142. How to Grow a Million Dollar Business as a Digital Nomad w/ Kent Mulligan

Woke up one night with this like crazy pain. It's like, am I having a heart attack? Did tests with my doctor. He was like, look, something's not right. You've got to go into emergency. You've got a 98% blocked artery to your heart. The widowmaker or any moment.

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift, alongside Ms. Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market as well as behind the scenes view of us scaling a fully remote subscription research business in Australia. And today we've got a very special guest, Kent Mulligan, the founder and owner of Modern Pirate, a leading Australian men's hair care brand that I personally also use. I must say, Kent, member of Collective Shift, nomad, crypto investor. Everyone see anything else you are thinking.

We can start with that.

Dude, thanks so much for coming on.

No, my pleasure. Good to catch up with you guys. It's been in the making for a while.

It has been. I do apologize though. We tried that many times.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, so story for the listeners. Kent and I bumped into each other virtually when I was, you know, I've been a nomad. Well, I was a nomad for about 18 months living out of a suitcase and, and Ken and I were both in Thailand at similar times and I think we bumped into each other's Instagrams and started chatting and I started to get. No, get to know Kent as another guy that was also a nomad and you've been doing it for a lot longer than I have. How long have you been.

Yeah, I, well, 16 years. I had a block over Covid where I kind of settled, you know, forced. Settled in Australia for about three years. So. Yeah. But I, for me, prior to starting my business in 2014, I was working on offshore oil rigs. So I kind of had this nomadic lifestyle around that.

Yes.

Month on, month off. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's been a journey of just jumping and moving and you know, settling for short amounts of time, certain places and.

Yeah, I was going to say, have you always been Thailand?

No, Tight. So prior to, I mean I had a lot of time in Thailand over the years, but pre covert, it was mostly Bali. I had like a 10 year stint back and forth between Australia and Bali. So yeah, I've had a base in Melbourne, like a, you know, it's kind of been my home base to come back to for about 15 years and I've got a daughter here who's. Yeah, so yeah, she's been here since she was seven.

Yeah.

So yeah, she's 22 now. So all that time I'd kind of, you know, come back between trips and spend a month or two here and it's awesome man, spend time with her. But yeah, lots of moving around.

So what initially made you go this? Let's, let's live abroad.

I think that oil rig's job was the kind of the first time that I'd had, you know, no kind of set location. Yeah. And you know, good money, you know, there's opportunity to travel in between that sort of month block of work and we, we had a four month annual leave like any full time job but it accumulated to a three month break each year because I have your month off, you know, then your month's holiday and then three months.

Yeah.

So yeah, I was just back and forth to Bali mainly for surf and know I got a lot of close friends that live there and yeah, yeah, it's just been somewhere that was, was a second home.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And yeah, you go yeah.

And where are you based now?

So Melbourne now but I'm splitting my time between Melbourne and Thailand so as soon as the borders opened I go straight, straight to Thailand, a two month stint there, which is really refreshing after, you know, after the two years and Melbourne through lockdown. Yeah. And yeah, just kind of sparked my, you know, my passion again about being in Southeast Asia and I just, you know, wanted to tweak my business and you know, kind of make sure that I could, you know, have the freedom to take off when I want and not be sort of tied to one.

Place and talk us about your business, mate. Like how big are we talking? You've been in business for 10 years. Tell us about what you sell, if any sort of numbers you can share about how big you've run it.

Yes. So I mean it's, it's still a relatively small scale company in the scheme of hair care. International hair care brands.

I, I've got a pretty solid Australian market. Direct to consumer through an online platform.

We sell to distributors and retail outlets, barber shops across Australia and then the international sales usually to a distributor in a selected region. Yeah. And you know, we'll have an exclusivity arrangement with them and support them to launch the brand through pretty much the same channels in other countries.

That's awesome. And how did you Start a hair care brand.

How does it even happen? It was just a random idea. Yeah, I was working on the oil rigs. So yeah, I don't have a haircare background or I'm not a barber, but I had friends with barbershops and I could see this whole kind of hipster barbershop thing was blowing up like 10 years ago and, and there wasn't a lot of Australian made brands that would like tailored to, to guys. There was a couple of brands that were dominating but I just sort of looked at it and I was like, there has to be an opportunity for another brand that has like a multi marketing angle to it. So not kind of pigeonholed and trade something that could cross over into like surf and skate and fashion.

And I picked it up with a brand. Not that I like knew that beforehand, but when you send me the box of the products I was like this kind of got like this urban sort of male fun, you know. Yeah. Like skating, surfy sort of vibe to it.

Yeah. And also the, I was finding that a lot of the commercial brands that I was using, I was getting irritation on my scalp. So I was really conscious about what I was putting on my skin and my body and I just thought, you know, maybe I'll do a haircare.

Fuck it, I love it. Had you done any business before this one?

Yeah, I had a wine distribution company with a friend for eight years in Queensland. But I kind of was more the face of the brand, the business. Like I was doing sales. I wasn't really doing any of the financials or you know, structured stuff behind the scenes. So this was kind of my first real dive into business and like I literally knew nothing. So you know, I've, I've had to learn every aspect of business and manufacturing and marketing and sales and export. And so it's been, yeah, it's, it's. Yeah, it's been a real journey. Like so much value.

You know, from this business outside of any kind of revenue or financial side, of course, as you.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's, let's talk about that a bit because people come into business or entrepreneurship or they want to start something and they don't realize how difficult it is and how much you have to do and being across things like, you know, accounting your numbers, marketing, sales, legal, it is just so, so crazy. And you know, Ben and I are experiencing this now and you grow quite a lot as a person and would you be able to share some of those experiences, Some maybe even oh, shit moments or things that you've Learned that were really valuable.

Yeah, I mean this, there's thousands.

