Complete the Six Vector Diagnostic:
https://sixvectorassessment.com/

Join Protocol One:
http://skool.com/protocol-one

Learn more about Laurence:
https://drlaurencetham.com/

Connect with Laurence:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencetham
https://www.instagram.com/laurencetham
https://www.youtube.com/driveyourpractice

James sits down with Laurence Tham, his original mentor from chiropractic college, for a conversation about why business success can leave you feeling lost, how comparison turns other people's goals into your own, and what it takes to build a life that fits you. From identity after a business exit to the pressure to keep up with AI, they ask a question that another milestone cannot answer: what do you actually want?

Laurence is a chiropractor, practice coach and founder of Drive Your Practice. He reflects on working with entrepreneurs after major business exits, choosing family over scaling, and how his priorities changed through his 30s, 40s and 50s. James shares how he built speaking confidence through repetition and how a health scare sharpened his sense of what matters. This is not about giving up ambition. It is about deciding what your ambition is for, what you are willing to sacrifice, and which moments you cannot get back.

James and Laurence discuss:

• Why fulfilment comes from impact, not just the next result
• The identity gap after selling the business you built your life around
• Expectation creep and forgetting that you once dreamed of this life
• Why admiring someone's success does not mean wanting their whole life
• Information overload, AI FOMO and making room for your own thoughts
• Recognising the strengths you dismiss because they feel easy
• Building confidence when a skill does not come naturally
• Letting your purpose change instead of finding one lifelong passion
• Fatherhood, changing priorities and creating memories while you can

Chapters

• 00:00 Protocol One: success and fulfilment
• 00:10 James's first mentor
• 02:19 Defining success through impact
• 06:56 When growth pulls you away from purpose
• 07:44 The identity gap after a business exit
• 10:16 Expectation creep
• 13:22 Contentment without giving up growth
• 17:15 What do you actually want?
• 21:16 Do we need this in the first place?
• 22:12 The sacrifices behind success
• 23:55 Information overload and losing time to think
• 29:28 Slowing down in the AI race
• 31:47 Comparison and the life you really want
• 35:55 Recognising your natural strengths
• 40:26 Building speaking confidence through practice
• 44:22 Changing priorities in your 30s, 40s and 50s
• 47:19 Finding excitement and allowing reinvention
• 50:47 James's health scare and what matters
• 51:39 Fatherhood, university and making memories
• 55:18 Where to connect with Laurence

Don't Settle.

Complete the Six Vector Diagnostic:
https://sixvectorassessment.com/

Join Protocol One:
http://skool.com/protocol-one

Learn more about Dr. Ram Jain:
https://www.arhantayoga.org/ram-jain/

James sits down with Dr. Ram Jain, founder of Arhanta Yoga, for a conversation about why achievement does not guarantee peace, how expectations keep moving the finish line, and what happens when your work becomes your entire identity. Ram explains why yoga extends far beyond poses and breathing, and why changing your physical state is only part of the work.

Raised in a Jain family in Delhi, Ram came to the Netherlands as a dancer and worked factory and cleaning jobs before building a yoga education business that has trained more than 24,000 teachers. Yet success brought another challenge: students wanted him personally, and stepping back meant confronting his own need to be needed. Together, James and Ram explore how to keep building a meaningful life without attaching your worth to a role, a result, or someone else's behaviour.

James and Ram discuss:

• From teaching seven days a week to training other teachers
• The human experience and authority that AI cannot simply copy
• Jain principles, self-responsibility, and the impulse to collect
• Why physical poses are only one part of yoga
• Ego as attachment to your ideas, preferences, and expectations
• Feeling calmer versus changing the patterns that keep you unhappy
• Why getting what you want can simply reveal the next expectation
• Choosing which expectations matter and which can be released
• The cost of a strong career and neglected relationships or leisure
• Who you are beyond your name, job, and family roles
• Ram's written exercise: who you are, who you are not, and what remains
  Enjoying temporary things without making them your identity

Chapters

00:00 Cold open and the need for an upgrade
00:23 From dancer and factory worker to yoga educator
02:03 Escaping the seven-day teaching treadmill
05:12 Marketing, AI, and the value of human experience
09:47 Growing up in a Jain family
12:05 Yoga beyond physical poses
12:39 Four paths of yoga and the role of ego
15:08 What yoga teacher training actually teaches
16:27 Classical yoga and Ram's education
18:32 Navigating spiritual traditions and modern yoga
24:04 Movement, breathing, and getting out of your head
25:16 Why expectations keep happiness out of reach
28:24 When your work becomes your identity
29:01 Peace, acceptance, and the pursuit of happiness
31:39 Choosing which expectations matter
33:06 The cost of being indispensable
35:47 Who are you beyond your roles?
38:39 Ram's identity exercise
40:46 Growing without attachment
42:05 Experiences, possessions, and travelling light
44:04 Where to find Dr. Ram Jain
44:26 Six Vector Diagnostic and closing

Don't Settle.

Complete the Six Vector Diagnostic:

https://sixvectorassessment.com/

Join Protocol One:

http://skool.com/protocol-one

Learn more about Rafael:

https://www.rafaelaisner.com/

Connect with Rafael:

https://www.instagram.com/rafael.aisner/

https://th.linkedin.com/in/rafael-aisner

James sits down with Rafael Aisner, coach, mentor, student of human biology and psychology, and creator of a Human Flourishing Manual, to explore why outward success can coexist with an internal state of survival. Early experiences, inherited fear, and unconscious conditioning can keep old programs running long after the danger has passed.

After reaching the life he thought he wanted in Los Angeles, Rafael sold everything and began again from zero. His journey eventually took him to Thailand, where he and his partner Jantra integrated Western science with Eastern practices of awareness, movement, stillness, and self-regulation. Their framework helps people move between survival, living, thriving, and flourishing with greater choice.

James and Rafael discuss:

• Why achievement does not automatically create fulfillment
• How childhood experiences become adult survival programs
• The difference between surviving, living, thriving, and flourishing
• Why the mind needs to stop before it can update
• How inherited trauma can remain active across generations
• The financial thermostat that controls fear and self-sabotage
• Why Rafael deliberately reduced his resources to zero
• How money can hide fear without resolving it
• Why personal responsibility should come before fixing the world
• How lifelong learning challenges the idea of inevitable decline
• The difference between a real threat and a mental projection
• Why breath, hydration, movement, food, and blood sugar affect judgment

Chapters

00:00 Cold open and the need for an upgrade

00:11 Rafael's journey from success to starting again

01:43 The childhood question that shaped his life

03:02 Meeting Jantra and integrating East with West

05:23 Building a Human Flourishing Manual

05:53 Meaning, suffering, and choosing a response

08:31 Why humans begin in survival mode

10:50 The unfinished programs running in the background

12:16 Why the mind must stop before it can update

16:26 Survival, living, and thriving as different gears

19:12 How money changes our definition of enough

20:54 The mental-bank thermostat

23:24 Why money covers fear instead of removing it

23:46 Rafael's decision to go to zero

27:35 Flourishing with whatever resources you have

29:05 Fixing yourself before trying to fix the world

33:25 Put on your own oxygen mask first

37:03 From chronic pain to chronic wellness

39:38 How to recognize when survival mode takes over

42:10 Breath, hydration, and stabilizing the body

46:16 Rafael's practical morning regulation routine

50:56 Why physiology comes before strategy

52:24 Where to find Rafael

53:42 Six Vector Diagnostic and closing

Don't Settle.