Shawn Johal on Tools for Well-Being, Success and Entrepreneurship

00:57
Erin
He can tell you more about that himself, but I’ll simply introduce him as Shawn Johal. Shawn is an entrepreneur, business coach, author and speaker. He co-founded DALS, an incredibly successful LED lighting company, then went on to found the coaching firm Elevation. And I love how Shawn describes Elevation. There he works with entrepreneurs and their teams to accelerate their growth while helping them find personal balance and happiness. Based on his coaching experiences, he has written a book called the Happy Leader, which is a leadership fable about transformation in business and in life. Shawn is a husband, father and a lover of triathlons and hockey, and he loves to travel. I’m so excited to talk to him today. Welcome, Shawn. 

01:44
Shawn
Well, thank you, Erin. I’m very excited to be here. 

01:46
Erin
Thank you for being here. So tell us the story behind your name. 

01:52
Shawn
Yes, the name is interesting because you didn’t actually mention the real name in the intro. So I’ve always been very embarrassed by my name. My name is an Indian name. And one thing you have to understand, Erin, is that many Indian people and Asian people do this as well. We will often take other names on when we come to North America to assimilate into the culture for right or for wrong. That’s what a lot of us end up doing. So when you often meet someone of Indian background, you may want to make sure you ask if that’s actually their real name. Shawn is not anywhere to be found on my birth certificates, on my passport, it’s nowhere. It’s been an invented name. My actual real name is Sukhraj and that was a name my grandmother gave me when I was born. 

02:35
Shawn
And that loosely translates to the Happy Leader. 

02:40
Erin
Wow. So that’s very fitting for your book then. Nice. 

02:44
Shawn
For a long time I thought about how I wanted to name the book. If you go into the literal definition of the name. It actually means the happy king. But I didn’t want to start getting monarchy involved into my book, so I thought king, leader, pretty close. So that’s why I decided to go with that name for the book. 

02:59
Erin
That’s awesome. So I’m so glad you brought the book up, because I did want to talk about it. I know it’s a leadership fable, and it’s centered around this. I’ll call it the Hero being Ethan. And I was wondering if you could describe where Ethan is at the beginning, because there may be listeners that relate to that. And then did you base that character on common themes that you saw during your work at Elevation? 

03:27
Shawn
That’s a great question, Erin. It’s interesting. I’ve always read that, you know, experts say when you write your first book, it’s a. It’s going to be automatically a little autobiographical. So. And I was trying to avoid that, but I think it kind of seeped in a little bit into the book. The book concept and idea was inspired by people like Robin Sharma and Patrick Lencioni. I’ve always been very attracted to their work and the way they write fables, but are able to get pretty cool lessons across. So when I wrote this book, I had that in mind. And the character, really in the book is maybe the worst version of myself in many ways. So kind of taking, you know, what are the. 

04:04
Shawn
How was I the worst in my life, both with my family and my loved ones and in my professional life, you know, feeling burnt out, not being satisfied, not being happy, and then kind of. No, without wanting to give away too much of the plot, but, you know, the kind of individuals he meets along the way in the book are the aspirational people that I’d love to become like. So there’s kind of that dichotomy happening there. 

04:26
Erin
Oh, that’s so interesting because, yeah, I listened to it on audiobook and I started by thinking, like, oh, I wonder if you’re always, like, curious, right? Does the author relate to one of these characters? And I started by thinking, I wonder if Shawn relates to Ethan. But then as soon as I met Ravi, I’m like, oh, Shawn’s totally Ravi. But, like, I love how you’re actually saying there’s a piece of Ethan, Ravi in all of us, really. Because I could also relate to some pieces of what Ethan was experiencing. And I think we’ve probably all had moments in our life where we are feeling just really stuck and just where work and home and, you know, all sorts of different aspects of our life. Things are just in a bit of a negative spiral. And so. 

05:20
Erin
And then I think we can also see in ourselves, you know, the promise of what Ravi’s offering and. And. And moments in our life where we do feel like we’re kind of getting it right. And you’ve got that positive spiral happening in all aspects of your life. 

05:35
Shawn
Yeah, it reminds me a lot of what my. I have a mentor who’s this incredible individual. His name is Warren Rustand. And he always says this sentence. He always says, one success is only relevant when measured against one’s potential. And I find that in the book. I brought that idea back because in many ways, the character of Ravi is that ultimate, idealistic, utopic person that may be unachievable to get to, but that you can strive towards. And if you at least strive towards something that’s kind of, you know, higher up and a bigger vision, you’ll. Even if you don’t get there 100% of the way, even if you get there 60 or 70% of the way, you’ll probably be a much better individual and human being than you were before. So. 

06:17
Erin
Yeah. Can you repeat that quote for me? I need to think about that one again. 

06:21
Shawn
Yeah. One success is only relevant when it’s measured against one’s potential. And what I really love about that quote that Warren came up with is that has nothing to do with an extrinsic value with external people, with measuring yourself and comparing to others. It’s really about your own potential. You know, what is the ceiling and what is the capability and the possibilities you have for yourself, and how can you measure and live up to that? 

06:44
Erin
Yeah, I. One thing that I’m thinking about as you’re saying that is I’ve actually quite intentionally steered away from the word success in the fulfillment equation dialogue because I think that it comes with a lot of. Maybe there’s a lot of baggage there. There’s a lot of preconceived notions attached, but in that quote, it really does allow for what I think is the true essence of success, which is very personally defined. So it’s not these universal. Success equals money, success equals job title, whatever that is. It’s like we can start to maybe introduce that. That word into Fulfillment Equation language, as long as we’re super clear about it being internally driven. 

07:34
Shawn
Yeah, I completely agree with you. To me, there’s one thing on the face of this earth that’s the most liberating, no matter how you look at it. The only time you’re gonna have the most liberating. And that feeling of freedom is when you stop caring what other people think about you. Oh yeah, the only time you’ll achieve that. And that’s why that quote’s so relevant, because it’s not about what other people think, it’s just, okay, where do you wanna go? What do you consider success for yourself, which should eventually lead to some level of fulfillment if you can get there, but it should never matter what others think from an external point of view. 

08:06
Erin
Yeah. So I know your book provides a happiness roadmap, teaching people how to achieve both happiness and success. So we’re touching on that word again. And I know you like to leave people with very specific tools that they can apply in their day to day life. I don’t want to give too much away because I do certainly want people to be able to read your book. But I’m wondering if you can provide an example or, you know, maybe one of the tools so that we can get an idea for what to expect. 

08:34
Shawn
Absolutely. You know, without giving away the entire happiness guide. And people can see that and have access to it. The bottom line is that it really starts from within. You know, we talked about that, you know, a few seconds ago. It’s all about introspection, it’s all about intrinsically, how do you feel? Are you setting yourself up for success? So what are you doing in your own life in terms of your habits? You know, I’m really obsessed with high performance habits. So what’s your morning routine look like? What does your evening routine look like? Do you protect your time in a day or are you a slave to your email? Are you a slave to everyone else’s schedules? So I think you really need to work on your own well being before anything else. 

09:09
Shawn
You can’t be an amazing active member of your family, of your community, of your business world if you’re not taking care of your own energy, your own mental well being. So a lot of it has, focuses on kind of techniques on how to build your vision, how to do meditation. If that works for you know, how to have the most energy possible. To me, everything starts from there. And then there’s another part for me that’s really important is, has to do with mindset and perspective on the way we see things. And I think one of the single biggest killers of all things, you know, energy and passion, is stress. 

