24.Twitter Masterclass By Elon? Crypto Outlook 2023, Decision Making Framework

Welcome back to another episode of the Benneberg Show. Your favorite MBA and college dropout talking everything, crypto, sport, business and life. Today we are talking about Coinbase has hit all time low stock numbers. Why on earth we're still in crypto? What got us in here and has our views change on all the crap that's been going on in the last few weeks. We've also got Twitter having mass layoffs. It's mass labs across all tech. When I talk about crypto. Crypto, sorry, just tech in general laying off an absolute bucket load of player, bucket load of team members and Berg's going to help us calculate our net worth in under five minutes. So it's gonna be fun. And also wrapping up with hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life how this guy named Jersey Gregorgek has has a happy body at 67 and a few other things around personal growth. Wrapping up with as always our meme of the week, middle of the week, kindness, gratitude and accountability.

Bergs, how are you doing?

All right, mate. I've recovered quite a bit. Feeling good. You're mate, you finally found a room at the wework. You're just getting amongst it.

We work is good but it's, it's so frustrating. Like having to book rooms go from like a hot desk. It's like a hundred bucks an hour for this like little room. Apparently someone else booked it. I didn't hit the book button properly. Like someone might just walk in and be like get the fuck out. Like it's good but it's also really frustrating sometimes. Like not having a dedicated office and working remote, traveling around all the time. It's so frustrating. Like I'm literally carrying my office with me, my microphone, my camera, my laptop. I'm living out of a suitcase. Has its pros but fuck it as its cons sometimes so frustrating.

Absolutely, mate. I did it for like a week and I'm like, no, I had enough, mate. Imagine like doing. You're doing podcasting and everything out of your hotel room. It's absolutely crazy. Even Hayley sent me a list of co working spaces and the different pricing and wework is kind of at the top of the pricing but what you actually get is quite good. Like I've been to the Perth wework with you and I'm like this place is amazing. It's buzzing, the views are awesome. It's got, you know, heaps of scene. It was just great. And then the other ones were kind of, yeah, they had a nice view but it was just kind of corporate Offices shoved into the side. And it doesn't have that big atmosphere where you gather around, you talk to other people and you feel inspired and you want to work. I think they've really nailed that kind of that vibe and that cultural aspect of it.

100 I like. That's what I like. We work about and it's pretty centrally located here in Melbourne. Like I was looking at going to this other space but it's like a 12 minute tram ride. It's kind of like dark and you know, glee and there's no one really there. And you sort of just like feel sad like. And you got to get a train or tram.

Yeah. Oh absolutely. Yeah. That's it. Mine. So mine is going to be half an hour away. So I'll have to go to the city to go there. But for me I need to get out of the house because I'm just always at home and all my mates work in the city so I'll be able to catch up with them. It'll be fantastic. So that's something I'm definitely going to hook up.

How do you find working from home all the time? Like is it. I mean, because a lot of people have gone from them moved, move to home working. But we've seen like Elon Musk come in recently be like, right, no one's working from home. Everyone's in the office. Everyone's just cracked the shits and got mass layoffs. What do you think about working from home versus in person?

I do like in person a lot and that's one thing I miss. Like meeting with my team face to face, having a coffee, having a whinge. All this, all this incidental stuff going full remote is very different. I don't mind it. But I do miss the people aspect. Like I need to be around people, I need to be around my team. Even going to WeWork. I'll be around other people but I'm not actively working with them. It'll still be remote, it'll still be over a screen, but at least I can have lunch with people and go out to drinks. So it's a nice kind of model. I'm a big fan of a hybrid model. I've been doing it since 2010 where I'd work two days remotely from home and three days in the office. And it just allowed me quiet time to get my work done at home and then also be around the people at work.

Because we had a lot of cross functional teams and you really need that high communication, high contact in order to get things Done and moving quickly and get iterative kind of feedback. When you're building product, doing it remotely, it's a bit more challenging. And then there's also the aspect of work just doesn't stop. I even had that problem when I was working in the office, but even more so now where it's like I'm on my computer or I've stopped, but I'll still load this up and I'll just see what's going on here. And it takes a lot more monitoring and a lot more discipline to actually have time away from work and not think about work. It's very hard to do.

Yeah, I miss the collaborative. Like in person, when you're looking over someone's shoulder, you're sort of working on something, like you're whiteboarding something out. You have like, talk to different people, throw ideas around, get excited. Like, I miss that energy that you get in person. You just can't replicate that remote. And also just what you get in a room when like what we had in our off site, like the strategic thoughts, you go deep in an area, you know, and you're going for four or five, six, seven hours. Like, you can't get that anywhere else, especially remote. Like, you're not going to sit in a zoom room for seven hours. You just want to top yourself.

Exactly. And I loved like going out to Melbourne week before last, getting in a room with you guys, writing around a whiteboard and be like, why do you think this? But no, why, but what do you really want and why do you want that? Like going really deep and looking in someone's eyes and there's nothing like it, man. It is the best way to communicate. And this is the other thing. If you're running a startup or you're running a team, like, try and do it in person. Like, doing it remote is like, is hard mode. It is very, very difficult. You don't, you don't get the kind of, you do get inspired, but not at the level that you would when you're in person and when you're kind of, you know, with someone else and you're working together and you're competing against other people and that energy just drives you and you can just pop over and just be like, hey, what about this? And just constantly communicating. Because in the digital world it's like, oh, you know, you type something or you do something else and then someone's busy or they're not there or they're in a different time zone and you have to schedule a call when really I just Wanted to say two sentences to you and you drop a voice message, but it doesn't quite translate. It's just. You can get it done. But it's definitely, definitely hard mode.

I. It's a bit of both. What I like. I think I like the hybrid model. But then again, so from a business owner's perspective, opening up your talent pool globally is unbelievable. Like, we've got some great talent overseas that you couldn't get if you were just restricted to one zone, time zone, or place. But then the opposite side of that is like, you don't know unless you have good protocols. You don't really know what people are doing. You can't get that communication like you do in person. You don't get that energy from having an office environment.

But then also, like working remote, you get the freedom, you get the ability to do what you want when you want in your own time. You can work from wherever like that. It does have pros and cons. I think a hybrid model, ifas the best model, even if you have a centralized location where a team could come in for a few days and work, you know, every now and again, like you're in Perth, you would come to Melbourne for a few days and work from our office, for example. Or the model we were looking at is like, where you get a WeWork pass and you could. You're not with our team, but at least you get that office experience. I think it's important.

Yeah, get out, get out of home. Different environment. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's not one way or the other. It's not all in the office, it's not all out of the office. Hybrid is definitely the way to go. And even remotely, it does add a lot of management overhead as well. Like, you have to be really thoughtful about where your employees are working, the tasks that they're doing, how they relate to other employees. Have you set up, like, we have snack bar chat where people can kind of talk to each other on a Friday. Do you have formal and informal communication channels? When do you meet with your employees? How do you, you know, assess and manage their performance? How do you give them feedback? All this can be quite challenging when you're doing it in a remote way.

I like the. The geek bot thing we got set up where people write in, like, the. The things they achieved the day before and the things they're working on today. Like, that's cool. You sort of get. You scroll through and see what everyone's working on for the day and then gives you a good little Oversight, a bit of accountability as well and planning.

I really enjoy that because if I let one or two things slip and I'm putting the same thing in day after day, I'm like, hang on a minute here. And it's a really good signal to other people for the top notes on what you're actually working on and how it relates to what they're working on. I always check that every day to see what people are up to and if I can lend a hand or if they're. Because it's, it's. Yeah, what you achieved yesterday, what you're doing today. And are there any blockers? And especially in the blockers. A lot of the time it's no, but sometimes it might be, oh hey, I can't do this thing or I don't have this access or I don't understand this task I've been given and it really helps out. And that combined with our all hands meeting is really, really good. And then our snack bar chat meeting as well. Like those kind of three things. Really good to get a sync across the team.

Greatly agree. While we're on that point, I wanted to touch on freedom through discipline and also this idea of hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. To quote that. Not sure who the quote's from. Berg I was listening to a podcast, it was my first millions. But talk us about this Jersey guy. Jersey gregoric, the happy body 67.

