Latest / Jess Ask / Be Kind to Yourself: A Journey from Gaming to Coaching | FT Benedikt Oehmen | EP74

Transcript

Be Kind to Yourself: A Journey from Gaming to Coaching | FT Benedikt Oehmen | EP74 · Jess Ask

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Yo, it's your girl Jessica and Smith and you already
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: know that you've entered the safe space for influencers to decompress,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: have fun and just ask.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: God for do you already know what it is?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And then you know it's about to get real, So
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: be sure to show your girl the love and like
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: coming God for another day?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Righty? I know we could be another way.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yo, yo, yo, it's your girl Jessica smiss and I
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: am super excited, y'all. I am so tipical because y'all
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: know we don't know to do the virtual things, but
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: today it's a special day. You have entered the safe
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: space for influencers to decompress, have fun, and just as
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: it's your girl, just it's him again. And I'm super
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: excited about this episode you guys.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys remember, but I had
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: made a post me it's been a minute ago that
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: we were going international.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, that we're going to France, that we you know,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know anything else but bonjour and maybe I'll
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: learn a little bit more today, but we are super
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: excited before we get into our guests and bringing him forward, Listen,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I really really want you guys to know that the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: link is still our place.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, the link is still our place even though we're virtual.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Right now I'm from I'm at the house. You know
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it's not as pretty. You know, I don't have all
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that stabs before.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Right now, I got this lighting is lighting though. This
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: light is lighting though.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: But the link that Birmingham, Alabama, the Entrepreneur Center, You
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: guys want to make sure that you go ahead and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: book your appointment, your park, for your podcast, for your event.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Maybe they even do fingerprints.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So if you need fingerprints on the east side of Birmingham, listen,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you want to go alouded fund me to help you
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: take care of that. Hey, So make sure that you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: go to the link that's in the description under the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: link and we they'll get you taken care of.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So now y'all, like I said, we're going to France.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Oh let me back up. Desilt Rate is backstage right now.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: But I know y'all love this song, so I hit it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: For you one time. Delil right, delil right. Beorry worry.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: She's speaking to y'all the spirit because she was.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm not coming on the spring to day, but
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: y'all can get y'all can get on her later for that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Y'all can get on her tomorrow about that.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Okay. So now that y'all got y'all saw, Now that
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: y'all got everything else, Okay, let's get into it. So
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: we have none other than the great a great man.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I spent like a few moments with him before we
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: solidified this call, and he he's full of energy, he's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: full of life and listening to testimony that he has
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: is really powerful.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: He is an.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Author, you know, we like we love authors over here.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: He is a career transition coach. He is into the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: taking gaming field, y'all.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: He is out here changing lives and allowing helping people
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: pro risk.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, we have love other than my new French friend,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: mister Benedict oh Man.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Hey, Jess, thank you very much for that very warm welcome.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Listen.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: This is how we do it over here in the Alfam, Alabama,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: in the United States.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So this is that we just love love old people.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Did dig.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: I'm good? I'm good, thank you. Lets you can see
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: I unfortunately broke my arm in two places, but that's
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: not holding me back. So still moving forward with everything
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: that's going on and Yeah, my wife is pregnant. In
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: two months. We are welcoming our little daughter into the world.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: So very excited for that. And yeah, super super excited
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: to be here and'll be talking with you.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm being excited that you guys reached out like.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Shout out to Thiago or Thiago. He is very consistent
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: and persistent and he is very energized.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I can tell you that I cannot wait to meet
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: him as well. And so then it like, thank you
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: so much. It's gonna be different. I told my audience.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is my first time, you know,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: going international, so I'm really excited about that. And then
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the the realm that you're in the industry. And I
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: don't even think we've had an influencer in this industry.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: So can we go into that? Can you explain the industry?
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Because the only thing I know about gaming it's what
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I see on YouTube. My little brother's into the gaming. Yeah, like,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: all I know is it really.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Draws people in. But you're on the back end of that.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: So what does that look like for you?
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: Okay, So yeah, glet you asked, because so when I
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: guess up from your podcast to talk a lot about
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: safe spaces and providing that space for people to be themselves.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: And that was exactly to me when I started in gaming.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: That was the gaming industry because I started with Blizz
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Entertainment in two thousand and five here in France. There's
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: a reason why I relocated from Germany to France in
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: the first place. And it was a company of gamers
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: making games for other gamers, and I loved that. And
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: the moment you came through the door, everybody was a nerd,
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: everybody was a geek, and you felt right at home
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: and you could just be yourself. And that's what what
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: drew me to Blizzard in the gaming industry in the
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: first place, just being able to be yourself and doing
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: cool stuff that others and your self value and everybody
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: is having a blast doing it. So that's what drew
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: me to it, and I think that's what makes a
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: really good connect here as well with with your podcast
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: and yeah to me in two thousand and five, so
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: I was studying physics at the time. I have my
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: bachelor's degree in physics, and I asked myself, Okay, what
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: do I want to do with that when I grow
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: up or for a real job, and nothing really came
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: to mind and my brother Martin mentioned like, hey, Benedict,
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: they're actually hiring at Blizzard for Word of wograph game masters. Like, oh,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: that sounds cool. Let's maybe take a semester off and
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: see if they would take me. Was the game I
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: was playing at the time as well, and they invited
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: me to an interview online and then hey, can you
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: come to France for an in person interview? Sure, let's
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: do that, and then the next day they called me back,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: So yeah, when can you starts? Back in the day,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: it was that easy to get into the game industry.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Today it's very different. Today. Gaming companies are more mature.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: They are consolidating a lot. They are also closing a
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: lot of offices to basically increase their bottom line and
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: be as efficient as they can be. So today it's
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: a way different beast trying to get into the game industry.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: But back in the day, like roughly twenty years ago,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: it was as easy as that. You were nerd, you
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: knew the game in and out, and you hit them
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: up like hey, I see you're looking for people to
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: help with the support. I can do that, Like sure,
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: come on board.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I love that you said there is a
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: difference between then and now. So I may ask how
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: old were you when you when you made the decision too,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: because what I hear that you dropped out of school,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So you didn't finish school.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Did you?
