10 Life Changing Lessons to Live Your Best 2021 (FSFS231)

FSFS231 Javan 2020 Ten Lessons

Diego: [00:00:00] Today it's 10 lessons from 2020 to help you live a better 2021. Stay tuned for this episode. Coming up. Welcome to farm small farm smart. I'm your host Diego, DIEGO. Today's episode of Farm Small, Farm Smart is brought to you by Paper Pot, Co. That's the company that I run, we sell high quality tools aimed at making your life on the farm easier and more efficient. If you want to learn more about everything that we do, check us out at paperpot.co, and just a little hint hint, many new tools are coming in 2021. So stay tuned.

But 2021 isn't here yet. We're still in 2020. And while 2020 has been a rough year for some of us, it's been a year where inevitably lessons have been handed out and it's through observation that we can take those lessons think about how 2020 went and try and use those lessons to make a better 2021.

So today I'm sitting down with my friend Javan Bernakevitch from All Points Design, and we're going to be talking about what we learned in 2020. Javan and I are each going to bring five lessons to the table and we'll kick them around and hopefully you can use these lessons to help make your life a little bit better this year and all the years beyond.

This is something we've done for the past four or five years. These episodes have always been very popular. So I really hope you enjoy them. But more importantly, I hope you can use these lessons to be a better you, to be a better parent, to be a better part of the community, and to live a better life however you define that. So let's jump right into it. It's 10 lessons to live better life in 2021. With Javan Bernakevitch.

2020 has been an interesting year on many fronts, political health wise, crazy for a lot of people. just quick thoughts on 2020 for you in a world that seems very different than maybe that we knew in 2019.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:02:23] I think it was a year that had a lot of fruition. I think there was a lot of reaping of seeds that were sown, crops that were water mentalities that were, brought about and were cajoled. we'll get a bit into this when we get into some of my lessons, but there was a lot of feeding this year of a number of different flywheels. And they just got big, they got big. And we started to feel them. They were no longer in their tribes. They were no longer in their niches or their enclaves. We started to feel them. And in the same way, we started to feel a lot of the feedback loops of ecological destruction, of climate change, things that we normally think, Oh, there's a headline.

We're actually starting to feel more and more. when I go through my, December winter solstice to about January 5th review recap, what am I doing next kind of setting the stage. I had this thought that 2020 was going to be a year of hindsight and a foresight for someone that wears glasses all the time.

That idea of 2020 is in my head. And so when I hear 2020, I think vision, I think can I see clearly. And I took the time to look back at the past 10 years, the past 20 years and look forward. And that's what this year was for me. It was an incredible year of really seeing the hindsight of what brought us to where we are today to see the foresight of what might be possible if we change it.

If we don't. And that always comes to a personal level. If I change, if you change, if we change together. And that's one of the reasons why I love doing this with you, because it's such a nice way to, and cap the year. Here's some ideas, here's some thoughts that we took out. And then what do we do next with it?

Diego: [00:04:10] Rough years. regardless of what's happening externally, it can be rough internally with each of us on various levels. How do you feel about people coming out of a rough year, whether that's external, internal, and looking at it as this precipice, you can either fall off the edge or you can back up change, learn and walk on a different path.

Because I think some people do struggle with that. They feel like, Hey, the world's been against me this year and they're going over the edge of the cliff, some literally in some. Just figuratively and other people have looked at this and said, wow, it's been a tough year. I need to take stock.

I need to change. I need to, I can use this. There's some opportunity here with all the people you've talked to and just all the different things you've looked at, read your experiences. How do you look at these times in life where it seems like the world's against you and you have two choices, let it keep going against you or stop, and at least try and change.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:05:14] Yeah, that's a good question. It's something we've spoken about before that reality is context plus perspective. And so the context is the context, right? we live in this day and we live with, a masked society. We live with a socially distance, which is actually physically distanced society. We're not socially distanced some situations, but it's physical distance.

We live in these situations. And so when we have the opportunity to rethink about our perspective, how are we going to view the next year? How are we going to view the next day? That's where. That's where the real fork in the road is. It's the moment we decide to move from a fixed mindset to an open mindset, to a growth mindset.

Because the open mindset is one thing like, Oh, I'm open to change, but the growth mindset is I'm willing to fail. And that's the difference? The difference between an open, yeah, sure. I'm open. And then you're talking to somebody who says they're open and then you suggest something they're like, I'm never going to do that.

So I don't know if you're open. I think you're more, you're open to the idea that might come to you and you're going to immediately cut it off. Whereas a growth mindset says. This has been the year it's been, what can the next year be with everything that I am all that I know all that I aspire to be.

And this is about the bumper. This is the beginning of the bumper of life design work for me. just got three emails last week, business design, life design, business design, and I'll get anywhere from a dozen to half dozen over the next week. And it'll go like that for the next couple of months.

Because this is the time that people are thinking about it, but there's the difference. These people have thought I need to do something different. I'm going to take action. I'm going to reach out to somebody who does this professionally for folks or the folks who go, Whoa is me. This is my lot in life.

I cannot change and nothing will ever happen to me. And so it is a choice. it is a perspective choice. The precipice is perspective. We'll say the precipice is perspective. And if somebody goes, yeah, there's a precipice there, but I don't have to walk over it. I get loaded left. I could do it. I could do a 180. I can go at an angle. I could build wings, like insert metaphor here, but it is a perspective piece. What can we do differently about it?

Diego: [00:07:32] And when I look at the other side, right? Not a cliff to view, right?

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:07:34] Or an experience that you want to remember for the rest of your life.

Diego: [00:07:37] Yeah. Do you notice any commonality for people that between people could say, woe was me and I want it to be different, but they can't pull the trigger and the people that you've worked with that reach out to you that have said, I want to change it.

I am pulling the trigger. I think a lot of people do get stuck at that moment. Or there's the fear. is it that old adage of eventually you just have to hit rock bottom and that's the motive to move? Or is it something simpler than that? Where they heard the right thing? It was just the right point in life.

And it, I don't wanna say it's chance, but something in their life just led to that. And there isn't a then B relationship.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:08:23] I see what you're saying. Yeah. I think there's a commonality of catastrophe and this is very much true with lifestyle. So when somebody has a heart attack, when somebody has an aneurysm, when somebody has a symptomatic feedback loop that says.

Eating junk food 24 seven and sitting on the couch is not a good idea. I speak from experience because I have family members who do this and I've had the conversation like, is it the heart attack? That's going to be the wake up call. and I've had family members have those moments and not wake up and just not wake up.

They have no desire to wake up. They have no desire to be sovereign, to be an agent of their life. They have been told time and time again, what you receive is what you are. I will take that on. And that will be, this is a major issue with people who become their diagnosis and why diagnosis can be problematic, especially in places where the diagnosis has changed every single year take a look at the mental health and illness codex. That changes on average every five to six years, to the point to where who would have been in the category is no longer in a category six years later. I, because humans made it up. So the majority of the people I see have hit a climax point realization point.

The woman I just worked with who was taking an online PDC and was realizing that she was actually needing. Guidance on life and was like, I don't need a PDC. I don't need to know where to put the plant. I need to know where to put my foot next. the business, the business consult that I've just been, invited into to evaluate as a good fit.

here's a gentleman. Who's had an experience of me knows he doesn't want to make a mistake. And has seen the value of working with a mentor. I would say he's not hit rock bottom. He's just open to advice. He's open to feedback, which very few people are, especially from your country, your country is based upon the individual.

it's based upon the century of self, But there are a few rare folks are like, no, I think there's an opportunity here to learn and to grow. but normally it's catastrophe. And I think that's why I've seen such a market uptick of people wanting to reach out and connect around life design or land design or patterns, beliefs, behaviors that are, have plagued them for years.

And in 2020 there was this storm that just brought out all of that. Impediment to what they wanted next. And they're like, I'm done, but I've tried traditional therapy. I've tried this, I've tried that. I want to work with a consciousness model. I want to change my mindset. And so that's, what's been so fascinating for me is that I'm starting to see people who are actively, who are not new age seekers.

They're just, they're gardeners. They're farmers. They're conscious folks who are like, I just, I don't want to have this pain with me all the time anymore. Cool.

Diego: [00:11:22] and I know taking that next step can be scary and I'll jump into the, my first lesson from here. And it ties into that. And this is something that I thought a lot about preparing this, and I think it gets, it's not said enough.

And I think the opposite of this gets overstated. And one of the big lessons that I learned was I think self doubt is forever. I think every person, regardless of success and that's however you measure that will have some level, sometimes extreme levels of self doubt at all points of their life

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:11:58] forever.

Diego: [00:12:00] And I think. It sounds like, yeah, sure. But then when you look outside at what people present, look on Instagram, look on social media, look on YouTube, successful people, the rock, all positive messages. Great. And it's great to absorb that, but I think with all of the positive messages of people who really are trying to encourage people to do the next step.

Thanks. Some people like we've gotten this view of, it's never hard for them. Like they're never struggling. they're never challenged. And then when you go do something, it doesn't work. You fail, you're questioning yourself, you got to take cafe or path B, you're questioning yourself. And you're like, is this Kevin Hart doing, this is the rock doing this.

I thought they're just riding that wave. And I don't think that they are, they're not sharing it, but they're definitely have those moments. And I've thought a lot about this because this was like an up and down year for me and in a lot of ways. And I've had to make a lot of decisions that involve a lot of money and just time allocations and things like that.

And it's am I doing the right thing? Am I questioning it? And I started to say, should I just make this decision? Am I overthinking it? And then I realized just going through life, you're always going to potentially doubt yourself and you need to know that, but you can't let it cripple you and be an anchor and hold you into place.

It's more like maybe that's a check point for you to say, Oh, self doubts, creeping in. Why. Am I legit afraid. Am I legit afraid because of rational reasons? No, maybe I need to look back at the data or whatever I'm thinking to push me into this decision. Maybe it's an impulse decision, but that was a big lesson for me.

And it's one I'm trying to even instill in my kids because. I see them do it. they do sports. they'd have challenges there. They do school. They have challenges there. It's Hey, we'll work through this. You can get through this, but you're never going to get rid of it. Forever. Self doubt is real and you're always going to have it.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:14:11] It's a good lesson. And it's a good reminder that the social media and I mean that in all ways, however individuals are showcasing themselves it through media, be it personalized or be it professionalized it glosses over life. Social media isn't life never has been. And as soon as somebody has a microphone in front of them, as soon as somebody has a camera and in front of them, they have a vested interest to make sure that whatever's on celluloid.

It's a nice throwback, but everything whatever's in ones and zeros, these days looks amazing. Feels amazing is everything that you want more. And the individuals you spoke about, I'm sure they have self doubt. I'm sure. The team of assistance and the money. Yeah, he helps. I'm sure it helps a bit.

but at the same time the Buddhist said this, it's not that I don't get angry. I don't react to my anger. It's not that I don't have doubt. I don't react to my doubt. It's that I build the muscle that says I acknowledged there's a part of me that feels scared about this and goes, okay, what are you about?

What's the message here is the message. When Javan was four, he went to go do something. He couldn't do it. And he got laughed at, by a bunch of his childhood friends. And that's this part that speaking up is that this doubt, or is this the doubt that goes. If this fails, you've invested 40% of your life savings and it will take five years to come back.

And that's why it's important to ask and any inquire and explore that doubt. But you're a hundred percent, That doubt exists for very good reason, because there are lions and tigers and bears and doubt is good.

