The Time to Repair the Roof Is When the Sun Is Shining

[00:00:00] and it's like you will genuinely serve those people better when you look after yourself better first. Because at the moment they're seeing an exhausted, tired version of you. Strong people or tough people create good times, good time create weak people, weak people create bad times and bad times create tough people. You're preparing for the worst so that you feel at your best. So what's the thing that's keeping you up at night? Let's deal with that thing first. So RAF is one I created, which is Rules Allow Freedom.

[00:00:44] Harry, good to see you my friend. Welcome back. It's been a couple of weeks. How was life treating you? Yeah, pretty well. I just had a quick blitz to Brighton for the weekend because I've been in London the last three weeks. So I had three days off really and I was due to come back today but someone came in the house for Airbnb yesterday. So I thought I'll take the money and I'll depart a little bit earlier.

[00:01:10] So I've had the day to myself because as it happens, I'm in London but my mum has gone down to Brighton. Well, that's good. Day to yourself gives us ample time to check in on the quote that you've brought to the table today. I want to know if you've had a day to yourself, have you been listening to the logic that you're bringing to the show? Because there's a quote this week we're going to be exploring which is repair the roof while the sun shines. Or rather, the times repair the roof is when the sun is shining. Yeah, John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy, I think in 1962.

[00:01:40] But to be fair, I think that quote, many of these quotes that I come across. So the other one that I like is, I don't know, it was a Will Smith one but then it was a Henry Ford one. And then before that it was a Confucius one. So this one as well, I think comes back to 300 BC as well. Sears, I think. Dig your world before you're thirsty. And then the other one, a traditional Chinese proverb, basically the same as JFK's. That's your roof before the rain begins.

[00:02:10] So obviously JFK is quite well read as he was. And so he's lifted a bunch of these things. But the point is, right, yeah, the quote that we're talking about really, the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. I thought quite applicable because I did have to pay quite a bit of money for yet another roof repair. Same part of the roof that's been plaguing me for about three months, three years, sorry. And it rained heavily yesterday. And so I'm waiting to see did it hold up or not.

[00:02:39] And I was thinking about this quote in the summer because obviously in the summer, you're not really getting the impact of the rain. You're not really seeing the leaks or whatever. And so it's easy, especially as the summer months I was busy anyway, it's easy for me to just wait until the problem happens. And I feel like for this quote as well, it's quite applicable to me because I feel like sometimes I wait too long to do the thing that I need to do.

[00:03:08] And I'm sometimes waiting for, and I wait for the rain to come before I fix the roof. And I've noticed that. So one of the things I say to my students a lot of the time is how you do anything is how you do everything, which again is a quote that we can delve into in a big way. But what that really means is that patterns show up in your life. And so when I think about this quote of time to fix the roof is when the sun is still shining before the rain comes, I feel like there are many aspects that we could delve down with this quote.

[00:03:38] And I feel like it's somewhat applicable to a lot of areas of my life where I feel... It reminded me of, which obviously is something different. It reminds me a little bit of prevention is better than cure. But also, there's the one, I don't know who this is, and I should have it prepared. And I only know this because my mum used to go to nursery school where this was the emblem. She used to have Noah's Ark. But it was when the ark was built, it wasn't raining. Well, something along those lines, like when Noah built the ark, it wasn't raining.

[00:04:06] So you prepare for the storm before the storm comes. I mean, there's quite a few of these that kind of dotted about. I think that's the thing is that I was talking just briefly off air. So one of the things in Super Vitality that I talk about, and I came up with many years ago, concept of the RAF. You know, I like a good acronym. So I'm always creating acronyms for my teachings. So RAF is what I created, which is rules allow freedom.

[00:04:33] Because a lot of time people think that when you set up certain rules, let's call it one of a better word. And that's what the acronym is sounding for, that you're restricted. And I know you're a lot more, let's say, I don't want to say spontaneous because I'm quite spontaneous, but like a little bit more goey with the flow. Or you kind of, you're in time a lot more than I am. I'm kind of a little bit more observer of time, as it were.

[00:05:01] And you're probably less likely to have those rules than me. I would say I'm probably more as Seneca would put it, although he was meaning this as a bit of criticism. I don't know if you're familiar with this one. He was arguing that if you decide your plan mid-fight, it's too late. But the quote he gave was, the gladiator takes counsel in the arena. That's probably a little bit where I am. I go head into it and then kind of figure the stuff out a little bit later. Although he was meaning that as a critical quote, not as a positive one. Yeah, and it's not really about being rigid.

[00:05:29] I guess the thing is that when you create certain things ahead of time, it makes life a lot easier. And it allows for adaptability and spontaneity within that. People think that you have to be rigid with the rules, but that's not really the case. It just creates a framework for you to kind of follow. And it takes thinking out of things. So for example, even when I do my morning routine, right, my little mobility, right, I have pretty much the same thing every morning.

[00:05:57] It doesn't mean I do the same thing every morning, right? Because I don't want to do the same thing every morning sometimes, right? And sometimes I cut it short. But creating that allows for space for other things to happen a lot of time. Otherwise, things can just drift, I feel. And so for me, like for example, let's say we create a financial rule, right? So a financial rule where 10% of your salary goes into this account every month, right? Without you thinking about it.

[00:06:25] And you literally set up a rule in your bank account to do that. Then the reason it allows freedom is because at the end of the year, let's say you've got, you know, £100 a month that's going in. You've got £1,200 that you can then spend on a holiday, right? It allows you to have the freedom of the holiday as opposed to not having that rule in place and then that money evaporating and then you're not having the freedom to go on holiday. So I think there are so many areas where that is in place. I think the more obvious one is your mobility work, right?

