12. Crypto, NFT’s & Economy Market Update + Live In The Studio

2008, 12, 13, 14 years of pretty solid growth. We got pretty fat from it. We're all. We're all lining our pockets. And now it's one of those things where hard times breed strong men, which bring good times, which breed weak men, which breed bad times. Right? And then the bad times bring strong men as well.

What?

Mate, we're live in the same room.

In the same room. Welcome to the Benneberg Show. Your favorite MBA and college dropout sharing their lessons in crypto, growing a Web3 startup, investing life. And mate, you're actually real. I thought you were fake there at some stage.

Hey, straight og. Don't even worry about it, mate. It's so good to see you. And I swear, you've had a gross spurt since I saw you last, mate. You still growing? You're a young lad.

Still, still growing. Probably better looking than last time. A little bit better than you anyway, with that shade beard.

Mate, I'm much better looking with this. I look fresh, I look clean. People are loving it, mate. They're even calling me to shave it all off.

Yeah, I think it's the bear market. You've got to. You've got to try something new in a bear market.

You do, mate. You've got to keep it fresh, keep it interesting. It's spicy. Yeah, Getting in the gym, mate. Doing some deadlifts.

Well, mate, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be in Perth, that's for sure. Because, man, coming over here, flying back in time, living out here in the history.

Mate, what are you talking about?

There's nothing going on out here.

You flew off a dirt road with bloody. What is it? Lonnie Airport? That doesn't really exist. You get these small little prop planes. You came over. Look, when you came to Perth, no dramas, mate, just straight here. Amazing, awesome apartment you got. Beautiful sunshine. You had an amazing feed last night. You get to see me, mate, what could be better than that?

When you replied, you're like, mate, I just googled Launceston Airport and it came up with three goats and a fucking dirt track.

So good.

Sounds right. Berg's been a wicked episode today. We've got lots to talk about. We're going to talk about crypto first. Got a couple of stories that I think you're going to find funny. Then we're going to talk economy, because the economy's. And then we're going to go into sales, how it works and acquisition strategies for businesses. And as always, we've got our meme of the week. And middle of the week, you've been eating well. You got something good for us today, mate.

So I actually had a couple of things, so I cooked up a awesome steak sandwich that was just. Just incredible, man. Like, I was like, oh, this is it. This is the one. But then I went out and I made a pizza dough as a poolish dough, which means it's a double ferment. It's this really fancy thing. And this Italian guy, so I watched this YouTube video, and he's like, man, I'll make the dough. We go like this. He's like, doing all this kind of stuff, and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna be exactly like this guy. This is gonna be amazing. So anyway, you do, like, a small ferment, you leave it overnight, and then you work that dough and you work it into, you know, some more stuff, and then you do it again. Anyway, halfway through, like, everyone's out of the house. I'm like, great. This is the perfect time to do it. I take it out and I start going like this. And I'm like, this isn't right.

I missed a step.

No, mate, it's the stickiest dough. It's just covered on my hand. It's not like I can't knead the dough. I have to, like, scrape it off. My phone starts ringing. I can't pick up my phone. I'm just like this. Just, like, screaming through my house going, what is going on? Eventually, like, I ended up putting it in, like, a mixer and getting it all right on the this. Then, like, two days later, made the piece, mate. That was, like, puffy, beautiful pizzas just, like, cut through. It was just amazing. Best piece. The fire control was insane. The oven was about 450 degrees outside.

It was just perfect, Making me hungry. We haven't had lunch yet.

So classic.

Band, rocks up late. So I gotta do all this setup, you know, talk to the guy, do everything. And you book it from 12 till 2, right? Prime lunchtime. My gut at the most, like, I'm pissed off. I'm hangry. Oh, mate. So that was gonna be my meal of the week, but then I went to. I went to a friend's birthday and they cooked the meal of the week.

Oh, wow.

So, okay, crank that up. It's exciting. It's the next level, man.

We need to keep that at the end because otherwise I'm gonna pass out hungry. One thing we do have. Well, we don't have a problem of today. Burgers is wi fi speed. That is one thing I'm so happy to not.

You're not lagging, you're not a white dot. You're literally like four people that talks every now and then and I'm just like trying to get a signal from you mate. Jeez.

The recording times chop down from three hours to one hour.

Yeah, now I'm getting too much signal. You turn that head down mate.

Seriously, turn this lights down mate. It's bouncing off your forehead.

That's what's making you look pretty.

Oh my God. Right, let's get into it. So Bergs I wake up. I've been journaling again. So I haven't been journaling in a little while. I thought fuck, I need to get back into journaling because journaling I find is a way that you can look back and reflect on your day and it's a way that you can step out of the day to day and actually get like a visualization of how well you did things to improve. And writing that down that, that stream of thoughts is such an unbelievable way of like oh yeah, just really digging into what the is going on in your life and how can you improve it. And I had this realization the other day that I'm not reading enough, I'm not learning enough, I'm doing all this shit but I feel as though I'm not progressing fast enough.

Yeah.

So I had this realization and I woke up this morning, I started to read. I read, I went back into decrypt my crypto sites, went back to the AFR and just started reading stuff. And all of a sudden like this morning I'm like I just, I was having fun again and I was learning, I was finding new stories and there's some stuff I want to talk about today in today's pod but the idea of learning and reading, I think for me I'm not sure about you and others but is such a great way to feel progress in life. Yeah. That you can implement day to day. How do you find that?

Absolutely. First of all the consciousness streaming that is amazing because to try and mediate the own thoughts, your own thoughts in your own head, you're just never going to get there. So start writing it down and you see what's going on. And that's the thing like I'm. I'm a student for life, mate. That's what I am. I'm always going to be learning, I'm always going to be doing courses until the day I die. Like I just have to keep learning, getting new perspectives, reading different perspectives on I read a lot of like Non fiction, like a lot of philosophy as well and a lot of science fiction. And they're the three different areas where I get different perspectives on life and even, even learning. Like, okay, so you sent me on a cash day for eo. Yeah, right. I'm like, cash, I'm all over this, son. I'm an mba. I've done accounting, I've done finance. Should be right. And just going back into it in an area I don't do every day you realize how long it's been since you've learned something structured. And when, when that hits you, you're.