Diego: [00:16:04] Yeah. And it's a lot of people listening to this are. Entrepreneurial like the, either running a business where they want to go down that path.

And I really want to include this for them too, because I think there's this idea that I'm just going to go do this and everything is gonna work. And I've just seen it on my journeys. Sure. A lot has worked a lot. Hasn't worked and I would say, I've been successful at what I've done, but there's still days where I'm like, I don't know if I can keep the wheels on the road this week.

It feels like it could fall apart or big decision a versus B two different trajectories to take me this way or that way so critical. I do think. Trying to rationalize. It has helped me, like you said, a, where is this coming from? Is this just deep rooted fear or is this like something inside saying recheck those numbers again?

Yeah. Look at alternatives, but work through it, but self-doubt is forever. That's one of the big takeaways I had going into this year or coming

in.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:17:06] that's a good one. I like that. number one for me is a 0% day means decay. And of that. and we've riffed on this before in the past, there's only one constant in the universe that constant has changed that con that constant is entropy.

There is always a force pulling us back into our base particles are based, molecules are based Adams. And if we stop and I think this might've been my last year, if we stop best we can do is stagnation. So we're not having any growth, but if I don't move forward on something, That day chances are I've decayed myself back a bit.

And this is very much true for my fitness. If I spend one day where I do not move whatsoever on I'm taking a lounging day, it's this it's that next day is worse for sure. A hundred percent. Life requires input, life requires movement. And what was great about this is as I started to adopt this and really say, okay, how does this play out in reality?

Cause I'm, I've never any Guinea pig of myself. I started to say, okay, let's do 1% on everything. Every single project has to move ahead 1% Monday. And what I found was my tolerance limit. I found where some projects don't fit in. That when I try to move everything forward in 1% in one day, I really do find the outer limits of what I really want to do and what I don't want to do.

And this became a wonderful tool for me to go, what is it on the list that I'm loving and what am I not, what would I push to make sure I get 1% done? And what is I'll get to that at some point. And that really helped me to cleave further projects away from what I'm doing or to cleave. Objectives out of those projects.

I'm willing to build, material, but I'm not willing to, do post-processing or I'm willing to do planning, but this isn't the time yet for this. And it was such an amazing tool. That's now helped me to understand where all of these projects live, because normally I would work in a weekly. Factor where it's like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is life design, land design, Mondays working with students Fridays, usually film work, but I really wanted to see if I tried to move everything forward at 1% on a day.

What did it feel like? And it gave me the ability to really understand what was it, a useful. What am I not really loving? And so this was a nice by-product from this 0% day means decay because I got a sense of what is extraneous, what is superfluous? What is not necessary for me right now? it might be great for future Jeff, and it might be great for job.

In five years, 10 years, I can go on the shelf and sit there and ponder it. Usually once a year during my Christmas mine. My solstice review, but that 0% day means decay has really helped me to on the opposite side, further a lot of things that I was curious and interested about, my physical health, my, diet, my nutrition, my meditation practice.

Just that little tweak again, we're all different. And that was the little tweak that right this year. Yes,

Diego: [00:20:17] 0% day means to K. How do you reconcile that for just is off.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:20:25] Yeah, and that's where it came into this idea of that a day off is a day off, in and of itself. But there are elements within me.

Like the body was this one I kept on coming back to these bodies were meant to move. These bodies were not meant to. Spend a day in bed, even though I love it. And the parts of me that love watching movies and eating in bed and all the rest of it, this happens so rarely. But at the same time, I could feel my body at the end of the day, being like.

I could have gone without that. The body said that wasn't me. I was stoked, but my body was like a mat. So it's just a feedback piece. Yeah, for sure. I take the day off, I'm taking a two and a half weeks off over Christmas and new years. at that time will be off, but I then give my brain something to do.

I give my body something to do. I give my spirits something to do that has no objective. And that's been the interesting thing about this is I've found these places where I need extra. I don't need something with an objective. I need to noodle on the guitar. I need to play with art. Like I've never played before.

I need to switch it up. I can't just have a monoculture of the mental. I need to have a change. I need to move myself forward in a different way. So yeah, it's days off or days off and they're fine. And they're great. But just being aware of that feedback, that when I do get my body 0% movement on the day and getting up and down to grab food is not movement.

I feel it. It is decay.

Diego: [00:21:54] Yeah, no, I like that idea. And just thinking about project management, the, everybody has this project cluttered up either in some sort of piece of software. Or in our head and it's I want to do this. I'm thinking about this. And how long has that thing been sitting at 0% a day.

And you imagine it almost like a chart bar graph in there. Project day, the bar graph 0% days is up at a hundred. It's maybe I should just cut that thing off the list

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:22:21] daughter. And we make so much more progress when we move a percent a day as opposed to, Oh, I did 10% yesterday. I did 10%, four weeks in the future.

That 1% has a accruing interest on it. It has a compounding effect that really produces more capabilities as I go on. and here's the caveat because there's always the other side and sometimes there's not space, sometimes it takes so much to get to a product, but I find this with video editing, it takes so much to get into a project and so much getting to all the footage that I have to work with that it really has to be a Friday, Saturday, Sunday to do the editing work.

But I don't let go of the project in between. It's okay, I've got 30 minutes to work on the doc today. I'm going to outline a few more words. I'm going to outline a few more ideas. So that way the fire doesn't go out. It doesn't die. And if it does die, that's feedback too.

Diego: [00:23:11] there's a lot to be said just for consistency.

And I think we talked about this in a past podcast, somewhere along the way where what's great to do a hundred pushups one day a week, but if you could end pushups seven days a week, like that's better. and I think a physical way and a mental way. So I liked that the idea of consistency, you don't have to push 50% every day on every project burnout.

Then you're suddenly had a lot of 0% days. So I'm trying at least 1% or I'm calling if I need to. I like that one a lot and yeah, go ahead.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:23:46] And if we switch it also means rest doesn't get pushed to Saturday. there's one, 2% breast. Every single day, I get a little bit of a mental break.

I get a little bit of a physical break every day. And that again, changed the conversation. It's

Diego: [00:24:01] weird. That rings very true with my number two, which is de prioritize ultimate productivity for mental stability. So for a long time, I became a productivity junkie of Hey, I'm going to read all about it.

I'm going to study it as software. it's 15 minute blocks, long story short for me that just does not work at all. I've tried the day thing. Like you are. Because I was trying to squeeze out like every minute of the day on a calendar. And if I felt like, I have 15 minutes free. Those 15 minutes should be used to do 1% of something.

And eventually it was like, you hate this thing. You're working on it so much. Or you're sick of it. Or your shark getting, mentally rough, where it's tough to. Shut my day off and go in and be part of the family, like join that job. it's, I become chippy. some little thing on the floor are wrong and you get angry yelling and it's real hard is a work at home parent.

When let's say you have a big business fire, or you're trying to deal with. And then you got to suddenly switch it off and be compassionate. Teddy bear. When you go inside in the span of walking 10 feet through a door, that can be hard. So this year I really tried to sit back, do a lot of, what you are alluding to the 0% project's gone.

Like I'll get to them later. If I need to, the days I have, I'm going to work on what I can, and I'm going to know that. Everything will get done. And that's maybe the hurdle tall of us where in the past it was like, if I don't grind five minutes here, five minutes here. If I don't use every available block, it's not all going to get done well this year I've relaxed it back.

Deprioritized, ultimate productivity. Everything has gotten done. I'm not getting behind the stuff that's not getting done. Arguably didn't need to be done anyway. It was just nagging at me. I think I'm better mentally. I'm somebody who is wired to go sun up to sun, down with breaks. And I want to work most days of the week with breaks, but if I try and do all that without breaks, eventually it just collapses.

And I, there was a point like last year where like I had trouble even one day holding a mouse.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:26:41] Like I

Diego: [00:26:41] couldn't like, why is my wrist not working? I think it was so mentally fried it. My body was just like, shut down, take a day off. And I've done that a lot this year and it's really helped. So I would advise anybody to at least think about if you are pushing from sunup to sundown, because you think you have to, you probably don't really have to, and you'd probably be in the same spot.

In a better way mentally, if you built in some time there, just to read a book, sit in bed, watch a movie and eat, whatever, enjoy the people around you, but it'll all get done. If it has to get done.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:27:27] Shockingly the experiment of the industrial revolution. Didn't and wasn't the most useful way of looking at humans.

The 250,000 years that we genetically stable as homo sapiens and the 0.1% that we've had of the industrial revolution experiment. Shockingly, we're not cogs in a wheel. Shockingly, right?

Diego: [00:27:54] Yeah. But people want to be caused like they, they want to feel, again, this goes back to people pushing content and I don't mean this in a disingenuous way, but there are people that are either the same examples of people who don't have self-doubt seem like they're doing everything in a 20 hour a day.

Our 24 hour day, they're 20 hours busy a day and they're barely sleeping and eating in there. And there's also people that are just productivity people. that's what they've decided to study and push. And it's great, but it's not necessarily a fit for everybody. and I really, again, I doubt if it's a fit for them all the time.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:28:41] It's a church with its own. Built-in devils in hell, truthfully. Like it, it has its own inherent. Backpedals built into it. And we talked about this maybe three or four years ago when I stepped away from productivity completely because I would go and meet friends and they'd be like, Oh my God is jealous of this new podcast.

It's all about the new system of getting more done. I was like, I've never been my desire ever. I like getting things done to be sure, but I like enjoying my life. I only get one of them. Yeah.

Diego: [00:29:14] I, you think about it from a business. You could fall in this trap. Oh, I need to do this and this, my website, whatever on social media, whatever.

And I guarantee you for everybody, that's worried about that. I can find a business with a worst website or social media presence. That's doing better than you. And it doesn't all have to be done. There's a lot of. People prioritizing nice to have as need to have, need to have is, my arm is cut off.

I'm bleeding out. A nice to have is, I want to get this tattoo on this arm. One, you better address now, the other one, if you do it in a year, who cares? It doesn't really matter. But that th that's helped me because I think there's been a lot of times. Where I have been close to the edge of cracking.

And now I'm like mentally aware of art. I've pushed hard. Say it's only Wednesday night. Like Monday, Tuesday, I've pushed hard. I did a lot over the weekend. Like I'm taking Thursday off and I'm not going to feel guilty about it and I'm not doing nothing. But I'm not going to wake up and crank eight hours because if I do a Friday is going to be worse and eventually it's going to all implode and I need to be in the game next week.

Next month, next year, I can't fizzle out now, like one day of just chewed up relaxation. If it keeps me in the game longer, that's what I need at this point. So I am, I'm definitely now a pusher of kind of melding in your, do something every day. Make some progress, prioritize what you need to progress, but also prioritize backing off when you need to be back off.

And we all have different capacities in terms of what we can take

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:31:02] on. Yeah. And we talked about this two years ago, this idea of crystal balls and rebel rubber balls. And so when you're juggling, know what a crystal ball is, your health is a crystal ball. If you drop that's harder to pick up. It may not be in the same shape as when you dropped it.

Your relationships with the people who you love and care for you, crystal ball, your own sense of satisfaction, crystal ball. Business reparable, right? Some friends who are one-way friends, rubber ball, understand the crystal balls. And if you're not prioritizing those and the juggle, and if they drop, there are severe consequences that you will feel or you'll deny as we were talking about before.

that's

Diego: [00:31:43] surprising too, how much work you can do. If you're doing work on one computer and you have, Amazon prime video up on another computer, I do a lot of my bookkeeping when I'm watching a movie and there's a way to lessen the burdensome, but yeah, too much productivity, too tough.

don't burn out mentally. You need to be around. So that was the big lesson for me. Take some time off for mental

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:32:06] stability. That's a good one. That's a good one. My number two is, beware the haters and this has an external and an internal component. I was listening to a, permaculture consultant the other day and they, and there's a few that do this.

