119. Flying Business Class & Invite-Only Crypto Events

The Bennebergs Kmart jocks trip. That's one of the agents that was.

Oh, bro, like, what a life upgrade, mate. Having good jocks. So good.

So I always try and get the upgrade when I'm traveling domestically. They always reject me, mate. They're like, nah, reject it. This is that final stab before you board the plane. So this time it's like, you got upgraded. I'm like, oh, son, it's going to happen. So this is my first business class experience. I get to go to the Qantas Club bed, but the business class lounge.

How was it, mate? Took a straight welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift, alongside Ms. Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market, as well as get a behind the scenes look at us scaling a fully remote subscription research business here in Australia. Today we're doing a little bit of a personal update, getting a bit of a behind the scenes look at what we've been up to over the last two or three weeks. We've both been super busy. November was our best month on record for Collective Shift, which we're going to do another episode on.

Probably next, so check that out. But yeah, it's been a interesting time. The markets are rallying. I've been on the road again, been to a couple of crypto conferences.

Met with some really interesting people in the crypto space, spoke to about four or five CEOs of the lead, some of the leading crypto exchanges. Spoke to some wealth managers on a Sydney, the Hobart boat, you know, heard from Nab bank, heard from a lot of different, you know, different people in the space, which I thought I'd like to share and just sort of relay back what I've been up to. And Berg's also been busy getting up on stage, mate, talking crypto mate, dusting.

Off the old vocal cords, did a keynote speech. Great to get back on the tools. Made my way out to Melbourne, did awesome strategy stuff with the team, had Oz crypto con and adults crypto con. There was also, what was it about Sexpo Anime conference and Life Body Soul conference all at the same time. And mate, I got to fly business class for the first time. So we'll get into that as well as meal and meme of the week.

Brilliant man. Well, I'll kick us off. So started off up in Sydney. I was at the crypto assembly conference, which is like an invitation only event, a lot of regulation talk there. All the big exchanges, all the big players were there. It was interesting because it was a very deep mix of what we call suits and the T shirts. So the crypto builders and the regulatory people, there's definitely much more of a suits day on, day one. Very heavy regulation, very heavy policy. All the stuff that just bores me to tears, but it's stuff that we've got to listen to.

Did you fall asleep or did you have any takeaways from that?

What's that, mate?

Did you fall asleep or did you have any takeaways from that?

Oh, yeah, I definitely had some bit of nap time, but.

Or just get out of the pub, mate. Skip the first day.

I did leave halfway through I was like, I need to get some work done. This is, this is getting a bit much for me. But it was, the takeaways for me was that.

People are wanting to get more clarity in the space. There is, there's definitely people that are seeing the opportunity to build more clarity. In Australia there seems to be things moving, people are, seem to be doing things and, you know, politics and government are particularly slow. So I'm not getting my hopes up. But, you know, I think there's just, you know, Asica and the ATO are just really looking to create more clarity for businesses and at the end of the day they're just trying to protect investors, which is, you know, exactly what they should be doing. It's just a bit difficult, I think, at the moment with so much gray area. There was a lot of talk about businesses going offshore to be within different regulatory ecosystems like Dubai, to make it easier. But even hearing from the major exchanges. So they did a bit of a presentation. AI is a big, obviously discussion point about bringing more AI tools into the fold. Independent Reserve just launched a derivatives exchange. So since FTX left, there actually isn't really anywhere you can do leverage trading because everyone's just sort of cracked down on it. So I think they've got up to 2x leverage trading, which you can do over Independent Reserve. Most the other exchanges don't offer that anymore. Yeah, particularly from Speak. I had a meeting with Independent Reserve, particularly like it's, you know, they've had to really ensure that it's built properly and, you know, tick all the boxes in terms of rate, in terms of the regulator. So, yeah, I think there's going to be more products and better stuff coming out of the next, you know, few months and years as we get more polarity.

Nice. What about day two, mate? What happened then?

