#7 – Finding balance – Relationship or work?

Summary

The downside of this ability is that other things in life can be neglected, like family, friends and health. This is something that both Erik and Emil have experienced.

What are the dangers of putting all eggs in one basket? How does work affect relationships? How do relationships affect work? What is most important, the mission or the missus? Is working together with your partner a good idea?

Transcript

[00:00:00] Yesterday, I was out on a walk and found myself standing at the precipice of a cliff.

[00:00:07] And I looked down and 100 meter drop down was crocodiles and fire. Not over this clip was a rope, and I realized that it’s my mission to walk across this rope as quickly as I can. And the challenge here is how can I move quick and still have balance?

[00:00:30] Today’s episode is all about balance.

[00:00:34] How can someone balance mission purpose walking that rope with the balance of relationships? What happens if we move too quickly? What happens to our health is our relationships are not working. Check out this episode. And also, at one point during this conversation, me and Eric get into an argument. We could cut this away, but we choose not to because we think being able and brave enough, enough to take a conflict is an important part of great outcome.

[00:01:17] And.

[00:01:32] All right. Welcome, Eric. How are you today?

[00:01:37] I’m good. I’m good. I’m feeling calm and centered. And then it can totally kind away.

[00:01:44] That’s awesome. That’s when life seems better. That’s right.

[00:01:48] Definitely.

[00:01:51] When you can sit on a bench and just feel the pigeons poop on your feet and still be happy.

[00:01:56] Mm hmm. That’s a good space to be in. Now, how are you, my friend? I’m coming back to life, man. I’ve been sick in many different casts, small ways, but it has added up to me being quite sick for about a month and I’m returning to life some. I’m happy about that.

[00:02:15] So the pigeons can shift on your feet that you will still smile. They have stopped shitting on my feet, and that’s plastic.

[00:02:23] If you’re listening for this for the first time, me and Eric, we haven’t known each other for a while now, and we have known each other from poker, from personal development, from this business in different kinds of ways. And we as people have this habit when we get excited about something. We kind of get fully into it, absorbed by it, ridiculously focused on it. Very excited. And I think that’s a great quality that puts a flavor on life, that makes it worth living. And we have realized that it also has consequences, and that is when you get too excited about something. It’s easy to neglect other things in life. So today we want to talk about relationships and how relationships get impacted when someone is too excited and focused on their careers. So, Eric, you obviously have a background running a huge company for many years and I guess and know that during that time that was very stressful for you and you worked a lot. What kind of consequences did that have for your relationship?

[00:03:45] Can I start in a in a completely different place? And I’ll get back to that question. Is that OK? Sure, sure.

[00:03:51] Ok.

[00:03:52] So the the reason why we wanted to have this topic go away, I wanted to have this topic was that we had a call on Monday, me e-mail and some of the guys and I joined that call feeling destroyed.

[00:04:07] Frederick checked in on a hundred and twenty thousand presents. He’s a good. Mean feeling so good. His spirit is feeling so good.

[00:04:15] And then I come in and I feel like shit. So the last one to start talking, I’m feeling really guilty for feeling like shit when they are in this amazing place where they feel so good.

[00:04:27] But I’m just not. So I start checking in ten seconds and I’m just quiet.

[00:04:37] And I realized that I start crying and I’m just in a really shitty place and I’ve been having very deep conversations with my my fiance, say just before and well, a couple of days before. And it turned out she was considering to break up with me something we spoke about two years ago. But from me. Haven’t been on the remotely on the table since then.

[00:05:07] And it felt like a piece of me just died and I couldn’t focus on on anything. And I think that we have solved everything now. We’ll see. I mean, to me, just knowing that we’re not as immortal as I thought we were. Has changed a lot in my my perception.

[00:05:27] So instead of joining them on their energy of two thousand percent, I just sat there and.

[00:05:35] They just left me. They put all their things aside. They were loving, supportive, and we spent the next, I don’t know, five, 10, 15 minutes just being there for me.

[00:05:45] And I felt that that was so beautiful and so supportive and so important for me.

[00:05:56] And it got me thinking about how her work has impacted my relationships, but also then how relationships impact work and how I’ve never been able to share that experience before. So as Jim said, I was a part of building a big company, Catina Media, and I worked really hard. And a lot of times my my relationship with Johanna was with the same woman that was not good, but I just pushed that away. I just pretended that wasn’t true. I never focused on it. And I was never able to be myself or to show my my pain in the office because I was supposed to be a supermodel.

[00:06:36] And it just feels so good to be an environment now where I can. And that’s why I wanted us to touch on this topic to see how how these ties together, how does relationships and and business work together.

[00:06:51] How did you feel during this conversation and then how? Well, when I checked in like that, what was your spontaneous reaction to it?

[00:07:01] My reaction was very glad that someone can say that today. I feel horrible. I’m on a very low percentage. And if we were weak because we have built and works a workshop around you, and I think if we would have forced you to partake in that workshop, I know we would have undermined your lust and your passion due to work at all. I think it’s very unhealthy to do something that should be exciting when you’re feeling horrible. So I think we would have undermined work if you didn’t if you weren’t able to say how shitty you felt. And I think that you would also undermine your relationships if you know that, OK. If you would have less support because you were able to get support from us now, you were able to talk. You were able to get some insights that then would help you in your relationship. So I think maybe then and there we lost a little bit of distance. But I think over the long run, there’s no doubt in my mind that it will make us move quicker and it’s much more healthy. Yeah, I completely agree.