They were like, yeah, there's a lot of garbage out there. And that kind of woke me up. I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I wonder if there's a pitch coming and sure enough, it was like, my program will show you the way I just started laughing. I was like, really like this is the, this is where you've gotten to after your however many years that everybody else's is garbage, but mine is the miracle pure.

And it, as I was thinking about it, cause if. If our episodes have shown anything, is that you and I think far too much, I was thinking about it and there's a spectrum of hate. There's a spectrum of hate and Jeff Lawton center, is that the best? if you want to be at war, it's easy to go outside and hate something.

There'll be at war for the rest of your life, but you'll also be wearing blinders because it will inherently blind you to other opportunities and conversations. And so I was listening to this person go, yeah, there's a lot of garbage out there about water harvesting. And I thought, wow, that's a little bit of hate.

That is that's on the spectrum. No, that's on the spectrum of hate and it just clued me in that when there's hate. For me to be where to meet for me to increase my awareness. There's this thing in fire faded and called situational awareness where your head's always on a swivel and you're always looking around, you're always looking for danger and inherently.

That's what happened. I heard that hate and I was like, Oh, something that's coming. And we have the solution for you. it's that false narrative of scarcity, but internally, and this goes back to your first one, be aware of the portions of me that have a bit of hate on, Oh, you're never going to do that.

You're not good enough. That's never going to happen. Like just increase my awareness and go, Oh, interesting. there's a part of me that has self doubt or I feel self doubt inside of me, but don't identify with it. And then to be aware that hate is really hard to self cultivate. It's something that kids have a very hard time cultivating it's usually has to be given by somebody and it has to be fueled by somebody.

It has to be supported and stoked. And that got me thinking more that. to be beware of the haters, my internal haters and my external haters and all the rest of it really allows me to know the source of that pain coming from and to inoculate myself against it, or to build up compassion towards those who are hating.

Cause you know, they're suffering, these are people that won't smile when they're talking, they're just like monotone and they talk like this and this is the thing. And then it's over there and then it's this that's garbage. And then they come back to robot and you're like, Oh yeah, That's interesting.

There's some hate there and to have compassion towards that. So this idea of, but where the haters is, it bumped a couple of my other lessons because, this just happened yesterday as well as that's what I was watching something. And I thought that's really important. That's a really important lesson to learn throughout this year in particular and going into the future.

It's

Diego: [00:35:27] interesting in the time Lauren, because I don't. So I was born in 80 and I don't think I had to grow up with the amount of I'll call it the hate, potential, hate cloud over me that like my kids are going to have to grow up under. And so where would hate be when I grew up? I and I don't mean I was not.

Profile there's no racial thing. Like I'm I get there's those buffets. I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying, Hey, your hair is weird, you're stupid. That type of thing. So you had the typical stuff at school that chain that's still there now, social umbrella right there. Like everything you do.

And some of us subject ourselves to it by putting ourselves out there, whether that's because we are trying to make a change or just because makes us. Thanks us make we're feeling good by saying, now look at me with my pets and somebody. I got pet stupid, but I think, yeah, there is this bubble of hate out there and there's people sitting at home, the COVID situation.

Hasn't helped that at all, where people are just not already not feeling good about their lives and themselves one, let me just go chime in here. Oh, this is, and it's just, I wonder if there has to be more. How to deal with hate teaching to kids growing up. And it's something I honestly, I've probably avoided, like one of my daughters wanted to start a YouTube channel of doing just like crafting.

And I've been very reluctant because I don't know that I want to put you out there, in front of the wolves and let them add her. Or part of me is that's what you just got to go through. When you have to be able to take that. What, like I said, it's a different level today than it was back then.

And people come hard because there's no consequences. It's not her, our neighbor coming over. I know a guy didn't like that video. It's somebody from far away. Just say it though. You're an idiot. Stupid. Why did you waste time on this? Like things on it? I like what you're saying. I like the thread here. It's got me Lincoln.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:37:46] Yeah. And I think it comes back to the fact that, hate is an amputation is a disability. It's a blind spot. it removes sensation, input and sensory input from a person because you inherently are not looking at something or you're looking at something and you're already. Telling the thing that you're looking at, what it'll be, this is this.

So you've closed yourself down. You can't see. And there is inherently underneath every single piece of that. A little tiny kid. Who's so afraid that they have to project that to make themselves feel safe. It has to be this where else. The world's a scary place because they don't have control. So they say, this is this, and this is this, and this is this.

And now I can have some security. Now I've got three points that triangulate myself to give myself a chance pod, instead of opening yourself up to being hurt, opening up yourself to be wrong, opening up your heart. So that way you don't reach out every single time with the mental. You don't reach out every single time with the logical, right?

You don't try to engineer every single situation. You're open to life in all its attributes. And there's a real chance that humanity could go over the cliff because we forgot that we have a multitude of other aspects to our personal, we're not just minds. Yeah. We're not just minds that are supposed to go and say, this is good and this is bad.

No, we've lost the ability to discern that things are the multitude in between and that your daughter going into a YouTube channel that you, which you so well articulated. Yeah. I want to protect you. Yeah. That's going to be out there in the world. you're already showing that multitude and saying, Here's where it could go horribly wrong.

Here's what it could go horribly. here's where it is. And then as a parent of a child, who's not an adult yet. Who's not totally taking on self sovereignty. Here are the options that I have to weigh as a person. But if you approach that from every single negative comment that you ever got through permaculture voices or the conferences or YouTube channels or whatever, There's only be one option.

Diego: [00:40:07] Where do you think I don't want to diverge too much off main course here, but it seems like this hater problem is just, it's a curve upward. Like it's like the Dow it's just gone up and up over the past 10 years. And I don't know how we course correct. how can individuals start to turn this around?

Like, how do you think we deal with this problem?

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:40:35] So my experience of hate my experience of rage is that it is portions of ourselves that are unexpressed, and they've learned the only way to get attention they've learned. The only way to create control or stability in their lives is to be louder, is to be more hateful, is to be more condemning and.

Unless we look past the hate and see the person who's harmed. And that means ourselves, unless I look past my hate to see the parts of me that had been harmed and go, I get you a little guy like this, and this happened when we were young and this, and this was the case. I could see how you're feeling scared right now and do that to our feller, our fellow, Human beings like this consultant I was talking about go and I see the vulnerability there.

We're gonna, we're gonna lose the thread of progress in terms of how do we progress, excuse me, how do we progress as people? And if we boiled that down, because that's a lot of big words, it's just holding each other. it's what none of us got as kids. there's this amazing, amazing psychologist out of Britain, DW, Winnicott.

Who wrote that? The major issue is that the infant wasn't held that in all previous society, these pre agriculture, the infant was held and held well, why there was 150 people. there was no need for that kid to be put down. There was no need for that kid to feel alone. There was no need for that kid, not to find an ear of somebody in the community where they could tell those secrets that were important.

And yet, as we move into agriculture, as we move into the nuclear family, as we move into industrial revolution, as we move into single parents, as we move into orphan parents, we get into this place where kids aren't held almost at all kids aren't held well when they are kids, aren't given the ability to voice those concerns they have as kids.

And so they hold onto them for years and they become adaptation, adaptations and coping mechanisms and all the rest of it. And the number one thing that practice therapy conversations is being held well, they got me, they understood what I was saying. Energetically. It's not my words were heard by the other person, but I felt understood.

And I think what it is that we start to reach out to these people, whoever it is, wherever it is, ourselves, our family, people we meet and say, wow, it sounds like you're really frustrated. What are you frustrated about? And the things, the moments that I've done that to either complete strangers or family members that are only just connecting through social media and Oh, it sounds like you're really angry.

What are you angry about? There's no escalation. That's my favorite part of this. There's just, what do you mean? what's frustrating. You, Oh, the Premier's doing this and that. Yeah. But why does that frustrate you. What is it inside of you that creates friction against, and that opens the gate to a whole conversation because now we're actually trying to hold the person instead of trying to combat the comment or the conversation or the interaction.

Diego: [00:43:57] I think part of the reason a lot of those conversations aren't had is it's like we've gotten ourselves on this busy loop, right? It's always on to the next thing. So somebody says something that might be a hate warning. Like that, they're clearly frustrated and I was just like, ah, whatever.

And you roll on. Cause you think, Oh, I gotta do this next. And I'm probably guilty of this. how many times is that happened? And we just roll on versus saying, Whoa, like, why are you frustrated? use your question there and pause and stop. That means putting our life on hold to potentially help somebody else's.

And it sounds yeah, sure you do that, but I don't think most people do that. I'm not going to say I do that all the time. In fact, I probably don't do that most of the time.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:44:44] Yeah. And I'll just, I'll challenge that it's not putting my life on hold. It's building my life, those moments where I've reached out to people and we're starting to talk now I know that person better than I ever have in that moment.

I get a sense of who they are. And then they're like, Hi, how are you doing? Oh, I'm pretty good right now. If you had asked me yesterday, there's this and this, but now we're actually talking about what's real and alive for you and what's real and alive for me instead of what's the next number in the box, whatever that means is that the next dollar is that the next pound off?

Is that the next mile run is that the next order made is that the next reading taken We have been so metric myopic, we've been focusing on the metrics instead of focusing on the outcomes are good living. The outcome is good life. The outcome is wellbeing. They'll come as reduction of suffering, not the metric that gets us there.

We become so focused on the metrics that we've lost, where we're headed. And this happens in agriculture all the time. Oh, I'm focused on NPK. Oh, I'm focused on pounds in the freezer. Oh, I'm focused on dollars in the bank. Okay, why are you doing it?

Diego: [00:45:58] It's interesting. this also ties into there's a woman. I cannot remember her name who wrote a very good series of books on parenting and goes back to when a lot of kids are angry. What do parents do? They don't let, they don't honor that anger or frustration. I don't like broccoli.

Oh, you like broccoli? Just eat it. Type thing. And it's a little, w why don't you like it? Or, I don't want to go to class today. no, you like class, you and your friends are there? No, I don't want to that. Those are the common responses that come easy as a parent. Like you just shut down.

Give your solution and say you're fine. Roll-on instead of it's okay, this has got you really angry. Why, what's bothering you about this and probably, putting two together. this is probably why we see a lot of this later in life is we had that parenting not due to anybody's fault.

But a Kia came up that way where it's I never got a chance to really express frustration. Somebody just told me like, Oh, you're fine. Move on. Not intentionally, like trying to harm, but then you get older and you're like, nobody's ever, I'm really honored my anger. So I'm just going to lash out and whatever.

So that's something I really do try and. Do as a parent. I can't say it always works, but when somebody is really frustrated, it's wow, you're really angry. You're why are you so angry on kids versus like just some other way to quickly pacify a bribe? just give you time on your own, try and get them talking, try and get them to open up about what's going on and probably applicable from kids through adults.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:47:45] Yeah, absolutely work. we're all the same species. We tend to think that there's this division doing children and adults. And there used to be, there used to be a division. There used to be a division that an adult took responsibility for their emotional state. That was the difference.