Day two was a builder's day, so that was much more exciting. It was a bunch of T shirts in the room, you know, got pretty fiery. A lawyer came in and started asking like, you know, how do we get more, you know, how do we get the builders and the regulators to, to like to be more combined? And basically someone stood up and just started getting into him like it was on. So basically someone stood up and said, well, you know, we've always been open arms, we're actually asking for more clarity. But yet here we are today in a separate day and you're the only suit here and not to have a crack at you personally, but like, where is everyone? Like, why are we having separate rooms? We're asking for, you know, we're building the things we want to build. We're pushing for, you know, for this space to be more regulated, but yet all we get is pushback and conferences with different rooms for the different attire you wear. So you figure it out basically was the end of the.

What, what a signal where you've, you segregated them on separate days and then the people that are saying, hey, we want to work with you don't even show up.

Well, they show up, but they're in a different room with all the other people. Like.

So that was, that was pretty funny. I was on a panel talking about how do we bring in the next 100 million users into crypto. And you know, there was another guy on the panel who was a very big defi guy, actually works for synthetics, really smart guy. And I was trying to really explain that I believe the next hundred million users unfortunately does have to include banks. I think banks play a huge role in, in user adoption because normal people, or normal people, non crypto people, trust banks. And yes, for a lot of crypto people, we don't like that. And it's the anti ethos of crypto. But the reality is like, we've done a really terrible job of building crypto banks. You know, Celsius, Luna, ftx, all of these things completely destroy the trust in the space. And I think banks holding custody of individuals, assets will, I believe, play a part in bringing more people into the ecosystem. Yes, it does, you know, go against everything in crypto. And I will not give my crypto to a bank, but I think a lot of people will. And yes, we want to build new defi banks and they need to be sure that hopefully are better and bigger trusted than normal everyday banks. But that's going to take a long, long time to build that. So that was kind of my viewpoint.

That's a really good take actually. Like it's going to be banks because we at Oz Crypto. Com, we saw a few talks from banks and even the NAB talk was one of the first ones and they were talking about.

Their core skill is custody, custody of assets. And if you think about it at the moment, to buy crypto, difficult, you can only transfer 10k per month, otherwise your bank stops you. If it's in your bank, you can do more. It's very simple to buy. It'll be an app that you know that you used to, that you trust. And banks need to be insured as well. So you actually be able to insure your crypto, which is a whole nother area that really doesn't exist today. Or you can insure it for a stupid amount. So what if your crypto was custody by someone where you get like guaranteed 250k the same like your cash. That's an interesting value proposition.

Yeah, I totally agree. And where you can buy and sell stocks, cash, crypto, all in the same place. I think that's going to be one. Because so many people got burnt with Celsius and FDX and people see that and then they don't trust the space because like, well, where do you store this thing? How do you not get scammed? Like that's a valid question for a lot of people. So I think that's what's really holding us back, is that trust and that ability for everyday people to go and buy and hold safely.

Absolutely, mate.

Then the other thing that I wanted to touch on, that I did. So I got invited down, I was in Sydney, got invited down to one of the Sydney, the Hobart like practice sessions. Unfortunately the rain was like, you know, was. Was terrible. Like it was awful. Worse than Tasmanian weather. So they canceled the race. But we got to go on the city of that one of the city of the Hobart bot boats that was sponsored by a wealth management fund. So I got to meet a lot of wealth managers, spoke with one guy in particular just for a long time. You know, private wealth manager deals with 50 to 55 clients between three and $15 million portfolios each. And just asked him, basically grilled him around crypto, like what do they, what does he do? What does he talk about it? What do they say? And really? Yeah, he works for a bit, a bigger firm. Their stance on crypto is to not have a stance. So they are not bullish, nor Are they bearish? They basically don't advise on crypto, which I actually think is a positive because in previous years for a lot of people it's just sell everything, don't touch it, scam, get out of it what you can. Now it's seemingly like we don't know. And when there's people saying we don't know, there's opportunity for education and that's where I think there's a big opportunity for us to continue to drive that home over the next few months and.

You got a lazy jacket, mate.

Mate, you got a sick jacket. Looks like I'm a, I'm a cap. Yeah, captain of a ship wore it this morning. Looks epic mate. Big, big sailor's jacket. Utility mate.

Billionaire Ben Boat Ben. That's so good.

