238. What High Performers Know About Money That You Don’t

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. We're here to bring you world class crypto research strategies and insights to help you crush this crypto bull market. Plus, get an exclusive behind the scenes look as we scale Australia's and now the world's leading crypto research company. And if you like the podcast, we'd love for you to share with a friend or family member. It's how we grow the podcast each every week and we wanted to dive in and do an episode today. What is the best money we've ever spent? Something that I was thinking the other day, as I've grown my wealth, as I've earned more income, what are the things that as you make more money has been the best investments. And on Friday I'm sitting down with my EA and I built this document. It's called Ben's performance stack.

This is the nerdiest thing I've ever.

Seen in my life, mate.

Ben won't share the document, but just looking at it like he's obviously used AI to make it cuz got all the emojis in there and he's literally got a calendar. It's all color coded and it's got like all this crazy stuff in it. It's just optimized to the nth degree, mate.

It's so funny, mate. That is the weekly energy optimized schedule. So good.

So sat down with and while we're doing this is because you earn money in your life but money is just spending tokens. And why do you have those spending tokens? To bloody spend them and make your life better. So Ben's focusing on that now and this is what he's come up with to make himself feel the best and optimize his performance.

And that is the number one thing that I've the best money I've ever spent is on health and performance. So that includes home chef that comes in once a week and cooks my meals. I'm eating way better. Like I'm eating protein pancakes, bananas for breakfast. Like I've got these like quiche things. And then at lunch I've got like healthiest food like I've ever eaten. And then I've recently invested into like a private health club.

So it's called before you get to the health club. Before you were doing the private chef bend, what were you doing?

Just bulk uber eats three times a day.

Just it's like you need like three burritos a day from Guzman and Gomez. I think you own half their company.

Getting out of control. Absolutely out of control. Because I don't. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of like, I don't love cooking but it's time for me. I don't like doing it. Like I get up now and it's all about how can I optimize the most work and the most time out of the day to do the things I want to do. So having the meals prepped now I've got a private membership to this health club where I've got ice bath, got the warm pools, sauna, it's got a restaurant in there, it's got a co working space. Like this morning, got up at 6:37, had my breakfast at home, sleeping mate, slept in Monday morning, went to, went to the gym in the same complex. Went from the gym into the cold plunge, into the warm bath. Then I sat in the cafe, had a coffee, did an hour's worth of work. And then on the way home I found that what really helps because I take ADHD medication by the end of the day I'm like zonked. On the way home, stop in for a, for a sauna and a cold plunge as well. And that gets me back alive again, head home and then like, I'm not this like kind of dreary, you know, worn out guy. Like I'm back on. And that little transition period on the way home has been a massive change from my happiness, relationship, friends.

It's going to save your relationship because.

Otherwise I get home, I'm like tired, I'm, you know, probably stressed about something happened today or, you know, whatever. Just to have that little transition period to go home, do that before is just been a game changer. So yeah, my thing is being best money. I meant best money I've ever spent is being on my health.

Yeah, same. It's wild, right? And also people need to understand you're a busy CEO. The amount of stuff you do in a day is insane. Your calendar is already booked out. There's not even space for the own work you need to do or spending time with employees or the challenges or crises that happen. So trying to, although this sounds outlandish or trying to wake up, be like, I have to get my clothes, my laptop, I have to go to the gym, then I have to figure this out the next thing and where do I eat and where do I work, do I have WI fi here? Am I doing a call all this is solved by that. And they even like wash your clothes and stuff. It's like it's made for business owners right where everything is there. You literally, your job is just to get up and get there in the morning because you got a tsunami of coming at you throughout the entire day and it just makes it easier.

Yeah, they're just. It's literally like built for execs and, you know, CEOs and people or athletes as well. You know, anyone that just wants to really optimize to get the most out of it. So, yeah, that's been a huge game changer. I think the other one as well though would definitely be like having Alice, my ea. Like without her, my life would be an absolute shambles. You know what I'm able to optimize, my time on with her is unbelievable. Like literally every minute of every day is in the diary. Like travel, what I do, she manages it. All the priorities. Like, I was just looking at my Google calendar insights. On average I spend 40 hours a week just in meetings. On top of everything else I do brand Bennett Bergs, you know, running the business. All of that is managed by her. So every hour I get more through. The health side of things is literally is great. But then also being able to go home and actually, you know, not be falling asleep and not wanting to talk to anyone. It's very helpful as well.

So 40 hours. What do you do after Wednesday?

Speaking of sleep, you8 sleep as well. Are you still rocking that? Yep.

Eight sleep, game changer. So being able to cool my body. I'm a really hot sleeper and I usually just suck at actually being able to cool down if it's too hot. So having the eight sleep to cool me down, massive game changer. Magnesium.

How is it? How is it now? I'm assuming you both sleep in the same bed. You might not you and the Mrs. Now you've now you know, because sleep hygiene is a big thing with partners. Like a lot of people just sleep in separate beds at the end of the night because sleep's just the most important thing.

Yeah.

Has it made a difference if you sleep in the same bed?

Massive. And in true bend format. We a B tested sleep.

When.

You'Re such a nerd.

A B tested with Laura in bed. So different things. The eight sleep has actually has different temperatures so that for the different types of. Sorry, different sides of the bed. So we optimize different because you can change it from when you go to bed middle of the night, dawn. So you change that. We've adjusted you know, the blanket, the room temperature. Like mate, we've, we've split tested all.