Yeah. As an adult, I take responsibility for my emotional state and I don't give it to you and I don't give it to everybody else. I don't try to infect everybody with the worst pandemic that we've ever seen. Which is me giving you my emotional state. And you saying, thank you very much. Now I'm going to take it on as well and on.

Diego: [00:48:17] No, I love this one. and again, this is, we didn't preplan this, but it's tied ties well into my third one, which was, don't argue with crazy and I think crazy can be really substituted for hate and don't become beholden to being right. And a lot of times you just can't change somebody's mind.

so don't argue with crazy stems out of a year where we've seen a lot of crazy, you've had social unrest, crazy theories have came out of that. You had a pandemic worldwide, crazy theories come out of that. Economics have changed all around the world. Crazy theory has come out of that. And certain people are just gonna gravitate towards whatever they think to be their truth.

Some of that. Maybe good information. Some of that's maybe misinformation. I think we're, I, you, any of us as individuals get into problems is when we engage with said person and we invest ourselves into their craziness and we try and change their mind and we try and become, prove them wrong. We try and be right.

And it's this, I forget who said it? I think I heard it on a Joe Rogan podcast one time, but it was like this there's this obsession with people online of trying to be right in online conversations. So you're up late at night, responding to some comment like, Oh, I'm going to prove them wrong. And then you wake up and they've proved you wrong by the time you're back up.

And then you're spending more time and you just get in this cycle of trying to prove each other wrong online. Stupid in and of itself yet we've done it. And I think you said this in a past podcast and I heard it on a, another kind of totally unrelated podcast of just, I don't argue with these people.

They are who they are. They believe what they believe. And like many things in people's minds. You're never going to get them to change their mind. that's who, that's what they believe. So you can either do it for fun, which is maybe, or maybe not ethical engage with them, or you can do it at your own expense or you can just politely.

Yeah. That's interesting. Move on.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:50:44] I think that rice smile that you just gave by saying you could do it for fun. I think that gave away maybe a little hobby. You have

Diego: [00:50:54] not enough. Occasionally I will entertain, but most of the time yet it's because if you think it's crazy, if I think it's crazy and you're talking about it, why am I in this conversation?

What am I better at the end of it? it's one thing. Okay, fine. We're sitting around a fire or something, talking stories. Okay. But to go out of your way to engage in these conversations, like so many people do and just random forums, comments of social media, what's the net gain. Why that.

And why get angry about it? Like you said, where's the hate coming from? So person said ABC formula will be the cure of the virus. It will be the ultimate vaccine. that's BS and I'm pissed about that. why are you so angry about that? make your own choice, do whatever you need to do and just move on.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:51:58] Yeah. Yeah. It's as we were talking about before, I, if there's, if I see an opportunity or if I see somebody that I see going down a, a mental track that I want to help, I'll ask a question about where does that STEM from or what's that about? Or sometimes I just need to hold up a mirror.

I had a friend call me up and, And he's a pretty self-involved fellow and he calls me up and he goes, Hey, I was like, ah, how are you doing? And he goes, so what was the best part of your day? I was like, wow, that's a very compassionate question from this guy. As I'm answering, he goes talking to me.

He doesn't even finish. I'm like the narcissist. I said this to him. I said, the narcissism you show is incredible. And he's just giggling. I'm like, you keep wondering why there's no women who want to be around you and you give me this and I have no romantic interest in you to start off with. And I want to get off the phone earlier and you wonder.

He's ah, ha how are you doing? It's but there you go. I'm not even arguing. I'm just holding up a mirror and being like, Hey, maybe you don't want to talk about yourself all the time. If you're trying to create a relationship and he doesn't even get it. So I completely agree with you a hundred percent.

And the only thing I'll add is that those types of conversations are really bathroom stall arguments. says X. while they're getting rid of everything from the day somebody else comes in, they write something else that goes back and forth. Where's the progress of that? that's the image I always get when I get into a conversation or I see a conversation on a social media wall and it's even worse.

This isn't ones and zeros, maybe somebody in the future, we'll see somebody etching into a bathroom stall, but you'll never have the ones and zeros of Facebook. On no, one's going to take that and digitize that, take that digitization onto a stone and leave it for the ancients to find us in the future.

It's never going to happen. Like what a way. And it's

Diego: [00:53:54] at the expense of something else. if you choose age in that, what are you saying no to, and what really got me on this was, and I don't fall prey to this much. Anymore. But there was one time really sure. Like I'm going to walk with my wife and kids, like on a walk away from the house and, and I'm back and forth.

IgG messaging with somebody basically Tron they're coming at me and I'm trying to defend my point for the whole walk and it's and I got back and I'm just like, WTF. what did I just do? You can't do that, but it's very hard. To not engage until you don't engage for awhile.

Then it becomes actually pretty easy, I think, to not. And you just it's Hey, I'm not checking the comments. I'm not putting myself in there. it's like the addict doesn't go into the bar or, wherever they're peddling product, I'm not going on to that page that I know is, has triggered all over it.

My device to actually communicate. On when I shouldn't even be communicating with people on that device, I should be communicating to people in the real world. I just leave that thing behind, remove your means if you have to. And it's been really good. So that's been a huge thing for me is just really learning and being okay with yeah.

That's interesting, man. But yeah, I guess

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:55:26] the only thing troll I want to argue with these days as the one that lives inside of me. There you go. The only crazy I want to talk to or inquiring to is the one that lives inside of me. Everybody else is crazy. Those are yours. Please keep those. Those are your monkeys.

That's your circuits.

number three for me is one that has been bubbling for a long time. And I've alluded to it a few times here, but that mental. Mental energy as a monocrop. it's a monocrop of the person only approaching life from the mental energy only approaching life from what can I logically rationale? Is a monocrop and we know what happens with crops.

We know the ecological susceptibility of it. We know the fragility of a monocrop. We know everything about it for the fact that four and a half billion years of research and development on our planet. Hasn't produced a monocrop anywhere. And yet, one of the reasons that we get into these arguments and get into these fights is that we think we're battling wits and we're not, people are bringing in emotion.

People are being in spirit and soul. People are bringing in physicality. People are bringing in all these pieces. And specifically in design, this kind of goes back to this consultant. I was listening to. They came to a property with all of this, all of this and diagnostics and all the rest of this.

And they had missed the heart of it. Miss sitting on the land, they had missed being in the space to the point to where they made a recommendation that. I think we'll probably call cause a landslide because instead of saying, if I was an animal here, if I was a tree here, where would I be? And what would I do?

They just were purely on the rational. Just let's tick the boxes. Let's get this, let's get that. This is where this goes. This is the matrix. And I was sitting there going, how many times do I do that? How many times do I approach a relationship with purely mental energy? How many times do I approach a problem with purely mental energy?

And I'm. I was blessed with a little bit of intelligence in my life. And so normally I can brute force my mental energy through a problem almost without fail, but it comes at a cost. It always comes at a cost because if I'm not present to the emotional connectivity or the individuals who are around me, I'm missing out the conversation.

I've lost. I'm already thinking of the next thing I'm going to say, I'm already reading the next thing I'm going to be looking at. I'm not present with that person and we see it all the time. We see it in, you see it in Joe Rogan, you see it when he loses the thread and he's what's the good next question.

Instead of sitting with the experience that he's had with this person, Or the individuals that are across you in a coffee shop, even with masks on and you look at them and you're going, there's no connection, there's no interaction. And so approaching life for me from this mental energy this year, because I've had so much family at home and they've been very good at showing me and reflecting how much I come at the mental with everything and how much.

How much suffering about me because, and what does it present to the people who were helping me with the garden I wasn't present. So the people who are helping me with my life, I wasn't present to their emotional state. I was just like, this has to be done and we have to do it this way. And I lost the thread.

So

Diego: [00:58:54] to be aware of, it's only being aware of. The thought process you have in your mind, that's the monocrop one kind of aid is ed outcome.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:59:06] Yeah. But inherent in that, if I'm going eight, is that's mental to start off with. That's not emotional, that's not being present with somebody. So it's inherently just always turning to this one tool in my repertoire, mental logical, rational, and not realizing that I've lots of other parts of me, parts that want to just be.

Just be in a moment. It doesn't matter if I'm laying in bed or it doesn't matter if I'm sitting and talking with somebody, doesn't matter if I'm Cottonwood. I just want to be, I don't want to be mental. I don't want to think about the right angle to cut the wood, but I can feel it. I have the muscle mermaid enough to move a piece of wood to feel it and go, ah, that's weak there.

I don't even have to use my eyes. I don't even have to use that kind of conversation. And we've lost that. I think I was born in a society that was already valuing mental energy, and I was born with mental energy. Shockingly enough. That's usually how ecology works and now it's my work. To build up the other sides of me to give more ability to the other sides of me.

So that way I ended up as a well-rounded human and not just a walking body with this massive brain on top, that sure can logic anything but misses the plot of the conversation. Am I

Diego: [01:00:20] going to be, I think pretty guilty of this, just going at the task at hand and always looking forward to the next thing and in missing.

Yeah. I guess the experience, the journey of it all, where it's just a to B, but then they get in this loop of is that my journey? is my journey for me, like where the juice comes from, just aid is adding it as many times as like I can aid. Is that it? And if I'm into that,

is that. Is that wrong? this is something I've gotten. this was an alternative reason I had, like what is fulfillment? Like I'm not after just achievement. Like I get the difference between fulfillment and achievement. It's not just, I don't want the awards. Like I want the journey, but if the journey is say honing in on.

stuff you're really into your business. And you're not somebody who sits down with friends and you're not somebody who sits at a coffee shop and you're not somebody who, does other things that may be some more communally minded people would say Oh, you should do that stuff.

Is that wrong? I've lost some like for me, unwinding isn't necessarily always. Sitting down and, whatever, having a drink and watching the sun go down for me, it might be having that drink and hyping up emails. So I hear you like, I hear you, but I also wonder where's the line. When is too much.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:02:07] I would say the line is. If you're questioning, if you need to be all mental energy and it's only your mental energy, that's saying nuts to this noise that's feedback. Cause that's a rational, logical response. And this is the thing I've learned over the last couple of years. And I've had so many great teachers.

Who've just been so generous and kind and patient with me who continually point that out. And I've had the exact same arguments you have. what if I just enjoy it? Great. Go for it. But do you have the optionality to step into that other way of being, or to invite that being in or to understand that it's not an on-off switch?

And I realized it didn't I realized they didn't have that connectivity. I realized I didn't have that ability to slip into a smile. I didn't have that ability to slip into the moment. I didn't have that ability to slip into the conversation that was present to me instead of the email that I had in my head of the project I was walking towards.

And that part of me that was like, but this is who I am, and this is what I like. And this was, I've come to realize it's whenever there's a strong opinion inside of me that says, this is you. That's the part that doesn't want to change. That's a part that doesn't want to lose authority over me or sovereignty over me and yet, and we'll go to this at the end.

This is my wrap up when I'm in center and I choose that energy. There is a completely different relationship with it. There's a difference between that energy coming and grabbing my steering wheel being like, now we're going here now. We're going there. And there's differences between, ah, I want some of that logical energy right now.

That'd be great. And choosing that allows me to funnel it just like a rocket engine. how we got into that rocket engine, where it comes in as an hourglass. If I will, we can focus it. Cause that mental energy left unbridled is hyper destructive, because that's really where we get into painting a landscape with a certain pattern.