So yeah, that was, that was about it. Had a lot of meetings, met with a lot of the big exchanges. Swiftx Independent Reserve met with a new company called Block Earner. Block Earner is like a platform where you can basically take out a loan against your crypto. So it's a collateralized loan platform so you can basically take up to 50% of the collateral you provide to them as a loan. I think Ethereum's around 4% interest per annum and bitcoins at 6% so a way you can go and cash flow your assets without selling them. So interesting platform there. Also met with yeah a couple of the bigger funds and yeah, just it was really good to go up in Sydney and see what was going up there. The industry alive and well in Sydney.

Awesome man.

How about you man?

Bro. So I dusted off the old vocal cords, mate. Got invited to do a keynote by my old marketing professor. So he calls me up, bundles me up and he's like oh yeah, I've got this keynote. You're the first person I want to talk. We want a you know, industry person to come in, a practitioner and talk at this. So he's the co creation practitioner. Practitioner because they're academics right? So you got like academia, you got practitioners. So I'm like okay, cool. Yeah. And the com. The conference was a co creation in service and customer engagement symposium based out of Mandu winery. So these guys know how to play out at a winery. They all stayed overnight as well as multi day conference and it was just awesome mate. Like I used to do a lot of public speaking. Haven't done it for about 18 months or so. I just did so much, I was like oh I'm just sick of it. I'm like no, you know what let's get back into it. You gave me a bit of encouragement, mate. Just do it. You feel good? You feel good, mate. So my talk was on the tech enabled, touch reaching the unseen in service industries. So the whole theme of this conference was servicing and co creating with the invisibles. So who are those people in the service industry that are either underserviced, underprivileged or invisible? And I kind of talked about the stuff that I did in health and then talked about the stuff that we're doing in crypto and within health. It was very interesting where when you frame it this way in a service industry, invisibles can be people that are back of house, people that use data. And I talked about all the systems, processes, apps, everything that I made and how we actually use that to fund, sorry, to drive research projects using all of that data. And then from that research we found specific things about specific patients and cohorts and use technology to really.

Increase the amount of people we were able to service with the same workforce that we had, which was awesome. And just heaps of automation giving clinicians back their time and even wild things like a surgeon will run the place. But their needs are actually invisible. No one cares about, you know, if they're well resourced, if they have the right data, the right people on their team. And me being embedded in that clinical environment, actually with that team, a true like multidisciplinary team, the results that you can get is just exponential. And I actually added up like how much money, like in value terms are added to health. I stopped counting after 10 million. And that compounds year on year, like a team of two people creating that like absolutely unbelievable. And you know, you get leveraged through labor, capital and code. When you can use technology, you can leverage that, especially in service industries. Amazing. But mate, the one part I talked about was I don't think I've ever told you this story. So you know how bitcoin is, you know, open, borderless, censorship resistant, all the good stuff. I actually went through our data and I gave examples of what happened in Venezuela. People in Venezuela and Argentina were hitting our site and they were hitting our paywall. I don't think I ever told you this. And we ended up making a bunch of articles actually free for them because they're coming in, I'm seeing the data, I'm like, why are these people hitting it off the shit going down in their country and then we're asking them to pay this exorbitant amount of money. This is the like leading up to the Decision to make all of our resources free so these people could actually understand crypto, could learn from it and benefit from it.

People from Venezuela were landing on the clinch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And which is just wild. So there's all these people, these kind of, you know, invisibles that are coming through. We see it in the data and it's like, well, let's help them. Let's just make it free. Like, that's our whole thing to teach people and build crypto citizens. And when I was there, I. Anyone that answered or asked a question, I gave out one of Gary Vee's books because I had so many. So I told the story about that with NFTs, and then a story about Jack Butcher and how in 2021, America bailed out of Afghanistan. We saw the horrendous scenes about the local people, like the, I guess like militia taking over. Can't remember the exact name. I want to say Taliban, but I'm not sure. And people just like literally getting on a plane on the wings while the plane's taking off. They wanted to get out. And he's like, man, how do I help these people? And he ended up creating an nft. Just got a smart contract that already existed, created an NFT called a care package, charged like 0.28, whatever it was. Ended up raising US$200,000 in a couple of days and sending it to a charity over there. It was all verifiable on chain. They had the money, and that $200,000 helped 2,000 families for a month, which was just amazing. Gave them care packages, so they're absolutely looked after. And could you imagine trying to do that in the traditional world? Like, you'd have to set up a charity, you have to pay tax, all the legal stuff. You'd have to take money, it'll be T + 2. Then you got to send it across and find someone else. This charity existed and they were open, they accepted eth. Just amazing talk about.