[00:08:22] I think that’s one of the one of the most beautiful things in how things work out in greater our lives is these.

[00:08:31] And which made me know I really felt happy about how that turned out and interested in getting into this this topic, because I felt that going back to your original question, how it was to build a big company and how that affected my my relationships. And as you touched upon, the first thing you did in the intro was that both you and I have the ability to get tunnel vision. We have our eyes on the prize and we keep going for it and we love it, but we kind of miss out. Everything going on on the on the outside. And I definitely did this while while building Catina. I focused only on the business side for things. That was my number one two. And third priority was probably business. And then Johanna probably came forth. So that was a lot of travelling, a lot of long nights. A lot of attention spent elsewhere. My when I was with her a lot of the time, I was probably not very prescient, even if we were supposed to spend the night out having dinner. My mind was with work. I was all over that.

[00:09:40] And.

[00:09:43] I never even realized, and I think that in a big part of why I almost lost my health in the way that I did during my business was that relationships didn’t get enough space within that.

[00:10:00] So how did that cause you to lose your health?

[00:10:05] Well, I think it comes.

[00:10:08] I think. I think I lost the health of the soul in a sense that by only focusing on business but only focusing on these things, I only thought focus on getting forward. There was no space for healing. No space for relaxing. No space for for just being. And I think that if I would have spent more time being press put her being with her and something that my soul really wanted to do, I would have been a lot Colomer in everything else I did. My body would have a lot better opportunities of healing, probably sleeping better, all of these other things that relates to to those things.

[00:10:47] Mm hmm. I see.

[00:10:51] Yeah, I completely agree. It’s that part of tuition can make you ignore the bottom single. Yeah. And that’s that’s a slippery slope to be on. Now why we’re on this topic of being able to check in on a low percentage. What do you see? Do you see any downsides with this? Do you see any benefits from doing things the opposite way limit for this, for example? Maybe it’s nice if you have problems in your relationship to be able to go into the office. I just put that aside for a minute. I just think about something else.

[00:11:34] I think that there are a lot of benefits being able to put that aside, just focus on something else. I think there is a lot of benefits in terms of productivity being able to. Okay, now we’re not doing that. Now we’re doing this. I think they’re both shortcuts that distracting yourself from from problems is not fixing the problems. They’re gonna come back. They’re gonna haunt you if you understand or not focusing on meeting a deadline, maybe we have a deadline in a week’s time and we really need to meet them for whatever reason. If we take shortcuts on our health to get there, I’m pretty sure we would under deliver the week after. So it would might have been healthier to postpone the deadline and be happy all the way there and not do this. So I think that most personally I’ve been very focused on meeting those deadlines, hitting those targets in a short a short timeframe as possible. And I believe it comes with the consequences of less energy and less passion, less a lot of things after those deadlines are met than if I would have just been honest with how I’m feeling. Focus on where I am at the moment and focus on getting as far as possible in the long run rather than the short run.

[00:12:52] Do you see any downsides of this?

[00:13:00] What if you are more people in a group because this Monday we were four people and then more often than not. If all members are in general feeling good, we will check them in a high percent. This has happened two times this year, I think. But what if your group of 20 people, 50 people or do you think. What dances do you say? Well, the easy answer would be that person can’t sit out. But what if that person have responsibilities to a very large group?

[00:13:37] Yeah. So I think that the key here is that we wouldn’t have a meeting like this with 50 people where we wouldn’t be able to have a checking process with 50 people or even with 20 people.

[00:13:48] And I would say that in a remote organisation, it’s possible to have a meeting with 50 people and everyone interacting because we can have cameras like this and there’s not. But a regular company wouldn’t have a meeting with 50 people. Then it’s a presentation.

[00:14:06] Is one person talking or two three person talking maybe and the rest listening. So then you don’t necessarily need to interact.

[00:14:14] So let’s say there were a 50 person meeting and there is just one or two or three that suppose we’re talking. One of those are feeling shitty then. Then you end up in this situation. And sometimes if it’s really, really important, it might be worth taking that bullet go up there and do it anyway and be tired. As a consequence of it. And sometimes not. I’d say it depends on the situation.

[00:14:39] If if someone is going up and they’re a bit feverish and feeling a bit low. Yeah, then they can probably do it. If they’re going through a divorce and considering suicide, then it’s probably better not to. So it’s I think the key is to have all meetings where this could happen should probably not be more than eight people. But I don’t think that most companies have meetings with more than eight people where everyone is talking either way.

[00:15:07] Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:15:12] It’s gonna be fun to talk about this front organization is bigger and see what kind of problems we’re actually run into. And for now, let’s focus back into the relationship aspects of all of this. So what more consequences did you experience when you worked too much? How did that affect your relationship compared to now when I guess you have more space and you focus more on developing your relationship and spending time with it?

[00:15:47] An important part of this was that I worked a lot in Katrina. Johanna worked in Katrina as well. So we both worked a lot.

[00:15:56] And in some ways she was under more pressure than I was. So she was in charge of the everything relating to the office and we were growing very rapidly. She was in charge of we had a lot of company apartments because we had a lot of people coming in from abroad working with us. So she was in charge of all those apartments and making sure that everyone got to them from the airport and stuff like that. So there was a lot of things happening at night, alarms going off, people coming to the airport. These kind of things. So she was more or less on call 24/7. Something could always happen, which meant that she was never fully relaxed.

