14. Going from scared of cameras to TedX talk in 1 year, crypto is the future, fitness and best business books

Cryptocurrency, the market decides. Not one individual. Everyone decides, not one person. So if Warren Buffet doesn't like it, who gives a fuck? Doesn't matter. Crypto will happen based on if it's better than the existing system, which in my opinion is complete horse crap. So.

Welcome Back to episode 14 of the Bennett Berg show with your favorite MBA and your college dropout. Speaking about everything, crypto, investing, life, sports, personal growth lessons and everything in between. Bo I'm, I'm excited, mate. I'm like, I'm pumped up for today.

Me too, mate. I was like, it's Monday morning. Why do I have to do a podcast? It absolutely sucks. It's so stupid. And I get in, I see your little head and I just start laughing and just start catching up on the week. It's so good, mate. So good.

Best thing, dude, I was, I was a bit the same. Like I, I was slow out of the gates this morning. Like, had just a big weekend, a lot of work, a lot of different stuff going on. Had decoding crypto this morning and I was like, then I talk to Bergs, but now I'm here, mate.

Yeah, amazing, mate. Thank you. Thank you.

Mate. What a week you've had. What, what should we kick off with? You want to kick off with the footy, mate?

Well, look, let's. We got a lot to talk about today. First of all, when I talk about the footy because holy. The lines on the weekend, unbelievable. We're talking about the footy. Talking about also getting out of your comfort zone and just getting into it. So little, little headline here. Berg's got some stories want to share for me as well. Going back a year ago, I was scared to get in front of a camera, I was scared to talk on a microphone. I did not want to be seen by anyone. And a year later, I just did my first ever TEDx talk. So I'm going to talk through my whole, like, progress, how the hell that came about, the lessons learned, the journey. So, so you can take away some sort of, I guess, takeaways on, on the benefits of just getting in and getting it done. Also met Chris Jard on Friday, went to Monash, did some talking there. We'll speak about that. How to analyze crypto markets, because analyzing crypto markets and crypto projects is completely different. Other markets, we'll chat about that and then, yeah, just some other things at the end which we'll touch on. But Bergs are footy. I went, I was at this G. I was at the mcg Friday night rolled in, so we did the full experience, right? So for those that have, like, footy fans, you know, we. We had. We had a meal over at the. What's it called? Square there. Fed Square. Had a nice bite date. Fed Square, rolled over to the. The. Was it the. Is the Wheelbarrow? Anyway, the pub over the corner of the. The train station. Couple scooies, seven o'. Clock. And. And then we did the walk, the famous MCG walk over, following everyone. Thousands of people heading in. Everyone's excited, a bit nervous. I'm. I'm mildly confident at this point. Like, we were paying. I think I saw on Sports Bet, we're at the 4.40. At one stage prior to the bounce, when Danaher got with Daniel, was a layout laid out. I was like, 4.40. Melbourne were A$20, mate. Like, that's insane.

$4 40 does not instill confidence, mate. You're like, yeah, it's gonna be a runaway. We're out. See you later.

Well, I was at the. I was at the first. The last round game up at the Gabba when we played Melbourne and got spanked by 65 points. I left it. I was like. I was at the. I was at the pub by half time. So we'd left. And so anyway, rolled in 70,000. I think there was 70,000. 70,000 at the McGah.

90,000. Man.

Did they get to 90?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay, 90, 100 and something.

It felt big. It was.

Yeah. Oh, hang on. Maybe that was a fair game.

Yeah, I think. I think. I think Collingwood at 90. Anyway, so we were in the members era, so in all the Brisbane Lions, man, because I'm a Lions member, so there was all Brisbane Line supporters. A few nerves. Anyway, first quarter, we. First half, we were just average, mate. Bang. Average. We just kept banging it long, kept turning over. So frustrating to watch.

You sent me a photo, mate, of your. You're just like, oh, my God. In the hands. And for those who didn't watch the game, end of the first quarter, the Ds are 24, the Lions were nine. At the half, Ds are 44, Lions are 22. Yeah, so like three and a half goals behind and you're like, oof.

But there was the last Goldbergs in the second quarter, just on this, just before the sign, we kicked that goal. We had a little. We had a spark of hope. And then we come out. You. You see that?

Yeah, because the D's got a goal. There was like 30 seconds left, and you somehow magically Got it up the field and got one in.

Yeah. Yeah.

It gave you that little spark of hope. Stay around. Don't go home.

Don't go home yet. We come out the second half fakes are giving us a big rev up. We finally stopped banging it long. We started to hit targets. We were a new teammate. And it was unbelievable. The atmosphere, the lion supporters were loud as hell. We cheered him home, mate. And then by the fourth quarter, the best thing, we're waving the Melbourne supporters home, mate. They were leaving the fourth quarter. I was upset enough. I was saying, see you later, guys. See you next year. So good, so good.

They're waiting for you out the front, mate.

Magical, mate. Magical night. Good way. Now we we face the Cats at the MCG on Friday, mate. It's gonna be tough.

And the. So at the end of the third quarter, it was even 59, all right. And then you guys won 70, 92 to 79, which is just awesome. Absolutely like got in it at the end. Amazing, mate.

That would have been finals footy, mate. Finals footy is something different live. It's next level, isn't it?

It's so like the crowd is just mental. The refs let you play on. Yeah, like they, they just let anything go and everything is sprint, sprint, sprint. Get. Go, go, go. It is just absolutely crazy.

The AFL do such a great job. Like, you know, the atmosphere, the music, like, it's like every like break. It's like they're playing like AC DC Thunderstruck. You're like, let's go. Skies. Like, you know, everyone's up and about. You know, they got a big countdown before the bounce. And you see the players getting into it. All the supporters are yelling like big camping camped, man. Oh, it's great. Such an amazing, amazing.

And if you look at the worm chart, mate, it's like all the way up, like in Melbourne's like area. And then just after the third, it comes down. You guys just coast away with the wind. So unbelievable. But mate, next week you're facing the Cats and Cats are paying a dollar 29 and you guys are 366. Similar situation.

Hey, we're paying 440. Maybe, mate.

Maybe. Get on, mate.

Well, we had a couple of little in game multis and it was like at the end of it, like, why the hell do we just take Brisbane on the nose for 440? Like, what the hell? Taking all these stupid in game multi bets.

Yeah, that's it. You don't need to get all fancy. And then so I watched the Game and I'm full of hope, right? So the Dockers are playing. The Dockers are like my secondary team, Eagles. Eagles are my primary team, right. So I'm like, last week the Dockers like first quarter, they're down like 40 points. We're at the pub like this, we start playing cards, ordering chicken wings, drinking some more scooies and then they just slowly, slowly start coming back and have a miraculous win. So this week playing Collingwood, right, And just didn't happen, mate. Like the end of the first quarter, it's 24 to 1 and I'm like, oh, end of the half, 42 to 14. And we're like, okay, you know, it's like, it's like 20 something points. We can come back. We can come back. Kind of fooling yourself. Like we could do what we did last week. My end of the third 60 to 28 is 79 to 59, like absolutely thumped. It was so, so crazy. No comeback whatsoever.

Just completely defeated. Just the Dockers, the great pretenders. Get your hopes up. And mate.

Oh, I feel bad there's a few freight supporters because I've been obviously in Melbourne and there was a lot of free I supporters traveling around this weekend. Obviously flew over from Perth.

Oh, rough. Unbelievable, mate. But the rest of your week, mate, have you had a week, you've been, you've been nervous, you've had a lot on? Yeah, mate, let's get into what you did. You can start off with your Friday or your Saturday. Let's go, mate. Because I want to hear all about this.

So I want to bring this back to real value for people. I really want to just go back and you know, go a year ago, come back a year ago. I was literally scared to get in front of camera. Like I didn't want to be seen, I didn't want to say it's talk. We didn't have a podcast. I didn't do any content. I always felt that I wanted to because I, you know, now doing it, I really enjoy it. But going back, I remember it was so hard to start. I had every excuse under the sun and it's been a continual development and improvement going back a year ago when I first started doing a video. First video was terrible, podcast, probably terrible. And now year on, I literally just did my first ever TedX talk, which was a five month pro. You know, five months process to get in front of people on front of stage. High production video. I do my whole script. A 12 minute talk with no slides. No, no, no. It's had to Be fully scripted and memorized and mate. It was one of the best feelings I have ever felt. Afterwards, the sense of relief. I actually went cold afterwards. Like, it was just a huge rush. I've never felt anything like it. I actually. The whole talk was a bit of a blur. I was so pumped up on adrenaline. But the message here, I think, is that anyone can do this. I was the biggest introvert, did not want to be seen in front of a camera. But now I found something I was really passionate in in Crypto. I had a message I wanted to share. The people coming up to afterwards telling you, you know, how much of a good job you did and how much they learned. It's a magical feeling and the power of being able to communicate and. And instill messages to people around something that you enjoy. I think trying to do something you don't enjoy is always gonna be difficult. But, yeah, anyone can do it. Burgs if I could fucking do it from Tasmania. Like, holy shit, anyone can do it.