Like, oh, and how exciting is it when you can take that? You go, oh my God. You can see how you're going to implement that, whether it be cash or philosophy or whatever it is, oh my God, I want to talk to someone about that. Or you've got more to talk at the dinner table or like you can implement that at work. Like it's so powerful.

And it's the same you're talking about with the other week. When you travel and you have new experiences or you meet someone and you just talk to them, they just give you a different perspective on life. And you know, we're knowledge workers, right? We walk around all these problems in our head, like, I have to solve this thing. This is the long term thing. I've got this long term goal. And they're always ideating in the back of your mind and they're always going off. And the more experiences you have, the more you read, the more you learn and the more you will solve those problems. It's just, and when it clicks, it's just a beautiful thing.

So I think journaling's been a big game changer and I always sometimes forget about it. But I need to make it more of like everyday.

Man, it's so hard to keep up, isn't it? You have to build that habit. Even if it's like five minutes a day, it's like the easiest habit to give up.

Yeah, 100%. Anyway, so the thing I was reading this morning around, there were some sisters in Melbourne that received some crypto. So about a year ago, these Melbourne sisters, they basically lost $100 or something. So they went to crypto.com and asked for a refund. And you we need 100 bucks back. Yeah, but they didn't get $100 back.

Burgs, how much do they get?

They got $10.5 million.

That sounds like crypto to me, mate. Just a quick thousand X.

So these, these sisters have asked for A refund. They've gotten $10.5 million in their crypto account. Now, what would you do if you got $10.5 million arrived in your crypto account?

I'd long bitcoin, mate. I'd go 100x leverage.

Turn into a trillion.

I'm like, yeah, cool, 10 million. I know for me it's probably not enough to move to Mexico and uproot my whole life. I don't know, mate. I'd probably, yeah, I'd take it out, put it in a mixer, send it somewhere and be like, sorry, the money's gone, lad. At least buy me a couple of days to think.

Well, I think, I think the issue, like, the issue is, it's like, it's a KYC platform, right? Like, you know, they know who you are, they know who you are, so you're instantly. So I think that what, what I would have done was try to turn it into 20, right, and then give the 10 mil back. The issue is if you lose the 10, then you might be screwed. These sisters.

They, they waited for a little bit to see if like the money was going to come. Obviously no one knew because the crypto.com did nothing about it. They went out and bought a 1 point something million dollar home in Melbourne.

That's conservative, mate. You got 10 million?

Yeah, like, okay, we'll keep not. I reckon I was like, oh, you know, let's spend a million then just see what happens. Yeah, yeah. A few months later, they, crypto.com found out. Take them to court. Obviously they lost.

Yeah.

So they were, you know, battling against that. They lost and now completely wrecked. They've spent, I don't know how much money they've spent outside of the 10.5 and the house. But now crypto.com are trying to get their money back, mate.

Unbelievable. So the, the real thing I would do is call the company, right? But I think there comes a point, and I don't know what this threshold is. There comes a point where you have to consider it and you're like, I could take that and go to a country without extradition and I could live out the rest of my days. What would that number have to be for you in that account?

Oh.

To run. To walk away completely and just go to face the earth and like, you know, change the change.

You never come back. You can never come back.

I don't think there is a number.

I was first 50, then I'm like 100, but like, but then, you know, I have to take my family, then I Can't come back and see them. Can't see my friends. Is that really worth any amount of money?

That's like 10 mil that. Let's just make 10 mil. You know, they live a day to day.

Yeah, that's it. Like, what are you really giving up? And you see these guys that run all these crypto scams or Ponzis, all this kind of stuff, and they get this money and then they go and live in some weird country. Or people that go and live in the Caymans, like, they're these rich people, they go and live in the Caymans to save like, what, 20% of their income or something like that? Because all the shit's really expensive over there. It's like, are you really going to uproot your life for an extra 20%.

Live in the Caymans if you're already rich?

Like, what, are you going to buy another boat? Why are you getting rid of all your friends and doing all that stuff? So kind of thing never made sense to me.

I think some people are wired that way, right? They're like, you know, 20% for them is. Well, 20% for a lot of people is a lot of money. But the idea of giving money to the government, for example, is just so against their, like, ethos and morals that they'll do anything on earth to move fucking anywhere, to not have to spend that money.

That's it. And it comes back to, like, your values and how you measure your life. And I have a lot of friends that really measure their lives on how much do I earn? What is my status in life? And, you know, how much my investments doing, you know, what is my job title, what power do I have? And actually this, I wrote a quote down and this was. This was so interesting to me. So beware of over concern for money or position or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will realize how poor you really are.

Wow.

And I was like, holy. Because I've been obsessed with all that stuff, you know, went to uni, got to do some more study, got to work my way up, do all these things, get more money. Now you've got money now you've got to invest it now you look at your returns and you're constantly measuring and it has to be linear and you constantly have to progress. That's just not the life for me, man. Like, I've done that. And up until probably four months ago, like, I was hardwired to only do that now, I honestly could not give a shit. It's literally, do I have enough money for the next 12 months to live the life that I want? And am I generally going in the direction I want? Yes. Done. Like, don't even look at the accounts or banking. Maybe like once a month, something like that.

That's cool, man.

Yeah, because seriously, that, and there's, there's that story right where. And it's told in a million different ways where I think it's somewhere in Mexico or some, some kind of country or you know, in Greece.

A really rich businessman, he goes to, you know, this guy, he's a fisherman and he goes, oh, you know, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm a fisherman and I' out, I'll fish for like two or three hours. I'll get my fish just enough to feed my family. Then I'll spend time with my friends and I'll relax and I'll have a siesta, all this kind of stuff. And he goes, oh, you know, like, yeah, because he's an American guy, he's into business. He's this big fat businessman and he's got millions of dollars, all this kind of thing. He's like, oh, look, I'm on holiday. And he's in his late 50s and he's like, well, why don't you get another boat? He's like, oh, okay, I could get another boat. And then I was like, oh, you could get a fleet, you could hire people, you could work in that for 20, 30 years, get heaps of income and then you could like ret. And you know, you could spend time with your friends. You know, you could do a little bit of fishing, you could do everything. He's like, that's great, but what's the 20 to 30 years for? Like, I'm already living that retired life.

