140. Bergs Lessons, Wisdom, and Insights from 2023

I can make every excuse in the world. I'm sore, I'm tired. I'm this, I'm that. Fuck off. Just go and do it. Get to my better life sooner so I can live in it longer. Oh yeah, right, yeah. The sooner I get to my better life, the more life I can have in that better life.

Welcome to the Bennebergs Podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift alongside Ms. Bergs, your favorite MBA and COO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market as well as behind the scenes view of us scaling a fully remote subscription research business in Australia. If you like listening to the podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe. If you're on YouTube or follow us on your favorite podcasting app, we'd like to give you a big shout out. Everyone that listens to the podcast, the numbers are compounding burgs. It is phenomenal. I met a listener last night. Shout out Nigel.

Yes, Nige. Shout out Nigel. Who came up to me and said he's loving the podcast bergs. We hit all time high. Weekly listeners. We've got 550 unique weekly listeners.

Yay. Yay.

Let's go. Full market. So thank you so much for listening, everyone. We're going to keep bringing this to you each and every week. We're nearly two years in and absolutely loving it. We'll be here. When will we be here? In 20 years. I'm going to call it. Maybe we will, maybe won't.

Man, I'll still be alive. Not sure about you, but I'll be.

Doing it.

In 20 years.

But anyway, we could be those podcast hosts that like act really friendly but actually hate each other. Behind the hate each other.

Yeah, they show up for work and just off afterwards.

Yeah, afterwards they're like, piss off. I don't want to see you again. All right, I'll see you next week.

Right, but we've got, we've got a good episode today. We've got bergs looking backwards, 20, 23. It's taken him, oh geez. A good part of two months to do his reflection. So I feel as though it's gonna be a good episode, mate.

It has taken me a while to get over all the trauma of working with you last year. I just to get in the right mind frame. I was just depressed for so long. It just took months and months. But look, here we are and we've got a few questions. I'll let you know what the questions are now and then we'll go through them. Ben will let me know if anything's interesting or ask further questions as well. Yes, Ben.

Hey Bergs. I'll just add some context because we've got a lot of new listeners every year. Bergs and I do goal setting, planning, vision setting basically to try and get to a point where we want to be in the future. And then every year we reflect on that. So I did mine a couple of few weeks ago. I don't know which episode it is, you can search back and look at it. And this is Bergs version. So if you're new to the podcast, we do this every year. And this is Bergs 2023 reflection.

Yeah, we're big on personal growth and accountability and this year we're going to be accountable and do quarterly look backs to see if we're actually aligned with our goals. Because I think what we set last year and where we ended up was just like we focused on the business and left the personal stuff.

So the questions are what are your top personal, family and business highlights of 2023? What are your lowlights? Who are the new people that came into your life? What moved out of your life? How have you changed? What are the lessons learned? What wisdom do you take with you into 2024? Which things definitely need to change in 2024? What would my life look like in 2024? Like a fantasy story. So the best kind of what life you could live. What are my goals for 24? The rewards for achieving those goals and their battery charges and drainers. So let's get into the first one. What were my top personal, family and business highlights of 2023? So personal highlights. I did the hard thing and had my deviated septum surgery. So this was pretty crazy and there was a lot of pain. But now I can actually, excuse me, Breathe properly. I can breathe through my nose. My life is a lot better. I reconnected with a lot of old colleagues from my old work, which is just awesome. To catch up with them throughout the year.

Refinance my house and my legal structuring. So this is like an absolute nightmare. And I'm so proud of myself that I actually got it done because it sucks. It was the worst. It took like three or four months to refinance my house. It was crazy.

I remember you telling me, man, you'd show up to meetings, you'd be like, man, these fucking banks, they want this, they want that, they want paperwork and all the stuff you have to go in person. You have to sign documents. They don't tell you ahead of time you better.

And we had to chase down this old Harvey Norman credit card we had from 13 years ago that they didn't close like one of those interest free loans and it had 4 cents on it and it was a liability. And I'm like look at my assets. A liability doesn't matter. No, no, no. You got to chase it down. Where is it? I don't know. This is what it's called. What the is it? We can't find it. And then we called him down. They closed it then they didn't close it. And having a business as well like getting those, we had to redo our taxes. It was just nightmare.

