SDS 339: The Power of Coaching

Kirill Eremenko: Welcome to the SuperDataScience Podcast. My name is Kirill Eremenko, Data Science Coach and Lifestyle Entrepreneur, and each week we bring you inspiring people and ideas to help you build your successful career in data science. Thanks for being here today and now let’s make the complex simple.

Kirill Eremenko: This episode of the SuperDataScience Podcast is brought to you by our very own Data Science Insider. The Data Science Insider is a weekly newsletter for data scientists, which is designed specifically to help you find out what have been the latest updates and what is the most important news in the space of data science, artificial intelligence, and other technologies. It is completely free and you can sign up at SuperDataScience.com/DSI. And, the way this works is that every week there’s plenty of updates and seemingly important information coming out in the world of technology, but at the same time it is virtually impossible for a single person on a weekly basis to go through all of this and find out what is actually really relevant to a career of a data scientist and what is actually very important.

Kirill Eremenko: And that’s why our team curates the top five updates of the week, puts them into an email and sends it to you. So, once you sign up for the Data Science Insider, every single Friday you will receive this email in your inbox. It doesn’t spam your inbox. It just arrives and has the top five updates with brief descriptions. And, that’s what I like the most about it, the descriptions. So you don’t actually even have to read every single article. Our team has already read these articles for you and put the summaries into the email so you can simply just read the updates in the email and be up to speed in a matter of seconds. And if you like a certain article, you can click on it and read into it further. Whether you want great ideas that can be used to boost your next project or you’re just curious about the latest news and technology, the Data Science Insider is perfect for you.

Kirill Eremenko: So once again, you can sign up at www.SuperDataScience.com/DSI. Make sure not to miss this opportunity and sign up for the Data Science Insider today, and that way you will join the rest of our community and start receiving the most important technology updates relevant to your career already this week.

Kirill Eremenko: Welcome back to the SuperDataScience Podcast everybody. Super excited to have you back here on the show. Today is a very special episode. Today, we’re going to take a little break from data science and all the analytics related things. We’re going to talk about life, and we’re going to talk specifically about coaching. So for this episode, I’ve been waiting to record this episode for probably over a year or so. I’ve been wanting to record this, and finally I convinced my coach, Ivor Lok, to come join me on the SuperDataScience Podcast.

Kirill Eremenko: I’ve known Ivor for several years now and he’s been my coach ever since. And, it’s been amazing. He’s had a massive impact on my personal growth and my professional growth on my business, on my relationships, on pretty much all aspects of my life. Whenever I have a question during the week, I catch up with him over Skype two or three times per month, and whenever I have a question that is I’m breaking my head over, I don’t know how to answer due to lack of experience or lack of knowledge, lack of wisdom, lack of whatever else, or the way I’m stuck in my own perspective or, as you’ll hear us talk on the podcast, in my own belief system and I need a wise advice, I go to Ivor with that question. He gives me always something very interesting to think about.

Kirill Eremenko: So finally, Ivor is here on the podcast. This is the episode and here is what we’re going to be talking about today. We talked about emotions, belief systems and being aware, raising kids. What is coaching, coaching for careers, coaching for business, mindset over skillset, what do I want and how to figure that out. A dream list of 100 items, taking responsibility for your life, reticular activating system, getting what you want and thoughts, feelings, actions and results. Quite a lot of topics and that’s just a fast summary, and probably not even everything that we covered on. So, we’re going to dive into quite a lot of things. This will actually feel like a proper coaching conversation similar to the conversations we have with him, they’re usually a bit shorter, about 30 minutes that we chat with him once per week, but it’s going to be similar and we’re going to dive in.

Kirill Eremenko: Especially, I really like that part where we’re going to go into a bit of depth, and that’ll happen about 30 or 40 minutes into the podcast. We’re going to go quite deep into some feelings and responsibility about your life and things like that. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy this episode and if you do like listening to Ivor, make sure to listen to the end because he’s got a very special surprise available for you, one for specifically listeners of the SuperDataScience Podcast, how he can help you with your questions and one that is going to be available worldwide once this episode is live. It’s going to be very cool. And on that note, let’s dive straight into it. I bring to you without further adieu, my personal coach, and a very experienced professional coach, Ivor Lok.

Kirill Eremenko: Welcome back to the SuperDataScience Podcast, everybody. Super excited to have you on the show and today’s guest is a very dear friend of mine and my coach Ivor Lok. Ivor, how are you going today?

Ivor Lok: I’m amazing, Kirill. How are you going today, my friend?

Kirill Eremenko: Amazing too. Actually, it’s interesting because I recorded an episode, a short one a few weeks ago talking about this amazing and how it changed my life just to reply amazing, and it actually comes from you. It’s really cool. 

Ivor Lok: Thank you.

Kirill Eremenko: What made you start saying amazing when people ask you how you going?

Ivor Lok: I think it’s an involvement ultimately because when we actually started actually learning NLP, we actually learned that the words that we use actually have the biggest impact on our lives in a way. So, when we use words like it’s not bad, it’s not great, or it’s good or-

Kirill Eremenko: Not too bad.

Ivor Lok: … or not too bad, it’s a little bit weak. When people say, “It’s not bad,” it simply means it’s really bad ultimately in a way. So, I learned this really early on when I did NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, and from that time I started using words like amazing, fantastic, it’s brilliant, and I think one of the words that just stuck in my vocab at the time was, “It’s amazing.” Because, life is amazing. Because, everywhere that we go, we’re amazed. It’s fantastical. So, when we lose sight of the fact that life is amazing, I think sometimes we just lose track of what life really is. Be amazing is for me just like that whole thing is almost like Tony Robbin’s going, “Live passionately” in a way or live with passion.

Ivor Lok: But, it wasn’t curated as much. It was something that just came naturally and somebody said one day, “You know something? You use be amazing a lot.” That’s how it stayed.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, you even sign off on your emails, “Be amazing.”

Ivor Lok: Well, before I used to sign off, “Live passionately”, and then I said, “But, I never use the words live passionately so why do I use those?” That when I changed it to be amazing.

Kirill Eremenko: It’s really impacted my life profoundly. I was even sitting today eating breakfast and looking at the food. I prepared myself muesli from the night before with some berries. I was really looking forward to it and I was eating it, and at that moment I thought to myself, “Hmm, it was okay. Not too bad.” But then I caught myself. I was like, “What am I complaining about?” It’s all because of expectations, right? If I stopped my expectations, I had muesli with berries with cashew yogurt. How amazing is that? My breakfast was amazing. It’s just the expectations that make me feel differently for some reason.

Ivor Lok: 100%, and again, one of our main pillars, which is Tony Robbins, he always says, “Change expectations to appreciation.” And, when we change our expectations to appreciation, it’s so amazing in a way.

Kirill Eremenko: That’s so true. That’s so true. But expectations are hard to change to appreciation often. They’re just so ingrained. Where does this even come from? Why do we as humans have so many expectations all the time?