[00:06:53] If we think about dig your well before you are thirsty, that quote, which is really around building relationships before you need them. When you do your mobility work every morning, yes, it's to feel better now. Yes, it's to wake you up. But ultimately, it's so that you are, you don't have some, you don't have mobility issues later. It's so that you can, you know, you're building your mobility now. So you're not, you know, all that resilience now in your body, that flexibility in your body

[00:07:19] so that when your body needs it due to age or whatever it is, you're a little bit more resistant to it and you can handle it better. And it's those marginal shifts every single day that make the change over time. Those people that don't take those steps, whether it's saving money, whether it's stretching in the morning or whatever, are the ones that don't have the compounding impact of that. You don't have the compounding interest financially or the compounding benefits that flexibilities can give you and you end up with people with, you know, hunched shoulders, bad posture, painful, you know, pain to walk and everything else.

[00:07:49] Yeah, there's lots of things in there I wanted to jump on actually. So one, when you were talking about the whale stuff and you used the example of building relationships before you need them, I'm midway through, I've lent it to my sister now, but I'm midway through reading Never Eat Alone. You familiar with that book? I am familiar with that book. Have I read Never Eat Alone? I know the book. I might have it on my bookshelf. I'm not sure I'll go around to reading it. It's effectively about building your network and everything else. So that was quite interesting that you saw that.

[00:08:16] But then also, you know, with the mobility, one of the other quotes, I don't know who said this or where I heard this, and I've, you know, I don't think I came up with it, but I say it a lot to students that I work with, is that in life, when you do what is hard, your life becomes easy. And when you do what is easy, your life becomes hard, right? It is hard to, you know, learn to cook, to exercise, to get up off the couch and do that. But then your life is much easier later because you don't have all the medical bills or the

[00:08:46] mobility issues. But it's easy to watch Netflix and order takeaway and not do much, right? But then your life becomes much harder. And so I often think about that in terms of, you know, doing the hard thing, which is kind of, you know, veering off that quote a little bit, but it's all part and parcel of the same thing, right? It's about preemptive measures. I would read it in a slightly different context, although what you said is absolutely true. So you said it's doing the hard thing.

[00:09:13] I think it's, it's the hard thing because for me, think of what those quotes are. It's about doing the things we need to do when we don't necessarily need to do them or feel like doing them. Sun on the roof, we don't need to do it. It makes it hard because there's no need to do it in that moment. We think it can wait. It's been like when you live in London, and I use this example a lot with people because these are things that I fell foul of. I lived in London for about six, seven years. And when you live there, you've got things like the London Eye, you've got museums,

[00:09:41] you've got things you need to see, there's always tomorrow. You think, I won't do it today, I'll do it tomorrow. And you have people come to visit you for the weekend of a week, and they end up doing more tourist attractions in that example than I've done in five years because I always think there's tomorrow. And you don't always know that tomorrow is coming. Before you know it, you're relocating as we did to Devon, and you look back and go, God, why didn't I do all those things when I lived there? It's because it was almost too easy, right? I think those quotes for me, they mean all of them. They're kind of like the best time to prepare is the moment when you least feel like it.

[00:10:10] And I think that's the trap because comfort removes that urgency. It removes the urgency when I'm sat in my flat in London. I don't need to go and do these things. But urgency is what a lot of us, or certainly in my case, and you can probably anticipate where I'm going with this, urgency is what a lot of us run on, including me. That's why I relate to everything. So as soon as I have time to wait, I'm like, oh, actually, I'll do that. This translates to everything in life, like negotiations, right?

[00:10:37] For example, if you're looking to sell a property, right? You're in a much stronger position when you don't need to sell it, right? So you sell it before you need to sell it. You sell the car. Same within a relationship. You know, suddenly when you're seeking it and looking for it, you never find it. And when you stop, all the buses come at once, as they say, you know? So I think that's the thing is that because also when you start to fix the roof when the sun is shining, as opposed to when it's raining, you have the luxury of being able to, I'm not

[00:11:04] sure what the word is, but filter or check out the particular roofers, right? You're not going to have to go for that first roofer because you can do your research. You can do your things. It's the same when it comes to your health, right? If you start to get healthy before you need to get healthy, as it were, right? And then you can find the trainer you want or you can find the doctor you want to help you on that health journey, as opposed to taking the first thing that comes across your path when you're in a desperation point of view.

[00:11:30] So I think, you know, it's one that I think about a lot because I think, you know, and you were talking about a second ago about being in London and not maybe taking opportunities. And I was thinking about this very thing today, actually. So a colleague of mine, we've got a group chat, WhatsApp chat, and she's an older lady. She must be in her, I want to say mid-60s now, although maybe she's younger than that. But anyway, I think her mum passed away not that long ago, but her mum was like in her 90s.

[00:12:00] She was quite old. Anyway, she's taken a trip to Peru and she was sending a photo of her Machu Picchu. And I've been to Machu Picchu, something I've done about 22 years ago. But I was thinking about how maybe, and I've no idea if this is her case or not, but I was thinking, okay, maybe now her mum has passed on. She's got the ability to travel more and not have to be so close to her mum. And I remember this was the case with my mum and dad when my grand passed.

[00:12:29] My dad wanted to travel more, then it was a bit easier because they didn't have a responsibility of looking after my grand. And I was thinking about, yeah, I need to do more things and think about what is my bucket list of places to go. And I'm not sure what they are at the moment. I actually booked a holiday yesterday for next week, which is why we're going to move the recording next week. So I'm going to go to Canary Islands, Fertaventura, however you say it, and do like a yoga retreat.

[00:12:56] Um, but after I booked that, I was suddenly thinking, you know, sometimes you see these amazing pictures of our planet, right? Somewhere, right? I don't know. It might be the salt lakes in somewhere in South America or these other things. And I'm like, there's lots of amazing places I've been to, but also there's thousands that I haven't been to. And, you know, why wait? Right. Why wait? Obviously there's financial implications. I think if you think about those warnings in those quotes, whether it's the sun, the

[00:13:25] thatched roof, whatever one you use, right? The warning, the warning it's giving you really isn't around effort. It's about timing. So, you know, I would rather be on a roof in the sunny, you know, when it's nice to sunny outside than up in a storm when it's dangerous, right? It doesn't make sense. Who wants to be fixing a roof up a high ladder in my house, three stories high? When it's absolutely pissing you down with the rain, like it's just dangerous. But the job in theory is going to take roughly the same amount of effort, maybe a little bit different between the sun and not, but, you know, fixing the roof.