There was academics there that like research NFTs or have like a PhD in NFTs or something, bro.

So these people blew my mind. After my talk, we all sat around and went around like, you know, who kind of does what. People that were sticking around for the next session. And I thought NFTs were bomb, but there were. There was, I think, two people. One of them was doing a PhD in NFTs for music. So how NFTs can change the music industry and working with those guys and doing the research to actually implement this stuff, which was Just wild. At the break, everyone came up and talked to me, which I just thought wouldn't happen. And 99% of it was about crypto and NFTs, like marketing. So they're all marketing people, predominantly services marketing. They just get it like, they're like, okay, how do you find your tribe on the Internet? How do you engage them? How do you co create with them? How do you find them? And NFTs do all of that stuff and it's usually the hardest sell talking about this, but these people, like, no, tell me more. Which project does this? How do you think about it? What language do you use? How do we engage these people more? It was incredible.

Fascinating.

Incredible.

Nice work, baby. Well, good. Good on you for getting out there.

Yeah, it was good. So it was really good. And I'll probably get back on the back of the horse public speaking circuit. So I posted about this and people have already reached out from the big four and big tech as well to come and do a talk there, which would just be great because this is the side that people don't really get to see. And I think the way I position it, I speak with, you know, an industry language that they all understand, you know, that, that wanker MBA kind of language, but related back to business. And also you've got the health aspect as well, which, which they quite like. So it's multiple service industries. So bro went to Melbourne with you lads. Remote is.

Compared to in person. My God, it is so much easier to get stuff done in person. How much work did we punch out that one day? We went to upside down, everyone's sitting around, we did a look back, we punched out work around our Black Friday offering. We redid our website, we fitted in the blockies that day. We did so much so quickly. It was incredible, man. It was so much better. And I just need to fly out every quarter or you fly out here. We got to get that going, man. It is heaps, heaps better.

We definitely do it on hard mode, don't we? Creating a crypto startup remote in a bear market.

Exactly. You think remote's fine and it is for some things, but you need that hybrid model you need in person. You need to get your brains around a whiteboard. Just human interaction, talk, shit, have a beer, go to the pub, have a coffee, walk around. Just.

Be there for those moments where you can capture that greatness. Because that person is not always going to be online. They're not going to be in the mood and it's forgotten. Or you say Async and it doesn't really hit. Is not back and forth like it is in person.

Do you think we'd be able to recreate to what level of accuracy or like that in person feeling through VR or augmented reality? Like, at what point do we get so close to being like in an in person environment that's actually virtual? Like, how far away is that?

Or yeah, I think that could get. I think that can get better. But think about the things that we actually did. So I'd wake up in the morning, I'd be in my apartment, I'd, you know, cry, have an anxiety attack, 14 panic attacks. And then I'm like, I want to go for a coffee. And all the lads around, different apartments. Oh, who wants to catch up for a coffee? Go downstairs, you know, shorts and thongs, have a coffee, just talk about the day. Look at the bloody sun. Oh, look at that idiot dressed over there. You know, whatever it may be. Or you've got this bloody drunk person shouting at you. Just basic human stuff. And then like, okay, what are we going to catch up for? Go back, get changed, catch up, do some work. Who wants to have lunch? You know, just go out and do those things. And I think it's not about having quality time together, it's about having time together. And even with virtual reality and it being almost lifelike, I still have to be jacked in in my house doing a certain thing. Whereas this, I can like come and go as I want. It's very free. I'll catch you in an hour. In 15 minutes we can go and do activities. Like we did team activities. We went to, you know, VR. Then we went just like randomly, like, where do we eat? Oh, we walked the like Queen Vic markets. Whatever it was, it was great, you know, telling crazy stories and then going to the pub, just having that kind of. Instead of being jacked in in my house there for a purpose that feels like work. This was just being humans catching up with a bit of work on the side.

Yeah, it's like it wasn't just the in person whiteboarding session. It was, you know, it was the dinners, the coffees, the conversations, the travel, everything in between that.