09:47
Shawn
So the thing with stress is that it is also incredibly unique and custom to each individual because you could have someone who’s working at, you know, a gas station or in a library or it doesn’t matter. And they could be completely stressed out because they have too many books to put back on the shelf. And you could have, you know, the CEO of a multi billion dollar company who literally has zero stress and doesn’t feel stress. It doesn’t have necessarily to do with more responsibility or a bigger position. In my mind, it has a lot to do with mindset. And so one of the tools I, I really developed over time is something I call the time anger gap. 

10:21
Erin
Okay. 

10:21
Shawn
I think this is something that’s very important for people to understand. So the way I look at the time anger gap is to look at the amount of time it takes you to get over something that really frustrated you. And some people can get over things really quickly. For some people it takes weeks, Some people takes months. Some people hold things for years. And how quickly is it that you’re going to be able to get over that? Because let me give you an example. If I asked you, Erin, what really frustrated you on November 27th. 

10:50
Erin
Okay. 

10:51
Shawn
Could you tell me? 

10:52
Erin
No. 

10:53
Shawn
No. What about September 12th? Would you be able to tell me what really frustrated you that day? 

10:58
Erin
No, I think I can. I can tell you back to about within the last 48 hours. And that’s about all I got. 

11:03
Shawn
Exactly. So if we take that mindset, which applies to almost everyone, unless you have some type of crazy photographic memory or some real deep down ability to remember grudges. Yeah. The reality is that you are going to get over it no matter what it is. The question is, how long will it take you to get over that? And if you can change that time anger gap, going from days to hours to minutes and to even seconds, I think that changes your complete outlook on life. I’ll give you one example that happened to me recently. My daughter has got her license not too long ago, and she’s been using our cars. And the other day she came home and my wife and I were actually in our hot tub just relaxing. And she says, dad, I have a little situation. I had a small accident. 

11:49
Shawn
Oh. I said, oh, okay. My gosh. Are you okay? So, yeah, I’m okay. The car, you know, has a little scratch. I said, a little scratch? Yeah, a little scratch. Let’s go look at this little scratch of yours. Oh, boy. And so that little scratch ended up being $14,000 damages. And there was, it was no other people involved in the accident except her and some concrete, you know, at this point. So it was really a junior, you know, driving mistake. And, Erin, I got really upset because there’s so much going on now. You have a damaged car that you’re going to have to go get fixed, and it’s going to screw up everyone’s schedule. And so I lost it. I lost it. I just started screaming and you’re never going to drive again. This is crazy. And I can’t believe you did this. 

12:28
Shawn
And I sent her to a room, even though she’s an adult at this point. And I can. I looked at the time and it took me exactly four and a half minutes to get over it. So I was really upset. And then my wife was kind of looking at me and laughing, and she knew, you know, this is my process. But something that, like, could have taken me, you know, hours or days or weeks to get over, I just said, you know what? No one was hurt. We’re gonna fix the car. It’s a good lesson for her. I brought her downstairs. I apologize for, you know, losing my mind for a few minutes. And I said, you know, you’re safe. Everything is good. You know, we’ll fix the car. You do have to pay the deductible. You’re gonna have to pay that part. 

13:09
Shawn
But let’s move on and, you know, let’s get you back on the wagon. You can go back to driving the other car as we fix this one. So to me, I would encourage people to just think about something of think about how they get over, you know, moments of frustration and anger and how quickly they can reduce that, which will, in essence, reduce stress. 

13:26
Erin
If this had happened 15 years ago, how much time do you think that gap would have been? 

13:32
Shawn
Oh, it would have been days. It may have been weeks. It would have been long. It would have been long. 

13:38
Erin
So this is learnable. 

13:39
Shawn
It’s learnable. It has to do with, you know, again, techniques of journaling and meditation and just taking a different outlook on life, but really understanding that whatever happens, you are going to get over it. Like, you will get over it, and you’ll get over it pretty quickly and you’re going to forget about this. So what’s the point of dwelling on it for X amount of time? Just take that gap that’s this long and just keep working on reducing it to as low as you can, really. 

14:03
Erin
And did you do anything specific in those four and a half minutes? 

14:07
Shawn
I, I did a lot of. I did a lot of things. I, I went for a, a short walk around the block. I just quick walk around the block right Some deep breathing. I do some very specific deep breathing techniques. Kind of a bit of a Wim Hof type breathing just to kind of get the oxygen flowing back in the system. But it was mostly talking to myself and just saying, you know, okay, you have a choice now. You can ruin the rest of the weekend or you could just move on from this and jump into solution mode. 

14:35
Erin
So yeah. And that self talk is so important. We like, I feel like I have become far more aware in recent years of the voices in our own heads and what they’re saying and how toxic that can be also how beneficial that can be and then realizing that we also have control over that. 

15:01
Shawn
Absolutely. Where we don’t have control, Erin, where I think people don’t realize. People think when you do a lot of meditation, when you do a lot of, you know, introspection that you’re going to be able to control your emotions. You can control the emotions once they’ve arrived, but chemically it’s impossible to stop the emotions from rising. You know, if you think about someone just goes and pinches you and you’re going to be upset, you’ll feel the physical pain, but you’ll also be aggravated right away. Or you know, anything that happens where someone says something mean to you, there is an emotion that’s going to rise inside of you. You cannot stop that emotion from coming up. That’s impossible to stop. You talk to all the best yogis and all the meditators of the world and people who have full self control. 

15:42
Shawn
That part you can’t control, but you can immediately start controlling how you react to it. So it’s more about the reaction to the emotion and trying to suppress the emotion. You actually have to let the emotion come out right, then be able to deal with it. You know, that’s how you have to look at it. 

15:50
Erin
Right. It’s like it’s almost about inserting a decision point in between the emotion itself and the response. 

15:58
Shawn

Laboring. 

15:59
Erin

Right. I’m not even sure we would want to get rid of emotions even if we could. I mean, I wouldn’t want to. 

16:16
Shawn
My son has gone through some challenging times and he’s learned some really interesting concepts at a young age. And you know, he started talking in emotions, which is very strange to hear a 15 year old. So when something would happen, he would say, I am frustrated, I am angry at this moment, I am tired right now, you know, and like, wow, that’s weird. Like he’s talking in this very, you know, he’s literally naming his emotions. But then I came to realize I was like, wow, that’s actually incredible. Imagine someone would just tell you exactly how they feel and that, you know, at this point, okay, they’ve labeled their emotion so you can react, you know, in the right way, and they can then start to react in the right way. 

16:56
Shawn
It’s not something that we’re comfortable doing as human beings typically, but I find it very liberating. 

17:01
Erin
Yes. And he’s got a language that extends beyond four emotions. 

17:05
Shawn
Exactly. 

17:06
Erin
And I think that, like, I’ve found that really helpful as well. I think Marc Brackett’s book Permission to Feel does some great definition of different emotions. Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart. Like, these are resources where we can start to understand the small but really important differences between our emotions. Because otherwise everything just comes down to, like, I feel happy, sad, angry, like jealous. Like, whatever the fourth one is, I can’t remember. Reminds me of that movie Inside out. 

17:41
Shawn
Which is, yeah, it is like inside out. 

17:44
Erin
So you talked a little bit about mindset, but you also mentioned something about high performance habits, and that made me curious about what do your high performance habits look like? What does high performance habits look like? What does that mean to you? 