Isn't it interesting where it's such a daunting thing, but once you start doing it, it's such a privilege to be able to talk in front of people, give them your ideas, your point of view of the world, and actually have a captive audience audience and communicate with them. I used to be super afraid of public speaking, but the things that I was doing in my old job, I had to get up and I had to basically educate people about it because they didn't know. Like, okay, we're doing this, like, fancy stuff with technology. This is how it works, this is what we're doing. But I can't explain it in a nerdy tech way. I have to explain it in a way that, like, doctors and nurses and physios will understand. And I have to get them excited about it. And then that was really kind of daunting to get there. But then you have to go and you have to pitch to these people, you have to pitch to execs. And on and on it goes. And after a while, you just start enjoying it and it becomes easy and you understand how much you can achieve what you can do for your team. The influence that you can have just by having this one skill. And it is the most daunting skill to have. But once you've got it, all of that goes away. Like, I will literally, like, if someone get asked me to stand up now and talk in front of 50 people without something prepped, I'll just start talking like it's not a thing anymore. Yeah, it's an unbelievable feeling, mate.

Totally agree, man. And it was. The whole 10x experience was something I've never like.

It was so unique, the day. Right. So the, the theme of the day day was called off the binary. So it was 14 speakers talking about a range of different things from, you know, non binary genders to transgenders to.

Women.

You know, why feminine feminism. Feminism can change the world. First nations people with the aboriginal culture.

Yeah.

Power to, you know, you know, diversification and power back to like giving power back to everyone. Also people that came and migrated from different countries and how it was like, you know, going to school and building a family when, you know, basically we have this, I guess, ingrained racism some of us do with like, you know, judgment on different cultures. And like the whole day was like unbelievable, to be honest. It was so eye opening. And the, the power of storytelling is such a magical thing. Like what I learned on Saturday through storytelling and people creating those emotions. And that's any takeaway, I think for anyone wanting to deliver a message or do public talking, storytelling is such a powerful way of being able to like really, you know, get in the hearts of your listeners and audience because it's not about what you say, it's about how you make them feel and what they felt like after the, after the event. So that's a real key takeaway that I took away.

That's it. No one will remember what you said. They'll remember how you made them feel. Feel. That's something that took me a while to learn and I had to look at some of the best speakers in order to understand that. And when I was doing my talks back in health, like, yeah, I could talk about data, I can talk about efficiency and saving time and all this crap, but no one cares. The stories that get people in. It's like a story I had about a lady that came over, she was badly injured. We fixed her up, sent her back home and she was sick and she was kind of. She was dying. Right. And if I do the short version of the story, we couldn't get the medical records because it was locked away in archive because she'd already gone home. It was coming into the weekend, but then. And my boss was really upset about that and there was kind of no process around. It was really annoying. But what happened was because of all the research we'd be doing, the data that we had, I had that locked away in like a database. So I could go to that database, give it to my boss and send it across. And she's like, you May have just saved her life, which was just absolutely insane. And then this lady went on, they looked at all the bugs she had previously. They were able to narrow down that search, fixed her up. And she went on to have kids and all this kind of stuff, even though she was kind of badly injured and everything else that went on. And when you tie it back to those emotions and human stories and things that people can relate to, that's when you really unlock people's minds and they start to listen.

I love that storytelling was. And I really just recognize it on Saturday. Like that's. I never really thought about a range of different topics that happened on Saturday until that day. The speakers, man, were unbelievable. Like, you know, some of these people had been like professional public speaking for like 20 years. And it was just like, it was. You were just locked in for 15 minutes. And I felt a lot of like, I was visibly like nervous the whole day because I'm like, holy the butt. The first speaker come out, it was like bang, 15 minutes standing ovation. I was like, hell, that was unbelievable. Like, that's crazy.

This is like that book he got me onto, Sapiens, where basically the difference between us and every other animal is narratives.

Yeah.

And the way that we can communicate messages and join together around a group or a common idea or an ideology is unbelievable. And the. You're saying the quality speakers, mate, can you tell us a bit about the prep you had to do for this thing? Because it sounded insane.

Yeah. So the process of becoming a TEDx speaker is basically it's a five month journey. So you'll get requested or you get asked to do an event. It's a full, you know, get paid for, it's a full volunteer thing. But the opportunity is obviously massive. So five months ago I was asked to speak about crypto. They needed a crypto speaker for the off the binary theme. They asked me if I would do it. I was like, hell yeah, I'd love to do that. But I didn't know really at the time what was involved. So it was a five month journey of creating the story, creating the script. I went to Milwaukee, did public speaking training. I spent hard and, I don't know, probably 100 hours scripting out my talk. It then had to get approved from TedX. Three different versions, had 140 plus comments on each revision. I had to update, I had to cut out a lot, had to add a lot because there's 21 pages of guidelines you need to keep within. I then needed to present that one on one coaching I did over like probably five hours of one on one coaching, did public coaching. I then presented half of it or different pieces of it in different speaking events so I could try and test out in front of a live audience. I practiced it nearly every morning and every night every day for about four weeks leading up to the event. It consumed me. When I was in the shower, when I was walking, I could not stop thinking about it. I was sleeping, it was all the time. Could not stop. Then I went from scripted to non scripted because you can't have a script, you can't have slides. It was a 12 minute absolute bare bones, you on stage fully basically naked, sort of in there, just speaking it out in front of the live audience. And it was probably the most stressful thing I've ever done in my life. But afterwards, man, once I'm done, had the standing ovation. People loved it, they learned it. Unbelievable feeling, man.

Amazing, amazing. You even came over to Perth practice, you taught me, had someone record it as well so you could watch it back and look at all your little ums and ahs and ticks and what can I do better? And the audience didn't like that, mate. You put the effort in. I can't wait to see this. It sounds like a badass speech, mate. Like a bad up on stage. I cannot wait. And you just, I saw a couple of photos that you posted and you just looked happy when you were doing it. You were smiling. You look just like the moment has arrived.

It's, it's amazing. It's a, it's a different feeling.

Like the feeling of being up on stage when you're comfortable. Not that I was comfortable the whole time. It certainly was. The first half was like I was nervous as hell. But once you get settled in your, in your, in your rhythm, it's actually really fun. And when you can see the audience engaging and then nodding and like there's something, there's like, there's a reciprocal like value going. There's something, something different about that. You're like, people are actually learning something here. And the story I finished with Bergs was around Blockbuster. So.

Yeah, nice.

So it's all about cryptocurrency. And I was around, you know, trying to. That My real action point was making people think about digital transformations in finance and how this digital transformation is happening right now. And a lot of people are actually already using digital assets and cryptocurrencies without really knowing it. And what would be the power of people actually understanding this technology as we head into the next Few years because Blockbuster used to be my favorite pastime. Used to go to Blockbuster on a Friday night with my mum, my dad, my brother, my sister, used to hire the VCRs. It used to be awesome. And Blockbuster used to be a global company that used to have, I don't know, like 5,6000 stores globally.

Oh sure, you go there, you choose your little videos, some of them will be out, there'll be a pizza shop next door. You order your pizza while it's getting made, you go choose your movies.

Yeah, it was awesome fun. But in 2010, Blockbuster went bankrupt. And they went bankrupt because they failed to see the digital transformation that was happening right in front of their eyes. Netflix actually approached Blockbuster and pitched them when they first started the idea of downloading movies from your own home on your couch. And Blockbuster laughed them out of the room and they laughed them out of the room because they failed to see that digital transformation. And they failed. What they failed to see after Netflix now is 100 billion plus valued company, 200 million customers, is they fail to see the digital transformations happen. Regardless of your personal opinion that happen based on what's better for humanity and what makes life better and simpler for everyday people. So the question I left the audience with on my talk was, who do you want to be? Blockbuster or Netflix? And then that was the. That's the end of it.