The first major oh, shit moment was I started with a local manufacturer in Melbourne, a cosmetics manufacturer, to develop the first product in the range. And I had a $20,000 deposit that I had to pay to develop this first product with five month process that I'd be working with them and had great samples and finally kind of got to the stage where I'd order packaging and we're going to our first production run and they filled the first lot of packaging and the product, it didn't turn out right. It was all gammy and sticky and they were like, look, this, sometimes this happens when you're kind of scaling up from a sample to a production run. And I was like, I can't sell this.

Like, you know, sometimes this happens. Sorry.

So I, I ended up, you know, having to send it back to them. And I was, I was devastated. I was like, I need to start making money. I've, I've quit my job. Six months, I'm all do this.

So, yeah, long story short, we had three production runs where they, they messed it up every time until, you know, we kind of got into this legal argument about, you know, like, are you going to compensate me? Can we get this right? And in the end, I had six months of back and forth with them and that company went under. They had a separate legal situation that was going on. They went under and I lost, I lost everything. I had to start over again.

Did you have to pay to 20 grand each time for each.

No, just that sort of one off.

But you're wa. Right, you're not earning income.

I'd lost pretty much a year of no income and just almost at that point was, I do it, can I?

What's the point?

Am I going to keep going with this? So I was really lucky. I just, I, I found another manufacturer and they sort of took sympathy on me and we're really flexible with getting things going and yeah, I'm still with that company now. It's been amazing.

Out of Australia.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that was, yeah, that was kind of my first challenge. But it, yeah, it's endless. I think anybody that's doing any kind of manufacturing, there's a lot of problems. There's things that are just really hard to plan for as well. But it can be, you know, we had issues with one product for years that when it got really cold, it was an ingredient crystallizing the product. So we'd have product, you know, thousands of units sent to Italy or somewhere. In Europe. And, you know, if it wasn't stored at a certain temperature.

And, you know, got down to zero degrees, the product called crystallized looked like it was off. So it's just. Yeah. And like, those things still happen. Yeah, I still have. I still have issues.

Yeah.

Of course, I had beard oil that was like, that. It was one that was actually given to me, and I was like, oh, this looks like skanky as. And my wife, she's a medical scientist and aromatherapist, but aromatherapy, like, you know, the proper, like, chemistry one. They teach, like, a big course course. And she looks through all the ingredients. She's like, what the is. She, like, emails the guy because he's got the wrong stuff in there. He's just disgusting and people are gonna get sick. She actually looks at your stuff. She's like, this is legit.

That's great.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

It's challenging. And, yeah, this, you know, it's. I think that's where the lessons come from.

And.

And, you know, you kind of build this resilience over time. Like, I. I mean, I still have times where I'm, know, super stressed and in bed, waking up, you know, all hours, thinking about things that you can't change. But I think over time, you kind of start to, you know, develop a little bit more resilience, and you can kind of cut, you know, put something aside and not dwell on it in the same way that I used to and think it's the end of the world.

Talk us through those first. Like, because we talk. We're talking about before the show, like, there's this sort of inversion point, inflection point that businesses get to, and all of a sudden things start to actually work and you start to get results in combating, like, how long was that first initial, like, period for you? That was just ultra stressful. And what was that time like?

So I think I. I got. Got a lot of wins early. Like, nothing major, but I just got validation that I was on the right path early.

And, like, I was literally walking around with one jar of hair product, trying to sell it to shops, barbers, and salons that had, you know, competitor ranges that have, you know, 1620 products in a range. So it kind of seems ridiculous, but people actually saw something in the brand and took the product.

Can you. Sorry, let's talk about that. So you were literally taking a product and just going. Rolling into a barbershop, going unannounced, unannounced.

Hey, this is. I've got a new.

I need to buy.

This is what I'm doing. Yeah.

What is it? So this is the, this is cold sales, right?

Yeah.

What's the script? Did you dial it? Like, did you do sales training?

Nothing.

You just figured it out?

Nothing. No, I just googled the best barbers.

Wow.

Yeah.

And what do you say? I'm the guy, the barber. What do you say?

I would just walk in and say, hey, I've made this, I've developed this new Australian made hair product range. This is the first product in the range and I leave you a sample. Give us some feedback.

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah. And yeah, like people, you know, people like the product. I had Instagram pretty early on.

Yeah.

And yeah, I was fortunate enough that like a really cool Southeast Asian barber and distributor in Singapore saw the brand and reached out and said, would, you know, could we sell that through our store?

That's so sick.

So from them and their following, I kind of started to get a little bit more interest and it, it kind of like was global pretty quick. Like not big. I'd have small distributors and lots of different regions that were reaching out.

Through Instagram?

Yeah, through Instagram.

And did you start the Instagram on your own?

Yes.

You did all the photo because your Instagram's sick. For those that listeners check out, it's modern pirate or modern underscore Pirate.

Still do it myself.

You still do all this yourself? No. That's awesome. And like it's got a real vibe to it. Like, check it out. It's, it's a, it's a very like urban musk, like quality premium sort of like set up like it looks nice.

Yeah. Cool. Thank you.

So because you got 20,000 followers, I assume that obviously helped give you a bit of credibility.

Yeah. I mean it took time to sort of build it up, but the way I have looked at the brand is I've just really tried not to pigeon hole the brand and trade. Like there's a lot of brands out there that are just kind of barber sell on brands and they don't really kind of expand their marketing outside of that. Whereas I'm less interested in that than other areas of my life. So yeah, I've done collaborations with like Croft Shoes in Australia. We did a model pirate shoe. Wow. So we kind of, you know, broadened the reach through their network work. We've done done a lot of different things. Yeah.

That's awesome.

Some art collaborations and that's really cool. But yeah, still.