Ivor Lok: Well, I think as human beings we bolt to achieve, so we want more, and we look at the rest of the world. The one thing that I remember so distinctly was a lesson that I learned when one of our mentors, she said to me, “Ivor, you can not be me right now.” Because, I think expectations come from when people say, “Well, I want to be Tony Robins”, Or, “I want to be Kirill,” or “I want to be Ivor.” It comes from those expectations where people are not and have not done the work just yet in a way. So, you view a Formula One driver and you’re still racing go carts, there’s no way that you’re going to be a Alain Prost or a Senna, or whoever it is right now in Formula One. But, the big thing about it is that expectations are always there, but it can be a driver and the standards that we have for ourselves we need to expect, but I think we also need to appreciate as well. It’s a fine line that we walk along.

Kirill Eremenko: Sorry, a question. What about not just standards for yourself. What about standards for others? In relationships, we often have expectations that, “Oh well, you hurt my feelings and I want you to be this way and you’re not that way. That’s my expectation that you do things in a certain manner. Why are you not like that?”

Ivor Lok: Sure, absolutely. Well look, again, we can’t control anybody. I mean, I can’t control you. I can’t control my wife. I can’t control my children. I have a four year old and a seven year old. I wish I could control them. I can’t. In reality, it’s when we have expectations about somebody else, it’s almost like us saying to that other person we are going to control you. Just by the way, nobody can hurt your feelings.

Kirill Eremenko: That’s true. That’s true. How would you explain that then?

Ivor Lok: Well, again, when it comes down to emotions, emotions are something that we create. So a lot of people say, “You make me angry.” People don’t make you angry. You make yourself angry. It’s the one learning that we get that any emotion that we actually create in our world is created by ourselves. It’s not created by anybody else in a way. So, when we say that somebody has made us angry, there’s something about our belief system or our expectations that we’re angry that they’ve not actually done for us. And, one of the greatest things as well is that whole thing about when we take true responsibility about the way that we feel, we control our world.

Kirill Eremenko: Exactly. By saying the words that you made me feel that way, or she made me angry, or he made me frustrated or annoyed or hurt my feelings, you’re effectively giving control over your life to someone else.

Ivor Lok: Exactly. But not only that, you’re trying to control it in a way, and also by actually doing that, actually you’re losing control. And, the biggest thing I think is as an achiever, you want to have control, and the best way that you can have control as an achiever is knowing that you can control your emotions. I know that for me it was a game changer to know that actually my emotions, I can control truly. The way that I feel consistently is my choice, is whatever I decide that I want to feel. If I want to feel happy, I can feel happy right now. I actually had a situation where my daughter just last night actually, she said, “Daddy, daddy, daddy, I’m thinking about all these things about this situation that’s making me feel bad.” I said, “Well, actually stop feeling bad.” I said, “Start thinking about situations that are going to make you feel good in a way.”

Ivor Lok: Then, I took her through some of the things that she already likes and I said, “What about thinking about this person? How does it make you feel? How about thinking about this person? How does that make you feel?” And then, as I walked out the door, “And, how about this person?” I started making a giggly dance out the door. She started laughing and said, “How about just thinking about Daddy all night long doing a giggly dance out the door.” She started laughing and it wasn’t a problem.

Kirill Eremenko: Nice, nice. But, does that mean that we can never feel angry?

Ivor Lok: No, no, no. Remember, anger is something that number one, we can control. Most people have no idea how to control it yet. I certainly didn’t when I started … Actually, before I did personal development. I already suffered from anger issues really badly. I’m known as being the angry, arrogant asshole in a way. I typically say that because all those words, that’s what I was. I was really, really angry. I was carrying around so much baggage from my past, from lessons learnt or from blaming the world the reason why I am the way I am, or doing what I’m doing is because the rest of the world’s at fault in a way. I was always angry. But, I was angry because of different situations, and those situations didn’t make me feel good so I kept having anger. And, then of course, I also learned it from my father, which was a very angry person. He only learned to control his anger much later on in his life, but I thought, “Well, the best way to be is to be angry.”

Ivor Lok: If you’re angry, then you’re going to get a response. I think that’s what people do. Anger is actually used as a controlling mechanism rather as something that actually people feel because they inherently want to feel it. Think about somebody actually standing up and going, “I’m angry.” How much attention, how much significance, how much control they have of their environment when they’re actually angry.

Kirill Eremenko: That’s true. Yeah. They, in a way, intimidate others and also get them to silence and listen to their needs and thoughts, but does that mean you can control anger, but ultimately is the ultimate goal never to actually even feel anger or is it something that it’s okay to feel, but as long as you know how to deal with it?

Ivor Lok: When I feel angry about anything, it would be because it’s a good reason to feel angry about in a way. So, if somebody harmed my daughter or somebody harmed my family, I’m going to feel angry and I’m going to come in and I’m going to come in in fighting mode, and I’m going to probably do something that I probably shouldn’t do. However, the thing is it’s about how do you control it so you can still go from a place of anger to a place of calmness, and in that place of calmness still present anger. I think it’s uncontrollable anger that actually creates all the violence that we have in the world, and it’s the conflict of belief systems that create the violence that we have in the world is when people say, “It’s this way. This is the only way, so therefore you are wrong.” That’s what actually creates conflict.

Kirill Eremenko: Gotcha. Interesting. You spoke about belief systems a few times already. What is a belief system?

Ivor Lok: A belief system is something which inherently is something that you’ve actually learned from your past life. So, a lot of people talk about a belief system as being a paradigm, or in the Tony Robbins world, he talks about it being a story. I quite like that word as being a story because it’s been created over time, not just by ourselves, but sometimes by our family. There’s an interesting one I remember when Bob Proctor was teaching all about paradigms and about belief systems, and he talked about this time, he was telling a story about a grandmother and a granddaughter. The granddaughter was actually doing this roast in the oven. The piece of meat was actually too big for the roasting pan, so she cut off of it and … Or, actually no.

Ivor Lok: Sorry, she would cut off the piece of the roast, would actually put into the pan, and what actually happened was that her grandmother was there, and her grandmother turned around and said to her, “Why did you do that? Why did you cut a piece of the roast off and put it into the pan?” Because, of course, the whole piece of roast could actually fit into the pan that she had because it was big enough. She said, “Well, the reason why I did it is because mom taught me to do it that way.” Then, her mother walked in and then her grandmother and said, “Why do you do it this way?” She said, “Well, you taught me to do it that way. You taught me to cut a piece of the meat off. Ultimately, I thought that’s what you needed to do.”

Ivor Lok: Her grandmother and her mother looked at each other, and her grandmother picked up laughing. Both of them looked at her and said, “Well, why are you laughing?” The grandmother said, “The only reason why I cut a piece of the meat off was simply because it couldn’t fit in my pan.” But, because she always had that small pan and she had to use that small pan, she always had to cut a piece of meat off to be able to put it in, so her mother, or her daughter at the time, thought that was what needed to be done.

Kirill Eremenko: She developed a belief system.

Ivor Lok: It’s not a belief. It’s unconscious. It’s an unconscious belief system. Everything that we do in life sometimes comes unconsciously. So, think about even, Kirill, about yourself. What do you do a little bit like your father or a little bit like your mother? And, it’s very interesting.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. I guess one example that popped straight in my head is when I got out the shower or to the shower, I put the towel around my neck, let it hang down, and that’s something my mom actually told me I picked up from my dad when I was five years old. I would want to be like my dad so I’d just walk around with this huge towel around my neck. I still do it unconsciously. I was doing it yesterday.