But that proud of that is a, that's a bank for you. Sorry mate, you can't get a loan because you've got a 4 cent liability somewhere.

Oh my God. So just sign up for a trust bank account. And I had to because bankwest just closed my. It's like we don't do this anymore. Just close it. I'm like well great, thanks for the notice. Went to Commbank. Lovely lady signed up and everything. Did it online come back and she gave me a call, she's like oh you just do it in the app. Oh you can't do it in the app. You have to come down and sign. I'm like why? Like you literally need me to physically go there not check my ID or anything, make a squiggle on a little pad and somehow that's me. How like how does that make sense? Why can't I just log into the app where I've got like my bio anyway that's a whole other story Again derailed but banks like up your game. Seriously.

Finished painting my house which is great. Played a lot played golf and got the bugs. I've been playing with you Ben. So golf bug now I perfected Napoli pizzas so my pizza game is super strong. Jump on Twitter you'll see some of those started baking sourdough bread mate like this, this is my passion now so making awesome bread started doing olives and jalapeno and cheese. It's off chops if you've if you're.

On Twitter guys follow burgs if you like bread because all his feeds just.

It'S at baby back berg you gotta touch grass. Gotta, gotta gotta rest with your hands. Went to my sister in law's wedding and we all, all the boys jumped on e bikes and just went to the Pub. It was just sick. Finally got gigabit Internet. That is life changing.

Oh, man. Reconditioned my whole pizza oven. Like, got this, like diamond cutting, like.

Saw and like cut all the bricks and everything. That was just like an amazing experience. I started desensitizing injections as well. Getting my health sorted.

Saw my nephew officiate their NBA one and then I went to their NBA one grand final and read a lot and worked out a lot. So they're my personal ones. The family ones are supporting my wife. She's doing a Masters. The little ones just progressing really well at school. My auntie came over from India and I got to meet the whole other side of my family. She's like 80. It was just phenomenal. Had some great holidays. Yeah. Just like a lot of love. And in business. I got to work part time for three months, which was awesome. That was just like, really, really fun. Became coo, had lots of EO sessions, really good learnings and sharings there. We went to the Melbourne conference in November. Oz Cryptocon. Had a strategy day. Had lots of wins. It was just a really awesome bonding experience. Had a podcast, like a lot of the podcasts, like Cesano, Frisker, Lissa Mason, Lisa, Jordy, Greg, Harry. That was great.

Yeah, that was phenomenal. We fix our platinum product, Ben, and we have a premium product and pricing. We signed B2B customers. And I ended up doing a marketing talk on service industries and the invisibles to a bunch of people out at a winery, which is actually amazing. So they were my highlights from 2023.

Awesome.

Man and.

Man. Low lights. Recovering from surgery and, like, losing all gains. Like, man. Okay, so if anyone goes for deviated septum surgery, the two weeks after sucks. So you can't breathe through your nose, you can't blow your nose, and you have to do, like, sinus rinses like every four times a day. And you're just out of it. You just feel generally unwell. There's not too much pain. It's okay. But you just knack it. And like when you do a sinus rinse, you put all this stuff up your nose and it's like all these light. It's like your brain's coming out, man. It's just like all these long strings of snot and blood. And I was like, oh, my God. It's the grossest thing. That was horrendous. Low lights. Mum's health isn't going too well. Her cancer came back. That really sucks. And other ones are just. Which I found interesting. Isolation at home. So working fully remote and working a lot in a business, you do get quite isolated and it does affect your confidence as well. So that's something that I've been actively working on.

Time, man. And I think that bit of a lonely journey, like, you know, building a startup, grinding in an industry that no one knows about, that, you know, you get made fun about talking about crypto, like, and then. And then you've got no one to share the wins and losses with. And then. And you're in a different time zone and no one cares. And.

Oh, yeah. And it's like, the rest of my team's over east. And then you talk about crypto, you've lost them in three seconds. Talk about running a business. No one understands unless they're actually running a business. Yeah, it's definitely a different path.