What am I doing?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, you know, are you working to live or living to work? Yeah, that's a fascinating thing because for me, I, I love to work. You know, I love to because that is made living. But I think for some people that, you know, especially when they get older, I've heard a lot of people when they give like what, when asked a question, what advice would you give you to your 21 year old self is not to work so hard. Yeah, but I think for some people, they've worked a 9 to 5 grind in a job they fucking hate for like 50 years to set themselves up for retirement and now they're old and don't really have that much money. Now they're hating Life where if you can do something every day that you love and you enjoy, that sounds so much more fun, you know what I mean?

You need to get after it. And the thing is like everyone gets into a 9 to 5 job. Whether your minimum wage, you went to uni, it's still 9 to 5, you're working a quarter. Corporate kind of thing. Everyone generally people long for something else and it really comes down to what are you willing to do to get that something else right. You have to stand out. You either have to reskill or you have to take a low paying job for a while or start your own business. You need to take that step to live that life that you want. Because if you're sacrificing 40 hours a week and look 9 to 5, it's not 40 hours, it's way more than that. It's getting ready, it's doing the stuff you do at home, it's the travel time, it's everything else. The majority of your life. If you're unhappy for that just to have a good weekend, you should probably.

Reassess that 100, right? That was a good little segue into I want to just actually I want to just quickly wrap up, wrap up on crypto. So a lot of talk about NFTs the last eight months or so like the NFT boom went crazy. Like last year was absolutely insane and now it's had a decent pullback and I've seen actually a lot of people starting to give up on NFTs, people throwing in the tower, starting to sell, which I think is the right time to start buying. When I start seeing people giving up and even I start to go, oh, I mean what's going on in T land? That's usually the time that the bottom's in moonbirds, what we own bergs, Moon birds is an NFT collection. And as it's basically built, they're building a community, they're building a media brand and a community. They just raised another $50 million. So they minted $70 million they minted when they first created. They've just raised another. I think they raised 5 million in their seed. Now they've raised another 50 million and they are building a media brand. So they're building, they've got like these book clubs and they're building a token and they're building a whole community around this moonbirds ecosystem and they're launching another PFP next year. So they're launching there they've got the moonbirds, the oddities and now they're launching the third PfP next year. And if you own a moonbirds, you'll get that air dropped. And what I think these guys are really trying to do is build this whole Web3, the Web3 Media brand, where you've got community, you've got an ecosystem with a token that's not. And one of the founders, Kevin Rose, sort of quoted that he doesn't want to just create another token that's just out there creating, like, just doesn't do all right. He wants to give it actual value. Now, he's been pretty light on the details, but you're going to have the PFPs, the tokens, you're going to have the media brand. They're doing book clubs, as I mentioned, podcasts, they're doing events.

Yep.

All around this idea of the moonbirds, which is quite difficult for non crypto people to understand. And even for me, I'm sort of getting my head around, like, what this actually looks like in the web3 environment. This is all really to do with this new digital transformation of like Metaverse and like what happens online and this new, I guess, generation of media companies. This isn't your. I know AFR or TechCrunch. Like, this is a building a community where you own that media media company, you're not using it, you are an owner and you get to share the value in the creation of that, which is super exciting.

Such good crypto. And I really like Moonbirds, where they're just taking what bought out your club, have done what Gary Vee's done with their conferences, their media that they're creating, their brands, their merch, all that kind of stuff and going great. If we want to be a top five pfp, what do we have to do to upframe that? And it's so wild, the amount of money that they're raising. So they got heaps from their token launch, they kept a certain amount of tokens in their treasury, which then, God, whatever, they did 20 or 30x at the time, which they could have sold.

Yeah.

These guys are already, you know, wealthy to begin with, working. They've gone and raised more capital. They're like, we're shooting for the stars here. This exciting. Yeah, this is so exciting. Where you can build in ownership and it's just going to be on your phone. You can tag things, you can go to a bar, you can come to a podcast studio, Moonbirds Podcast Studio. You can record your podcast, you know, and it builds their brand and you get leverage from all the other people that are in Moonbirds as Well, because you're part of the one collective, but you're your own separate thing.

Yeah.

It's just so exciting to see where the future is going to go with this, man.

I think back to investing. Someone asked me the other day around, like, what NFT should you buy as a beginner? And like, where should you start? I think, like, any investment looking at the founders and the team behind the project is like, number one. You look at Kevin Rose, he's a serial entrepreneur built inside a bunch of different companies.

Solid product guy.

Solid product guy. And he's shooting for the stars. And I think backing the founder and backing the team is a great way to, you know, find a home for your investments. Because a product idea might not work out.

Yeah.

You know, even a collective shift, we pivoted a bunch of times because of, like, we're following the market and what people want.

Yeah.

If you're only backing that one idea and it doesn't, you know, follow through and the founders like, no, this, I'm out. You know, well, then your investment's done. Like any startup, it's going to be risky, it's going to be pivoting. So finding good founders and good teams is a great way to find the right collection or investment you should make.

Absolutely. And especially when they're a person that's already made it, someone like Gary V or Kevin Rose, where they've already made it, they've got an identity, a Persona and a brand attached to it. And if they're willing to attach it to a new thing, you'll be pretty damn sure that they're going to put a lot of effort into it to succeed. Whereas you have founders that are unknown or undocs, you don't know who they are. They do a token raise and you started a company. Right. The hardest thing in the company is how do I get customers, how do I get cash in the door and how do I scale? Yeah, they solve that within a month. Where they'll do media, they'll do a launch and you get, you know, 50 to 100 million in the door.

Yeah.

Now you can be complacent. You can pay yourself a big salary. There was, there was a, there was a NFT launch. I forget exactly what it was called, but these guys, I think they raised like 15 million. They'll pay themselves 50 grand a month. Just salary. Yeah. They were like trading with it. They lost a bunch of money. All this stuff was going on. And that's the kind of thing you can expect from people that haven't run A company before or haven't hit success and these two guys have. So that I would say V Friends and moonbirds are definitely 2 to 1%.

