This week we enjoyed talking with Andrei Jablokow, accountability coach, international lecturer, and engineering professor. He talks with us about being introspective and figuring out exactly what is important to you. Andrei shares that simplifying our lives is an important step in making room for things that are important to us. He talks about taking a hard look at the things we are doing that we no longer have interest in but still continue to do. He says if it's not a "Hell Yes, then it needs to be No." You don't want to miss this podcast.
Guest Co-host: Bill Hughes: w.hughes@verizon.net
Podcast Guest: Andrei Jablokow: ajablokow@gmail.com
Transcription:
Kris Parsons00:02
Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.
Ray Loewe00:17
Morning, everybody, and welcome to changing the rules a show about the luckiest people in the world. And what you're going to find today is that the luckiest people in the world are those people who craft their own lives, they personally develop the life that they want to live. And then they go out and they live in under their own terms, and they take control and, and that often means changing the rules that other people have given to us and making them work for them. Unfortunately, rules usually tell us what we have to do or what we can't do. And the luckiest people in the world find a way to modify those somehow. So today we have Bill Hughes back as our co-host, and we have Andrei today the famous Andre, the Professor of Engineering at Drexel University, among other things. And Bill why don't you introduce Andrei?
Bill Hughes01:12
Andrei Jablokow. How am I say my saying that right? I'm
Andrei Jablokow01:18
not saying those people pronounce the pronounce that Yablokow. It's the J is like a Y in a W somewhere between a v and f and the middle is just like It looks complicated.
Bill Hughes01:30
Right? Anyhow, Andrei, if
Ray Loewe01:32
You notice I didn't I didn't even attempt the last name.
Bill Hughes01:37
Well, you know, us, us English here. We like to pronounce everything, as we see it, but that Jablokow?
Andrei Jablokow01:44
Jablokow, you got it.
Bill Hughes01:47
Good, so Andrei is an accountability coach, international lecturer, and engineering professor, as a coach and lecturer Dr. Jablokow works with executives and professionals to help them realize their vision, develop leaders and enjoy freedom. The doctor started his career as an engineering professor and has taught over 10,000 students in mechanical engineering. Andrei has a unique ability to explain complicated things in a simple way, identify the root cause of an obstacle, and get people moving in their right direction.
Ray Loewe02:25
Alright, Andrei, right now you got to perform, you got to show off all those things?
Andrei Jablokow02:29
No, I don't I don't perform a really bad circus act. Just so you know.
Ray Loewe02:33
So let's start with a question that we're going to hit right now. And the question is what now? So that's a very generic question. It's a fascinating concept. So let's give this a little bit of definition, either Bill or Andrei. And then let's start to explore what now? Are we talking about the pandemic Bill?
Bill Hughes02:58
No, I think we're talking about just the world in general because the pandemic is just symptomatic of some of the things that were changing as it is and just became more pronounced as a consequence. But I think a lot of people become more introspective over that period of time. Some people have gone in other directions, for sure. But the question always comes up. So what now?
Andrei Jablokow03:22
I think you bring up a great point, Bill. I think you're right on it. I think people have had a chance to look back. And, and only and look forward, I think there's some people that still have somewhere between the television, news, and social media between their ears. But when they get out of that, they'll quickly realize that this pandemic thing was a flashlight. Right should have been a flashlight a long time ago to do what Ray talks about is changing the rules, and being able to live life on your own terms. So you know, along that line, what should you be doing now? I think, you know, I've got two sets of friends on social media now. I've got some that are adding five pounds a year to their waist. And I've got others that are really getting fit and healthy. And I think if you're if you're going to come out of this pandemic, whatever, you know, whatever it ends up looking like, and if you're not stronger and healthier and getting more sleep and more sunshine and more time with people that you love, then something's not right. Okay. And that's where you need to go is to look at what do you want to do? I mean, I, I really think that it's simple. And I think Ray is on to something here. Okay. It's really simple to learn how to live and I think over the past 18-19 months, I think was an opportunity for people to explore, just how do you live? What are the rules for that?
Bill Hughes04:57
Well, you made a real simple suggestion. A while back that everybody ought to be doing at least once a day if possible. And what is that?
Andrei Jablokow05:08
Getting outside. Just getting, you might have to walk, taking a walk, just take a walk outside every day, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, you can even start without that. Don't take the walk, forget about it, because that's too much work. Just put your walking shoes on. Because while you already have them on, go while I'm here, I'm as go on a walk you know.