Bang, bang. How good, mate. This. And you see this repeat so many times. And even Netflix, they started with like little vending machines where you could get your dvd, you could mail it in, all this kind of stuff. And they're like, right, we've tried the model. People want this, they want something that's more convenient that they can just go down there, random, local, they don't have to interact with people. There's no, you know, fees or anything. You mail it back whenever you want. And then they built that digital product and Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for single millions. And I don't understand why they didn't. And this is a fundamental failing. When you are on top in a business, you are at your most vulnerable. And the exact same thing happened to Kodak. So these, they own the, you know, camera market. They were doing prints, they were doing all this, like back in the day, whenever you went to anywhere, like your local Kohl's or whatever, they had this massive unit where they would print out your photos, right? And yeah, you get the little 12 or 24 photos from film and they saw this kind of digital thing and they're like, yeah, but the digital cameras, the quality isn't as good, the lenses aren't as good. People will always want to print it out and have it on their table. It was a fundamental failing. They did some digital stuff, but they just didn't have their heart in it. And they were like, no, this is definitely the future of where people want to be. They want to hold onto something. They want something physical. What they failed to see was that people wanted to be able to easily take a photo and share it with everyone instantly on the Internet. That was a big value proposition. If you print it out to people have to come to your house right now, I've pressed a share button. Share it with everyone in my network. They can see what I'm up to. They can enjoy the birthday I had or the scenic thing that I did or whatever it is like this amazing meal that I ate. They ultimately failed to see that. And in both these companies, the thing that happened to them was they didn't see what the customer actually wanted. They were like, no, we are going to guide you down this path. This is how you're going to live your life. And the customer is like, no, this is what I want to do. And they vote with their money and their feet. If you are building product out there, give your customers what they want. Don't try and give them something else. Give them what the fuck they want and you will succeed. Just get amongst us. Seriously, Just listen. Do not be these guys. Do not the bottom gaster. Do not be Kodak. Just.

Oh, we'll wrap it up. We're going to go build one.

Oh, I'm just going to go and build. Let's just stop the pod now, mate. Oh, jeez. Like, our customers literally tell us what they want and we're like, we're going to go and build that. And you also have to be smart and don't give them just what they want today. Extrapolate that and think ahead. And what are they going to want in a few years? How are they going to interact? How will newer technologies play into that? And that is the company you need to become. You need to stay on top of your game. You need to maintain your strategic competitive advantage. You can't be stuck in the olden days or you'll get knocked off your perch by someone coming up that's hungrier than you.

And from an investment perspective, I think it's a great way to think about that as well. Around, like, you know, some of these biggest companies in the world said no to these things because they just laughed them out of the room. And they just weren't open to that idea. But even from a crypto asset, digital asset space, like, you know, if you think about how many people don't believe in this space, you go back and look at Netflix, you know, literally, Blockbuster was the bet in the best position, cashed up to buy Netflix. It was such a small decision to probably just like, lap it up, release, invest, and they literally just like, laughed them out of the room, and now they're completely gone. So in terms of cryptocurrency and the technological change that we're going through now, I don't give a fly for Hoosier about people that don't believe in crypto, because I don't give a shit about. No one gives a crap about personal opinions, right? And that was my whole talk. It's like cryptocurrency. The market decides not one individual. Everyone decides, not one person. So if Warren Buffett doesn't like it, who gives a fuck? Doesn't matter. Crypto will happen based on if it's better than the existing system, which in my opinion, is complete horse crap. So.

Exactly. And this is the thing. Don't let. Okay? If you're in an area that you don't understand, generally you go to an expert and you adopt their opinion with this. Think for yourself. Go out and experience crypto. Send some crypto to someone else, buy $5 worth, see how it works. Spend half an hour, an hour, like. And I recommend our website because I know it's good. Collectorshift IO Follow one of the tutorials Experience for half an hour, an hour on your lunch break or while you're at work and you're bored, and see the power of this and what you can actually do with it and how revolutionary it is. Because people that poo, poo it, you need to think about it and say, well, why are they doing it? And either they don't understand or they've got a vested kind of, you know, interest in competing companies and they don't want this to succeed. You need to look at what their incentives are and subtract that from the information that they're giving you to get a true indication of their intentions. So just go out and experience it for yourself. Use your own brain, use your critical thinking and be like, no, actually, this is all bullshit. Like, I've experienced it. It's great. Or you could experience and go, no, it's not for me. Like, all the problems in my life are already solved. I don't need this right now. But at least think what is Being built and where it's going for the future, you absolutely need to do that. Do not get left behind.

Love it. Burks. The other thing I was going to mention on Friday night was I did a panel session with Judy. Chris Judd for Judd.

Mate, you're rubbing shoulders with like, you're getting up there, mate. Jeez, Little kid, Little kid from Tassie and you rocking a panel with Judy.

It was pretty surreal, man. That was at Monash, had security that escorted or escorted us in.

They let you into a university, mate, what's going on?

Yeah, so first question was like, I had to introduct, introduce myself and just absolutely drop that. I quit school.

I was like, that's so good.

One of the. One of the teachers there, she's like, oh, so you know, did you come to Monash? And I was like, nah.

But Monash was unbelievable, man. Like it Full, full props to Monash. They ran an unbelievable event. They had three different stages that they had. It's called Lead, Learn, Change, I think. So it's a lot of like hot topics range different things. Crypto was just one of them, but very professional. They had, you know, great staff on hand. They helped us around, had a nice green room where we had like some food and some drinks and stuff. We're just beforehand and afterwards. So Mum and Dad came in, just sort of caught up with Judy and Lloyd who panel the session and then, yeah, we went out there and had a decent crowd, had some good questions. Funnily enough, though, Burks, there was literally probably two people in the crowd that actually own crypto. It was a full, like, new. That's good new people there. So we had a really good discussion. We're talking about, like, you know, what. What is the value behind bitcoin? Where, you know, why does the price move? Where are good entry points? Spoke about nft, spoke about the afl NFT that was recently launched. Because obviously Chris is there. Yeah, yeah, and Chris is big. So he's gone from the AFL into. He runs his own little. He just trades and invests his own capital. But he's big into the equity space, equities and macro. He's a big macro guy. So, yeah, it was really good mix of. Yeah, just sort of different topics. And yeah, we got some clips that I will post soon on the Collective Shift channel. But no, it's good, man. It's. It's always fun. We get to mix it with the big guys and hopefully get Chris on the. On the pod, mate.

We better get him on if he's into equities and all that stuff. We'll have a good old chat.

Yeah.

So I like hearing other people's perspectives on it, especially if he's investing his own capital, how he thinks about it, allocation risk, if you're a capital allocator and, yeah, that everyone thinks differently in that space. I just love hearing those different opinions. Gets me really excited, gives me new ideas, gets me, like, you know, pumped up about the space.

He's also a member. Chris is a member?

Yeah.

Oh, so good. Yeah.

So, yeah, he's been a member for a little while, so that was good fun. So he's been, you know, watching, reads all of our stuff. So he's pretty much across everything we're talking about.

So that's amazing. And where the questions. Good. At the end were, like, people getting into it and then asking you the hard stuff. Yes.

Yeah, we had a. We had a quantum computing teacher in the crowd who asked me about.

Tell me about it.

Did I question was, did do you think quantum computing will break bitcoin at some point in the future? And I said, look, I'm not a quantum computing expert by any means, but I think there was a study done recently around quantum computing and the benefits of actually using quantum computing to mine Bitcoin and using it from an economically viable standpoint. Like, if you can use. If you were to use quantum computing to break Bitcoin, it's not economically, like, progressive. Like, you're not really doing much with. It's no value in breaking Bitcoin or, like, shut it. Like, what are you going to do versus using that power to actually mine Bitcoin and make it profitable? The value of doing it from a, you know, an economically viable thing with mining and creating more Bitcoin is so much more profitable than just breaking it. So when quantum computing comes around, I think it's going to be much better or it will be used in a much better way of actually using it to create the Bitcoin, if that makes sense, rather than just trying to break it.

Yeah. And what people forget is that this is really nerdy stuff. Like, there's so many teams out there that are just doing hardcore research into, you know, cryptography, algorithms, computer science. There's PhDs doing all this kind of work and people monitoring that closely. And with Bitcoin, you can always change the algorithms within it to be quantum resistant. You know, there's. There's people that are absolutely on top of this. And also, let's just say a magic quantum computer just comes in tomorrow and it Breaks Bitcoin we'll just fork the network. It is, it is absolutely fine. Like people play all these what ifs, what is what ifs. And we're talking on the Discord Live last week where we're seeing all these crazy incentives play out From Bitcoin from 10 years ago where a group of people or a single person created this thing. Really deep thinker and all of the incentives and game theory they thought out. We are still seeing play out like time after time, event after event and it still succeeds. It is just an amazing, amazing thing. This is not a magic thing that's.

Going to pop up.

People are thinking about this and actively working on it every single day, day. It will be okay.

They're across it 100.

Don't be scared. Don't, don't believe the hype.

So yeah, no, it was good. And yeah, panels are fun, man. Panel's good fun.

Absolutely man.

Now what was your goal, Bergs? What did you achieve this week? You've got something you haven't shared with me so talk me through it.