18:00
Shawn
It’s a really great question. And I want to be very careful not to come across as too extreme because I know I can be quite extreme in my habits. So I’m going to tell you a little bit about what it looks like. But when I. You have your listeners, you know, I encourage you to try to take on just a couple of these ideas. You don’t need to go to the full extent of what I’m doing because I always get a little intimidated when you talk to people and they’re doing these extreme things. And then you say to yourself, I could never do it, you know, to that extent. So I try to teach people, listen, take one of the three things I’m doing or, you know, just change five to 10 minutes of your routine. You don’t need to change the whole thing. 

18:31
Shawn
So I’ll start by the evening routine, because no one starts by the evening routine. You know, my. One of the people who I had a chance to meet and respect a lot is Robin Sharma. And he had his book, the 5am Club, and I had a chance to ask him a question about it. And I said, you know, not everybody likes getting up at 5am and not everyone’s at their best. I myself am not great at that hour. I prefer to get up around 6:30 and start my routine. And he has softened his stance a little bit and said, you don’t have to get up at that exact hour as long as you have a bit of time for yourself in the morning. 

18:57
Shawn
So when it comes to the evening routine, I think that this is one of the most underrated parts of our lives because most people, they just, you know, kind of have so much fatigue at night. They just want to get in front of a Netflix show or you know, just kind of let everything go, get on their cell phone, scroll social media, whatever it is, you know, to get some doom scrolling happening. And those are literally the worst things you can do before you go to sleep because you’re going to be marinating in whatever it is you’re consuming for the next eight hours. And it’s scientifically proven that going to bed at night, what you put in your brain before you go to bed is what’s going to affect your subconscious the most. So I, you know, those are theta brainwaves. 

19:35
Shawn
For those people who are aware, that’s theta brainwaves are the most, the ones that are most affectable and those are the brain waves that are affected by. Basically it’s when the moment where you’re starting to get tired and getting close to falling asleep, but before you actually fall asleep, that’s when you’re in theta state and where you can most affect your subconscious. So I do a couple things. The one thing is I like to follow the three, two, one rule. Okay, so the three, two, one rule is very simple. It’s stop eating three hours before you go to bed, Stop drinking two hours before you go to bed, and stop consuming electronics one hour before you go to bed. Okay, so it’s a very simple number to remember. And you know, it’s just good digestive system. 

20:16
Shawn
There’s no reason you should be eating three hours before you go to bed. You don’t want to be getting up and peeing in the middle of the night. You know, you don’t want to be drinking too right before. And then the most important and toughest for people will be the screens. All right, can you cut them off an hour? Again, that’s extreme. If you’re able to cut them off even 20 minutes before going to bed, you know, and getting rid of any screens, that’s very positive. So that’s a rule that I think is really easy to implement for everyone. 

20:39
Erin
I love that. That is so easy to remember. 

20:42
Shawn
Yeah, yeah, I love it. Since I’ve been doing it. Now another thing that I do which is a little more extreme is that 30 minutes before I go to bed, I do my entire 30 minute routine completely in the dark. So because the reality is, depending on where you live, I don’t want to judge where people’s, you know, how their houses are set up, but there’s always a little bit of light. It’s not like you’re completely in the pitch black and your eyes do adapt. So I do a stretching routine, you know, 30 minutes before I go to bed. 

21:09
Shawn
So very specific, you know, about 15 minutes of deep stretching where I also do a bit of visualization at that point and I will actually floss, brush my teeth and wash my face completely in the dark for those last, you know, in the last 30 minutes. Because that allows my brain to get ready for sleep and it’s giving me the signals that, okay, you know, nothing else is happening here. You’re not going to look at another screen, you’re not going to be doing anything more. So that also I find very helpful. A little more extreme, but very helpful. 

21:36
Erin
Yes. Oh, that’s so good. It’s, it’s funny. I completely relate to you with your anecdote about the 5am. Like, I hear a lot of people talk about the value of getting up that early. And you know, some people are very productive and they get lots of nice quiet time for themselves at that time in the morning. I feel like my body just doesn’t work that way. Like it’s very painful. But one thing I did observe, we were living in Costa Rica for a month and they have, like that area of the world has a different, I’ll call it circadian rhythm in that the sun rises and sets at a very consistent time all year round. So when we were there, the sun was rising at 6 in the morning every day, sometimes a little bit before, and it was setting at 6:30 every night. 

22:34
Erin
And I don’t think it deviates much from that throughout the year because they’re pretty close to the equator. Whereas for us in Canada, we see a really big difference between the time the sun rises and sets in the summer versus in the winter. And I found that I actually, to start with the evening routine like you did, felt so much more ready for bed so much earlier than I do. Back in Canada, I was asleep by 9:30 every single night because it was just dark after 6:30 and by the time 9:30 hit, like your body was ready for sleep. 

23:15
Shawn
Absolutely. 

23:16
Erin
Which then meant that. And this is probably why you started with the evening routine, it meant that I was actually waking up with the sun in the morning. And that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to feeling what others describe as, you know, this. This kind of special morning time where you kind of get to do some things before you’re launched into your workday or whatever else. Like, it’s. It’s a really special time. The challenge is that coming back to Canada, my husband and actually. And I actually said, okay, we’re going to stick with this. Like, we’ve done it for a month. This is our routine. We just need to make it happen at home. We couldn’t do it. We lasted like two days. 

23:58
Shawn
Yeah. 

23:59
Erin
Because without the environment helping to facilitate was so hard. 

24:05
Shawn
Absolutely. You got to set up your environment for success. And that’s something that people usually struggle to do. You know, the reality is that mornings are typically more hectic for people than evenings. When you really look at it, not that many people, you know, depending on your. The ages of your kids, are either going to bed before you’re going to bed, then it’s all about, okay, do I need time to relax and, you know, kind of release all the stress from the day. Totally get it, totally understand it. But are you setting yourself up for success or are you just kind of going with the motions and, you know, doing the same thing every day where you’re falling asleep in the middle of an episode of Breaking Bad or, you know, you’re scrolling on TikTok until God knows what time. 

24:42
Shawn
And you’d see time’s not, you know, it’s flying by. You just got to be more intentional about it. I just tell people, even if you give yourself 10 minutes, we call it theta reprogramming. So reprogramming those theta brainwaves, just give yourself 10 minutes. It’s all it takes. Sometimes, you know, it’s not a lot. 

24:56
Erin
Yeah, well, and I feel like you’re. I’m gonna totally try what you’re describing in terms of the lights out, 30 minutes before bed, because I feel like that almost begins to replicate maybe some of what I was describing as experiencing in Costa Rica. 

25:09
Shawn
Yeah, I think that’s a really good way of doing it. 

25:11
Erin
Yeah, great idea. 

25:13
Shawn
Yeah. And then, you know, if you want a quickly on the morning routine. So again, this all depends on how much time. So I always make sure I give myself. You know, again, it’s not going to maybe happen seven days a week, but let’s say five to six days a week, I’m able to pull it off. I’ll wake up around 6:30. I’ll do a Wim Hof breathing technique. So if anybody wants to look that up. It’s a very intensive breathing that you can do between you take 10 and 17 minutes. That gets a tremendous amount of oxygen into your blood. So it just kicks off your day with a huge amount of energy. Then I will typically set my intention for the day. So I always like to have one intention for the day coming up that will change from day to day. 

