8. The Truth about the Birth Lottery and life of a Crypto CEO

Foreign.

Episode 8. You finally made it.

Finally made it. We pushed it back three times and once again my Internet's. But we push on.

Mate, what is going on with you? Like you've got a new executive assistant to help you out with your scheduling and you've done this before where you get a new person in and then it gets 10 times worse. Like I don't know what it is. If you think it's just a bloody license to not honor any meeting or anything, you're like, nah, I'm just moving everything. Who cares? Changing everything stuff. Anyone else, their lives don't matter.

So what happens is that I increase my efficiency so I put in more meetings and they just get further behind because I end up doing more. So it actually doesn't save you time. So what happens is I run. Yeah, I just shift it. So what, Instead of getting eight meetings a day, I get to have 10 meetings a day which are all consecutively late. So it saves me time. And admin assistant saves me time, which then I fill that save time with more shit. So from the front end you're just seeing the same old useless band arriving 15 minutes late for a meeting, but on the back end it's like a V8 mate, it's fucking. We're getting heaps done, mate.

You're full of shit. What you're doing, what you're actually doing is shifting the cost to fucking everyone else, creating mass inefficiencies in the business. Fucking useless, mate. V8Ben.

You know, you know.

I was over Dave's the other day and I'm not gonna name name who the employee was, but.

They were basically connecting up and Dave had his computer open. So I saw it slack pop up because I was supposed to meet with this employee at a certain time. I sent him a message and said, let's catch up at 2:40. The same employee then messages Dave and says, I'm supposed to catch up with Ben at 240 but you know how he is. So we can catch.

So good.

And mate, everyone knows how you are, it's no secret. And I'm sure they'd say to your face it's bad, I need to get.

Better out of it. I just try and like, this is not enough hours in the day. Like I'm trying. The other option is we just don't meet at all. And. But that's not helpful. So it's like, you know what I.

Mean, mate, what is. What is going on with your life? Like you dropped me your voice message the other day, a Three minute voice message about what you're up to. And I had a panic attack after I listened to it, mate. Like, seriously, you got, you got what, a cat raise going on? You're the CEO of a business, you've got EO stuff, you're running a bloody accelerator by yourself. You've got two podcasts, YouTube content, you. All these networking events, mate. Reign it in a little bit, mate. Come on. At least for the rest of us.

It's actually insanity. I think the, the speaking, the speaking stuff's just been like a whole new ball game. Like I'm trying to prepare for, you know, the Research Society conference. That's an 800 person event in a couple of weeks time. Got the TEDx talk, got to go to Singapore in a few weeks time. I was in Sydney last week. I had the webinar on Saturday night at like 2:00am Then I'm like, just say yes. Then I've got to go. I think one of you go to Dubai soon and then like got the investor meetings. Like, it's just, it's insanity. And honestly, it's just crazy.

So I think you got the Gold Coast.

I gotta go to the Gold Coast. And then the new pa Ha. Haley joined up. She'd been in the business for like three days. And she's like, what the actual is going like? She's like, are you serious? She's like, can someone else take these meetings? Like, what else? Like, I don't understand. Do you do all this? And I'm like, yes, Haley, I've already distributed. I don't go to half the meetings. I've already handballed all this stuff off. And she's like, this is.

If I. Good. Because if I was your pa, I would look at that and go, how you work. Seriously, you need to say no to some things and prioritize.

I actually do though. That's the thing. I'm booking meetings out three to four weeks in advance. Like, unless it's really urgent, things aren't getting booked till September. At this point, you know, I'm meeting guys in Sydney and that went like. We're booking.

Good. Funny story for you. Okay, so. All right, let's. Okay, so.

And I'm gonna be. I have to be pretty. Gonna be pretty strategic in how I word this. So there's a. There's a female I'm catching up with soon and I'm going to. I'm going to be in a certain place where she lives and we got connected and we're catching her anyway. And this is a Long time in advance. And I'm checking my calendar. I was going to book in a time. Kind of forgot that. This is like, this is not. Is the real world when you're like, you know, trying to have a date with someone. You don't book something out two to. Two to three months in advance. So I'm checking my calendar like, oh, what are you doing on the, you know, do you want to catch up a coffee on the 23rd of September? I don't know what the date was. 23rd of September, like seven weeks. And just like, I don't know. Ben, you're so radiant. No, Ben, let's find, let's like figure it out. Close the door. I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, you're right. This is not like, this is not. This is not a work call.