Yeah, Jersey Gregory. So that's one of his quotes. This guy is a beast. So if you google him is J E R Z Y. Gregory is G R E G O R E K. This guy's a weapon. So he's in his late 60s, he might even be 70. And he's just an incredible dude. He's written a book called the Happy Body and he's a trainer, he's a poet, he's an author and mate. He just looks a million bucks. Like this guy is incredible. And he's trained people like Naval Ravikant Tim Ferriss as well. And he's basically given them every day a 30 minute workout in the morning to do a little bit of resistance training, stretch all their muscles and the way they move is amazing. This guy got people in, he got strong people, Powerlifters, everyone. And they didn't even pass the warm up. Like this guy's flexibility is just insane. And he trains for what? For function, for what he wants to do in his life. And he's completely free. He doesn't answer to anyone. He writes his books, he runs a couple of classes Every day he stops at lunchtime, he stops work. He goes with his wife to the same restaurant every day. He'll have a shot of vodka, some potato chips, and then they'll order whatever lunch they have. And it's just. It's an amazing way to be. Like, he does his craft and this whole notion of hard choices, easy life, easy choices, hard life. So we all know we have to do things in our lives that we don't want to do. They fucking suck. And we put them off and put them off. And the more we put these things off, the more difficult our lives become if we make that decision, to make that hard choice. I'm going to exercise today. I'm going to do my taxes today. I'm going to make that phone call that I've been putting off for so long, has been mentally torturing me for months. You make that decision, you do that activity, your life is immediately better because you don't have to worry about that occupying your brain and what might be. And the worry or your body doesn't feel tired, it feels loose because you exercise and you did the thing and now my taxes are done. I don't have to worry. The ATO is not coming after me. I don't have that stress anymore. And this is just a fundamental concept. We apply this in our business all the time. What is the hard thing we need to do? Throw everything else in the bin until you've done that hard thing, and you just immediately feel better. And you know you're going to feel better if you tackle that thing. And it's never as hard as you think.

This is funny, right? I have a example of this hard choice, easy life, Easy choice, hard life. And it was in my past relationship.

I knew deep down that it wasn't working for a little while, but the idea of having to, like, break up with someone was just, like, too much. It was too hard. No way. I was like, fuck that. I'm just avoiding it. Hopefully it'll get better. Might get better. Like, just keep trying. And deep down, you know, you got feeling, you know, when something's not working out. And after I made the decision to break it off, it was really at the start, like, that decision and just going through and like, you know, trying to deal with that and all the stuff that comes around it. But what life is like now beyond that is great. Like, in terms of. I knew it wasn't working out. You know, she was an awesome person, but it just wasn't the right time. It wasn't for us. And you know, now I wouldn't say easy life, but in terms of like the decision or how I feel afterwards, I feel great. I know I made the right choice. I feel relieved and I'm sort of on a new path and journey. And if I didn't make that hard choice, you just keep going. If I kept going on with that relationship, it would have kept sort of dragging me down and making me feel shit. And knowing that I wasn't really on that growth trajectory but made the tough choice came through and now on the other side, I'm on a whole nother level. So one of those things that was like resonated for me around like avoiding the tough conversation when you know you need to have it so bloody difficult to do, but after you do it, oh, life, life is tend to be much better.

We did this so much all the time. Relationships is a big one. Another one is in leadership and management. We let things slide. We don't have the hard conversation. We don't pull people up on that behavior or if they're not performing, we don't want to have that difficult conversation. Or if we really should let that employee go because it's not a good fit and they're not performing and they don't necessarily want to be here. But you know, you have to make that choice. It means more work for you. You have to hire someone else, you have to have that conversation with them. It's really, really difficult. And another couple of quotes that really fit in with this is what do you want now versus what do you want most? And I think about this all the time where it's like, I'm hungry, I want that fucking ice cream. That's what I want now. But what I want most is to be healthy and fit. So no, I'm not going to eat that. Right? And that's a very simple example. But if we upframe that and apply it to the rest of our lives, what things are we doing in our lives? So we feel comfort immediately. We get that dopamine rush or you know, we sedate ourselves or we hop on the source, whatever it may be, the thing we want right now, if you didn't do that thing or what are you sacrificing by doing that thing? You're sacrificing your long term goals. And the thing that you want most, whether it's your, you know, sobriety, mental health, fitness, whatever it may be. And again, like another quote from Jocko is freedom through discipline. Which is just amazing, right? Where it's, yeah, if you're ultra disciplined. That gives you a lot of freedom. If you wake up every day and you exercise, you meditate, you eat well, you know, you look after your body first, then you kind of do your work and you have positive boundaries and you have that discipline that provides you a lot of freedom. And it's things you do, but also things you do not do. I don't engage in that. I won't do social media. I won't try to do 50 million things that just affords you this big whack of freedom and a completely different life. But again, that's a hard choice and it's very, very difficult to do.

Freedom through discipline. That's. That's fascinating. Even things about what we've been speaking around recently around, like even sleep and the quality of sleep and how that dictates your day, you know, saying no to the, the sugary dessert after dinner or saying no to snacking. I'm in a bad rut, right? The moment where I'm just like snacking after dinner. Like I have a big. The other night, like just a huge bag, like burger rings or some. Or then I had a Krispy Kreme and I'm like, just rolling through the snacks.

Don't get me started, mate, oh, mate. Okay. So when I came back from Melbourne, first of all, we had, week before last, we were in Melbourne, so actually weren't eating that bad in Melbourne, but it was just hectic and like, hardly any sleep. Didn't even have time for exercise. Just, just hectic after that, came back, got crook, had proper, proper food poisoning. Campylobacter, thank you very much. And that was just. That wrecked me. And from that, it's like, you know, you don't eat well because you're sick, but then your body craves calories. So I'm just eating whatever's in the house. Eating like packs of Pringles and haven't worked out for two weeks. So I'm easy choices and I'm having a hard life because now I feel I am recovering, but I feel like trash. My back feels sore, I need to exercise, but at the same time I need to be kind to myself, right? And this is the balance. It's the dichotomy of everything where I need to be kind and be like, okay, you were sick, you're still recovering now you got like a cough and a little bit going on. Just be okay. Eat a little bit better today. It was your wife's birthday yesterday. That's okay, you know, eat a little bit better today. And go for a walk, maybe do some push ups and then tomorrow, you know, we'll get back into it. It's about easing back into it, not, oh, I fucked up. I might as well just go down this path, throw everything in the bin, you know, like, try, try and get back on track. That post you did on Twitter.

Yeah. It's like not living it, taking a day off, taking a rest day is okay, but not trying to be like a 10 all the time. It's okay to be like a 10 or 10 or a 2. Remember that, that analogy? Like 10 out of 10 or 2 out of 10. Yeah, like, it's okay. Like, try and find somewhere in the middle, just like, have some small wins, build yourself back up. Rather than like, oh, no, it's all over. I'm at a two, I'm snacking. Like, like, no way. Like, I'm all over. Like, let's try and just get, you know, let's get to a five or.

Six, you know, Everything's so extreme. Like, I've been having a lot of heated discussions with my friends lately about a lot of stuff going on in the world. And people are so extreme. They're either 0 or 1. There's no middle ground. It's all, you're either this or you're in that camp and you're a piece of shit because you're against me. There's a lot of, like, I heard Chamath talking about this, where people get online on social media and what they. You try and steel, man, their arguments. So you go on and you post something, say, oh, I deadlifted 100 kilos and 90% of the comments are just gonna be negative. Oh, you're a piece of shit. You should be lifting more. You're still fat, whatever it may be, right? And you try and steal, man, their argument. Where are they coming from? And these are a bunch of people that have been given a set of rules. They're played by the rules. They're, you know, working and they're not accruing. This is what your math has said. They're not accruing value in the way that they want or getting rewards for what they've done. They might have gone to uni, got a job, but they're still in a lot of debt. They don't have a house. They're, you know, inflation's absolutely crazy. They're not feeling their valued and rewarded. So just to get that kind of pressure valve off, they'll go online and just spew out this kind of, you know, Hatred or just, just dish out the pain just so they can feel a bit better about themselves. I see this quite a lot. And it's always like an on or off thing. Like there's no kind of middle ground at all of okay, I understand the argument, I understand this but, but what about this little in between place and relating this back Looking at ourselves, we're not robots. We can't perform always at 100%. Like this is your job. You work eight or 10 hours a day, you do these things, you absolutely smash it out. It's just not realistic. Like I kind of set that for myself but all my employees, I'm like, that's not realistic. You're an idiot. You can't do that. You're a human. You're a human being, you're not a robot. And even in your post of like even robots need maintenance. Like how hard do we. Where does this mentality come from where we have to go hard all the time? We have to be producing, we have to be over producing. And the day that we don't is like, oh, I'm a fucking loser. I'm nothing. Even though you've had 90 days of production. It is so crazy. It is. I fight this every day and I struggle with this every day.

