33. How I Turned My Business & Life Around After Nearly Dying Twice - Ben’s Brutal 2022

We raised 1.5 million Australian dollars. I traveled to three different continents. We started this podcast. I started working with the Nova podcast. I did a TedX talk. I'd never spoken in front of a camera until last year and I did a TedX talk, closed a massive deal with the Australian Open, which we'll talk about in a future episode. We got featured in an AFR article which I thought was the biggest sort of, you know, turnaround and I started living alone again. Welcome to the first 2023 episode of Ben and Bergs. We're back doing a life reflection on what on earth happened in 2022. Brutal year. I've done a four hour reflection yesterday bergs and I've got three pages of notes. You want to walk through how I've done my reflection, what I've learned and what I'm taking to how to improve in 2023. Because I don't believe in news resolutions. I believe in just general improvements across the board and that's what I'm trying for this year. I've never done this strategy by the way, so I'm going to go deep and I'm going to give all my lessons learned and framework on how to do it personally. And then Bergs, you're going to do next week but first of all, happy New Year, mate. Welcome back.

Happy New Year, mate. How's your Christmas break?

It was good, man. I was just saying. Yeah, she had some time this week. This the fourth, currently fourth of Jan this week has been the most relaxing because everyone's gone, family's out, time to actually relax, you know, watch the cricket, read a book, fall asleep on the couch, you know, not just mate, drinking and eating constantly and I'm back at the gym.

What cricket you watching?

Test match, mate. Got the other. Oh I mean I watched the BBL as well. I was watching the darts yesterday. All championships of darts. That's incredible mate. Have you ever seen the darts?

Oh mate, I love that's incredible. Like they really get into it. Like I, I, I got so into it that I bought like a dartboard, started watching that and it's like, you know when they decide smashing like 100, it's like so good.

So I've been doing that, been trying to play a bit golf, reading some books, going back to the, go back to the gym this week which has been good. Yeah dude, just trying to relax.

Oh man. I want to ask you about the gym. Okay. So do you think, you know, since we started this accountability challenge, you're in Dubai and you Started going to the gym and you're going five times a week. Do you think you got fitter and better doing that and being accountable yourself and going to the gym? Or were you fitter and better when you had a personal trainer showing up to your house?

No, definitely. Now I think I remember, like, when I was getting a personal trainer early in the morning, I was like this bloke, like, I don't want to do what he. I don't. I don't like to be told what to do. I think that was the problem. I always thought I needed someone else to hold me accountable. But since I've been going myself, though, you know, counter note to that is that, like, it was really hard to go yesterday. I hadn't been in a couple of weeks over Christmas. Like, the first day back to the gym is just like. Like I was like limping my car. I had to put on like some avicii in my ears, like pump myself up to go, like, put on the sand. Walking out like a superman, you know, like, pop into the music. Come on, let's go.

And then how'd you feel afterwards?

Yeah, and I felt good and then went back today felt even better. And then like, tomorrow I'll be like in it, in the swing again. So just getting back in the swing. That's so. Nice thing.

That's so interesting because I was thinking about this because I'm doing my. I'm doing training. I've been training like a mad bastard over Christmas. Christmas. So I'm lifting, I'm doing plyo training, and I just started riding my bike as well. And even yesterday I'm like, riding in like 35 degree heat. I'm like, it. I gotta get this done. And like, Mrs. Like, what are you doing? You're an idiot. You're gonna die. And I'm like, nah, I'm too fat. I got fat over Christmas. That's what I got.

And I'm like.

I'm like, when else am I gonna ride? It's bloody 40 all week. I gotta get after it. It's like full. Like David Goggins, right? And then I was thinking back to when, like years ago, and I had a personal trainer and like, yeah, it was good and it made me go to the gym. But now I'm just so accountable to myself. That comes from within and I've got enough motivation and I'm going a lot harder than when I had a personal trainer.

I'm the same. What drives me to go to the gym is the mental clarity. And like, Energy I get from going to the gym and sweating it out. Like, you know, over Christmas I was like getting lazy. I was like drinking a lot. I was like, tired. You, like, can't get out of bed, but when you're in the gym, you're sweating it out. You feel up and about and meditate, journaling. I'm like ready to sort of get back into things.

That's it. And like, I'm a cranky bastard if I don't go to the gym, mate. And the wildest thing happens. So we're at our friend's place, we're playing cards, you know, it's like about 5:36pm And I'm like, I gotta go. I'll go home and work out. Everyone's like, what the hell? And I'm like, nah, I'm about that life. I've got to be accountable to everyone on Bed and Bergs. I have to dunk that ring. So I got back, went back to my house, did my deadlifts, did my overhead press and then gathered up like all this chicken and barbecue stuff, went back an hour later, cooked up a huge Barbie, had an awesome feed and it was just the best thing ever. And I was like, holy shit. Like no other point in my life where I stop what I'm doing, go somewhere, work out and then come back. And I was like, whoa, that is a huge change for me. And it just felt amazing. Like doing that for yourself and like being accountable and sticking on that goal and just continually just like hitting it every single day just feels incredible, man.

So on that point, Burks, every year I do a 2020, I do the previous year reflection and then I do a what I can take away and set my goals for the year ahead. And this year I've done, I've gone real deep. Like I went deep. I went back for a week, but I went through my calendar yesterday, week by week and did a reflection and gathered some insights on my year and areas to improve. And I went back and looked at my goals I set last year and I'm going to walk through for the listeners at home, how I did it, what I've learned, how did I go with my goals? What goals have I got set up for next year? What are the changes I made in my life and some learnings and then hopefully listeners can take it away. And bergs you can do next week.

Yeah, and let people know the questions you ask because you told me before the show and they are cracking. You said you did this for four hours. I don't think you've ever done anything for four hours in your life?

No, literally, I took some breaks, but I was like, I was sat there for an hour, but I was like, got up and had a coffee, heated up an old KFC burger, smashed that over, like, middle of the way through list.

Nice.

Listen to some, like, some concentration.

I can't wait to hear what you've got. Seriously, just launch into it, mate. Tell us what you did in those four hours, the things you learned and what's happening.