New people that came into my life, actually, like a lot of people from Twitter and a lot of non people that have actually, like, met up with, particularly in Melbourne. Great people, have great conversations with them, catch up with them over there. A couple of people in WA as well, that's been really, really good. Just a lot of them are crypto people, but lot of people would just bond over different stuff and it's like, like, oh, you're in wa. Like, we've been interacting on Twitter for like six months. It's like you already know them. It's. It's really, really cool.

That's cool.

What's moved out of my life? So a lot of my high school friends, I don't really hang out with them anymore because we just do different things, are on different paths. I've reduced a lot of judgment and caring about trivial things.

Pretty much overcome my travel anxiety, which was awesome. Major travel anxiety, particularly about flying on planes because I used to get vertigo, used to vomit all this stuff and then, you know, going into the unknown, all that. So, yeah, that pretty much overcome that. Like, this time I just went to the airport, it was great. Didn't have a meltdown and jumped on a plane, had a great time and it was awesome. Looking forward to getting back to Melbourne later this month and what's moved out of my life? Bad sleep. So I got a whoop, which changed my life because it told me how I really was. And it's like, bro, you're on. Like, do you remember Ben? I got like, was it 1% sleep one night?

You're like dying, man. I was like, this fell.

It's like, what the are you doing.

In your bed, man? Like, how do you get a 1% sleep. How's it even humanly possible, bro?

I don't know what it is, man. It was just horrendous. And then I started to learn the triggers of what was actually happening. I used to play a lot of Apex Legends at night. I'd be on the screens, then I tried to go to bed. Wasn't really looking after my health. I was working out, but I was in pain because I wasn't stretching and I need massages regularly. And yeah, just realizing all of that and the patterns and things you do the night before with that little survey they make you do even my eating and just fixing that. I'm getting killer sleeps, like you saw in some of the ones where it's like 90, 99%, 97%, like it's been really, really good.

And how have I changed? So I've removed bad eating, so I'm eating a lot more protein. I hardly any desserts or anything like that. And I just feel much better for it. I just got rid of the bullshit.

I'm reducing my emphasis on work as my worth. So I tend to cling to work as if I'm performing there. I'm doing well in my life, but that's not my life. There's many different aspects to my life and it's. I think it's a very common thing. I've talked to a lot of people about it, and particularly in Western societies. It's like the first question is, what do you do? You know, what's your job like? As if that's the measure of a person. And I'm like, well, it's part of my life, but it's not my whole life. And I don't want to be too unbalanced there. You and I talk about this quite a lot because I think we're quite similar in that respect.

Yeah.

And better communication across the board with the people in my life. And even at work, stop playing Apex Legends. So I haven't played it since January, much to the dismay of my mates. But my life has changed for the better because I'm not sitting in a chair, I'm not playing games, my shoulders don't hurt, and I'm not getting crappy sleep because I'm playing at night. And I now have a morning routine and focus.

So lessons learned.

Have you noticed, like the. Sorry to interrupt. If you notice, with you not doing those things like Apex Legends, you're finding less in common with those people they spend time with. So you're spending time with other people or you're just finding other ways to spend time with those people.

I spent, I spend less time with them because the time I'll name the people, it's Ericsson and Joe. Right. So they're, you know, both those guys. And so Erickson's just, just had a kid. He's at home and he's in Melbourne as well. And we just catch up. Right. Like even before we kind of have a call like once every couple of months. But this was like, oh, you're on it. We just talk every single night. Similar with Joe. And it's just kind of a meeting thing. You talk on discord while you're playing with Joe. We still got our normal in real life catch ups and we still talk shit over text. We've got our chats going and memes and everything. But there is less talking and interaction because we're not doing that nightly kind of thing. Yeah, but the relationships are still really good.

Nice.

All right, lessons learned. Put your health first. I need to learn this lesson again and again and again because I'm an idiot. You're the same Ben.

Gotta get those sales, baby.