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: So I didn't finish university, so I have Well, I
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: finished after four years, which is a bachelor's degree, but
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: I didn't do the doctor on everything afterwards. And I
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: was twenty three at the time. So I started studying
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: at nineteen and then for four years I was in Heidelberg, Germany,
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: studying physics, and then in one was it two thousand
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: and five, I applied and joined Blizzard Entertainment here in France,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: And now it's nineteen years later.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, so Bennedict, how what's the difference between getting into
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the gaming industry then then it is now?
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So back in the day, it was the gaming
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: industry was still forming and was very young, and people
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: just tried different things, and if you had a passion
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: for it, there was very little obstacles you needed to
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: overcome to join a gaming company because they were first
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: and foremost looking for people that share the same values
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: and interest to make the coolest, most engaging games they
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: they can and today, it's very much mature and it's
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: very much a business where it goes away from how
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: can we make the coolest, most awesome games for players,
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: to how can we make the most money with this,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: and how can we monetize it better and how can
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: we keep people engaged? So basically in front of our
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: game instead of in front of Netflix or in front
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: of YouTube or any other social media. And that's the
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: main difference. So it's a real business now instead of
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: like a business where you had fun doing stuff and
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: you were also making money on the side, but the
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: money wasn't really the focus point, and now money is
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: very much the focus point for most companies. The exception
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: to that a little bit are like independent studios so
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: indie games, where they are again more looking at we
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: want to bring our vision to life, and we have
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: a lower budget and a lower team size, so they're
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: usually not as big and grand as a Triple A
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: games Budge as a games it's a really high budget,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: but they're really looking at what is the fantasy that
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: you want to bring to life, what is the kind
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: of engagement we want to deliver, So they are still
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: living the dream, but they're also having a hard time,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: finding funding and keeping above water with all the different
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: sources of entertainment that you have these days.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: You're bringing up some good points, but some one of
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the things that one of the words you use was
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the fantasy, right, And so I think from there are
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: two people that you have to think about when you're
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: thinking about the concept of gaming or in your industry.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You think about the consumer, but you're also thinking about
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the person is actually creating the games.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And in my mind, like I said, my brother he
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: is in love with gaming, Like he literally.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Just told us that if he could do the YouTube
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: gaming thing, he would do it.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And I don't. I don't understand it. That's not something
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: that I'm addicted to. So could you give up?
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It's like especially for parents, right, I do have like
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of parents that are on this platform and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: maybe their kids are into the gaming the gaming world.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Can you give them like a why behind why the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: kids are interested in? What it does psychologically to you
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to them and give us a pathway on how to
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: balance and communicate your faguly work, because I know I
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: can't pick up one of those things and go I miss.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Up every time.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: So what's what's cool about games is a they connect
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: you with others in an in an active fashion, so
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: instead of sitting there on scrolling through YouTube and watching
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: videos or watching Netflix all day, which is just one
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: way consumption of entertainment. In games, you often have a
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: multiplayer aspect where you play with others and you try
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: to achieve a common goal together. And that's actually, like
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: I found always very valuable because in those collaborative games,
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: you also learn a lot of leaderships skills, You learn
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: how to communicate with other people, you learn how to
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: organize yourself, and in games like what of Warcraft back
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: in the day, you needed to organize for forty people
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: to be online at the same time to go kill
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: that mighty dragon because it took forty of you to
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: accomplish that feed. So a lot of organizational skills, communication,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: but also tactical planning and strategy. So that's the part
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: that's really cool and really engaging. On the flip side,
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: you need to take every single moderation. There's a potential
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: that you get lost in the fantasy world and if
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: your entire world is only that one game, and that
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: game is then also monetized in a predatory way where
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: you can buy small successes or different cosmetic upgrades for
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: your character with real care and you have a poor
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: impulse control. That's where people spend hundreds and thousands and
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: sometimes tens of thousands of dollars because that's how those
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: games keep themselves alive through that monetization practice. And that
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: is the dark side for me of gaming, because that,
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: to me, is not the dream of the kind of
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: games that I fell in love with when when I
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: was younger and I wanted help create and bring to
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: other people. So moderation is key, but don't shy away
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: from like exploring together with your kid, like what makes sense?