So for the listeners at home, I wanted to answer a few questions and these sort of questions help me frame my reflection. There's 10 core questions I. I asked myself and I'll read those out before I start. So, one, I wanted to know what my highlights of 2022 were. Now, this is business, personal, family. That can be anything. Personal highlights, personal lowlights. What are the new people that came into my life and how they added or changed my life? What moved out of my life and why and what impacted it? Have. How have I changed personally? What are the lessons learned? What are the lessons I've learned in the past 12 months? What is the wisdom I'm taking into 2023? What things definitely need to change in 2023, whether that be more of something, less of something, adding something.

My fantasy story. And I do this every year. What do I want my look like to look like life to look like at the end of 2023? And the last one was how will I reward myself to achieve those things?

That is incredible. Like, they are some really deep questions and for listeners, we're going to put.

Those in the show notes.

So, yeah, that is incredible because they are. You have to think a lot to answer those questions properly, man, and you'll get some really good results.

I. I have to credit Eric sue, one of our investors. He shared it and I've sort of modified it. He had a few more and they're a little bit different. I've sort of modified them to suit me, so feel free to mod them. But what I did first, folks, is I went through my calendar. I literally put out my iPad and I went through week by week and I started. I was trying to find, like highlights and I was like, why? Hold on a minute. There is so much that happened in 2022. So what ended up doing was I like, I just wrote out, I just started with what the fuck happened? Like, what actually happened in 2022.

Mate, I'm surprised you can make sense of it. Your calendar is a war zone, mate. There is no white, no calendar at all. All there is is just overlapping and triple overlapping and quadruple.

I think that's what I started with a month by month, and it didn't fit on the iPad. I had to go week by week. So.

I need the big screen here. Kick you. Kick your. Kick your brother off the tv, mate. We need Call of Duty, man.

I need the Panasonic.

So, like, you know, just. Just as a quick overview, I mean, there was hiring, there was firing, there was, you know, I started networking. I tried to set up some side hustles. I went to conferences. We started success stories on our webs, on our. On our website. We had, you know, we built stuff. We. I bought stuff like investments. I had bad investments. I went to Miami, I went to Dubai, I went to New York, I went to Singapore. I did a TEDx talk with. For the first time. I'd never spoken in front of people before.

Did a heap of traveling. You know, went double down on the entrepreneurs organization, went to events.

I fundraised. I also. I fundraised money for the first time ever. We started a podcast out of marketing funnels. We did PR for the first time. I was on a new show. Like, there was so much that happened. So I wrote out all of that and then I went through my highlights, and I'll go through a couple of these, so it's not too long, but I'll just give a few of the few, feel the answer. So highlights, bergs, mate, you're number one. I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna blow up your head. You're number one as my highlights for 2022. Hiring you brought you into the business. I went back and I was looking at what I was doing last year, and this time last year, I was literally thinking in my head for the all of Christmas, like a. I need a higher. I need a higher bergs.

And in my head, I didn't actually think I would get you at the time, but I needed a bergs. And I went out trying to find a bergs and I interviewed a bunch of people. I was interviewing people at like, PayPal and like. Like all these different places, and there was just like, they. They just weren't it. And then you and I had a conversation and it just. We just hit it off. And then, you know, halfway through the year, you join. And that was one of the biggest wins. We raised 1.5 million Australian dollars. I traveled to three different continents. I started. We started this podcast. I started working with the Nova podcast. I did a TEDX Talk. I'd never spoken in front of a camera until last year. And I did a TedX talk, closed a massive deal with the Australian Open, which we'll talk about in a future episode. And we got featured in an AFR article which I thought was the biggest sort of, you know, turnaround. And I started living alone again. So that was some of the highlights. That was just some, There's a lot of, It's a lot in there.

I still remember when you call me about the AFR article and it's, it's a very interesting thing where we'd raised some money from a prominent person and we wanted to talk about it. And it's always a bit of a gamble when you do. When you interact with the media and you give them an interview and you think you've done great but you're not sure what's going to be published. And it was probably the best version that they could have published. Like yeah, they, because there was AFR is kind of, you know, the publisher, not so great stuff about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And about crypto in general. Like, you know, like everyone, they like to have a good hate. They're gonna, they're gonna create whatever sells. But this article was just cracking. We've even got like the physical copy of it. It was just brilliant. And to us it was just a real milestone about, hey, we can do this, people believe in us. Look at the way that the media is speaking about us and signaling to everyone else that reads that publication.

I thought it was brilliant. It was a real turning point for us. I think we had some low lights. Like it's been a really tough year. I spent six months speaking with the investors, spent so much time like capital raising. It was really tough and spent a lot of time away from the business. We had to lot. We had to let a few people go this year, which was really tough.

Oh, that sucked man. That was, that was definitely my low lights as well.

Really tough.

Really, really hard. Still hard man. Like thinking about it, man, sucks.

Yeah, we spent a lot of money on some marketing sort of campaigns that just didn't, didn't go to plan. You know, we learned from that.

You know, I feel as though.

I hate to put my, my ex relationship under the low light. Like it certainly wasn't a low light for the whole time but just like the, the ending of it was, was tough. Like that was one of the toughest periods of my life going through that and yeah, just some of the stuff that happened in our last business, I guess like that Stuff sort of dragged on. Like that was still going on earlier this year. Like that was still happening. Right. But you're like, February, March, like that just went on and on and on.

There was. That was huge because there was a lot of hangover from that, sorting everything out and just the kind of inactivity from the counterparty. But then they kind of made a statement. It was just the wildest thing. Like things that you don't expect to happen, then they just happen. And you're like, okay, now I've got to deal with this. Gotta handle it. Just when you got. This is life, isn't it? Just when you think you got things under control, you just get whack and you realize that you can't control a lot of things in your life. You can only control the way that you relate to them, which is really easy to say, but very hard when it's in the heat of the moment.

And I'm going to skip forward a few here because this is a good transition point to talk about what wisdom I took into 2023.

Actually, you know what? No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna save that because I think that's sort of a good ending. I'm sorry. I'm gonna go back. So the new people that came into my life, I had Eubergs, I had Colin, who's, you know, so you, you know, business partner, less stress, feedback that I've. You've been able to help me improve. You know, you give feedback to me pretty honestly about, you know, how I act and how I can improve. And I haven't had that.

Yeah, but I like that about our relationship where I don't have to pussyfoot around. I could be like, lad, you're doing this. This is what is causing. It's. It's like this. This framework is like situation, behavior, impact. Like, this is the situation, this is the behavior, and this is the impact it's having.

