental health and all those things. Yeah, sure. And so I remember I made the decision to kind of take my wellness a bit more seriously. I wanted to eat a bit better. You know, I don't drink in general, so that wasn't a really an issue. And so it was interesting because I told my friends at the time kind of this goal, and they were all very supportive in the group chat. Everybody was really excited, everybody was hyping me up. But when it really came down to it, they would never really help me kind of be in a situation that allowed me to focus on my health. No. You know, when we were going out, they would be the first people to offer me like extra food. And I know they did that in their kindness and their politeness. But it's like in an indirect way, it was kind of a real-time kind of example of okay, these individuals are not trying to help me get closer to where I want to be. They're kind of trying to indirectly keep me where I'm already am. And again, no mal no malice. They weren't doing it as you know, being mean. But I think that's like a small example, but it happens in so many other ways. And, you know, surround yourself with people that are pushing you to move to Toronto and like start over. Not people that are just forcing you to stay where you are, if you are maybe not happy with where you are today. And um yeah, I think it's a really, it's a really tough thing to accept when you're growing up. It's a really tough one. Um, and and it only gets worse as you become an adult or you know, as you get into a high like later adulthood.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Because everyone gets busy, everyone, you know, then now has to deal with the outcomes of the decisions they made earlier in their life, whether it was to pursue their career, get an education, have great financial like status or background or foundation. And now ultimately the dust settles and you know, your parents get old or they retire, or you know, a health scare comes your way, and now you're kind of having to figure it out all over again. And so yeah, I think I think you have to be okay with just accepting people for who they are and not feeling trapped in your situation. And it can be tough. So you just have to start somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Well, there's another element of influence in there as well, and it's just societal, especially in the first world. And it's, you know, there's a there's a there's a saying called keeping up with the Joneses, right? And the adage of that is the competition. Well, you live in a house, somebody has to have a bigger house. You drive a nice car, somebody's gonna have a nicer car. And we get into this sort of mindset that there's a competition, and what we don't realize is what life events everyone is going through that could potentially give them those benefits or or credit those benefits, right? And so we we start to compete against them, and and what we don't do on the regular is just look at the gratitude of the things that we do have. You kicked it off by stating that you felt you had a privileged life because you were in Canada, you had a house over, you know, a roof over your head, you had food on the table, and by and large you had family surrounding you, right? That in a lot of places, that's a privileged life. And I don't know that a lot of people have that perspective, right? They, well, I need to get this, and once they get it, well, I need the bigger version of this or the faster version or the better version. And it just becomes this unfulfilling competition. And in life, you sort of have to find out are you content with the things that you're surrounded by? And if you are, then you're gonna have a really fruitful life, right? And it's just a but that's a mind shift. Listen, I'll be the first to put my hand up, which I'm doing now. I competed, I wanted the best of the best. I if somebody had something, there was moments in life I'm like, I gotta get that too, or I gotta beat that. Um, but that took a maturing, right? That okay, well, did that so when you got that thing, did it give you the happiness that you thought it was going to? And and more often than not, it really doesn't. And then you have to really find out what your own passions are and then start moving in those directions, right? And the things I do now, they're not everyone's cup of tea. And I'm okay with that because that's my cup of tea. And that's where I sort of find my own little moments of happiness.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Yeah, and so I guess overall, I think if there's anything that we can leave you with, it's it's easy to feel like you're ahead or you're behind if you're constantly looking at the people around you. And so when we come back, we thought we could maybe kind of close out this episode by talking a bit about how we've kind of navigated this and just maybe some ways that you can approach this that'll maybe help you so that you don't feel that way in the future.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