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Where do they have that meaningful interaction with other people
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: of their same age group? And what is just a
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: money think where basically they try to trigger dopamine in
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: your head, So like, ah, I need another kick, I
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: need another kick, and the way you get that kick
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: later is by throwing money at the screen. Basically those
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: games I would.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: No that is you just you just kind of helped
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: me out because when I think of game man, I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: think of an escape before I think of developing leadership skills,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: developing community developing teamwork skills.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Like you just brought another light to me.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So I know you're gonna bring another light to other people,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: maybe just thinking about the type of game that's like
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: what you said, anything with moderation, Like I could be
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: on YouTube.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Learn about real estate. I could be on YouTube just.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Watching somebody's somebody else's life to escape mind. So I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: think that's a great point that anything. We have good
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: opportunities in this space and gaming, but what you do
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: with it is important. So one of the things you
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: brought up is the key of leadership. I know that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you have some experience with leaders Now, like I just said,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I did not think about leadership and gaming, but I
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: know that you were a leader in at Benedict and
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: no that's your name, Oh my gods.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: But what is it Blizzard?
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you were a leader there, you had a team,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and then there was a big transition that happened to that,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: lady coaching.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: About the transition, Yeah, definitely. So after I started at Blizzard,
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: after half a year and the customer support center, I
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: actually transitioned to the community team, which is the team
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: that talks to the players on the one hand, take
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: their feedback, sends it to the developers, and then relays
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: their feedback back to the players, so it's like the
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: linchpin for the communication in between the company and their players,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: and that really resonated with me because for me, it
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: was all about creating the most awesome game together all
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: of us, the people that work at Blizzard and the
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: people who enjoy playing Blizzard's games, and for me and
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: that team, it was then just a natural evolution that
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I became a team manager at some point because I
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: loved it so much there that I never wanted to
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: go anywhere else. And so basically at that point then
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: I started helping others find into the role that I
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: had filled in the past of being a community manager
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: for the German market. And then I had had team
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: members for all European languages, so I had one for German,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: English Speaking, French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and Italian, so we
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: had one representative of one community manager for each language.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: And then it became my responsibility to help them engage
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: with their communities in the in their best and in
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: most meaningful ways possible. Did a whole bunch of mistakes
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: along the way, but that's that's how we learn, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: that that went on until let me see, when was
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: it I think in twenty eighteen we had the reduction
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: in force where thirty percent of the European Office was
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: being let go. And the way that works in France
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: is very different from legal point of view and it
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: works in the States. So instead of you being caught
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: into a meeting, somebody packs up your stuff and then
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: you're being escorted out. It takes a whole year, basically
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: almost to facilitate that process, because you also need to
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: give people, or you may give people an opportunity to
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: leave on their own volition, and then once the thirty
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: percent are met, then you stop there. But you give
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: people who want to leave an opportunity to find something
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: and then leave proactively. And then for the rest you
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: need to see can you reallocate people to different positions,
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: and it takes a whole bunch of time. So during
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: that process, the community team that I was working in
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: was basically reduced from ten people to one person for
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: all seven languages, so there was there's no individual language
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: support anymore. There was just one person overlooking to implement
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: whatever came from the US to implement that in the
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: European markets. And to me, that was no longer what
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do, because for me, it was always
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: I want to work with the team, I want to
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: work with others and together achieve something cool. So at
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: that point I transitioned from the community team to the
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: localization team, where we translate all the game content and
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: videos from English to the other languages in Europe. At
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: this point already, like I tried to help my team
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: at that point to transition out of Blizzard or find
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: new positions within Blizzard that play best to their strengths.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: But I already knew Okay, so if that happened once
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: and they're reducing us by thirty percent, who's to say
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: that's not going to happen again or they close it
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: completely in the future. So it was mentally prepared for
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: that already and try to prepare my team to build
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: a little bit of resilience, like, hey, what if tomorrow
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: Blizzard Europe is gone, what do you do then? And
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: then in twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, then I think
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: I believe they announced that they would close the Versailles
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: office completely, And at that point I sat down with
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: my team and said, like, okay, we're all going through
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: the five stages of grief, which for me at that
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: point was done in five minutes, because I was kind
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: of expecting it already that this would happen. And for
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: the rest of my team, it took different amounts of
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: time for them to process it at their own time,
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: and I tried to be there for them to help
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: them through each step and then said like, hey, once
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: you're good and ready for it, we're still doing the
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: work that we're doing, we're still getting paid, we're still
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: doing our work well. But every minute we have. On
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: top of that, let's look at what you want to do.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: What is it that you value in a job and
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: to come and in a career, And what can we
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: do now to prepare yourself for in a year's time
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: when the office will finally close, for real that you're
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: in the best possible position to succeed in your future career.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: And that's really where I employed a lot of coaching techniques.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: I created a lot of workshops for people to help
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: each other with specific applied learning and not only theory,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: that they actually had to do stuff. And I realized,
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: oh that that is really cool because I get to
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: do what I love, like achieving stuff together with others,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: but in a completely different context. So instead of we
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: put out a game, now we put out a career
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: plan for you, or just your enhancing your well being
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: or making sure you're the best version of yourself that
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: you can be. We're still achieving something together. And then
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: I enjoy the process, So why not make that my career?