I think a lot of the web three platforms, projects, tokens, NFTs, DAOs have lacked a lot of product market fit and a lot of them didn't really solve a problem or help people, you know what I mean?

And lack coordination as well. Like me. Some of the daos like people, it's just a bunch of people with ADHD trying to do stuff right and like trying to coordinate these fuckers like whereas people that have run that have that small point of centralization and have a small company and they facilitate all of that stuff, like what people call web 2.5 where it's not web 2 and it's not web 3, but you just have that little bit of coordination. Yeah, that helps so much.

Yeah.

Even like me, we go to a dao and they have bounties and then someone will sign up and they'll kind of half do the work or not. And then you try and coordinate over a million like different time zones and it's no one's priority and they just like, oh, we'll throw it to the community. Community will solve it. Community ain't doing. They are not going to solve that for you. You need to stand up and be a leader for the brand and the.

Company that you've built 100 and crypto right now is we're in the depths of a bear market. I read a article this morning that it's. I think we're at all time low transaction volume amounts or not. I don't know if it's all time low or like in the last three or four years, sort of all lows of transaction volume, it's, it's down really low. Which is basically signaling that no one's buying, no one's fucking selling, no one's doing everything. You know, people have, people have not given up hope but they're just bored and people have gone out and done other things.

It's. I remember back to when even when I got into like drop bears, which is like Australian nft. It's been a year since that happened. Everyone was super excited. Everyone was buying. Gas was through the roof. It cost like 300 bucks to do a transaction on Ethereum and now it's like a dollar. Like no one's doing anything.

Discords are dead.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you think about like discords that were pumping. You go in there and there's like three messages. You're like everyone's just doing other stuff.

Yeah.

They're just not exactly excited. Like there's no price action there. And man, you just look at it and the people that have been holding since before, like 2017, they're still holding. They're not selling. They would have sold a little bit at the top. They might be buying some now. All the people that bought at, you know, 60,000, they've all been shaken out. They've all gone, like in the last month. They're not in, they're not buying. But then you start to see, like, you start to see it pick up and people start to average in. It's not going to be huge volumes. You won't have the excitement.

Yeah.

But this is actually the exciting time as an investor to start building that wealth and building down that dollar cost.

Average price 100. So that sort of leads into the next little piece around the economy. And we're going to an event tomorrow night, Boats with the Perth Angels event. I'm doing a talk on crypto investing.

I'm going to heckle the out.

Yeah, you are, mate.

Security. And if I can get you out of here.

Oh, my. I'll fight him.

But it was interesting. I was sort of looking at everything right now and I mean, you know, crypto is heavily tied to the macro economy and those that think that isn't is, you know, I think it's just not factual, you know, that the macro economy has such a huge, I guess, influence on how crypto goes because of, you know, inflation rates and tech stocks and all sorts of different stuff is really putting a compound.

You know, pushing crypto down. Yeah. What we've also seen recently in Australia is a lot, well, not even Australia, but everywhere. The layoffs, you know, crypto, it's huge. So there's a prominent and prominent crypto exchange. So a prominent crypto exchange in Australia recently laid off 21% of their staff. It's huge, massive. And only a few months ago, like early this year, we're growing at a rate of like, we're hiring one a day. So that's a huge, like, shift. Right. And that's not just one exchange. There's a lot of change across the world and, and, and also tech stocks and tech companies laying off, you know, a shitload of people. And this is, you know, due to the amount of capital is coming into these businesses reducing, people are spending less money because inflation's going up, they have less money to spend and businesses are making less and valuations are down. It's a It's a bloodbath.

It's like when we saw the, the post default alive. Is your company default alive from Y Combinator.

Yeah.

And everyone's really taking that to heart and they understand that this is not going to be a quick two, three month thing. It's going to be a long period of time. And not only has the money dried up, but the valuations that if you do raise is going to be a lot lower. So the projections you had, the scenario plan is going to be very different. Money's dried up for a lot of reasons. So people have lost money in the stock market. Cost of capital is more expensive with interest rates going up. And if we think about crypto.

Crypto is based on money. You need money to invest in it. That's how it works. Right. So it's not this decoupled non correlated asset. It just doesn't work that way. Still tied to monetary and fiscal policy in the real world in the future it may not be and people, they may be operating different systems and there may be more incentives to do so, but at the moment they're just not there. And even crypto companies are feeling this, like everyone across the board needs to tighten their belt. Like crypto companies are funded by VCs which are just in the normal kind of web2world and that's where the capital is coming from. And their outlook is at least kind of 16 to 18 months to tighten their belts.

Well, Jerome Powell came out and basically said we don't give a fuck how the economy goes. Even if it comes back, we're not slowing down. The rising of rate, the interest rates, like yeah, basically said until next financial year, this is the, this is the direction we're going in. Kyle, our TA trader Cliff was talking about like he literally. The markets rebounded the other day when they thought like the rates, the rising of interest rates are slowing down. And the Jerome Powell came out and apparently literally he walked up in front of the camera or whatever for his presentation and his tonality, his way of talking, he literally wanted to destroy the markets. He's like, you know, we are nowhere near done. Basically like we will continue to rise interest rates, we need to get inflation. Like he basically just came out and physically the way he presented and spoke controlled how the market's going. How crazy is that the one person or one entity can have so much control.

It's so wild, isn't it? And for people to base their forward projections just on this. And looking at the tone, the words he used, the sentiment, all of Those.

Kind of how he looks, how he's, how he's presenting, what he's wearing.

This really tells me that it's like, yeah, okay, interest rates can go up. That's just a mechanism. But they're trying to work out the hurt across the economy and how interconnected it is and how it's going to be. And people are genuinely fearful. I think we've had it since the gfc, Very good. For a very long time. Yeah, like, that's what, 2008, 12, 13, 14 years of pretty solid growth. We got pretty fat from it. We're all, we're all lining our pockets. And now it's one of those things where, you know, hard times breed strong men, which bring good times, which breed weak men, which breed bad times. Right. And then the bad times build the strong men as well.