And that's really clear. It's like, oh, that makes sense. And one of the key areas is communication. I really learned I need to improve and I'm going to do a. One of my goals this year is to do like a course or like a. Do something reading to. To improve on that eo. Something like that. But anyway.

And you're the kind of guy that actually wants to seek out feedback because that's the loop to get better 100%.

Exactly right.

And a lot of people hate it. They feel like it's a personal attack. They're doing wrong. They haven't been perfect. Whereas you understand that nobody's perfect. Perfection doesn't exist in humans. It's just seeking that feedback and making it better. You can always reject that feedback, that's fine. But you know, just taking it on be like, well, I don't feel that way, but if they're feeling that way, maybe there's something there and I can make a little iteration, just make things a little bit better.

Exactly. Dude. I'm always about that life. And then you've really been able to give that communication clear feedback, which has been awesome. You know, brought in investors, you know, Colin's been great. Give us your partnerships and business models. Eric, One of the leading marketers is, you know, an investor, whether us, you know, new, new networking, high level of thinking. I've met so many, you know, really smart people in the U.S. stuart, you know, the ex CMO of Expedia is a, is an advisor to us. Higher level thinking business strategy. Steve connected me to all these investors in the U.S. like, helped us raise a bunch of money. Greg, new friendship. We spent a bunch of time in the US together. Dave Oz, crypto con. You know, we're doing some stuff together. Speaking Oz, crypto conversation. Cabrina, A speaking coach. Haley, new organ. You know, with my assistant Josh. For me, torrent. New friendship. You know, my age, you know, banter and just sort of like, you know, into crypto and stuff. So many new people have come into my life, which has just made my life so much better. Honestly, last year it's been phenomenal.

That's amazing.

A few people have left my life, which I'm, you know, really excited about. I won't go into that list on the pod, but like, honestly, my life is so much fucking better, you know, you know, with these. Yeah, there's, there's, you know, there's three people on that list. So they're gone. Fantastic.

So that's. And how have I changed as well?

You know, I.

People focus on what has come into my life, what is the positive, but they don't look at how can I make what I have better and what are the relationships that I need to stop or distance myself from and even what are those relationships like? A lot of people I've seen on Twitter recently, they did like October, right? Or Sober October. And they started to realize how a lot of their friendships were just based around drinking. And if they didn't have drinking, they wouldn't hang out with those people. And they're very surface level relationships. And then I saw another thread on this person and he said he was moving across like the country and a couple of his friends just showed up on the day he was moving and he was like, that's what true friendship is. You just show up like when people need you. It's not like we're going here, we're doing that. It's convenient. They're not fair weather friends. These are the deep relationships that you want to keep and you want to nurture.

Exactly. And I want more of that. For sure. For sure. And you know, those are people that you sort of just catch up over drinks and. And so, yeah, how have I changed? You became single halfway through the year. So I became a lot more independent, which has been really good. You know, we've had a, we've had a tough year in the market, in the business. I've really learned how to sort of, you know, navigate that. Having to lay people off, having difficult conversations, you know, being more public facing. As I said, I've done a lot more content public speaking. I didn't do any of that in 2021.

Hang on, let's. Let's just pause on that because that is wild. So you were never the face of the business. You had a content team even. Those guys were generally researchers and analysts and they would type stuff up, they'd become content creators. And you've gone from working in the background to front face of the business, getting on tv, getting on the news, doing a TED talk, creating your little coffee videos, posting on social media. That is a massive turnaround in a very short period of time. And you're actually doing it really well. The results are really good.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I think that's just that, that feedback loop, right, like, always improving. Because my first videos in the audio was just audio awful. Like, you go back and watch any of that?

Yeah, you know, well, you got to get the bad out of the way to get to the good. And you need to start somewhere to improve. How has that whole, if you were to look back, how has that whole experience been for you going from, I don't want to do this, this feels really weird to the level that you're at now. If you reflect on that. What, what do you think? About what? How do you feel?

Oh, that's a tough one.

I feel like I just want to continue improving. Like I want to be a lot better at it. I feel as though, like content really is the variable to success. And I've seen, we've seen some success and we've only just scratched the surface. I look at everything we're doing Now I said, we can be a hundred times better. Yet we're 100 times better than where we were this time last year. So what, like what is a thousand X look like from last year to the end of this year? You know, two years.

That's, that's so interesting, like how you feel about it now, now that you've done it for a while and you're like, oh, we're just getting started, we could be so much better before you actually started. And if you cast your mind back to then, do you remember how you were feeling about the whole thing? Like trying to get in front of camera.

I'm like, I was, I was like, no, we don't need, I don't, we don't need a front person. I don't need to do content. Like, we'll be fine. Like, let's just do software. Like, oh, it was every excuse under the sun for me not to have to be the front man. You know, when push came to shove, I was like, no way am I getting in front of like, you know, one a camera. But even like getting on audio. I was anxious, I was nervous, I was like, I couldn't string a sentence together. I was repetitive. I sent, I was like arring a lot. There was a lot of like just, you know, beginner esque thoughts around getting and doing content. And.

We'Ve all come a long way since those days.

I really, I really enjoy that because you're, we all go through this when we decide we're going to do the hard thing. Whether that's, you know, ending a relationship, starting a new job, starting a new relationship.

Starting an endeavor. Like, you know, I'm going to work out, I'm going to become a public speaker. We give ourselves all the excuses to not do it because we know it's going to be hard, it's going to hurt. But once you start going through it, I think you have to want to do it, that's one thing. But then you have to want to improve and put in the hours to improve. And from the talks I've seen you do, you get people in, they video. Like everyone else is just doing their talk. You've got a little lapel mic on, someone's videoing you. And at first I thought he's like, oh, he's a wanker. He's just creating the Ben collection in his bedroom. He just looks at it and bloody, yeah.

We'Ll leave the rest out. But really you're going, then you're putting in the hours after that to review it to analyze it. You're sending it to other people and saying, hey, here's a talk I did. Give me feedback on it. You literally ask the audience of feedback. And each time you give that talk, you get 1% better, 1% better, 1% better. Till you're at the point where you can just stand up and give a talk. And that. That is leagues away from where you started in such a short period of time. And now you're like, great, I've got that down. What other talks can I do? How can I get more distribution? How can I drive? You know, create a funnel to the business? It just keeps compounding and compounding.

It's.

It's such a worthwhile 100% man.