The Ubers, like, they're telling the dad jokes, the dumb. That happened. Like, it's just so funny going out and buying jocks with you at Kmart, mate. Like, just stupid like that. Like, come on, mate, where are you going to get like stories like that?

The Benneberg Kmart jocks trip. That was, that's one for the agent. That was.

Oh, bro, like, what a life upgrade, mate. Having good jocks. So good.

These are things. And, bro, I got to fly business class. Oh, how would that. So I always try and get the upgrade when I'm traveling domestically. I've got a bunch of Qantas points and they always reject me, mate. They're like, nah, sucked in, rejected. This is that final stab before you board the plane. So this time it's like, you got upgraded. I'm like, oh, son, it's going to happen. So this is my first business class experience. So I get to Melbourne, get to the airport, and I get to go to the Qantas Club bed. But the business class lounge.

It was a mate took me through.

So, like, a couple of my mates shout out to Josh and Ali. They gave me all the tips because they're business class wankers. There are consultants and they are. They like, bro, you have to go. So I went in there, walk in. I'm like, well, first of all, this place is huge. There's so many seats. There's multiple buffets of, like, hot meals, Danishes, like, different drinks and juices. There's toilets, there's showers, beautiful views, amazing chairs. Everyone's chewy. You can just leave your bag there. No one's going to steal it. Like, that's. That's, like, the sign of, like, a good place, right?

You know, you may go to the jetside terminal. Your stuff's getting stolen for sure.

Yeah. And they got, like, fountains where it's like the different water, where it's, like, sparkling still, this, that. And they've got a bar where they'll make whatever drink you want, go up there, get coffee. I'm like, oh, do you make magics or, like, piccolos? Like, yeah, we do both. What do you want, son? I'm like, give me one of which. Let's go. Yeah, it's just so relaxing just sitting there. And you can get on the plane basically whenever you want. So rock up to the plane. And I was like, the plane was delayed, like, 20, 30 minutes. I just sat down and then I went in. They're like, oh, you business classes are boarding yet? I'm like, oh, okay. But, like, all the economy people are boarding. That's. That's weird. They're like, oh, you're at the back. Just go and sit down. Anyway, so when it sat down, I think the reason was they were fixing something. And then this guy who was. I think he was paralyzed, like, young guy, couldn't really move, so brought in, like, this big swing thing and a chair Thing and they put him in. I think once he was in and settled, then I bring everyone else on. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, bro, what even is this? This is amazing. Like, I've got so much room I can hang my headphones up. It was a full life, flat bed as well, mate. So I was like, I was probably like, oh, let's go. Yeah, it was amazing. Massive tv. So sit on there and then like first of all, you can get into a recline position for takeoff, which is amazing. They really, yeah, they come through, they're like, oh, sir, your laptop. So they stole it for you. They do everything. Is there anything you need, bro, as a second? So anyway, go to business class. It's amazing. You can't even see the person next to you. It's like you're in your own world. They even give you like proper big headphones. It was sensational. So we get up and when, as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, the lady comes in and she's like, she just grabs my laptop, gives it to me and she's like, can I get you anything, sir? I'm like, whoa. Like I'm not used to this, right? There's four people serving at all time. They're constantly. I had like 14 like peppermint teas, had some wine and this like amazing chocolate. They gave you like wagy steak with like vegetables and like this fancy French butter and it's like the, the service was insane. They're all like laughing, they're haha, this is amazing. They're going through the menu, they're telling you everything. When you're in economy, they're just pissed off, like just throwing food down your face. Why are you looking at me? You're disgusting. You get maybe like one drink on the four hour flight. This is just like, no, you are fed. There's like, can I do anything for you? Can I get you a blanket? Can I get you a pillow? Or do you want me to show you how this works? And the TV was like amazing. Had everything on it. Or even like recline down and just like, even had like a half hour nap. It was just incredible. I was like, oh, first off the plane as well, but then you start to wait at the carousel like a pleb. Your bags don't come off first or anything like that. So Qantas, I know you're listening because we're the most important podcast on the planet. Why don't you take everyone's business class bags and put them up at the Qantas Club or Quant business class lounge so they can grab them on the way out, get the full business class experience. But mate, this was absolutely incredible. Highly, highly recommend.

