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.

Complete the Six Vector Diagnostic:

https://sixvectorassessment.com/

Join Protocol One:

http://skool.com/protocol-one

Learn more about Mark:

https://www.thelandgeek.com/

Connect with Mark:

https://www.instagram.com/thelandgeek/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelandgeek/

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLandGeek

James sits down with Mark Podolsky — The Land Geek, raw-land investor, educator, podcast host, and author of Dirt Rich — to unpack one of real estate's least glamorous but most unusual business models: buying unwanted rural land below market value, selling it on terms, and building recurring income without tenants, toilets, termites, renovations, or traditional bank financing.

Mark explains how he moved from dental brokerage into investment banking before using $3,000 reserved for car repairs to buy his first parcels. What began as an experiment became a 25-year career built around margin of safety, due diligence, seller financing, automation, and becoming the bank. But the conversation goes beyond land. James and Mark explore why lasting wealth requires ignoring hype, how to decide what “enough” means, why feeling behind is only a story, and how business changes when failure is treated as an event instead of an identity.

James and Mark discuss:

Buying tax-delinquent raw land at a deep margin of safety

Why the neighbor is often the best first buyer

Using seller financing to recover capital and create monthly cash flow

How software, virtual teams, and AI agents automate the operation

Turning 160 acres into 31 parcels and $1.6 million in enterprise value

The fulfillment of helping people reclaim time with their families

Why there is no get-rich-quick path to lasting wealth

Defining “enough” before comparison owns your decisions

“If I can't, I must” — using fear as a cue to act

Separating a failed project from the belief that you are a failure

What AI can build, what judgment still decides, and why people remain the opportunity

Chapters

00:00 Cold open — Upgrade the software

00:10 Reuniting after Bali

00:57 From dental broker to raw-land investor

04:06 The raw-land model, step by step

07:33 Becoming the bank and handling defaults

09:08 Three ways to enter the land business

11:38 A 160-acre Tennessee deal

13:51 Why Mark decided to teach his own niche

15:59 Helping people reclaim their time

17:10 Lessons from 25 years in one business

19:11 Defining what “enough” looks like

22:22 What to do when you feel behind

25:06 Change the story keeping you stuck

27:04 Acting through fear

31:04 Run the race you actually want

33:29 Why the long game creates an unfair advantage

37:46 AI noise and unnecessary solutions

39:39 The human opportunity in an artificial world

42:44 What will not change as technology accelerates

43:13 Tools are not a substitute for judgment

45:27 Trust, people skills, and the next generation

47:49 Where to find Mark and get Dirt Rich

Don't Settle.

Complete the Six Vector Diagnostic:

https://sixvectorassessment.com/

Join Protocol One:

http://skool.com/protocol-one

Learn more about Shawn:

https://www.shawnjohanson.com/

Connect with Shawn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnjohanson

James sits down with Shawn Johanson — keynote speaker, executive coach, commercial real-estate entrepreneur, and creator of Success That Lasts — for a conversation about the moment achievement stops feeling like success. They explore why adversity can create extraordinary drive, how self-worth becomes tangled with net worth, and what it takes to build a life that does not collapse under the weight of winning.

Shawn grew up with a single mother, experienced poverty and loss, and struggled with dyslexia before building a career that moved from GE Capital into real estate, leadership, and coaching. But the survival patterns that help someone succeed can eventually become the patterns that cost them their health, relationships, presence, and peace. Shawn now helps high-achieving leaders who look successful from the outside but privately wonder, “Is this it?” redefine fulfillment on their own terms.