Ray Loewe05:35
Okay, so I think what you guys are alluding to is the fact that we've had a wake-up call that we always used to do things kind of the same way we got up in the morning, we got in the car, on the bus, we commuted to work, we spent time with associates in a constrained environment, we came home, whatever it was, and now we realize that we've had a year or two here where those things have all changed. We don't have to get up necessarily and go into the office. There's a whole bunch of people out there that are rethinking jobs, that aren't going back to work anymore. Okay, so So if we're sitting here, as individuals, what are some of the things that uh other than take a walk Andrei, although that's really the essence of it, just get outside and do something, but what are some of the things that we ought to do that we have the opportunity to do now that we didn't think we had the opportunity to do before, to change our lives and to get them under control?
Andrei Jablokow06:44
Well, you know, you bring up an interesting point, we could come up with a laundry list of things that we can do and change. But as humans, we're not so good at that. Because whether you were going to the office every day and working with people and commuting and coming back, and so on, you've come home now. And you know, what's interesting is my father tells the story when he retired, is that he didn't know when he found how we found time to work because he was busy. Okay, his cup is full, everybody's cup is full. You're out of time, whether you've been working, commuting, or now you've been staying home. And now you're trying to redefine what work would be and your former employer may be trying to get you to come back. And I think they need to resell it because I don't think people are going to go back into the box. But you know, your cup is full. And so you talk about what should we do. And I think the problem is that if I give you one thing new to do, you might say you might be really committed to it and want to do it. But two weeks in, you won't be able to sustain it. Because your cup has been full. And so to add anything new, add anything new, something's gonna have to go, something's gonna have to be put out. And you're going to have to learn how to simplify. Because I think not only if we've been staying at home when we talked about habits, and I've got eight books on habits and building habits and things like that habits are easy to pick up especially bad ones. And so now I have to remove those because even now I'm home, I'm saying I don't have time, and I'm saying well, you should go outside for a walk. Or you should spend time with your with a loved one or you should read a book you go how I still don't have any time. So how do you simplify? And how do you start new things is challenging.
Ray Loewe08:43
Alright, I have a suggestion. Okay, and you guys pick up on this. So I have found that one of the things that's helpful to me is to sit down, usually once a month for about 10 minutes, it doesn't take any more than that. And write down what are the things that are working in my life? And what are the things that aren't working in my life? And the goal is to be able to get rid of some of the things that aren't working or change them to make them work. And that's, I think, how you figure out how to make space for the things that you want to do. Now there's more to this too, and I'll come back to that later. But let's start with what's working, what's not working. So what do you think and how do we do it?
Andrei Jablokow09:32
I think it's a great start to reevaluate and assess where you are. But you know, I've been teaching Newton's laws for a long time. And, uh, you know, Newton's law everybody does that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So the minute I start doing something new, I've decided I'm going to change it's not working for me anymore and I move out on this path. I immediately find with resistance From the world, from the people around me, and from whatever, and I can force it, I can push it. I don't know whether I'll be able to sustain it for very long. But it is really, really interesting. What people do when it gets difficult when I was studying Taekwondo, I met one of the masters, we were getting changed into our uniforms and so on. And he asked me, Did you sign up, for the monthly program? Or did you pay for three years upfront? I said? What should I do? What do you think I should do? He said, Well when he'd signed up, the grandmaster asked him, was the same question you want to sign up for the monthly the three years, I said, Why should I do the other one? He said, well, with the monthly when it gets hard, you're going to want to quit? Yeah, okay. When is it going to get hard about the second week? And so that's the problem is most the thing that stops most people from executing on exactly what you say, Ray? The thing that stops most people is the start. Okay, here's one great, you also have a formula to don't you. F=MA, but that's just Newton's law. Yeah. Force equals mass times acceleration. And that's all I'm dealing with people. And so how do you build this new thing that you want to change Ray? How do you build it into a routine, that over time, you know, it becomes that thing we had 20 months ago, where you get up, you brush your teeth, you move around on the floor for 15 minutes, you know, you read you do whatever your devotional is, and then move on, you've got to create that for yourself in a healthy way.
Ray Loewe11:50
Okay so let me make another comment. Because you're absolutely correct. You get that resistance, you want to quit, the people that I find that know what they want, and are passionate about it, or have some sort of accountability system are able to do that. Now your taekwondo example of paying for three years in advance kind of builds in well you're gonna lose that money if you don't stay there, right. And not only that, but you've got that accountability system in place. So talk about this a little bit? Because you're absolutely correct. It's easy to say, what's working and what's not working, it's easy to come up with, these are the things I don't want to do anymore, or I want to fix. But now the question is, how do you handle the resistance? So why Dr. Andrei? How do you do this?