Sorry. I like seeing those crossovers with other brands as well. Especially like when Ben Was saying, you know, the, the vibe you kind of get is kind of surf, kind of skate. Like you know that you can really see that coming through other brands as well. And yeah, can you talk us through like which product lines do you have, how many SKUs do you have? And also how do you think about like new product development over time?

So at the moment I've got 12 core SKUs, so that's eight products. There's four styling products. We've got, you know, texturizing spray, shampoo, conditioner, sorry, three in one body wash and some great Australian made soaps. So for me I kind of like it's probably not the smartest thing, but I'm like what do I want to use? I love it. You can kind of go down two paths with the product development. You could create something that will work or be, that will resonate with trade, something that a barber would, would use or you can kind of focus on the end consumer and is this something that someone, an everyday person will buy? And that's kind of more side that I swing to.

I just feel that, I mean it's just such a broader market. Like the trade stuff is pretty challenging like if you're competing with you know, every other international brand in that space.

And how does that business model work? Do you sell products to the barber or. It's based on how much they sell.

So in Australia I've had, I've gone down two different parts. Like for the first time six years I sold direct to barbershops, hair sale on retail stores, sub distributors, myself. Yeah. Then I went pre covert. I didn't went into a national distribution agreement with the biggest hair care company in Australia.

Okay.

The exclusive distribution and had amazing forecasts and projections and plans. And then like literally two months after the opening order, Covid and the country shut down. So yeah, that's probably been the biggest challenge of the business because I'd handed over all of my customers to them to manage. Yeah. And then they, they had a huge amount of investment that was going into this barber channel to kind of drive the brands with my brand being the leading brand that was gonna spearhead that division. And they pulled all funding and just kind of wrapped up that whole, that whole market and then sat on my brand exclusively. That you know, like it was really challenging for me to get out of that agreement. Yeah. So yeah, had a tough two years.

And then post Covid and post that agreement, it was trying to get customers back on board directly without a sales team. So trying to find ways, you know, through Digital communication and Clavio and different marketing techniques to build the business that way which ultimately is for trade is not the right approach. Yeah, it's. You'd need somebody knocking on doors.

So yeah, fortunately this week I've just signed another agreement, another national distributor exclusive agreement.

Amazing.

So yeah, back on track.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think fortunately for me the, there's still always been interest from international markets.

The driving the Australian made and this kind of unique Australian element to the brand has resonated in other markets. So yeah, that's cool. Yeah, we've got a bit going on in other places.

I notice that on the ingredients where you've got like, you know, Tasmanian something other or other, it's like, it's very, very Australian. It's great.

Yeah, yeah. That's kind of where I feel there's, you know, there's an opportunity to kind of distinguish yourself amongst other brands and this kind of price point that I sit at, you know, we're not premium, we say we're accessible premium. But yeah, this way is to, you know, really focus on the ingredients and the quality. That's awesome, man. Yeah.

First of all, what does your team look like in your business and how do you maintain relationships with customers, distributors, suppliers while being a nomad?

So I mean my inspiration to start the business is I read the four hour work week cracking book.

How good.

And that's where I kind of, you know, I was in this, you know, I had this great job on the oil rigs. I was a chef, I worked, I worked as a chef for 20 years.

But I, I just this element, even though I had half the year off, I just was like, I don't like this having to turn up somewhere at a certain time and commit to this one month where you're basically in jail.

So I thought, you know, if I can create a business, you know, I need to structure it in a way that I can have some flexibility to work from different locations. So the key thing was obviously not having a warehouse and an in house team and doing all the things that you know, probably make a business a little bit more successful right from the start. But so yeah, I have outsourced pretty much everything. So I've got a 3 PL warehousing facility that has integrative software to the website. So all wholesale orders direct to consumer, just completely automated. You know, there's obviously there's a lot of apps you can use now. Like, you know, zero was pretty new when I started and having you know, an accounting system that was cloud based, you know, I've got a great admin guy that's been with me from day one.

And yeah, I've had a great, you know, marketing guy that was pretty much been with me for the majority of the business lifespan as well, who is also works remotely and traveling around the world. And that's cool. So, yeah, I think it's just, you know, it's a little bit disjointed at times. But I mean, my routine doesn't change no matter where I am. If I'm in Bangkok for a month, you know, wherever I am, I still kind of have this pretty structured day. I might be two hours behind or four hours behind where I am, but I still get up, I still have, you know, same morning routine.

I talk through it. What's, what's your day, what time, what does it start?

And so I will always get up around 6am and I've got this morning routine that I've been doing for pretty much seven years that I never, ever miss this routine. I mean, it's just the usual simple stuff.

Yeah.

You know, cold shower. Yeah. I do like a little 15 minute sort of yoga flow, some gratitude, journaling.

Yeah, Just simple stuff, you know, we love it, mate.

We're right.

I was gonna ask you about this because it seems it's like a really calm guy and I'm like, oh, sure, he's meditating, he's getting in there.

No, same thing. Yeah, the meditation is a daily thing as well and just. Yeah, I don't know, I feel like I've, you know, as I've got older, I've just simplified things as much as I can. So anything to reduce stress or emotional stress. The business stress is a constant. So I've had to learn to kind of implement things that help me manage that.

Yeah.

And look, that's it. It's been a massive, A massive change since I started doing that.

Yeah. I think personal experience, like the stress of running a business and like, especially when you're going through the days of like, what the are we actually doing? Like, you're losing money, things are breaking, nothing's working, there's. You can't see the light end of the tunnel, you're stressed. Like without that sort of like emotional calmness like you can. Things can get out of hand pretty quick.