[00:13:54] If you, if you imagine them being the same amount of time, it's the risk that's changing. So what's the risk in the situation? What's the, what's the, you know, there's more risk in the wet than there is in the dry. Um, and because the cost of waiting is hidden. And in London, I waited and didn't do some of those things. So there's a, you know, whether it's a, I call it the fear tax, you know, you don't do these certain things for certain reasons. There's a cost to everything. So what's the cost of waiting on? Does the risk get greater or do, does the risk profile improve?

[00:14:22] Um, because a dry roof with a, with a hole in it, it's going to look fine. And you pay nothing, you know, while it's like that until the weather changes and then you pay everything. So it's like, yeah, I mean, I think also, like I said, this quote translates to everything in life. So when, you know, the average, not the average person, I don't want to cause generalities here, but many people, and I remember reading about this in the four hour work week 20 odd years ago, when, you know, lots of people, they work their whole lives, they save up,

[00:14:50] you know, they get, they say when they get to retire, they get to do all this traveling, they get to do all this stuff. But by then, and I remember doing Peru, for example, and there's tons of steps that you have to do for master's institute and it's, yeah. And then you become too old, too old. And, and even, I think I was listening to diary of the CEO, Stephen Byler, uh, I think maybe a few months ago, he was talking about a trip that he'd done to go whitewater rafting and thinking, oh, his dad will never be able to get down to actually get to the, to the whitewater raft launch point.

[00:15:20] And I, and I often thought about that cause my dad had mobility issues and, you know, I've had my fair share of injuries where I've been, you know, a little bit less mobile than I want to be and it's, yeah, it's hard. So basically I guess it's like take advantage while you can. Um, and, and, you know, you were talking about, you know, I guess it was someday, right? You were talking about, um, and it reminds me of Jim, Jim Rowan talking about someday aisle, you know, someday I'll go to the theater someday I'll travel here. Then we all end up on someday aisle.

[00:15:49] Um, and you know, it's hard, it's easy for us to say like this because the reality of life is like you have to work, you have to take your kids to school, you have to do all these things. But I guess the, the overarching thing here is, is, is about doing the things when you still can do them and you're not forced in the corner to do them. And that, that translates to so many things. So like, even like as simple as, you know, packing your bag the night before you need it for school. Right.

[00:16:17] And, and don't do it in that 6am rush when you're going to school. So, you know, preparation really, I guess is, is the, the upshot. There's no, there's no famous quote there where a piss poor preparation, uh, results in piss poor performance or something like that. There's one like that and there's a proper planning prevents. I think that's what I was probably trying to think of, but yeah, probably the more, uh, more related, but I don't know if it's, I'll, I can't, I should be clear this is the right person. So I really liked this quote.

[00:16:47] I think it was Hippocrates, but I might be wrong. But the idea that he said, you know, I could heal the world if we stopped doing the things that made them sick. It's like, again, it's like we, we, we put these things off and then we try and solve it when it's already too late. Um, and this is again, go back to your mobility piece, going back to you going to do the Peru piece, right? We think we can do these things. And suddenly the way that we handle life, whether it's working too hard, whatever it is, eating poorly, well, the time we come to do these things, it's, it becomes impossible.

[00:17:16] And it's like, ah, you know, if I could have gone to Peru, if I did it when I was well, rather than waited. I know it's a slightly different context where he's talking about it because often reasons we are of ill health or is all our own making. But, um, I also know that, you know, you and I both like stoic stuff. We'll talk about Seneca again. It's lonely with his quotes, but he always used to say like, what's unexpected is what's going to land the hardest. So that's why I go back to your preparation piece. When you prepare things become less unexpected.

[00:17:43] You're not rushing around at 6am in the morning, realizing that actually I can't find my passport. Whereas if you'd done it the day before, you'd have had time to prepare for that. And it lands hardest because now you've got a time constraint. Now you're worried. Now you're stressed. It causes all levels going through the roof. And it was all avoidable. It was, I literally listened to this going, Nick, this is what you do every time we go away. You know, I'm full proud of this. Literally last week, literally last week, this happened to me.

[00:18:10] So before I do my workshops, I like to get a list of the students I'm working with. And I, whatever format I get them in, I always rearrange them into first name, alphabetical order, in a list printed on a special sheet with all the things I need for that day. And I had that, and then I had the labels done as well. And I'll turn up to the school and I'm going through the names and none of the names are matching. And I'm thinking, and they're like, oh no, that's a different class.

[00:18:38] And I, I was thinking, how could that have happened? And I look at the spreadsheet and I've not made a mistake, right? I've gone to the tab that was assigned to me, but what's happened is the teacher has put duplicate tabs or duplicate names, right? So I ended up, so you didn't put my class, you put someone else's class. And it just, obviously I'm pretty experienced and I can adapt and I just got the school to print off a sheet and I did it. But it threw me off, right?

[00:19:05] I wasn't in the flow that I wanted to be in for that few minutes where I'm thinking, okay. I mean, obviously, like I said, I'm adaptable and it was no drama, but I like to have that preparation in place because then it makes life a lot easier. And I often quote, I often quote Dwight Eisenhower when I talk to the students because they're always amazed that they're going to do a speech without notes. And I always tell them, look, you're not going to deliver the thing you've been planning for the last hour.

[00:19:32] And sometimes they get confused because they think they're going to deliver a different speech. But I'm saying, no, no, it's going to be a little bit different. It's going to be a lot different. It's going to be a hundred percent different. And I often quote Dwight Eisenhower when he was asked about the planning that went into the Normandy D-Day invasion back then. And he said, the plans were useless, right? But the planning was indispensable.