Ivor Lok: Fantastic. And, when do you come out of the shower, you just put it on and you just walk around the house like that- 

Kirill Eremenko: Sometimes.

Ivor Lok: Yes. But, it’s so true. It’s so true. I don’t know where I picked it up from, but I actually flick my fingers when I drive and my wife said, “That’s so irritating.” I go, “I know.” I said, “That’s from my father.” He used to hold the steering wheel and flick his fingers, and it’s just really interesting. The smallest things. We’ve got to be so careful about what we actually do for our children or show our children, because they pick up every single thing.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. I can’t even imagine, how do you raise kids without messing them up? I don’t know how to do it.

Ivor Lok: We do our best. There’s no rule book. There’s really no rule book, but I think it’s being aware, and I think the first place is being aware of yourself. Being aware of our language, be aware of our patterns, being aware of our behavior because we can control all of those.

Kirill Eremenko: Okay, but do you use positive rewards or negative rewards, for example? Very black and white question. Do you reinforce kids when they are doing something great and then ignore the bad things, or do you tell them off when they’re doing the bad things and the good things are just a normal way of life?

Ivor Lok: Yeah, I think it’s a tough one because you want to always acknowledge the great, but sometimes kids will really push you. As I’ve said, I’ve got two beautiful daughters. They’re four and seven, and they’re incredibly, incredibly gifted children. And, when I say gifted, it’s not like they’re super intelligent but they really, really understand how to engage and negotiate in a way. My four year old is probably the toughest negotiator that I ever knew.

Kirill Eremenko: At four years old, what does she negotiate?

Ivor Lok: Most people would say that she’s stubborn, but she just knows what she wants, and when she wants that, there is no black and white. She’s very, what I call, analog. It’s either this way or that way. There’s no in between. Our seven year old, we can change a little bit. We can get her to sway our way a little bit because she wants to be with us, but with our four year old, she’s very, very strong minded. It shows up actually in daycare as well where even the daycare really struggles with her sometimes. It’s going to be a gift for her 100% because it gives immense focus, and as long as she understands that what she does is going to be for the greater good of all, then she’s going to be amazing at it in a way. But, she’s very strong willed and very strong minded, as well.

Kirill Eremenko: Really cool. What I like about you, Ivor, is you can give great ideas and thoughts pretty much on any topic. We haven’t spoken about the kids before but you have some fantastic ideas on that. Actually, how long have we known each other for now?

Ivor Lok: I think this must be going on five years now, isn’t it?

Kirill Eremenko: Wow, I would say maybe … We started in 2017 so maybe going onto three years.

Ivor Lok: Oh, three years. It sounds like five.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, feels like it. The topics we normally cover over, quite often we talk about maybe some personal growth issues that I have or challenges that I want to get better at them, but we also talk quite a lot about business topics and things like that. I really value the advice you provide, and I think having a coach has been fantastic for me. For the listeners who are a bit apprehensive about coaching, or in general maybe don’t even believe in mentorships, what is the value of having a coach?

Ivor Lok: Sure, absolutely. Well, it’s not that I want to pitch coaching because I never got into coaching because I wanted to become a coach. Let me start off with that. I started off in 2004, and my first mentor was Bob Proctor. I took to Bob because of what I’d actually learnt, and how he changed my world. When I started studying a lot of my personal development was at the age of 30 and that made a big phenomenal change in my world to understanding my belief systems, it saved my marriage. It took away that whole thing about being an angry, arrogant asshole to making me now as you know just calm and relaxed and a nice person to be around in a way.

Ivor Lok: But, I think from a perspective of coaching, one of the things that I found was that when I delivered courses, because I actually do a lot of workshops, people used to come out of the workshop and go, “I’m super excited. I’m going to get this done and I’m going to make it work.” And, just walk out, high five me, and I used go, “Brilliant. I look so forward to seeing the results.” I followed them up 30 days, 60 days, 90 days later and say, “So, what have you done?” And, to my surprise at the time was nothing. I had all these great ideas. I had all these great energy coming out of the workshop, and they did nothing with it. So, for me it was like that was really strange because I used to go to workshops and do something, because isn’t that what you go to workshops for?

Ivor Lok: Then, I started looking at it and going, “Well, some people actually can do self-help, and sometimes people do shelf-help in a way.”

Kirill Eremenko: What’s shelf-help?

Ivor Lok: Well, shelf-help is when you go to a workshop. You take the book and you put it on the shelf, in a way. That’s shelf-help ultimately. I think there’s a lot of people out there that have ever done a workshop that they will know what I’m talking about. They get home, they get back into their lives and they never touch the books again. They’ve got great intentions to do it, but they never do. So, I said this to one of my colleagues at the time. And he said, “Well, Ivor, if that’s the case, you really need to do some coaching with them.” So I said, “What is coaching?” He goes, “Well, coaching is this thing that you work with somebody one-on-one.” Little did I know that the industry only started in the 2000s, like with Tony. Tony popularized coaching 20 years ago.

Kirill Eremenko: He didn’t even like that term originally, and he still doesn’t I think.

Ivor Lok: No. Absolutely. For a [inaudible 00:29:04] perspective even with coaching in its present time, I didn’t know that coaching … I remember actually having a conversation with Bob Proctor and saying to Bob, “What do you think about this whole coaching thing?” He goes, “Coaching? Why would you want to do that? What’s this whole coaching thing?” He said, “Well, you’ve got my programs. You can run it and you can deliver it.” He said, “Why would you want the coaching?” I said okay, and I steered away from it, and then I did NLP. I did the NLP training, became a master NLP practitioner and I started incorporating coaching with my workshops, and I started working with people. So, I think in the early 2000s, coaching wasn’t popular. I used to go out and I could say to people, “I’m a life coach,” and people used to look at me going, “What? What’s a life coach? Why do I need that?”

Ivor Lok: Coaching has only really come about, Kirill, in the last five years. It’s become incredibly more popular. It had a better uptake in the US. I would say in Australia at the moment, it’s probably only been the last three to five years where people have really gone in and said, “Hey, you know something? Having somebody there to help me along the way is great.” But, I think the big thing about a coach is somebody that is actually … If you’re looking for a great coach, it’s somebody that’s actually done the work before. Somebody that’s transformed their lives that really have a broad spectrum of experiences, and then they’ve actually really understood actually the struggles of what life is all about in a way.

Ivor Lok: So a lot of the times, when I look at … There’s some coaches actually that are very new into the industry and some people now get into coaching simply because it’s a career option, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but just remember that you can not be a great coach until you’ve actually done the work. I remember actually coaching somebody that had actually done a diploma of coaching, and I said to the person, “So, what are your goals?” I said, “I shouldn’t be teaching you how to set a goal. You should be teaching me how to set a goal because you’re a coach.” They said, “Well, I don’t know how to do that.” But I said, “You’re studying to do a diploma of coaching. How can you not understand how to set a goal?” It’s strange.