The worst thing is, mate, economy, when you go back is going to be so much worse than when you hadn't been a business. Can you. It's going to be comparing and analyzing all the downfalls of economy versus our business.

So I've got like a ton of points. I think if I do long haul flights, I wouldn't mind going business. Although if I'm traveling with a family, that's a lot of people to go business class and paying the kind of forex price to go business class, I'm like, yeah, look, economy is not that bad for me. I'd rather have the extra three or four thousand dollars just blow when I got on my holiday. Right. Rather than having that flight. If someone else is paying or as points, then great. Or if it's like a good deal. So I think it's, I think it's phenomenal. I was refreshed, I was happy, I was relaxed, it was a great experience. But if I'm spending like 4x the price, not too sure. I'd rather spend on other crazy stuff when I'm on the ground.

Yeah, yeah. I think for the long haul flights, it's like just that peace of mind of you, you know, it's, it's always. Even if it's not just a business like economy X or something, I usually fly Virgin and get economy X or although I did, I did Jetstar coming back down to Tassie before and you know, from Sydney to Melbourne, it's not too bad when it's only a couple of hours, but when it's like eight or nine hours or 10 hours, it's.

Like, oh, I might do it if we go to Europe and this, this is the play. I'm going to pack all of our bags and send them ahead of time, going to ship them there. So they're waiting at the hotel for us and then we'll fly, we'll go to the business class lounge, we'll get on the plane, business class and do the transfers, everything like that. And then we just simply walk off the plane, business class first, off the plane, go straight through customs, straight to the hotel and the bags are waiting there in the room, mate.

Ship them.

No waiting, no nothing. Have a car waiting at the airport. That's like the ultimate trip, bro.

I reckon that'll be way more expensive because like if you're flying business class that includes, like, a shitload of baggage where if you had to ship them separately, like, if you're trying to send, like five people, 20 kilos each, like 100 kilos to Europe, like.

Oh, because low, mate, just sent on a boat. Doesn't need to be said a month ahead of time again.

Let's go get that thing on a dinghy to Europe.

Oh, yeah, mate. Someone on Air Tasker will do it.

I'll make you a kayak. You'll do it for 20 bucks.

Oh, yeah, I'll just track him as well on gps. Oh, Tsunami got him. Poor fella. Give me.

A hand tag.

Yeah, that's it, mate. That's it. All right, bro, let's. Let's get into meal of the week, mate.

Oh, yeah.

So let's share this screen. All right, bro, this is. This is my bread. So, bro, look at that. Just look at it. Dear listener, you need to hop on the YouTube channel. Look at this. This is by far probably about the tenth sourdough I've made. All of them were a big abysmal. They're all flat, they didn't rise. And this was just. Oh, look at that. Oh. So let me. Let me talk you through this, Ben. So I've got my sourdough starter, right? I'm looking after. I'm keeping it in the fridge. So I got it this day, like, you know, fed the starter, leave it out, and it's not bubbling, mate. It's supposed to about four hours. Supposed to double in size. And then you can use that. Two hours go by. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I'm like, what is going on? This is ridiculous. So I get it, put it out in the sun, starts bubbling. All right, okay, cool. Right, Grab it, mix up my dough. Then you do the stretch and fold. You do all this fancy stuff. Doesn't take that long. It's like about 20 minutes of overall effort over the day, but multiple hours because you're waiting. And then, mate, I just got it to this perfect point and it was like, jiggly. Jiggly. Did, like, the last folds, mate, and got a banaton, which is like a. A wood, kind of like cane basket with shape on it. So flowered the hell out of that. Chuck that in. I'm like, look, this could go either way. Leave in the fridge overnight, take it out the next day. I'm like, oh, let's go. I knew it was going to be good. So you get like a Dutch oven, like a pot, you pour it in there. But of course, I'm like, Just stupid. So I poured it too close to one edge. So I was like touching the edge and you can't move it because it's all done. I'm like, whatever. Anyway, ended up. And then I got a razor, did the scoring on the top, baked it and bro, it just came out perfectly. It was like the most crusty, delicious thing. Had so much tang. Here's what it looks like inside, bro. Just look at that. Like, look at the air pockets in that. Just cutting that up and hearing that crust go, just smelling that fresh. And I'm like, oh, all right. Oh. I actually left it for the two hours as well. That's the hardest thing. After you bake it, you gotta leave it because it's still cooking. And mate, you just knock the top, you hear the hollow sound, you're like, this is it dirty? And then, mate, this is what I made. I made a ploughman's lunchboard. So I'm going to take you through this. Dear listener. We've got, of course, we've got the sourdough, we've got some pickles, we've got truffle cheese. Oh, the Mrs. Just came back from like the wine region, brought that. We've got ploughman's pickle. I've got a pork pie with the gelatin. Let's go. Ham, mortadella, prosciutto. I sat outside and I'm just, I'm just eating this. I'm like, oh, oh. Just moaning. And the missus comes out, she's like, well, what is going on? I'm like, oh, the neighbors would be like, what the hell is going on? This is one of the best meals I've ever had. I posted on Twitter and one guy was like, bro, you need to come. My podcast, you can talk about building collective shift in your sourdough. And then like, I got followed. Like I got added to someone's list. They've got a sourdough list on Twitter. And another guy who's literally like bringing back the Plowman's lunchboard, he added me, like, retweeted me. Like, there's people that are just about this life. I still remember probably about 10 years ago I went to Brisbane and they had a pub which is like in like the main drag. And it's literally like in. In the middle of a. Oh, what do you call it? Yeah, between the shops. Not like an alley, but like the main kind of strip. And it's like a pop up kind of thing. And they had the best Plowman's lunchboard. Like this. And I was just like, I still remember that meal. This is like, one of my favorite meals to eat, bro. Going to call it now. 10 out of 10, son. This is like, maybe one of the best things that's happened to me in my entire life.