Yeah, I struggle too. I think I tend to be super hard on myself. Like I make a bad decision or made the wrong call. You know, look in hindsight and you just kick yourself in like what, like what was I doing? You're so hard yourself, then you just tend to work harder than you get sick and then you're not as efficient. It's just like this ever evolving like, like, like cycle of not being able to get on top of things and be sort of nice and kind of like you really should be the nicest person you should be is like to yourself, right? Be kind to yourself. Oh, it's hard to do.

I'm the worst to myself. I, I'm my own, I'm the worst self critic. No one could treat me as poorly as I treat or think about myself. I'm that harsh on myself. Yeah, and it's so wild. Like I've taken like leaps and bounds to get better at it and cut myself leeway and put strategies in place. But I'm still shocking at it. Still so shocking. And yeah, just this is whole mentality of we have to constantly be producing and that's what we tie our worth to rather than just enjoying life. Like it has to be a metric and it has to be success or it has to be money or business revenue or education, whatever it may be, we. And then the comparison of that as well. It's so easy to fall back into that trap. And even I did the social media thing. So I was in bed for a very long time. It was hard to get out of bed. And I was on Twitter, I was like, oh, ftx, so spicy. And then I start to get in that loop, it starts to affect my brain. I start thinking that way and I'm those Twitter spaces going for like 24 hours straight. I'm jumping in down those go, oh, what's the goss? What's happening? And just what that does to your outlook and your mental health is just so easy to get caught in that trap, man.

Yeah, always fascinated by life, baby. I'm not sure if it's like, you know, when you're watching the movies or, you know, you see people that go out like the jungle for a week and like completely disconnect and they do like, like ayahuasca or something like that. And they do this like Phil, like, you know, probably self discovery. I've always been fascinated by that. And like one day I'm not sure if ayahuasca is the actual guy. But like always fascinated by. It's fascinating to hear stories of people coming back from those experiences going, oh, like I understand myself now and like I've come back a new person. Like that stuff fascinates me.

Oh, you got to do it, man. Like this. Oh, everything we've been talking about, I'm just going to upframe that and just call it the human condition. Like before it was like back in the day, it was about, can I survive? Do I have enough food, Do I have a job, Do I have a home? Is my family. Well, we've pretty much solved all those problems. Now it's like, who am I in the world? What is my status? Are we playing a status game? Do I have enough wealth? What game am I playing? How long am I in that game for? And what do I, what do I look like to everyone else? And you need to escape those things. And what you're talking about there is with ayahuasca is people go away from their busy, hyperconnected, hyper productive lives. They do ayahuasca or they go into places with no cellular reception and they have a reset. And when you take those drugs, like I've heard a lot of people talk about it. I haven't personally myself, but it's almost like your ego dissolves, like you don't matter, you know, all the things that you were like, if I took away Collective Shift, if I took away, you know, your business, your podcast, your everything, who would you be? What would be left over? That's who you really are. And if those other things didn't matter and they weren't tied to your identity, it's very freeing. So I haven't gone on that path and done the drugs, but I have reached that state before, where I took about four weeks off my previous job. I had long service leave, and every day I woke up, went for a walk, meditated, read books, hardly went on the computer at all. And I was just relaxed, man. Like, I was like. Like I was talking like this. I was just so super calm. And when someone would, like, I'll just be, like, driving, and I would just be smiling, Like, I would just be happy. That's just, like, my default state when nothing's bothering me. You know, there's. There's money in the bank. I'm still getting paid. I'm not at my job. And I was just calm, and it was about me and my thoughts and my family, but it was just. It was a phenomenal experience. And I went back to work, and people like you fucking changed. Like, people come with all these crazy business problems, and I kind of just be sitting in my chair going, you know, that's okay. It's just like this. And this is the way to look at it. It's all right. And. But two weeks after that, I was just back in dickhead mode. Because you're around that.

You're around back in stress mode.

It's very. It's very hard to maintain, you know? Yeah, it's so hard to maintain.

That's fascinating.

Oh, mate. So, oh, you're going to South America. I recommend. Well, I don't recommend. I think you should look into doing one of those ceremonies, mate, to see how it goes.

Yeah, I'd love to, man.

With, like, a proper shaman. Not one of those backyard ones, mate. But you know what happens when you take ayahuasca, right?

You get up, don't you? You go crazy. Like, you just breathe.

Yeah, mate. You puk and you everywhere. When you're on the journey, mate, you'll be puking and pooping everywhere. Did you know this about ayahuasca? And are you prepared, mate?

So I did know about it. Answer is, no, I'm not prepared. That's why I haven't done it. Because. Because I'm, like, in hell, and I'm kind of scared about the idea of, like, it's kind of a scary thought to have your whole personality, like, ripped away and just to go super deep on who you are. Like, everything stripped out. Like, what that, like, like that's kind of scary. Like, I kind of think in my head, like, what if I come back and I'm like a, like crypto collective ship? Like, I'm gonna be a. Like I'm gonna, I don't know, be in masseuse. I don't know.

Like.

What'S wrong with that?

Well, I love what I do.

Like, if you discovered your path in life, that would be.

But I love what I do.

But what if you had an experience that then reframed your entire life and what you want to do is completely different to what you're doing now?

That's what I mean. Like, I don't know if I want that. Like, I want to. I want to do what I'm doing, you know?

Yeah, it's interesting where you do have these life experiences and things will change. A lot of them are like, you know, you have a health challenge or a chronic illness, or you get married or you have children and those decisions are kind of made for you because it changes your life. You have to focus on other things now. Yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna be very interesting. Another one is because IASA generally goes for quite a long time, like hours and hours. And Tim Ferriss talks quite a lot about this and he was saying how with his, he went into doing like a five day fast because he's so extreme, and then did it. And then he actually almost had a psychotic break when he was there because he had all these memories of when he was a child and all the things that happened to him that were repressed, that came up and he was lucky. There was actually a psychologist there that kind of helped him out and put him back together, which was really interesting as well. So he was talking about, you don't know if the experience is going to be good or bad, but you should know if the experience is going to be safe. Like, are the appropriate people there to guide you through? Do you have medical care? And another version of it that a lot of people do is like the businessman's ayahuasca is dmt, where it's a relatively shorter experience. I've heard it's up to like 15 minutes, but in your brain it's 15 minutes real time. It can seem like years where I've heard like so many podcasters talk about it because all podcasts are on dmt. You realize in a Year or so, we're just going to have to do a DMT episode. Episode. Right. Like, even Ari Shafir, he was saying how he had all these different relationships with people and he had children and he had different marriages and went on and on and on. All the stuff that he saw. Or Mike. Mike Tyson talking about it, where he did the toad venom. And he was just saying he just wants to do it again because his entire ego disappeared and he didn't matter. The world was just so big, he didn't matter in it and he just felt this peace within himself.

Wow.

Rather than. I have to do this and I have to get that thing and I have to get after it. I've got this huge ego and I have to succeed seat. It sounds just like a very peaceful, humbling.

Yeah, it's kind of fascinating. That's why I want to do it. But I'm like. I think you're right. Like, I want to. Don't go to some dodgy bloody place and come out like, you know, needing help and there's no one around. What's.