I'm so proud about this. It's taken me about three, maybe four months to, to achieve this goal and this, this is a fitness goal and it is to be able to deadlift 100 kilos for my working sets. And it's not a huge number but it is a big number for me and from someone who's gone from like chronic back pain where I've got like searing pain in my back, like nerve pain from a car crash I had a while ago and just always saw and just, just, just up and cranky right to being able to start off with like nothing, just an empty bar, just start lifting and then work my way up over a series of months to 100 kilo working sets with perfect form was just unbelievable and that, that journey because like I've lifted a lot heavier before but it wasn't with great form. It's not my peak lift but mate, I have never felt more strong and well put together in doing that. Like I was doing all the kind of, all the shitty exercises around it that you don't want to do. All the stretching, like all the kind of ab exercises, big movements in order to be able to lift this like you know, five sets with like perfect form and mate, the mental game that plays into it because all you need to do, you need to put your shoes on. I got to walk in the garage and I got to lift this fucking thing. But the things for me are sitting at a computer all day so I Get tight. So I have to stretch. I don't want to do it. It hurts. I don't want to do it. I'm tired. I don't want to do it. And the mental game you have to play, so the first mental game is, is ego. And this is, this is brutal because you're like, why am I lifting this pissy weight? I could lift so much more. I could do all this kind of stuff. But when you start to, like, instead of going in like a linear way, if you're in an exponential way, you will break your body. You are not ready for those heavier weights. So it's ultimate. It's like really, really humbling. And then you got to check your form. But then also something happened around like, I think it was like 87 and a half kilos. Whereas on my last set and then something happened in my back, like I felt a little thing and I was like, oh, I might just stop here. And normally I wouldn't do that. I keep progressing. I'd want to go towards the goal, but it was almost like a bit of wisdom where you're like, no, you want to achieve this goal. Yeah, yeah, back off. Don't do this. Do different stuff for a week. Come back at like 80 kilos and then work your way back up deload. And sure enough, I achieved it. And it was awesome because my daughter comes out with me and she like plays, plays around on the stuff and she saw me achieve that goal and I was jacked. I was like, yeah. And I was like jumping around after I did it.

Awesome, man.

And it was just the best feeling to have like a medium term goal and achieve that. And it was just, it was so good. Even a short term goal and congratulations, man. I just, just feel amazing, man. And now it's just like onwards and upwards, being able to achieve that and now like set the next one more and more fitness goals. It's awesome, man.

But I'm in. Congratulations. First of all, a question for you, but I will say I was looking at a thumbnail of a YouTube video or Instagram video that we did maybe a month ago. And you have lost weight. Dead set. And I don't see you in person that much because I only see you like basically shoulders up or chest up, but like in your face. You have definitely lost weight, I must say.

Yeah, that's, that's the other thing. So this whole thing, like, I should be running more and doing other stuff, but this for me is about strength and back pain. Like, like they're the two Primary things.

Yeah.

And I built a ton of muscle. Just feel a lot better well put together. And if I start running like a couple of times a week, the weight will just absolutely pour off. What's more about body structure and composition and then I'll, you know, work on the other stuff as well.

What's the lesson or takeaway here or what the learnings that you've had from going from not doing the working out when you went through a bit of a slump there like working from home for those people that work at home were just sort of struggling to get the motivation to go do the workouts. What's your. Which is key takeaway.

I think the only thing like ice cube. The only thing you have is your balls and your health. Nothing else matters. You are not your bank account, you are not your job. None of that matters. Look after yourself first. You're in a plane, oxygen mask comes down, put it on yourself first. Look after your physical and mental health. It sucks, but be an adult, get out and do it. And in doing that, I'm able to perform so much better. My clarity of thinking, I don't have a sore neck. I sleep better, I wake up better. I just feel like structurally better. It is one of the hardest things to do. It's easy to say hard to do. And what I do is just start off really small, go for a walk, come back and do some push ups or do some burpees. Get into a. I always highly recommend a strength program like 5x5 strong lifts. Very, very easy. It's a squat bench and a deadlift. You Basically, it's a 20 minute kind of workout. You're doing it with an Olympic bar. It is very, very easy to do to gain strength. And you will have so many gains across your life. And even like when I work out, I innately feel I want to eat better. My secondary goal was to cook 90% of my meals. And I achieved that as well. I achieved that in the first couple of weeks. And just eating that way and exercising has just been the biggest game changer for me. And I think people don't realize that the biggest killer of people in terms of function is losing your lean muscle mass over time. So every decade you're alive, you lose about. I think it's like 8% of your lean muscle mass, which is fucking huge. Which is why when people are old and you fall and you break your hip, they don't recover and they're a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. So if you work backwards, I was listening To a pod. If you want to live to 90 work, what do you want to do when you're 90? Do you want to be able to lift up your grandchildren? Do you want to be able to go on a plane and put stuff in overhead storage? Do you want to be able to walk up steps, work out what you need to do that and the lean muscle mass, you will have to have to do that and then work back however many decades and what you need to work towards now. And the most eye opening thing that I can think of is so I used to work in a burn unit and one of the ladies there was badly, badly burnt. She got caught, she's running a marathon and got caught in a fire.

It was, yeah, Taria Pitt. So a lot of people will know her, she had, she's written a book, she's been on the Apprentice, she's been on all this stuff, just gone on, got on with her life. Massive burns. I think it was like over 80 of her body, maybe even 90. And the sole reason she survived was because she was a marathon runner. She had that epic training. Her body could resist so much stuff whereas 90 of other people would have died. And you don't understand the benefits that fitness has in your life until it's too late. Like until you have all of these health problems and you look at all, even the rich guys, like you look at Zuckerberg and you look at Bezos, they're all getting jacked now. They're trying to make it, they're trying to prolong their lives and to make it to the next space. You need to be as fit as you possibly can. Can just try it for six months and honestly it will change your life. It's the hardest thing to do, but it is the best thing that you can do for yourself and for your family.

It's a really good story, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's, it's funny like in this over distracting world of like social media and dopamine and like TV and gadgets and you know, all this sort of stuff is all sucking your attention away which keeps you comfortable and keeps you distracted from the things you probably should be doing. Which is back to like we speak about it all the time. It's like eat, eat good, work out, drink water and sleep.

Yeah.

And it's really simple.

Absolutely. And it's the basic things, this is just taking care of yourself as a human. And we forget and forget and forget. We want shorter things. We want a pill or a diet pill or something that'll get us there faster. We sit down a lot. We have sedentary lifestyles. Get out and get amongst it. Like lift some weights. Men lift weights, women lift weights. Like, you are not going to magically just get jacked, but you will just feel.

You feel good.

So good. And just. Just for the things that we do every day, like, we're looking down at our phones, like we're looking at a computer. We're hunched over, we round our backs like this. To the point where I have to do so many exercises and do, like, face pulls like this. Even Shano has a band where he has to go. Like, you see him on the bloody calls, he's going like this because it just ruins your back and it will cause so many issues for. For you. Take care of it. Like, put that absolutely first and lift some weight. Like, I'm like, sometimes, man, like, I'll have a day. I can't lift in the morning. Sometimes I'll try and lift during the day. Never really get around to it. It's always at night. And I'll be dead tired. I'll be falling asleep on the couch. It'll be ridiculous. And I'll still make myself go out in the garage and I'll do. I got a skipping rope. I'll Skip for like two minutes to turn my brain on. I'll do 10 max jumps. I'll just squat down and jump as far as I can, like 10 times backwards and forwards. So the entire thing takes three minutes. And man, bang. Central nervous system just on. My brain is on. I'm on fire. I'm ready to go. It's taking me out of that almost asleep on the computer thing. So let's go.

Let's hit it. Yeah. Yeah. It's great for the brain, just getting that sweater every day. Super good.

Oh, and you just. You just feel human. And it's humbling. It's awesome. It turns on all the switches in your body. Just do it.

I'm more of a morning guy. I find, like, even this morning, like, as I'll slide out of bed, like, I didn't have the gym and it's like trying to.

Yeah, I'm probably the opposite to you. Like, by the end of the day, I'm like, I do not want to work out. Yeah, but you always feel better. So, you know, if you're a busy person, like, I. Today I'm like, okay, so should I go during the day, like after this call, go to the gym ready and then hit it the afternoon, or should try and work and Then go later. But I always feel as though you just cleaner, sharper, more like just on it when you go to the gym.

Oh, yeah, something.

I'm gonna go to the gym after this.

Get it? You get that? Yeah, exactly. Go to the gym after this. You get that clarity of thought. Thought. And even if you can't make it to the gym over 20 minutes, just do sets of five burpees. Do five, like proper push up burpees. Do five of them, have a rest, do another five, do another five. And it just changes your body. Just the, the clarity of mental thought you have afterwards. Yeah, it's just great, man.