25:50
Shawn
For example, today my intention was, okay, be the best podcast guest possible for Erin. That was my intention. And then I’ll do some stretching and then go right into a workout. So I’ll work out, you know, about six days a week and I’ll, that’s for me kicking off my day with that breathing, intention, bit of stretching and workout, you know, it’s a recipe for success for me. Then I have energy for the whole day and I’ve accomplished a lot by 8:00am right? So that’s typically the routine that I follow in the morning. Again, not easy for everyone. You have young kids, you gotta take them to daycare, you start work early, whatever it is, I totally get it. 

26:24
Shawn
Can you just do something a little different in the morning as opposed to just jumping on your phone and letting you know all your emails turn into stress in your mind and your body? 

26:33
Erin
Right, yeah. So that morning routine actually changes your experience of your day is what I’m hearing. 

26:40
Shawn
Completely. For me, it completely changes my day because you’re getting up, you’re doing this breathing, so now you’re just full of oxygen. And I do it as a guided you can. On YouTube, there’s these Wim Hof videos which are amazing. His voice is super soothing. So you’re just, you’re getting this jolt of energy right off the bat. I mean, you can’t not have energy after this breathing because you’re literally taking in so much oxygen into your bloodstream within 10 to 15 minutes. Then little stretching just kind of loosens everything up. Would be intention. So, you know, okay, what is my mission today? Like what is it that I’m trying to accomplish? And if it’s on the weekend, it’s going to tell you tomorrow morning is going to be different for me. Right. 

27:14
Shawn
Tomorrow morning I’m spending the day with, you know, my wife, let’s say, and we’re going to be hanging out. Okay. My intention is completely different than today. So you’re just setting yourself up for success. And then of course, you know, I’m a huge believer in exercise. I used to believe exercise was more important than nutrition. I think nutrition is now more important than exercise. But I think you need to combine both in a healthy way. 

27:34
Erin
Yeah. Okay. I’m going to switch gears a little bit to entrepreneurship because I was excited to find out that you and I actually have a fair amount in common. We both have parents who worked for large corporations for their entire career, like decades. We both started in larger corporations to experience that environment. Not surprisingly, that’s what was role modeled for us. And then we both ended up, for whatever reason, living an entrepreneurial life. And I was excited to find you have like a little video where you share three main things that you think are important and that can be learned as people are getting into entrepreneurship. So I was wondering if you could share those here as well. 

28:24
Shawn
Yeah, absolutely. I think when you’re just thinking about, you know, your path in life, there is a part of it to me that is, that has to do a little bit with luck and who you meet and how things kind of happen as well. Right. Because, you know. Yes. I was taught my parents literally, my dad showed me his watch at his 40 year anniversary of working at the same company, said, son, one day you’re gonna get to have a watch like my watch. And I was like, oh, I don’t know if I want to just have a watch for 40 years of service at a place obviously tons of respect for my dad accomplished at Rolls Royce, but we never had a Rolls Royce. He was working on the plane engines and we didn’t have a plane either. It’s just. 

29:03
Erin
And I do just want to pause for a minute, Shawn, just to acknowledge that it sounds like that brought your dad a lot of fulfillment. And so before we launch into this, there is, you know, there are like many paths to fulfillment. And so for some people working somewhere and having that connection to a workplace for decades and getting that, you know, making it to 40 years and getting that watch is incredibly fulfilling. 

29:26
Shawn
It is. And it’s a long lost art. Right. Who’s working 40 years at a company nowadays? I mean, you’re lucky if you’re getting four years, let alone four companies from an individual. So I think, you know, that generation had a different way of seeing things. And, you know, it taught me a lot about work ethic and loyalty, you know, and putting in the time. So all of those lessons were quite amazing. The reality is that, you know, when I started my career, I didn’t, I wasn’t aiming to go work for a big company. It kind of, again, was a, you know, fortuitous meeting with someone who gave me this opportunity. 

29:55
Shawn
And I got hired by Rubbermaid, which is a billion dollar company, and then just got, you know, integrated into that culture, which was very focused on leadership development and, you know, growth and mindset. So I got to learn all these incredible tools, including public speaking. They would put us literally on stages in front of people, make us speak. So all these things were just such great lessons for me. But the reality is that had I not met my wife and her family, who are literally a hundred times more entrepreneurial than I ever was, I don’t think I would have become an entrepreneur. I think I would have had a successful, whatever you want to define that as, but a successful corporate career. That’s what I would have done because I. 

30:31
Shawn
I was able to navigate well with big company politics and, you know, I would have figured it out and I would have been maybe a VP or something somewhere, who knows? But the fact that I had a family and a wife was she had her own clothing store and she was super entrepreneurial, and her parents were launching, you know, business with her brother. And so they are the ones that really dragged me into this, you know, entrepreneurial mindset. And I think I learned from them. And so when you talk about entrepreneurship, I’m one of those people who, you know, I have a lot of debates with people on this. I don’t think you’re born an entrepreneur at all. I think you can absolutely have some characteristics that you’re born with, but I think there’s a tremendous amount that can be learned along the way. 

31:14
Shawn
I really do. You look at crazy people like Elon Musk. You know, Elon Musk, such a visionary, but you read his biography. It’s his youth that shaped him. It was the fact that he lived in such a wildly chaotic environment and dealt with violence and had a father who basically didn’t take care of him. He had to be so autonomous. It was those things that led him a lot of times to becoming, you know, the entrepreneur that he is today. So, you know, I think that’s part of that learning that happens depending on how you were brought up and who you meet along the way. So for me, I’m more of a kind of very structured, not super risk taking, necessarily kind of guy who just learned, oh, what is entrepreneurship? Let me read this. 

31:53
Shawn
So I learned about the concept and then I was able to implement it and start taking some chances and some risks. But, you know, it was very structured. It was very calculated, I will say. 

32:03
Erin
Me too. Me too. And so you had three pieces. You talked about networking, thirst for learning, risk management. Can you, can you elaborate on that? 

32:13
Shawn
Yeah, for me, networking is by far the most important. And this is challenging for new entrepreneurs because they don’t usually don’t know where to go. And I end up speaking with a lot of young entrepreneurs and new entrepreneurs and the world isn’t well designed for new and young entrepreneurs as far as I’m concerned. And we’re trying to do a better job of having a startup communities and getting to, you know, finding ways to surround these people. But I think making sure that one, if you can find mentors, you know, and again people get really intimidated and they think it’s so hard, but it is work. I don’t think it’s that hard. I think you have to put in the time, you have to find people around you who are doing the type of things that you’d want to aspire to doing. 

32:47
Shawn
And you’ll be surprised how many of these people be willing to help you. Maybe you have to pay a little. Maybe, you know, maybe you have to find a way to give back to them some way somehow. It’s not that easy to find someone who just mentor you for free. But you know, I think that’s one way of doing it and then finding other like minded entrepreneurs. But ideally people who are a little bit more successful than you, who have done the things that you want to eventually get to and find ways to be. There are structured groups like EO, you know, the entrepreneurs organization and there’s many things like tech and there’s a lot of these groups that exist. 

33:16
Shawn
The problem is that the barrier to entry is a little challenging for them because you have to be at a certain level in your business. When you’re a small entrepreneur, I think you have to find some other avenues. It could be just your local chamber of commerce, but you have to surround yourself with other entrepreneurs. It’s just there’s nothing that will teach you about entrepreneurship than seeing the challenges that other entrepreneurs are facing. That’s 100% for sure. 

33:38
Erin
Right. And the skills that they use to problem solve their way through things and learning from their experiences as well. Because why do it all? Why reinvent the wheel all over by yourself if someone else has had an experience that could be helpful to you? 