Ivor Lok: So, anybody actually confused about the coaching industry, I think it’s really about being able to look at not only just the coach, but also look at what are their experiences, their age, what have they done, and I think coaching is now becoming a little bit more specialized into different spectrums in a way. Say you’re a runner or you’re a sprinter, or you’re a javelin thrower, you don’t go to the athletics coach and say, “Well, I want to be an athletics coach.” If you want to be a great sprinter, you go to a sprint coach. If you want to be a great javelin thrower, you go to a javelin coach. I think coaching is coming into that space at the moment, it’s maturing into what do you want to become? What do you need help in?

Ivor Lok: I think this is the part of my work at the moment, and I’m actually part of setting up with Jeffrey Hayzlett and the C-Suite Network where we actually set up the C-Suite Network Guild. Coaches Guild.

Kirill Eremenko: Nice [crosstalk 00:33:07].

Ivor Lok: An actual coaches guild. The coaches guild is really-

Kirill Eremenko: Like the councils they have there, right?

Ivor Lok: It’s not like the councils, but it’s called the C-Suite Network International Coaches Guild, and what it is is really for coaches that already are experienced at what they do. Because, when I spoke to Jeffrey Hayzlett about this, he actually said, “You know something, Ivor? How do my members know what are good coaches and what are bad coaches?” I said, “Well, why don’t we actually set up a guild that your members will know what they are in a way?” It’s really something really powerful at the moment that’s actually going to take off. We just launched it in San Francisco in June last year, and we’re getting the ball rolling now into December. In 2020, we’re going to make it big ultimately.

Kirill Eremenko: Okay, awesome. I really like that. I wanted to ask you, coaching, because a lot of the questions we discuss and a lot of question that come to you are business related questions when I have a dilemma or I just don’t understand due to lack of experience how to do a certain thing, or scale a business, or hire somebody, fire somebody, or just expand into a certain niche, undertake a project. Lots of different questions. Is coaching only useful to business people that are running businesses or own businesses? Or, do people who are building a career … For instance, a lot of our listeners, most of our listeners are data scientists and analysts who are building a career in a certain place. How could they benefit from coaching?

Ivor Lok: Sure, absolutely. Well, before I started actually getting into coaching, I think the big thing about it is really the coaching, what the coaching does, it’s the glue that holds and puts everything together. So, a lot of the times we go off and learn different things. We read different books, we do different workshops. But, what coaching actually does, it solidifies and is essential to put everything together in a way. So, what actually happens is that if you’re in a career, you still need to learn how to manage your emotional state. You still need to understand that being a team player is one of the most amazing things that you can possibly be, but most people are not. Being collaborative is more powerful than being competitive [crosstalk 00:35:46]. Everybody’s looking at how do I bolt to the next level and it’s not necessarily climbing the next corporate level.

Ivor Lok: It’s doing what you truly love. Because when you do what you truly love, that’s when you climb. When you’re good at what you do and you love what you do, nobody will actually stop you from exceeding and becoming better at it in a way. One of the things that when I first got into personal development, I didn’t get into personal development because I said I want to become a coach or I’m going to become a presenter. I got into this because I wanted to learn how to sell well. I got into this because I want it to be one of the best sales people ever, and that is what actually happened. I did the work, and I actually did 200% of my budget in my rookie year of sales.

Kirill Eremenko: Wow.

Ivor Lok: Which was unheard of. People looked at me and they went, “That’s not possible. You can never have done that.” Well, I just did, and I did that simply because it was mindset over skillset. And, a lot of people talk about that and said, “How can your mindset generate so much more power than your skillset?” Because truly, I wasn’t a great sales person at the time, but I learned how to become one.

Kirill Eremenko: That’s a very powerful concept. Can you talk a bit more about that? Mindset over skillset? I feel that could be very useful to our audience because in data science, there’s a ton of tools. Thousands. R, Python, Tableau, Qlik Sense, SQL. You can just keep going forever all the tools that you need to know and all the skills, and within each tool there’s also these packages and frameworks and models that you need to know and build and so on. People get carried away learning all these skillsets and all these tools and techniques, which is very admirable, but I feel that if you add even a little bit of mindset on top of that, what you’re talking about, mindset over skillset, that can create immense power. How would you advise our audience to create immense power with mindset over skillset?

Ivor Lok: Yeah, I think the big thing is it’s proven through science already 100%, and if people want to go read up about it, The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. Shawn Achor did a lot of research about what he calls the happiness advantage, and what he proved conclusively was that 100% that when you can increase your happiness level, you increase your productivity in a way. That’s just changing mindset when you think about it, because we’re changing our happiness level. But, the thing is when you’re starting to actually tap into what we call mindset, you actually start tapping into what we call creativity. And, when you’re in engineering or in doing anything that’s creative, and a lot of people think that being in data science isn’t being creative, but it’s incredibly creative. We’re tapping into something that has never been done before in a way.

Ivor Lok: It’s like engineering and finding a solution for a problem. It’s how do you find that solution, and that solution that you find is not done through just knowing what must be done and can be done now. It’s knowing that actually how do we tap into that creativity, and mindset allows you to tap into that creativity in a way.

Kirill Eremenko: So, how do you change your mindset?

Ivor Lok: Well, pretty much it’s as simple as thinking differently. When we think differently, we change what our actions are going to be. So, you know something that actually is really easy is that whatever you think about, you’re going to feel. Whatever you feel, you’re going to then take action on, and whatever you take action on is going to give you a result. So, our thoughts lead to our feelings lead to our actions lead to our results.

Kirill Eremenko: Interesting.

Ivor Lok: But generally what actually happens is most people are looking at their results and their thoughts about how bad my life is, so therefore, they think my life is really bad. They feel really bad. They don’t take any action because they think their life is crap so they get worse results. So, now they’re looking and they go, “Well, I was right. You see my life really sucks. I was right.” They go back and they keep thinking, “Well, my life really sucks.” And, they feel really sucky. They take zero action towards improving it. Their life even gets more suckier, and then eventually yes, they truly have a sucky life.

Kirill Eremenko: So, what’s the first step getting out of this vicious cycle?

Ivor Lok: Well, the one thing is to first ignore the results that you’re currently getting. That’s the first step, okay? Because whenever you start something, it’s like growing something out of the ground. When you plant the seed, you have a gestation period of how long that seed is going to take to get on the ground. True?

Kirill Eremenko: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ivor Lok: In a way. Okay, but most people expect to plant the seed and have the harvest the next day, so it comes back to that expectation again. You can not have that expectation, so you’ve got to change that expectation. So you’ve got to change and think about, “Okay, whatever my world is right now, ignore it because the current result will never be the future result.” We always go through, when you go through and you do investments, they always say, “Past performances don’t equal future performances.” Well, that’s true about life. Your past performance doesn’t equal your future performance.

Kirill Eremenko: Unless, you want it to. Unless that’s what you’re stuck in.

Ivor Lok: Unless you’re stuck in it. If you want to break out of all of this, all you got to do is say, “Actually, you know something? What do I truly want?” I think that’s the big key is what do I truly want?

Kirill Eremenko: How do you determine that, what do I want? It’s such a difficult question, especially I don’t know … I thought about myself that in my childhood, I just don’t know how to answer this question at all because as much as I love and respect my parents, how they brought me up, it’s often been about what they wanted. They wanted me to play piano, they wanted me to study really hard, be the first in class. They wanted me to play chess. They wanted me to do these things, and I enjoyed them. I delivered on them, but at the same time I forgot, or never learned, how to understand what is it that I want. How does one go about answering that question?