It's funny back there. Consistency I went for. Because I didn't have access to the gym last week when I was back in Tassie. Went for a run, man. Like I, I tend to go to the gym maybe like I try and aim for at least three days a week if I can. But then when I'm traveling, sometimes it's just too hard sometimes. So going for a run, man. Geez. Cardio is a whole different ball game. Like I ran for like 12 minutes, man. I was, I was like, holy. Especially after you had a few skewies on the weekend, trying to go for a run on Monday morning. Absolutely cooked.

That's it. And it's like, it's funny even across different cardios where I was like riding my bike pretty well and I could ride pretty far. Go and do a run. Completely different set of muscle space.

God. Even went for a swim yesterday. I was like, oh, God, just like one lap. I'm like, yeah.

And. And this is the thing. You need to take care of your physical health if you want to perform in your work and just in your life. Like, I perform really poorly and people say like, I don't need it or I don't have the time or I don't. That's all horseshit. You do have the time.

Get.

Find the 20 or 30 minutes. Do it. Turn off Netflix. It's not important in your Life. When you're 90 years old, you look back on your life, you're going to be like, oh man, I didn't watch that season on Netflix. Or you're going to say, oh, I can't get out of bed because I didn't exercise. Like that was the one that really solidified it for me.

This leads into the next thing I want to talk about burgers or we want to talk about is around, like surrounding yourself with people that are bringing you up. I find that sometimes when I slip into not slip into, but you know, surrounding yourself by with different people gets you into a mindset or lifestyle of what sort of the norm of doing if that makes sense. Depending on where you, who you're talking to, who you spend your time with, where you're living, what you're doing. Like you know, on Saturday for example, my TEDx day. So like motivating, empowering, right? Like and my EO buddies and you recently joined AI which we're about to talk about. But two of my EO buddies were there on Saturday and they were, they were there for a few different, like one of them had a friend, one of them I didn't even know was coming and he was there with his one wife and but man the support afterwards, took a couple of photos with them afterwards. We, you know, we hard went for beers afterwards and just that, that feeling of like you know, friendships that's with people that are also like on that similar journey and like ahead of you and you're like inspired by what they're doing and those people that are on that business journey or whatever journey you're on as a listener, whether you're on a fitness journey or a food journey or whatever to share those experiences with someone else or with a group of people from an accountability perspective but also progress and lessons and learnings. Yeah, it's been a real, real game changer for me.

Absolutely. I like the thing where you know, if you're, if you're smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. You need to be the dumbest person, the thing you want to achieve. Surround yourself with those people and they motivate and inspire you. You motivate and inspire me for like work to achieve all that stuff and we bounce off each other and I'm pretty sure it's a two way thing. And oh man, I, I, this is a lot of the thing that I liked about my MBA where you, there's a lot of camaraderie, you're going through a difficult thing, there's peer groups, but you're all at different stations of life. Some people are 25, some people are 60. And you've achieved different things but you're all going through this thing together. And like you're saying before it's the five chimps theory where it's like you show me your five friends and I'll tell you about your life, your five closest friends. Because you know, if you're surrounding yourself with people that are, you know, just kind of complacent or just cruising through life, you're more likely to have some of those tendencies. And if you're surrounding your people yourself with absolute animals that are going for it, you're more likely to be more inspired to go for it yourself.

You know, it's funny I do that and this podcast 100, because I also learn a lot of you. You coming from your NBA background, your strategic brain is just, like, unbelievable. Like, it's a. It's a great mix that we have two different sort of journeys. But even, you know, locations such as, like, going to America and being in New York, you know, not that I knew anyone really in New York, but just being in there, you're like, oh, my God. Everyone's just like, everyone is just hustling over here. It's a real, like, let's go sort of environment. I find that over in America a lot bigger than here. You definitely get in the major cities, like in Melbourne, you see, see hustle and bus around. But like in the States, man, it's a whole new ball game. It's like you just get jacked up, ready to get into it over there. Oh, yeah, yeah.

This is the thing with personal growth, where you get uncomfortable and you go to different areas, you experience different things, you talk to different people, you read different books, you go and learn in areas where you know nothing and it's just so humbling and it just breaks you down, just dissolves you. But then you build yourself back up stronger with newer experiences and a different frame of reference online.

It's one of the things I never want to lose is the ability to learn. Not to lose the ability to learn, but the mentality of not ever being perfect. Right. Like, I think something that in our business anyway, that's one of our values, is improve and innovate. You are never going to be perfect. It's always about taking on feedback, always improving, being open. And I definitely sometimes fall in the trap of, like, you know, I get some comments or perspectives or feedback from some people and I'll. I'll sort of look at and go, yeah, like, I don't agree with that. I saw a little bit. I think I'm better than you. And that's a really negative way of perspective. And I've been teaching myself, you know, really around being open to any feedback, because that is where you really get the progress and growth is when you're always, like, always learning. And one of the things I've done recently on public speaking, because that's been the biggest learning for me over the last year being.

Being A real like student to that, like industry in that skill and investing in it. So, you know, on Wednesday, on Friday, I paid a videographer to come in and video the. Whenever I do my talks, I get someone to video it, not only for the social clips because that's great, but the other side is it is to watch back. And I send it to a couple of coaches that I have so they can give me feedback on how I present and how to improve. And that, that's been a real great strategy to improve. Yeah.

And don't be afraid. Afraid to spend money like it'll pay dividends. My MBA was $60,000, probably the best 60 grand I've ever spent. Like, it was life changing for me. And people like, why do you just have that piece of paper? I'm like, no, it's not about that, son. You lean in every assignment you apply to your job, every learning. And you would have seen me grow on that journey as well. How you learn, like you do marketing, you actually become a marketer. You have to sell stuff, you have to learn how it works. You can compete. It is, it is unbelievable. It is truly about personal growth and transformation. Totally great. So one of, one of my mates, he's, he came, came over on the weekend and he's an absolute. He's been running businesses, same, same age as me running businesses. Rocks up in a G wagon, mate. I'm like, mate, what the. So those that don't know it's this big four wheel drive thing is worth like 300 grand. I'm like, dude. He's like, but he's like, he's got all these businesses and in between his family and they ended up buying it because you can't get them. So now it's worth like a lot more than that. And they're gonna sell it and all this kind of stuff. Anyway, we start talking about business and he's like, man, I'm so stressed. He runs like a company and it's hard to find staff. It's stressing him out, it's affecting his life, all this kind of stuff. And he's like, oh, I'm just gonna sell it. I'm like, what are you gonna do next? And we get to talking. He's like, yeah, I'm really setting my ways. I do kind of, you know, import exports and you know, he did a degree in computer science, but he doesn't do any technical stuff. It's more offline stuff. He doesn't really understand that world. And I was like, man, I've just Joined eo, and it's great. And so entrepreneurs, organization, and they teach you about all of this stuff. You have an accountability group. He's like. He's like, listening. He's like, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And I couldn't say too much about it, only the experiences I've had because I've only been in it a very short period of time and I've loved it so far. And it's just like, I went to a cash day and it's literally, you bring your cash flow statement, your income statement, your balance sheet, and they're like, they. They talk to you for 10 minutes and they're like, right, write out these ratios. What happens if you change 1%? Put your numbers in. What does that compound to? And I'm like, okay, cool, you know, I'll write all this stuff down. Not completely unschooled in the area. And they're like, oh, you finished already? And I'm like, yeah, like, what'd you get? And I'm like, well, what do you mean, what did I get? Like, no, no, tell everyone. It's like this group of people, like, fucking hell. So I tell him, I'm telling him. They're like, no, no, don't give me percentages. What are the numbers? And I'm like, oh, like, you want me to open the books? Like, here are the numbers. Okay, let's go. And they're like, yeah, that's great. What are you going to do about it? I was like, we're going to check in with you. And I was telling him about that. And I think just learning from your peers and the challenges they have, you've solved some of those challenges. Some of them you might have, and they've solved it. And you can talk about it or you can, you know, have your little accountability group and bring it to that. But, mate, you've been in this for a long time. You got me into it and you just rave about eo, and I just want to know, tell me a bit about eo. What has it done for you? How has it changed the game? And I think this will really help my mate. I'll get him to listen to this and see if it's right for him.