[00:16:36] And this went on for, I don’t know, one, two years. And I think that drained her a lot of energy.

[00:16:45] So when when we did the IPO and we took Catina to the stock market, Johanna was the first one to quit after that. And she was completely drained of energy for like a year, which led to us actually separating because we couldn’t figure out how to make things work.

[00:17:03] So how did you feel when you saw her having no lifeforce in that situation?

[00:17:11] This is actually something that I didn’t realize until later, which is something that we’ve had a lot of very meaningful conversations in the last year, and some of them have been about her being burned out and not fully understanding it herself and not really wanted to show it.

[00:17:30] So when she was feeling very drained of energy and didn’t feel that she wants to do anything, a lot of the times she faked it rather than anything else because she didn’t want to be that tired person. So she pushed herself out of bed even though she hated to. She didn’t want to spend all day. She didn’t let herself take the risk that her body was craving. And I didn’t understand this. We didn’t get to this.

[00:17:56] Did you do that? So did you allow yourself to be transparent and say, today I felt shitty, I feel awful? Or did you want to put up a facade as well? At that point.

[00:18:10] I think that one part of me probably wanted to put up a facade as well, that a part of me also had a lot of this energy or felt a bigger. A bigger mission within this where it was my purpose to get out of bed, my purpose to do these kind of things, so I pushed myself to do it. And I think that become one of the biggest problems in our relationship then, because me doing it. Johanna don’t wanting to do it or not having the energy made me feel that she was supposed to do it. Part of me definitely felt that way. And she felt that she was supposed to do it because I’m up there, I’m doing this, I’m doing that. So we ended up comparing ourselves to that. And I think that became a big reason for her pushing herself harder than than she should have done because of the way I pushed myself.

[00:19:10] So both of you pushed yourself harder than what your bodies could handle. Now, could it be a good thing when you’re in your 20s to push yourself that hard to see where your limits are to know for the rest of your life, then how hard cannot work without breaking?

[00:19:33] Are you happy that it played out that way?

[00:19:39] Mm hmm.

[00:19:40] When is it good to know if you’re gonna break? Why would that be good to know on beforehand? Why break one’s extra?

[00:19:57] To me, an advantage with that is to then, you know, this is a healthy amount of workload that I can handle.

[00:20:09] So what would be healthy if you know you’re breaking down at a certain level? Should you go 30 percent below that then and know that you will survive or how would you take that into consideration?

[00:20:21] Ok, let’s say you’re at the gym and you know that you can bench press. How much can a bank press?

[00:20:27] 150, 200 kilos to honor her. So, Erin, does a life go to bench press my body weight and I’ve never managed to. So probably bench press 65 or 70 or something.

[00:20:37] I’m not that strong, Eric. OK. I know, but I’m two kilos, obviously. OK. So let’s it’s a fact that our bench press 200 kilos. Now, if I know that, then it’s unhealthy for me to put on 210 kilos. But when I do practice, it’s probably the best for me to retain muscle mass and even get stronger to work out regularly at one hundred and eighty ish. But if I don’t know that, if I assume that my my limit is 100 kilos, then I go around and I don’t push my body because I think it’s dresser’s healthy to a certain degree and then it becomes unhealthy when it’s too much stress.

[00:21:25] Wouldn’t you be able to figure out that hundred and eighty is probably a good level without ever crushing you? Just feel it. OK, this. I can do this. I don’t need to figure out another crash if I go for it. But then have you really lived?

[00:21:39] That’s another question. Have you really risk of dying? I mean, it’s maybe it’s an adrenaline junkie thing.

[00:21:47] Yet personally, I don’t believe that there is a good way of pushing yourself so hard just to figure out how hard you can go, because the risk of that might be that you actually injured yourself permanently from doing so. So let’s say you you’re on the bench press and you put on two hundred and fifty because you don’t know what your maximum is. And you realize that you can’t hold out. You drop it and you break your ribs.

[00:22:11] Because you were just pushing yourself too hard and your ribs won’t heal for a long time and maybe never, and you end up in a really shitty situation just because of the chase of the adrenaline. But I don’t know personally. I pushed myself because I felt that a I wanted to get as far as possible in the shortest amount of time. B I felt that it was cool to push myself and to kind of be a very hard worker and c I wanted to impress investors and people around me, which kind of taps into the other two. And none of those are very healthy arguments for pushing yourself too hard. It’s another thing in the gym them but this was where I was coming from.

[00:22:58] Yeah, let’s let’s wrap up that they do something I know that that you are close to is mission versus relationships like where you want to jump to that part. Yes. I know it’s close to your heart. What’s your what’s your take on this mission versus love? And please start by explaining mission in this context. OK.

[00:23:24] So.

[00:23:29] Mission for me, that would be my my path. What I want to give to the world, how I want to interact with the world. Meaning that could be a work project. It could be a heart project. Something I want to give to fellow humans in my society, any kind of work or contribution that I want to make to follow my dreams in life. That would be my mission.

[00:23:57] And their question was, how does this relate to love them? How important is the mission compared to mission vs. the misses?

[00:24:06] Ok. So.