What's wild is a girl from my high school, years ago, she just popped up in the paper and she. She's in bloody, I don't know, South America somewhere. And you get a plane in, then you got to take two or three hours on a boat to get to where she is. And she runs one of those little places with a shaman. And it's got all these, like, little huts and they just do ayahuasca all day long. And I was thinking, all right, that's very different from the girl she was in high school, but she married some. Married some bloke. I'm pretty sure he was from Perth as well. And then they flew out there and that's what they do for a living now. It's absolutely wild.

So I'm going to South America in February, man. Maybe I'm. I've been popping in for it.

You got to line it up. You got to do something, mate. You got to have an experience.

Ayahuasca in South America, you could just.

Make sure it's, like, reputable and safe.

That's what I mean.

You got to be prepared, mate. You've got to be prepared that your life and your frame of reference might change.

I don't think I'm ready for that.

And the things that are important to you now might not be important to you after.

Yeah, I don't think I'm ready for that.

All right, then. Probably just. Just get on the beach.

It Sounds much better.

You can have other spiritual experiences that aren't that extreme stream as well. Like you can, you know, go to a jungle, you can disconnect, you can see different cultures. You can do a lot of things that aren't necessarily that. There's, there's a couple people on our team that have actually that have done it. You should talk to them about their experiences.

Who's done? Is anyone done on our team?

Yeah.

Okay, I wait now off the pot and we have to figure out who they are.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if it was. I think one's done ayahuasca and two have done dmt.

Well I can't even know that that.

Have actually they've talked about it. Yeah, it's like the tech bro.

We swap Panadol, Panadol pills and sleeping pills and do ayahuasca.

That's it mate. I think, I wonder if it's because working in tech in a startup is so extreme that you need to reset and you seek out these short sharp experiences that give you asymmetric upside and hopefully benefit.

Well, I was looking into one of those like retreats in Queensland where you go for like four or five days into just completely like you know, switch off for four or five days. You just get like massages, you just eat like vegan food. And yeah, that's a bit extreme, you know, going down the one end. But it does sound good like the idea of like forced reset. Because the problem is with me, like you find the same, you try and take a day off and your phone's going off and then you're on social media and then you see an email and like you're not taking a day off.

Like how, how are you supposed to reset and look at yourself and who you are and go deep. If you've got all of the things that distract you in your normal life, you need to be removed from that in order to do that. And like my sister in law, she's been to like a silent retreat. I think that went for like 14 days. I think she did like a seven hour one.

So like full on. Yeah, imagine like not, not talking.

You just don't talk.

That's, that's meditate. That's intense.

Yeah, I think like there's, there's like a guy you can talk to like 10 minutes a day kind of thing. Um, but yeah, you go like days without talking to anyone. You eat food together and it's just a silent retreat, fully disconnected where you're just, you don't talk and you're just with the thoughts in your head. So I met, which can be very, very.

I met someone in the States, she worked in crypto. She was higher, high up, like sea level at a very like well known, like everyone knows sort of company crypto. And she said she just got back from like a 7 day or 14 day silent retreat and just said it was like life changing, like just insane.

So I, A lot of the podcasts I listen to, especially highly productive people or people that write books or have, you know, amazing views on life. What they do is when they plan their year, the first thing they'll do is I'll plan a month off for like a meditation retreat or something like that. That's the one thing that's non negotiable in their year. And they'll go away without their partner and go to that retreat because it just kind of gets you back to baseline. It's a reset. It's something you look forward to in the year and it helps you understand who you are, how you're driven, your values, what you want to do in life to plan for the next year.

Have you done a meditation retreat?

I haven't, man, no. I've only ever meditated by myself. I've never done group meditation. It's always been, yeah, a solo activity.

Have you done DMT and.

No. Would you. It's. I think it's on my list. I don't have this burn. I don't have a, like a massive burning desire to do it like next month. But I think it is something that I would want to experience just from the way that a lot of people have spoken about it, where they speak about. It's almost like going to another dimension and feeling just connectedness and you don't matter. But that's a good thing. So it takes away all of your ego and I like all of that spiritual side. I need to look into it a lot more, but I think it's something that I would do. Yeah, I would look at a lot of the, I would look at a lot of the medical research side effects, mental health challenges and everything after that because you really only hear about people reporting good things about it. But I'm sure there are a lot of negative effects as well that would be quite concerning, I think.

I think for me it's like a step, like it's a leveling up thing. Like I'd want to start at a meditation retreat, like a, like just switch off three or four days, just go silent and just go like real inner self, natural. First see how that goes, like leveling up. It's. It's like. It's like going from not investing into crypto to 100x BitMEX long on, you know, on AAVE, you know, like, you're not going to do that.

We. We know how that. We know how that.

Yeah, yeah.

Ricky wrecked. Unless you've got God mode on it.

I think you want to, like, build up, like. So I. Maybe that's one of my accountability things. I've always thought about it. I've looked into a few. The one that I got a quote back was just ridiculous. Like, it was like a full personalized thing. That wasn't a group thing. Like eight grand for like three days.

I was like, fuck, that's. That's a bit full on. You just need a bloody hut somewhere. You need some quiet. You need a bit of nature. Even Bill Gates used to do this a lot. So I think it was even monthly where he would take a week off and he would literally take a bag full of books. He'd go to a cabin and he would just think. He would just read these, like, literally, like textbooks on AI and stuff like that. Just keep reading books. He smash it. And then he'd think about the challenges he had in his business over the previous three weeks, go back refreshed. And just having that time to himself with no distractions would just enable him to have that unlock that next level of thought and where the business was going and what he actually wanted to achieve as well as learning at a very intense rate. And he would take that back with a renewed kind of view on things and be able to solve those challenges.

I want to do that. For me, like, my. My concentration levels are like, just whacked anything in the afternoon. I can hardly read, you know, read an article without, like, thinking about something else. Even in conversations, I've realized, like, I start to think about other stuff even when I'm with someone, like, they start talking, I've just become disinterested and start thinking about something else. And then also, like, thinking about internally, like, who I am, who I want to be the person I am. And, like, more like understanding yourself. That's what I'm fascinated about. That's why I want to do it.

And you think about the life you're leading. So I was in Melbourne with you for a week and I got a taste of what your life is like. And just to be living out of a suitcase, checking in and out of hotels all the time, moving your stuff around trying to find somewhere to go. Where do I podcast from? I'm at a wework. I just got kicked out. I have to find another room. What am I doing in the business? It's another conversation. It's another investor meeting. I have to talk to my PA now. We have to do some finance stuff. It's always like short, sharp.

Yeah.

Kind of things. And you don't think many days ahead. And I'm wondering what that does to your life. Your planning, your attention span.

Attention span. It just gets, it just gets crumbled because you constantly think about the next thing. It's just like constant, constant. It's just like non stop. And I think, I think that's where I'm like, God, does that hurt? Hasn't hurt, but I can, I can recognize that my, like the wires start to like frizzle out a little bit. Especially for an evening. Like I just can't concentrate for long. In the mornings I'm okay, but in the afternoons it's just like, you know.

Just, it's hard to stop. So I think, yeah, especially at the back end of the year as well. Like coming in November, December, you're worn out from the year anyway. It's been a huge year cooked.

Just the sheer amount of things and the context. Switching, switching, location switching and then working out, where am I now? What do I eat? Where do I exercise? How do I move this around? What's going to happen? This is going to blow up my day. I need to move things around.

That's constant. It's constant. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like when you, when you think about it, like, and that's my brain, even when I'm in conversation, he's thinking about three things that's happening from, you know, next. And then like a thing I need to reschedule and that, that conversation I had and something I'm going to move and I'm. You just, you're not present.

How do you feel? Do you feel out of control or do you feel like you have control over things or things are just getting scheduled into your life and you just.

Have to not feel out of control. I feel.

I get frustrated when things aren't in control. Like I'm a control freak. So I need to have things like, you know, like I had a conversation with my PA like yesterday. I get adhd. If there's, like, if there's a, there's a calendar thing, like overlapping something else. I'm like, I'm like spazzing out. My arm starts to twitch, you know, Like, I need that cleared up. I need everything. I need it lined up. I need it, like.