So I think we can take a broader perspective. Not even just, I'll talk about eo, but even broader. Like, how can you, as a business owner, individual progress in any field? I think it's about having a group of people that are on similar journeys and it doesn't have to be in the same industry. So My group is eight people catch up every month and they don't. We're not in the same industry. So you could, you can organize this outside of eo get your favorite buddies in. Not even your favorite buddies get people in that are in similar journeys and similar, I guess timelines to you doesn't have to be the same industry or product or service, but it can be similar timelines. Five years in, 10 years in few million dollars, whatever it might be in terms of your business growth. And then catch up every month and come to that session every month with your biggest challenge and your biggest problems and not this sort of on the surface. Oh, I'm having a few troubles here. No, it is the nitty gritty. The shit that you've never told anyone before. The stuff that's in your head that you don't want anyone else to know about. You share that bit and you will get a hundred exponential growth because you're sharing the stuff that you don't share to anyone else. And that doesn't leave the room. There's confidentiality, it's all hush hush. That does stuff never leaves the room. So you're that accountability group and then you don't get advice from those people. They share experiences. So if I come with a problem, that said, you know, I've got this employee I need, you know, help with the person in your group or the people in your group does, doesn't tell you, oh I think you should do this? No, they share experiences around something similar. Similar when they've had a similar experience in their own lives or businesses. And what you get out of that is the things that you might hear and what the story they might be telling. The feedback they think they might be giving might not actually be the feedback that they're giving. It's how you internalize and interpret it. And that experience giving is a game changer versus just straight advice giving. Because the best advice I've ever gotten, it's not advice, it's from experiences and things that have happened in the past that have been actual events and the learnings from that. Because a story could be good or bad. Someone might have tried something and it might have completed a complete failure. But you don't get that with advice. Right. So that's been the biggest. I guess one of the biggest progresses to my personal growth is having an accountability group which catch up every month and you talk about shit. The really. And that could be the hard thing. Hard things. And we call it the 5 percenters. It's the 5% at the bottom or the top. We don't care about the 90, we care about the. And the, and the top.

That's amazing. And you've gone all over the world, you've joined, you've, when you went to the States, you went to different EO chapters to be able to talk to those people. And I like that where it's like you bring the hard thing you've been putting off and you get information about it and like when sometimes if you've been putting off, you don't know what to do. You can do a couple of things. You can call someone, you can get more data, you can run an experiment. But talking to people and even unrelated, just talking to people and that things kind of incubating in the back of your head, like ideating, you're like, oh yeah, how am I going to solve that thing? Just gives you a different frame of reference or unlocks a piece of like knowledge or wisdom where you can apply it and it gives you a different lens and I love that. Hey, I tried this and it didn't fucking work. That's great because you're like fuck, I won't try that because I'll fall into that same hole and I'll be much worse off.

And I've made some great buddies. Like one of my Joel, he runs a golf cart business, travels the world playing golf because he knows all the big golf courses and like we're gonna go play golf in Sydney in a few weeks time. We just play golf every now again. Or one of my other buddies runs a big business. I checked out his office and learned a lot of things. And we've got a Christmas lunch coming up in December and we're going, we're going like fifths in a helicopter. We're getting a chopper out to like a vineyard, cuz why not to like go on a vineyard. And like just those shared experiences with people that are on those similar journeys. Like it's just so much fun. Yeah.

And you, it's amazing because you put everything out there and you're great in like all these areas and then you are so small and weak in others and you put that on the table and you just become well rounded. And the thing you've said to me is like you've never wanted the business to outpace you. Yeah. Because the business is growing, it's growing really fast and you need to be able to keep up with that and be that leader that runs a team of 2, 5, 10, 50. You need to keep learning in order to be on top of that.

And guess what? This is so much shit that's going on in my personal life, in my business life. There's like, it's. There's nothing special. And for those people, I hope people aren't listening, thinking, we've got this all fucking tied down and the accountability fixes everything. There is so much shit that's just always difficult. But you go to these sessions and realize everyone else has got going on as well. Right. You know, it's not just you that's got all these problems.

It's.

Everyone's got problems. And that's one of the. That's one of the healthiest things as well.

That's exactly it. It normalizes what you're experiencing, experiencing. And even in like. And a lot of the time, people experiencing worse stuff than you, they're like, I've got this business problem, but also I running out of cash, I'm sick, my daughter's sick, and I'm going through a divorce. And you're like, holy fuck. Like, it puts it in perspective. And even, like, even simple things like, oh, meditate. I'll use a Headspace app and let's say I'm doing the anxiety one. And they'll say, look, it's something like 30 of people in the world have like anxiety or depression where it's like. And that's diagnosed. Like, imagine all undiagnosed ones. So like literally billions of people are experiencing the same thing. It's not just you alone, a lot of people experiencing this thing. I think just normalizing it and making the problem smaller and seeing it for what it is helps you put that in perspective and be able to take. Tackle that problem. And that's just, just having that mind frame to tackle the hard thing is amazing. And don't think Ben and I's lives are perfect. Our lives are all up. Like, seriously, we've got, like, we've got the same things where, like, you know, family members are sick. We've got health challenges, we've got I don't want to do this thing challenge. I've got business challenges. We're all up. Like, humans are just making it up as we go along, right? We're trying our best. And these are just some of the kind of techniques that help us to just keep. Get through it and actually keep trying and motivate us to keep trying.

That's it.

Just keep trying. Keep going.

Trying to improve.

Absolutely, man.

On the improvement stuff. Bergs, what books are you reading at the moment, man? I know you're a big reader.

Talk me through what you're reading, mate. So.

And how the you find time and when do you do it? I want to know because I'm struggling right now. I. I've got. I spoke to you about this in another episode. Like I'm. I actually, I've got. I just went and got five books from my storage shed yesterday because I had no books with me, but while I've been traveling, so I've been reading. So you've got me onto it. But what, tell me through it, how do you do it?

And this is the thing you said the other day where you're like, oh, mate, you know, I haven't been reading, I haven't been learning. Like you're meditating. Like that's what I need to do.

Yeah.

And again, I'm not perfect with this. I try to read every day and I usually read before bed is my main reading time. And I try and read during the day as well because I'll go super hard in work, I'll have my lunch and then I'll sit down for maybe half an hour and read. And that just puts me in a different headspace. And maybe meditate for 10 minutes as well. Doesn't happen every day, but I try to do it because it's like exercising, it's eating your vegetables. It just makes you better. And I learn so much from it. I get different perspective from it. I love it. I love reading and I love learning. I never used to be a reader. I used to read like non fiction here and there. But then I got into some fiction books and here's my strategy for reading.

So.

So I've always got three books on the go. So one will be a nonfiction, one will be a fiction book, like it's always sci fi. And the third one will be like a philosophy book. So I read nonfiction because I want to learn something new. I want a different perspective, I want that personal growth. I want to think in a different way. I want to open my mind. And it feels like I'm learning and I'm doing a job. I'm not wasting my time. Science fiction, always read those because I love the stories. It's this huge universe. There's kind of things like time travel makes you just realize how small you really are. And in the future, like things you've done won't even matter. But it also expands your mind to the possibilities and what aliens are like and like, you know what, how we could be attacked and how we think we're the center of the universe and we're just not. We're not even a spec. So I love that shit and I love technology. And then I'll read like a philosophy book because that will open my mind on how to think about certain situations and how to be more content and calm and, you know, happy with what I have. And don't always compare things and go mental and always have a goal and always want to achieve. And that goal is everything in my life. It's not. It's good to strive for things, but it shouldn't be everything in your life. That's my strategy. Now I'll go through the book. So this is what I'm reading at the moment. So bung bung. Number one, Antifragile. Nassim Taleb. So he's got five books called the Inserto, which is like, you know, Skin in the Game, Better Procrustus, anti Fragile, Black Swan and whatever the fifth one is. This guy's a base mate. So here, look at this lad. Look at him. He doesn't take any. Look at that lad. So he is an absolute C next Tuesday. So he was. He was a hardcore trader.

Yeah.

And he's a mathematician. And basically go to the trading room, he'd be like you. He could literally kill someone. As long as he made profit. He predicted the global financial crisis, made a lot of money. He hates universities. He worked there like quarter time. He's like, they just saw this, like, pomp and. And like, he basically, you know, you can't. You can take your degree somewhere, you can't sell it, but if you have a business, you should be a practitioner. Hates economists. He reckons it's all fluff. It's hilarious. Anyway, this guy highly recommend his books. When you listen to a lot of people on podcasts, I always quote his stuff. Stuff because he has such a unique perspective. I'm only about, oh, a third of the way through, but there's really some good principles in here about anti fragility. And it's anti fragile things are things that benefit from disorder. So if you've got something like a plague that comes, the fragile things will die. The robust ones, like us, will survive. The anti fragile things get stronger. And he talks about a couple of interesting points, like around an interesting thing called hormesis. So this is back in the day, people used to get poisoned when it was like kings and queens and knights. So what they do, they drink like a little bit of poison and slowly desensitize themselves to it. And what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And it's and then when they finally got poisoned, they would survive. And it's a similar thing with exercise where exercise isn't good for you, right? Like you do a little bit, it breaks your body down, but then you heal and you get stronger. And even like if you're like, I'm allergic to like grass, pollen, a lot of stuff, so I'm going to get desensitized injections, that was a really interesting piece for me. And the other interesting piece was around domain dependence. And that really opened my eyes where people and I used to have some old work with surgeons where they'd go into medicine, they study for six years, they go work like dogs for three years, work like dogs for another five years on a training program, and then they've finally been consultants and they are so domain dependent on medicine and what they do. They try to apply that knowledge to other areas and they fucking fall flat and they fail. They're like, if I'm smart in medicine, I'm smart in everything. You're not, you're a shit manager. You don't understand technology. You need to go and learn those skills. And it really made me reflect on what is my domain dependence and from what frame of reference am I thinking. And that really got me out to think about other stuff, learn other skills and think in a different way. And it was very humbling as well. So this guy will just give you the beans. I highly recommend all five of his books.