Can we meet up in 14 months time? Because I kind of dig in. This is where I can fit you in. As you can see, you're not a priority for me at all. And this is the only time I have available. Don't you know I'm running a crypto startup. Get in line, mate. Your. Your life is just this, your. Even your romantic life, you got to sort it out.

I've got 14 minutes.

I'm glad.

I'm glad someone gave you your dose of reality. Reality to the face, mate. You deserve it.

Oh, man.

You went to this in real life event like last week or whenever it was. Talked your ass off.

Was it.

Was it this Monday or last Monday? No, last month.

Yeah.

Lost your voice. You're like, I can't even talk. I'm getting sick or doing all this stuff, mate. You're just so hectic. Where. Where are you? Like, what? Where are you right now?

I don't even know where you are, mate.

So I got up the other day, I got out of bed, it was like middle of the night, trying to find the toilet. I like wandered around, literally walked into the wall, like busted my foot, kicked the chair, sort of waking up. I was like, where the am. I just totally forgot where I was. Like, they actually panicked for a second. I was like, oh, I'm in Melbourne. Thought I was in Sydney, but because we're in Sydney, I'll get up and go. Left the toilet here, it's get up and go, right? So I thought I was like, anyway, it's just been crazy. I'm in Melbourne, mate, in Melbourne. Had had my EO stuff on Friday, had to come for a few meetings and then had some meetings today and got an EO again tomorrow. Got A full day training tomorrow, then I'm out Wednesday. But it's been crazy. Sydney was great fun. I said I'd report back. Sydney was a lot of fun. So we had the Venturing Capital event on the Monday. Spoke on a panel on crypto winter, what to do in crypto Winter.

And nice.

Really the alpha there was really alpha. But my thoughts around that was like, it depends when you got in. Like the, the question. One of the questions I got was like, you know, what should you do now? Like, you know, what the. What are the strategies? Like, well, depending when you got in. Right. Like, if you're getting crypto in December or November, you're probably panicking. You're probably down 80% if you've been here since 2016. That's like this, you know, it's not a day in crypto. Right. It's just like a walk in the park. So I think it depends on when you got in. Nothing's fundamentally changed. I'm not looking at altcoins right now. I think Bitcoin, Ethereum. There's been a lot of bullish sentiment around Ethereum recently. Like Matt's video with the upcoming merge. I'm super excited about it. I don't know if it's already priced in, in this bearish market, but I was buying ETH on the plane. I was like, hell, even Vitalik was.

Saying it's not, it's not priced in.

Oh, there you go.

And after you saw Matt's video, mate, you pulled the wallet out, dude.

So the supply shock is going down to be an interest rate. The validators, the people that put up 32 eth actually can't sell. Their, their incentives when they get their rewards, they can't sell for six to 12 months. So all the whales that are jammed in their 32 ETH literally can't sell. Supply shock.

Yeah, I don't know, man. It's pretty bullish.

It's going to be interesting, man. Get amongst that and. Okay. So we had, we had a meeting earlier in the week and he told me two things about Sydney. Everyone dresses weird and their coffee's absolute.

What is going on in Sydney, man?

They're the two takeaways.

What's going on in Sydney? I got to Sydney, I was like, what the hell? I haven't been up in Sydney a long time. What the hell is going up here? I saw like, people come out of a club on a Monday night. This dude, no shit. Was wearing. He was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a singlet. He had like dreadlocks He's a white dude with dreadlocks and a hairy chest and a, and a, and a, and a funny long sleeve. I was like what the is going on around here?

I want to have a beer with that bloke. Sounds like he's got his life together.

And the coffee in Sydney, my God, unless I'm the unluckiest bloke on earth I sound like a bigger snobby but it's bad coffee. I drink almond.

You're from Melbourne.

I drink almond milk. Well you lived in Melbourne and oh my God, just disgraceful.

Was the coffee worse in, in Sydney or in the States?

Oh God. If you have a milk based coffee in America like just don't even, don't even drink it. I don't even, just don't even think about. Game over like so you've got a choice of just straight awful American like milk coffee or do you want burnt almond milk which tastes like dir feed in Sydney they just take your pick. That's, that's.

But I will say give me that.

Glass of dirty feet.

This coffee which I nearly didn't pay for because of how expensive it was cost me guess. Wait for it. $8.

Mate where are you having this.

$8 coffee dollars at the takeaway shop downstairs at the Crown Hotel. $8 as small was 5, $4 80 or $5.

This cost me $8. I get, I get this, I get discounted accommodation here but I've done the, I've done the math. When you add up the coffee the 20 discount or whatever I get here is pushing me back out towards where I wasn't paying for anyway so.