So my feedback there for anyone is just like, honestly, just start. No one gives a fuck anyway when you first do it. No one's. First of all, no one's listening. Second of all, no one cares. And third of all, like, you're only going to get better. The only way to get better, I believe in my. In my lessons, is just by doing it. And, like, that's all I can tell you.

That is incredible. And even, like, even going to the gym, like, just get after it. Just do it. Like, I remember back in the day was in my 20, I was an. You see a fat guy running, like, hard. Look at that fat guy. Nowadays. I'm like, look at that getting after it. He's going 10 times faster than I am. I'm sitting on my ass in the car, like, just get after it. Get about that life totally, man. Keep going, improve it.

So the. And the last thing in, like, the. How have I changed? I've lost, you know, and this is. You can take this as a positive negative. I've actually lost trust in people, and I have become more anxious and paranoid. Now, that has its pros and cons. You know, I wouldn't say paranoid in a bad sense, but I have become. I have lost my ability to give a lot of trust to people because I've been burned so many times. And I think that is. I'm turning that into a positive because I, Like, I was usually. And still I'm usually one to just give a lot of trust, just believe in someone. But now, like, I do have and I have. And as I grow older and, like, I've learned more lessons, especially in business. Like, people aren't always who they appear to be, and sometimes it takes actually a long time to really figure out who someone is. So that's just something I've taken away not necessarily an action point, but just something I just understand more about myself, about that.

That's. That this is a brilliant point, mate. So let's, let's pause on this one and reflect. And people will always let you down throughout your life, especially when you. You kind of need them the most. And people only show you what they want you to see. Unless you spend a lot of time with that person all day, every day. Even relationships can go for multiple years. And then, you know, you start living together or after you live together for a few years, and then you start to see some certain traits and you have to be very observant. You have to go through a lot of. But the reality is that with people, my general philosophy is, you know, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. You need to. I believe I need to trust in people, give them a lot of trust. And it's up to them to kind of, you know, hold themselves to that standard, but also me realizing that they are just people, they've got different experiences, they might try to do things that go against the relationship that we have. And it's up to me to keep an eye on set boundaries as well. And so I think that's really good where, you know, you kind of saying, like, you have ultimate trust in people, but now you're a bit more paranoid. And if you look at that on a spectrum, if you're kind of coming towards somewhere in the middle where you're like, okay, I'll give you this, but I have been burnt before, so, you know, I understand these things.

Yeah, yeah.

And there's. There's an amazing concept called post traumatic growth. And this is when you go through as like a huge traumatic event and it ruins your life. But then after that, you put in all of the work and you learn from it and you become a stronger human, a better human. You're better in those situations. This happened a lot. When I was in my old work, we did a lot of research with burn survivors and post traumatic growth. And it's where even one example, I'll give you like one person where he was really unwell. He ended up having an injury. He basically, he wanted to die and he got burnt. He was badly, badly burnt. Went through all the rehab, lots of surgeries. It was very painful. And then after that, like six, eight months later, he was happy as he's like, I feel I got my life back. And it's the wildest thing to think about. But when you go through those hardships, you start to appreciate what you have and Your outlook on life changes as well. So it's good to collect all these things throughout your life and put in the hard work and actually sit down, sit with those feelings, reflect on them, and then just grow as a person, man. So bloody good on you for doing that.

Thanks, man. That's a good point. I think coming halfway. So we want the spectrum now about the other and just, you know, trusting in people but always, you know, knowing that there could be another side of the story is a good way to think about it.

I think that's a really good metaphor. Just like in life as well, where I find people that are the most challenging for me are ones that say things in black and white. They're just on one end of the spectrum and they're not willing to accept other points of view or opinions or even try and understand. Like, I. I try and understand a lot of people where their points of view is completely different from mine, but I'm like, well, hey, why do you think like that? And I think it's that kind of middle gray area where not everything's black and white, where you really get to connect with people and understand them and also understand yourself.

Totally agree. So the other lessons to learn. I had this number, six lessons learned. So I want to trust my gut more. My gut has always been on this year, and I haven't always trusted it during last year, so I want to trust my gut more. Don't believe verify. There's another lesson.

Don't trust verify, lad. Look at it on the bottom.

A lot of people are all talk. I learned this when I was traveling. And also some people I've met over the course of last year that a lot of people talk the talk and. But are actually not who they say they are, or don't act on what they say or just not who they say they are. That was big lesson, mate.

Some people are massive bullshitters. Like, they keep talking and talking, talking like, oh, okay, okay. And you're right. It's like, don't trust verify. And it's like, don't tell me about what you do. Show me what you're. What you do. Point to the thing. Like, I've come to the conclusion in my life that everything is proof of work.

Yes, 100%.

Like, literally, if I'm like, oh, I worked here, I did that. That's very different to pointing to an app on a website or something you can download and you can use, or pointing to review thousands of reviews from people or a product I made or sold, or if I walk around, like, yeah, say I get in the gym all the time, but if I take my shirt off and you see my muscles and you see all that kind of shit walking down the street, that's proof of work.

Show me your deadlift. You know, like 100.

I'm all like, oh, I'm like, banging out three wheels in the gym. You're like, no, show me. I don't believe you. Yeah, like, once you see that, you're like, okay. He's about that life.

Totally great.

You don't need a big team to achieve success. Instagram was bought for a billion dollars with what, six people? Eight people, mate.

Even. Even a shittier example, FTX, with 30 engineers. It's like multiple, multiple billions. They didn't do the right thing with their cash, but they had a lot of users and a lot of money going, right?

Bad thinking, Bad things happen to nice people. Just a relative life content.

Let's.

There you go.

Let's get back. Let's get back to the small team. So this is a really interesting one where you can achieve a lot with a small team. And I think for us, it came. And I'll go through this probably next week in, like, a communication video, but for us, it came down to really clarifying what we wanted to do, what we wanted to achieve for the quarter, talking about assigning it to people, talking about it every week and reaffirming that vision. And even, like one of our guys said to us, he's like, when we had to cut to a strategy was the worst part time in the business. He's like, there's just cohesion and clarity. Like, the execs are saying exactly the same thing. We know exactly what we need to achieve and when we need to achieve it by.