[00:19:56] And I think that's the thing is that like most, and I remember reading some sort of statistic years ago when I started on this personal development journey about companies that made business plans versus companies that didn't really make a business plan. Like even the ones that had the business plan, they didn't stick to the business plan, but they were infinitely more successful than the ones that had no plan at all. So it wasn't about sticking to the plan. It was about doing the plan. Isn't there a famous Mike Tyson quote about it's all? Yes. I love that one.

[00:20:25] It's like everyone's got a plan to get punched in the face. Yeah. Everyone's got a plan to get punched in the face. And I sometimes say that with the students as well because some of them are familiar with it. And it is true. So it is about planning. And then, yeah, stuff is going to happen. Like, I don't know, you know, maybe I'll still have this leak in the roof, but the point is, you know, do things ahead of time. I'll go segue us off a little bit. It makes me think. So my, you know, my dad, bless him, rest in peace, my dad, but he used to always say I was a jammy bugger, right?

[00:20:54] He'd say you're very lucky. And I'd always counter it by saying luck is being prepared for opportunity, right? I don't necessarily believe in luck. I think, well, you know, you win the lottery, everyone will say you're so lucky, but if you don't buy the ticket, you can't win it. You have to be prepared to give yourself the opportunity to be in the race, right? Yeah. Which, I don't know, I don't know why that links, but I think chance favors those that are prepared.

[00:21:18] You know, if you're fixing the roof in the sunshine, you're not lucky that you're the only one in the street that isn't letting in the rain, right? Yeah. You've been prepared for it. You've taken opportunity. It's not going to be lucky that in 40, 34 years, if we're all still alive on this planet, that you've got better mobility than I do and you're able to move around and do things. You know, you're not so zapped by the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth things at nighttime with all the blockers you've got. And I haven't. I've got, you know, I'm riddled with something else. I think that isn't luck.

[00:21:46] People will look at it and go, Harry's so lucky, but it's all the prepared things we do now. It's the smaller steps. Yeah. I think they do underestimate it. Yeah. I know. I get people looking at the things we've got and go, oh, he's so lucky he's got this, that, and the other. You know, behind the scenes, whether it's an Ironman race, whatever, people have got no idea how much work goes into it. Well, yeah, it's the underneath of the iceberg.

[00:22:10] I remember years ago when I was dating that yoga teacher and I felt, you know, she was such a hard worker. Like people thought, you know, oh, she was just a good yoga teacher. And she was, but they didn't see the amount of stuff that went on behind the scenes, whether it was like having one-on-one handstand training with a circus person

[00:22:34] or going to a voice coach to change the way that she spoke a little bit, to, you know, coming home and sending MailChimp emails at 10.30 at night and waking up at five in the morning to, you know, go and teach a class at seven o'clock. So there was so much that went on behind the scenes.

[00:22:53] It taught me a lot because I feel like for me, most of the things I felt, if I wasn't naturally somewhat good at it or gifted at it, I didn't pursue it enough unless I really enjoyed it. And even then I didn't work as hard, like whether it was football, I could have been way more talented at football than I was or basketball or any of the things.

[00:23:15] But I tended to go from, I don't know, game to game or practice to practice without really doing my own self-exploration as well and doing my own work. Did you see, was it, I don't know what it's called, I watched it. It was like the war games where they put the cabinet in there and they had to, real people, real ex-cabinet ministers and military personnel were put into the war room. And they ran a fictional event where the UK shores basically came under attack from Russia.

[00:23:44] And we tried to lean on NATO. We tried to lean on the US. The US said, I'm not going to get involved. And the idea was to, you know, what would happen in real time? What decisions would these real politicians make? And there's been a lot of talk about it since. I don't know if anyone's read it and what, depending on where you're listening to this around. Because it highlights a lot of issues around our own defense systems here. And the fact that actually we've probably been under-investing in the UK defense. Bear with me, I'll tell you where I'm going with this. Because sometimes, you know, when we've got knowledge, we can see things differently.

[00:24:13] And there may be people that didn't realize how fragile or vulnerable maybe the UK is, right? But preparation is a thing that stops the storms from arriving in the first place. And what I say about is we're an easy target in that documentary because we don't have the defense systems in place. Now, this isn't a conversation around arms or why we should spend our money. I'm just going to give you the raw facts. Like our defense systems were underfunded based on this show, which allowed their missiles to get through.

[00:24:43] We didn't have enough deterrent there. What was interesting reminds me of, and you know I love all my Roman reading. I love my Stoic reading. And I'll get the quote wrong. I can't tell you who said it. But in there, there's a guy in the, it's from the Conigledon books of Rome. Remember when it goes through Julius Caesar's story anyway. It says, if you want peace, prepare for war. Pretty sure that's where it comes from. And it's interesting. It's like even in the UK on that show, again, it's around that preparation piece.

[00:25:10] If you want peace, when you have all the defense systems in place, if you prepare yourself for war, you're more likely to get pieces. When you have no defenses in and you're not preparing for the worst case, you become an easy target and you just get, you know, get taken over very quickly. I think that's always stayed with me. It's like when you first hear it, it sounds counterintuitive, right? And it doesn't mean that just being prepared for doesn't mean we're going to go attack anybody else or actually start a war. It's preparing for it. It's preparing for it because that's when peace can come. It becomes a deterrent.

[00:25:40] But I think it's exactly the same in the way that you prepare your body for, you know, how you want it to feel in a few years time and not just in terms of exercise, but in terms of nutrition. You're preparing for the worst so that you feel at your best. And yeah, I don't know. Absolutely. It reminds me of a long way around to get to the point, but it was an interesting show and you hadn't read it. So I hadn't seen it.

[00:26:02] When I used to work for Sainsbury's head office and I was drafted in on a contract originally for basically a system migration. So technology system was going to get migrated over, in this case, it was a period of nine days. I was used to the stock exchange where we have to do things overnight because otherwise we're on a weekend because of the markets and stuff.