33:52
Shawn
Yeah, I completely agree with you on that. Yeah. And you know, there’s the element again I mentioned a little bit earlier, but I think there’s a bit of a myth again with, you know, this idea to be an entrepreneur, you have to be a crazy risk taker and you have to kind of lay it all out on the line. There is an element of that I do think, you know, when we started our business, we were coming out of a family bankruptcy. We had to take second mortgages on our homes to launch the new business. So yes, there was a risk there. The beauty, the beauty of that risk is that when you’re young, you’re very naive, so you don’t know what you’re doing. So, you know, sometimes you do you think I’m crazy. 

34:24
Shawn
When you look back, oh my God, like 15 years ago, I actually, you know, took a second mortgage and my wife was pregnant. I was kind of putting it all out there. But you know, sometimes it’s just a matter of finding the opportunity that fits for you. Sometimes you don’t need this huge sum of money to go out there and start something if you’re, if you have the right attitude around it. You know, I’ve been following very closely and a book and you know, this guy, Walker Diebel, he talks about, you know, buying then building. 

34:52
Shawn
His book’s called Buy then Build and he just talks about acquisition, entrepreneurship and he just explains the concept of how you could have $50,000 and you can go and buy a, you know, half a million dollar business with that and just get some leverage and make sure that, you know, that the company is structured the right way and go and you know, do you have the ability to do it, the risk taking, you know, the people around you? Maybe not, but you know, it’s a lot easier than people think. I think people get really intimidated and just say, oh no, that’s not for me or I’ll never be an entrepreneur. But when they start looking at the opportunities and what, how it can be structured, there’s a lot of ways that it could actually happen. 

35:30
Erin
Yeah. And I feel like both of those things kind of link to your other point about the thirst for learning. What does that look like? 

35:38
Shawn
This is a tough one. I really think it’s a tough one because people are stubborn. I mean in general I meet people, a lot of people are quite stubborn. Do you really have this open minded, open hearted curiosity and the way to know if you have that is very simple is do you ask twice as many questions as you answer? Like that’s to me the simplest way of looking at it. So do you constantly want to know more? If you think about the people in your life who you enjoy spending the most time with or people just have the. You think have the best personality. Do you really think about those people? What do they have as the skill? To me, they have the skill of listening and question asking. 

36:19
Shawn
You know, I’ll take my neighbor, one of my neighbors, for example, my ex neighbor, but her name is Stephanie and everyone loves Stephanie. You cannot not love Stephanie. Anybody meets her and they love Stephanie. It’s not because she’s got to say outgoing, rambunctious personality. It’s because she takes so much interest in knowing what’s going on. Hey, how’s that project you spoke to me about? You know, how is that moving forward? You know, how the kids are you going on vacation? I want to hear about your vacation. Tell me what you know. And just. She has so much curiosity and such a thirst for learning about what’s happening in my life that I just, you know, I get to the point sometimes, like, Steph, enough, like, enough with your questions. You’ve asked me too many. Like, I need to hear about you now. 

36:56
Shawn
You know, we need to flip this conversation. But I think the one part is really being just wildly curious. And it takes, you know, an ability to eliminate ego to do that. Because it’s not about you, it’s about the other individual. You get to learn from it, but it’s about letting them express themselves and talk. So I think that’s one major element of it. And the other element to me is accepting that you’re probably pretty. I don’t want to. I don’t even care about the word I use. But you know, we’re pretty stupid on most subjects. We don’t know many subjects very well. 

37:29
Shawn
If you think of us as individuals, we may know two or three subjects that we can consider ourselves experts in or very knowledgeable in, but most of the time we kind of fake it till we make it, which is not a good thing. You know, when you want to learn about something. Well, how are you going to go and learn about that topic? You know, there’s the Richard Feynman, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. Is this. Yeah, yeah, He’s. He comes up with this really amazing way of learning where he explains, you should write down. When you want to explain something to someone, you should write it down as if you’re explaining it to a 12 year old and then see if you’re able to explain it that simply to that individual in those terms. 

38:03
Shawn
And that’ll tell you if you really know a lot about a subject. Because if you can make that 12 year old fully understand it, then you probably have a really good grasp on it. Right, right. So the idea behind that to me is just thinking, chances are there’s someone way smarter than you and they know way more about that subject than you do. And you just need to learn as much about it as possible. And the only way to do that is to be, you know, completely open minded and acknowledging the fact that you probably don’t have all the answers. 

38:29
Erin
Yeah. And I think you made a point in your video about how these things can be learned, which I think is a great point. I mean, it seems like some people are more naturally curious than others. But you also, you talked about mindset. And for that we actually have some ability to learn and grow and control. And so it seems like as you’re describing it, there’s a link between kind of the mindset you’re adopting and then the curiosity that follows or that you kind of unlock with your opening your mindset that way. 

39:02
Shawn
Yeah. When you talk, when you hear about thought leaders, talk about the growth mindset. What is the growth mindset? The growth mindset is 100 percent that. The growth mindset is acknowledging that you always have more to learn. There’s always more that you can learn about a topic and a subject. And you have to just be open and willing to do that. You know, a fixed mindset is the opposite. Right. A fixed mindset is I already know the most. I know I can’t get better at this. You know, they’ve proven scientifically now that our brain and the neuroplasticity continues to evolve. They thought, you know, or we lost brain cells. They thought, we get, you know, as we age, you know that. But that’s not true. 

39:36
Shawn
There’s, you know, through learning, through changing the hand with which you brush your teeth, you know, by learning a new skill, like I’m learning piano right now with an app. And it’s proven scientifically that those are going to create new neural pathways for me. There’ll be neuroplasticity. My gray matter will increase in my brain even at 45 years old. And that applies to everyone at whatever age you’re at. So you should never be using that as an excuse. Unfortunately, I find people do that as they age. They say, oh, well now I, I’m too old or I can’t do this or I can’t do that. But it’s not true. Right? You can, right? You know, you look at Peter Drucker, who’s the guru of management, he wrote the majority of his books after 62 years old. 

40:14
Erin
Oh my goodness. 

40:15
Shawn
People don’t realize this. They think he was this guru his whole life, but he really wasn’t. The most books he wrote were between the ages of 62 and 75. So. And that’s. Those are the books that we read today. So, you know, you have a lot of time to keep learning and a lot of time to keep growing. 

40:32
Erin
Yeah, I’m gonna switch our gears again and this time I wanted to turn it to the relationship between fulfillment and identity. And you wrote a beautiful blog article about your own journey in reclaiming your cultural identity. I think as somebody who didn’t experience that, it was very eye opening and it gave me a lot to think about in terms of, you know, just empathizing with what that experience might be like. It also gave me a lot to think about because regardless of, you know, what our cultural experiences might have been, we all do have this connection to our identities. And so it brought up, you know, thoughts about where we may be compromising our own identities in order to please others or to fit into societal expectations. 

41:30
Erin
So I was wondering if you could tell me more about that or tell listeners who haven’t had a chance to read the blog about that. 

41:36
Shawn
Yeah, this is, it’s a very complex subject and I think it’s gotten more complex with everything happening in the world right now around immigration and right wing politics where countries are going towards this mindset of wanting to protect their borders. We’re seeing it all over Europe right now. We’re seeing the US as well. And I find it always fascinating because I speak to individuals who, with themselves, immigrants and who are completely against immigration. Like, well, this is interesting because, you know, you were that person, you know, quite a while ago. 