Clean and precise. But yeah, my life runs around, literally evolves around a calendar, you know, and, and, and, and the. I think the extreme person who does this is like Gary Vee. You think about Gary V's are like three assistants. He's having like nine minute meetings. He's in and out. Like, that guy is just insane. Like, I'm not at the level that he's at, but I feel as though like, even the level I'm at, I'm like, holy fuck. This, this is, this is insanity. You know, you need two people to manage your life and it's not plus.

You, you know, I think you would be like him if we had an office. You'd be in and out of stuff all the time. If you had an organization that side, you need me that size, you'd be like, oh, you need me. I'm in here. Let's do this. Let's do a video, let's go do a talk, let's do the next thing. I can even be easier than what you're doing now, like flying around and trying to sort out different cultures and locations and visas and money and where do I eat?

That's the frustrating thing.

Is there a toilet nearby?

That's the first thing. What am I having for lunch? Where is their food? I need to go to that thing in half an hour's drive. Where am I doing the podcast? Like, this is. This has been the biggest transition period for my PA coming on board. It's like, I need to. Like, I can't. Like, I'm doing a podcast today, but I'm on a flight in Brisbane. Well, I need to sit down in a quiet place. I don't have an office. Okay. Can I get in the hotel early? Do we need to get a hotel earlier? Do I need to go into a studio? But then I've got lunch after that, so I need to be out by then. What if I'm running late and you reskit? Like, it's just insane, mate.

You got to sort it out. At least. At least a few of the activities are coming to an end by the end of the year and hopefully my. Hopefully next year. My hope for you is that you'll get. You'll be a little bit more under control, mate.

Honestly, I think for me, like, I need a gym.

Meditating and journaling of a morning, and I'm good. If I don't have. If I don't do those three things like, wrap it up, mate, the day's done. It's not gonna be good. It's gonna disaster. Do you have those four things in your day that like. Yeah, you know, you may not be doing them now. For example, you said you're a bit of a slump right now, but like, are there things in, in your mind you're like, I need to do to be on top of my game?

Reading. Yeah, read, reading, meditating, and exercise. They're. They're the three things. So reading is if I'm bored or I need to change my frame of mind and get into a different space. That helps out a lot to disconnect from all the thoughts in my head. Going for a walk or exercising, that's just great. You look at nature, it turns on all the proper switches in your body. Your body starts working great. And man, even having like a half hour nap, that's a big one for me as well. Like if you starting early and then half hour nap and then you can work afterwards, it just, it just works, man.

Out of the, out of those three, reading, what was it? What did you say?

Reading, reading, walking, meditating.

What are you doing right now? Out of those three?

Oh, like today. Have you done any of those three today? Reading, meditating, and I might get a walk in depending, but reading, amazing.

Yeah. You're not, you're not like, you're not at the zero?

No, no, not a zero. Definitely not. I'm not at where I was with exercising, but reading, I definitely need to do more. And because I couldn't even concentrate because I was so unwell, meditating, I still did even when I was unwell. And that helped out quite a lot just to not worry so much about getting sick. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. I find when I go to my two, like, I'm not doing working out, I'm not meditating, I'm not journaling. I'm certainly not reading.

Yeah, journaling's hard for me. Like, I still need to write a lot of stuff and I haven't gotten around to it. But once I start, like, do that initial thing, like, the pages just come out, mate, and you feel so great afterwards.

Dude, it's like a talking to a psychologist. It's just like all this comes off. You just feel calm.

I'm actually finding journaling is more effective than meditation. If I have to skip meditation for whatever reason, I'm not feeling it, I can't do it in that time, whatever. And I Journal. I actually find them all right. Journal and gym.

I think so, too. I think journaling for me, because I have a lot of interactions during the day. I've got a lot of things going on. I've got a lot in my life. Getting it out of my head and onto the page frees me up significantly. Whereas meditation will help me with calmness and help me to be okay with what's going on. But it doesn't last as long as journaling. Yeah, like journaling will last a day or two, like exercise does, but meditation's more like.

Five hours. Something like that. Yeah.

That's 30. Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. We've got it, mate. Should we. Should we dive in? Let's dive into Twitter.

Let's do Twitter.

Let's do Twitter.

Hit me.

All right, man. So your boy Elon's taken over Twitter. I'm actually enjoying watching this unfold. So Elon's taken over Twitter. He bought it for 44, Billy. He jumps in there and he's literally doing the MBA slash private equity playbook. He's gone in there, you've got a big company with a lot of staff. He's got a vision for it. He wants it to be profitable as anyone would. Any business owner would want free cash flow. So he's gone in, he set the tone and direction, saying, this is what we're doing. We're fundamentally going to change. We're going to work like a startup. If you don't like it, there's the door. So about 50% of the staff have been laid off, which is just insane to think about. And he basically gave people. First of all, he went in and he removed a significant amount of teams, saying, these are redundant or this isn't the direction anymore. And for the rest of people, he said, you know, you're gonna have to work long hours. You have to work very hard. You're gonna have to be elite just to get a pass mark. If you're in, great. Sign this little thing. If you're not, then that's great. I'll give you three months severance. And a significant amount of people took up the severance. There's also debate around how he did it. Even though California has at will labor laws, there's going to be significant lawsuits because you can imagine a lot of people have big packages and tied to equity. You know, he's changed their role significantly. Is it fair? Fair? Does it obey the labor laws? The one thing that I am enjoying about this is.

We'Re taught in our MBA that culture change takes a significant amount of time, five to 10 years, to shift a culture from, let's say, a big bureaucratic culture to an innovative one. You have to restructure the organization. You need different teams, you have to instill different values. You have to have shared wins and experiences. You have to have the right people. And it takes a significant amount of time. We're seeing that on fast mode with Elon and he's building in public. He's literally tweeting all of this stuff out and he's saying, this is what we're doing, this is where we're going. And what he's doing is it's the go fast path, but it is incredibly volatile, incredibly risky. But we get to see with these large tech companies if they can run a lot leaner, if they can survive with a leader like him, the leader that he's going to install in a few weeks. We get to see that experiment run live and what the repercussions are going to be for all of tech. It is a phenomenal thing to do. It's got a very low chance of success with the way that he's doing it, from what we're actually taught. But if he pulls this off, everyone else in private equity is going to be like, oh my God, these tech companies can run a lot leaner. The tech companies themselves are going to have to look at them and be like, well, Twitter's super profitable now. What is my board going to say? What are my shareholders going to demand? What do I need to do in these companies? It is just amazing that we actually get to witness this.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on this whole Twitter thing, man, about Elon coming in.

And just going, I love it. The pace that he's been moving at is phenomenal. Right? Like he's gone in, he's launched Twitter Blue $8 a month. He's updated the moderation policies, he's working the bots, he's fired half the staff he's building in public. And how this guy is like in with the devs, taking selfies, like working hard at like 1am in the morning when he's got all these other companies that he's building. This guy is also not just the CEO of Twitter and owns any more. This guy's running Tesla, he's putting rockets on Mars, he's building Internet for anyone in the world. This guy is doing a shitload of stuff. Like, he's setting the bar for what is possible by the human species. Like, he is a literal machine, the neuro link. He's building stuff for implants in your head. Like, this guy is unbelievable. And still got time to get in there in Twitter and like, you know, reply to comments and, you know, make happen like, phenomenal. It's been fascinating.

He's. And he's literally following like the change management model, like Cotter's change management model on steroids. It's an eight step model and this is what it is. So step one, increase urgency. He's done that. Step two, build a guiding team. Done it. Step three, develop the vision. Step four, communicate for buy in. Step five, empower action. Step six, create short term wins, which is what he's doing with Twitter Blue, showing them that they can move fast and they can change things. Step seven, don't let up. Step eight, make change stick. Like, he's literally following these NBA models and playbooks, but doing it on insane person mode. And I do feel for the people in the company within Twitter that thought Twitter was something, it was going in a certain direction. Now that company has been acquired by someone else. They now own it. It is now about them and the direction and the tone and the pace that they want to set. It's fundamentally different to what Twitter was. And it can be very jarring for people. It can be hard for people that have had to take that redundancy. But we need to accept that in business. This is what people do. Companies do get acquired, they do merge with other companies, they do have tough times. They need to cut to strategies, and this is just what happens. And honestly, man, I'm enjoying watching this experiment.