It's the mind that does that. It's not the body. The body feels the landscape. First time I had somebody teach me about inflection points. It was walking on the tips of your toes and then coming to your flats and coming to your heels. And then you walk up and down and up and down and up and down. And I saw it in my own eyes and I saw it in my student and my classmates eyes and were like, what are we ever gonna use that?

Are you out of your mind? Literally? Being in and feeling a landscape is probably the most interactive you could be instead of, Oh, I've seen the contour map. Great. the map is not the territory. What are you going to do now? And that's where I've gotten lost this past year and years, previous and decades previous.

And I apologize to all the people who only got mental Jabin and then all of a sudden emotional Javon showed up and they were like, who is this? Double-sided triple side. I'm just getting another face. I'm just getting another face instead of being a fully integrated person with all of these different facets to me.

And so that's not me. Condemning you or your parts or anything else? It's just me responding that I've had those parts come up and go. Yeah, but that's me. And so now when I'm like, you know what I want to do tonight, Tetris and star Trek, that's what I want. I'm like, okay, great Tetris and star Trek. It is, or I want to work on a project from now until 2:00 AM and just go deep.

Cool. But if somebody walks in to wish me good night, I'm like, okay, great. I've lost something. I've missed an opportunity there. That was about connection. And that's the point for me?

Diego: [01:05:47] Yeah, I think that's a good one. one, one analogy. I have two that are similar experience would be around bedtime. when you have kids, I try and preserve the sanctity of bedtime.

And for awhile, it was like, it's kosher. So I'm 10 years deep into this for, so the curve has been, it was good and then it got bad. And now I think it's been pretty good again, but it would be at that point where bedtime would come and it's not a flipping, a light switch where the light switches on the light switches off.

it happens quickly and it happens like. A to B we switch right away. when you do a kids going to bed, it's, you're going over a mountain and coming back down the other side and they might creep back up over the mountain along the way. So it's not, it's a process. Not a, no, it just happens.

And during that process, it'd be like, damn, I like, I gotta go. I got. Stuff to do, come on, let's move on. We're wasting time. Okay. We were wasting time. so dad could do one stuff that he can't name today, stuff that probably isn't relevant today. Stuff that, if we could go back and watch that video of what I did with that time.

Nobody's watching it zero views, a thousand. Nobody cares about that video. And it just got me thinking, what's the point of it's like that first thing I said of deprioritize ultimate productivity of like, why rush bedtime for an extra five minutes? What's the trade-off for you? And everybody. Yeah. So these start to think externally.

It's not just me, it's also them like, so I'm not just looking at this in a bubble. And at the end of the day, the trade-off is basically

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:07:51] you

Diego: [01:07:51] give up some amounts, like some bag that we can't see the bottom of it's an iceberg. You give that up to gain, some little tiny, like the crappy candy that they give away used to give away.

When you could go into restaurants at the front, that would be there. that's your takeaway? You get that. Or you get this big bag of stuff that might be huge and might last forever. Which one do you pick it? And too many of us, I think we'll make the quick one. It, and then even I started to feel guilty about it.

you're doing your thing. And damn, I find myself go back up and trying to redo what I had cut out short on. And now it's if I should have just spent the proper time in the zone, in the mindset, get it done. Or more importantly, did that stuff have to be done. Could I have done it earlier.

Why am I leaving that stuff for that point in time? Anyway, like it's just poor planning, but I am with you when you trade an unknown multitudinal experience for something that is just a check box on a piece of paper. Though most of the time, those are probably losing transactions and they, if you add them up over life, they're exponentially losing.

It's not a one plus one, it's a one plus two plus four plus eight, up for you and others where, you got your check boxes. Most of the time, that's for you, but this other exponential loss. how many people you live with that's trickling down to them. So one of the things I took away from that, so thank you.

another thing that I've learned this year lesson, this is more of a business one, but I think it can be applied to a lot of things. You probably see it in life design, but it's this idea of bail early, not late relationships, businesses projects. I think it's always better to stop. Not always most of the time, better to stop early than hang on too late.

There's some, one thing I've really gotten into is there's this coach in football down here, bill Belicheck, that arguably one of the greatest football coaches of all time. One thing he does as a mantra is he will move on from players. Before it's too late. He'd rather move on too early than too late.

And you start looking at a lot of businesses that when they take on projects, ones that cling to these projects tend to suffer. Xerox, my mom worked at Xerox in the late nineties. They clung to developing a digital camera and all this other stuff and just down Kodak, same way from where I grew up.

And you've got to get out of these things are only relationships that are bad. Thinking we can change them, if they didn't feel right from the start, get out early, and also tying into that. It's there's this idea of a lot of times we're bailing on our ideas and you can't fall in love with an idea just because it was your bad idea.

And I think we do that too much.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:11:20] Yeah. That's well said. That's said my way of saying that has been I'd rather get to a quick, no than a, no, that took a divorce. I'd rather get to a no at a point where there was a deal breaker and unbreakable of, values and compatibility. this just isn't a good fit.

then have to dredge up all of that work when it's finally done and let it be done. So I think the bail thing is where I get hung up because for me, there's definitely a, there's a connotation in my mind about, what obligation something about bail is like I'm bailing on obligation, but definitely the idea of I'd rather get to a note early than late.

And the work that we've talked about good fit really comes into that. pre-mortems are awesome. Say no before you start. That's great.

Diego: [01:12:09] Sometimes I see that in business. there's so there's different tools that we're developing right now. And you run numbers initially. You have thoughts on what it's going to take to make it happen.

And then you just see as you get into it, like there's nothing here and keep going down that R and D engineering route that's cost and money. You're paying for materials. You're paying for time. And at the end of the day, if it turns out to be nothing. you would have been better off having that a long time ago, but sometimes, I'll find myself saying, there's probably one project.

I'll eventually name this after where it's I feel like I'm imposing the solution right. On the market, not the market, suggesting that it has a problem that I need to provide a solution for. And it's, you're pushing this forward and it's You gotta let it go. there's nothing here.

Stop dragging it along. it's better to spend a few dollars, like you said quickly and get out and spend a whole bunch of money and realize, man, what did I do? Because sometimes that can be very hard to recover from. So business life concept get out early, not late. Also. I've seen this in relationships.

Where I've had, where it's stuff I've thought I should have done early on. I should have done it early on. I ended up doing it later and it was just more mentally, financially costly to do it later. I should've done it straight away.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:13:40] Yeah, I had, I had a good phone call with a client.

I've worked with a number of times in the past a farmer on the East coast and they're expanding, they're doing a multi farm CSA model and he called and he was like, I really I'm expanding quickly. And I need good counsel and making these decisions. And, I'm always thrilled when people come back cause it's beautiful to build on the relationship and him and his then girlfriend decided to not work together on the farm that led them to being able to get married because we went through the context and the values based decision making.

So there's lots of forms with us with this individual. And they said this rate at the very end of the conversation when I said so, so what's really driving you here. And he said, making decisions about what decisions need to be made is where the defendants pay off a thousand. And I think I inherently, of course I do.

I inherently believe that because that's the work I do. But knowing the decisions you need to make and the ones you don't need to make, knowing where to club the fat from the meat, so to speak, man, is it an important skill to have? and if people don't have it's one to invest in.

Diego: [01:14:45] Yeah, make it. And it's one that you're probably going to have to learn in the school of hard knocks. Like it's going to cost money and people listening to this running businesses want to start a business. Like you're going to have to spend a lot of bad money getting a good education. There's no other way.

You're not going to make every decision. No matter how, like you said, Hey, we have this solution for you in ABC course or ABC book. they're not all going to work. You're going to have to flub up and make those mistakes and really try and find what works for you? Where do you have a bead on things?

I think I've, I feel like I've developed an intuition of all right. This makes sense. I understand the processes of production that need to go in to make this happen. I can really now say, yeah, that's not a fire. That's not for me. And then sometimes. people bring you this, let's say you can't eat gluten.

And somebody brings you this amazing cake and it looks so good. And it's like the perfect flavor combination. And you're like, should I eat it or not? There's gluten. And I know there's gluten. I want to eat it where you get to this thing where it's great job. That's cool. Not for me.

Not less. That's not what we do. sorry.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:16:04] But. Yeah, said, number four for me is, is one I'm probably going to get flack for it, which I'm excited about and it's a triggers come loaded. So there's a lot of talk these days about being triggered and triggering and things of that nature.

And, we talk about this, but when you think about it as an image, what do you see? And this is from, A mentor of mine, Dr. Gabber Mateo who's is written in the realm of hungry ghosts. And when the body says no, and really is changed the way that people think about addictions. But when you look, when you think about that triggering image, like what is it?

You look at a weapon and the trigger is just a really small part of the mechanism. I guess just it's a small part, but what is it really? it's a weapon that's loaded, it's ready to fire. It's got explosives of it. There's ammunition and that's you that's me. And we see, we hear, we say something and it triggers us.

And in society, we say we shouldn't trigger people, but actually what should we be considering should look at these triggers as tiny, any little things on what we should be looking at is the loaded gun, the ammunition we all carry. and we're also afraid to look at, and this was reveled Tory for me to realize that when I'm sparked, when I'm upset, when I'm frustrated, That's me.

I came loaded. It was a bam. I brought all the potentiality to that reaction. It wasn't the person across from me, When I was listening to this, consultant. And they said those things, I had that inside of me to have that reaction. Wasn't them. When I experienced with a client. And I hear them going well, how dare they?

And what's wrong with them. They came to that situation complete. And so it's important for me in this situation and in all situations to remember that triggers come loaded. And if we want to disarm to look at the loaded piece, to look at the explosive piece, to look at how the weapon so to speak was put together.

Cause that's where the progresses that's where. The metabolism is that's where you can take in this thing that we've all said is wrong, bad, whatever, and we can metabolize it. We can take it into our cells and we can build ourselves up better than before. It's whole idea of that. There's fungi and bacteria in places like Chernobyl and hot heat vents that have learned to metabolize some of the most volatile elements we have on the planet.

that's where real evolution and growth leads. Oh, Hey, you just said this thing to me and a part of me wants to punch you in the face,

Diego: [01:18:57] right? yeah.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:18:59] And metabolize that. What if I looked at that? What if I accepted that? What if I worked with that? Not what if I shoved that down? Shout out, told him to take a long hike off a short pier.

But what if I used that trigger? What if I use that warning flag and say, Oh, that's interesting. There's probably some gold underneath here. There's probably something I can mind here and learn about myself and learn about you and learn about us and learn about the world. So triggers come loaded became this Axiom over all of that.

That is, has become a hallmark in the work I do on land. And also in life. Cause when you're on land and somebody goes, Oh man, I hate those trees are not an underdog. And you were sitting there and going, Oh, that's interesting. What's that about? What do you mean? Why do you hate those trees? Oh, when my dad's father's brothers, like it's always a story has no context.

I think all we're doing is learning that context is never the same and we just, we like carrying over stories because it makes us feel safe.

Diego: [01:20:01] I love that to say, just start, if you think about, just a lot of what you and I have talked about, are just, are we at a point and I'll say we meaning like everybody, we just react too quickly. Like we don't try and look at that context. Somebody says something, it's a little bit off of what we think, and we're just, Whoa.

on top of them or we say something, somebody is on top of that, but there isn't any of this slow down, like I think that's totally Corona virus vaccine, right there, trigger warning. Half the people listening to this are like, NFW and the other people are like, yeah. Okay, fine.