[00:24:10] You said this was a question close to my heart. And to be honest, I have. I’m not I don’t know what I’m doing here, so I don’t have an answer for myself. I’m exploring this right now. What is a healthy way of thinking about this? Because if I look back at my life, at my previous relationships, I have always. Loved what I’m doing. I’ve always been very passionate about my mission, about my work, about my projects and. I have always put that first. And yes, when I’ve been in a relationship, if there is if there has been something serious an issue or I always prioritized my partner and I wonthe I really want things to I really want them to be happy. And where my mind is going naturally is towards my mission. That is what I’m thinking about all the time.

[00:25:16] When I daydream, I being dream about my mission and.

[00:25:23] If I’m honest, that’s what I care the most about in life. If I’m honest, I think that if I had to choose between mission and MREs, I think if I had. Let let’s take an extreme example. If I had only a mission for the rest of my life. I would be able to do that. Fine. And I would really enjoy my life if I only had a Mrs..

[00:25:57] I would be. I would be miserable without the missus, too, but I would be completely miserable without a mission. And if I was completely miserable, I would be an awful partner to mrs.

[00:26:13] So if I had to choose, I would choose. The mission and.

[00:26:21] The thing I really want to do now is to not choose. And I think it’s ridiculous to think that you should choose. Because I think life is structured in a way so that there is time for both. It’s healthy, that there’s time for both.

[00:26:38] And challenging for me because my mind is going towards my mission all the time. So. Have stuff to learn and figure out.

[00:26:50] So how has this impacted your relationships in the past?

[00:26:55] Well, I met my my longest relationship.

[00:27:00] I was with this girl Clara for six years and we met when I was 16. And when I was 16, I also met my mom. I also met my mistress online poker. And she seduced me. That was my mission back then. My mission and my mistress, because all I could think about was playing poker. I played poker all the time. Twelve hours per day. Every day per week. And back then we played online versus the US, which meant that I was playing at nights. So. Almost every night she went to bed before me and then I went to bed a couple of hours later because she was working. And I think that’s challenging, but I think. I could have made that work if I thought of her. As equally important. But I did it. I was so focused on my work and on myself that.

[00:28:11] Yeah, that’s focused cost me to become very selfish and I didn’t consider her best interests as much as I would have liked. And I think quite a bit of shame about that right now. I apologize to her about that.

[00:28:31] So if you if you could relive this, do you think you would have done anything differently?

[00:28:37] Yes, I would have done 100 things differently because when we met, I was 16, 17 and we broke up and I was twenty three. And when we broke up and I was 23, I was a 17 year old in a 23 year old’s body. I had learned nothing almost except for playing poker during this year because I was so focused. So I would have liked it on a lot of things differently. And I think if I could choose one, I would have liked to teached 17 year old me some kind of mindfulness teaching. So the idea of being Presson because we were spending time together. But when we were. My mind was going towards poker all the time. And I had no it wasn’t I had no tools to do anything about that. I never heard of mindfulness back then. I never heard a teaching of someone like a.. Totally. So I didn’t. I couldn’t stop my mind from just going to what I really liked all the time. And that was not healthy, because I think it can be healthy that we don’t spend as much time together. But when I’m there, I’m there. My phone is off. I’m with her. I’m listening to her.

[00:29:55] I can put thoughts in my mind aside.

[00:29:58] And just be there with her. And I couldn’t at all.

[00:30:02] So 17 year old me was a lot like 17 year old you. Yes.

[00:30:07] And if someone would have come and talk to me about mindfulness and being pressand with my girlfriend, I would have said, oh, shit.

[00:30:17] So let’s say you could talk to the 17 year old. You. But 17 year old, you doesn’t know that you are you from the future. How would you to get him to listen?

[00:30:28] Well, first of all, I’m not convinced and I wouldn’t listen because I remember. The first time I read anything about spirituality or the idea of mindfulness, which I find in my life today to be very helpful for me, I need that to have peace in my mind. I think it was around 24 25 and I read a book with a car totally. It’s called A New Earth. And some people love that book. Some people like Eric don’t really resonate with that book. And that’s fine. And I’ve found that the people that do resonate with it fun find it very helpful. And I was one of these people. So when I read that book when I was 24, I was the same person I was when I was 17. And the neck the hair on my neck was just rising up. And I was absorbed by that book and a decent voice in my head that isn’t me, that is just repeating the same thoughts all the time. And I can do something about that. Wow. Wow. So I was. I could take that in then. So I’m not sure I couldn’t do it when I was 17. It’s just that I never the idea never struck me because I was so unconscious. So I can’t be sure that I wouldn’t have been able to take that in. And if I would, I guess and think that my life would have been very different in many different ways.

[00:31:54] That’s interesting. Yeah. So 7 year old me would have glanced at that book, said bullshit and would’ve kept on playing my best 30 year old daughter through, that’s 30.

[00:32:04] So I’m trying to wrap my head around how, how, how I would talk to me in this situation. So let’s imagine that I want to give this advice to a teenager then that is fully, fully engaged with whatever their mission is. Let’s say they’re building a company because that’s what a lot of people around me do. I’m trying to see how I would explain to to the equivalent of 17 year old me the importance of these things.

[00:32:33] And I would probably wrap it up in like, yeah, it will help you to get success one way or another.

[00:32:41] And I’d say that that’s probably would have been the same story here, because if you would have been happier in in your relationship with Clara then and spend more focus on that, you will probably also play better poker made more money that way. So you could actually find arguments that makes complete sense even for a 17 year old me looking at what’s the actual benefits from this?