Yeah, no, I love it. I think it also just goes to show, like.

Action wins, you know, and making shit happen wins, you know, city. I hate the idea of bureaucracy and I've never worked in a large company like that. But you just see Elon's not about that life. He's about, like momentum. He's about wins. He's about just making sure.

And I love that he's like, I'm not about that life, fam. This is what we need to do. But for him to, to get in and all of those people, and you see the photos going around with like the Twitter engineers and people going, where are all the women? Because there's no women there. Which is a fair criticism of the engineering team. And also, like, hated this one. Like, people saying, hands up if you're a visa holder, because everyone looked like they were of, you know, either Indian, Asian, or let's say Mexican.

Ethnicity. And I'm like, you can't make those assumptions about people, like, some people will just want to work for Elon. They will want to go hard. They might have been upset with the bureaucracy and the pace that things didn't move and they wanted to cut a lot of the legacy stuff, but they weren't able to. Now they can move fast and work at the level that they want to work to. This will be very inspiring and is and motivational for these people.

Yeah. And even to see, like, Elon's skill set, like, he's literally in their mind, mapping the Twitter algorithm with developers as the CEO. But this guy is smart. He's got so much knowledge in so many different areas. I think that's what makes him so valuable is his ability to provide value and input in every area of a business. I think for most CEOs, like, even me, you know, for example, like, I don't have specific knowledge in areas like, I don't know code and development. Like, I couldn't do that. But I think that's what makes him so magical, is his ability to have such great understanding in so many facets of the business.

People that have been interviewed at Tesla, they were saying he will just go from, you know, top level. This is our strategy. This is what governments are doing. This is what this person is doing. This is how and where we compete, right down to the most esoteric note on coding and a specific language and how it works. And you're like, mate, that's pretty. And, you know, you. We see these things from. He is an extraordinary human, but we. He's not a God. We don't need to give him all of this credit. But he is actioning. He is a man of action. He's getting in there. And he, like, even with Twitter, like, he. The first day he brought the sink in, he's like, let that sink in that I am here. Things will change. Like just those visual cues and artifacts that people need to understand, okay, this is going to be a fundamental, fundamentally different business. Where we are on Monday is going to be very different to where we are on Friday. And getting in there and instilling that with those people that want to go in the direction that he does is an absolute masterstroke. And now the next thing is to be able to hire people that align with the vision and install a management team that will carry out that vision, because he's not going to be there forever.

I want to take a quick pivot in terms of what Elon's done with Twitter to coinbase hitting all, all time, low stock price, hit an all time low of 40.61.

As well as you know, the major crypto.

Like bitcoin, Ethereum, also falling to recent lows as well. Bergs, what are your thoughts on Coinbase, the crypto market as a whole? The wider crypto contagion we've spoke about in the last episode with FTX, we've seen Bitcoin. Bitcoin at the time recording at 15, 800 USD could be going lower. What do you think?

I think Coinbase all time, all time low. It just makes sense. There's not a lot of people in the market. They're not producing, they're still profitable, they're not producing a lot of money. The way you value.

Public equities is you go through their finances, you look at their future value, the milestones that they're going to hit and then you know, you set a target or you discount it from there. If you miss the target then the price goes down. Also, it's a proxy for bitcoin on the stock market, so people are going to hammer that, they're going to put big shorts on it. The reason people, oh, and Coinbase is a company I'm very happy with. I'm very satisfied with their reserves, the way they're regulated, the way they've carried themselves throughout this whole market.

How they've gone about their business for years and they're even fighting a lot of regulation and government fights where a lot of crypto companies aren't. So I'm definitely satisfied on those fronts personally in that company. In terms of crypto you're spot on where things are going to get worse. We haven't seen nearly any of the contagion out of ftx. Even the list of people that were affected in their creditors was like 150 companies long. The majority of those are going to to zero because they had a lot of their money with FTX and they won't be able to get that back. And we're going to see that over the coming weeks and months. Who has been affected, who has recourse against them are the Australian and U.S. subsidiaries. Okay. And they actually had holdings but the Bahamas one didn't. We don't know what's going to happen in that space and I do think things are going to get more hectic and I do think that is going to affect price and I also think in terms of me and crypto, not much has changed fundamentally. Bitcoin is still the same, Ethereum is still the same, people are still building. And if you think about having the Blockchain and a source of truth and then all the different intermediaries and the products that sit on top, the intermediaries have been affected and there will be contagion, there will be lessons learned, there will be a shakeout. And I do think that shaking out the bad actors or the businesses that were just hanging on needs to happen and it is a good thing for crypto overall. Mate, what, what are your views on crypto as a whole and, and Coinbase and potentially Contagion?

I think Coinbase is going to be the shining light of all crypto. I think just the way they handle themselves from a transparency perspective. The product that they have I think is really great. I think finance are going to be there alongside but in the short term I think we're going a lot lower. I think we see Genesis. There's talks of Genesis potentially on the verge of going under, which is a huge, we spoke about the other pod. They're a huge institutional lender to grayscale. They've got a lot of loans out, they've got a lot of money in the market that potentially could be all evaporated if they, if they go under. So I think there could be more for selling to come. But in terms of DeFi, like we see decentralized exchanges and DEFI products continue to get great volume. Volume like Saw, you know, Uni, Swap and AAVE still getting great volumes because people can go away into these decentralized ecosystems and make, you know, use those products just as, just as well as the centralized products are. But you don't have that, you don't have that centralized risk. So I think Bitcoin's bullish. D5 bullish smart contracts bullish. That hasn't changed. Just the intermediaries and those centralized exchanges I think are going to, yeah, having of course most of the short term risk Australian exchanges I saw. But Blockchain Australia come out today and put in like it's like a new policy where they will actually.

For those exchanges in Australia that agree to it will send quarterly and yearly financial reports to Blockchain Australia to showcase they have one of one reserves and that they're not trading client funds. And the Blockchain Australia will communicate that. Those exchanges have, you know, opened up their books and they're transparent and they've got that one, one for one backing. Interestingly enough I saw that list come out and I left a comment because Coin Spot was not on that list and I'd love to know why not.

So like they, they did it, they did an announcement. It was actually them that had an unqualified audit, which is a good thing. Like we talked about last episode. They were the ones to put it out. But some people have come out. I think it might have been grayscale as well. Or Genesis, one of the two where they said by providing an audit would decrease the amount of security that they have and would be a risk. And I'm thinking, oh lad, that's a big statement. Especially in this where everyone else is coming out and having proof of assets and proof of reserves. But you honestly have to wonder that you've got a team, you've got an exchange and yes, you have your assets there and you're taking a clip of that, but is that enough to run your company? And at what point do you dip into those customer funds, whether that's legal or not, to a certain percentage. And really we're talking about 1 to 1 reserves here. Banks themselves are like 5% reserves. That's the way they operate. Right. So. And if these are institutions, they're becoming like banks, they should be regulated like banks. Yeah. If they're actively taking deposits from customers, they should have a higher scrutiny so people just don't lose their entire stack.

And I was saying by any stretch, that Coin Spot don't have those one to one reserves. I think they've been. Do you know, if you look online, that's probably the tightest with security. They don't have any of their employees on LinkedIn. You can't get in touch with anyone. Like it's all in terms of like phone numbers. It's all very hush hush. So they're very tight.

Was this Coin Spot?

Yeah, Coin Spot. You can't find anyone on LinkedIn. Oh, you can't. Anyone you email with. They don't have last names, they don't have email signatures. It's very like you can only interesting as an employee. You cannot. They don't put out job ads. Like you can only get a job if you. If there's a referral by someone internally.

They're wild man on their own security front.

So yeah, not to say I understand that from a security perspective for sure because otherwise you can just get accosted. Someone shows up at your house and.

But anyway I will see. We'll see what Blockchain Australia say around Call Spot. But all the other big names are on there. Swiftex, you know, Binance Australia Independent Reserve, you know, lb, all on that list. So we'll see. See where it goes, mate.