[00:26:27] But anyway, this was like nine days long and I was responsible for drafting the plan or what was going to happen almost minute by minute. They were very impressed with that. But one of the things that I did there in addition to the communications and everything else was effectively going through what could happen. What could happen? So what are we going to do if this happens? What are we going to do? So you make the decisions ahead of time.

[00:26:53] It's one of the acronyms I have in my book as well, CIA, right? Choices in advance. Making those choices in advance so that you don't come to the day and decide, oh, should we wait five minutes before we make that decision about this? One of the first pieces of career advice I'd give to anyone I'm dealing with on the recruitment side is, you know, before you start looking for a job, build your network now. Don't build it when you need a network to find your next role.

[00:27:20] Build it now while you're safe and secure and you've got time and people don't feel like you need something from them. People are much more willing to give when they feel like there's, you know, it's not coming from a place of need, right? And it's like then when you are, if the worst case happens, you may have done it or you need a new job or you relocate or whatever it is, you can sort of fall onto your network and you built it. You've done the hard yards when you, you know, when you didn't need to. It's kind of the same. That's it. Career.

[00:27:47] That's effectively the essence of that Never Read Alone book, right? It's like build up that network throughout your journey. And, you know, then it's... It lowers the fear before the fear arrives. You know, the fear of losing your job just lowers it because you've got options. It's about having options. It's about coming from a place of strength when it comes to negotiating in certain ways. Like I said, you know, buying the thing when you don't really need to buy it.

[00:28:13] I mean, or selling it when you don't really need to sell it because then you have more strength in that position. Attention payroll leaders. If you're listening to this, you already know that payroll has never been more complex. Compliance risks are rising. Skilled talent is scarce. And getting it wrong can cost your business more than just money. It can cost trust, retention, and of course, brand reputation.

[00:28:37] I'm Nick Day, host of this show and also CEO of JGA Recruitment Group. And we're specialist global payroll recruiters. And here's the truth. We don't just recruit for payroll. We live and breathe it. We're the team behind this payroll podcast. And we're also trusted by FTSE, NASDAQ, and Fortune 500 brands to find payroll professionals across the UK, the USA, and Europe who don't just fill seats, but who transform functions.

[00:29:08] In fact, here at JGA Recruitment, we're so passionate about payroll, we've even turned it into music. Don't believe us? Head over to your favorite audio platform and search My Payroll Career or Payroll Powers the World, and you can literally join us singing from the rooftops about how we believe payroll deserves its moment in the boardroom to shine. At JGA, our passion shines through to our recruitment results as well.

[00:29:34] With a 97% retention rate and an average 19-day time to hire for senior roles, we work fast, strategically, and with purpose. Connecting you with the hidden payroll talent that, quite frankly, job ads and direct search methods will never, ever reach. So if you're hiring or indeed planning to hire, why not partner with the experts that are shaping the future of payroll? I'll ask you as the expert here, Harry, on mindfulness.

[00:30:05] How do we put this into a mindfulness context? I guess my example would be, you know, mindfulness comes when we start paying attention. So this is an opportunity for those listening to pay attention to where there may be holes in your roof. And if it's not raining, you've got an opportunity now to patch it, right? But when we talk about mindfulness, it's about paying attention to things that matter rather than sort of living life on autopilot or, as I do, lastminute.com.

[00:30:32] It's spotting the clouds outside the window to use your meditation example and seeing what that means. And actually, that cloud has crossed my window because there's something there that I probably need to do and I'm paying attention to it. Actually, now I've got to take an action as well as to doing. How would you turn this into a mindfulness exercise for people to pay attention to from listening to the show? Well, I think, like I said, how you do anything is how you do everything.

[00:30:58] So you're going to show up in this way, one way or the other. And so for me, I guess the best way to describe it from a mindful perspective is to have the awareness of what that future could be in one way or the other.

[00:31:17] So going back to a physical practice example, I tend to project myself into the future to see how would I be five years from now, 10 years from now, 50 years from now, if I don't do this and I do that instead, or if I do that rather than that. And so I think that's it, it's having the moment awareness to say not just what's happening now, but what's happening in the future.

[00:31:47] This is where the roof quote comes in because the sun is shining, you can't see the problem. When it's raining, you see the problem. But you have to be able to put yourself in that position when the sun is shining to project and see the rain. And going back to Stoic philosophy, right? One of the things that they practice or one of the Stoics practice was this, I think we talked about it a little bit before in the show, is this negative thinking where you are thinking about what is the worst that could happen.

[00:32:15] And some of them practice this idea of like spending a week like a beggar, right? So that they could say, actually, this is what would happen. And, you know, we can do this a mental, mental rehearsal. Um, and so I think that's where it would come in from a mindful perspective is being, you know, aware, self-aware of the different sliding door opportunities each, each decision has. And so that's where I. Keep coaching tool as well to catastrophize something and bring yourself back from it.

[00:32:44] A bit like the beggar as your example, then it's, you know, our imagined fear is often greater than the real thing itself. And often it's stories we tell ourselves. I mean, we, I always use your beliefs anagram, which is a lie in the middle of beliefs signed by BS, right? But sometimes I think in this instance, we've got to be cognizant of the lie that we tell ourselves. You know, I'll do the roof when things calm down or I'll do it when I've got more time or whatever it is. Often there's fear in there somewhere because, you know, I say fear is great. It disguises wisdom.