Andrei Jablokow12:47
So you can use any number of methods, a simple spreadsheet or a logbook has worked in physical fitness training for years that certainly works is to just write down, you know, plan every week, what are you going to do? Or even every day, the night before? What are you going to do? And again, if you don't control your time, it will control you. And then you write down exactly what you did and what you ate. And you know, did you have that meeting with yourself to do the things you want to that's one way to do it, there are online systems where you can you know, the rule, the rule is to don't break the chain, once you start doing something on a regular basis, you don't want to break the chain. I've been studying a foreign language. Now, there's a little program called Duolingo. And it's a game and you play it every day. But I'm up to 592 days in a row without missing a day of 10 minutes of practicing, you know, foreign language. So you can do that you can also have a coach. Okay, now I've had a lot of coaches, and most of them were too soft. For me, I'm kind of an edge coach, I kind of hit you upside the head. And some people just don't like that, because I can be kind of irritating. But the point is that you can have somebody just to know that you've got to check in with somebody, you know, you can have it just a partner, you don't need a coach, you find one other person that wants to do it with you. You know, my aunt and uncle smoked forever, and one of them decided they wanted to quit wasn't going to happen. Because the other one is still smoking, you have to do it together. You've got to be your own accountability partners okay. So it's the same thing here is how do you find an accountability partner or you have a coach that helps you with that accountability, too. And I think the other thing is that the coach helps with is that we're really good as people at coming up with excuses for why something won't work. And somebody's got to peel that onion away. To find out what does work and it goes back to what You said, Ray, it's the people who know why they're doing it, what they're passionate about, the reason why they're doing it because when it gets really challenging and everything, everything gets really challenging. If you don't have a strong enough reason for doing it, you'll just give it up.
Bill Hughes15:20
I know. And that that comes up to the thing that I've witnessed many times on the calls that Ray hosts Thursday in the morning and in the evening. And, the really interesting people usually go through some kind of really crazy event that kind of wakes them up. But in many cases, it might be as simple as knowing that there's something else out there. And I don't know what that is. So what exercise, what process would you use to figure out what you really want? And what you're really passionate about? Because again, like I said, that seems to be a key component to making the accountability piece work.
Andrei Jablokow15:59
It is, that's a hard one. That's something that I've struggled with the most. And I've been called out on it by my coach Mark J. Who basically told me that I didn't have the humility to choose one thing. Because everything seems infinitely interesting to me. And I want to buy all these courses and programs and, and we can all learn and do anything we want. I mean, we live in a great country, where we can do anything we want, we're not limited in any way. The problem is that you won't be able to execute it on it, right? The more you try to do it, the more ambitious you are, the less you're going to get done. And how do you simplify, and your time, your space, your involvements, your commitments, your responsibilities, because you can add more on I'm going to do this new thing. But that's going to lead to overwhelm, right? Because it's not what, you know, it's not what I need to do I know what I need to do. It's the question is, what do I need to do next, and you run out of time at the end of the day, and you feel less than, and I don't think that it's really about feeling less than I think it's really about replacing habits and routines. But deciding what you want to do is critical because you know, I can boil down what Ray talks about here with his changing the rules to two simple things and how to live. The first one is learn how to be a good person. The second one is find an occupation that you love. And that's not an easy question, Bill, you've got to find something that you're going to want to practice, I told my son who plays Viola, that if he wasn't going to fall in love with the practice, don't even bother, because everybody wants to be on stage. Everybody wants to do the big deal to perform to, to be in front of people or to, you know, to make the big sale and all that stuff. But 98% of the time, you're going to have to grind it, whether it's practicing, or rehearsing, or working with others and solving problems. And if you don't fall in love with that grind, then that thing that you're looking at doing it isn't for you.
Bill Hughes18:13
got that, that's the reason why you have to get to that point where the reason why you're doing all that extra stuff is because you want some end result from it. That really turns you on.
Ray Loewe18:26
You know I think the issues that we're coming up with is the first issue is everybody's busy and to realize you're busy and if you're not busy, something's gonna sneak in there to make you busy. The question is, what's important? And what are the values that you bring to the table? We didn't, we didn't talk too much about values. So can you talk a little bit about the importance of values and, and why they help you choose the right thing?