Yes. And so many businesses. I realized, especially in crypto, I fell in this trap the last couple of years. You know, we're aligning company success by how big your team is or how many people you have. Like, how. Like, how's business? Oh, yeah. We have 45 people working for us. That does not mean jack shit. You could be in debt. Your revenue could be going down. You could be losing money. Like, employees are unsatisfied. You're not, you know, producing a good product. There has no impact on your success of your company. The amount of people you have. Success is defined by how you want your company to run. Is a revenue, is a profit?

Is it.

Is it building a product that people want? Success is defined by what you want it to be, not by how many people you have working your business 100%.

And in general terms in a business like revenue it's like okay.

Cash flow, good profit.

Right.

Like they're the things that you look for. But again you might be a venture backed startup and they're targeting growth, not necessarily profit. So that is your metric. Yeah, yeah. And it's just being ultra clear with your team and what they need to achieve. We set our quarter four goals, right? And after our strategy meeting like we need to achieve this in quarter four and they were big stretch goals I got. We sat back and we're like lad, if we achieve this, this would be pretty epic. And we go through and we actually bloody achieved them. And it was like they were even our stretch goals and we achieved more.

Goals outside of that 30th of December we, we achieved.

So there was, there was one goal that relied on a contract being signed and Ben got it like literally like the day before the end of the quarter. And this is one of the first times we've actually achieved all our goals for the quarter. And I think it's because we were relentless on this is what we want to achieve. We actually I pinned it to the top of the Slack channel. So I'm like, if Ben comes up with this, this is founder management for everyone out there. Ben comes up with a hokey idea. Oh, I'm pumped up just being eo. We need this team. We've got to do this, we've got to do that. I'm like, okay, how does that fit in with our goals? Right? But being relentless on just no. This is what we do in saying no to things and achieving those specific goals and checking in with your team.

Day after day after day.

How are we tracking with this stuff? Do you need any help? That was so good for us, man. It was just, it was epic. I can't wait to do it again this quarter.

That was. The next lesson was in person. Strategy is important for a remote company. You know that that's, that's you just get so much more in person than when you're remote. When you're especially doing deeper strategy. I want to fly through the rest of these because we're pushed on here for time. Need to be more focused. Bergs and less Shiny object syndrome I've got here. That's one of my lessons learned because I jumped in a lot of shiny object syndrome opportunities this year or last year. Higher, slower, fire faster. I mean that's. We all know that but it's like really need to, you know, think about that next year. Communication. My communication needs to get better. I tend to just like splurt, you know, vomit on people. Like three words with no context. Burgers pulls me up all the time. So you're gonna need to work on that.

Oh mate, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you through the ringer. I'll tell you what, next week I'm putting you through the ringer. I'm gonna, I'm gonna rail you on a few things and then I'm gonna have a quiz for you again. We'll see how you go.

Scheduling is more important. One actually thing bugs that this was through my week to week reflection and comparison. My schedule at the start of last year versus the end of last year was dramatically better. And I really put that down to Haley. I was like getting a lot more done. It was a lot more laid out. I knew what I was doing. Like my productivity efficiency at the back back half of last year was 10x better than the start of last year. So getting a lot more out of my, my day to day. So investment into system's been epic.

B2B takes a long time to come to fruition to the deal that we did just then with the Australian Open. Took six months from the first time I met them to contract closing. Six months it took to close that deal. Takes a long time to close those bigger deals. And, and PR is actually pretty good in brackets some of it. So I think there is good PR and bad PR in terms of just like bullshit pr, like you know, random like vanity metrics, like impressions and all this sort of nonsense that no one reads. Right. The AFR article that we got this year, people read. People came up to us and spoke to us about. People read that. People that saw us, you know, maybe they didn't even see it. Some random website that like there was shared or like it was a contributor article. No one gives a flying for who's about that. No one sees it.

Exactly. And that actually that AFR article helped you with other investors. That is a publication that they read. And also with pr, there's a lot of massive bullshitters in the space. Like you flicked me a couple of people and you're like, oh, this guy wants to do some PR with us. And they're like, oh, pay us 10 grand and you know, we'll put you on this website and we'll get you in front of investors.

Like on the call I literally asked the guy, this is proof of work. I'm like, how many investors have you had through how much capital have the companies Raised, you know, and then what's the average amount that they raise? And he couldn't answer any of those questions. I'm like, sorry, see you later.

So seventh question here out of. Out of ten, what wisdom do you take into 2023?

Oh, here we go.

Okay. Nearly died twice in 2022. Business not personal. Businessly. Died twice in 2022. Legal battles.

Bad. I don't even know what that means. Bad. Market.

Break up. Sort of rough breakup. Bm Single. Lived out of a suitcase. Global recession. Crypto down 80%. Laid off some of our staff and still survived and raised $1.5 million last year. Can't, boy, can't get much worse than that. And we got through. Hard work. Determination above all else.

Mate.

That was my wisdom.

That is wild. That's a clip right there.

Honestly, that is. That is incredible. Like, and I always get back to that quote you said many episodes ago. It's never as bad as you think. And if you can go through all that and still turn it around, that's pretty wild, man. Like, if someone told me that, I'd.

Be like.

Yeah, insane.

Go do something else. Go work for Amazon. Have a happy life.

So these are incredible. What a. What a. What a sort of piece. What a reflection. So the things I'm definitely going to change in 2023. No more fundraising. I'm over it. I'm done. That's it. I'm over it.

Good.

Back in the business. No more relationship. Not that I want one anyway. Focus on me. Time. No relationships. Personal, I mean, like, you know, romantic focus.

This is interesting. Hang on, hang on. No romantic relationships.

Right.

So if you meet someone, are you going to date? Date. But no long term things.

Correct? No long term. Like, not even, like, I'm not even sure if you call it dating. Like, no long term. Anything casual. Casual things. The reason being, and I'm going to put out a statement here, I now believe, going through my first relationship, that you should not have a relationship in your 20s. I'm putting it out there.

Oh, here we go.

Okay, now that's a. That's that. Now, to be fair, that's only based on my. My personal.

Experience. But the reason I say that is because.

In my life, I want to do what I want to do. I want to explore things that I want to do. I want to prioritize myself to be the best person I can be and do the things I want to do. Not compromise in my 20s. Because once you get kids, once you get married, once you have a mortgage, once you Have a life. Very difficult to do things that I want to do. Now, does that make sense? And I think that if you get in a relationship too early, you're compromising your ability to do all those things. Now, go back two years. I would not have just said that before my relationship. I was like, fucking. I want to get a relationship. Like, you know, let's get a girlfriend. That sounds great. We're going through that now. I'm like, hell, no. I want to travel. I want to work abroad. I want to meet people. I want to do everything before that. And I want to work on myself because that's what I wasn't working on in my relationship. I wasn't. I wasn't it for me. I was in it for us. You know, this is the thing.