Do you think there was a. The founders and business owners across the board, you know, got a little bit ahead of themselves in terms of like, spending and growth during that great time?

100.

Yeah.

And you think about it, interest rates, what for us didn't move for how many years in Australia? Like an abnormal amount of years. So you get used to that. Cost of capital is cheap. People are giving it out. They're like, yeah, you know, things won't change. Yeah, Covid happened, but people were propped up, some businesses folded, a lot survived, and everyone expected a big boom off the back of COVID What they didn't understand was when you print shitloads of money across the economy where it's like 13 trillion globally since the GFC, what do you think's going to happen there? Something has to give. You have to raise interest rates to reduce spending, prices go up and you flight your way out of that debt. These are the hard times that we're going to experience.

And that's basically what they're saying. We have to go through the hard times. Reset everything before we rebuild.

Exactly.

We're going through right now.

And if you don't, your currency collapses.

Yeah. Classic, right? So, yeah, the economy's. Economy's fucked. When we're talking about building and accumulating, like, I think it's, you know, you're going to get cheap, cheaper assets. I think a lot are probably going to go to zero because a lot of these products and crypto assets are specifically. Just don't solve a problem. Yeah. They're just out there to exist. So I think a lot, a lot of valuations are going to go down, but we're going to get a good opportunity to build businesses and get a head starter against in competitors because not many people are going to start a business right now.

Exactly. And if you find product market fit, once people come in, discretionary spending's up. You can then capture the majority of the market. Especially if you're in a new area. If you're playing in a blue ocean and you've got a new thing, once people are like, right, we're back, we've got more money, we can buy that thing. And actually like, with the economy, yeah, it's a lot of it sucks. But there's still a lot of jobs out there. Like, there's a shitload, there's heaps and people are paying a lot.

Yeah.

So we're still lucky on that front. If we had high unemployment as well, we'd be.

Seriously, there's a fuckload of jobs out there.

Yeah, man.

And my brother was looking for a job the other day because he's moved back to Tassie and there's a lot. Yeah. Anyone go to the airport right now? Oh, my God. These are people. Security airport.

Yeah, we've just. Perth has just changed the visa restrictions as well because we just can't get people. It's been like that for so long. Where even in mining. They just asked my mate, he's like, yeah, we're just hiring potatoes. They're just the worst. Because it's all we can get and we're paying him stupid money.

That's insane.

It's crazy.

Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to lead into.

Speed of potato. We've got a thing here. So I saw. I don't know where this was. Oh, yes, you're talking about the podcast, by the way. I want to just plug. I want to plug the pod midstream here. Something new. If you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Give us a. I don't know, one star, five star. Whatever you think on Spotify and Apple podcasts really does help us out. But speaking of the podcast, Burges, tell me about the story about your mate. And something about I was.

So big a potato or something.

This was at.

This was at this birthday I went to on the weekend where I had the amazing food.

Yeah.

And this girl, Jim, like friend of mine, haven't seen her for a while. I haven't seen for over six months. So she didn't even know that I've moved to go work with you from my old job.

Yeah.

And I was talking about it. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you know, Ben's coming over, he's A CEO. He's like, this is.

Oh, great.

I'm like, yeah. He's like. He's like 23. And she's like, what the. She's like, is he a genius? And I just burst out.

It was so funny. Oh, man. I've never laughed so hard in my life. And I was just like, no, he's not a genius.

And then he's a potato. No, I didn't say you're a potato. So the potato comment was when I was thinking back to, like, when I first started consulting with you, and you would have been like, 18. And no one's very smart when they're 18. And I was like, you know, you're getting into consulting, and you have to kind of mentor someone, teach them about business, all this kind of stuff. And I was just like, yeah, mate, you're a potato. Back then, like, absolute potato. But you had, like, a couple of things going for you, right? The first thing was. And when you're 18, you know absolutely nothing. Which. The first thing where I was like, this guy, he's. He's got the goods, and he's coachable, number one. You picked up the phone and you called people. You weren't scared. You were just like, I'll pick them up. I'll have a chat. What's going on? All right, let's solve this. Yeah, that was an amazing thing to see, especially if someone of your generation. Yeah, even in my generation, you don't see how they scale. Send an email, I'll do this. I'll do it tomorrow. You're saying, not get on the phone, let's do it.

Yeah.

Next thing was, you weren't afraid to say what you didn't know. You always like, I've got no fucking idea how to do this. How do I do this? Right? Like, and you tell someone. And then the third thing was, like, this is the classic one. Like, you literally call me. You weren't afraid to give things a go. And you're still like that, right? You are exactly like that. Every single day. You're doing a crazy amount of things in an area you've never tried before. You're doing podcasts and you're doing public speaking. You're flying around. You're doing investor stuff. You're not afraid to give things a go. And the classic one was, I'm pretty sure it was when you were 18. You gave me a call, and you're like, oh, burgs, man. I got to put this deal together. Like, it was with, like, some. Some crypto company. Some sponsorship deal.

I was like, okay, this afternoon.

Okay, cool, man. You know, like, let's talk about you. Like, no, no, no. I'm literally in the car. I'm going to be there in half an hour. Holy shit. So like, briefed you up on, like, a couple of negotiation points, you know, things that you want to clarify, all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, gave you the briefing. Like, great. You call me, like, an hour later. Like, yeah, I locked him in for, like, 90K.

And that was just so reassuring. And everyone out there just give things a go. I didn't want to do this podcast. I'm like, fuck this. Another thing I have to do. And now it's easy. I'm having the most fun ever. It's just taking that first step. And when I look at you, and even if I look at my old boss, right, like, she's a lot older, she's in her 60s. She was Australian of the Year. First female plastic surgeon, has six kids, all this stuff. Same thing with you. When I look at you both, I'm like, is there anything, like, super extraordinary about them? And I would say, no. The extraordinary thing you do have is, is that you constantly try hard and you constantly show up every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, you both show up. You're not afraid to try new things, and you keep going. If you show up every single day, that just compounds and compounds and it goes back to, if you just, you know, interested in something, you'll do what's convenient. If you're committed, you'll do whatever it takes. She was committed to her mission, and you're committed to yours, and you guys will do whatever it takes.