It allows you to slow down, it allows you to really absorb and interact with your life. For me, you know, the pivotal moment probably was when my kids were born, right? Obviously, that fundamentally changes your mentality, it changes um just your outlook in life. I and it's not that I'm not competitive, I stopped competing with others in that moment. And I realized I needed to be a better version of myself for my children because they're gonna look up to me, or at least I hope they look up to me, right? And so then I started emulating a lot of the things that I had learned from my father, right? Just being present, as present as you can be. Obviously, when you're working, you're gonna be worked, you're gonna be pulled left to and right. And but can you be present when you have the capacity to be present? And I think in those small moments, I really started finding more of who I am and who I wanted to be. Um, you know, there was a moment I was like, oh, I need a big ass house, I need a swimming pool, yada, yada, yada, yada. But today, if you were to ask me that, I could the smaller the house, the better. Why? Because I don't have to clean it all or hire a cleaning lady or buy extra furniture. It's just rooms I wouldn't go in. I had that when I lived in BC and such a big house. There was rooms I wouldn't visit for weeks on end because there's no need for me to be in there, right? And so um, but here we are. I'm in a moment in life where my kids are playing sports, going to their volleyball or basketball camp or or practice and playing, like I, you know, mentioned in a prior podcast. My son and I will play video games together for, you know, whatever. It's it's his passion now. And and I used to game as well, so I can show him that I can keep up. It's kind of nice. And then for my daughter, she loves arts and crafts to sit with her and make a necklace or you know, um, build some sort of homemade teddy bears that she does. It's it's just or art, like you'll see art all over my house that they did when they were one year old, two years old, and so forth. So, again, it's just finding those moments of finding contentment. And now when you really fall in love with what you're surrounding yourself with, it also bleeds into your professional life as well, right? It allows you to not compete with others, but also just to sort of focus on being a better version of yourself. And when I look back from where I am today to when I was that young man who was lost, leaving university, college, not sure where his path was going to be. Um, by every example of a definition of success, I would say I am. Am I successful to maybe, you know, the multi-billionaire? No, but is that where I want to be? No, I don't want to be there, right? But where I am today, I'm pretty proud of the work I've done and how how I got here in the journey.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah, I love that. And I think that's so important is to be proud of yourself as you figure this out. And I don't think if you don't take time to just really appreciate where you've been and how far you've come, you can really feel that motivation to keep going. For me, I think to really overcome a bunch of growing pains that I had early in my life. And, you know, I only recently had a kid. So I think for me, the the thing that really unlocked my potential or the thing that really shifted my mindset were were two things. The first was growing up, you know, in my early 20s, I remember this so vividly when I was like 21 or 22, I would see people that are the age that I am now. And I would ask myself, do I want to be that person? Am I okay with if that's where I was at that age? And that's a personal question, and everybody should have their own answer to that. There is no right or wrong to that, by the way. But what I realized is the moment I said no, what that immediately did was allowed me the f the perspective, the fire that I needed to basically do the exact opposite of whatever they were doing. So anything I saw them doing, I figured, okay, I need to do the exact opposite. And if I do the exact opposite, I will be in the exact opposite situation. So if I saw them spend money on something, I'm like, I'm not spending money on those things. If I saw them spend their time on something, I'm like, I'm not spending my time on those things. And that's what I think really that strategy, that one simple thought of looking at someone, something, and asking yourself, is that where I'd like to be? Now, the same thing can be done in reverse, where, you know, if you see someone and you idolize them, and I'm not talking about celebrities or people that you see on social media, I'm talking about like the person that you walk by every single day, or maybe an uncle or an aunt, or a family friend, or somebody that you just know in passing. I'm talking about real people that you can see with your own eyeballs. Also create those opportunities to ask them what it is that they did when they were your age to allow themselves the opportunity to be in a situation that put them there.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

And a lot of them are gonna tell you things like what you just shared, which is they restarted, they realized things weren't where they wanted them to be. So they decided to uproot their life and just kind of re-re reset. And I think normalizing kind of acknowledging those things around you make this whole thing feel not impossible. Yeah. And I remember, I remember so vividly, there'd be so many nights that I'd feel that none of like nothing was ever gonna happen for me. I've never grown up in my life ever anybody saying like the houses are cheap or housing is possible, and I'm not a trust fund kid. I don't come from a lot of money. And so for me, it's like there's like these different things, these different barriers that you just come to accept. And then I think the second strategy, and it's really simple, but it's something that I try to remind myself every day of my life, is to just be kind to yourself as you're figuring it out. You got it. I think there's this like unjust unbelievable pressure people create to just have the right answer at the end of the day. And I think what people don't take enough of account to is the fact that you're gonna figure it out. If you set an arbitrary timeline of when you need to figure it out, all you're actually doing is making it even harder to actually meet your own timeline. And I think it's it's okay to have some loose kind of goals. Obviously, we can't just say it'll happen when it's happened and hope for the best in all cases. But I think being kind and allowing yourself to trust that process is super important. And so I encourage you to all do that as you're growing up. But I think we're all growing up. It's it's the only common, uh, one of the only common things we all have.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

So we all go through growing pains, right? And that's sort of what we wanted to share with all of you today was a little sort of insight into our lives of not having all the answers and having it figured out, and then just allowing life to happen. I think that's sort of what we want to leave you with is life is going to happen. And it's up to you to find sort of the the path and find sort of the guiding lights within there. Um, Deb, you highlighted speak to the people around you that have sort of figured it out, right? And I think that's where you want to look. Look to the people you aspire to be like, um, not the people who are exactly where you don't want to be. And if you just did that, I think it just the path becomes a little bit easier to see.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

And so with that, uh, we just both wanted to express so much gratitude for you all taking the time to listen to this week's episode. Uh, thank you so much. Your feedback is so important to us. If you know anyone that could benefit from this message, um, please feel free to share this podcast with them. We'd love to hear from you. Please relieve us some feedback or a rating if you can, if you have the time. Um, and with that, we will see you next week. Stay blessed.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Take care.