Check it out, folks.

And then the other two books I've got, one is June. So this one here, this has been recommended to me and it is, it is a slog. So I watched this movie and it is cinematically beautiful, right? But it's about some emo kidneys, emo mum. And it's like they just don't communicate with each other and they're just so depressed. And so I'm like, go yourself. But the book was recommended to me. It is a slow burn, it's hard to get into, but I can see it's going to be a cracker. It's like, it's like the number one science fiction book for a reason. And then this is a, this is a really interesting one. So. So the philosophy book, usually this will be something like, you know, meditations or it'll be some naval stuff or it'll be the Prophet or, you know, something like that. This one is the Tao of Wu by the Rizza from Wu Tang. So it's so funny, mate. So, man, I love Rizza. He's such a beast. He's a very, he's a very philosophical guy. He's into his kung fu, martial arts, all this kind of stuff. But he really, he's a really deep guy as well. And he makes, you know, he makes music, he does movies, scores all this stuff. And I like this because he, he gets all the different types of philosophy from, you know, the towel of I forget what it is to this Shaolin stuff to Buddhist stuff to on and on all these different ones and puts them together and he's like, yo, there were these in the hood. They was doing this and they chopped me for my cash, man. This is so good, man. He's like absolutely awesome. That's the way he writes in there. So it's absolutely real. And he talks about the stories, about how they form the Wu Tang Clan and growing up in the projects and it's just, it is such an easy read. But the lessons are really deep and I love that, man.

Awesome, dude. I like it. How you read. How do you go reading three books at once? You just.

Oh, remember, sorry, that's. That's the main thing. So this is. I have three books on the go. So when it comes time to read, what do I feel like? Like what mood am I in? Do I want to have an entertaining story and expand my mind and just kind of relax? Do I want to be more introspective and think about philosophy or have I got a problem? Or do I want to learn right at this moment and go for that non fiction book? That's why I had those three.

Yeah, you can sitting down. Reading like a business book at nighttime is probably not the greatest idea, right? It's bouncing with energy and ideas.

Well, that's it. But sometimes I do that because I'm like, oh, I want a different perspective and all my, all my business books always highlight them and tag them and everything like that. Yeah, sometimes I do want that because I want that perspective and just put me in a different frame of mind.

Wicked, man. Nice stuff, right? Well, mine's not as exciting. I've got, I just have a clear. I only read business books.

Only business books. I have just got a new one around happiness because I want to just try and get a little bit more. Yeah.

I can't remember what's called, but it's like trying to find inner peace and happiness and trying to like.

Really I'm pretty open and into stuff like real getting real introspective and like I'm trying to book in a seven day or five to seven day, no technology retreat in December, where I just go and just like meditate and just be. No technology complete, like off the face of the earth for a few days. Because I haven't done that before in a long time and I love that sort of shit. Just go there and just be real uncomfortable. Just like, where's my phone? Don't know what you're doing. Feel like real weird. And then you just like the way you grow and learn about yourself and what you're interested in and what, what is. Like, are you on the right path? You're doing the things you want to be doing because you just get swept up in every day and life moves so fast. I really want that time just to sit and think and figure out what the hell is actually going on. Just have that time just to be relaxed, which is very difficult to do in your everyday life. So anyway, interesting.

Isn't this interesting? Who are you when everything stops? Who are you without work, without your phone, without your close relationships? Who are you? And that is a very confronting and scary place to be in where people don't want to go there because you have to confront your thoughts, your feelings, your desires. Some of them might not be good, you might not like it, it might be uncomfortable. But you have to put in that work to understand who you are without all the bullshit. What do you really want in life? And that's where the growth comes from. And once you discover that and you can move towards it, that's where the happiness and fulfillment comes from.

What do you think about that?

I love it, man.

What was your book called, mate? What was your book called?

So it's over there. I don't know what it's called.

I haven't started yet. The two I'm reading at the moment, which I've audible by the way, I mainly listen to Audible books. So I've got some physical books I like to. I want to get back into physical reading. But the two Audible books that I've just recently finished, one was Talk Like Ted, which for obvious reasons, back to my TEDx talk, I wanted to read and listen to other people's experience experienced around TEDx talks. And really the biggest thing I got out of that was storytelling and really being able to connect and, you know, get on a real personal level with your audience, being open and vulnerable and, you know, the idea of storytelling and how powerful it is and how it changes lives. And I 100 saw that on Saturday. Storytelling is. It's everything magical thing. So if you, if you're doing any public talks, I'd recommend Reading talk like TED talked by and the other one was called humor Seriously. And this was around the power of humor back to public talking but doesn't even need to be public talking power of humor.

And this is not.

You don't have to be a comedian to be humorous. It's about being able to again connect, laugh, be open and laugh.

That self degrading stuff as well can be pretty funny like but the how humor through like in a data is shown that the humor actually.

Creates this thing in other people's minds around power and leadership and comfortability trust. By being able to add humor in your everyday life, whether it be a meeting, whether it be a presentation, whether be a conversation. A little bit of humor can make you be perceived as more trusted. It can make you a better leader. People follow you better. A lot of humor has been. Yeah, it's science lightens the mood.

Yeah it makes you more, more approachable.

More approachable and and also just generally makes conversations go be better because people can relate to you better. So you know that's another great book I read and a lot of data and science been put into making people laugh and how it can help across everyday life.

And I laugh at myself a lot. Like we were putting together a B2B deal and I was like, oh, I don't want to do this. It's weird. It's like, you know, know all this kind of stuff went away, talked to two of our blokes and they're like yeah, we should absolutely do this. And I came back to you guys, I'm like, yeah, I'm an absolute potato. It's all wrong. And then like it just lightens the mood and like you know, from a super serious thing. Yeah, just life is not that serious. Just, just have a laugh at yourself.

100. Right, burger.

Should we get into meal of the week?

Let's do it.

All right, so we'll do yours first. I've got yours up on the screen. Let's share this. This looks amazing. Dude, you have to absolutely talk me through this, mate. What have we got here, mate?

This was possibly, no, definitely, definitely the best Indian food. But it's not just Indian, it's Indian Nepalese. This was recommended by one of dad's friends. We went to this restaurant after the TEDX talk went down, went to a bar, had a few drinks with everyone and then we went out for dinner. And here mate, we've got goat curry in the middle. Yes.

We'Ve got the goat curry, mild spice, bit of tang bone bones and all on the right hand side.

It's a flavor, baby. That's where it's at.

The best butter chicken I have ever had on the right hand side. And then we have some. We have some rotty and we also have some saffron rice. I also had some lamb chops and some prawns. Entree, Papa dumbs, dude, this was unbelievable. Just the, the curry and the butter chicken. I put it together on the plate, had some saffron rice. Lap it up with it. The, the. The bread, man. I had it for leftovers, had it for dinner last night. Oh, my God, man.

This is the food of my people, son.

How it was like. It was so. Made you feel at home. Was warm, it was comfortable. It's just like the sauces and just like. I can't even taste it now. I'm getting hungry.

The spice is like what your body needs. It just. Your stomach is just like. Yeah, lad, this is it. This is the one, man.

Polished off with about three scotch and Cokes, Johnny. Double black, man. This was great. Absolutely unbelievable.

You are every Indian uncle ever drinking scotch with dinner, mate. Like, that's what they get. They get loose, mate. That's where it's at.

This is coming.

Unbelievable.

This is a big 9.7. Bugs. This was. Whoa. I don't give out perfect, mate. I don't give out tens. I don't even know what they could do to improve because it was phenomenal, but it's not.

I know what they could do. Have some like, writer on the side, which is like, you know, that yo yogurt and like cucumber kind of thing.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, mate, that looks amazing. That looks absolutely phenomenal. Whoa, you don't give tens. All right, mate.