Yeah, I love that. I'm certainly not a genius. I think very, like, pretty much bang average a lot of things.

Yeah. But I think it's low average in a lot, too.

But I think that goes to anyone, like, wanting to start a business or new career or new job. Like, it always is a bit scary to get started. And, like, I get anxiety and stress out all the time. Public speaking, like, you know, I was there when I was talking my first keynote the other day, I was, like, sitting there, like, shaking my legs or sweaty palms. My brother sitting next to me and said, are you nervous, mate? I said, you reckon, mate?

And then they delayed you as well? Just set you up again?

Yeah, it was another hour behind. I was like, you know, up at the middle of the night. So, like, you do only see the good stuff, right?

Yeah.

You know Never, never think that there's not stuff going on behind the scenes. It's always difficult.

And this is the thing. People like, oh, I'm not like that person.

Yeah.

And the reality is you are. Everyone is just average. Right.

Yeah.

They are not greater than you. They've just tried harder and they've done it longer.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you look at all these people and yeah, they've got a well honed product and you only see that small sliver of what they are. You don't see what's behind closed doors, the sleepless nights, the prep, the broken down marriage, whatever it may be, whatever they're dedicating to that thing.

100 and. And it's.

Yeah. I love that you don't see behind the scenes. And I do it all the time. Like I'm like, I'm like here compared to where like I want to be and I, I do. We all fall in the trouble of comparing ourselves. I need to be like, yes. So this morning I woke, I was like, I'm not doing enough.

You know. Yeah, it's the thing. It's good to have goals. But when you compare to other people, comparison is the thief of joy.

100 yeah.

Whereas I'm super fucking happy. I'm not Joe Rogan, but fuck me, I get to sit in the studio with Ben, talk shit, and we're going out for chicken burgers. I'm having the best life ever, mate. Like, this is just ridiculously good. Like if you compare yourself, you're just not going to have a good time. Have your goals, give yourself enough time, give yourself enough, you know, kindness to actually develop and grow into those big social media.

Really. We spoke about this before. Social media can really have. And I've, I've found this, you know, when I use social media, it really does bring down because the dopamine, it increased that artificial level of dopamine in your brain and you don't get enough of the natural dopamine that actually makes you happy and you forget what you're like, happy about. So I've started back on the journaling side, you know, writing down what you, what I'm grateful for and things I love. And I use the Calm app to meditate every morning. Sometimes it does that sort of like, you know, what are you grateful for? And you think about those people and, you know, the experiences in your life. And I know that changes things. Like it really does change perspective.

I feel the most like happy, rich, wealthy, calm when I just meditate.

Like, how peaceful is it when the.

Thoughts just, just cease in your head.

It just. Everything disappears. And you're just sitting there like, I could just do this for like all day.

And that's the thing, like, because you're getting. It's like a flush and getting rid of all that dopamine and a bit of a reset and just spending time on yourself to do something for yourself. I just feel so rich doing that. I'm just like. I'm lucky enough that I have the 10 minutes to do that. I'm not working like a mad bastard just to feed my family, you know. It is the most amazing thing. And even when I went away for those couple of weeks and just went away with my family and just had lots of fires and just disconnected. You just walk around smiling.

Yeah.

And even, even like I was watching this shows like from the 50s or something, and it was this Italian show and they used to like, they're like dancing with each other and that was like, you know, the peak of like raunchiness and doing all this stuff. And because they didn't have like all these screens and things beamed into their head and being interconnected, it was just. It's wild.

So I've been thinking about this for a little while. I've sort of came up. My mate went to this retreat up in Queensland where for seven days you completely disconnect. Yeah. You go to like a village.

Yeah.

And you leave your phone at home and you go up there for seven days and you go through different. Basically meditate each day and you do different activities and stuff with other people.

And is it a silent retreat or you allow to talk?

I've. I've heard ones that are completely silent retreat. Yeah, that sounds like pretty crazy.

Yeah.

But I think I'm gonna like, I. I want to look into it more. I haven't had a chance to really look into it, but I. I really think he came back and said he was like, basically like changed him.

Yeah.

You know, and I've heard similar things with like doing things like psychedelics and stuff. When you like really disconnecting your base thing about random shit, it's a reset.

And it also makes you realize how much you don't matter. Life is beautiful. You just stare at trees, like they look that good. You listen to the wind and your ego just dissolves. We tie all this stuff to our ego where, you know, I am Aaron. I'm a chief product officer, I'm a board member, I'm a father. I'm this, I'm that. I have this status. I invest in this, I have power over or influence over these people. All this horseshit when that melts. If you took all that away, who would you be?

And no one gives a. You know what the other thing about this podcast is? Well, I was so scared to do this. Like, not even this podcast, but just start a podcast in general. Like, let's go. A year or two ago. It's big build up. Oh, I don't have the microphone. Oh, I don't have the camera. Oh, I don't know what to talk about. Oh, studio's no good odds. Tuesday, it's raining. That's. I can't do it. You do the first episode and no one gives a.

No, no one cares. No one cares.

Don't even listen.

That's exactly it. That's the thing. Like, literally the podcast is for us.

Yeah, Correct. Yeah, no one cares. But we're having fun. You know what I mean? Like, we are so small. Isn't that funny? Like, literally no one cares. Everyone else has got their own problems to sort about. Everyone else is fucking struggling. You know what I mean?

Have you ever seen that video where they start with a person and they zoom out into space? Oh, yeah, Fuck me.

And they keep going to the other planets, right?

So there's literally like billions of stars out there. And we think we're important and we're this magical land and it's like you don't even matter. You're like. You're not even a fucking ant. You're here, like, just for 100 years if you're lucky.

Yeah.

And the Earth is. What are you, like 13 billion years old? So it's like, it's all the universe is. Sorry, not the Earth. And you're like, all of that time, you're not even if you have like 100 meter kind of line, you're not even a dot on that line for the amount you're alive. And you think. You think people are going to remember you after you're dead? No. Can you name anyone from 100 years ago? Can you name like, an Aztec or an Incan or anything like that that ruled the world? The Mayans? You fucking can't. And it wasn't even that long ago, mate.