This is a tough one. I'm addicted to work as it provides me with comfort, variety, significance, connection, growth and an ability to contribute beyond myself. So this took me a long time to understand. I, I've always been like this with work, no matter where I've worked, but now I understand why. And they listed like six things there. And a couple of pods ago, if you have one of those things, it's like, okay, if you have, you like it. If you have two, you really like. If you have three, you're addicted to. And if you think about anything you do, whether it's overeating or binge eating, smoking, whatever it is, you can get things like comfort, connection, you know, all those things that you need and it fulfills those needs. And once you understand that, you're like, this is why I do what I do. And then you can start to understand your drivers and behaviors and move towards better behaviors and better habits. So that was a huge realization for me.

And that's so common. Like you see with like professional athletes or founders that exit their business or if you've been in the career for so long and then you change, like people go through depression because, you know, had all that sense of self worth and then you go change it.

Exactly. And you attach your identity to it because it's that important. And if once you remove that, you're like, who am I?

So crazy. It's so crazy. And then this takes years to figure out and work on and you'll never be done.

And also another thing is I need to do more Socratic reasoning. So a lot of the time.

Particularly like the, the way I was brought up, the way my parents are, the organizations I worked in previously, they're very risk averse. So whenever something is presented to me, I'll think of the risk side first. And that tends to be a why we shouldn't do it. What could go wrong? I usually combat that with a strategy side. So like, great, we know the landscape, what can we do now? But when that's in business. But personally the risk side comes up and now I do Socratic reasoning. I used to do it all the time. I totally forgot about it where I was like, okay, here's the risk side. Great. It's. My brain immediately goes, worst case scenario, what's the best case scenario? And then what's likely to happen? So you get a more balanced view. You're not just going into, oh, I'm not just going into the, oh my God, this is going to happen.

Yeah. I think that reframing thing is something that I learned recently through you, through Tony Robbins priming, like that morning priming.

Yeah.

It's one of those crazy things I think like people like us like, you know, sort of think about things as like the way I think about it anyway is like my first, my first thought is not to think of reframing my mind, but it's to go and do a course or get a coach or buy something that will fix that problem of me being negative on a certain situation. But the reality is it's just you yourself thinking about a certain way that you just need to train yourself to rethink and reframe.

Yeah.

And it's so crazy that once you actually start doing that you kind of realize because it doesn't work overnight. It's not just like, oh, I'm positive, oh, I'm happy. It's like it's a slow, gradual thing that you just to keep retraining yourself to not go to that mindset.

Yeah. And the hard part is when you're, when you beat down, you've had a few losses, you're tired, things aren't going right, you're stressed, you go to your default patterns and behaviors. I saw this when we were commissioning Fiona Stanley Hospital. It was brutal and people were breaking down crying and the level we were operating at at Royal Perth came right down and people just not doing things they would normally do because they were stressed out. They were sleeping. They're basically alcoholics. Like, this is like, across the board. It was that horrendous trying to commission that hospital. And what Ben's talking about, this reframing is.

Tony Robbins gave the example of, you got a dinner at 7:30 with your partner. You go to the dinner and they're not there. And one person thinks, oh, that's okay, they'll be here in five minutes. Another one's like, oh, why are they late again? And then the next person's like, oh, my God, something's horrendously wrong. They're not here on time. And then it goes to 8 o'. Clock. And the first person's like, oh, I might just order an entree. You know, they'll be here soon. The second one's like, why are they picking up my calls? You know why they ditch me. And then the third one's like, oh, they're definitely dead. I have to go out and find them. They could be in the street. And the reality is that that situation is exactly the same, but people treat it in a completely different way. And if you can see the situations for what they are and how you relate to it, that'll be life changing. All right, here's. Here's the money, Ben. What wisdom do I take into 2024? This may sound a little crazy, so feel free to ask questions because it's very, like, written for me and only for me to read it, even though I'm reading it on a podcast. So I would pay a hundred thousand dollars to have a fit body and be pain free and be able to do all the things I want to do.

100K.

How fucking weird is that? Where if someone goes, you could have all that today. I would give you a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, it won't cost me a hundred thousand dollars to do, but I need to get up my ass to do it, right?

Yeah.