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: And then when I decided, okay, after Blizzard, I take
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: little time I get I got three certifications in executive leadership,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: mental health, and corporate well being coaching. And during that
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: time frame I also wrote my book as a proof
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: of concept that what I was talking about actually works
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: for me as well, because I always have like, hey,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: writing a book would be awesome, but it's such a
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: big undertaking I'll never get it done. But when I
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: reframed that from saying I want to write a book
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: to say I want to become an author. What does
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: an author do? They write a little bit every day,
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: And that's what I did, and then after three months,
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, I had a book.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: So really, what I love about what you're saying is
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it is not just about an industry. They for when
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: you have a heart for people, Like that's what I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: hear first people people. I love people that have harm
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of people because when you're always added the coin, as
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I would say, oh money a dollar, you kind of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: miss the beauty, the beauty beauty of the process of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: seeing people develop and being a part of their journey,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Like what about the what about the journey of people?
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Have you really connected to and enjoyed in pes?
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: It's a great question, and it's hard to put a
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: finger on it, because as you said, it's just as
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: just something deeply rewarding in in helping other people, like
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: overcome their own challenges, So not solving stuff for other people,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: but being there for them, holding space for them, getting
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: them into a mindset where they can use the right
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: structure and the right tools to do what's important to them,
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: and then they just flourish and get stuff done. It
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: just feels great. Like as a coach and as a
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: team leader, there was always the most rewarding feeling for me.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: I guess it comes back to how we evolved as
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: a species. That we didn't evolve a single person alone
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: in a cave, but we were always in groups, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: it probably makes sense that we take joy from other
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: people's successes so that we don't kill them with the
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: rock in the middle of the night right, instead, we
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: are happy for them and filled us with joy, and
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: the group is more tightly knit afterwards because I also
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: know it from the other from the other perspective, like
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: great managers and leaders and friends that I had that
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: helped me grow, I was so appreciative for what they
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: did for me. So I think it goes both directions,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: and having that as as my professional is deeply rewarding.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: At the same time, what you said about the money,
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: you need to be able to get enough money out
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: of it to sustain yourself and in my case now
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: my family and my daughter in the near future. But
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: as long as we have enough money to do that,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Like who cares about money? Right at that point? It's
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: the true joy and happiness and belonging comes from being
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: of use to other people, I believe, And there I'm
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: also super excited to become a dad because that's like
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: the most long term leadership gig that you have for
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: at least eighteen years, okay, Like I need to help
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: you become the best version of yourself, and it's a
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: really long term project. So to me, like parenting and
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: leadership in that sense also go hand in hand, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: I think is why I'm super excited about that part
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: of my life and my journey right now is experiencing
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: this in a completely different setting and on a completely
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: different level. So yeah, I don't know if that answer
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: to your question.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: I love see.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: One thing I like about you, man, is like you're
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: able the ability to be able to correlate what you
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: do professionally in your and your private time too, like,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and that we're gonna get into that before I really
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: want to get into like, make sure that we solidify
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the understanding of your coaching program because people people nowadays
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: are just out here call themselves coaches and just saying oh,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: because I went through this experience and I might have
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: done this this thing. It's just an easy word to say, right,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: But I found that the best coach is really the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: one they've been through what they're coaching, and then they
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: have applied not only for themselves, but people that are
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: in a specific area in life, right, And that specific
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: area in life that you've seen, like you are.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Targeted forwards is change, like a transition? Is that? If correct?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: So what are the biggest opportunities that you see that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: come out of this transition transition moment and how do
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you enhance their part.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Of their development.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: So any change in your life to me is kind
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: of an opportunity to reinvent yourself or to adjust where
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: your life is going next. And that's just a super
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: powerful thing. So it's just to a degree, like we
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: have some degree of ownership over our own destiny, right,
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: not not completely. There's always stuff that can happen to us.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: And hit by a bus, we're that nothing we can
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: do about it but outside, or you fall down, break
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: your arm. But even when that happens, we can still
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: decide how we interact with that situation or how we
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: react to those circumstances and how we decide to move forward.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: And that can be small changes in our life or
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: it can be big changes like I changed my career,
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: I'm becoming a dad, I'm getting married, or I'm like
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I'm stopping my studies and do something else. So it's
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: really up to us to define, like where do we
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: want to make a conscious effort instead of just going
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: with the flow. And then life is happening to us
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: and it's okay, but we can also see, okay, we're
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: in the flow. Now where do I want that journey
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: to go next? And then we can adjust our path,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: and to me, what comes down to in those moments