Ivor Lok: Okay, so it’s quite true because a lot of the times we try to shape our children into what we want them to be in a way. And, I was exactly the same. I did electrical engineering, became an electrical engineer, and why did I become it? Because my father wanted me to become it in a way. Now, I don’t blame him for it because as far as I’m concerned, it improved my life phenomenally. However, when you’re actually starting to look at, “So, what do you want?”, it actually comes down to if you’re listening to this and you really truly want to know what do I want? It’s something that I always encourage all of my clients to do, and that’s to do a dream list.

Ivor Lok: A dream list is everything that you want to be, do and have. There’s a couple criteria around it. The first criteria, no limitations. The second criteria, no judgment. And, the third criteria, your list must have 100 items on it.

Kirill Eremenko: Whoa.

Ivor Lok: So, your dream list is really there to create that desire. There’s a great book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and the first step towards riches is all about desire. There’s not one person on this call today, on this podcast, that can not say to me they do not have any desire. The main reason for that is because whatever you have in your world today is what you’ve pull into your world today. In other words, you’ve desired to have this.

Kirill Eremenko: Whether good or bad.

Ivor Lok: Whether good or bad. Now, some people can do the negative a lot better than the positive. Some people can do shitty better than great ultimately, but it’s your choice. And, it’s a razors edge. It’s a razors edge to be able to choose what sort of life do you want? Kirill, even though your parents said, “Okay, do this, do this, do this, do this,” maybe you had the acumen to do it. I don’t know. You have to go back and ask your parents about it in a way. But, from a perspective where if you’re an adult right now and you have the choice, stop thinking that you’ve got to please your parents. Stop thinking that you’ve got to please society. Start thinking about how can I please myself? And, it’s not about arrogance. It’s not about being selfish. It’s about truly looking at self and saying, “So, what am I really good at?”

Kirill Eremenko: That’s a very interesting observation. What I found was that once I stopped being around my parents, this was very interesting to look back at and analyze further, and a lot of the work with you helped me understand this. And, a lot of other books I read and training I did. But basically looking back, once I didn’t have my parents to please, again with no guilt attached, no blaming … I really loved my childhood, but once I didn’t have my parents to please anymore, instead of looking how I can please myself, I started looking at, “All right, who can I please next?” Inevitability, it became the person I was with, my girlfriend. And, I fell into this trap of always, “Okay, what do they want? Let’s prioritize their needs, their wants and desires.” That was another hole I had to get out of eventually. I can see what you’re saying. It has to be a conscious effort to focus on what is it that I want.

Ivor Lok: 100%. 100%, and, when we take full responsibility for everything that we have in our lives, whether it’s good or bad, that’s when we can truly change our world. That’s when you can have the shifts. But, you have to take that full responsibility. If things aren’t working out for you right now, you got to take responsibility and say, “Things are working out right now. So, what am I doing to make this and create this?” out for you right now. You want to take responsibility can say “F*ck, things aren’t working out right now. So what am I doing to make this and create this?” Now a lot of people go, “I didn’t create my situation.” Yes, you did. That’s the unfortunate news that I have for people is you created it. And I’m not saying that, because some people say, “What happens if I got a disease?” Well, that’s still to be disputed, but a lot of the times, and I’ll go back to some work that I did with Bob Proctor … He says when somebody has disease, it’s a body not at ease.

Kirill Eremenko: Disease.

Ivor Lok: Disease. Yeah, not a body at ease. So a lot of the times, we create our own feelings, so we can create our own feelings therefore we can create our own disease. And, there’s work done by Dr. Joe Dispenza on this. There’s a number of different people that actually have proven that actually the way that we think will actually chemically create a different feeling and a different sense in our body. That’s why sometimes we hear that people have been able to cure themselves mentally through mindset. And, we go, “That can never be done,” because we only think the only cure is through medicine in a way.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, even the example of Wim Hoff, the Iceman. He’s been able to withstand some crazy diseases that have been injected into him, the viruses, and just through mindset, by focusing on his breathing and mindset, he was able to not even get a shiver or something like that.

Ivor Lok: Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, there’s some people that have really been able to hone down on this, but the thing is when we take full responsibility of what we react, we can then actually affect the change. So, when I accepted the fact that I was angry, that I was being an asshole and I was arrogant, that’s when I truly began change in a way. And, I live life right now in that part of amazement. It’s not that every part of my life is amazing. I have bad things happen in my life. This last period of time, we needed to farewell a loved one. Now, how do we cope with that? So, the thing is when we can actually take that full responsibility and really understand that actually the way that we think is going to make us feel differently, the way that we feel is going to change our actions, the way we react is going to change our results, that’s a game changer, but knowing what you want is incredibly crucial. 

Kirill Eremenko: Okay, well tell us a bit more then about this dream list, the 100 items. All right, so the rules were no limits?

Ivor Lok: No limitations.

Kirill Eremenko: No limitations, no judgment and 100 items on your dream list. So, once I have that, what do I do?

Ivor Lok: Okay, so that’s interesting. It sounds like, “Well once I have it, it’s out there.” So, what actually happens, it actually starts setting up, and whatever comes out, it’s not going to come out because it’s just going to be things that you saw. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s worldly stuff that you want, but a lot of the times it really, really pushes us to really find what’s deeper inside of what we want. But, what it does, it actually starts setting up something in our psychology that starts getting us to notice things in a way. And, it’s almost like an unconscious GPS. We call it your RAS, your reticular activating system. A lot of the times … I don’t know, when somebody’s bought a car. Well, a lot of the times, I’ve been to go buy car and I’ve gone, “Well, this is the most unique car in the world because this is the only color and this is the only look.”

Ivor Lok: Then, you drive it out of show room and all you see is that color car on the road. So, a lot of the times, even when we got buy clothes, we think, “Well, this is the most unique clothes that I’m wearing,” and then you go out and you go out into the world, and you see somebody else wearing exactly the same clothes. So, what actually happens, your reticular activating system starts setting it up so if you desire something strongly, you start noticing those things more. And, it’s not because they weren’t there, it’s just simply because it’s now actually lighting up that part of your brain.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, and even from a data perspective, I was very interested to learn that out of our five senses, our eyes take in by far the most information by order of magnitude. I think it’s 10 megabytes per second of information goes through our eyes, and there’s no way that that’s how much information we consciously process, so our brain just filters out a lot of stuff that is unnecessary to our survival or to the task at hand. So, I guess what the reticular activating system does is it’s like, “Okay, now your brain knows now I’m going to pick out these red cars all the time because it’s something that’s part of my life so it’s got to be important.”

Ivor Lok: Yeah, and that particular shape, that particular model. I see this even with my children. They go down the road and they go, “Daddy, daddy, daddy, there’s our car.” I say, “How can that be our car? We’re driving in it.” “No, no, but that’s our car.” So, automatically they know that that shape, that color is our car. It’s not because it’s any different. It’s they’re used to driving in this particular car. They can pick it out now outside in the real world in a way. So, our reticular activating is incredibly powerful, and I’ll take you back to a time when I was about 15 years old, Kirill. I didn’t actually know at the time what my sister was doing because she did a degree in psychology. She was about 15 years older than me.