[00:33:07] So, yeah, of course, if you think you’re right, and I think if I could talk to my 7C or itself, I’m not sure I would even give advice. I would I would spend 95 percent of my time with him to explain the consequences of what he’s currently doing because he couldn’t see those consequences.

[00:33:35] What were the consequences?

[00:33:38] So mistakes. Looking back at it in hindsight that I did was moving too fast, not being healthy. Not being Presson, not taking my partner’s best interests as my best interests.

[00:33:57] Not play Omaha. You need to before they done this. I love Dallas. I get it.

[00:34:05] If not buying bitcoins, no less people can get. Now, I would explain the consequences of the way I was currently living because my personality wanted to get better and that was very natural for me. But you why would you want to get better if you don’t know that what you’re currently doing is gonna go somewhere where you don’t want to go? If I thought that was a probably, I would do something about it, but I didn’t.

[00:34:39] Did you hear what I was doing was smart back then?

[00:34:43] So did did you think a couple of years ahead or did you just think about tomorrow?

[00:34:49] I thought of many years ahead. And I think that what’s made me successful in poker. I thought, what can I do today that will make me as good of a poker player as possible when I’m 25? I remember I had that thought intensely when I was 17. What can I do now that will make me as good as possible when I’m 25. And that meant doing a lot more studying than playing. But what I couldn’t see is in order to be as good as possible when I’m 25, I also need to be healthy on a physiological and emotional and mental level. And most especially for the physical and the emotional. I was heading down the ditch and I couldn’t see it and I couldn’t see how that was important to being a good poker player. And I realized that too late. And if someone would have showed me what the consequence of that will be, I would have done something about it and I would have been very excited to do something about it.

[00:35:46] Yeah, I can totally relate to this. So I did the same thing, but focus on business. So I was more how can I make the most money in X amount of years? And I did not consider how health, how relationships and how all of these things that matters. Well, in one way matter a lot more. But also how they would influence that success ratio. Yeah. It’s the same thing. If you’re doing it in in poker, if you’re doing it in in business, I would say in probably the same thing if you’re employed or if you’re a professional football player or whatever.

[00:36:20] Yeah, I completely agree. And I’m not a big mistake looking back at it is that my frame of what I wanted was too small. I want to become as good of a poker player as possible. Instead of asking a question like, how can I have a life that is as fulfilling as possible? So I was in a very small box. What I did lock him up myself, though, is that I was pushing reward for forward in time. So I wasn’t looking for a shortcut and that I’m proud of. I was just doing it in I’m way.

[00:36:56] As you look for the big prize. But but with a narrow, narrow mind.

[00:37:02] Yeah.

[00:37:02] And I was willing to not take the incentive walk. I was due. I was willing to take a lot of sacrifices. And I liked that about myself. It was just I was doing it in an unhealthy way.

[00:37:15] So your life was old poker for for those years and next to no relief and whatnot.

[00:37:25] How did that how did that impact your identity? Who were you? What would you have said about himself if he spoke about himself?

[00:37:41] And that’s a very good question, and I have a memory that comes to me and that is me and my girlfriend, Clara. We broke up when I was twenty three and I was devastated, heartbroken. That was the most depressing. But one year later. I became it became the most depressed I’ve been in my life. And that is because she is what kept me safe. Because if she wasn’t there, I would play all the time. And when she wasn’t there, I did play all the time. So before when I was with her, probably 75 percent of my focus went into poker and the rest 25 was distributed among her family and other things having fun. And when she went out of the picture. And I was feeling so emotionally broken that I didn’t even want to have fun and I had no tools to cope with this. I end up playing poker. 99 percent of my time. I remember I had three months period where I didn’t leave the house at home. I played, I played and slept for three months. It was a surreal. Well, how well did you eat at this time? Not good.

[00:39:00] Not good. I had was unconscious about food. Probably not terrible, but definitely not good. And I wasn’t working out enough. So my point of this story is that during this three months, I went into downswing. In poker, that was partly because I was playing bad, but also downswings happens in poker. The times we mean. OK. Call a downswing is when you lose for an extended period of time. And that can happen in poker. Yes, because there’s a lot of luck involved and randomness involved in this game. So basically, you’re unlucky for a long time. Yes. So frankly, irrational, right? Is there. You can go for three months and win a lot more than you should be. And then for three months and loose a lot more than you should be. And I was in one of these downswings where I was losing more than I should be. Yes. Because of the variance. So now I’m focusing 99 percent of my energy into something that is going so shitty. I’m losing money. I’m losing a lot of money. So what do you think my perception of life is at that point?

[00:40:12] Well, if 99 percent of your time goes into something and that’s going really horribly, then I’d say life is a horrible place. Yes.

[00:40:22] Yes. There’s no because when you’re winning. You get serotonin. Right. That makes you feel good and less depressed. And if you’re not winning at anything, if everything you focus on goes bad, then you just get very depressed. You have no serotonin. So if I had a healthy relationship at that point and not a healthy relationship or healthy life where I had focus on poker. Yes. But also on my health, on my family, on my relationships. I’m having fun, having hobbies, other things than if poker goes bad. Then you have this other pillars of your life to lean on.

[00:41:12] I can relate to this from the completely different perspective, which is interesting. So when the year before that well, the two years before Katrina went to the stock exchange should two thousand fourteen and fifteen.