Incredible.

Rodio. Oh, mad saying good chat let's get into.

Accountability of the quarter.

You want to do that or we've got time to do the net worth?

Oh, yes, let's do net worth. How to calculate net worth.

All right, let's go. All right, so folks, this is going to be how to calculate your net worth in five minutes. Really easy to do. And again, this is not financial advice. This is a kind of quick and dirty back of the napkin to see where you are financially positioned. Don't make any decisions based off this. Please go and see your financial advisor or strategist or someone that is qualified before you make any decisions. All right, let's get into this. So this is very, very simple. If you're listening on the podcast, grab a four sheet of paper, draw two lines down it. So you've got three columns. In the first one, you're going to write assets. Middle column, you're going to write liabilities. Third column, you're going to write equity. This is just the basic accounting equation. To do a balance sheet, assets plus liabilities equals equity. All right, let's go through it. So we're going to write down your assets. Your assets might be different to the ones that I list here, but I'll go through the main asset classes and you can write them down. All right, so let's go with assets. Let's say you've got a house, and it's worth half a million dollars, right? $500,000 in the assets column. And let's say you have a mortgage against that property. The mortgage is $400,000. So either you paid off 100 grand there or your house is appreciated by a hundred grand in value. So the equity that you hold is $100,000. And you write that in the far right column. So assets, house, 500 grand. Liabilities, mortgage, 400 grand. The equity you have is 100 grand. All right, let's say you've got superannuation or a 401k at $100,000. The liability on that is zero. We're not going to factor in tax here. So the equity that you have is another $100,000. All right, let's say you got a car. Your car's worth 20 grand. Good on you for not over capitalizing on your car. Good on your fam. Let's say you've got a $10,000 loan against that car. So in the assets column, you've got 20 grand for your car. In your liabilities, you've got $10,000 for the loan. So the equity you have is $10,000 and what we're doing here in the assets column is your assets are generally stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. And assets are anything that you can turn into cash. So you can sell your car, you can access your super for cash, and you can sell your house.

Now, let's say you have a student loan. At the moment, the asset on that is zero. Let's say you've spent all the money. The liability is 30 grand. And let's just say this, this is actually a student loan. Let's just call it student debt. So you've gone into uni and you've got 30, $30,000 worth of debt. And the asset, your actual diploma is worth the $0. You can't take that to a pawn shop and you can't sell it to someone for an amount of money. There are kind of intangible benefits because you've learned. But look, asset, $0 loan, 30 grand. You actually have negative equity minus $30,000 from that student loan to pay off for your degree. Let's say you've also got some shares at 10 grand. Chuck that in the assets column. Liability $0 because you bought that with post tax dollars. Equity is ten grand. And let's also say you got a Michael Jordan rookie card because you're fancy, but it's not the top one. It's only a $10,000 one. So go through your collectibles, any gold you might have, Bitcoin shares, bonds, write all that stuff down. Michael Jordan rookie card, $10,000. Liabilities, $0. So your equity is 10 grand. All right, after you've done this super easy sum up the columns. So if you add up all of your assets, your assets are worth $640,000. And you can even create a pie chart from this. You'll see your house is far and away half a million dollars worth of assets there. But you've also got your super, you've got your car, you got your shares and your Michael Jordan rookie card. Add up your liabilities. If you add up what you owe against that, the 400 grand mortgage, the car loan, the student loan, that's $440,000. Assets plus liabilities, that's actually minus $440,000. Your net equity or your net worth is 200 grand. It is that easy to calculate. And the amount of my friends that have even done MBAs that haven't done this for themselves to see their financial position. And again, this is just a snapshot in time. I recommend everyone does this because it'll be so eye opening as to what you actually own, what you have and where the majority of your wealth is. Everyone should spend five minutes and do this exercise by themselves or with their partner to just see where they are in life and then contact the professionals and do some planning to get to where you want to be. There you go. Five minutes. Your personal net worth.

Brilliant. Bergs, Nice work. I remember you did that with me a couple of years ago and I was like, oh, shit.

It was. It was astonishing for you because you were a business owner, so you got to see how much of your money was in the business business, but that was highly illiquid. But then your liquid funds, with your crypto and a few other things, you got to see what you could access and where your capital actually was. And it'll be. It'll completely change for different stations in life. Like, your super will go up significantly when you're in your 50s because it's been compounding year after year or the investments that you have. It's just a brilliant exercise that everyone needs to do and take five minutes out of their life to do.

Okay, accountability burg. So update on my side. Silk still fundraising. It's tough stuff going, especially in this market, and I'm sort of over just meeting with investors, but I'm still grinding. Still got a lot of deals coming in. I've got another meeting tonight, 10:30pm Just go do what you'll do, mate. You gotta keep grinding. Make it happen.

Can I say as well, we. We talk about this all the time. People that are just interested will do what's convenient, but people that are committed will do whatever it takes. So Ben started early in the morning on the Same start at 7:30, go all the way through. I've got a board meeting till 9pm tonight. Just keep going. Big Tuesday, but 10:32 for an investor meeting, we've got DB who's sick at home, and this is. This is a due diligence meeting and he has to jump in for the finances and he's literally in bed with COVID and he is still jumping in because it's what needs to be done to move the needle on our fundraising round. And the people in our business are just so committed. That is. It is unbelievable, man. You just have to do whatever it takes if you want to succeed.

You need them to start up 100%.

Definitely. Could you imagine being like, oh, I just can't attend that meeting? And it's like one of the last due diligence meetings to unlock a significant amount of capital. Like, how would you feel and what kind of person would you be? Well, first of all, you wouldn't belong in a startup because you have to do crazy things in order to succeed.

Tell that your way. What have you got for me? Have you got anything accountability wise?

So as of last week, because. Because Ben.

He changed it from a Thursday to a Saturday, so, you know, just knock off half my Saturday record better and prepare. It is now Tuesday and we flicked over from accountability the week to accountability of the quarter or longer term one. I haven't locked mine down, so I want some. I don't just want to spout off something and be like, oh, I'm going to do this. It has to be something significant, it has to be life changing and it has to be something that I want to achieve. So I haven't come up with that, but I absolutely will by next week. And we're going to set like a quarterly one, so it has to be meaty and it has to be difficult and where at the end of the quarter, if you achieve it, you'll be a significantly different person or skill set or you would have moved the needle on something. So I will report back next week, everything about it, because it has to be good. I'm not just going to get like a little. Yeah, that's just dumb. Like, I'm not getting a filler one. It's got to be like this. I've got to get it done. Yeah, yeah, bro. It's got to be legit. Absolutely legit.

Right?

All right, mate, are we going meme.

Of the week or whatever you want, mate. It's up to you.

All right, let's go, let's go. So I've got a couple.

So this one had me in stitches. This is the ascending clown meme where the guy's putting on makeup, more makeup, a wig and then. So the first one is putting on clown makeup. Ignore the Epstein Maxwell client list. This is just the government, right? Just ignore it, mate. Don't worry. Next one, more clown makeup. Ignore Hunter Biden's laptop full of secrets on it. Next one, putting the wig on. Ignore FTX money laundering. And I saw a cracking meme where like all these people get done and SBF walks out. Like he actually gets paid, he doesn't go to jail. So ignore the FTX money laundering. And now he's put an FBI cap on. Investigate Ticketmaster.

Where the tickets went to like 40 grand a pop. And the FBI's like, oh, we're going to investigate that. Like the regulators, they're like, no, we're not going to do any of these heavy shit. Like, it's like, oh, my God.

Classic, right?

All right, let's go to the next meme. So this one has. Has a bit of spot. This isn't the spicy one. This isn't the spicy one that we might have to cut out the fourth one because it's got a bit of spice. So this is Elon posting. It's Brokeback Mountain. And he is. Oh, I forget the other guy's name. That's not Heath Ledger. And he's got Twitter on his forehead. And he's got CBS News just giving a big cuddle from behind, saying, why can't I quit? So good, because everyone rags on Elon. But honestly, Twitter has been the most fun it has been since I can remember. The last two weeks has been hectic. There's been spaces. And then let's go to the next meme. You got the CEO posting stuff like this, which is just so spicy. So he's. He's unlocked Donald Trump, right? He's Donald Trump's accounts on there and he hasn't posted yet. So Elon Musk post this. And the caption is. And lead us not into temptation. It's like from the 1800s. You have a lady of the night prostitute on the bed. He's got a Twitter stamp.