Yeah, definitely, yeah. And I had a scare seven, six years ago now. I, I was in a relationship for four years and my girlfriend was working in Silicon Valley. So I was back and forth. I was doing, you know, pretty much six, six weeks to two months In San Francisco, back to Melbourne for two months. I had a lot of stress with the business, and I was back here, I was staying in an Airbnb, and I woke up one night with this, like, crazy pain in my chest. It's like, am I having a heart attack? And I was super fit. I've been training, you know, flat out for years. So I kind of just brushed it off and thought it was like a, like a cramp in my chest or something. But I got up the next day, went for my morning run, and the same thing started happening. And I was like, this is weird. Something's not right. So every day it happened for two.

Weeks, and now you're like, okay?

My mom was like, please go to the doctor. And long story short, did test with my doctor. He was like, look, something's not right. You've got to go into emergency today and get, get. That's the only way you'll be tested today. So I had a full day of testing, and at the end of, you know, all my blood work was fine. There was no. I hadn't had a heart attack. They couldn't detect that, the new blood work, but they said, we'll just do a stress echo test before you leave. And within a couple of minutes on the stress echo test, they said, get off, like, straight away. You've got a 98 blocked artery to your heart, the Widowmaker, or you could have a heart attack any moment.

So I literally went in the next day for, like, the procedure, the stamp. I had two stamps put on my heart and, like, I was, like, literally in shock. You know, I've been fit and healthy, you know, super clean diet for 10 or 15 years. So that was like a massive wake up call. And, you know, like, it sent me down a rabbit hole of five years of research around cardiovascular disease and all the causes. And I've done every kind of genetic test and, you know, regular blood work to try and isolate what it is, but there is. There's nothing genetic that's showing up in any testing. My blood work's all good. So this kind of, like, a lot of it points towards stress or some kind of emotional trigger that could cause these infractions in the arterial wall. Yeah. So, yeah, it's like, you really need to find a way to manage.

These challenging times. Of course.

Yeah, man, that's amazing. Like, just how there's nothing kind of genetic going on or, you know, physical thing, but it's like that emotion and that stress and how it gets to you, specifically as a business owner so how do you deal with that stress and build up your resilience? Is it your morning routine that you stick to, or do you have. How do you set boundaries? How do you do all these kind of things to survive as a business owner? Because I really need these tips.

I think for me, it's like been an accumulation of a lot of things. But I think that, like, the key things was just. I mean, I've always been pretty dedicated with my fitness routine, with my training and with my nutrition. When I was on the oil rigs, I studied sports nutrition, did my personal training certificates. So that was kind of this kind of health and wellness space was always, you know, a pretty big part of my passions. So I felt like I had a lot of the tools to kind of roll over into that. And that was partly what was so surprising, what I found so surprising of like, why has this happened to me at 43 years years old?

So I just really knuckled down on the key things, like the low hanging fruit, which I think is really 99% of everything to do with house health, you know, sleep, optimizing your sleep. Like, you know, traveling every six weeks to America, being on these different time zones. You know, I worked night shift on the oil rigs for six years. You know, this 40% higher cardiovascular disease and night shift workers. You know, there's a lot of things that, when I kind of kind of track back over this 10 or 15 year period that could have played a role in that. But then compounding, you know, potentially an underlying issue with a lot of stress over, you know, starting a new business.

Just kind of everything was. Yeah, it was just an accumulation of a lot of things. So the morning routine was just something that, you know, at the time, you know, and that's kind of healthy space where the guys like Ben Greenfield and, you know, a lot of these fitness kind of gurus that we're harping on about morning routine, I'm like, there's got to be something. So I went to a Wim Hof retreat. I met Wim Hof and, you know, started implementing the ice baths and the benefits around, you know, mitigating inflammation with cold water therapy. So that was something I, I did sort of weekly. I was really consistent with. But mostly it was focusing on sleep, um, and just eliminating any unnecessary stress. So that was kind of pulling back from certain relationships or, you know, less contact with people that, you know, didn't bring positive light into my life.

Can we double, double tap on that? Because we're both single. How hard Is it. Do you find in a business, running a business to actually maintain or even develop healthy relationships?

It's. Yeah, I mean it's pretty, it's pretty tough. I think like you just have such a small amount of time left over and emotional availability. So yeah, I think it depends on the person. Like I just, I've realized that I can't be with people that, you know, kind of expecting too much. Yeah.

And yeah, you just need somebody that understands that and kind of can fit into those gaps that are available, you know, which. Yeah, it's just, it's hard. It's. It can have its challenges for sure.

Yeah. So Bergs is married, happily married. And yeah, I mean it's hard, but it's like you've got a kid, you got a dog. Yeah, you got, you know, and then doing business and crypto. Like yeah, man, you've got to put in. I mean I know your wife, she's awesome.

Like that makes it easy, but that's it. You need to. And I've done other things as well. Like even before this, just like working full time and studying, doing an mba and they're like MBA stands for Marriage Breakdown Assured. Like you need a really understanding partner that you can communicate with that will support you. Even doing this is a crazy endeavor. Like I'm 40 now and building a business, building a remote business, having a family, it's really full on. You really have to want it and be very, you know, directed with, with your time and how you do things. And having an understanding partner is a very important part of that. Especially just the support that they give you because you bloody need it.

No, I agree. And I think, I mean having your own business as well, I. You kind of just need to organize your life. Like there's just, it's really difficult to. I mean I. You can't waste time. You just can't waste time. You know, like, it's not like when you kind of rock up somewhere at a certain time and finish at a certain time and go and sit on the sofa and yeah, do whatever you want, dude. You know, so you need to structure your time and you need to force yourself to do.

And I find even like when I'm dating at the moment, I'm just happily not doing anything, just working like. But I find I've got to block out like if I'm going to see someone on a Friday night, I need like an hour blocked out of my calendar. Otherwise I'm rolling from 6 hours meetings, someone's pissed off from doing HR things Finance is not right. I've got, you know, legal stuff and then roll into a date. It's like I don't want to be here.