[00:41:27] Business went tremendously well. I was so deep into business and I was on a constant good run then, so to speak, poker terms. Everything was going a lot better than it should be. We did the correct decisions. We did this and this and that things we worked well. But we also got insanely lucky with every deal that we did went well. Everything that could go well went well for like two years. And I probably didn’t have the the health, the relationship. I wanted all of these other things. But I. And I was totally overworked. But at the same time, I identified myself so much with business and so things. I wasn’t, in a sense, high of life because of that. And at the same time, I realized that if that trend would have gone bad, that we would have bad luck in all the deals we made it all the things. Because in business, yes, as in poker, luck is a very essential thing. Regardless what anyone says, it’s a big deal and we were very lucky. So I think that the reason why I didn’t get completely burned out, what I did and total and why I didn’t get depressed was that if work was 99 percent of my life or at least 90, I still had relationships and stuff and that went well. That’s what kept me sane in a sense, but I was totally dependent on that. It kept going well and luckily it did for for long enough.

[00:42:48] I think this is very interesting and this is the trap of it all. Yeah, because if. What do you think? I want to shange when I’m in that situation where poker’s going horrible or let’s send it with your company that you went into a downswing and you because I had upswings before and then I managed that unhealthy lifestyle because it felt like everything was going good when I was running, when I was having an upswing. When I was having luck. So not imagine now that your luck had changed and Catina and all of a sudden everything in the business starts going much worse than it should do. And you’ve before you focused ever all of the energy on it and you were doing well. And now what do you think your response to things going badly would be?

[00:43:37] Let me get back to that one. I’d just like to elaborate a bit on my thoughts on upswings and downswings, because I think that’s that’s interesting and not something I really put in words before it. So you and I are very well aware of this in poker and every poker player is because it’s so apparent that if you’re being lucky or unlucky, you can actually see that mathematically. You can see you should win this hand 80 percent of the time and you don’t.

[00:44:03] So it’s very apparent that in poker that luck plays a big role.

[00:44:09] And I think that it’s less apparent in in business that you make this and that decision and luck is actually gonna play a big role in that. And there is some famous quote from someone saying that it’s not important to be lucky, but it’s important not to be unlucky. And I think that’s that says a lot about how it is in business, because a client can be run over by a car or whatever happens, which might take 20 percent of your business away like this. If you’re unlucky or if he’s unlucky, even worse.

[00:44:43] So when I’m talking about a good swing in in business, I think that we were very lucky.

[00:44:50] All of these deals went better than calculated. So let’s say we bought a company and we calculated that they should be making between twenty thousand and one hundred thousand a month for this to be a good deal. And they actually made a hundred and twenty thousand, which was over our estimates and was more lucky than anything else. And we’re done.

[00:45:10] We did that five times in a row.

[00:45:14] So it gave us such a momentum from. From luck, we still did a lot of good decisions. We took the right risks. We did all of these things, but we came out mathematically ahead to where we should be all the time. And that wasn’t skill. That was luck. And I think this is something that happens a lot in business and it can go both ways.

[00:45:34] So.

[00:45:36] Yeah, basically, I want to highlight this because I think a lot of people identify me with more skilled and I deserve a lot of this was luck spent. And I think that that also means that people comparing themselves to to the Catina success story might do exactly the same calls, but might end up way, way less successful and could blame themself for that or work harder and pushed himself harder.

[00:46:02] But the thing that we’re missing is it’s actually luck. Does this make sense, though? I put it like this?

[00:46:07] Yes. Can I share something first? Sure.

[00:46:15] I was going for a point that I thought was interesting. And when you jump in without asking for permission, can I change the topic here? I felt left behind and a bit hijacked and I couldn’t focus on you, which I want to do because I still have my story in mind. And I felt I felt left behind.

[00:46:40] This is interesting because what happened was you gave me the word and. So this is what’s been happening when I’ve been doing podcasts. So probably what happened now was you wanted to create mystery and you wanted me to send the ball back to you.

[00:46:55] I think so, yes. Yes. And I didn’t get that.

[00:46:59] So instead, I read. I got the word. I’ll go. Mm hmm. So this is the situation I’ve been ending up in in quite a few times. And it’s tricky.

[00:47:08] Yes. Do you think I should have interrupted you? So can I go? I said, can I finish? I should have. I would like to be quicker. I just want to end my story. Could you hold that point?

[00:47:18] Exactly.

[00:47:19] I think that’s that’s the way it needs to be, because especially when you’re sending the ball to me, the quote is you’re giving me the word. It’s like, how can. It’s impossible for me to know that your story isn’t over in that sense, especially of you asking me a question.

[00:47:35] So this is all of those things. Great. That you’re so good. Because I also the point I was unemployed benefits. Yeah. OK. Go give me your point. If you remember it.

[00:47:48] Okay. Because. Yeah. Okay. You asked me the question. Yeah. I don’t know what it was.

[00:47:52] I said this is the interesting and tricky part of this because from my perception, when I focus 100 percent of my energy into something and then that it’s going bad from my perception. The reason I’m feeling horrible is because poker is going bad. And then the natural solution for me is someone being very oriented in fixing things. Is can I put even more effort into poker so that it starts going well again. So I think that’s the reason I reached up to 100 percent focus on this is because my solution to the problem was to put more effort into it. When in hindsight a solution would have been to put less effort into it. And I couldn’t see that correlation.

[00:48:43] Could this also be them that you’re so black and white in this? So your solution is either do more poker or do no poker at all.

[00:48:54] Yes and no poker at all, it wasn’t an option. I know back then that I played so much that I had to take a break because I physically couldn’t play anymore. So I sort of got many burnt out on purpose to stop.