To have a good relationship, you need to have a good relationship with yourself first. You need to understand yourself, what you want. Because if you're figuring those things out with another person, it's going to be very difficult.

Totally agree. Anyway, brilliant, man.

So you're gonna have a year of your fun.

Her five years of fun, mate.

Focus 100 on growing business revenue. More me time. Golf, reading, journaling, gym, more traveling where I can. More content creation. Stop spending time on pointless I. E. Bad meetings, worrying about stupid. Get more better sleep. Less social media.

More better sleep.

More better sleep.

How about get better English, mate?

More better writing. I want more, better asleep and less cheap dopamine now.

They're really good.

I did my fantasy story. I'm not sure if we have time for that. If you want me to go through my.

We got plenty of time. Look it. This is going to be a longer episode, but this is cracking.

Okay, cool.

Before we go to your fantasy story, how is your sleep going, mate?

Well, mate, my ordering. All right. My sleep actually has been getting better, so. So.

It wasn't good when I was drinking and eating. Like, it's not good when you drink and eat. But, like, the last two or three nights have been really good. Like, I'm reading before bed.

Not.

No, you're not taking my phone. Not scrolling before putting my phone up on the kitchen. Like, I've been sleeping in.

It's been really good. And I've been having my ordering so I can track it. So it's actually been pretty good.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Dude, they're giving you like a sleep score or anything. Is it improving or do they give you score?

Yeah. No, you get out of 100. It's been choppy, to be fair. Like, this morning, I had to get up early. I was up late watching movies, but like when I've been asleep, it's been good. I'm not getting enough time though in bed. I don't think that's the, that's the core difference. But overall, no, it's been really good feeling. Feeling refreshed.

That's awesome, man. That's really good. All right, lad, read us your story.

Okay.

Here we go. We're about to listen. We're about to listen. Back to this.

I want to be semi regular public speaker and guest on other shows based on my effort to grow my social media following. Have 10k, 10,000 followers on Twitter LinkedIn and 1,000 downloads per episode on the Benneberg Show. Collective Shift is fastly growing revenue. We haven't grown too much employee numbers, meaning, you know, we've got a really healthy bottom line. I've spent more time abroad and I've enjoyed living and working solo across Australia, Asia and America. My network has continued to grow by putting myself in positions where I am the dumbest guy in the room constantly. I've invested in myself considerably and continuing to level up in being a CEO, content creator, marketer and public speaker. I'm now looking to get an apartment back in Melbourne at the end of this year and I'm also going to the gym four times a week and have read six books this year, mate. That's my fantasy story.

That's amazing.

Now I.

That is.

I didn't actually write a fantasy story last year. I missed out on that. But I did review my goals and I was nowhere near my goals. We set massive goals at the end of last year. I think this year was a bit of a wake up call, honestly, with like the market, you know, the recession, crypto down. A lot of happened this year and unfortunately I was nowhere near my goals. But I've sort of, you know, listed my goals. I haven't really got them all all together, but I mean, my fantasy story sort of like shaped up a little bit there.

But the last thing was like, what is my reward? Like, what is my reward for doing the things from last year? And I haven't booked it in yet, but I'm looking to go to either Bali or Thailand in February and I'm going to take five or six days in a resort on next to the pool, read and do absolutely nothing. And that's what so good. That's what my reward's going to be, Burke.

So that's incredible, man. And I'll hold you to that because you're a sneaky Little bugger. You'd be like, well, oh, no, man, I've got to work. Business needs me. And I'm like, mate, just piss off for a week. It's not going to burn down. The sky ain't falling. You'll be right.

I, I also did, like, a little energy from. And, and, you know, what do I get energy from and what makes me miserable? That was also.

Hang on. Before we move, Move on to that, I want to ask you. So your story is about what your life will look like and what you want to do.

Yeah.

But why do you want to do it? So you want to grow your social media following, you want to be a public speaker, you want to grow business revenue. Why are you driven to do those things? What will they do for you? What feeling does it give you inside? Did you, did you think about that?

Yeah. So it comes for me, it comes back down to. I think it comes down to freedom. Freedom of capital, being able to spend money on things I want to do, freedom to go and do things I want to do, whether it be traveling, living abroad, whatever. And freedom to pivot and do other things and sell products and. And having a following and being able to add value to people can do that by building those relationships, building the network, building the following. You can, you know, utilize the people that you're talking to to build the life that you want to have. And I can do that through business, through. Through social media and through travel. So it all comes back down to freezing for me.

That's great, because that was one of your core values. And if you think about it, you're. You're optimizing for freedom, but what you're doing is you're using huge leverage and compounding through content, and that is an asset that can be picked up and taken anywhere for the next thing. The thing after that, yes, it helps with your current endeavors, but it also helps with your future ones and also your lifestyle setup. So if you want to be like, okay, I. With collective shift, let's say in six months, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be involved in operations. I'll become the director and chairman, I'll install another CEO, and I'm going to go work on something else. You will have that entire following and all that proof of work on the Internet, that's compounding to give you a head start rather than starting from zero. It's a brilliant strategy.

The Almanac book about leverage.

Yeah, Navarre. Yeah, exactly, mate.

So, yeah, man, that's. Oh, yes, the Last thing. So, yeah, what I get energy from, that's also a good thing just to frame things up. Like if you're not sure what your goals are, you're not really sure what you want to do. Write down the things you get energy from and write the things that make you miserable. So for me, I get energy from building shit, talking to smart people, traveling, closing deals, generating sales, creating good content and learning new shit. That's what I get energy from. What makes me miserable, Spending too much time in meetings, being hungover, being around average people. Not travel, not traveling. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean just like people that are just bring me down or just like have negative view on life or just like have a very pessimistic view.

You know, Snoop Dogg said this really well and is the wildest person to get some kind of wisdom from. But, but he was in an interview and he was basically saying when you elevate and you're going and going and going and your friends or acquaintances or whoever don't, either they have to come up or you have to come down. And I just thought that was a brilliant way to put it because the higher you go and the more that other people stay here, there's more of that gap and the more challenging it becomes.