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: where we want to make that decision and where we
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: want to have more control about where future me is
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: down the line is that we are kind, present and
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: open with ourselves. And that I found through my practice
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: with with my team and Blizzard that served me very well.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: That was the foundation of the workshop that I created.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: It served me very well in my private life. It's
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: how I met and married the love of my life.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: It's also how I faced breaking my arm. Instead of
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: blaming myself and telling myself, you idiot, you're forty two
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: years old, why can't you walk straight? I decided to
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: be kind to myself. I was like, yeah, there was
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: an obstruction on the floor. It was painted black on
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: a black floor. No way in hell I could have
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: ever seen that coming, so there's nothing I could have
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: done otherwise. And then having this appreciation and non judgment
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: for yourself, this kindness and saying like, hey, it is
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: what it is now, let's be present. What can we
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: do from here on out moving forward? And also the
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: presence of mind what else could have happened? Like I'm
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: super thankful to my arm to have broken the fall
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: because if I hit my head first, the force was
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: enough to break both my elbow and my wrist. I
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: might be dead, I don't know, or I might have
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: broke my nose or lost all my front tees. It
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: could have been so much worse. And if I had
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: to break anything on my body, I think left arm
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: is high on the top of the list because I'm
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: right handed and I like walking. So also, yeah, my
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: kneecaps were pretty banked up, but luckily not broken, and
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: had I broken those in addition or instead of my
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: left arm, that would have been a lot worse because
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be able to walk, and that's just terrible,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: and that brings presence, brings all this oh, this appreciation,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: like whew, Like I broke my arm and that sucks,
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: but it could have been so much worse, and I
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: can still be myself in most areas of my life,
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: like yes, my wife needs to help me with a
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: lot of stuff like putting butter on my bread. It's
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: like it's like you get a new appreciation as well
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: for what it means to have two working hands. And
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: that's also something that I appreciate right now, Like once
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: the arm is working again, I appreciate a lot more
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: or the cool normal stuff I'll be able to do again,
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: like holding my kid with both arms in two months hopefully.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: And then the last part to that after we were
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: kind with ourselves, not judging ourselves, but looking at the
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: good things and being present to seeing like, hey, what happened.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: What can I learn from that? What can I do
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: differently in the future is being open to implement tiny
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: small changes that accumulate with time. Just having these systems
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: and habits that For example, for me, when I was
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: writing the book, I just write something every day five
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: minutes after breakfast. That was my system, and those five
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: minutes after months were a couple of hours, and after
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: three months the book was done. Then the thing that
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: we want in our life, in my case writing a
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: book just becomes a consequence of who we are becoming.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: And that's a magical thing to me when it when
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: it comes to this opportunity for change and career development
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: or life and everything. And that's a magical thing for
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: me because you can just apply that framework to whatever
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: is important to you, where you choose to make a difference,
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: and the rest you can also just keep it coming
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: as it is and enjoy life and be present with
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: your loved ones. And yeah, that's that's that's almost magical
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: to me.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Reality. I promise you you're stirring me right now. Do
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: you know what that means? Do you know what it
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: means if someone says you're stirring me? No?
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Can you define it for me?
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I'm at the definer. For you, that means like my
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: belly is leaping. I am mean you have me on team.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I amb stirred, meaning that what you just said was
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: so powerful. And I'm going to tell you what I
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: just heard that transition when you were saying from being
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: kind to being present. I think that may be a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: point where I'm gonna say I personally struggle with and
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: m people might other people might can relate to this
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: as to why we have less to We have people
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: that struggle more with success because we don't know how
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to be kind to ourselves. And for Jessica, what that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: looks like from what you just said, Benedett is I
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: have to be kind enough to myself to know that
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: what I'm going through right now or even the mistakes
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: that I made are okay, so I can get to
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: being president enough to appreciate and show gratitude for where
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I am, Like the way you broke down the fact
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of with your arm, like, yeah, your arm is broken.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, it hurts, it hurts so bad. That was a
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: pain point in your life.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: But what you decided to do was like I've still
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: got another army you and my arm protected me. Yeah,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: my arm protected me from dying, potentially dying, or busting
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: my hand open, or being in a coma. It could
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: have been worse, like you're really saying, it could be
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: so much worse. And if you get still in the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: park where you're in pain and you're feeling the hurt
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and you're feeling the frustration of whatever has happened in
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: this point, you never get to appreciate where you are
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: so that you can be open to where you're going.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Like that's what I mean. You stirred me.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: That was so good, Like I love it, so I'm
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: super excited to connect. You said that the bekind, be
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: be kind, be present, be present.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Be open, right, And you said you were able to
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: use that strategy to meet your wife.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: How who is this?
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: So?