42:10
Shawn
For myself, I came to Canada when I was 3 years old and you know, as I mentioned earlier, I had a very Indian name and we came from very traditional Indian parents and got thrown into, you know, Montreal, which is very French speaking, and started growing up here and had to learn a new language. But what I realized when I was little, what affected me most is that the religion. So there’s a difference between religion and culture. But I was very exposed to the religion of Sikhism and like many religions, I found it to be very fear based and very segregated and I didn’t like that at all. I found that later in life very bizarre because you think about the Sikh religion, we’re, you know, the ones who have the Taj Mahal. Right. 

42:55
Shawn
So we got this beautiful thing and the Taj Mahal is four doors. Why does it have four doors? Right. East, west, north, south. The reason it has four doors is because the religion says we will welcome everyone from every direction. 

43:07
Erin
Okay? 

43:08
Shawn
So everyone’s allowed to come into the Taj Mahal because the religion was created as a link between the Hindus and the Muslims were fighting. So the religion got created very late. Only in the 1600s, was very late for religion as an in between those two religions to bring peace, as a matter of fact, from those religions. So I found it very weird that a religion that’s supposed to be so open and welcoming and became to, in my mind, very segregated and somewhat racist and very fixed. To give you an example, you know, arranged marriages still exist in our culture. And in arranged marriages, you’re supposed to not only marry someone who’s Sikh, you’re supposed to marry someone who’s the same caste as you. And there’s seven caste systems. Okay, I could just tell you. 

43:53
Shawn
And it’s almost impossible to find someone who’s not only Sikh, but who’s the same caste as you. You’re allowed to go up or down one cast, okay? So you’re allowed. You have kind of a three cast that you can work within, but which I find just completely absurd. You know, just in general, you should be able to marry for love and not within a religion and culture or within, you know, a caste system, obviously. So growing up, I was very anti culture, anti Indian. I wanted to be white. I wanted to be Canadian. I wanted to be French Canadian. I want to do anything but Indian. I didn’t have one Indian friend. I didn’t, you know, want to do anything in the family, you know, wouldn’t want to talk about my name. I was just Shawn. And that was kind of what it was. 

44:30
Shawn
So it took me a long time, a long time, up until I was about 30, to be honest with you, to then start saying, okay, no, I’ve been so adamant and so against this. This culture, this religion, but, you know, where did that come from? And yes, I still, to this day, I’m not religious and don’t necessarily believe in what it’s become. I do actually believe in the foundation of what’s written in the books, because I’ve read them and I find them fascinating. And I find it amazing because it’s all about inclusion, but it has not become an inclusive culture, unfortunately, later in life. But I have come to realize that, you know, it’s pretty cool coming from this, you know, background, this. 

45:12
Shawn
And people are fascinated by the background and want to always hear and learn more about it and just, you know, the meaning of what my name is and getting to understand more about my parents and my grandparents. So I’ve come kind of full circle to now embrace it and to be proud of kind of my heritage. Even though I will never be religious, I can at least be proud of, you know, where I come from. 

45:34
Erin
Do you feel more fulfilled having added that part to your identity? Was there a hole there before? 

45:44
Shawn
It’s a great question. I don’t know if I necessarily feel more fulfilled, but I feel maybe more well rounded, you know, a little more complete as opposed to fulfilled. It’s almost like, okay, there’s a little bit of a piece missing that now I’ve, it’s giving me like, you know, it’s. Again, it’s a bit more of that. Eliminating the stubbornness. It was more stubbornness, right, to say, I don’t want anything to do with this religion. I’m. I’m not Indian. I’m not, you know, whereas now I’m thinking, okay, you know, it’s a wonderful culture, it’s a wonderful, you know, community, and it’s part of who I am. And now, you know, let me accept that that’s part of the human that I am today. So, yeah, I would say it’s a tough one. Maybe a touch of fulfillment, but maybe a little bit more completeness. 

46:31
Shawn
I would use that word. 

46:32
Erin
Yeah. It sounds like it’s maybe added some perspectives and some, you know, some additional shading to a painting rather than it just being, you know, black and white. 

46:45
Shawn
Yeah, exactly. That’s a good way of. There’s a nice way of describing it. 

46:49
Erin
Okay, let’s launch into building your equation. Are you ready? 

46:53
Shawn
I am ready. 

46:54
Erin
Nice. Okay, so we are going to start by identifying the things that you build into your week. These can be things you love to do that bring you fulfillment. Sometimes we also have. Have to do’s. That’s Okay. A good example would be you had started by describing your morning routine. So clearly you have components in that are throughout the week. And then the second step we will do is to actually quantify those. And if you want to do that while we’re identifying the components, that’s fine too. 

47:26
Shawn
Perfect. 

47:27
Erin
So to start off, give me some of the clusters in your week. 

47:33
Shawn
So are we talking both personal and business or. 

47:37
Erin
Yeah, so like an example might be you had your exercise piece. 

47:43
Shawn
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So clusters, definitely breathing, you know, so you can call that kind of a meditative or high energy breathing. And Exercise with intention, setting. That is definitely a major component of, you know, what I’m doing. I also do journaling, so I also think that’s, you know, pretty important. And then one of the things that I’ve become, which I used to hate and I. And I’ve now become, it’s become part of, you know, my routine that I can’t get away is a long walk in the evening. So this is a big one. Now that my wife, I have to give her full credit because the first time she said, we’re going to go for a walk, I said, where are we walking to? And she said, oh, we’re just walking. I said, well, I don’t understand. Where’s the destination? 

48:24
Shawn
Where we’re going to the store. Are we going to like a park? She said, no, we’re just gonna walk. We’re just gonna walk. And I said, I couldn’t understand the concept and now I’ve come to embrace it quite a bit and I actually really look forward. We do a rain or shine 365 a year as much as possible. Even when it’s freezing or raining or snowing, we’re pretty good at it. So I’d say that’s another major chunk of what I do. Evening routine, as I mentioned to you as well. I think that cluster is quite important. I also have a gratitude practice that I do in that evening routine, which I didn’t speak about earlier, but just being really thankful for the day that, you know, just passed and also just for my health and for the people around me. 

49:03
Shawn
So I’d say, personally, those are probably the main things. 

49:07
Erin
Right. And then work is in there too, right? 

49:11
Shawn
Work is in there too. Yeah. My work is very fulfilling because I get to, you know, coach individuals. I get to be an entrepreneur as well. I do get to kind of pick and choose who I work with. So that’s really fun because most of my clients, especially after, you know, six years of doing this specific role, you get to learn who you want to work with, who you don’t want to work with. So I’m, you know, very privileged to have some really amazing clients that I get to coach on a day to day basis. 

49:37
Erin
Nice. I also wrote down time with spouse because it seemed like when you were describing your walk, that was one of the things that you were really getting out of that experience. And then there’s probably other opportunities where you guys are connecting throughout the week. 

49:51
Shawn
Yeah, I would consider us to be, you know, one of those couples. I don’t want to say that it’s rare because I think, you know, some other people have that, but we. We’ve been together a long time, but we have a very deep connection. You know, we. We have the same interests, except sports. She doesn’t really care about sports the way I do watching sports. I mean, she likes doing sports, really like watching them the way I do. That’s about the only thing that we don’t have in common. But everything else, you know, between our travel, between, you know, our discussion points, between going for walks, between working out. She works out as much as I do. Sometimes we go for runs together. So, yeah, that. 