Great. Won't. Bright there's valid, maybe concerns and worries on both sides. What's the other side actually concerned about? What did w what value do they need to say? And I think Neil deGrasse Tyson said this once, and I really liked it. And it was this idea of what's. What's one thing about this that you believe that if I proved it wrong, it would change your mind on this.

And I think that can be used here. So it's a trigger warning about these trees, like you said, or whatever, or they know they're just massively invasive. What if I showed you a sterile version of this tree? Do you have a problem with this tree anymore? this whatever, but I think it is it. I. I think you mentioned this many years ago on a podcast.

it's interesting, right? Like you have to do more digging. Somebody says something instead of being triggered it's like up trigger has been armed or the button, the red button under the little dome. It's now blinking green blinking. I can either lift it and push and launch. Or I can say, Whoa, what?

Just set that off. What's going on here? Why am I doing that? and I know it sounds crazy, but maybe they're a little bit, And maybe I'm a little bit wrong. Could that even possibly be instead of just Bullshit. Sorry.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:22:28] Those are great. Those are great. and to add to that, Scott Adams, the Dilbert comic artist, he has this great thing cause he gets into a lot of Twitter battles.

He loves him and he has this thing. He's I want you to tell me one thing you believe about me. That's true. And almost always the thing that the person believes about him that they think is true is not true. And so he self-corrects these individuals who are getting angry at him because he believes this.

And through that process, that dividing process. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. You get to a place to where they understand that it's a contextually based argument in a process and they go, Oh, okay. now I get it instead of, Oh, this is the thing. Cause I've got all this baggage, this ammunition I brought with me and it comes back to mental energy truthfully and my good buddy, Brandon borrower, mentor, colleague of mine in farming and land design, he said it best.

And I always go back to him. He's a really wise guy. He said, the best way to approach a property, the best way to come on to a landscape is. From about two and a half feet tall, but six years old and being like, what's happening here, what's happening over here. And what's that about? What's this about what's happening over there?

Why is that doing that? And it's the same thing with working with people in life design, why do you believe that what's that over there and why do you make those decisions and how does that make you feel? it's the same energy and I can tell you this, my, that energy is a non mental energy.

It is a purely curious. Spirit that just is like curious and looking and understanding, but not diagnosing. You see the difference. It's not analyzing thought, diagnosing kids, curiously exploring.

Diego: [01:24:09] and one, one example of that could be, you don't see the summit itself, but that's what what you sell is too expensive.

And it's I can say, fine, you're poor or whatever, move on. but you don't, it's okay, why does this person think this? And I have to do this. Am I not communicating the value? Are they seeing something may an equality or perceived value that. That I think is communicated, but isn't, what's the disconnect.

I see it on YouTube, I'll post a video and somebody will leave a comment and it, and before it'd be like this person's just a hater. that was my. That's how I absolved myself of this, but now in doing the more videos in the new podcast, somebody says something it's okay, there's obviously this preconceived belief out there with at least this one person, probably more that they think such and such is true about this thing in the soil.

Okay. W why do you think that, where you reading this? Show me where you're reading that first step. Okay. are we, is this person just pulling it out of air or are they like they actually onto something? And maybe I need to then read that, talk to that person, the source person, or maybe I need to find somebody who is definitively show them like this isn't true, but it does go to show like, Yes, that triggers loaded.

And you can let it explode and have this mutual destruction, or if you're the one being, who could potentially trigger back from you trigger somebody, they want to come back, you could potentially make growth for both sides, right? Like somebody, at some point, it's got to step up and say, I'm going to disarm this.

And we're both going to grow because of it. I'm going to get soft, open, help, better what I'm doing. And help me because obviously if you said something and trigger somebody, like you said something they didn't like, or in a way or a tone that they didn't like, maybe it can be better about that. Sometimes it is just tone or the exact verbiage you used and you just need to correct those things.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:26:18] Yeah. It's normally not what you say. It's who says it. It's what part of you says it and what intonation and in what way, and this goes back to one of the lessons from last year I gave, which was used everything. In my example was I put out that basic fire documentary and somebody said, yeah, too bad that you didn't talk to anybody in forestry.

So I did the woman who has 40 years of forestry not trigger you to think that they were in forestry. And yet that was an opportunity for me to go, Oh, interesting. There's probably a whole sector of society that if there isn't a man in a forestry, role in this film are going to discount the film. That doesn't mean that I need to pander to those people.

It doesn't mean that I need to. To do that, but it also means that if I'm going to end this is either something. Yeah. it's something I've said many times in a podcast. I don't know if it ever came back. Somebody that's going to speak to gorillas. We grill gorilla knees. And if you're going to convert a whole bunch of loggers to the idea that you're producing into a video.

You may want to use like-minded individuals who, when they look at they're like, that's me, I'll listen to that. Instead of seeing this amazing woman who's done incredible work and forestry and being like, she's not in logging,

Diego: [01:27:32] it's totally true. And I saw this around the whole George Floyd situation and people were reasonably outraged, but I felt like a lot of the people that were outraged.

This is going to be, this is a trigger warning right here. could have, if they want to get some of their frustration and anger across there has to be different ways of voicing that to different audiences. And just because you scream one message to one group. You can not assume that every other group is going to hear that you are doing your cause a disservice.

If you can't find a way to get what you believe across into the brain of the people you're trying to communicate it to. And it is it's that gorilla ISA, you have to speak that language and you saw that a lot around there and. I don't think it's easy for people to do because it's, Hey, here's how I feel.

I'm saying it as clear as I can. Why are you not getting it? Not, I'll find this homeschooling, go through it this morning with my daughters and math. I'm trying to explain it to one of them one way and she's not getting it. So I can just keep saying do it this way, do it this way. And then it's okay, how else can I explain this?

In a totally different way, using different words, different examples that maybe it gets through find some YouTube videos. Maybe she needs to hear it from somebody else. Maybe it needs to be some animated thing to get it across, but it's not landing the way I'm saying it so I can blame her for not getting it or I can blame me for not communicating it in a way that she can tune in and listen.

So she actually gets it.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:29:32] Yeah. Yeah. I definitely understand the example with your daughter. I think when it comes to individuals or portions of society that have been oppressed repressed, or under the threat of violence or coercion for as long as African-Americans have, or as long as for stations have, across any country.

There's also a responsive enough's enough and rage. Sometimes it's not about communicating sometimes. It's about saying, we're done. We're not doing this anymore. We're not going to have this experience anymore. And it's about expression. And maybe there's conscious thought through the expression of rage that gets to a place, but.

Yeah, I would hazard, I personally, I would hazard to say, I know what that experience was like for those individuals. Cause I don't, I just, I don't have an experience with that, but I see what you're saying. And, having worked with a couple of Rachel holics now and having worked with a couple of first nation folks, There's just so much unexpressed as there is an all of us, but maybe more, at least for them and their experience more.

So it's hard to say like my, an expression and their expression and give it an apples to apples. But what I know. At least today, and I'm sure it will change. But what I know today is that most of our issues come from unexpressed. One comes from saying, Oh, there's this part of me. That's feeling this way.

And instead of expressing it either personally or societaly, or what have you, it builds and you start feeling, you start feeling it's disowned, you start feeling shameful for it. And then it finally comes out under pressure. And if you've ever had anything come out under pressure, In the way that it shouldn't have without a relief valve, but explosive there is damage underneath that process.

And, and it'll damage anything in its path, including the vessel that it came from.

Diego: [01:31:38] I think it's well set. I'm with you. I, it's tough. With a lot of these issues where there are longstanding generational, deep rooted emotion tied to it. and how do you blend getting that out with a way that's heard in way, the way the change. and I know there's a lot of great people working on that, but it's just something I did.

I did observe there. And I think it just requires us to be better listeners too. where it's like, Whoa, okay. This came out real hard. You're really frustrated. I'm not going to give you a solution, but I want to hear why it came out like this. And that is hard. I think, the biggest thing I learned through all that was

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:32:34] the

Diego: [01:32:34] power of.

Listening instead of solution providing,

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:32:44] going back to the mental men, like the mental is the solver, the mental listens for information to solve, but coming at somebody with an energy that's not mental. That's. I want to hold a conversation. I want to hold the expression. I want to be there to hold. Whatever comes, rage, frustration, anger, depression, and my experience with working with folks that then gives the other person the sense of being held and then drops.

The externalized, risk that is being believed or the internalized risk that's being believed in all of a sudden it's Oh, these parts that we're so worried about not being heard and not being expressed or not being valued are having all of those things happen. Without words being spoken, see energetic, man.

It's I'm with you. And that's something that I have had to learn because I wasn't taught, I wasn't taught that energetics exist. And yet of course they do. You sit with somebody in there with you, whether or not you feel it as much as my brain has tried to be like, ah, that's not true. It's every time you have a conversation, you feel it.

Diego: [01:33:51] Yeah. Yeah. No, that's it. That's it. So I brings us up to. My five. And this is one that, I had 20, 20 is a good year to stick this under, but it's something that in 2020 is a year where my first daughter, she'll turn 10 very shortly. So it's like this decade thing. And it seems like just a blink ago, she was born like where did 10 years ago?

And. So my fifth lesson is this idea of the days are long, but the years are short. And I think if there's anything, like if there's a one message I would ever want to communicate on every podcast I do going forward it's to parents about the rapidly depleting reservoir of time you have with your kids.

Cause it would be extremely easy to take for granted. And some days you feel like, man, I've been up since four it's, eight, o'clock go to bed. I'm done until one day the kids are gone and like you, you don't have those days again. And with my daughter being nine, if you just let's say she follows the typical path of like at 18, you go do what you do.

I'm halfway like half that sand and that jar is gone. Never to return. It is blown away. It's only left his memories here and in her, which is cool. And I don't, I'm not, I've also learned not to live too much in the past and dwell much on the past, because I think you can miss that the future by focusing too much on w was, but if you have kids or even if you don't, if you think there's always tomorrow and the next day, and I have all this time, yeah.

I'm going to, at some point, realize that all the time you have. Is actually had, and it's in the back of you never to return and just seeing kids get bigger, like it's extremely emotional for me to see that it, it has made me slow down. It's made me de prioritize, like I said, And take time to not do stuff that is relatively insignificant over the course of an 80 year lifetime and do stuff that is more significant over the course of multiple lifetime, meaning mine and theirs

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:36:51] and

Diego: [01:36:51] do that.

So it was a lot of days this summer of just going in the pool for four hours at a time. Hanging out with them

at first, because I was like, I got to do this, but then it became like, that's what I want to do. This is what it is all about. And I feel like I squeezed every drop out of it. And I think I'm going to leave 2020 saying yet all that sand that came out, most of it I'm okay with it going out there.

Wasn't a lot of wasted sand that flowed through my fingers there. So I touched at least most of it. And if you can touch most of it and you are at least conscious about it, then I think you're in a good place. But as an entrepreneur and a parent, it can be very easy just to say, I'm busy, get the day over, but too many days over.

And like kids are, all kids are gone. So the days are long. But the gears are short respect each minute for what it is. it's more valuable than anything because it's actually depleting, right? Like you never get it.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:38:11] That's beautiful. And how the heck am I supposed to follow that up? Dirty?

That's a beautiful man. That's beautiful. it's such a nice reframe of will overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year. Realizing that. Those connect those connections. And that brings us back to that mental piece. It's like the connections you had that were beautiful with your kids were probably not mental are probably connected as a bad connected as trying to raise people.

And then sometimes just being with them and seeing their joy and seeing their sorrow and being there with them.