[00:49:11] Yeah, so that’s what I’m saying, that there was never an option to take it down 20 present it. Well, they’re a hundred percent off problemsand up.

[00:49:19] Yeah. Because the solution in my world appeared to be take the percentage up instead. Yeah.

[00:49:30] Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. So basically what you’re saying, if I try and reteach this is with too much focus on something and when that’s going wrong, you become very identified with the fact that it’s going wrong. So it’s like. It’s not poker that goes wrong. It’s my life. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it could be the exact same thing with business. If you have a hundred percent of your focus on your business and business is going well badly, which could be bad luck. I think that’s a key point. There are basically life is shit. So it’s important to have balance with spreading your your stocks in different portfolios.

[00:50:13] So if you put all your money into Google shares and Google is going down, then you’re fucked. But if you’re in 10 different shares, you’ve got a better chance of surviving. Mm hmm.

[00:50:23] All right. So we have about 10 minutes left there. Is there some aspect of this you would like to touch upon more than others?

[00:50:36] It’s something that I think is interesting in in this that ties in to two relationship parts. Is is trust.

[00:50:46] So what I felt with me and Johannessen is, for example, that she didn’t show me how much pain she was in, which made it hard for me to trust her. I’m not sure if if business would have gone bad. I would probably I might not have shared those results with her because I might have been ashamed or these things. And I think that’s very common with with entrepreneurs than that. If the results are going bad and they identify so much with that, that’s going good or that they are their business, that they keep those things, things secret. And I can definitely imagine that goes for for poker as well, that when that’s going bad, we don’t necessarily want to talk about it. Some thinking about how. How both as an entrepreneur and as a poker player was, in a sense is and is an entrepreneur. How that impacts the trust in the relationship. What do you think about this?

[00:51:51] Could you rephrase that question in a different way? So if.

[00:51:57] If you’re if you’re an employee, you make three thousand euros a month every month. There is no you’re never in a financial risk in a sense. You will know how much money you will make tomorrow and the next year. So your partner don’t have to worry about your financial situation, which if you have kids and these kind of things, it’s a big deal or a house together and loans together. But if you’re an entrepreneur or a poker player and we’ll put poker player in the entrepreneur category right now because it’s basically the same thing, then you never know what paycheck is coming next month. So if you’re actually underperforming or being unlucky for that matter, you might put the entire family’s finances at risk.

[00:52:42] So.

[00:52:45] The question then is how does this. Trust situation have an impact on the relationship. Would you have shared your results in a situation like that? If you go doing badly, would you? Do you think it’s common that people wouldn’t?

[00:53:09] Well, from my experience, I did share bad results, but I did it to feel my own emotional needs instead of one thing to build trust in her. I was selfish in doing that again. I was young. And so for something that’s SAOs feeling very. Insecure. Because I had lost money for three months and things are out of control, and I’m I’m really, really worried that I might tell a story of how bad things are, where I make it, so that it seems that I’ve been more unlucky, that I am more. Make it seem as souse telling a story about how bad things were going for her to give me comfort. And if I could go back in time, I would have us asked for comfort directly. It’s because I could have said I feel very worried and vulnerable now. I would like some support, but I couldn’t do that. So instead I told stories I was not 100 percent accurate.

[00:54:16] Do you think that during this downswing, if you were not talking about, do you think that she sensed this and she was worried about you, but you wouldn’t let her in?

[00:54:26] Oh, yeah. Yeah. She could sense it. I mean, after shouji losing days, I mean, I was devastated. So, of course, I mean, I can imagine you having some challenges in Catina. You come home when you’re obviously devastated.

[00:54:39] Yeah, definitely. As I think that what I’m going for here is how to be able to then build that trust in the relationship anyway so that the partner doesn’t need to worry. It’s one thing to come home and brag about winnings and tell the good stories. But if you’re not sharing the bad stories or letting people in on the bad emotions or the tough emotions, the partner will end up not knowing how well something actually is. Hmm.

[00:55:08] So I think that’s the devastation and always worrying them if they don’t know.

[00:55:16] Because I remember when I was playing poker and I lost a lot of money. I never wanted to talk about that. So I was always like, I won this, this and that. And yeah, I had a shitty day I lost, but I don’t want to talk about it.

[00:55:30] And that end up with them never knowing the full truth.

[00:55:34] And well, especially then if you would have kids in a house together and you’re in a really tricky spot.

[00:55:39] Yeah. I mean, this is a very vital skill, I think, for a poker player or an entrepreneur to be able to say this is exactly what happened. And then saying, this is how I feel about it. And this is what I need right now. How does that make you feel and what can I do? What do you need to feel better about this? Basic have letting people in. Yeah. Have openness and communication and. Yeah. Um, for your own sanity as well. I mean, if you’re lying to your partner while not lying, but not telling the truth is kind of lying. And if you do that to your partner, because that is too emotionally difficult, you are probably doing to yourself as well.

[00:56:28] And then you’re gonna make sure the decisions. You’re in a downward spiral.

[00:56:35] So I’m trying to get wrap my head around how to be more transparent in a relationship and a thought that struck my mind now was the checking process that we did on the other that would do on all the recalls that I mentioned before. And you can see on all our YouTube videos, how would you say that?

[00:56:51] Do you think that could apply in a relationship? Could you start the day with a shaking process at the breakfast table?