Oh, amazing, man. Well, looks great. Well done on C. I used to bake bread. Made, I tell you, back in the day or used to be a young whipper.

Sabbath. Really? You never told me this, mate. You're into everything. You got all these secret businesses and, like, hidden talents. What you used to bake? You work.

What you bake? No, like home. We used to have a bread maker. Used to make, like, homemade dough for pizzas and, like, homemade baked bread, mate. Does that smell that thing coming out of the oven?

Oh, love it. Oh, bro, how good. There's nothing like it. Give me that big thing of butter and a glass of milk. Oh, let's go. Oh, yeah, out of coffee with this. Oh, it's so good. All right, bro. And I got one more thing. This was drink of the week. So this is a cocktail in a bathtub with different flowers and petals and two rubber duckies in it. It's called Rubber Dub Tub. And mate, this thing was off the hook. So the missus, for her 40th birthday, we went to, like, mini golf and karaoke and this was this cocktail. It was only like 20 bucks and it's got like 5,000 shots in it. Tastes amazing. And you're literally drinking out of a bathtub. Like you're holding this big thing. It is so, so good. Drink of the week, mate. My favorite thing.

Shots.

Oh, it's so good. It's so good. It's like half a liter, mate. It's amazing.

Now, bro, you. You've got a. Oh, that is. That is well cooked. Talk us through this, Ben.

So awful photo, but always for you to take photos of my meals. But I was in Sydney. It was a chaotic day. I had to do some shopping. Hate going shopping. Just absolute chaos. People everywhere. And I was just getting, you know, that feel. We just had a good feed and.

We'Ll pass a couple every day, every hour, night.

Went past this chicken store, went up to the door, was about to open it, but I was like, nah, nah. Like, I don't want this. Like, I don't want, like, a dirty takeaway chicken. Like, I want to sit down. I need peace and quiet.

I.

Like, I'm overstimulated. My brain is going off the show. I need to be in a quiet space. I need good Food. So we're just walking and found this, like, French restaurant, middle of the cbd. Went in and I was just calm. You know, there's like that elevated piano music, and you just go in and you instantly just like. I can breathe. Yeah. People bumping into me and throwing elbows and carrying on and screaming and all this sort of went inside. Had a steak and chips, super basic, but it was just cracker, mate. Steak was just cooked to perfection. Medium rare, that Red Tenderness. And these chips, mate, we're just like those homemade chips. You know those chips that still have, like, the potato skin on them. You just know they're fresh af they're not, like, frozen. Yeah, yeah, it was the.