50:23
Shawn
It’s a huge part of it, really, as it’s quite funny because once in a while she’ll be out with friends and I’ll go for a walk without her, which is, like, shocking. And I’ll kind of send her pictures to prove, as proof that I’m even going for a walk without her. And she always finds it pretty. Pretty hilarious. 

50:41
Erin
Oh, my gosh, that’s so funny. So why do we start to quantify some of this and then we can figure out along the way if we’ve missed anything. 

50:49
Shawn
Yeah. 

50:50
Erin
So exercise. If I was to give you know, we’ll kind of think of one block as being about an hour, how many blocks would you build in your week for exercise? 

51:03
Shawn
At least six. 

51:05
Erin
Okay. 

51:06
Shawn
Yeah. 

51:07
Erin
And I put breathing and meditation together as part of your morning routine. Does that make sense? Okay. 

51:12
Shawn
Yeah. 

51:13
Erin
So. And do you do that every, like, seven days a week, or is it. 

51:16
Shawn
Yeah, I think that’s pretty consistent. Even let’s say that’s all six days a week as well, and let’s say 15 minutes each, so probably a little kind of hour and a half there, I would say. 

51:26
Erin
Okay. Journaling’s quick. 

51:30
Shawn
I only take maybe five minutes, you know, per day. So it’s, you know, I say about 30 minutes per week. 

51:36
Erin
I think we’re going to switch it up a little bit with the blocks because it seems to me that what’s important to you and fulfilling to you is the habitual. Like the habit of it. 

51:49
Shawn
Yeah. 

51:50
Erin
More than the length of time. 

51:52
Shawn
I agree. 

51:53
Erin
So I think what I’m going to do is give. Right. Six for exercise, but then also six for breathing and meditation. And it’s okay. Those can be different sizes. And then do you journal, like, about six days a week as well? 

52:06
Shawn
Yeah, yeah. It’s very quick, but I do it pretty consistently. 

52:10
Erin
Okay. Because, you know, people’s equations. This is your own equation. But, you know, when we think about how we want to use it for you. It sounds like really making. It’s. It’s a useful tool to help make sure that you’re on track with the routine of these things because they bring joy to each day. Walking. 

52:30
Shawn
Yeah, walking is pretty consistent too. Maybe that one. We say four days a week. 

52:33
Erin
Okay. Time with your spouse. And this is. We can say quality time here. And this goes. 

52:42
Shawn
Yeah. 

52:42
Erin
I know some people when they put, you know, kids, it’s like your kids can be around all day long, but it’s like, what are those moments of connection. 

52:50
Shawn
Yeah, moments of connection. So we’re pretty good. Like, we’re pretty good. It’s. It has. And I’ve cut down my travel quite a bit to be a bit more. I used to travel a lot and now I’ve really cut it down dramatically over the last year. So, you know, I’d say we. We typically when things go well, I’d also say like six days a week. We get like a. An hour per day on those six days, you know, give or take. 

53:13
Erin
And is that just spouse or is that family in general, like spouse or kids? 

53:17
Shawn
So kids are tough these days because they’re even 18 and they’re 18 and 16 now. They have their own lives and they’re both working and we don’t spend a huge amount of time together. So, yeah, the kids, I might get, you know, let’s say an hour with each a week. Two hours per week. It’s not much anymore. And it sounds dramatically low, but that’s the reality when they. They get to school, slash work age. I mean, it’s, you know, they’re both working almost 40 hours a week already at their ages right now. So. 

53:44
Erin
Yes. 

53:45
Shawn
And we’re on different schedules in a day, so, yeah, we’re not spending that much quality time together except when we travel or, you know, do things like that. 

53:50
Erin
So, yeah, the ages of the kids really do seem to have obviously an impact on. On that. That how that component is represented in the equation. 

54:00
Shawn
And thus makes it so much more important to have that connection with the spouse in my mind because. 

54:04
Erin
Oh, yeah. 

54:04
Shawn
You know, or other friends or other groups outside of it, which I also have as well. But, you know, that becomes very important. 

54:11
Erin
Do you want to include something for those. the friends and groups? 

54:14
Shawn
Yeah, well, so I get. You’ve met a bunch of my 864 friends, which are. 

54:17
Erin
Yeah. 

54:18
Shawn
Group. And then I have my other EO form as well. So I mean, those two groups alone, you know, every month I get to spend. So that’s more. Maybe on a monthly basis, I get to at least spend, let’s say four hours with each give or take. So, you know, break it down per week, maybe two hours per week, if you want to look at it that way. Yeah, and that’s very important. I mean, those. Those two groups to me are incredibly important. 

54:38
Erin
Yes. And that’s a good litmus test for your equation is if something was missing, would you start to feel imbalanced? 

54:44
Shawn
Yeah, yeah, that’d be a big problem. 

54:46
Erin
If that was missing evening routine, even. 

54:51
Shawn
Routine, you could give it 30 minutes per night. 

54:54
Erin
Okay, so six. 

54:57
Shawn
Yep. 

54:58
Erin
Days, like we did for the others. I’ll just do it the same way as we did the morning one. Work for work. We sometimes use bigger blocks because, like, I’m not going to make you figure out how many hours necessarily. But yeah, if you were to take a chunk of time as being, you know, either a day or a morning or an afternoon, like, what would you. How would you describe it? 

55:20
Shawn
Well, I think if you’re going to look at it, I would say maybe four blocks. It makes sense because I usually try on Fridays not to have any type of, you know, and then the way my schedule works is I’ll have these half days of coaching and full days and mix and matching, you know, so it’s. Yeah, I’d say about probably four. Four days. Four half days, if you want to look at that way. It depends how you block it out, but yeah. 

55:42
Erin
Great. So here’s what we’ve got and then you can tell me if we missed anything. So, six exercise, six breathing and meditation, six journaling, four walking, six time with spouse, two times with kids, two with groups or friends. Six evening routine and four big blocks for work. 

56:04
Shawn
Write down the perfect structure right there. 

56:08
Erin
Does that feel like a good week to you? 

56:10
Shawn
That’s. That’s. That’s what my weeks look like pretty much every week. Yeah. 

56:13
Erin
Yeah. And it looks like that brings you a lot of fulfillment. 

56:16
Shawn
It does, it does. I worked really hard to build quite a specific structure to my life and to be able to kind of control. Can’t control everything, but to have a bit of control on what my week looks like. And I try to be very intentional about it. 

56:32
Erin
That’s amazing. And that’s what this is all about. The intention and the deliberateness behind it. You’re in control of your time. 

56:41
Shawn
I try to be as much as possible. I really hate not having control of my timeline. Sometimes I don’t. And that’s okay because in life you can’t control 100% of your time, but, you know, if you can control a good chunk of it, I think that’s. That’s freedom. To me, that’s freedom. That’s ultimate freedom. 

56:56
Erin
What is a dream that you have for yourself in five to 10 years? And how do you trace that back to what’s in your equation today? 

57:04
Shawn
In five. In five to 10 years? I don’t know exactly what time is. I’d like to be living somewhere else. I’d like to experience living in another country, which. Not for a month, I mean, let’s say a year, right. I’d like to go just live a full year somewhere else and just never done that. You know, we travel a lot, but I’ve, you know, was born in England, only lived there a couple years, came to Montreal, have been in Montreal my whole life, traveled the world. I’ve got to see a lot of great places, but had never had the opportunity to truly experience another culture for, you know, a longer period of time. So definitely on my bucket list of, you know, as the kids, it’s going to time nicely. 