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: In my youth, I wasn't always my biggest fan, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: I had a lot of problems with being kind to
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: myself part so I always thought like, hey, I'm not
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: so I'm two meters four, six foot seven, so I'm
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: like tall, tall dude. And I was like, oh, I'm
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: not funny enough, not good looking enough, and not intelligent enough.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Whatever it was that I thought I was missing to
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: attract a live partner, and that haunted me well into
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: my thirties. And what I decided doing at some point
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: is a be kind to myself and said like, hey,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: wait a second, why am I telling myself all of
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: these negative things. Let's let's pump the brakes look at
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: what's actually good in my life. And then I have
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: an awesome family, I have the best friends, I have
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: my dream job, I have good friends around, I make
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: money doing stuff that I love doing. I'm healthy, and like,
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: oh my god, everything my life is perfect except not
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: having that that partner. And then like, okay, what am
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: I willing to do about it? Because at that point
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: my life was I go home, I play games, and
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: for ten plus years I was basically playing World of
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Warcord as my only hobby. And we're we're talking about
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: moderation before I overdid it at that part, and I
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: was not one of the people who who met their
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: live partner in game. My sister, for example, met her
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: now boyfriend in World of Warcraft. They now moved in together.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: I have two cats and they have a splendid life
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: and the people in their guild are their friends, and
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: they go two weddings together and all that kind of stuff.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: So that can happen, but didn't happen to me. And
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: then I so I asked myself, Okay, it's not happening
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: by itself. What can I do? So being present with
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: myself even though I didn't call it like that back
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: in the day, what are the options that my dispose
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: of What is it that I can do? Like, I
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: can go out into the world, but I'm a German
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: living in France. My French isn't that good, so I
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: probably have language problems. Another thing I can do is
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: just go on all the different dating apps and gave
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: me fi Tinder for me and okay, Cupid and all
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: the other things. Meaning what I did was after dinner,
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: half an hour, I go onto the apps and swipe
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: a bit for people that I believed would be fun
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: to at least hang out with on a first date
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: and get to know.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: And you know.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: I was completely aware that the first dates would be
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: bad because I haven't been on dates in a long time.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to be comfortable around pretty girls
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: when I'm alone, and I knew it would suck. But
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: I also knew I couldn't get to that date that
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: would introduce me to my future wife if I didn't
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: go onto that first horrible date. So I decided to
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: do that and took me one and a half years.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: But at that point I knew, like, oh, my confidence
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: was growing, and see it was working. I met more
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: interesting people, and I realized, Okay, at this point, it's
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: only a numbers game. Sooner or later I'll meet the
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: right person. And so I became open to just keep
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: doing that, growing in my comfort zone, pushing the comfort zone,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: growing it. And at some point then I stumbled over
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: that profile of that beautiful girl with the most lovely smile,
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: and I just had to contact her and I was like, oh,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: I might sound cheesy, but I really love your smile.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: I needed to let you know that. And at that
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: point on my dating profile, so I had my favorite
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: board game in my arm and I had the biggest
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: smiles on my face as well, like showing proactively who
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: I am, the big nerd that I am, and she
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: said like, oh yeah, I love your smile. And then
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: we got talking, and when we asked each other at
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: the same time, Hey, how about we meet this weekend,
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I knew, Bam, that's the one. And I took that
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: spirit into the first date, already visualized how much fun
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: we would have, like openly talking about everything that's important
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: to me. And that was another strategy. I didn't try
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: to pretend to be someone who I wasn't because I
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: was looking for a long term partner, not for a
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: filling or one night stand. So I didn't hold back
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: with my nerdiness and I didn't hold back on everything
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: that's important to me, and she just loved it. And
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: just being that open and force coming and that real
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: shured of myself really was attractive to her, like when
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: she was interacting with me, because I seemed so self assured,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: which only came by being open to doing a little
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: dating over one and a half years, but regularly to
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: build up that confidence and just being myself. And then
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: she was a person who resonated well with my true
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: awesome self. And now she's my wife, and now the
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: kid is on the way. So that's just how it works,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: like you take it away the bit go oh, I
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: have to meet that person, I have to have that
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: thing that I'm missing, and then you're feeling Then you're
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: feeling horrible. You're only focusing on the bad stuff. And
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: instead you embrace the process, as you said, like you
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: live your life. You're enjoying it, but you do it
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: mindful and in a self directed manner, and then what
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: you want comes out the other end simply as a
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: consequence of the awesome future version that you're building. Brick
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: by brick.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, so I was gonna tell you what's going
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: on in.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: My hair right now. You're coming for my name. Do
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: you know what that means?
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: Coming for money?
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: No, coming for my name for reacting?
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Oh oh no, that means that you're telling my like
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you're you're tacking me with your words.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Oh that doesn't sound too good.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: It's a good thing. So where I'm from, they say,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: when you're coming from my neck, it depends on the
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: territory with it. Right now, you're talking so well, so good,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: because these are the things that I hear.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I hear for one that you did like a self assessment,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and you said, Okay, I am overindulging in this game thing.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: This is my comfort zone.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: But I also have this thing where that I want
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and I desire, which is gonna make me step out
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: or reduce this relationship of gaming right and be intentional
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: about this, uh, this dating thing right, and so where
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: that is for me?
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't know I've dated.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I've dated, and it seems very different.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I am afraid of the whole dating app thing. I
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: just oh, it just makes me.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I think I've become a little anxious. So I don't
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: know I could do that particularly, but I think that
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: there are some areas that I could, like be probably
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: like you said, be open, but more so kind to
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: myself because if I think about it, and I'm about
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to be transparent, I think about it with based on
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: what you just shared, I don't know if I've been
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: kind enough to myself to be open. I don't know
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: if I've been kind enough to just to the same.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: It's okay that that happened in the past, or it's
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: okay that you got that wrong, or it's okay that
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: you thought this was gonna end up in marriage, and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: it's okay, and it does not make you less of
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: a person because one situation or a few situations can happen.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But just be okay with just learning yourself most important.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Like it's one thing to learn.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Other people and build relationship with other people, but have
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you have you taken the time to learn yourself so
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that you can love other people? And that that just
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: came from me because I hadn't done this.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: So it's like this is why is this ring? Finger
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: is empty? Then this is any finger for a reason.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: It's because I had not been nice enough to myself.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. So just fore thing is your is
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: your wife into gaming? Or how did how? What? What?
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: What's on a common nominator for you? What do y'all
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: do with the other day? Kind of like signify and enhances?