When you think like that, you're like, yeah, exactly right.

Like, you're here for a very short period of time. Just enjoy it. What are you gonna do? Amass all this wealth like you're a pharaoh and take it to your grave? Like, really? What the. Like, how many boats do you really need? Jesus Christ. Like, we're so hell bent on wealth and status and building all this stuff that never matters. And when you realize that it's one of those things. It's like your second life begins when you realize you only have one. The day you realize that is the day you start living and getting back to that reset where your mate came back and he's like, I'm a different person. I'm exactly the same. Like after I had that like went away and I read how to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. Amazing book. Very practical. There's like 30 small chapters. It's just like do this thing, do this thing, do this thing. Like pretty much all my gut troubles gone away. My anxiety's gone away. My sleep's amazing. I worry about nothing.

Fucking living your best life.

It's incredible, mate. It is unbelievable.

I'm gonna do one of these. I don't know if I'm gonna do a seven day silent retreat. That sounds.

My sister in law's done it and she said it was. It was pretty good. Silence. A big way to go. I think you have to be after real spiritual thing.

And yeah.

Even just disconnect. Even start small. Man. I've started just. I go for a walk for an hour. I just leave my phone at home and just being untethered from my phone.

Yeah.

And no one being able to call me or reach me and knowing that they can't do that. I just feel so free and rich and like. Like I'm doing something wrong. Like something illegal.

Yeah.

Like, you know what I mean? Like if my family can't call me or something. But it's just the. The most amazing thing.

Yeah. But we've been carrying on for too much. So we're going to push the sales and acquisition to next week because that's a bunch of fun. There's so much stuff to talk about. I want to roll into. Let's do meal of the week. So. No. Have you got a now. Last week we were canceled. So.

So no one's listening this week. So why not?

Hopefully this week.

So before you put it up, I'll just preface this. There's no trigger warning this week. I probably got about a thousand memes during the week. I'd say at least about 900 of them. I can't put on the pod.

But out of all of them, this one made me laugh the hardest. And I've just been thinking about it all week. It's been so good. Yeah.

Let's go see if we can get this working.

There we go. All Right, here's the meme of the week. So we've got Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters sitting on a bench. He's looking very distressed. He's bad giro and he just dropped a gyro. So if everyone doesn't know that it's like a Greek kebab. The caption is, there goes my gyro. There goes my gyro. Watch him as he goes.

Mate. I've been laughing about this all week.

And the yoro's like mid. Mid fall. Like he's like on the way to the ground.

He's just dropped it. He's just so distressed on his face. Oh, my God. I'll just be singing this around the house.

Oh, it's been so good. And I'll be playing this song non stop just because it reminds me of the meme and it makes me laugh.

It's so good. It's pg, mate.

Oh, I love it. Love it.

Okay, we've got meal of the week coming up.

Oh, let's go.

I'm gonna go first, so.

Oh, look at this.

Okay, so look, this is a funny one, Books, because, you know, on ice, it's a chicken burger for people at home, you know, believe it or not.

Surprise, surprise.

So this is down in Dockland. So this is down in Docklands on. What day is it? Wednesday. Today? Monday. I don't know. Monday, Sunday. We're now for a chicken. But I missed lunch. I was ugly. I was like, I could do a chicken burger, roll around this place and it. It comes out, I'm like, wow. Upon the outside, this looks fantastic. But as I dug deeper burgs, it was a pretty average chicken burger.

Was it really dark? Like they need to change the oil in their fry.

So the chicken looked like. Yeah, correct. It being deep fried in oil that had been there since 1943. It within the bun also accompanied the chicken back in 1943 because that bun was the oldest bun I've ever stuck my teeth through. It was. You know when you get an old piece of bread that's like on the verge of going green and it just like crumples and it's sort of like furry on the inside. The chips as well were so hot, but yet so bad.

It was like trying to chew something, like burning in your mouth. But the flavor and like the. The risk and reward ratio of like burning your mouth to the reward of eating some undercooked, shitty potato chips was so poor. I think I had like one chip and then I actually just. And then to the bottom of the burger, it was so, like oily that the bottom bun was basically wet.

You got generational oil in there, mate.

I've got oil that my great, great, great grandfather was eating at Docklands. So Berg's, like, this was like probably a 2.7 out of 10. It was gross. It wasn't great. It wasn't great.

So did you eat a little bit of it or what? I. What I tend to do is if I have a really bad meal, I'll. I'd be like, this is crap on a refund. And I'll go somewhere else and get the same meal to cancel it out.

Oh, wow.

What did you do? Did you just.

I smash it.

I'm so angry.

You're like, it's. But I gotta do it. I'm gonna schedule here.

It was like 5pm I had eaten lunch. I was like, man, I gotta go back and do some meetings. Like, so good.

So good.

Felt so shit afterwards.

Anyway. Oh, mate, you got the coke in the background. Love it. It, love it.

Okay. Right, mate, what have you got for us, mate?

So this, this is my meal of the week.

Oh, my.

This was phenomenal. So it was Brooke's birthday. A friend of ours and her husband Richie was cooking.

Yeah.

And he's only been on the Weber for like a couple of years, mate. He's a pro. Right, so shout out to Richie.

Legend.

Mate.

All right, so first of all, he cooks up some lamb. He does it in the morning. He smokes this beautiful lamb shoulder. We get there, he pulls it apart part and he's made this like chimichurri sauce. He's got chipotle sauce, he's got cut up coriander, some like, you know, slaw, all this kind of stuff. Unbelievable. He even did like corn on the barbie and put like this amazing, like Mexican sauce over it.

Oh, man.

So that came out.

So he's doing this for everyone. How many people at the party?

Oh, about 12 to 14, something like that.

Not like massive, but. Yeah. So decent.