[00:33:13] It disguises itself as things. I always say that true wisdom is when it moves you towards the goal. Fear is when it moves you away from it, right? So don't, you know, if it's the weekend, this weekend, and you've got good weather and you know you've got something to fix, don't tell yourself we do it when things calm down. Go and do it now, right? Do it relative to what's coming around the corner. We're going into the winter. I know we're not really about leaky roofs here, but we are going into the winter. We're going into a cold season. There'll be things that you've been putting off for whatever reason, while we've still got the light,

[00:33:40] while we've still got the weather, while we've still got the opportunities to connect, while you've still got your health, whatever it is for you. Like, go and do things now. Don't keep, like, convincing yourself of the lie that you'll do it tomorrow. Like, I'll go and see the London Eye tomorrow if I'm living in London as a real trite example. I mean, I've seen this in, funnily enough, just thinking about it, I've seen this in recruitment, right? So I work with companies and businesses all over the globe. And actually, the companies, I think, and I haven't got any stats on this, so this is just a generalistic view,

[00:34:10] but the companies that cut budgets, that cut training, that cut their cash reserves, that really smash up their culture in the good years, they're the ones that tend to call me because it becomes a storm in the bad ones. They're like, oh my God, everyone's left. The market's turned just a little bit. And it's like, now we need to turn everything back around again. So why did you do all this in the good times? Why did you rinse it in the good times? Well, I mean, to be fair, it's just a cycle, right? I think we've talked about it before, right?

[00:34:38] That strong people or tough people create good times. Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times and bad times create tough people, right? And it's just a cycle, right? And so I think when you understand that, that life, the universe is cyclical, it becomes, it's like my stress management philosophy of this too shall pass.

[00:35:04] And having a real understanding about the cyclical nature of life is very therapeutic. And so for example, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago about problems arising and knowing that problems are going to arise all the time. So I think, okay, yeah, I fixed this roof. We don't know for sure it's fixed, but I said to my mom, well, it rained a lot yesterday. We'll figure out if it's worked or not. And even if it has worked, there'll be something else. There's going to be something else.

[00:35:33] Actually, you raise a good point. And we're now arguing against ourselves, which I love anyway, but there was advocate. We're advocating to go and fix the roof while the sun is shining rather than it's raining. That's kind of been the ethos of today's show. However, that doesn't mean go and fix all roofs. Like there is an element of discomfort we need to be able to suffer and be at peace with. And I think otherwise you'll never get to the other things that are important. It's very easy. You could easily hide and go, I'm just going to fix everything.

[00:36:03] Become that perfectionist, that person that is never quite at peace because we're constantly trying to fix everyone else's roofs and everything else. And it can become at a different kind of cost. So I think, you know, you don't want to be fixing everyone else's roof and never actually living in your own house. You know what I mean? I think there are people that do that. I spoke to a coaching plant today. I obviously won't say who they are earlier on today. And it was, I gave the whole analogy to have mentioned the show before about putting the air mask on when you're going to planes going down everyone else without putting on herself.

[00:36:30] And it's like, you will genuinely serve those people better when you look after yourself better first. Because at the moment they're seeing an exhausted, tired version of you. And it's not your, you know, it's easy for me to say it's not your fault, but actually you're contributing to this by trying to make sure everyone else is okay all the time and not putting the mask on yourself. Every single week that we see, we don't see each other and this goes on and goes on. You're fixing more roofs. You're fixing more roofs. You're fixing more roofs. It's like you're fixing everyone else's, not fixing your own. It comes at a cost. You end up exhausted.

[00:36:59] You end up struggling with sleep and not being the best version of yourself. And actually, if you prioritize yourself, which might in the moment feels selfish, get the sleep you need, get the recovery that you need, take time out, go to gym classes, whatever it is. Unless you'd be away from the family, let them cook for themselves, whatever it is. When you build that sense of self back, that confidence back, and you get your sleep, you get better nutrition, you get exercise. Actually, you're able to serve those around you much better.

[00:37:27] You can be more your, you know, how you want to be seen in the world. You can get your energy back. You can get your vibrancy back. I think, I actually think, I see this a lot as it's talking about cycles. I think it's a constant issue that I see in the coaching world, when I'm coaching clients that is, where people are selfless, but at the expense of themselves. So it's quite a common thing that I've seen. I'm sure you've seen it yourself, but they're giving themselves up to everybody else, but it's coming at such a cost.

[00:37:54] But actually, their relationships, they've been fighting their tooth and nail to support for years. They're starting to deteriorate and break down because now they're not the version they were when they met. And it's like, you don't see it happens marginally and marginally, and you get tired and tired. And suddenly the partner's like, you never used to be this ratty. You never used to be this tired, this impatient. You used to go dancing. You used to do this. It's like, hold on. The reason I can't do that stuff is I've been supporting you over and over. And it comes at a cost. So I think that's something, and it's slightly different to the, to where we started this

[00:38:24] conversation. But I think it, I think that will resonate with some listeners. There'll be people listening to this that have gone either in that cycle or gone through that cycle where they will be exhausted from trying to fix everyone else's roof, that they haven't fixed their own. And they're not even living in their own house anymore. Right. And, you know, in a metaphorical sense. Yeah. I don't know if it's something you've seen in your own coaching experience. I think it's quite common.

[00:38:47] And it's certainly common in the parental space because I feel like your life, and I'm just speaking as an observer looking in and, you know, know what my sisters tend to do, whatever, is that, you know, everything revolves around the kids, especially in the early age, early ages, that you're taking them out to, you know, schools and clubs and everything else.

[00:39:16] And so you're having to put them first. Now, there are parents that don't do that, and I've seen that as well. And they are being probably more selfish. I think all of this is about discernment and understanding and being able to discern what the right level of selflessness and selfishness is in any given situation.

[00:39:43] Um, I guess also my question when it comes back to the roof metaphors we're talking about is what do you think prevents people from fixing the roof when the sun is shining? Like, is it like, I, I'm just trying to think in my own experience as well, because there's a lot of things I tend to put off and whether it's, you know, the conversation that you need to have with that person, you know, or whatever it is. And, you know, you, you, you'll probably say that fear to some degree.

[00:40:11] And that's probably, it depends on what the situation is. I understand the reason it matters. Yeah. And also, I mean, sometimes I remember in the past I've put things off where it's been beneficial, right? Let's say you're, you put off booking that plane ticket and suddenly the flight has changed or you get a bit of work and actually couldn't have done that thing. And so there's, there's been times where it's been good to procrastinate and put things off. And I think that plays into it to some degree, but I think for me, it's more of an avoidance

[00:40:41] issue and trying to avoid the difficult or uncomfort, uncomfortable situation. It's, it's avoiding the idea that, that the rain is coming, right? We don't want to imagine it. Yeah. It's coming. It's always coming, right? Remind me coming today. It doesn't matter where you live in the world. Rain is going to come at some point. I think sometimes we can create this, I don't know, this comfort blanket around ourselves that almost is like, la, la, la, fingers in the ears. It's not going to come.