How insane is that? When I frame it like that, I'm like, if this is the most important thing in my life, and I'm willing to pay a large sum of money to have that because it's the most important thing, why the fuck am I not focusing on this every single fucking day?

Yeah.

So crazy.

Is there a barrier for you? Like, there's just a mental barrier to do the hard work.

I've got most of it down, like, priming, waking up, stretching, walking. The one I need to add is going to the gym first thing in the morning. And the barrier there is just. I'm a fucking lazy bastard like that Is honestly it? I can make every excuse in the world. I'm sore, I'm tired, I'm this. I'm that off. Just go and do it. So I'm basically going to brute force myself to do it every single day, whether I hate it or not. Because once you get in the car and you get to the gym, you're fine. It's just you create those mental barriers to not do it because humans crave comfort and rest.

Dopamine and come. Yeah, yeah.

And then once I start doing it, I'll be absolutely unstoppable. So I'm going to brute force that and we're going to check back to make sure I'm actually doing it.

Good.

Yeah. Spending money on your health is always a good choice and I will never regret it. Putting myself first allows me to give more. Avoiding the hard thing leads to more pain and worry.

Get to my better life sooner so I can live in it longer. Oh, yeah, right.

Yeah.

So this all stacks where it's like, if I start going to the gym, if I start putting myself first, if I start giving more, all of that leads to my better life. The sooner I get to my better life, the. The more life I can have in that better life.

Money is the worst measure of success. Too much comfort makes me complacent and soft. Reduce complexity in everything and automate. It's okay to spend money. I'm here to enjoy my life and be happy.

All right, that's good. There's some good ones in there.

Which things definitely need to change in 2024. I have to place myself first every single day. No matter how much it hurts, no matter what story I'm telling myself, I must thread the next pearl on the string. And that is about, you know, waking up, priming, getting to the gym, going for a walk, whatever it is. Doing the things for myself first so I'm sorted and then I can help other people. I need to get regular massages. Very simple. Get out in nature every single day. So you've been to my place. There's lots of, like, bushland and stuff around. It's just nice to walk around. And that just instantly changes your mindset. All your problems go away. You get creative, do some meal prep. It'll just stop fights and it just reduces fat. Just do it. Stop worrying about the things I can't control. I've started doing that a lot where I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. Why am I going to worry about it if I can't even influence it and be Intentional and reach out to people and maintain relationships. So that's another thing with, you know, isolation. Working from home. I need to be intentional about that. Set up things every week and meet up with these people.

And what would my life look like in 2024? My fantasy story. I wake up early, complete my morning routine, and feel unstoppable. I've had a hard workout. The little things don't bother me, and I'm willing to take on the world. I have a lot of energy and I'm ready to give to others. The day is already one. I don't care about money and I don't measure myself on it. My relationship with my family is better than ever. We have a dog and he lights up our lives. We've already got a dog, so that's great. He's a legend. I'm the board chair of school and I elevate what a board chair can be. I've just been elected board chair as well, so that one's already done. I hang out with my friends at least twice a week for dinner and coffee and meet at least one new person per week. I'm more focused and calm at work. Collective Shift is in a bull market, and we are helping all of our customers navigate the market conditions. I've supported the missus throughout the year, and she has achieved her study goals. Would be it on a trip to Japan or Singapore. I've finally used my 1 million Citibank points for fun.

I always have something booked in my calendar and something to look forward to. And that is my fantasy story.

Awesome, man.

Yeah.

Well done. I think. I love the wisdom you got. You had some sick wisdom in there, you know, like. And I. And I've seen that from you. Like, you've spoken about that in the last 12 months. Like, things like, you know, you know, you know, you are.

You. You have.

I don't know how to say this politically correct, but, like, you've got money to spend, but you don't like spending it. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I've still got that kind of. It's weird. I'll spend in some areas but not others. And it's still got that.

Poor mindset.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like a fixed sum mindset.

Yeah.

But, like, I only have this. I have to put my arms around it because I can't grow it to have more. And, like. Yeah. And especially, like, I got rid of it for ages. But when you're working hard and a lot of things are going on in your life, you go Back to that weird mindset. So that's something I'm definitely working on. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like I don't have tons of money, but I am comfortable. Right. Like I'm not retired tomorrow kind of money. But like we, we have saved quite hard and we're in an okay position.