Yeah.

I don't talk about your day. I don't know about my day.

No, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

That's not hard.

It can be challenging.

It's like that. It's like, how is your day? Well, it was for these reasons. This is what happened in the company. I don't even. Ben, you've told me you've been on dates and you're just thinking about, oh, how can I access this channel, how can I get more sales, how can I run these ads? And that's all you think about during the day. It's so funny.

You're not present and giving someone what they attention they deserve a lot of the time.

And I find like you're probably the same like my ADHD someone, especially someone that I just don't buy with. They're talking about something and all I can think about is churn rates, our sales conversion. Right. I've got to do this tomorrow for sure. And they're like, what did you do? I'm like, sure. I don't know. I don't know what we're talking about.

Oh dear. Okay, so businesses 10 years in. What's next steps for, for the, for the business.

I need to, I mean my goal is to exit at some point in the future and I'm not sure, 100% sure what you know, I will do post modern pirate. But I've got a lot of passions and a lot of interests and a lot of ideas sort of floating around.

Yeah.

So yeah, this, there's, I feel like there's endless opportunities out there and you know, it's, you know to do something that is a little bit more in line with some of my passions would be, would be ideal.

So the way you set up the structure of the business analysis really like a. Was it a lifestyle business to just pay for the lifestyle you want to live? And, and now it's turning to exit.

I mean when I first started it I wanted to just maintain a lifestyle and have this freedom to be in other locations. So as the further I've got in and the.

My timeline is definitely has changed a lot and a lot of that is due to my education around bitcoin cryptocurrency. I really sort of pushed out this timeline and yeah, you know I, I think a lot of people when they start a business, they, they, they think I'm going to start this. I'VE got this great idea, everyone else is going to think it's a great idea and it's going to take off straight away. And you know, I'm going, no one, literally no one cares. So yeah, that was kind of, yeah, that, that was a bit of a wake up call when I sort of like five years and going, okay, maybe this, maybe it's going to take a bit longer than I thought.

Absolutely. And isn't it just the thing where we taught, you know, you're an entrepreneur and then you make all this money. All you need is an, is an idea that's bullshit. You have to go and execute on it. You got to do sales, market, product, legal, hr, you got to hire your people, you have to have internal processes. It's just, and it can pay all your taxes and everything. It's just an absolute nightmare. There is an endless amount to do and people think they're going to get there in a year or two, but it takes a minimum of like seven to 10 years to build a decent business.

I agree. And yeah, that's something that I, I did not have any experience or I didn't really even have any friends that were, were entrepreneurs. I had friends that had, you know, various small businesses, but nobody that was kind of, you know, doing the sort of long haul grind.

But yeah, I, I've, I've realized that as well that it's, you know, this is something that it's, it just takes time. It takes a lot of time.

It's compounding, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Now, sorry, you talked about Bitcoin as well and you touched on a key thing there. Things take a lot of time. Like in life, there really aren't shortcuts. You know, there are little things you can do, but anything worthwhile, whether it's, you know, relationships, building wealth, businesses, it takes a long time of consistent effort to compound. And I'm just fascinated how bitcoin changed your mindset around that and rather than just an investable kind of asset, actually changed your, your life and your, your outlook.

Yes, so I had, I mean like most people out there, I, you know, you hear things about cryptocurrency or you've got friends that have done well or friends that have lost money. So I had pretty much no understanding or depth knowledge around the industry. And when I first post Covid, when I first went back to Thailand, I had two months in Phuket and I met this girl when I was surfing and got friends and ended up sort of hanging out while I was in Phuket. But she was 26 and never had to work another day in her life. Retired from crypto. So like, she kind of just said to me, like, you need to understand this. Like, this is like a really good time to start sort of going down this rabbit hole. Yeah. And I, like when I first started looking at stuff, it did seem like completely overwhelming and like, I don't have. I realized just I know nothing about money. I know nothing about the history of money or the financial system or really had any long term kind of planning around my life or what, how that was going to look, which kind of scared me because I'm 50 this year and I was like, I probably need to be a bit more focused on this.

So I just went down this, the crypto rabbit hole and started with all the usual places, you know, the bitcoin standard and Michael Saylor talks.

And, you know, I feel like I started putting some money into a couple of different projects, mainly bitcoin and Ethereum. And then I think it was pretty early on, within two months of me investing, FTX exploded. Like Luna exploded and FTX went under. Like, everything started and I put it, like a reasonable amount of money, enough to be stressed about losing it. But in hindsight, it was kind of the best thing. So I started at this, at this time where there was a lot of stuff going on. And I actually felt pretty calm through it all. Like, I felt like I was learning pretty quickly. And the knowledge around, you know, the industry and what was going on, it just kind of gave me faith that, okay, this is just something that, you know, it's just part of the cycle.

Yeah.

And obviously it was probably one of the better things to happen.

You know, I think you'd rather start with that than start in a bull market because you only, you only know the good side.

Exactly.

You've got to know that the bad. Well, not the bad, but you got to know that the tough times to, to make the money in crypto.

I think.

Yeah, yeah. And I was lucky. I think as well. There's an element of luck. I wasn't, I wasn't exposed to anything that, you know, really had major implications. You know, I had probably an 80% downturn in the amount that I invested initially.

You didn't sell? No, I was diamond hand, so.

And I had a really close mate who was, he was pretty deep in crypto as well. But like, he was just really emotional about everything. Like he would sell and buy and sell. And I was like, it's just. Yeah. I realized pretty early on, it's not. Yeah, should have done that. But yeah, I think the more I learn about bitcoin and the financial system and, you know, maybe some of the solutions that bitcoin provides, I just really started looking at everything differently in my business. Where my money was going, what I was doing with my money, my cost of living, like pretty much everything and yeah, where I was going to be putting, you know, my long term savings.