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: So we couldn't have been different when when we met.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: So I was into gaming, she was into fashion. I
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: was into heavy metal, she was into k pop. And
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: the only thing that in common is that we that
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: we worked in English language. So I worked in English
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: at Blizzard and she worked in English and her company
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: because she always loved the international aspect. But again it's
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: it's it's not really like what you do doesn't doesn't
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: really matter. It's it's that that your values aligned and
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: that you're on the same wavelengths. And what I got
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: her into gaming is in collaborative board games where we
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: sit down and play board games together, not like monopoly
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: or anything where we play against each other and try
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: to get one over on one another, but where we
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: either succeed or lose together, because that's an experience that
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: we share and we enjoy that a lot, like we
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: don't have to go out and go skydiving or anything
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: to like who We're doing something together that's exciting. We
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: are sitting down playing a board game and trying to
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: beat the big beat, and if we lose, then we
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: lost together and it brings us closer. And if we win,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: we win together and it brings us closer. So that's
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: where where I was able to nerdify her a little bit,
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: is that she's now open to board games. But other
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: than that, no, like on on paper, we we we
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have met in the real world, right like we
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have met randomly at a concert because they're completely
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: different music tastes. But now I listen to some K pop,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: she listens to some hard rock and some metal, so
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: we have good influence on each other to widen or horizons.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: You look so happy that I can't even lie.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Like your your energy in then just the way you
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: talk about her, it just seems like you're genuinely happy.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, most definitely sorry, say again last.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Part I say you can't buy it.
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: No no, no, no, and and that thing. But also,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: as you said, the key if you like, if if
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: I had to talk to past me right or like,
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: let's not say past me because I don't want to
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: change the outcome of how things developed, like to the
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: person who has the same struggles as me twenty years ago.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: You first need to be kind to yourself, and as
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: you said, like you first need to be able to
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: love yourself before you can love anybody else. It's like
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: the saying if in an airplane emergency, put on your
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: oxygen mask first before you help anybody else, because if
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: you don't do that, if you're not okay, then you're
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: becoming a liability to others instead of being able to
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: uplift others. And it's the exact same thing with being kind,
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: present and open, Like being kind to yourself is mostly
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: important as the first step, but then also being kind
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: to others thing like, hey, they might have a shitty day,
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: that's why they honked at me, right, Or they need
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: to get to the emergency room. Maybe their wife is
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: in labor. Right, I don't know their life, so let's
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: not judge them and curse at the other driver, but
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: just use kindness, be present what might be going on
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: in their life. I don't know. Can I influence or
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: control what they're doing?
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: No?
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: So why the should I get upset? Right now? Can
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: I be open to just let that emotion go? Like,
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: thank you emotion for having you say that this annoys
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: me because honking is a nut is a is a
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: loud noise that's upsetting. But I now work through this
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: and I can let you go. And that dude drives
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: off into the sunset. I'm never ever going to see
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: them again in my life. Why should I carry that
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: for one minute longer in my life and let it
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: make me upset and grow angry?
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: That's and and and that's the part. So we need
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: to start with ourselves, and then we can also extend
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: it to other people.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: You I don't know, you know, but you don't give
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: me homework to do you have given me homework because
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: one of the main things that I've taken from this
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: is it.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: I'm so.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Career focused and career driven because I feel like that
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the best place I've had in my life and where
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I can be. I don't know where I'm more accepted.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I'm really being honest, I feel like I'm more accepted there.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: But doing this podcast and step out on faith and
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: doing that has really brought out the best of me,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: but it's also brought highlighted insecurities that I have.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: And so the homework that I hear you say.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Is that through incremental changes, whereas you took the five
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: minutes per day to write your book and you got
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: it done and got it done in three months, and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: then you took moments per day to reach out on
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: your daily app like you did it per day.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: You took your time.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: And so sometimes it says be anxious for nothing right,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and I've become anxious about everything. And so the reason
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: why I become anxious because I don't think I've taken
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: advantage of what you're presenting with the incremental changes that
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: need to happen, and so for someone like me, because
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine it with you in the realm
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: that you're in coaching somebody going through transition. So how
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: how would you break down help me right now the
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: changes or how to do the incremental changes?
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: What does that look like practically?
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: So practically we would start at being kind to yourself
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: in the sense of allowing yourself to visualize that future outcome. Okay,
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: jess in a perfect world, what would be your career
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: or whatever you're working on, what would that look like?
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: And then you really get into it. You give details
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: that you can really feel it and see yourself in it,
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: and they're like, okay, so that's future you. Then just
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: you right now, Like, give me a breakdown. Where are
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: you right now? Are there some things that you've already
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: done to become that person? And what are the options
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: for you to choose from where you can if we
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: break down this journey from you right now to super
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: duper awesome future you like, there's like steps in between
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: before you're the super awesome version. What's one step before that,
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: what's the last thing you need to overcome? And the
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: thing before that, and the thing before that and the
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: thing before that, and then you break down the super
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: threatening Oh my god, I can never become that person.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: It's like so grand and and tough, I can never
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: do it. You break it down, you break it down,
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: you break it down all the way through to the
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: here end now, where you can start with the most
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: tiny thing that you can do in one minute, like yeah,
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: I could google that book that I was talking about.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: Maybe I should read that. And then you start with
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: reading that book, or you start with mindfulness practices, or
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: you start with a gratitude journal where you say like, hey,
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: I have problems, like we identify you have problems being
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: kind to yourself. What's the good things in your life?