Ivor Lok: She said to me when I was about 15 years old, “What do you want to achieve by the time you’re 30?” Now, she wasn’t as descriptive as saying it’s a dream list, that no limitations, no judgment, or anything else. She just said, “What do you want to be by the time that you’re 30?” And, write it down on a list. I did that. It’s actually quite interesting because actually I have achieved every single item on that list, okay? It’s actually really interesting because I only found personal development at the age of 30.

Kirill Eremenko: Wow, that’s so cool. That’s so cool.

Ivor Lok: It’s interesting as well because I’d achieved everything and I remember one of the highlights being because I’m originally from South Africa, and one of my big goals was to come live in Sydney, Australia. I remember being in our apartment and sitting in our apartment going, “Now what?” There was almost a sense of nothingness. It was like what’s next? It’s interesting because when I asked that question, “Now, what?”, my brain had started up again and asking, “So, what do I truly want?’ That’s when I started actually lighting it up and saying, “Okay, so what do I truly want?” It’s interesting how I started looking and personal development came into my world, and when I started actually doing personal development, I realized that actually oh my goodness, that is what I do.

Ivor Lok: That’s why I say everybody, even although they think that they have no control of their life, they have 100% control of their life. The thoughts that you emit all the time about what you think is possible is what you’re going to be able to achieve. If you think you’re not going to be successful, guess what? You’re not going to be successful. If you think that you’re stupid, you will be stupid. If you think you’re clever, you will become clever. It’s really interesting because part of my psychology going back in time … I wasn’t an A grade student by the way, Kirill. I struggled through school, and one of the things that I thought I was, I thought I was stupid. I didn’t think I was intelligent in a way. Actually, when I was in school, one of my teachers actually said, “You’re not going to achieve much in your life.” How wrong she was because I’ve achieved a lot in my life in a way.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, wow. I have an example from my life. Very interesting. So, it was I guess a similar list that I was writing down a couple years ago. I was like, “Okay, what is it that I really want?” This was for a relationship. I was like, “All right, how am I going to describe my perfect relationship? I want to meet a girl that’s going to be like this and this and this.” Basically, I just put all this list of things that … More about actual activities I would be doing if I think this is a perfect relationship. One of them on that list was I want to be walking down a beach in Greece, and be with the person that I love. Funny enough, within 12 months, I find myself walking down a beach in Greece with this person. So, it got that checkbox. It happened because that’s what I wanted for myself, but the way I describe it, I was very materialistic about these things. I was very shallow about how I described relationships. I was describing the things I was doing rather the feelings I was feeling.

Kirill Eremenko: And, it turns out A, it wasn’t in the right time of the year. I was walking down the beach in Greece in winter. And, B, it was not with a person I loved. It was just a relationship which I desired for myself. I was doing all the things I wrote down in that relationship, but I didn’t write down any feelings and emotions. I wrote down the wrong things. And so as you say, my mind and my mindset got me where I wanted to go. It’s just that I wanted the wrong thing at the time.

Ivor Lok: Of course, of course. Part of it is the lessons that we’ve got to learn along the way. A lot of the times I look at it and I go, “Why did I become an electrical engineer?” And when I think about it, it was to help me to become a critical thinker and to find solutions in a way. And, right now, I always think about it. I’ve got a little bit of a phrase where I go, “I re-engineer your mind for success,” in a way because our mind is a super computer. It is one of the best freaking computers out in the world in a way. The greatest thing about it, it has unlimited downloads. We can tap into what I call infinite intelligence. If you’re a data scientist and you’re somebody that really wants to push the envelope and wants to be the next Elon Musk, then really, truly really get to know who you are and really get to actually push your mind so that you can actually begin to tap in.

Ivor Lok: Because, when you can tap into infinite intelligence, everything is possible. When you think about Steve Jobs, how did Steve Jobs actually come up with the iPhone? Hasn’t that changed the world. We’re now living in the most beautiful time of our world as a human race and a human species because I truly believe that what we have today, our forefathers never had this for themselves. I mean, even what we’re doing right now, you’re using technology to have this conversation and it’s crystal clear, or almost crystal clear, where we could be sitting down next to each other in a pub or in a coffee shop in a way. Actually, I think even when you’re in a coffee shop it wouldn’t be as quite as this.

Kirill Eremenko: More importantly, so many people are able to tap into this conversation and get takeaways that are valuable for them.

Ivor Lok: 100%. Technology has enabled us to do so much more in a way. There’s got to be a lot of people that are already frightened about technology and I think there’s a case to be frightened about it, as well, but I think it’s also the case of learn to embrace it, but also learn how to safeguard yourself from it in a way, because I think if you’re going to be in that space, “Well, technology will do what technology does,” and you don’t actually think about how to be safe around it, well then you’ll just be a victim to it. But, right now, technology is giving us the biggest edge that any humankind has ever had ultimately. It’s quite interesting the one day when we sail a boat and we know how to sail, but we had never sailed a Hobie Cat before. Went on holiday and I remember walking past the guy and saying, “Can we hire your Hobie Cat?” The guy said, “Have you sailed one of these?” I said, “Yep.”

Ivor Lok: And, I looked at my wife and she looked at me, “You’ve never sailed a Hobie Cat.” I said, “Yeah, but I’ll learn.” I went back to the hotel room, picked up YouTube, watched a couple of videos on YouTube and I said, “Well, we know how to sail. We just need to know how to use the Hobie Cat ultimately.” We went out, we hired the Hobie Cat, knew exactly what to do and that was maybe 60 minutes of instruction from YouTube. Okay? So, we can learn from technology. There’s so much that we can learn these days. It’s very profound in a way.

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, no that’s very cool. That makes me also think of this recent thing that you’re working on, which is very exciting and I think a lot of our audience might be intrigued by it. So, you’ve got these two cools things coming up. You’ve got a podcast yourself that you’re going to be launching, which is I think an incredible idea. I’ve been asking you to do that for ages. I think it’s amazing that you’re doing that. And also, you’ve got this $1 Coach. Tell us about those. Those I think are phenomenal breakthroughs, and a lot of people can get massive value.

Ivor Lok: Well, for a long time, I even asked myself the question why didn’t I get into podcasting three years ago? But, everything has a gestation period and who knows, maybe I wasn’t right for it. Maybe I wasn’t in the right space. But now, I’m doing quite a quite a lot around it. I’m doing something in business. I’m actually doing something in relationship as well. Both of them are with different business partners. I’m going to be interviewing some great coaches as well, which is pretty profound. But, the one big thing that’s really close to my heart is really coaching because I believe coaching has been something that has helped not only just my clients, but myself as well in a way.

Ivor Lok: However, the thing is with coaching, because of the way that it’s designed, it’s a very one-on-one experience, which is fantastic. But, coaching is very expensive as well, so most people will go, “How much does this coaching cost?” Well, it can range. Some people charge $1000 an hour. Some people charge $5000 and hour. Some people charge $10,000 a year. Some people charge $250,000 a year. So, of course, a lot of people say, “How do I ever get the advice that I need? How do I actually get to learn what I need?” and so forth. It’s so easy. You can get onto YouTube and watch different people, but I think the one thing that’s missing is this element of what we call the live interaction. And, group coaching has been around for a while, but even with group coaching, people have actually charged quite a bit of money for it.