James and Shawn discuss:

• Why adversity can become both an entrepreneur's greatest advantage and biggest vulnerability
• The danger of allowing self-worth to rise and fall with net worth
• How to notice when the plan that built your life no longer fits
• Why presence and small moments create a meaningful family life
• The wheel of life and the areas high achievers quietly sacrifice for business
• How consistency compounds identity, health, relationships, and results
• Learning how to be a father when you did not have a father to model
• Why parents have to meet children where they are
• How connection and proximity create opportunities strategy cannot manufacture
• Why successful people often feel called to teach and serve others
• How comparison produces a borrowed definition of winning
• The paradox of being content with today while staying hungry for tomorrow
• Why business can be a spiritual game that reveals what still needs to grow
  

Chapters

00:00 Cold open — When success is not enough

00:10 Shawn Johanson's story

03:32 How adversity creates drive

06:06 When self-worth becomes net worth

07:43 Redefining fulfillment

11:51 Presence, family, and the cost of postponing life

15:46 The wheel of life and what success leaves behind

18:00 Small actions and the compounding effect

21:39 Learning fatherhood without fathers

31:50 Meeting your children where they are

32:37 Why connection changes opportunity

37:04 Commercial real estate, Tony Robbins, and Shawn's next chapter

38:33 Discovering a lifelong gift for coaching

45:00 Why high achievers ask, “Is this it?”

48:00 Defining success by your own values

52:24 Rebalancing achievement into a whole life

54:53 Business as a spiritual game

56:43 Compounding health, relationships, and business

59:32 Where to find Shawn Johanson

1:00:06 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 Alex:
https://billionviews.club/

Connect with Alex:
https://www.instagram.com/alex_maklai/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-maklai-b3bb50231
https://www.youtube.com/@alexmaklai

James sits down with Alex Maklai — founder of Billion Views Club and a viral-content strategist whose company generates more than 20 billion views a year — to explore why some content earns attention while most disappears, what platforms reward, and how organic reach becomes trust, leads, and sales.

Alex rebuilt through content after the war in Ukraine pushed his travel company into debt. A mentor's feedback — that nobody cared about his content — forced him to study emotion, curiosity, retention, and the structures behind videos that spread. He explains why consistency beats perfection, why modelling a proven format is not copying, and how daily publishing, weekly improvement, and shared learning make growth repeatable.

James and Alex discuss:

• How viral content helped Alex escape roughly $300,000 in business debt
• Why trust now comes before know and like
• What skip rate tells the algorithm in the first three seconds
• Why serious experts do not need to dance to hold attention
• Modelling the structure of successful videos without copying the creator
• Turning proven organic posts into ads and lead-generation assets
• Why reposting the same video can produce radically different results
• The three habits behind more than 20 billion annual views
• Trial Reels, cross-platform posting, and stagnant audiences
• When calls to action create value — and when they feel relentlessly salesy
• How one travel video sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in tours
• Why presentation, sequence, and framing matter as much as the underlying expertise
  

Chapters

00:00 Cold open — Success without fulfillment
00:10 From Ukrainian entrepreneur to Billion Views Club
01:41 War, debt, and the pivot into viral content
03:00 The brutal feedback that changed Alex's approach
06:05 Paid attention, organic trust, and the modern sales engine
10:03 James's biggest content regret
13:30 What social platforms are really selling
16:32 Skip rate and winning the first three seconds
21:25 Creating viral content without dancing
24:13 Reverse-engineering successful formats
30:01 Model the structure, not the creator
31:35 Building an end-to-end content system
35:34 Turning organic winners into ads and leads
39:44 Can you repost the same video?
43:01 Stagnant followers and changing your niche
48:53 The three practices behind 20 billion views
53:23 Trial Reels and repeated distribution tests
57:33 Why Alex posts on every platform
59:53 Calls to action that do not exhaust the audience
1:03:21 Making a lead magnet impossible to ignore
1:05:49 The travel offer that sold hundreds of thousands
1:11:36 Where to find Alex and Billion Views Club
1:12:50 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 Helen:

https://www.helenmillar.co.uk/

https://www.hearty.company/

Connect with Helen:

https://www.instagram.com/helenhearthealer/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-millar-39a1453

https://www.youtube.com/@HelenMillar

James sits down with Helen Millar — emotional intelligence speaker, leadership consultant, founder of Hearty, and award-winning actress — to explore identities we perform, stories we inherit, and what turns insight into change. Helen explains why fear-driven success feels empty and how head-to-heart living reshapes leadership, money, relationships, and choice.