This is like. They literally just get raw blue potatoes and just shove them through. And it looks amazing. And it looks like you got some. What sauce is that? Bearnaise on the side or something.

What is it? Yeah, sauce. Yeah. Bernadette sauce. Yeah, spectacular. So, yeah, I'm gonna rate this. It was just, you know, it was. It was probably eight and a half. The steak was a little bit small for me. Kind of was still hungry afterwards, but it was still. Still everything I needed for mill of Sydney chaos.

Lunch, mate. Amazing. Love it. That is probably one of my favorite meals as well. Just give me a good steak, mate.

Yeah, give me good steak now, bro.

We're getting into me of the week.

Oh, God.

This is.

This. Is that me? So there's. There's four tan gentlemen wearing white shirts standing behind a couch.

So they got them up, they got CZ on the couch. You got the SEC, you got the DOJ, you got the IRS, you got the CFTC. And then CZ is just holding up the fingers. Gone. 4. 4 billion. I reckon they would have find him 2 billion. He negotiated them up to 4 billion. He's that much of a lad, Ben, you can decide whether. Whether we keep this meme in or not.

Spicy, mate. He also paid $175 million bond because he's got a prison. Yeah, amazing chump change.

All right, next meme. This is brilliant. Ever heard of one of the luckiest dudes ever, Lao PI? Lao, An Enron executive, loves strippers. Got one pregnant, his wife divorced him, he got fired and sold all of his stock. Without the strippers and doing all of that, he would have been $250 million poorer and in prison because all that Enron stuff happened with all the fraud. Instead, Lao is one of the largest luck landowners in Colorado. Can you imagine the luck on this guy doing all this shady stuff, exiting the company before it all went down. Incredible. Absolutely incredible, mate. Someone is looking over this guy.

Enron is literally the business case that we do in the MBA and the company directors course because it was so much fraud. Amazing. Amazing. Wow. All right, so this is a text. And the text is, are you hard? And the guy replies, yeah, and. And then the text comes back, show me. And he's literally got a photo of his black knives, his socks pulled up, and long black shorts that, like, one of the essays would wear. This is brilliant. I've been using this reply to everyone's like, show me you're a hard man. All right, here it is. I'm hard. Amazing.

I love the contact, dude. Don't answer, don't answer.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a bit rough. Didn't say that part.

Well done to the meme creator there. So this is a brown lady just going like, holding a hand over her face. She said, someone just asked me if I was 711 or 911 brown. Oh, amazing. As a fellow brand man, I love this. This is so good. Well done.

She is 711 brown. Okay, now the next one.

This is a beautiful scene from Mad Men where they've got one of the young genies in there and he's like iPhone users and he's saying, I feel bad for you. You got John Hammer, Android user. I don't think about you at all. It was so, so good, so different. The actually context of, like, him and his boss, he's like, what about me? I do this. Like that. You go home and you do this. He's like, I don't think about you at all. And I was like, oh. It was like the most, most brutal scene ever. And then the last one we've got here, we have Ben Swallow himself. So, ladies and gentlemen, you need to watch the YouTube video for this. So someone in our company, an absolute lad, he got on and he made an actual man version of Ben. Ben just looks like a small male boy. And this guy, he's absolutely jacked. He's actually able to grow a beard. It's not even jacked. He's completely yoked, mate. He's like professional bodybuilder. Look at that. Yo, look at that stash, mate. Look at that mustache.

The hair is pristine.

Oh, he's even got that. That hard part in there. Could you imagine the respect you would get if you were this jacked bed, mate? Oh, unbelievable, mate.

Guy's on Roy, so have a look at him. This guy is jacked.

Nice. Full natty, bro. He's just got that. No, he's got that Viking blood in him. Look at him.

He's got veins in his head. This guy is absolutely on something.

He's a vascular man.

Love it. There you go. They were the memes of the week.

Right, let's wrap it up there, Burgs. Great personal catch up. Thank you, everyone for listening. Please give us a follow. If you like the podcast, we'd love to continue sharing with you behind the scenes of us scaling collective shift subscription research business here in Australia. And we continue giving you quality crypto insights each and every week. Thank you, everyone, and we'll see you next time.