100% not traveling or exploring, dealing with energy draining people and life. Admin is miserable for me and that really sets up like I can look at my calendar, go right, how much miserable is in here? Or like how much is the stuff in here getting energy from?

So how are you practically going to do that? For me, I would put it on a wall, see it in front of me and then like everything in my calendar, everything I put in there, I would assess it against that chart. Are you going to do something?

So I've sent it off to Hayley, my ea and she's typing it up, putting it in notion and then she's also going to have that information.

Look at this guy. See, look at this. He's like, no, bergs, you're a piece of. You think about doing it yourself. I'm gonna automate it. I've already given it to someone. They're making the decisions for me. So it's gonna be good. I love that man. So good.

So mate, that was my reflection. Probably the best reflection I've done honestly, like ever. I want you to do that. We'll drop these questions in the, in the show notes and listeners. Have a crack yourself, do answers questions, let us know how you got on Berg's gonna be up next week and we're gonna hear from him and hopefully that helps some people home.

So good, mate, thanks for doing that. That was a lot of effort to put in but the way you explained it was quite eloquent as well. And I think it's gonna help a lot of people and then backing it up next week and I hope people go away and do this themselves.

Totally agree.

Now, mate, we've got a couple more things, mate. We've got Meme of the Week, meal of the week, but first we have video of the year, mate. So Ben and I, and this was Ben's idea, not mine at all, to look at the shorts on YouTube and see who got the highest amount of views. And I'm like, okay, mate, you know, this is cool, whatever, it's definitely going to be Ben. And I'm like, whatever, you know, I'll play the game. So just for a bit of context here, Ben is generally in charge of what the shorts are, how they go up, how they clipped. He manages a social media team. And Ben, mate, we finished the year and can you tell me who got the most video views?

I just want to caveat this in by saying I haven't tested to see if Bergs actually bought views or bought bots.

So, you know, currently based on, you know, what I can see, the data I have available to me is that Bergs has got the most views. However, I have not confirmed if those views are real or. Or if it's. Bergs is sitting at home with his family over Christmas, hitting the refresh button. So listen at home, you know, take a show.

That would have been good. So I got on one of my shorts about Andrew shorts. I got 3,000 views, Ben got two and a half thousand, which is the nearest one. And no, there weren't any bots involved. I wasn't involved in any of that, allegedly. I should have been. I should have put it up to like 10,000. That would be hilarious. So I messaged Ben on New Year's. First of all, I'm like, happy New Year's, you know, he says, happy New year's back like 15 hours later. And then like. And I message him and he's straight away, he replies, he's like, yeah, I think I've been shadow banned. That's not how it works, mate. It's the whole channel, any excuse.

So if you don't notice already, for any new listeners, we actually are very competitive bugs and I, and we'll never let each other win, you know, you know, win comfortably. It's. There's always, you know, some sort of, like, something there just to. Just to keep us honest.

Well, what was this bet? What was the bet? What do I win, mate? I gotta have something.

You win nothing, mate. You wait.

You gotta take me out for a beer and a chicken sandwich.

Yeah, that's true. I do need to come over. But when am I coming to Perth? Mate, I was actually looking the calendar yesterday. We need to.

Anyway, we're gonna leave that after the.

Pot get amongst it and we'll sort it out. So, look, the key takeaway here was I was the winner.

Ben allegedly. Allegedly won. We need to.

No, mate, it's there. Hey, everyone can go to YouTube and they can verify, man. They can verify. Don't trust. Verify yourself. The Benneberg's channel. Go and add a few views on my shorts as well, just to, you know, increase the gap. So, 2022, I was the clear winner, mate. All right, let's get amongst it. Let's do Me of the week. Now, this is a series. Five memes in order of spice. And some of them aren't names, some of them are just Twitter screen grabs. But, mate, an event happened during the week. An event so good. And this is about Andrew Tate and Greta Thunberg. Serious. This is so good. So Andrew Tate, he gets on there and he's like, you know, he's an antagonist, and he's like, hello, Greta thunberg. I have 33 cars, but Bugatti is a 16, like, W16, 8 liter Quattro turbo. He goes through all of his cars, all this sort of calling out a kid. And then Greta just claps back and she's like, yes, please do. Enlighten me. Email me at small dick energyetal life.com and I was like, oh, bang. RIP. This is like, fatality. This guy has just been chopped off. Cut him off at the knees and then just severed his head. Like, this is like an autistic activist and either her or whoever's running her social media, absolute fatality. And I was like, holy, this made my year. She saved 2022. 2022 was. And this made my whole year. But then there's more. She claps back and she just goes, this is what happens when you don't recycle your pizza boxes. So what happened in the background was Andrew Tate made this whole video about clapping back, and he had the pizza boxes that from his local kind of place. And apparently, like, he's allegedly, because of that, the Romanian police were investigating him and they discovered where he was staying based on those pizza boxes, went and arrested him and his brother. There's videos on the net all about it. And they were caught up in this. What was it? Human trafficking scandal, allegedly, Something like that. So I was like, holy. Greta saw that and just clapped back at him again. See this?

This is so good.

And. Oh, how good, how good? And then the meme start. And these are just three of probably 50 memes. The first one, Andrew Tate has more than 33 cars. Still can't get away. So good. Where he just gets.

We can't see it, man. What's the. It's. It's sharing the other grid of one. It's sharing the.

Oh, I've moved forward. Hopefully that'll come on the screen in a sec. It's a picture of Andrew Tate, and It just says, 33 cars. Still can't get away. So good. So good. All right, next one, we've got Greta Thunberg. And this is a graph. On the vertical axis, it's got find out. And on the horizontal axis, it's got fuck around. So it's the fuck around and find out graph. So people that haven't seen this before, you have to look this up. This. Ben, if you haven't seen this, this is like the dating versus marry zone. Have you seen this before? Oh, mate. So there's this, like. There's this guy, he's a really old dude, and he's basically got this graph, and it's. This one is like, fuck around, find out. But what it is, I think it's like the craziness hotness graph. And, yeah, it's based on, like, where you are on that. So if they're, like, you know, crazy, if they're, you know, limited crazy, really hot, that's like the Mary zone. The other is the dating zone. They've repurposed that graph, and it's around or find out. And Greta's up there and she's pointing to the graph. It's got Andrew Tate's head on there because he around with it and he found out and the got arrested. It is so, so, so good. This was just phenomenal. And then finally, this is just like, rip. We've got Greta Thunberg in front of a freshly laid grave, and it's got Andrew Tate's head on the grave. And she's just there throwing up the pizza and be like, peace, brother, you're out.