[00:41:07] The question is whether you want to meet the rain from a roof that you've fixed on a sunny day or whether you want it to come down later and then blame the world for it when you've always had an opportunity to do something about it. You haven't taken it. I think, um, preparation to go back, what we were talking about earlier, preparation for events. I think I had this piss ball performance. You had something else. It's how you buy calm for a future version of you. You're talking about how you're imagining yourself in 20 years and the person you want to be.

[00:41:32] That preparation is how you find that calmness rather than that hedonistic, mad, you know, trying to fly by the seat of your pants and not in a positive way. I mean a disorganized, fretful, stressful, uh, cortisol running away, right? Um, and when you have that gives you permission to be grateful. Like imagine, imagine now, again, I go back to the roof. We're sticking on the roof. It's sunny outside. Obviously it's pitch black at the minute. I go outside and I fix the roof in the sunny day and I want to do something else.

[00:42:02] I'm a bit lazy, but you know what? I get myself up the ladder. I get it fixed. Two days later, it's absolutely pissing it down. Like you would feel grateful to yourself. You'd be like, you know, I'm so glad I got up and did that thing. And I think that's the same. That's the thing you need to jump to. That's so, so years ago when I was, when I was starting off, going to the gym at 7am and back then I was in the thinking of whatever time I went to bed, I was going to get up at six o'clock.

[00:42:30] So I could leave the house at seven, be in the gym for 7.30. And you know, whether I went to bed at midnight, one o'clock, I remember I think I was really deep into like Brian Tracy and Rob Proctor and a bunch of people and something was said around that. And I just thought, well, I'm going to be committed to getting up at six o'clock regardless of what time I went to bed. So whether it was 11, 12, one, didn't matter. I'd get up, I'd feel tired. I'd do my meditation. I'd do my juice, whatever. And I'd get out the door.

[00:42:56] But one of the things that would get me up in the morning was effectively a future pace. So we all have a vision or we all have pictures that pass through the screen of our mind when the alarm goes off or whatever happens, right? And at the time I was changing that picture.

[00:43:17] So I was seeing and feeling myself in the shower after the spin class or after whatever class I've gone to. And so when the alarm went off, it was anchored to that memory tweet, which was a bit of a swish pattern from NLP that I was using at the time to get me to do that. And so that was critical for me being able to wake up regardless because I was jumping to the feeling like you were talking about fixing the roof and rain coming two days later.

[00:43:46] I was jumping to the feeling of embodying what it would be like to actually have got up and done the thing. I think it was a bit detriment to some degree because I was not sleeping enough at night. There's a cost. There's a cost to everything. Yeah, there's always a cost. I mean, that's the thing. And like we talk about on the show all the time, it's about awareness, right? And being aware of the cost. And I'll talk about with the beat model, it's all about doing the thing but coming back into balance and no one brings you into balance.

[00:44:15] And I think for me at the time, this was early days before I got deep into sleep in terms of understanding sleep. It's reminding me of something because I sent this to my wife earlier. I read this. Again, you may have seen it because I get the Stoic newsletters every morning. It came in this morning and the Stoicism newsletter that comes in. And it was a quote I sent to my wife. I'll tell you why I mentioned this because I'm doing this podcast now at the time of 7pm. So that means I'm not with my son at the minute. I'm not with my daughter, not with my family.

[00:44:43] I'm choosing to do this with you and that's with awareness and there's a reason. But the quote that will put this into context, let me just find it so I messaged it back. You could probably do it from Recall if not, but I thought it was quite a good one. Give me one second. As you say, I'm doing this with awareness of what the cost is. And it comes from one of my favorite guys, Sidney Banks, which is obviously one of the reasons it stuck out for me. He used the words that, he was talking about writing rather than doing a podcast, obviously.

[00:45:11] But he said, if these writings bring a second chance of life to just one human being, my work has not been in vain. And I think about these podcasts that we do together, right? And it's either I will learn an insight that will be more powerful than half an hour might spend otherwise that I can take into my life with my own kids and family. Sometimes the smallest insight can be life-changing. Or you and I will discuss something that I hope our listeners will hear and it might have an impact on them.

[00:45:40] And I think it also gives us connection and we have a chance to catch up and talk about things and argue things sometimes and just think about the world. But it's a really powerful place to be, hoping that somewhere, maybe it's not this episode, maybe it's a different one, but there might be an opportunity over the hundreds of episodes we've done now where it's made a difference. And we know it has because we've had feedback from people that have given us really positive responses to things they've heard in the show and they've acted on it. And I think that's really powerful. Yeah.

[00:46:07] I think it gives us the opportunity to be grateful. And even in your example you gave a moment ago about that solution, how it made you feel, I would also probably anticipate, there is when I go and play paddle in the mornings, that you probably prepared your stuff the day before as well. If you're going to go to the gym, you had your shoes ready, you had your gym kit ready, you get it all done the night before. Like again, that preparation before you start, you know, waking up and running around the place. No, it's about reducing friction in that. It is. And then you feel grateful that morning. I'm glad I got that stuff ready.

[00:46:36] It's allowed me either to sleep in an extra five minutes or to feel less stressed, getting ready and disorganized, whatever it is for you. I've got a busy week this week. So I've, I've chopped, soaked and air gapped my, uh, my veg for the next three days. You're very good. I have not done that. Well, because the thing is, it's so easy. I need to minimize friction. I mean, so my, my green powders and my nuts and all the other potions go into Tupperwares and they're ready to go.