57:41
Shawn
As my kids are, you know, into their 20s, you know, and kind of building their lives, I think it would be very realistic to say, you know what, let’s go live in Thailand for a year. Let’s just go live in, you know, Costa Rica like you did. Who knows, right? But just let’s just go and live somewhere for a year and just experience that. 

57:57
Erin
I love it. That’s one of my dreams, too. How would you trace that back to your equation today? 

58:05
Shawn
I’m building towards it very specifically. So the structure I’m putting in place from a. I guess that would be a little bit more professionally, I would say, and the way I’m doing things, or it should, if everything goes to plan, allow me to be set up for that lifestyle in the future. But again, that one thing I hate doing is not doing something now for future reward or fulfillment or happiness. I’m not. I don’t believe in that. So it’s very dangerous game as well. But so you have to be enjoying and really being fulfilled in what you do today, but with also being allowed to dream for later. 

58:43
Erin
Yes. Oh, I love how you’ve described that. That’s so important, the building fulfillment for the present while also being able to look forward to things and to have those dreams for the future. So important. 

58:57
Shawn
Yeah. I saw a clip the other day of Jim Carrey, you know, I love and respect a lot. And someone was just saying to him, you know, you seem like a really happy go, lucky guy. You know, despite a lot of actors seem stressed out and there’s all kinds of stories. There’s no stories on Jim Carrey. It’s just like everything seems just cool about this guy. And he just said something so easy. He says, oh. I said, it’s a super easy formula. And I said, oh, what’s the formula? He says, I live in the present moment, so that’s all you have to do. He says, I’m not living in the future moment. I’m living in the present moment. I’m not constantly moving on to the next and thinking about the next thing. He’s like, I’m. When I’m in my moment, I’m in my moment. 

59:31
Shawn
And I just thought it was just so well put. And I thought, oh, my God, we just don’t do that as humans. It’s a disaster. I was listening to that song the other day that I see my life passing me by, you know, And I was like, are we, you know, how many people do you hear that? They just look back and oh, my life just passed me. Like, where did that life go? And what did I even do with this life? You know? So now I’m really trying to be conscious of saying, okay, every moment. You know, I call it the grape test. 

59:58
Shawn
I, I once saw this, you know, long time meditator, and he was just saying, I’m going to show you how you should be eating a grape, you know, and he was just like taking little bites into the grape and enjoying like every little bite of this one little grape. It took him like seven minutes to eat the grape. It was almost like a comedy skit. But it was just for him to say how much joy he just got out of eating one grape. 

01:00:21
Erin
Right. 

01:00:21
Shawn
And savoring it and savoring it. So are you know, are you savoring every moment? Are you just suddenly, you know, it’s Friday. You’re just constantly thinking about how your weekend’s gonna be, and then you get to Monday and just think about the following weekend. And I don’t know, it really freaks me out. It’s, it’s something that I, at this age that I’m at now, it’s kind of this midlife age. It’s like, hey, like, no, no more of that. I know, it has to be. Every moment has to be enjoyable. 

01:00:45
Erin
Yeah. I think the other thing that’s crazy about that is when you get better at it, you actually have the ability to make it feel like time has slowed down. It’s like you. You suddenly, like, have power over time and, you know, like, I mean, that example of the grape, he was doing that very deliberately. But, you know, the extent to which you can kind of get good at the practice of being present and just enjoying the moment that you’re in, it feels like it eliminates what can often happen to many of us, which is just this getting caught up in this whirlwind of busyness and craziness and the weeks flying by and the days flying by and the years flying by. Absolutely. And then it’s gone, you know? Yeah. Life is crazy. 

01:01:36
Shawn
It’s crazy. Life is crazy. That’s for sure. 

01:01:39
Erin
And that’s what we’re here to explore. Can we do a few rapid fire questions before you go? 

01:01:44
Shawn
Absolutely. 

01:01:45
Erin
Nice. Finish the sentence. Fulfillment is. 

01:01:49
Shawn
Fulfillment is enjoying every moment and not living in regret. 

01:01:54
Erin
Give me an example of a small moment of joy you had in the last 24 hours. 

01:02:00
Shawn
My wife planting flowers in our backyard. 

01:02:05
Erin
Is the joy the wife or the flowers or both? 

01:02:09
Shawn
I think it’s both. It’s just seeing those flowers is. I don’t know. It just. Just triggers. It’s just wow. It’s just amazing. It just freaks me out, which I would never have said five years ago. I think that’s also something that comes with age. 

01:02:20
Erin
Yeah. What is a book you read or a podcast you listened to that changed the way you think? 

01:02:28
Shawn
Wow. Okay. I would say Strength to Strength. That I read recently. Okay. Very powerful book that just got me thinking about success and fulfillment and how you go with age, how things affect you in life, and to kind of realize where you. Where you’re at and where you want to go. 

01:02:52
Erin
Right. I just. I looked it up because I hadn’t heard of that one. 

01:02:54
Shawn
So. 

01:02:55
Erin
That’s by Arthur C. Brooks. 

01:02:56
Shawn
Arthur Brooks. Yeah. 

01:02:57
Erin
Yeah. Oh, interesting. That looks good in one sentence. What does freedom look like to you? 

01:03:05
Shawn
I would say for me, freedom is having complete control over your time and the people you choose to be with. 

01:03:17
Erin
Well said. Also, I think you may have answered that one earlier in our podcast, because I remember, that’s freedom. What is the coolest place you visited or a place you visited that exceeded your expectations? 

01:03:30
Shawn
I would say Hong Kong. For me, I wasn’t expecting. I’ve been to Hong Kong 15 times now to my top three cities in the world. I had zero little expectations, and I’ve been blown away by that city. Just incredible city. 

01:03:43
Erin
Wow. And you love to travel a lot, so you’ve been a lot of places. I think what I’m enjoying about this particular question is, I don’t think I’ve had the same answer twice. And these are like people who have traveled a lot. 

01:03:56
Shawn
So that’s fascinating. 

01:03:58
Erin
What is something you do regularly to fill your own cup? 

01:04:03
Shawn
I would say run. To me, running is a very liberating exercise that just, you know, I don’t listen to music. I’m a purist. I just go and I just want to hear what’s around me. And I, I smile and wave to every person I go by. I smile away to the bus drivers as they drive by me. And I just feel it’s. It’s a type of activity that you’re meant to soak in when you do it. You know, I’m not just. I got to do this specific time gone away from that. I’m enjoying the experience as opposed to the actual result now. 

01:04:36
Erin
Yes, that’s a real skill to learn in life itself. And what a great way to practice through something like running as well. Shawn, thank you so much for being here today. It’s been lovely to get to know you better. You clearly do embody your name, the happy leader. And I’m just so grateful for the wisdom that you’ve shared with us today. Thank you. 

01:05:01
Shawn
Thank you, Erin. It was really a wonderful experience. Very happy we had a chance to do this. 

01:05:06
Erin
Have a great day. 

01:05:07
Shawn
You too. 
01:05:10
Erin
If you like this podcast and want to support it, tell a friend about it. You can also connect with Fulfillment Equation through Instagram or Facebook for updates on new episodes, daily doses of joy and fun travel tips. And if you are really into it, feel free to join the Fulfillment Equation community through the website at fulfillmentequation.com where you will get a weekly email with insider information and free resources to help you build more fulfillment into your own life. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. There’s lots more to come this season, so stay tuned.

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