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Like what did you do well today? Like when we
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: talk again from each day, I want to get one
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: example for you where you said, like a Jess, you
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: did that well, I'm proud of you. And then right
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: you build that appreciation. You need to be present with
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: the good things that you're doing and celebrate those wins.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: Because motivation is not found in the wilds. It's not
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: you're walking around, I'm not motivated. Oh a big vein
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: of motivation. Let's dig into it and now getting stuff done.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: Motivation stems from all these little successes and you're looking
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: back and you're marking them off on your calendar or
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: however you want, Like holy crap, Like for one week,
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: I've been doing awesome things already, I think I can
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: really do it, and then it becomes a month, and
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: two months and three months. So it's this power of
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: streaks as well, that you do a little bit every
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: day and you keep going every day, and then you
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: then your streak longer and longer and longer. For example,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: I'm doing dual lingo right now to learn better French,
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: to have more better conversations with French doctors in case
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: of emergency for the little one in the future, and
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: the most in the mechanics that they're using that is
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: the most efficient, in my opinion, is having those streaks.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: They tell you, hey, you haven't blocked in today. You
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: just need to do one lesson today takes five minutes,
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: and then you streak extends and then you go in
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: and do the thing and they're like, okay, now I'm
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: locked in. I have ten more minutes. I do two
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: more lessons, and then you do a bit more every day.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: But you come back every day and if you only
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: have five minutes that day, it's okay. Just keep the
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: streak going. And that builds up to a better language
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: proficiency in the future. And the same is it with
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: the appreciation and finding motivation. We're building that motivation for
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: ourselves as we overcome all these little steps and we
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: are in the middle, halfway to becoming that person, like,
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: holy crap, we already did half of it, Like how
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: awesome are we? And they're like, let's keep going. What's
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: the next thing I can do? And that's really how
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: you go about it. And then by doing all these
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: by being open to breaking it down and doing all
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: those little things, being present with what these steps are
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: and how they go together, and appreciating yourself with kindness
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: for all the good stuff you're already doing, and looking
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: to that brighter future where you know exactly the person
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: who you want to become, what they are, what traits
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: they have. Then it's simply a consequence of your newfound
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: behavior and mindset that you're becoming that person one step
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: at a time. But it will take time. It does
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: not happen overnight. But it's the same with everything in life.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: If I want to be super buff and have muscles
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: to the moon, I can't go to the gym for
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: like a week and I go twenty four hours a
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: day without sleep, without anything and train like no, I
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: need to train three times a week for a year
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: or whatever. At least it's always the same principle. It's
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: for physical change, it's for mental change, but also for
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: this motivation that you built in ourselves.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Man, you I really know, Like after this call, I
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: am going to go to my room and I'm gonna
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: write something stuff down like wait, okay, I gotta break
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: it down big picture, and then what can I do
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: for at least five minutes a day?
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: The five minutes a day room? Okay, this is our friend.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: Benedict has talked five minute a day rule. So listeners, viewers,
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: if you make sure that you.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Write down what you're gonna do, come in your five
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: minute a day room for yourself. I think that'll be
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: a good thing for us as the community to do
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: as this comes out. Like I'm just I'm super excited
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: about it, Like you really like broke it down to
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: where it helped me personally. I am so grateful that
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: we got this opportunity to interact with each other and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: for us to learn from you and learn about your
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: personal story. Congratulations on your daughter. She's gonna be a
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: well groomed citizen. She's gonna be happy, she's gonna be
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: well taken care of with a with a heeled hand,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: two heeled. But normally on this platform being if we uh,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: if we want to think about anything that maybe I
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: didn't ask about or maybe with enough unsaid that it's
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: really burning in your heart that you really want to
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: viewer is to know maybe about you or life, if
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: you could, if they didn't hear anything else that you
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: said during this during this time, what would you leave
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: from them?
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: So what I would leave anybody is simply try once
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: a day to be more kind, present and open with yourself.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: And then from that stems everything else. And where you
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: just said, like, hey, I need to write stuff down
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: and I kind of want to do that, not to
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: plug my my my website or stuff, but we actually
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: have an exercise on that on the website where the
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: example is career development, but you can use the same
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: hand out the material and process to work on whatever
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: you like. It's the same framework, just different example. And
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: on that page you also find the book if you
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: want to know more about my story and how I
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: met my wife and about the philosophy of being kind
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: President open. It's online for free, as a as a PDF.
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: It's all on the same website.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm so glad you because we are going to
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: have in the description. You guys, don't make sure everything
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: that need just offer is in the description. Now, still listening.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: I know this was good because I'm not easily in print,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: but risk right now, like I'm going to take this
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: five min rule and I'm gonna go website myself. But
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: you guys, y'all already know what it is. Thank you
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in this week. We love you,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: but always remember life could be much more simple.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: If you just ask ye. Thank you for tuning in
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: to this week's episode.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Since you've made it this far, you might as well
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: connect with us on all social media platforms at Deep
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Jessica S. Smith, I know I won't see you back
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: until next week, but until then, remember to love always
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: yourself and always thank thank God for one another day.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Hey, Hey, I know we could be another way. Hey,
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: pray thank God for another day. Hey Hey, I'm just
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: thankful another day.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Hey? Hey, another day?
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, another day wise, another day to get it right,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: another day to rise up, another day living, another day.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: We loved ones I always remember hold it down for
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: a ball one.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Yuh