From acting and trauma through near-death experience, spiritual awakening, Buddhism, and leadership, Helen’s path reveals why transformation must reach real life. She and James examine money, self-worth, responsibility, and why action beats the perfect plan.

James and Helen discuss:

The head-to-heart shift from fear-driven programming to inner wisdom

How inherited scarcity taught Helen that good people had to stay poor

When self-help becomes endless seeking instead of embodied change

“Phoning it in” — displaying transformation without paying its real cost

Mortality, urgency, and living with your energy on the front foot

Why pity can remove power even when it comes from good intentions

What AI and abundance may reveal when work no longer supplies our meaning

Chapters

00:00 Cold open — Success without fulfillment

00:10 From acting to head-to-heart living

03:04 Acting, identity, and the power of story

06:28 The experiences that forced an identity shift

09:19 Money as a spiritual and energetic game

11:38 Inherited scarcity and the belief that good people stay poor

18:11 Becoming the person who finds the work easy

20:03 Why it is not really about the money

27:30 The thread connecting Helen’s three businesses

32:29 Real transformation versus performing self-development

40:07 “Phoning it in” and the cost of genuine change

42:07 Action before the perfect plan

45:07 Death, urgency, and living on the front foot

46:51 Nihilism, fear, and deciding what matters

50:03 Earthly desires as a path to enlightenment

54:49 When pity and empathy become disempowering

58:22 Help, responsibility, and refusing a victim identity

1:02:33 AI, abundance, and finding meaning beyond work

1:06:16 Where to find Helen Millar and Hearty

Don't Settle.

Complete the Six Vector Diagnostic:

https://sixvectorassessment.com/

Join Protocol One:

http://skool.com/protocol-one

Learn more about Scott:

https://groundswellfreechapter.com/

James sits down with Scott A. Martin—brand strategist, entrepreneur, author of Groundswell, and a veteran of nearly three decades in marketing and branding—for a conversation about what happens when AI makes content easier to produce but trust harder to earn. Scott explains why brand is not a logo, campaign, or layer of polish: it is the reputation created by every promise, interaction, and experience people have with a company.

Scott argues that business is moving from an age of attention into an age of trust and coherence. James and Scott unpack why sustainable growth cannot depend on an endless customer-acquisition treadmill, how functional, emotional, and aspirational value work together, and why the brands people believe, remember, and recommend are built from the inside out. In a world flooded with automated content, meaningful human effort and consistent delivery become an advantage AI cannot fake.

James and Scott discuss:

• Brand vs marketing, advertising, and sales
• Why sustainable growth cannot rely on endless customer acquisition
• The tax businesses pay for being unremarkable
• Functional, emotional, and aspirational layers of brand value
• Why the age of attention is becoming the age of trust and coherence
• Human connection as content becomes easier to automate
• Building a brand from the inside out instead of chasing the market
• How niche communities and product choices express identity
• Aligning promise, delivery, and customer experience
• Why believable claims beat exaggerated marketing promises
• Talk triggers, memorable experiences, and word of mouth
• Groundswell, Brand Coherence, and company culture
• How platforms change the context and meaning of content
• Why lasting trust matters more than a burst of viral attention
  

Chapters

• 00:00 Protocol One intro
• 00:17 Scott's story and business reset
• 04:55 Sustainable growth and the customer treadmill
• 06:55 Brand vs marketing, advertising and sales
• 09:59 The tax of being unremarkable
• 10:35 Functional, emotional and aspirational brand value
• 13:11 From the age of attention to the age of trust
• 19:01 Human connection in an AI world
• 20:39 Building a brand from the inside out
• 26:05 Identity, subcultures and product choice
• 30:13 Coherence across promise, delivery and experience
• 34:37 Talk triggers, word of mouth and believable claims
• 38:55 Groundswell, Brand Coherence and company culture
• 45:15 Ecosystems, platforms and content context
• 50:02 Creating is easy; earning trust is hard
• 56:42 Mindful marketing and what comes next
• 57:06 Where to find Scott
  

Don't Settle.