Yeah man.

Got a couple more things. My goals and then battery charges and drainers. So goals for 2024. Be mentally and physically fit. Ask for help. Life is painful, but you don't have to suffer. Have a roaring social life. Actually attend things because most of the time I'm tired, I can't be fucked. I just want to go to sleep. Have a new friendship group that wants to achieve the same things that I do. So that's one of the challenges I have with the majority of my friends because I'm doing weird stuff and want to achieve weird things. I need people that are kind of similar to me in that respect. I do have eo, but I'd like to have mates that really push me to do that. Reward for achieving goals. And again I need to redefine those goals to find for more specificity so I'll know when I achieved it. Really the reward is to live in my better life for longer. But also I want to have a big Europe holiday with the entire family. So this is going to be the big expensive holiday and just fucking take everyone.

Let's. Let's go. Bull run. And last ones. Battery chargers and drainers. Charges in real life. Friends working out, haircuts, cold showers, exploring, doing things myself. Meditation, traveling, new experiences, building, gardening, walking one on one with the little one or the Mrs. Priming. Removing junk out of my life. I love throwing things out of my house. Oh. Reducing complexity. Sunshine, cooking, shopping, taking breaks. They're all the things that charge me up, the things that drain me. Isolation, low direction and purpose.

No context. Half cocked, rambling.

Not gonna name any names. Overpacked days, lack of breaks.

Meetings and pompey events. That's not with collective shift. Clutter in the house. Like just.

Just the.

The like just getting to the good stuff. Getting rid of the. And living a better life, man. So that was. That did take me a long time to do and I was very happy with the point that I actually got to with that. Particularly the wisdom and the things I'm going to do this year.

Nice work, man. I was just reflecting like you know, for the listeners out there, like this is not necessarily for you to just get an insight of the ins and outs of what birds I do, but more to the point of like the structure that has helped us do this reflection and then looking back on these reflections and like we've done this for two or three years now. Like I actually haven't looked back to see what our first reflections and goals were. But I know where we are now compared to where we were back then. Like now, like it's, it's miles ahead.

Yeah. I look back to my old run and it was like have this many followers and subscribers and this. That it's like very like what you would expect, like a tech entrepreneur outcome driven to be. And now it's more about how do I live a better life. No, no, I think we were both like that. I think, I think you still have parts of that. You're very driven but also you're a lot more. You're a lot younger than me as well. Right? Yeah. So you have just different station in life and different goals. But now it's more about. Yeah, living the day to day, living a better life. Looking at internally my thoughts, how I think about things, how I can reframe things and letting go of things that I can't control. And that's a very freeing feeling.

Love it, man. Great stuff. I'm glad you did it. So keen to see how our fantasy stories play out. I mean, bitcoin's a fantasy right now, so who knows where we could be in the end of the year?

How good is it, mate?

Guys, thank you so much for listening. If you've got any feedback or questions or things you want to throw at Bergs, you can tweet at us at Ben and Bergs on Twitter. And we're also hosting a meetup coming up in Melbourne. So if you're in and around Melbourne or you want to come and say, hey, we're hosting a meetup on the. I think it's the 21st of March at 6pm so you can head over to my Twitter @benSimpsonAU and you can register for the event. We're about 50 capacity already, so head over there. It's free event. If you're there, if you can come, Bergs will be there, I'll be there and it'll be great to meet you in real life.

We're up north event, mate. Your dog in the Perth event or will this go out after the Perth event?

This might be outside the Perth event unfortunately, so you may have missed it by the time this goes out. If it, if it is out in time. We're actually hosting event in Perth on Wednesday.

Wednesday the 6th at 6pm at the Cannes Fish Field. So if we get this out in time, hopefully we do. 6pm at the Cam field again. Head over to my Twitter and you can register for the event there. We'd love to see you there.

Thanks so much for listening, legends. And thanks, Nige.

Thanks, Nige.

See you later.