Andrei Jablokow18:55
Right, so it goes back to the first thing you need to do is learn to be a good person. Because when you're trying to do that, you're going to look at your character, and your integrity and your value system to see, you know, I think there's a lot of people looking back at the way they were working, you know, what they were doing for a living, and they were out of integrity, and that just creates a lot of stress for them. And now they're realizing, you know, they're not really like that they're really good people. And so it really does start Ray, with, with looking at, you know, what can I mean, I could lose everything, we could lose all our money and our house and our spouse and the car and all that stuff could go. But if your character and integrity are still intact, you just pick up and keep going. But it's when you're working in an environment or in a job or in a business that doesn't match with who you are as a person. Well, that's the first signal that you're in the wrong thing. Right. So you've got to start this thing from being a whole person and Going back to the flashlight that this pandemic environment has put us on if you haven't been looking at that, and considering it, and you have a lot of time to think about it when you're taking a walk is to am I, integrity, integrity. Am I being a good person? Have I eliminated the judgment in my life? And myself and others? Am I taking care of myself? Am I treating others with kindness? Now from that place? What can I do to serve the world and others that keeps me going when the times get tough? That's, that's what we're talking about. I think. All right, Dr. Hughes, any comments?
Bill Hughes20:39
Yeah, I was just curious. There's different tools that some people use for that introspection beyond simply taking a walk, one of them that I've always been encouraged to do and still have difficulty doing it. And that's the journaling thing. You do use that in your?
Andrei Jablokow20:54
I do. I do. I'm not I'm not consistent with it. Because there's, you know, there's other things I'm trying to be consistent on, you know, this goes back to the talk we had some time ago as well Bill, that you can only change one thing at a time, right? He tried to implement five, six different changes, you won't be able to sustain it, journaling is a fantastic thing to do. You can write on the web, you can write a blog, you can just write things down in a notebook for five minutes. I have it as part of my daily planner, that I start in the day. And I figure out what you know, my kindness is and gratitude and what I'm going to do at the end of the day, I put a flashlight, how did the day go? Did I win it? Did I win the day? Or did the day win over me? I think that kind of reflection and just doesn't have to be a formal journaling. It's just you have to put a microscope on your life. Are you living? As still? How about? How about all the obligations we take on and that we've taken on in the past that we no longer have a commitment to sustain? You know, how do you walk out of those? And I think what we're talking about to some extent is you got to make the time to do the things you want. And to do that you got to get rid of some of the things that you're doing now. Yeah, well, most of the stuff that you're talking about is a mess. And so you've got to find closure and find your way to get out of it. Otherwise, you're you're surrounding yourself with people that you're not like them anymore, you're doing things that aren't serving you you're not helping them goes back to simplifying, Ray? You're okay, In order to add something new and change something you're got a lot of simplification to do.
Ray Loewe22:42
So two things. We're at the end of our time, unfortunately, so. So let me start with Bill and closing this thing up what summarize some of the things that I think you need that people need to think about doing here.
Bill Hughes22:57
Well, I think the first thing you need to do is to start, you have to start. And the second thing you have to I think you have to learn how to master is how to say no. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that comes your way that you think you should do, because somebody thought that it was the best thing for you to do. And deep down inside. You don't want to do it. And you got to learn how to say no, I'm not doing that. And you might have to say no to some things you've been doing all along, that are just simply not doing it for you. So just say no, and just start.
Ray Loewe23:29
And again, that's freeing up the time. Right? So Andrei, now simplify all this for us and tell us what, give us a list of 2,3,4 things that we should do.
Andrei Jablokow23:41
I'm just gonna follow on with what Bill said, you've got to start doing something and start exploring. Okay. I would start with your health because it's easy to do, and you'll see a quick, quick change in that. Okay. But the other thing is that Bill said was key. It has to be no. Or hell, yes. Thanks. So if it's like, well, I'm gonna think about it or maybe later, that has to be No, it's all either hell yes. Or no. And most of the time, you should be saying no.
Ray Loewe24:11
Okay, so I think that's some good thinking. And I think what we'll do is we'll do another session and a couple of months, and we'll pick up on this and we'll find out all the things that we didn't say no on, and we didn't say hell yes, on. How's that? So Andrei Jablokow. Thanks for being here. And Bill Hughes again thanks for being our co-host this month and getting us some great guests and helping us read through some interesting conversations and stay tuned for changing the rules on we're like a bad penny. We're going to show up again next week.
Kris Parsons24:47
Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.