Look, just over the goods. And you've literally got like a priest or a brother there. And he's got his hands together, class going, oh, just. Just looking at it, just like leading him into temptation. And he's got Donald Trump over the priest. So Donald Trump looking at Twitter on the bed, getting tempted. It was just like, can you imagine being the CEO of a big company and tweeting out something like this? Which is risque. It's potentially sexist. It goes on. It's attacking politics, it's attacking religion, and it is just, oh, my God. Like, this guy is just off the rails. I couldn't believe it. And then this is what I post up. We might have to blank this one out because it's a bit spicy. It's literally a couple of Pepes and a cat that's got a couple of lines on the table. It's got sprinkly powder all over its nose and his eyes just like, oh, my God, what the. And this is just. This sums up the crowd that is looking at Elon going, what the is going on over there? I can't believe this is happening. Just like, oh, my God. It is incredible, mate. It is incredible. Incredible.

So spicy, mate.

That is that is meme of the week. Let's get into meal of the week. So I'll crack mine off. So this is what I had yesterday. I. I went out with the missus for lunch and we had this amazing ramen. The tonkotsu, like, broth just had so much collagen in it. The pork was just delicious. It was fatty. It was just fell apart. And, mate, this was just an incredible meal. And this was takoyaki. So this is basically kind of like a savory, deep fried ball with octopus inside. And then you have like the lovely, like, coupon mayonnaise and barbecue sauce on top. Top. That was just delicious. And accompanying that, we had yam fries. So yams are just like, really. They're kind of like potatoes, but they're really thick and awesome and moist and they just really hit the spot, spot with this kewpie kind of mayo, spicy mayo. Mate, this was delicious. I want to give this an eight and a half out of ten, mate. It just hit the spot. It was cracking. It was a delicious meal, mate.

Unreal.

Loved it. And we've got. We've got your meal, mate, which isn't coming up.

Okay, so there we go.

What have we got here?

I went to Nobu on Saturday with my sister. Went full bougie, mate. Unbelievable.

Big spender.

Unbelievable Japanese.

I haven't even been to.

No. Oh, my goodness. It was unbelievable. I. I hadn't been there in, like, three or four years, and it was sensational, mate. So we had a heap of food, but this here was a cod and miso. Cod. Yeah, yeah. And it was the most unbelievable fish I've ever tasted. It was like you just put your spoon in and your chopsticks and the fish would just break away. And it had this glazy, like, honey, sort of like sticky, like, barbecue sauce on the outside. Oh, I can still taste it now. It was unbelievable, mate. Like, it was so soft and moist. It was so rich and flavorsome. We had this with, like, Nick, I've heard.

Yeah, I've heard. This is the dish. It is there, the black miso.

It is their. It's their signature dish, the black miso cod. Oh, and then we mix it with, like, we had nigiri and we had dumplings and we had, like, tempura prawns and. Oh, mate, we went all out. A nice little glass of white wine. Oh, it.

How much did that run you? How much was the bill, mate?

I was like, yeah, it's pretty. Pretty expensive.

Hundreds. Yeah.

Yeah, it was nearly. Yeah, 300 bucks. I think after. After a lot.

It's expensive to eat there. Is it worth it, though?

Oh, yeah. Man, this was unbelievable. So head down to Melbourne Crown. If you're in Melbourne, head down to Nobu. I think it's globally as well. Get the black. The black cod. This burgs. She's. I was still. Even the next day, man, I was like, that was so good. It's like a 9.8, man. This is a 9.8. Look.

Look at the banding of fat on this.

Oh, man, it was just so like.

It looks like perfection.

Nagiri. Mate, that was Tasmanian salmon. It was like. It was the softest salmon I've ever. It was like melt in your mouth. And even the. Even the dumplings, man, it was wagyu beef dumplings. Like, you could taste the beef inside the dumpling. It was like real beef. It wasn't like this weird, like, paste. It was like proper wagyu beef inside these dumplings.

I was like, oh, man, that'd taste so good. Oh, my God. Have you been to Japan?

No. No.

I have to go, bruh. We got to go. It's not my favorite.

Okay, Lock it in.

You'd love it.

Lock it in.

Oh, do Japan trip. So good, mate.

Awesome, man.

We got. Let's. Let's finish up with our kindness or gratitude of the week, mate. You got a couple there. Walk us through.

So, just grateful my sister came over the weekend. She's moved to bed. Bendigo. She got drafted in the wnbl. She's, like, killing it in the basketball. She came over and stayed at my house on the weekend. We had an epic weekend. Went watch the nbl, went shopping, Ate like. We had just so much good food. Went to Nobu, had Korean barbecue. Went to Good Eva, like, the chocolate ice cream shop, man, we just went all out. It was a wicked weekend. And then I offered this guy. I was getting maccas other day. I was offering this guy. I like to. Sometimes when there's, like, homeless people at the front, just like, offer them food. It's just a. I don't know. It makes me feel good, and I think sometimes they need it. This guy, I think, was not really with it. He was like. He sort of screamed at me and said he wanted money. He said, I think it was like looking for drugs or something. So I said, look, man, no, I can't give you money. I'll give you food if you want. He sort of turned it down, but I think it's something nice to do. And I actually said it to my son the day that acted surprised. Like, you know, you offered someone, a homeless person, food. But I think it's like 10, 15 bucks. Nothing. Like, it's not gonna hurt the kitty. I think there's something nice you can offer. That's the first time I've had someone decline it. Yeah, I tend to buy people food sometimes, but, yeah, I think it was on a different planet.

Yeah, I do that as well, where I'm not comfortable giving people money. But I ask them, I'm like, are you hungry? Would you like something to eat? And I just get them to look around, just be like, what would you like? I'll go get it for you, I'll bring it back for you. Yeah. Because that way at least I know they're eating the food. I've done something for them. Yeah. I'm just personally not comfortable with them giving them money. Yeah.

Because you can give them something, like, something you know they're going to use it. Well, not to say that all of them use it for different things, but, you know, you know, you're actually doing something good for them and it gets a bit of, you know, bit of food or, you know, whatever you can do to help them. So. Yeah, anyway, that was mine.

Yeah. I think it's also, like. I think it's something that. Yeah, I think it's something they may need rather than something they.

Yes.

Want. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, But I do that quite regularly and it's just. Yeah, it makes me feel good and it makes me feel like, you know, I've helped someone, I've fed them and contributing. It's one less, one less thing they have to worry about.

Totally agree.

My, my, my gratitude for the week is the technology, mate. Honestly, just being able to coordinate my life. So if I look through this, just being able to call people, like having my mum call me on the phone and she's got this thing she needs to sort out and I could just talk through it and I can send her a link on WhatsApp, I can get her to click on it, I can show her how to do it, to be able to, when I was sick, to call a doctor and the doctor would just call me back and, like, go through my symptoms and then email me, like, a prescription and a PathWest, like, form for, like, to get a blood test and it is just phenomenal. Or being able to contact my wife or having a little app for school and being able to organize things. Like, we are so lucky and so connected. Like, this is the good side of technology where even when you crook and you're at home, you can still get things done and organize your life. I'm just super thankful that we live in this time and not like 200 years ago.

The pen and paper.

Very grateful.

Watching Harry Potter at the moment. The old days of the old. The feather and ink it has, mate.

Opposite of productive.

Radio. Well, I think we're wrapped up there. Okay, so, Bergs, thanks very much, man. Another crack episode. We touched on a lot of different stuff.

That's it.

If you like, yeah. If you like these episodes, please, please give us a like and subscribe. Feel free to tweet us at bensimpsonau on Twitter at baby back Berg. And we'll see you again next week, Bergs.

All right. I'll put my part in. Fantastic. Thanks so much. Catch you next week.