Diego: [01:39:05] It's it's one of the reasons I've chose to homeschool our kids. It's, that's a lot of time. It's okay, we can stack functions here. They can learn. I get to spend time with them.

And there is something I think about just I don't have to be sitting in the same room as, or I don't have to be in front of them, like us playing a game and us talking to get that fulfillment. I'm sure you have people like this in your life. You can be in the room, reading a book and they're doing, whatever they're doing in the same room, but you're in the same room.

there's still that energetic field. They're like, we're not separated. We are together and that's been important, but I just, I see other parents. And this is not the labeling. I'm like I get people have to do what they have to do to survive. And I'm probably very fortunate, but I think, maybe that's engineered fortune, like in terms of this is how I went to design my life and I had to make a lot of changes to make this happen, but a lot of people are.

Like I see parents who work for them, like their goal is that their career and pursuing whatever it is they're pursuing. And I guess that's great. But I asked the question, that's interesting. Why is that? Why are you not more into your kids? And it's just, I can't comprehend that like that. That blows my mind.

And if you wrap up a lot of what you and I have said by being present by looking at this time with children, I think you can avoid a lot of these issues that we've talked about. Cause they come up a little, it's not guaranteed, but if you're consciously spending time with kids, you probably have a better mindset than somebody who is yeah, whatever, do whatever I'm busy.

I'll get to you later. Like you're going to raise somebody who's better. Probably just by default,

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:41:21] just by default. It reminds me of, some of my favorite, growing advice. Plants are the by-product of good soil. No. what are the systems that we invest in that just create positive production, positive results, positive positivity, simply, James Claire said it best in his atomic habits books.

we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our system. So if your system is. The days are long, the years are short. I'm going to value the moments I have with my children before they turn 13 and want nothing to do with me. And they're still in the house for five years, then I'm inherently, that system is going to build connectivity between me and them by default.

Diego: [01:42:18] Yeah. And you say one thing there, right? Like I hear a lot of parents say this when they become a teenager and they don't want anything to do with me and I. So I'm on that fringe, right? Like I can go in thinking that, or I can try and actively cultivate something that's different.

I can say that's a predisposed belief. And that is what it is. Or I can say Hey, you're a teen. Like I realized there's other things going on. Like it's a developmental time in life, but should I, as a parent say, that's just the way it is. I can't do anything about it. Or mum I, part of me is the stubbornness and may is going to say I'm going to put up a fight against that in a nurturing way.

Like in a way that in a way that listens in a way that doesn't trigger, you know?

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:43:11] Yeah. But I think it's more than that. I think that's what I was trying to get at. And I think I came off a little too breasts, but. It's that you've cultivated the relationship to the point to where it might be a choice for them.

How much do I want that involved or do I want him more involved? Do I trust him enough? Is this more connected? is the fact that you think about these things you actively think about your parenting. You're actively think about the relationship you have with your child's. You actively look at the time that things that are rubber balls take away from your crystal balls that make you eligible.

For potentially a different story and a different narrative, or even eligible to question the narrative to start off with, which then of course makes you eligible for yeah. I had a great relationship with my kids all through their lives. Yeah. I had moments where I wanted to throw it out the window, but they bounced and they came back right back.

So that was great.

Diego: [01:44:02] Yeah. if, and look at my life, like I do my life, I chop it up by decades and we will throw anything before 20 is Men, right?

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:44:10] we're so sorry if you're below 20 right now, this is coming from a certain standpoint.

Diego: [01:44:18] But if I look at say 20 to 30 in my 30 to 40, or if I didn't go in five-year increments 20 to 25, I wish I had approached life at 20.

Like I did from 35 to 40. And I feel like I do today. I feel like I left a lot on the table. Like I think those years, a ton of sand just fell out of that glass,

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:44:47] but you could also say that's the only reason you're able to see it now is because you let it go. Then, the only reason you've got this year, plus every year beyond that is going to have value to that is because you had that wasting.

If you had it,

Diego: [01:45:01] you probably wouldn't. You wonder, right? Like it, is that justifying? is that me? Is that just saying Hey, that's just, that's how it is. Like it's eight because that's how it is. Or is that truth, did you need that to arrive here? And should I be saying well, Hey, I found that out at 35, not 55.

I still wish I had those years back.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:45:26] The nice things is that's how it ended up. So similar to your first initial question is you can either look at what you had and said, thank God I had it. Or you can look at what you had and said, why didn't I have it earlier? And one leaves you wanting, and one leaves you moving forward.

Like one leaves you push. Looking backwards being like, why did name one makes you go look at all the sand. I haven't.

Diego: [01:45:50] yeah. that's it's like, what can I do now? And I can do the best I can do

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:45:56] with

Diego: [01:45:56] what we have. And I think there is this, I think everybody has this jaded view of the past anyway.

Like it was always a little better, maybe a little worse than we imagined. I don't know that anybody would really want to go back and live through. Big blocks of time in the past, in their life. So yeah, the time you have move forward, the days are long, but the years are short.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:46:22] Wonderful. So this last one, I'm not totally satisfied with my wording on it, but

the least amount of effort. Comes from repositioning and center. And when I look at everything that's happened in 2020, the times that I was able to remain centered myself, the times that I was able to experience the parts of me, that felt a certain way, the parts and other people that felt in a certain way.

And I get carried away with what they thought or I thought or anything else. But the parts, the times that I was able to remain center and just. Be centered. I had the most amount of options possible. I, the most amount of moves possible. They talk about it in chess, control the center of the board. Why?

you have vantage towards the entire board to talk about it and go control the center of the board. They talk about it in squash, back to the T. Get back to the T one step here, anywhere in the court, right? You have the option. You have the highest amount of optionality. If you stay centered. And in this year, the practice that I've given to staying center, the practice I've given to my meditation, my mentality, my mindset, my emotions, my body, and my physicality, my relationships, anything that has helped me not be one sided.

Not be backed into a corner where all I have is out, but to be in the center and have that optionality, I've had the best time, the times that I've been there and somebody didn't show up on time and they're like, Oh, I'm so sorry. And there was a part of me that was like, I want to roast you alive. This is the fourth time this has happened.

But instead I said, what's going on? And they were like, what do you mean? I was like, it's not like you, it's been four times where you've been late and I'm just like, I'm curious, like what's happening in your life. And it's yielded a relationship out of an acquaintanceship. Wow. all I had to do was not presuppose, which is again, being backed into a corner.

And the only way out is through which is the situation in squash, which is the only game that I continually played throughout my entire adult life is when you're in that corner, you only have one way to drive and a good player will block that and put the ball in the other quarter. You got no place to go and that's what has happened.

I think. Globally. I think that's what's happened nationally in both of our countries. definitely provincially in my province in British Columbia and then my home province of Alberta. There's been a lot of pushing people into corners or pushing ourselves into corners with no option with a false sense that there is no other option.

There is another option. Get out of the corner and go to center. And then reevaluate. I had a client call me the other day. They had talked. I really liked this type of feedback. They'd gone into social media. They said, Hey, I need some help in designing my life and my business, who should I talk to?

And there was like four different sponsors and they all said, Oh, you should talk to job and you should talk to the job. I'd never met this person. They call me up. I get the questions that I ask them. We got on the call and I'm like, how's it going? And this young woman goes not great. And I said, Oh, what's going on?

you probably don't want to hear this, but I just got diagnosed with, is that Oh, that's heavy. How does that feel for you? And she takes a step back because she's surprised I'm asking this type of questions. She goes, wow, feels daunting. wow. It's Oh, should we have this conversation?

And you yeah. You move right back and be like, what do you mean? I said, When you're sick or when you have something going on, it's important to get all of your attitude and all of your focus and everything to that recovery. And you're coming to me to take a look at business and life and, that's out there.

Like maybe we should have this conversation in a couple of months when you find some footage. Oh, And she had obviously she, at any point up to our call could have been like, no, this is, I need to do this for me, but she didn't and that's fine. But here she comes coming to me and sometimes people ask me like, you don't turn anybody away.

And it's I turn a lot of people away for a lot of reasons. And this was one of them. She wasn't coming from center. And the best thing I could do in life design is give her an option to not have the call, not give her another Oh, I have to do this now. Plus I have to manage my health. And it goes back to something I said to you years ago, which was, there's values based decision making, but there's also the Spartan decision-making method that the Spartans supposedly had.

And after any decision it's, what can I do for my health? What can I do for my family? What can I do for my business and what can I do for my leisure in that order? And going back to one's health and going back to one's family is centering oneself. Because that's where the most optionality lies. That's where the most, that's what the least amount of distance needs to be traveled to go someplace.

And this one really, for me, wraps up the other four into this bundle of 2020, where my direct family, my two bonus daughters, my amazing partner, my mother, my brother, all these individuals being centered with them has yielded the most amount of options, judging them before they get on the phone call or before I see them or say, Oh, you should have done this narrows my options.

So this coming back to center has been such a nice touch stone to come into anything and to acknowledge, Oh yeah. I'm frustrated about this, but I'm going to walk this from center now.

Diego: [01:52:08] How do you think somebody could zoom out here and say, where am I at on the board where I'm at on the

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:52:14] court.

Diego: [01:52:16] No, where they are.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:52:18] Do I have a strong opinion that feels intractable. If you do, you're not in the center, this is the way it has to be, regardless of anything. you're on a, you're on a board or you're in the corner by far, because if you can't question that you have no center, you have no ability to take a look around and see everything.

All is walls. this is the only way garbage there's no such thing as binary disposition never has been. There's not an a and a B that's it. There's not a one and a zero. That's it not the case. It's never been the case. There's thesis antithesis. And between the two to complete the triangle is synthesis.

And once you get the synthesis, there's the multitude of options. There's so many options, this is why for me, I think it's hilarious. That individuals in land design would say, Oh, the design just comes of itself. And that the design that comes up itself as the only design for that property, are you out of your mind?

there's so many options here. This is the option that makes best sense with us in this context, in this moment today. And then next year there'll probably be another context and another option. Another step. But this idea that there's one final option. this is why Ben folic went from calling them final designs to con to working designs.

Cause that's what they are. Life is a working design. We're all drafts until we're dead. Take a look at every single one of these lessons over the last four or five years, all we've done is draft new ones and draft ourselves. And I'd like to think that every year I look back and Ooh, I'm really good past Javan did what he did to make future jabbing.

Cause I'm unliking future Javan more and more. But I don't demean past job and I'm glad that he did, but he did. I'm excited that he redrafted and rethought recreated, but without that sense of I'm going to come back to center, I'm going to pull back and go, like, where am I? And what strong opinions am I holding?

And are those actually cutting off options? If I don't do that, I'll never see them as options to start off with. Yeah.

Diego: [01:54:25] Yeah. that with a simple version of that is, see what the doing the podcast. It's you start doing a podcast or YouTube or whatever you do, content will, the corner you back yourself into is I just keep making content.

And I've talked to other podcasters about this though. When do you stop? if you're 30, are you doing this for the next 50 years? cause I think you can get on this treadmill of I'm doing this. This is what I do. I just need to keep doing it. And it's that thing we've talked about.

you're running the race and your head's down and you never look up and say, Oh, like where am I at here in the landscape? You're just plowing ahead. So that is actually a good lesson. I think it's something I try and do more and more is do that pull back, does this matter, is this important in my only doing this?

Because I feel like I have to do it. should I do it? can I pause? Can I slow back the frequency? Can I iterate on this? Can I change it? do I want to do it? So I love this one. It's a good one to close it out. And it's something I think people can do on a very practical level is sit back.