And, mate, this was just. I was in absolute stitches. This saved by 2022. And I just went into 20, 23 on full boost, mate. I absolutely loved it. They. They were the memes of the week, mate. So.

Mate, and. All right, let's. Let's jump into meal of the week. I'll do mine. And mate, there were so many good meals over Christmas. It was incredible. So many restaurants, so many everything.

So this is mine. We're gonna start off with a frothy mate. And I don't know if you can see this frothy, but mate, this is a pint on it. I know. So this is delicious. This is a home brew by my father in law, Gary. Now Gary's a legend and anytime I go to his house, I'm like. He's like, oh, you want this beer? You want that? I'm like, get. Mate, I want your homebrew. Your homebrew is incredible. So this beer is a Golden Owl. And this is a special golden hour. So this is made, this recipe is by a guy called Dr. Smyrto. He's called Dr. Smurdo, and he's a bit of a legend in like the Australian homebrew scene because he's a chemical engineer. He made this beer and it's one of the easiest beers to make, but it tastes incredible. This is a golden hour. So it's made with Maris otter carapills and amarillo hops. And that's it. Now why is that? Why is that notable and special? So look at that. It's got a lovely golden color. The head on it is just incredible. So that's from the carapilles. It's about 5% carapills. The Maris otter is like. It's a grain and you eat it like you could just eat the grain itself. And it just tastes like muesli bars, man. It's like biscuity. It's multi, it's thick, it's delicious. And the Amarillo hops are just like sweet with just that bit of kick. And it's like, God damn, you drink that. And the bitterness level is just insane. You have a sip of this and you're like, where have you been my whole life? And for people that remember when like, James Squire's first opened in like Melbourne, I think it was, and they made a gold nail before they went mainstream is very similar to that. It's incredible. All right, that's just the frothy. Now let's. This is just one of the barbecues we had. So these were the jalapeno poppers I made. And these were incredible. So this is hollowed out jalapenos filled With Philly cheese with gouda and bacon. And then you put a rub on it and you smoke them. And these were incredible. But God damn, usually these jalapenos aren't hot. These were bastard hot. Like, I had one of them and I was, like, gutting them and it squirted in my eye and I was like, luckily I closed my eye in time. But it was so itchy around here the whole day. We did a hot sauce challenge, right? 10 hot sauces. And this was hotter than the hot sauce. It was incredible. It was just insane. Insane. And then this was just one of the meals we had. So we had the jalapeno poppers, we had chicken wings as entree. And then we got into. We had beautiful potato salad with bacon and dill. We had curried eggs, which is just incredible. I love those. Like, were they deviled eggs? Delicious. Lovely fresh bean salad with, like, a really zingy dressing. We had, like, a quinoa and, like, sweet vegetable and halloumi salad. We had amazing pork sausages and brisket, which was just. Brisket went on for days, mate, like a lad, Brett, he cooked it. It was incredible. Oh, I don't know if I've done a good job. Went a bit high. I ate. It was insane. And the best thing was these guys were going away the next day. So we take away. So for the next three days, mate, I was just eating brisket and eggs every day. It was just incredible. I loved it, mate. It was so, so good, mate. That is probably my meal of the week. And look, I'm throwing it out there, 10 out of 10. And the reason it's a 10 out of 10 is because everyone made their best stuff. Everyone got together around the pool, we were cooking, we were eating in rounds, we were playing cards. It was just how humans are supposed to live life. And I enjoyed it so much.

Brilliant, man. Nice work.

Cool, mate. What was your meal?

So I've been lazy. I have not taken a photo of my meals the last couple of weeks, but I had, on Christmas Day, my cousin. So, you know, we're at the back of our nan's yards. A smoking hot day, you know, at Mouse, you know, throwing down the skewies. You know, we've been on the skewies from about, like, 11 honest Christmas lion share, you know, sort of rolled into that five or six beers day. Wicked. Awesome. Another couple of beers yet? No, Seven or eight beers yet. Have a great day. Awesome. Nan comes out. Dessert time? Yeah. Oh, just finishing off the screw. We put that down, went Inside and mate, there's this, this heavenly plate of pavlova and I thought it was one of those like woolies ones until I got closer and this was like a homemade pavlova that my cousin had made and I, and I had a sort of cut the triangle I've put on the plate. I was like oh my God, this looks incredible. Like the, the white fluffy like meringue on the inside was like so puffed up. And then you had the. What's the like the biscuit? Like sort of the. Yeah biscuit like lining it that was like ultra thin but it's like crunchy and like sweet and you ate into it and the meringue was like so light and fluffy like it was like a fairy floss. It just like melt in my mouth and I just sat back and, and it just made.

Did you shed, did you shed a single?

I shed a couple of tears I think I just sort of like just made Christmas. It really did. It was unbelievable. I just actually I went and gave my cousin a hug. I said this is unbelievable. Oh did you.

Do you have like cream and fruit on top?

Yeah, so I had the fruit, had a bit of cream rolling around.

I was like oh.

Mate, that was. We had everything. That was the one thing we didn't have. And I was a bit salty about it. I'm pretty much gonna go down to the shop and grab one today and put some cream. Cream because we got lots of like kiwi fruit, berries, bloody cherries and chuck.

That on the top like so amazing. Absolute cracker mate.

Speaking of cracker, that episode was beautiful. Yeah, like that. I'm gonna listen back to this about 10 times. It was amazing.

Hopefully everyone got something out of it. Check the, check the show notes. We'll add in the. The 10 questions that I ask myself every year. Berg is going to be here next week giving his yearly review and wrap up and yeah. Thanks everyone for listening. Hopefully you've enjoyed the first episode of 2023. It's gonna be a huge year for Ben and Bergs. A lot of exciting things planned and boost. I think we've got a guest coming up on the show coming up in the next few weeks so we'll be on the lookout for that everyone looking forward to it.

It's gonna be great. I like having a guest that's good.

It's good to be on a guest every again and if you haven't already I'd love for you to send in some feedback. You can get myself at on Twitter at bensimpsonau and Bergs is Babyback Berg. And give us a rate and a review if you can and share it to a friend and we'll see you next week.

So good. Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks a little. See ya.