So it makes you rethink. I remember when I first really started getting ahead, I was 17 and I was like just getting my head around it. I literally was just like, why does the world not talk about this? Mum and dad, what's going on? And they're like, you know, they didn't ever really know, you know, I mean I was like, what is this? Like, how is this not known how the world works in money?

I know, yeah, it's wild. And the more you kind of learn and see what's happening.

You kind of question every, everything. It's, you know, it's the amount of people that I bring crypto up with. I mean, especially when I was kind of frothing in the early days who just did not even want to go down that, you know, have that conversation or would not even interested in understanding it. It was baffling to me. I was like, how can you not be interested in this? How can you not know this? And it's, I mean, I still feel like it's like that people just kind of, kind of switch off to it. But yeah, when you kind of start, you know, getting involved in this space, like you realize there is so much activity and so much going on. It's not something that's stagnant and then pops up every time there's a four year cycle.

Isn't it just crazy where we go to work for the majority of our lives to earn money and people don't even want to understand how money works and then you want to have a conversation about it and they either shut off, it's all too hard or I'm not allowed to talk about that. Isn't it just the most counterintuitive thing?

It's wild. And I mean I get a lot of like, oh, this kind of look like, what would, you know, like.

Yeah, yeah. Well, people just conform. They just, it's just like, it just is what it is. It's like you want to go to a trip to Europe or you just have your money. Like, we can never go to Europe because we can't afford it.

Yeah, would you.

Don't you want to know why that's the case? Like, and we're talking about off air, like, I think in Australia that the idea that you save your money, you get a house deposit, you get into a mortgage, and you live a happy life, you know, and even like the 5 to 5% deposit stuff that got going on, you sign up, you pay 7% to the bank for the rest of your life. And what was the math you said before was like a 600, 000 home.

Of 30 years of 700, something like 700,000.

Yeah.

So you're paying back and paying double.

The price of the property over 30 years of the bank.

Yeah.

You get inflation, you're slave to it, and just no one thinks none the wiser. Like, that's just the normal thing. It's like, what on earth is going on in here?

Yeah. And it is. It's like, it feels like there's not a lot of other options. You know, my, my daughter's 22. Like, I know a lot of people in her kind of age bracket. They. It's like they've lost a bit of hope. It's like they know they can't buy property. So where is this path to financial freedom? You know what, you know, what opportunities are out there, but like, it's there. Like, it's there. You have, you know, you have, you know, an alternative. And, you know, we're so early. It's like, it's ridiculous that, you know, we've got exposure to this and like, it's not really that complicated. Like, I feel like I'm a bit of a, you know, a newbie and a bit of a dummy around technology. Yeah. But like, I'm kind of doing pretty good, like over the last couple of years with where I'm now.

You should have an open mind. I think you should have an ability to learn.

Yes.

You know, I wasn't a tech guy either. Like, I'd quit school. We were both. You quit school, too?

Yeah.

So both good school. Like, it wasn't a. It was. It was. It takes a little bit to get your head around, but once you do, if you just stay. Stay with bitcoin to begin with, it just. Everything sort of makes sense.

No, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just. It's just interesting.

Yeah, it is. Aren't we just so ruined by, like, our childhoods and our formative years and what we learn, like, we learn about money psychology from, you know, our parents, our relatives. You don't really teach it at school. And once you've learned that thing. You're like, I'm set. This is the thing. But then you have to take that step to be like, well, maybe this isn't the thing. Maybe there's something else out there and that's really challenging experience cognitive dissonance. And you're like, whoa, the world isn't what I thought. It's all too scary. But the people that push through that are the ones that find another way, potentially a better way. And those are the people that are now set on the path to success rather than the well trodden path of everyone else.

Definitely. And there's a lot of opposition and there's a lot of things that are stacked against this alternative view on things. But I think when you start sort of delving into the space and researching, it's huge. There's a lot of people in there. There's a lot of development that's very progressive. There's, you know, there's opportunities to, you know, find a way to create your financial future. And.

Yeah, man, I have to ask. His collective shift helped the research journey.

Definitely. Like having like a platform that you can actually access real time analytics and data.

Yeah.

About what's going on. Like, that resource is super valuable.

Awesome. Yeah.

So. And just the, you know, the visual elements of the pie chart and your, your stack of crypto.

Yeah, it's just great to be able to log in and view that as well. And. Awesome.

Yeah, that's cool.

It's my kind of. When anyone asks me now that I just direct them to the other. Send them your Instagram or I say just, you know, you can get a free call. Like, I can't. Yeah. I don't know how much value I'm going to add to having a phone call with you. These guys will give you a free call.

That's awesome, man.

15 minutes.

That's really good to hear, man. Yeah. The pie chart's eye opening, isn't it like, to see how you're allocating percentages, but then the different categories as well, and then the research of what's happening underneath, it kind of just gives you a completely different view to the little apple spreadsheet you'd have previously and actually allows you to engage. Go. Oh, shit. I didn't realize this. Ben used it himself for the first time like seven months ago. He's like, whoops. He's like missing this whole category. He's like, right, we need to, we need to take some action now.

No, it's cool and it's great when you have the Conversation like the first call I had with you where you looked at the, the, you know, the, the chart that I had with my breakdown and you kind of get confirmation that you're on the right path or what needs tweaking. So that's awesome. Yeah, it's really cool.

Isn't that so important as well? Where when you came into crypto and Ben and I had this experience and it's part of the reason we build collective shift because we're solving the problems we had. You generally come in with an influencer or a Facebook group and they're like, oh, what do you think about this token? Buy this, buy that. But just to be able to speak to someone reasonable and bounce ideas off them and be like, you know, how does this actually look? And have someone knowledgeable and experienced give you decent feedback, that's so important. And it's hard to find in the space too.