[00:56:57] Yeah, I mean, I’m doing it with everyone I meet. No, you are not. I’m not having like a form, a pen and a chicken. But when you have everyone you meet, everyone you meet asks the question, how are you? And almost everyone expects to answer. I’m good, man. Well, I just say exactly how I feel every time.

[00:57:19] How does that work? That’s kind of a second process, I think. But let’s do it. Let’s do an example. Hey. How are you today? Good thought. I don’t like life today because I’m in physical pain like my food is hurting her.

[00:57:35] So that is annoying me. So. And that’s annoying because I want to show up here and be with you 100 percent because I like you. But I can’t today. But I want to be.

[00:57:46] I’m really trying here. How you doing? I’m good, I’m good. Yeah.

[00:57:55] How did the zoo usually play out and how do people meet you when you say like this?

[00:58:06] I feel like we’re getting real. You know, to me that’s not the same thing as complaining. Because I share my intention with why and why I’m doing it, because I want to be there with you. But I want you to know what I’m going through so we can actually connect here.

[00:58:27] Taking this back a little bit to what you shared on the on the poker stories. So when you told the story to get empathy, then it’s complaining.

[00:58:35] That’s probably whining. Yeah, she needs to get her attention.

[00:58:40] So it’s it’s passive aggression, aggressive mode. It’s a passive aggressive request for emotional support. If I instead said if I tell a story about that, I’m being a lucky or not, I lost a lot. That’s kind of complaining. But if I say when I lost a lot, I feel a lot of anxiety and I’m worried. So if you would be willing to would you be able to comfort me in this in this way or this is what I need from you right now that’s letting someone else know how they can be with me so that so that this moment gets enriched for both of us.

[00:59:21] That’s what I can invite.

[00:59:24] Yeah, so it’s it’s basically stealing, so if you share a story, if you if you’re whining that you’re just telling a story with the complaining energy, you’re basically dealing someone’s empathy.

[00:59:40] But if you’re just telling it as it is and openly saying I would really need a hug right now or something like that, it’s more asking for asking for empathy.

[00:59:51] Yeah, exactly. I think that’s correct. You you’re showing someone how they can be an important part of your life for you. You have to share how you feel. You’re sharing what you need right now. So, Ben, it’s Ben. What you shared feels a purpose. I think that is what the checking process is all about. So you can sense what other people need.

[01:00:18] Yeah. You also give them an opportunity to meet you. Exactly. Yeah.

[01:00:26] Breakfast checking process. I like that. Just checking in one way or another with everyone.

[01:00:32] Yeah. I mean, the question, how do you do this? And I’m not always gonna be in pain like, you know. And I would. Share something. I thought if it’s really bothering me. But usually I feel a whole a mixture of feelings. Yeah, this sucks. Muddiness sucks, but this is costing me this kind of pain. But I’m excited about this and this is why I’m feeling good and I think it’s a good conversation starter.

[01:00:59] So I ask Amy how you are and then I get a ten minute address about every little detail. Well, my left toe is in a big bit of a pain, but my right to be feeling really good.

[01:01:10] Well the question how you’re doing is becoming an important question for me. So when I come home to someone, the first thing someone says when you open the door is how are you? That’s the first thing, and I say, can I ask you that question when I have come in? Sure. And then when I’m in and I was like sitting down or we can actually talk.

[01:01:33] Then I’m asking that question because I think it’s important that we put a pin in that question and get back to that.

[01:01:40] Can I take my clothes off before I answer? Because otherwise, if you’d in the middle of something, it’s just expect that it’s. I’m good. I’m good.

[01:01:50] You’ve got a completely different picture. When is that? Can I just take my clothes off before us? I’m sorry. Debate. But I’d like to be naked before I tell you who I am.

[01:02:03] All right. Right now we are running towards the end of this.

[01:02:08] Do you have any final words you want to hold with me?

[01:02:12] And I’m gonna say t balked at Cauca. And I’m gonna ask you if you have any final words.

[01:02:17] Ok. So. We talked a lot about our problems and mistakes when we’ve been there, when we look back at how we’ve been handling relationships. I think. One of my biggest mistakes is that I haven’t looked at my partner and really wanting what is best for her equally to what is best for me. I haven’t managed to do that before. I’m still not managing it because I’m so far I’m too selfish to do that. And that is something I want to learn. And a breakfast checking with your partner. All right. We have some final words and then we call this a day.

[01:03:07] Yeah, I think you’re on to something that by just sharing how you actually are, you’re also inviting others to share how they actually are.

[01:03:14] And I think tying into what yourself about being selfish or not, that ties in the lot to understanding someone else. It’s very easy to be selfish if you don’t understand anyone else but yourself. I think it’s very hard to grill fish if you’re understanding everyone else. That is true.

[01:03:32] So a behavior pattern that I’ve seen in myself is that I don’t want to know how someone else is because then I have to adjust. And if I don’t know how someone else is, I can just go on with my day.

[01:03:46] So I think, you know, you’re forcing yourself to not be selfish by actually opening up the conversation.

[01:03:52] Yeah, I think you’re right. I’m just checking process. It’s a good thing.

[01:03:59] All right. You listening to this? If you like this, if you didn’t like this, if you would like us to talk more about this, well, maybe some clean a topic at all. If you have any question, anything. Send us an e-mail to his podcast. Green dot com.

[01:04:20] Thank you for listening. Sherea.