Ivor Lok: I love what I do. I’ve done over 15,000 coaching sessions, and I look at it and I go, “That’s something. What do I want to do? How do I want to impact this world?” And, I looked at it and I said, “Well, if I continue doing coaching the way that I’m doing, I’m never going to have the impact that I want because you can only realistically take …” My client books, I can realistically only take on about 100 to 120 clients in a month.

Kirill Eremenko: Which, is a ridiculous-

Ivor Lok: It’s ridiculous.

Kirill Eremenko: It’s like 10 people per day.

Ivor Lok: Yeah, it’s a lot. From a coaching perspective, I do a lot of coaching. So, I thought to myself how do I got about doing this? This all came about, as well, because I went through and I said, “So, what is my impact that I want to make?” I said, “I want to be audacious. I want to go impact a billion people in a way.”

Kirill Eremenko: No limitations, no judgment.

Ivor Lok: No judgment. No limitation, no judgment. And, I sat with that for a while because I did it on a holiday. I wrote it down on my sheet of what I want to achieve, and I said, “This is my desire. I want to impact a billion people.” And, I sat there. I didn’t sit there because I was contemplating it. I was waiting. And, I was waiting for the voice in my head that would say, “Ivor, don’t be stupid. Don’t be foolish. Don’t be arrogant.” All of those things that I thought would come up, and I as I wrote it down and as I waited and I waited, nothing came up. That’s when I knew that I was on track, and I said, “Okay well, how am I going to do it?” And that’s when I came up with okay, well I’m going to go do podcasts and I’m going to write more books. I’m going to do more networking. I’m going to get out there more. I’m going to do more Facebook Lives. I’m going to start doing all the things that I truly wanted to do in a way.

Ivor Lok: Then, I thought about it. So, what would actually help people? And, I said, “The help that I want, and a billion people aren’t going to come just from what I call developed countries.” Developed countries, like from the US and from the UK, from Europe and maybe from Australia. I said, “Okay, so a billion people. How do I get those people?” I said, “Well, I’m going to create something that’s going to be affordable.” And, what I decided to do was to do what I call the $1.00 per week group coaching in a way. The main reason why I’m doing this, it’s not because it’s going to make me wealthy. It’s more for impact, and what’s great about it is that if you ever wanted to feel what coaching is about, if you ever just wanted to be part of and ask questions, well I’m going to make myself available.

Ivor Lok: Obviously, I’m going to set it up where I’m going to be available every week. I might be available once a week, I might be available five times a week. I haven’t decided on that yet, but all you’ll pay is $1.00. Nothing more, nothing less because I truly believe that it’s going to impact the world. Somewhere along the line, I know that things will happen to change what it is, but I’m not quite sure what that’s going to be just yet. But right now, I don’t think there’s anybody in this world that can truly say I can not afford a dollar.

Kirill Eremenko: And, it’s not even just like … It doesn’t even sound like a payment. It’s more like a demonstration of commitment because if something is free, I’m going to be like, “Okay, well I have it. I don’t need to bother about it.” But, if I know that I’m investing something into it, I have to sit down and I have to make the decision, “Okay, I’m going to sign up for this thing. It’s ridiculously low priced, but I’m still going to need to go through some hurdles to get it,” then I’m going to appreciate it more and actually commit.

Ivor Lok: 100%. I said, “Well, there’s a lot of people doing things for free, and I’m fine on that.” But, then there’s a lot of what I call upsell. I think everybody’s used to it. It’s like, “Come to my free event, so that I can sell you another $100 value item.” That’s what I am 100% not going to be doing in a way. You’re going to do group coaching, it’s $1.00. That’s it. I’m not going to charge you anything … There’s nothing more I’m going to sell you. I’m not going to upsell you. I’m not going to cross-sell you. I’m not going to do anything else with you, in a way. Does that make sense?

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, that makes sense. That’s the way to do … You want to build trust with your audience. When is this starting? Because, I’m interested in that. In addition to our coaching sessions, I’d go to this. Just sit on the call, listen to what you have to say. It’s similar to what we had today, right?

Ivor Lok: Very, very similar. Very, very similar. The thing is you’re having the one-on-one experience. You can ask me the questions. What I actually found is in a group session, a lot of the times, people will ask a question and everybody will benefit from it in a way. It’s not like you’re not getting any value from it, either, but initially when I thought about doing this, I thought about doing it for free, and then saying, “How am I actually going to make it work?” But, then I thought, that’s something I have to charge somebody. What’s the closest to being free? And, the closest to being free is $1.00. I know there’s a lot of people out there that say, “Well, I’m the million dollar coach. I’m the trillion dollar coach. I’m the hundred million dollar coach.” Well, I want to be known in this world as being the $1.00 Coach. Okay?

Ivor Lok: The main reason for that is simply I do this because I want to make impact. The reason why I started doing, and started my journey and started actually doing what I do today is not to make money. It’s to make impact, and that is still what I want to do. Now, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t had the opportunity to have a good living from it, and I do charge. If you want to come work one-on-one with me, it’s a higher charge ultimately in a way. But, at the moment, I truly believe the $1.00 group coaching is going to make so much impact and it’s going to be able to grow across the world, it’s just going to be truly amazing.

Kirill Eremenko: Fantastic. Where can people sign up for this?

Ivor Lok: If they go to OneDollarGroupCoaching.com.

Kirill Eremenko: OneDollarGroupCoaching.com. Okay, great. You’ll see me there. I’ll be the first one to sign up.

Ivor Lok: Fantastic, fantastic. I would welcome that. And, the funny thing about it, it’s something that I’ve never done before. It’s not a proven model and is not … I mean, most people you sign up for $1.00, after three months, they’re going to charge you $9.00 or $10.00, or $100. So, everything is into this whole thing about stepping people into paying more and buying more. I want to let people know I’m never going to charge you more. It’s never going to change.

Kirill Eremenko: Is it you have to pay for a whole year? Is there a lock in contract or something like that?

Ivor Lok: No, no. Well, I’m going to give you a choice, okay? You can pay $1.00, and some people go, “Well, I don’t really want to do $1.00 a week.” I’ll give you the option to pay a year up front. But again, that option’s there just for you to choose.

Kirill Eremenko: For convenience.

Ivor Lok: For convenience. It’s more an annual renewal, and I’m putting myself in a little bit of strife because I’m saying I’m committing myself to do 50 weeks in a year in a way. But, the thing is I looked at it and I thought at $1.00, the value that I can provide to people will always be at least 10 times the value of that $1.00.

Kirill Eremenko: Gotcha. Okay, well there we go. So, whoever is interested, OneDollarGroupCoaching.com. Check it out. I’ll wait for this to launch. When are you launching?

Ivor Lok: We’re going to be launching first of February.

Kirill Eremenko: Oh, February. Okay, so this podcast will be live after you launch.

Ivor Lok: Okay, okay.

Kirill Eremenko: You’re going to get a lot of data scientists coming in.