No, I agree. And I can see, you know, why, you know, it's been successful, what you've done because there's a lot of noise out there and there's a lot of. Yeah, I mean, look, I think over the last two years where we've seen a lot of these projects or companies implode.

It'S. Yeah, it's like you really need to be careful about where you're getting your information and.

Yeah, sure, man. Yeah, a lot of out there.

Totally.

For the listeners, any advice you'd give on someone looking to start a business or work remote, any. Yeah. Tips or tricks or.

I feel like it's, I mean, if you are willing to put in the time and you know, do the research, everything's pretty easy to get started. I feel like in Australia there's a lot of tools depending on what business you're doing, but I just think there's a lot of tools that you can use to get a remote business off the ground.

A product based company I think is probably the easiest. You know, there is, you know, warehousing or there's, you know, integrations for your website, you know, outsource manufacturing or finding products to sell.

Resources. I think from, I mean, for me it was just reading books like the four Hour Work Week and creating my own kind of structure around how do I want my life to look and then kind of building the business model around that.

I like that.

And I mean, I'm still doing that now, like post covert. I kind of really reassessed everything again as well and thought, you know, like, is there anything I can do with the business to kind of make this you know.

Remote lifestyle, a little bit easier to manage.

And I think it's, you know, it's having a great, it's having a good team and the right people to, to work with as well. And I feel like I've kind of outsourced, you know, most of these kind of key areas of the business, you know, through distributors or through partnerships where, you know, the customer has a touch point. I can focus on the areas of the business that I enjoy, which is the kind of marketing and the brand direction rather than, you know, the, you know, packing boxes or, you know, the logistical side of things.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And Thailand's the place to be, Mike. Yeah, my goal is to be living there full time so this year I can get a retirement visa for Thailand.

When I turn 50.

I spent a lot of time in Bangkok as well, but mostly Phuket and that's where. Yeah, that's kind of the goal to you have a condo or a fella there.

I love Phuket. I lived there for a month last year. That's when I think we cross paths.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great place.

And Bangalore, you got to be careful. Bangalore Road.

Yeah, come out of there.

Bloody died a couple of times.

Yeah, yeah. I stay in the, in the south in an area called Rawai, which is, it's kind of like where all the fitness hub of Thai, of Phuket is. It's just a lot of really cool people. There's a lot of, you know, people working remotely or all Westerners that are got businesses there. That's cool. Just super diverse. Yeah, it's. I don't know, I just find it inspiring. You know, you're kind of around a lot of like minded people from lots of different places and you know. Yeah, it's great.

That's fantastic.

You know, Melbourne is amazing as well. Like coming back here is pretty special. And coming back to, you know, my organic butcher and. Yeah, yeah, you know, beautiful produce and coffee. Yeah, the coffee. And having access to, you know, amazing nature and, and things that are close to the city as well.

And I was going to ask you, in the kind of wider scheme of investing, you've got your business, you've got crypto, sounds like you're going to buy a condo in the near future. Like what, what kind of areas do you generally invest in or look at because you're a guy that kind of likes to keep it simple. How do you kind of allocate?

So I, outside of the business, I haven't invested in anything else. So I had property in the past, I sold that property and had savings that eventually sort of rolled over into me starting the business.

So crypto is like, I'm 100% invested in crypto.

Let's go.

So it's. Yeah, I'm all in on this.

Yeah. Awesome. So bring it on market.

How was. How's the validation? Felt like the last couple of weeks, mate. It feels good, eh?

It's amazing. Yeah. And I mean, it feels like it's been, you know, kind of brewing. I felt really, you know, optimistic, you know, the last 12 months, really, and I think sort of leading into the, you know, the second half of last year when, you know, there's talk of the ETFs and a lot of other things that it's sort of on the horizon. Yeah. I felt really confident that I've made the right. The right move. And I, you know, I feel like I'm being pretty conservative with what I'm doing in my allocations. So it's. Yeah, I don't know, it seems like it's. It's. It just seems like the one place where I feel comfortable putting my money.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's great. I've. Everyone I talk to, they always think they're too conservative in crypto. Like, Even if they're 99, they're, like, too conservative. I feel the same as well, mate. It's like I need to put more. I need to allocate more, more. What can I sell to buy more crypto?

Yeah, no, for sure. No, I mean, I kind of measure everything like that now. It's like, okay, you know, have one less coffee each day for this week. That's 30 bucks. I can put into Bitcoin or I can. So, yeah, you kind of start measuring a lot of other aspects of your life through. Through crypto.

Fantastic.

And I do want to ask you. You piqued my interest about your heart, and I can't. I'm going to butcher this, but a lot of, like, nerdy podcasters are talking about some kind of calcium test or something like that that everyone over 40 should go for. I don't know if I've got that right, but I want to ask you, because you said you've studied it quite a lot, what are things people can do to check or, you know, simple tests, whatever it may be, that. That you would perhaps recommend so they don't get into an event like they find out beforehand.

So, yeah, the calcium score is a good one. So that. That can detect if there's Any sort of narrowing of the arteries, but it only detects like the hard calcium buildup. There's, you can still have soft buildup, so you might have a zero calcium score, but it doesn't mean that you're completely safe. But that is a good start. Regular blood work. There's three inflammation markers that you can, that you can track, which are just in your general blood work that you get through gp. So inflammation's a big one. Your lipid profile, like cholesterol is, you know, it's quite controversial. There's a lot of people on both sides of the camp that question whether it plays a role. It definitely plays a role if there is.