Yeah. So we've got our tortillas, we're making out, we're eating. Oh, it's best food. Amazing. Yeah. Then he cooks his fish, right? So what he's done, he's gone out the front of his house, rip some bark off the front of his tree, right? This is how good these ladies. And he washes out, washes out all the ants and insects, gets this red emperor fish and covers it in like, you know, lime, coriander, coriander root, all this stuff. And he wraps it up and he Puts it on the coals, mate. Wow. Right? So after all this is done, he comes out and it's like, you know, we're halfway through eating, and he just puts it on the table and he opens it, and then he just flakes it apart. And this thing, you could not have cooked it more perfectly if you tried. And this thing just tasted. It was moist. It was delicious. It had that nice lime and coriander flavor as well as, like, a bit of smoke, and it took on some of the bark flavor. I have never tasted anything like this in my life. You know, we had that new flavor experience, and you're like, holy. I didn't know this existed.

Wow.

This blew me away. This thing went in, like, four seconds, mate. It was.

What was the fish caught again?

Red Emperor.

Red Emperor.

You could use, like, a snapper or anything in there.

Do you buy this from the supermarket.

Or you catch it anywhere, mate. This is just like local fish, man. It was unbelievable. I'm gonna give this an 11. 11.

I knew that was coming.

Serious. It was. I could not stop talking about this. I'm just looking at it now going, oh, my God, how do I make this? Oh, it was just unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

He's dropped the 10. Oh, the 10.

So good. So good.

Have you got one? No. This is it.

That's it.

That's it. Okay. Wonderful. So that was middle of the week. Meme of the week and burgers. I wanted to bring back gratitude and kindness of the week. So this is where we have a story, something about a great. Grateful for and. Or. Yeah. That we're kind for. No feeling kind.

Yeah.

Is that it? Yeah.

Cool.

Okay. What are you got something for me?

I have a gratitude and a kindness.

Okay.

So my gratitude one is really easy, man. I'm so grateful. I live in Australia.

Yeah.

And just particularly that healthcare in Australia. Like, if I have any issue, I can go to a doctor, I can get to a specialist, I can get to whoever I need relatively quickly. And I see all these people, especially on Reddit threads, just suffering through chronic illnesses or something. They need to get sorted. And it's just like being able to go somewhere, talk to someone and get whatever is plaguing you solved almost instantly. And medications, like 10 bucks. It is just unbelievable. Like, we are such a privileged and lucky society. I'm just so grateful that I live here, man. It is just unbelievable.

It is good here. Yeah.

And I had a kindness as well. So this is two days ago, so I just. Just got in the. In my garage and started lifting Right. It's probably about two sets into my deadlifts. I'm like, I'm lifting, like, the max weight I've lifted. It's not that heavy, but it's max for me. And then my phone starts ringing. It's like a random number, so I pick it up and she's like, hello, is that Aaron? And I'm like, yeah. And what this is, this is one of my dad's old friends and she's in her 80s.

Yeah.

And she tries to call my mum every now and then she calls her home phone, but Mum's home phone is like on and off because it's an Internet thing. Everyone just calls her mobile now, but she's old, she calls her home phone and I start talking to her and I'm like, yeah. And I'm like sitting there going, oh, fuck, this conversation's going a bit long. It's been a couple of minutes and, you know, I've got to get back to my deadlift. I have to do this. I have to smash it out. And then I got to do this. And I thought, what the fuck kind of human am I? Like, when I'm in my 80s and someone wants. I want to talk to someone, I would be so happy if they just talk to me and tell me about their life. Like, I haven't seen her for a couple of years and she doesn't have that long to live. So I literally just go, no, this is not important. I literally sat down, talked to her about my wife, my daughter, things that are going on. Talk to her for about 20 minutes. And the reality is that's nothing to me. But it would have meant the world to her because she's at home, she's still living by herself, doing all that stuff, but doesn't have a lot of interaction. And I was like, look, when I'm that old, I would hope that someone would do that for me. And that was just my kindness of the week, man.

For sure. I love that, man. Yeah. That's awesome.

I always get scared about getting old, right? When you're lonely or your partner passes away or something like that, you're like, there's not much. There's not much going for you.

And when. When you got all these illnesses and, yeah, you ache all the time and you have to take all this medication and you're always sleepy and your back hurts and you can't travel and, yeah, you know that you're on that downward trend and it's only going to get worse. It's hard looking down that we forget man we forget to enjoy ourselves like that is going to be your life.

Enjoy yourself now while you can.

So I've been tossing up a few what I'm grateful for so one grateful for my new PA Hayley holy as you.

Should well be Bloody hell.

So she is only part time but my God has has that helped my organization what I need to do admin support even my emails yeah she's like when she first started she's like Ben what the fuck is going on in.

Here she's like how do you leave.

I just did your emails and then like four minutes later it's doubled and like can't someone else do these meetings what's going on with Calendar completely fucked and I'm constantly late to places don't know where I need to go constantly just have no idea what I'm doing.

You told me a story where you're like dave I need to fly here all right cool now later oh yeah those flights you booked I don't need to do that anymore mate. What the fuck?

Just constantly chaos running a million miles an hour so she's just added some you know message me every morning make sure I know what's going on you've got some questions it's just like keep things like sort of like well oiled which is. Yeah which is much better than what it was so super grateful for Haley and kindness I'm trying to think I really have a story this week for kindness not like you had Berg so I think I'm just going to leave.

It with yours you also had another gratitude where you shouted out the entire team during the all hands that was pretty awesome.

That was good. Yeah oh super great for our team so every. Every weekday. No every sorry every weekly huddle on a Tuesday we go around the room we share a value story about how one of our colleagues like you know or team members display one of our values and this week I had one for everyone like just everyone is just putting in the hard yards and even one of Nick's comment in the slack today I'm not sure if you saw this oh yeah he was it was crook and then sort of came back and watched through and just so grateful about the team it's such so powerful and uplifting and like motivating and motivating that's it when everyone's just getting in there and grinding and doing awesome stuff so so much fun man.

Amazing. Yeah I'm still amped from that meeting like I might go back and rewatch that because every time. I do. Like, we just get so amped.

Yeah, for sure, man, for sure.

It's talking about everything that we're doing and everyone's succeeding in their own areas and we're all moving together as a unit. It's just brilliant.

Yeah. I love it. Cool bergs. Well, everyone listening and giving us feedback. We're loving it. We're getting messages all the time.

Yeah.

Give me a shield. Or telling us how they're enjoying it so.