What's everything I have going on in my life right now around, your prime stuff, business hobbies, am I in the center of the board for this? Or am I in a corner? Are parts of my business in a corner. Nor am I in the center of the court and you can run through a bunch of stuff and then see what you're doing, if it is giving you optionality, or if you're just, the only way is this way.

And is that actually good?

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:56:01] And if you find yourself in a corner, it's not the time to reevaluate the game. The only thing to do when you're in a corner against the board is to get back into the center. That's the, that's your next step? Your step isn't to evaluate because when you're there and you're looking down the border, you're looking down the corner, you're going to see the whole board differently.

You're not going to see it from the proper vantage point. And this is going from a guy who still has moments of chemical drops into depression. And I'll reevaluate my entire life and it's taken a number of years and a number of great reflections from my partner to be like, this is not the time to evaluate your life, your business, your relationships.

The only thing you need to do is get out of this quarter. And then once you're out of the corner, take a look around. And that works at the extreme depression. It works on the other extreme of all. I'm really upset with you right now. great. Let's not make a decision about you and I let's not make a decision about where to eat.

Let's take a moment to get back to center. Let's resolve that before we decide to make, take next step or every step off of that is going to be directed by where you are. Again, the

Diego: [01:57:07] boards. tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think a parenting example of this is. Something goes wrong. somebody drops something, somebody breaks something.

So at the moment, it's like there's a level and then hell breaks loose for a minute when something goes wrong. And the initial desire is. Go to your room, you're grounded. And it's yeah, you're in that corner now of you are shaking out of your Zen zone into this disruption.

the only way you have now out of this is you're upset is anger or some sort of retribution for it, but let's clean up the mess. Let's evaluate get the mess clean. Let's talk to everybody. Let's everybody cool down. And then talk about, like you said, reevaluate in the center.

Why did this happen? What the heck went on. And I can be very guilty of this, of trying to provide solutions for people who are angry instead of when they are in that corner of something happened and they're reacting in their way instead of just. Helping them or letting them and allowing them whatever the wording is, get back to a stable state and then say, okay, what can we do here?

But I think too much. I am like, you're angry, you got to change this type thing. And they're in that corner. They're just, they're pissed. They can't, like you said, they can't see everything. So I'm starting to see ways where I could use this.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:58:38] Yeah. And anger is a good one because anger always thinks it's right.

So when anger comes up, it's I'm angry. I'm right. So back to your idea of, I had this thought it must be amazing. no. I, my only step when having this strong and tractable opinion is to get myself back to center, which again, this is a great tie in is not a mental step. You might use your mental energy to bring your emotions back in, but the make Dilla and the parasympathetic and sympathetic and the reptilian brain are not the pre frontal cortex.

So in a real way, You do need to take a step back. You need to work with the body and the emotions to combat. So that way you haven't been activated. And that way you can bring back a bit of that rational mind and potentially use that in a good way. Instead of saying now, prefrontal cortex is a slave to the amygdala.

Make the Lowe's unhappy. Great. The prefrontal cortex is I'm unhappy. Everyone be unhappy. I think we've all had experiences like that with parents and friends and grandparents in particular, because that's how the majority of them were raised.

Diego: [01:59:47] You think you can make a good decision when you're angry?

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:59:49] no.

No, it taints the whole decision attains, the whole decision. Cause however you made that decision again. It's not who says it's it's not, what's said it's who says it, even as you're projecting that, even as you're speaking through that, even as you're creating that you might, a broken clock is right twice in a day.

Yeah. You might stumble onto something, but it's not a conscious way. And even the way you presented then to the people around you. Like I, I did this a bunch. I do this a bunch during making the garden and putting in the fence and everything else. Yeah. I made some good decisions, but the lasting impact of how that decision was made and how people felt around me, when we made that decision.

Diego: [02:00:32] What about somebody who's angry around you and their anger is projected outward. how should an individual, if they're in the wake of that anger, look at that, cause it can be real easy. Somebody is angry and they say something like in the heat of the moment where they've lost control that, they people say mean stuff like when they're angry.

And so if you're around somebody who's like that, do you wait what they said under an anger curve?

Javan Bernakevitch: [02:01:09] no, this just happened recently. Like we, we have, one of the weak links in our situation is we've got three people used to be four people at our place. We have a hundred gigs a month.

That's as much as we have for internet. If we go over that, it throttles down to 15 kilobytes, a second. It's terrible. And. There's one day, we ended up with two or three gigs left for the last two or three days of the month. And by one day, five days ago, this was really recent.

And so I come down and my partner, so I can't work like this. This is ridiculous. I hit my email. Didn't send this to happen. You're using too much internet. It was like, I have two choices. I can take the gift of his anger and the part of me that wants to be angry. It could be angry with him, which never goes, I have lots of evidence, empirical evidence, or I can listen to them and say, so what are you really angry about?

I'm angry that this dotted off Richard, that I am angry, that it doesn't work. Okay, cool. I can help with the, not enough internet and my usage, but the upload download speed has nothing to do with me. that doesn't matter. Interesting. The moment he says that I know he's not in his rational mind. It has nothing to do with, I don't operate the satellite.

I don't operate the company. I don't do any of that by the way, Ilan for the love of all that is good. And Holy, what are you going to come to Canada in my neck of the woods? If you ever listen to this or anybody knows you. Email me, I need to solve this problem. So we're here, we're having this argument and I go back and forth with them a bunch.

I'm like, listen, I can solve one, but I can't solve the other. And here are the options. Here's the other packages. Here's the other plans. Here's what we can do short term long term, but here's the deal. Shockingly enough, anger. Want it to be expressed? Anger wanted to be heard. It didn't want a solution. So I just sat there in center for me going.

Okay. What else? What else? What else? Anything else? Okay. Gave him a hug. If you want to talk about this a bit more, let's talk about this a bit more. Walked in the back. He came back a bit later and he was like, I'm sorry. It's Thanks because being an adult is taking responsibility for our emotions grounding around we go.

And so if I can stay centered when somebody else is screaming, yelling, I have built so much more capacity. I've I've been in the Olympics. I've won gold and I'm going for platinum because I haven't given them my horse. No, I haven't used this analogy in a long time. I haven't given them my power in my life to go and pull their cart, which in this situation is anger.

And that's what happens when I feed into an angry argument and I do it all the time. This is like the rarity for me, because most of the time, the parts of me that are angry or frustrated or scared or vulnerable, they go for it. They go back and forth. But I had this one moment where I was like, okay, let's talk about it.

What do you want to do? I was

Diego: [02:04:13] going to say that sounds a lot easier than it is in reality, it is

and do that. I think it's one of those things like that's going to take practice, want to do, and I'm with you. I definitely, I see the same thing. I'm, that military saying calm is contagious. Somebody's pissed. Somebody is losing their mind. they're nervous. They're freaking out.

That's not going to help you to feed into that. Like main center, stay calm, if you have to give them time, let them come out of it. But yeah, that's a good takeaway. I'm going to use that more of let that wa the situation level out, the waves settled down before you say, okay, now let's try and set course.

To where we actually trying to go versus trying to navigate through the rough seas.

Javan Bernakevitch: [02:05:06] Yeah. and at this point, my edge is to do that without going mental. Cause my default is to go purely logical and now I've lost the emotional connection and the other person doesn't trust me anymore. And I've had direct feedback on this last couple of weeks where working with a client, they're like, why'd you ask me that question?

If you asked me that question. you don't, you're not really here because if you were here, you would know that question would make me really feel uncomfortable. And it took me a couple of days to realize, of course they were right. Why? Cause that's how they felt.

Diego: [02:05:40] So I like the idea of.

Blaming someone for the way they feel,

Javan Bernakevitch: [02:05:50] I'm sorry. You feel that way? That'll gem.

Diego: [02:05:53] Okay. without even, yeah, no, without even saying that, it's yeah, they're reacting that way. In a cert, because at some level they had some sort of emotional response to that, but let's write that off because that's not the emotional response I had.

So yours must be just a load of crap, but nonetheless, you had it. So yeah. Respect other people. I think this has been really good. there's a lot of great ones in here for people to chew off. Think about heading into 20, 21 here. what do you like to see people do this time of year? If people are working with you?

Going into a brand new year. We, where it is that time where people associate turnover starting of new, how do you, what do you tell people?

Javan Bernakevitch: [02:06:44] this is the first year I'm I'm actively going to do. What I've been threatening to do for a year is which is a hold, facilitated review process.

I do it every single year and I recommend and help clients schedule it for them. But I'm going to run this for folks I've, I've worked with in the past where people who I haven't to step into a review process of the past year. To go through your year, your month by month, to get a sense of what the wants the desires were to get a sense of where they are today, to get a sense of where they're going and to really set good intention, to set a sense of where they want to step next, because it's amazing what happens when you do that.

It's amazing when you go I'm edited in that direction. Not I'll take anything that the wind gives me, but there is generally where I'm headed. And so in that process, it's. Take stock of the last year take stock of what it was and what it wasn't, and be very clear upon where and where you feel that well, it wasn't this, and it wasn't that I wanted more of this.

Cool. And that was great. I want more of that. And years ago, I said life design could be boiled down to. What was great yesterday, let's do more of that tomorrow. What sucked yesterday? Let's do less of that tomorrow. And that's the Chestnut here of that review process. And then for folks that do context, we do a review of your values.

We've regenerate your values. We don't just say, okay, what's good from last year, let's carry it over. Let's really take stock of who you and I are in this moment and say what's important to us because what's important now is not what was important last year, guaranteed. And then chunk up next year.

it's a full 12 months, but chunk it up and it may be seasonal. It may be the first season, the second season, the third season, the fourth season, it might be up until your birthday. It might be up until your grandma's birthday. Everyone has their own little landmarks, but put those out there and really say where you want to be at those points and check in, create a system.

Because again, we don't rise to our goal. We fall to our system. So what's the system that's going to produce that, whatever that thing is, if it's. I want to make sure that garden goes in or I want to make sure I have that new product out. I want to make sure that I'm more open as a human well, what's the system that's going to bring you there.

And then run the experiment and it treat it like an experiment. This isn't what's going to happen. This is an experiment that I'm going to play with them, get to and understand, and then we'll see if the experiment produced results. And if it didn't, we're going to reassess. And if it did, what can we double down on the same thing we talked about, business last year, take the successes and double down on the successes.

And if you're interested in this type of work, if this is something you want to explore more or have some dilatation with Anna, I'm a guide on the side. I'm not on the front stage. I'm working with you and sometimes pushing you, never pulling, but a little bit of pushing, feel free to drop me a line at javelin at all points, design.ca or check out all points designed.ca forward stash life.

And get a sense of a bit of what that work looks like. And, I just want to say thank you, Diego. it's been such a rich friendship, and I've seen myself grow in your company and I seen you grow. And I just, I love that this is continuing on and the work you're doing and just thanks for continually being open to risking a little bit, because I.

I just, I love having friends like that and I really appreciate it.

Diego: [02:10:15] There you have it. Javan from all points, land design. If you want to learn more about Javan and the work that he does, check them out at all points, design.ca/life or using the link below. I want to thank you for listening to the episode today.

I really appreciate it. I hope you can use some or all the lessons that we talked about today to be a better you to be a better parent or to live a better life for you. No matter how you define it. Thanks for listening until next time. Be nice. Be thankful and do the work.