Infraction in the arterial wall and the cholesterol is going there to try and heal this damaged area. So you can have this build up, but you can do some more advanced lipid profile testing, which I do through a private lab where you test the particle size of the, the LDL particles. So there's two particle sizes. So you can either have this kind of bigger, fluffy soft particles, which would still give you a higher LDL reading, but they're not inflammatory and they're less damaging in the arterial wall. So if you're eating a lot of natural fats, like olive oil, avocados, you know, saturated fats, then you can generally have a higher LDL reading. But if your particle numbers are in the right ratios, then it's, it's not something to be as concerned about. So really it's inflammation. It's, it's a lot of general things. You know, your, your sleep, you know, do you, do you have good sleeping patterns? But yeah, you just, you, you really need to check like sooner rather than later and just keep monitoring those things.

Absolutely. I think that's going to help a lot of people that are listening. And how often do you actually get your blood work done? Like generally it's kind of yearly for the average person. Do you get it more frequently?

Yeah, I kind of was. I was doing it much more frequently for a lot of years after, you know, I had the incident. Now it's every six months. So I'll do like a really full advanced sort of panel and I'll generally do that in Thailand. Like in Thailand there's a lot of anti aging clinics where you can kind of just get this. Yeah, like really detailed blood work. Yeah. So, yeah, and it's just, it's generally those key things. How, how is my, you know, my lipid profile is what's inflammation like in my body?

Yeah, just a lot of kind of general underlying markers. And then outside of that, you can do some genetic testing. I've got a friend in Melbourne that's got a startup, a genetic testing company where they send out kids to your house called Eugene, shout out to Eugene. But yeah, he's a great guy as well. Like the same boat as us starting a business from scratch and you know, in a, in a space that's, you know, got a lot of challenges as well. But that they do, yeah, they do a genetic test that sort of tracks all genetic heart markers. So you can do that. There's a genetic blood marker called LP that you can request when you get your blood work through your gp. If you've got high lp, then you're at much higher chance of cardiovascular disease. So there's plenty of little like boxes that you can tick and check off and like it's. I think a lot of people don't realize that we, you know, cardiovascular disease is starting, you know, from our teenage years and a lot of us.

So, you know, for me this was surprising. I was like, I'm 43, I'm super healthy, as fit as I'd ever been. And then to have something like that happen, it just seemed abnormal. But it's very common, so definitely something.

To look out for. Thanks for all that, man. I'm gonna go back and listen to that and like write it down and take it to my gpa, be like, this is what I need. And you mentioned Thailand being, you know, quite advanced with medical stuff as well. They allowed quite a lot over there and you're kind of in this, you're saying you're living over there, you're in this. Like there's a lot of business owners, fitness community. Are there any like awesome therapies or even like wild stuff, like medical stuff you've heard about over there that they're doing nowadays that we, we haven't really seen over here yet.

Definitely. I mean everything. There's a lot of stuff they're doing. Thailand is a big, it has, you know, huge medical tourism industry, um, the anti aging clinics. You know, we have, we have the same things here but the, you know, there's just a huge barrier of cost to do things here and a lot more regulation. So yeah, Thailand, you can do stem cells, you can do, you know, peptides. There's all kinds of things that you can do through these clinics, which is great. You know, like if you, you know, if you have injuries or you have, you know, things that you want to, you know, try something, you know, a Different modality. That would cost a fortune to do here or it's not necessarily legal here, then. Yeah, you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Isn't it crazy?

Like, you hear some stories about, like, someone needing a knee replacement and it's being fixed with stem cells. It's like a couple of injections. This is crazy.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I haven't done stem cells, but it's definitely, you know, something I've been researching and speaking to some different, you know, medical companies there about it. It's. Yeah, it's much cheaper than doing it in Australia.

So. Yeah, definitely.

Right.

Well, unless you had anything else Burgs, where can people find your stuff on online?

My website for consumer sales is modernpirate.com and I've actually set up a code, crypto20 for any of your listeners for Lifetime, 20% discount.

Amazing.

Yeah, yeah, good man.

If you use the burgers, I mean, you got no hair, but have you used the beard stuff?

Dude, I just found it two days ago. So I, I brought it home and my wife put it in this box and the cleaners came the next day and she put the box away and she doesn't know where she put it and it took her until then just to find it. So I'll be using it tomorrow morning.

Yeah, great.

So I use, I use the hair stuff. My brother uses it. Yeah. So that's good stuff.

Unreal.

Yeah. Crypto 20.

Awesome.

And what about socials?

Modern Underscore Pirate is the Instagram Y. My personal one is Kent Mulligan.

Yep, brilliant.

And yeah, I'd love to connect with anyone in the space and 1 in.

20 if you've got modern 20. Crypto.

Crypto 20.

Yeah. Yeah.

If you got some. Got some hair and needs. Needs a bit of styling for sure. Never check it out. Well, dude, thanks so much. It's been, it's been a pleasure. We'd love to have you on. I know it took a little while to actually get this.

No, it's great. Yeah, I'm stoked to talk to you guys and yeah, keep up, you know, amazing work, what you're doing. Podcast is always great to listen to and yet really enjoying being a member of the. Yeah. Collective chef.

It's awesome. And you're going to come down to the event, right, in a few weeks?

Yeah, I will. I'll come to the event. Okay, sure.

Well, if anyone's coming to our Melbourne event on the 20th, I think it's the 20th or 21st of March. I have to double check that 28th.

I think it is 28th. Is it? Yeah.

Okay. I don't think it's the week before.

Is that okay? You know what?

I don't actually know.

The two events are 21st and 22nd.

So we've got a, we've got a free event on the 21st for our community. If you're at Benneberg's list, they can come to that. Or if you're collect member, you come on the 22nd can all be there for the member one. So as always, thank you so much for listening, everyone. If you enjoy this podcast, you've got a friend or family member that you think would enjoy this, would love you to share it with them. It's how we grow the podcast and we will see you again next time. Thank you, Bergs. Thank you, Ken.

Thanks, Ken.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks, guys.