Okay, I'll try and find the. Try and find the name of a weed pulling that up.

This was my meal of the week, mate. So have a go of that.

Oh, is that pork?

That's pork. So this is. This is roast. This is a midweek lunch. Oh, this while I was working. So just beautiful. Nice pork leg. Just average pork leg from bloody woolies, mate. Got some nice Indian cabbage there. So this was cooked with like, I think garam masala coming. Maybe caraway seeds and just some random broccoli. Because we know you need your greens, mate.

Now that is.

Let me get into this. Let me get into this. So this is just another. Just another plate shot. Look at that crackle. Look at that crackle. Look at that, mate.

Jesus made me angry. That looks so good.

The spice rub on the outside was the Spice rub I got for food Father's Day, where it's like salt, pepper, garlic, brown sugar, paprika, cumming, a bit of coriander, cayenne pepper. Oh, mate, it was just phenomenal to put spice rub on the outside. And I cooked this, so. Mate.

Look at that. Look at it. And a nice bit of fat underneath. Oh, mate, this is me just chopping it up. And you can see all the juice on the board as well. Look at that crackle.

Dude, that crackle is. That looks unbelievable. Hang on, I've got a couple more photos.

Mate, just.

Just look at that.

Oh, stop it.

And this is the last one. Oh, the last photo. So if. If you want to prepare this, literally just get. I did this in the air fryer. Mate, it was so, so easy. So normally I'd like prep it overnight, but I didn't have the time, so I literally just took the st. Sorry, it was a pork shoulder, not pork leg. Took the pork shoulder out of, like, you know, the vac seal kind of bag, pat it down. And then I got a thing called a jakar. And it's basically. It looks like a kind of bell, but in the bottom it's just got like 100 spikes. And you just go like that.

Oh, yeah.

Like takes 10 seconds. You could just use a knife and score it, whatever. Rub salt in the top. Came back 15 minutes later because I didn't have the time. Brush all that off, put a tablespoon of oil, little bit of salt, bang, in the air fryer. Did it like 210 degrees for about half an hour, open the air fryer and the pork was. The crackling was pretty much done. So you can do one or two things here. You can either cut the crackling off or I just put al foil over the top. So the crackle didn't boil, didn't burn and all the meat is still open. And then cooked it for like another hour and bang, done just in the air fryer. It was probably like five minutes each time, so maybe 15 minutes total. And, mate, this was unbelievable. Juicy crackle. It's like nice fat everything. Everyone was happy. And this is the thing, I didn't ruin Christmas because I had a nice crackle. This one was a solid 9 out of 10. Mate, it was amazing. We had gravy with it as well.

Oh, yeah.

The only thing missing was we were cooking some potatoes, but it took too long and I was too hungry. So we didn't get, you know, the nice roasted potatoes in there as well. That would have pumped it up at least another half a point, mate. This was just absolutely phenomenal. Meal of the week.

100%, dude. But that was a couple of good meals there and just nice. No chicken burgers this week. A little bit more healthy.

We'll look after. Look after ourselves now, now, Ben, what have you got?

We have. We ain't canceled again.

We are. We've got Meme of the week and something happened last week. Someone. I'm a big fan of Lizzy, mate. She passed away. Queen Elizabeth, poor soul. I was a big fan of the Queen. You think about the Queen, mate. You're a young bloke. What. What do you reckon?

Honestly, I haven't get cancelled, but I know nothing about it. Basically it's taken over all. Taken over all the tv I really like, you know, God rest her soul. But I, you know, I don't really care.

Fair enough, fair enough. They have lost a lot of relevance. And I think I like the Queen because, you know, she's nice. She's kind of that beacon of hope. Had a wicked sense of humor and she could be brutal at times as well. So I was. I was a big fan. So the way I'm going to do this is I've got a bunch of memes, not just one, got a few. And I've organized them in terms of level of spice. So we'll start off at level one. Okay, mate. Our editors are just. Oh, mate, they got a job ahead of them, I tell you. So, Ben, you are the voice of reason after this, like when we call it. Okay, so we'll just start off at level with level one. Spice. Are we allowed to punch swans now? The Queen's dead, so for those that don't know the. In certain areas, the Queen owns all the swans and you're not allowed to like capture them or eat them or anything like that. And my old boss, mate, she used to tell me she went back to Yorkshire and one guy caught a swan and cooked it. You're not allowed to do it. It's like big fines. He's like, yeah, Audi, I've won a year.

It's like, are we allowed to punch swans now? So good. All right, level one spice. Let's go to level two.

This is just on Twitter. Please be respectful when talking about the Queen. She was head of a state, a monarch, a mother of multiple pedophiles, and most importantly, a devoted cousin to her husband.

So this is pretty brutal. But it's all true as well. And it's like me, this is just level two spice, man. Level two. Because it's all true. You know, we're not. There's no revelations here. It's all been in the news. It's like. Like, hey, who doesn't have some dirt in their family? All right, let's kick it up to level three. Prince Charles. Right now. This is a picture of Highlander, and he's like, there can only be one unlimited power. And he's just got. He's got lightning powing through his hands, and he's just feeling it, mate. So Prince Charles, he's now the King. He's getting amongst it. He's. He's 70 years old. He's getting amongst those raw duties. All right, level four. Ben, you comfortable so far?

How many levels have we got?

We got ten levels. Oh, no.

All right, this is Charles's LinkedIn profile. And under his profile. Extremely blessed and humbled to announce I've been promoted to King of England. Special thanks to my mentor, Queen Elizabeth 2 for guiding me over the last 70 years. May you rest in peace. Looking forward to the next chapter of this journey. Hashtag king, hashtag promotion, hashtag royalty, hashtag blessed as.

Blessed af.

Oh, man, this one had me in stitches so much. I loved it.

I loved it.

All right, let's crank it up. Let's go to level five, mate. All right, I love this one. So you got Betty White on the left and the Queen on the night as. Final score, United States, 99, England, 96. So good. I love it when, like, England gets us. Gets to get up. England, because they got their independence. So, so good. They hate him so much, they drive on the other side of the road. It's amazing. Undefeated. Well done, America. All right, Level six.

So this is. Ben's dead. He's fallen off his chair.

Editors, we're cutting after Level five.

I.

Reckon leave this one here. This is my favorite one out of all of them. So you've got the Queen. It's in front of a grade. You've got her picture there. You've got Meghan Markle just doing a peace sign in front of. And she's taking a selfie out the front of that. This is just amazing because of the debacle they've had with her leaving the Royal Family. Oh, my God. This is just. This is so many tropes and memes rolled into one. I reckon Lizzie would get amongst it. All right, mate. Okay, now we're kicking up the spice. This is the Queen, and she's in hell. It's pretty much Doom. Like the character from Doom with Her head superimposed on it she's got a shotgun she's fighting the demons as she's shouting out, where is Diana?

Oh, me. This is so, so bad. But so, so good. This is amazing. So this one, this one had me in absolute stitches. This one was so. This was just classic. And she's got this big smiling head. She's got a beautiful pink hat, looks like a sophisticated lady. Just great. So great.

Good episode again, mate. We went deep. Apologies to anyone that trigger warnings at the end. Bose's memes.

It'S like, you know what's gonna happen. I can see, like in 10 years when I'm working in a job, they're gonna find this video and be like, oh, my God, you said this about Lizzie, like. And then I'm gonna have to do it. Oh, I'm sorry. And then pay, like, I don't know, some guy. You know how they always, like, pay like in the States, like a black minister or something to like, come on and say that I'm a good guy, like, you know, oh, man, you have to pay. This happening. But it. Part of web3 is just being irreverent and shit. Posting. I'm about that life. I went deep. This is who I am. Look, it's what I'm going to do.

Sorry, fam.

Right, I hope you enjoyed the part. Everyone, please leave us a review. Share it with a friend if you like this found it any sorts of valuable. If you've got a friend or a colleague, do you think that will find it good? We'd love you to share the word around Ben and Bergs. We do this on YouTube and podcasts. You can search up on your podcast if you listen on YouTube as well. And yeah, we'd love to hear your feedbacks. If you've got anything you want us to talk about, please leave a comment and we'll see you back again next week.

Absolutely. If you got any good. Hang on, mate, have you got any good?

I'm out. I'm leaving. Goodbye.

You're leaving? He's just leaving. That's it. It's spicy. All right, we'll call it there. Leave it.

If you've got any good book recommendations or anything like that, hit us up on Twitter at babyback Berg at BenSimpsonau. Any feedback? Throw it up there as well. Or any topics you'd like us to cover, get amongst it, give us that feedback. We're all about that life.

Wicked good shit. See you next week.

See you, mate.

See you, man.