[00:47:03] And then the vegetables, you know, with three days, it's okay. As long as they're covered in water, it doesn't, they don't really go off because they don't oxidize. But it just means that in the morning, like for tomorrow, I think I need to be up around five, five 30. I need, I need to be out of the house. I think by quarter to seven anyway, and I need an hour even without a chopping of the veg really in the mornings to get things sorted. But it means I can just drain the veg, put it in the juicer, put it in the smoothie maker

[00:47:31] and minimize thinking by just tipping things in as I need to do. And so that helps me because I'm thinking if I don't do that, what's going to happen is that I take nothing with me. I'm going to get quite hungry. I'll grab something rubbish or I won't deliver my best to the students that I'm in front of or a whole host of other things. Right now I've done it before on no food and just water and whatever else, and I'm still fine.

[00:47:58] But by and large, I want to be able to be prepared. And I know that if I had to chop the things in the morning, it adds that extra bit of time. Yeah. I have to get up earlier. It adds that more likely ability that I'm not going to do it, whatever it might be. I mean, worst case scenario, I've got some in the freezer anyways. Let me close this on a question and a conscious of listeners time as well. Right. And then maybe, maybe it isn't just one, but I'm going to put you in a position where you can answer how you like.

[00:48:25] Like if a listener had to fix just one roof and that roof could be money, body, nutrition, people, skills, something else I haven't thought about, relationships maybe. What's the roof that you would recommend they fixed first? Probably the one they're under. The one they're under. So what do I mean by that? I mean the one that's impacting them the most. Yeah. The one that's keeping them up at night. Yeah.

[00:48:53] So, you know, my overall answer of course would be everything derives from your personal energy because without that you can't earn the finances. You can't earn the relationships. You can't do anything. However, maybe that's dialed in anyway. So it's whichever roof they're currently under. So which is the one that when their leak comes, it's going to be a problem. All right. So that could be the finances, whatever the thing is for them.

[00:49:21] But I'd say the roof they're under is the one to fix. And then you'll be able to identify which one that is. It kind of comes back to the one thing, the Gary Keller book that I loved. I don't know if you've read that yet. I haven't read it. No, you told me about it before. Yeah, I love that book. And actually I've got it. I've got the question in the back of my super journal. This question here, you can probably see it if you're watching this, but what's the one

[00:49:49] thing that I can do, the doing of which will make everything else necessary? And what is that one thing? And focus on that. And so that's the roof you need to fix is that what's the thing that is broken that needs fixing that ultimately to solve everything else. It does link to another brilliant quote. I've said many times on this show, but I'm going to emphasize the one thing because the

[00:50:16] farmer who tries to catch two rabbits catches neither one. And this is a good example of where sometimes we try and do everything and we end up doing nothing. So focus on that one thing, the thing that's keeping up at night. And actually it's one of the earliest questions I ask when I'm in a new coaching intervention is what's the thing that's keeping you up at night? It's a great question. And sometimes I was like, what's this? And that leads into the things that are really important. Sometimes I'll come into a session thinking we're going to discuss something else. It's like, well, there's no, we can't fix that yet.

[00:50:45] There's no point fixing or changing the carpet in your bedroom until you fix the roof because it's going to change the carpet or rain. It'll be ruined again, right? So what's the thing that's keeping you up at night? Let's deal with that thing first. And then we'll get to the thing you thought we were going to be discussing today. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's why I was waiting for the roof to be fixed before I painted the inside. Yes, indeed. Well, good way. We've come full circle. You genuinely have no metaphorical roof as a real roof that you've been fixing. And that was the real roof.

[00:51:13] But what I find is that if people allow them to be taught, the world and nature and situations is your school. It's there to teach you these lessons. You just need to observe it. And also realize, going back to that Zen quote of how you do anything is how you do everything, is that basically things show up in your life as patterns. And then how you respond or do something in one area is typically how you do it in other areas.

[00:51:42] And once you kind of understand that and you see that pattern, you're mindfully aware of it in other areas, it gives you the freedom to act and choose and change and everything else. So I love that about life in general is that it gives you what you need if you're willing to look for it. Notice it. Have the awareness for it. Well, look, on that moment, I'm going to ask all our listeners to do one thing for us, which is please review the show.

[00:52:09] Please like it, subscribe to it, share it, whatever it is that allows us to get more people to hear what we're talking about. I know the last couple of episodes have resonated really well. Our numbers have been good. And we know we've changed the direction slightly by sort of picking apart different quotes and seeing how they show up in the world. But I'm actually finding the conversation really fascinating myself. So I'm hoping our listeners are too. And if you are, please do share it, like it, give it to a friend. Hopefully there's something in here that will help somebody. That's kind of our plan. And I'm grateful for you for doing that.

[00:52:39] Going back to what you mentioned before about you don't know who this might help and everything else. My brother literally texted me the other day and he was being listened to our episode on letting go and saying how much he enjoyed that. And obviously he had his own challenges with losing people at the same time that we lost parents literally within a couple of weeks. And so, yeah, you don't know who's going to touch on when they're going to listen to an episode that you released three years ago.

[00:53:07] And then suddenly that finds their way and everything. So it's really good. I will just say one thing to those of you maybe watching YouTube. I feel like I'm looking a bit too much like Ali G at the moment with glasses on. But apologies for that. Although I do believe there's a new Ali G movie coming out. There is. Although I think it's under a lot of bad press for him being misogynistic and other things in the office. It probably is. I mean, I think his comedy was somewhat dated.

[00:53:35] Even like Borat and everything else is a sign of its time. But I've just noticed that I have to wear the blue light blockers and I've got this hoodie on and everything. I was thinking, I'm not trying to be an Ali G impersonator or anything else. I'm just trying to protect my sleep. But next time we see you, you'll be in a yellow hoodie with a gold chain. I like it. Yeah. All right, dude. Listen, good to see you. Thank you, listeners, for checking in. Please do like, subscribe, follow and share. And we'll bring you the next episode of the Mindful Pass podcast very soon.

[00:54:05] I've been Nick Day and this has been Harry Kalimnios. And yeah, we'll see you in the next episode. Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.