Ivor Lok: Well, I’ll put it this way. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and I don’t know how many people are going to come. Whether it’s one, whether it’s a million, whether it’s a hundred, I don’t really care as long as I can impact people’s lives. That’s the main thing ultimately.

Kirill Eremenko: Fantastic, fantastic. Okay well, Ivor, we’re running out of time. I just wanted to say a huge thank you for coming on the show today. It’s been a massive pleasure as always. Love talking to you. We catch up twice, three times per month anyway, but I just really wanted to share what you bring to this world with our audience, and I hope a lot of people got value out of this.

Ivor Lok: I hope so as well. And, anybody, if they have any questions or anything else, please feel free to search me up online and shoot me a question. Just find me. I’m on LinkedIn, on Facebook. Just let them that actually you listened to the podcast, so that would be one of the prerequisites. If you ask me a question, just say, “I heard you on Kirill or SuperDataScience podcast, and I have this question.” 100%, I’ll respond to you. No problem.

Kirill Eremenko: Fantastic. So just to clarify, what are the best places to find you?

Ivor Lok: LinkedIn or Facebook.

Kirill Eremenko: Awesome. Fantastic. And before we finish up today, one last question. What’s a book that you can … I imagine you read a ton of books all the time. What’s a book that you’d say will help people get the biggest impact?

Ivor Lok: I think one of the biggest books, and actually I don’t think I know. That’s the difference. The book that will help anybody in this world is Think and Grow Rich.

Kirill Eremenko: Napoleon Hill.

Ivor Lok: Napoleon Hill. Now, you go to most people, you go to Tony Robbins, you go to Bob Proctor, you go to all the great influential influencers in this world, and you say to them what is the one book that has helped them most? It has been Think and Grow Rich. Now, there’s a couple of chapters in the book that people might not understand, and I want people to know that it isn’t a book, it isn’t a novel, it isn’t a philosophy. It’s a case study. So when you read it, actually acknowledge it, that actually the words that you’re reading, it’s not a story that you’re reading, but it’s actually a case study that you’re reading. Because when Napoleon Hill actually went off and actually looked at it at how to become successful, he went off and interviewed over 26,000 people to find 500 people that were the best of the best at the time in a way.

Ivor Lok: So, what you have is a legitimate case study of [inaudible 01:17:58] doing the PhD and the research of what has made these people to become successful and what has been the common thread that has helped them to become successful?

Kirill Eremenko: I like that at the start of the book, he actually takes some time to define that success is not just financial success or accomplishment or achievements. He actually gives 11 or something … 10 or 11 … success … not criteria … factors of success, including health and relationship and good spirits, good body, physical ability, and sports and things like that. Financial success is at the very end of his list.

Ivor Lok: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of people that think about wealth and riches as just being money. I always look at money as being … It’s the tool. It’s an enabler in a way. But, I don’t want to de-focus people as well because a lot of the times people think that actually money is not important, but money is incredibly important, especially in today’s age ultimately. The main reason I say this, Kirill, is because in the past when our parents were even growing up, and even when my grandparents were alive, they could go to the backyard and kill a chicken and eat him. They could grow their own vegetables. How many people actually can do that today? They can trade.

Ivor Lok: I had family that lived on a small holding and we’d go out there … and, no electricity. And, we’d have fresh eggs from the chickens. When we came around, they would actually kill a chicken and we’d eat the chicken that same night ultimately in a way. But, today’s age where we live in this technology world which we have supermarkets, having money is crucial for us to survive and for us, it’s our way to trade in a way. I trade what I’m already good at. Somebody might be great at doing a website or doing analytics. That’s their trade. But, do not actually get passed the fact that actually you need money in today’s world. 

Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. Okay, well Think and Grow Rich, will teach you all about the riches, whichever riches you need in your life. It will help you attract them to your life.

Ivor Lok: And, definitely part of it is getting the money consciousness right, as well. When we get our money consciousness right, that’s when we can also shift our world, but part of shifting everything is shifting our bodies, shifting our health, shifting our relationships, shifting our money. It’s all related, but a lot of the times money seems to be one of the things that we leave to the back burner, and that’s something that I really want to bring forward as being something that we truly got to focus on as well in a way.

Kirill Eremenko: Interesting.

Ivor Lok: I’ll bring that through there’s a great lady that I know by the name of Sharon Lechter. I don’t even know Sharon Lechter at all. She’s the co-author of a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. She co-authored that book with Robert Kiyosaki, and she does a lot around financial literacy. I think it’s so powerful that people really understand how to be financially literate in this world as well.

Kirill Eremenko: Very cool, very good. Okay, Ivor, well thank you very much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate your time, and yeah, I look forward to chatting in 2020. Lots of thins to get done.

Ivor Lok: Ah, there’s so much to be done and I’m so excited. Kirill, thank you very much. It’s a privilege for me to be on this, and I hope your listeners have been able to get some learnings from today and anything that they want, please feel free to reach out to me.

Kirill Eremenko: So, there you have it everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you loved the conversation. My personal favorite part, and where I learned and felt that we went deep was when we were talking about taking responsibility for your life and how thoughts affect your feelings, which affect your actions, which affect the results you get, and if you keep thinking about the results, if they’re negative, you’re just going to get into a vicious cycle. So, the first step to get out of that, ignore the results you’re getting. Think good thoughts. You can select the thoughts you’re thinking. How cool is that?

Kirill Eremenko: I always love talking to Ivor. He’s always very inspiring and helps provide the guidance I need in my life. So, I am very pumped. I don’t know about you. I don’t know how you feel about this, but I’m very pumped about Ivor’s podcast, so we’ll definitely link it to the show notes, if it’s already available by the time this episode is live. If it’s not, we’ll add it later. So, check back up on that. And also, I’m very pumped about his $1.00 a week coaching. I think it’s totally a gift he’s giving to the world. Ultimately, he could be charging thousands times more for that, but I’m personally going to sign up for that, so as soon as the website is live, which should be the start of February, I’m going to go there, sign up and attend those sessions, and I highly recommend doing that for you because you can always find an hour a week to listen to some wisdom from somebody who’s done 15,000 hours of coaching, or 15,000 coaching sessions. That’s what he said, 15,000 coaching session.

Kirill Eremenko: This is a person that knows what he’s talking about, and has something to share with the world. So, I’m going to be on that list. Hope you will be, too, and as usual, show notes are available at SuperDataScience.com/339. That’s SuperDataScience.com/339. If you would like to connect with Ivor, which I also recommend doing, the links to his LinkedIn and Facebook are going to be available there. Don’t forget, if you ask him a question, tell him that you heard about him on the SuperDataScience podcast and then you are guaranteed to get an answer.

Kirill Eremenko: On that note, thank you so much for being here. Make sure to forward this episode to anybody who is maybe struggling with a period in their life. Just send them SuperDataScience.com/339, and maybe they will be able to turn things around. Maybe you can actually impact and help Ivor spread his impact. A billion people is quite a big goal, but I think he’ll get there eventually, so you can help him out that way and help somebody in maybe a tough period in their life.

Kirill Eremenko: On that note, once again, thanks for being here. I look forward to seeing you back here next time, and until then, happy analyzing.