So yeah now the eight sleep's been great. So good without that like yeah, we wouldn't sleep together. I'd be outside.

That's oh fantastic. So let's move on to your principles to build around and then I'll get into some of mine.

So this is just on my performance stack that I gave to my ea. It's just around like optimizing the time as well. Like you can be busy but like are you actually doing stuff that matters? You know sitting down and just doing fucking emails or replying to messages is not helpful. Like it's really for me about prioritizing the most important deep hard work at the periods of time when I've got the most energy. So like you know, in the mornings I'm very good creatively, in the afternoon not so much. Right. So blocking out and dedicating the morning to creative content and then structuring the day around, you know like the health side in the morning and the end and then doing afternoon for like admin calls, different things. Knowing that in the afternoon I'm not as creative. Like I. We're getting maybe 2 million views organically a month on my personal brand. Like we're pumping out five to six unique bits of content a day. Like to, to get all that content recorded optimized is like massively important for our business. That has to happen in the morning. So structuring that, getting the us stuff out, making sure sleep is good, nutrition is good. Like everything is so important. So yeah, that's been a big, big change.

And in here you've got weekly energized, optimized schedule. And the categories are gym, recovery work, deep work, admin calls, meals reset, walk home, dinner, wind down, sleep. How are you finding adhering to this schedule?

Yeah, so what throws it out is when we're not organized. So this is now with, you know, with my EA and Alice, like she's in charge of this because she's the one that books in all my calls. She's the one that does everything. If she's not doing this well then it's not going to happen. So like we're four or five, six weeks scheduled out into the future. Like we have daily and weekly meetings just on my schedule. Like this is the most important part. Otherwise like the, there's an endless amount of I could be doing opportunities everywhere. Hundreds of messages I get on my social media, emails, opportunities. Like we've got 20 full time staff like there's so many different things you'll be doing and we're still a small business. Don't give me like, I'm not trying to make my life seem harder than most. My point is though, like if I can work on the most important stuff, the hardest challenges, the biggest roadblocks, that'll grow the business that's going to have the biggest effect. If I get caught up in all the minutiae, all the bullshit, then that is not going to be helpful. We're going to go backwards. We're going to, you know, not going to get things moving and speed is a massive, massive, you know, advantage that we have. So having this scheduled in and reviewed daily and weekly is a huge, huge win.

Otherwise your mental health's going to be tolerant, you're going to be fat and sick. Rip. It's all over. Yeah, awesome, man.

What about you, mate?

Yeah, same. It's, it's health, man. The best money I've ever spent. So for me, my general principle is like the over optimized life is not worth living. So I have different times of the day for different things and I like having flexibility. And I think the things that have really changed my life has been my ice bath. Big game changers to the point where I'm buying one and putting it in my backyard. I got a little blow up on at the moment, but I'll get that one. That personal train has been a huge one. So in the gym four times a week, plus get out on the mountain bike and do walks as well. Massage is a massive game changer for me. Got a lot of inflammation, few injuries and I think the other big one will probably be getting coaches because I have, you know, a personal trainer. But I want to get other coaches in my life to just learn other things. I don't know what those things are like. One of them will probably be something like a small group Krav Maga coach. So I'm running around, I'm learning, fighting, I'm doing stuff. I quite enjoy that with my mates. I'll get a mountain bike coach so head out to the bike park and pick up some skills and probably a couple other ones. Like, I don't know, it might be something crazy like singing or an instrument. I don't know, just something weird just to get the brain going. And I think those are the kind of things where if I'm hitting the gym, I've got massage and I think another one might be a chef. I've looked for one for so long in wa but they're hard to come by. They're very restrictive. They want to get you on weird subscription models, and they cost an absolute bomb. So at the moment, it's meal prep for me because I don't mind cooking. I love, like, barbecuing. And even when I'm out there and I'm on meetings, I'll have the Weber going for like, eight hours. Check it, like once an hour kind of thing. And just have all these awesome meals. So, yeah, just looking after my health.

Because if you don't, like you said.

The other week, if you don't have your health, you have nothing. And health really is wealth. I'm sick at the moment. Got Covid from the Mrs. And I feel like. And I have to go to Singapore next week. I'm like this. I've actually had a few viruses, haven't been in the gym for, like, three weeks, and I feel like crap. And I just can't wait to get back to it and build myself back up. Because you feel like an absolute ninja when you look after yourself. And the whole point of this, Ben, is like, when you're on the plane, the oxygen mask goes on. You first look after yourself first. Then you can look after your partner, your child, your business, whatever it may be. So look after yourself, folks.

100. Yep. I was watching a video recently. Like, a billionaire was talking about you. You. You know a person's wealth by how much they look after their health. That is the number one thing. And I was like, fuck that. That hit home like, someone is wealthy by how healthy they are now. Obviously there's some things you can't control. And I'm very grateful that I'm, you know, feeling healthy. But, you know, looking after yourself is a big thing.

Absolutely. And it's. What is it? The. Oh, yeah. The average man wants, like, a thousand things. A sick man wants only one. And if you're very sick or on your deathbed, how much money would you pay to be not sick or have another month or year of life? You'd pay infinite amount of money. So just be aware of where you're spending your money. And having money is not the thing. Like, spend on things to change your life.

Love it, leave it there. That is the number one thing that has been the most valuable thing to us that we spent money on. Health is wealth. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, we'd love for you to share it around with a friend or family member. It's how we grow each and every week. And Burges we'll see you next time.

Thanks, James.