That'S tough man. It's been.

Oh his Crown is it also the experience?

The experience like.

The experience here is like 10 out of 10 from the moment you get like the door opens for you at the, the carport thing either. What's it called? Yeah, you know they take you back. I had two massive like pull up banners. I had like two bags coming from Sydney. I was, I, I had four minutes to get inside and have my investor meeting. I had two back to back investor meetings. I arrived at 7:30 stream Ben. I had to ch. Roll up the cafe, plug in bang. Investor meetings. Two investor meetings. I'm at my EO thing all day. 12 till 6 we go out for dinner 6:30 till 10. I haven't been in the hotel. I've got my webinar at 1:32am in the morning. Haven't been here, get here, let in the door. How I serve all My bags is here, ready to go. I've got like a good room I can plug in. I had a two hour kit up at 1:30 for my webinar. 400, 450 people.

What a stitch up. That was a big stitch up. So we got, we've got this webinar going where Ben is presenting to this whole group of people. And it's at, it's at 2:00am Ben's time. So you know, of course Ben's gonna fit it in. In between the three minutes where he sleeps and meditates, you're like, no worries, let's get up. You drop me a message about that. Explain that journey to me when you wake up, mate, because it is hilarious.

It's a huge week in Sydney. Like massive week. You know, out every night with events, couple of beers. Like it just yet. Shit, sleep, you're at hotels, cooked. Friday I got a 7:30 flight, got up at 5:00am to leave Sydney. Sydney airport's fucked. It's chaos at the moment. Catching a flight is just bananas. There's people everywhere. I had to go to the fucking car park to line up the back end of security, nearly miss my flight. I'm there an hour and a half before and get on the plane, pass out, wake up, get to get to Melbourne, straight here. Two investor meetings. As I said EO to the dinner. All of a sudden we're at dinner. I'll meet with my EO buddies. Haven't seen these guys in four months. These are like some of my closest, like business mates. So we're drinking a couple of pints, a couple of scooies. 10:30, I'm like, I gotta go home. These guys are kicking on. I'm like, no, I need to go. I've got a, we've got a webinar, you know, two and a half hours, go home, two hours sleep. Wake up at 1:30. Webinar starts at 2:00am I've got a 2:00am, this is new York, midday, New York time. So I've got to talk crypto, teaching people and get them into the membership. Wake up at 1:30. I was, I was like, okay, I'm feeling all right. Got to the shower, couldn't open my eyes. I was literally like, I could not open my eyes. They were just stuck. So I ramp it to cold, have a cold shower. Get out. Okay, I'm feeling good. Get to the chair. Now I'm feeling shit again. I'm fucking tired. I'm cooked. Go, go and have a Coke. I was like, maybe a bit of sugar? Nah. But 10 minutes before this webinar starts, did 30 push ups, smash it out. Then the adrenaline hits because I'm in front of 450 people. Smash out the master class. Pretty sure I killed it. We had like 60 people sign up. It was great, you know, it was awesome. Had great fun. 3:30 kicks in. I've seen all the data come in that we've got numbers, you know, now I'm wide, I'm. I'm up and about. I was, you know, let's go to the club, sort of 3:30 now. I'm wired now, can't go to sleep. A smashing melatonin. Have a water, turn the lights off, watch the Commonwealth Games. Like 4:30, pass out.

Get up at 7:30 I've got to do, go to the cafe, smash out any mails till 9:30, cooked again, come home, watch Netflix, try and sleep for a couple hours. And that was.

That was Saturday.

Amazing. And the part that made me laugh. So apart from the push ups, which is just hilarious, I could just imagine your skinny ass. Push ups. But then after that and 30. Yeah, mate, turn it up. How long that takes you? Set to 2.

It started 1am Finished, but then he.

Literally goes, I'm so what? Yeah, that's it, that's it. That's the real story. And then he's like, it's just business. Cocaine. It is so good. Like after you've done it and you see all the numbers roll in and he starts getting like, this is pure life.

It literally is, man.

But like so good, man.

It is business. Go. Cause like 60 members, we're killing it. It was like quarter to four in the morning. Me and my hotel room had two hours sleep. I was like, this is not good.

That is an absolute awesome result, man. The team been working hard on that, working, building out all the funnels. The dev team, the growth team. And to just find people on the Internet and sign them up is just awesome.

It was fun, man. It was really fun. Last thing I'll mention once when I watched the Lions play on Sunday, yesterday against the Tigers. I hate Richmond. We were up. We're up by. We're up by 40 points. We're slaying at first quarter. We got MCC seats. So my mate Matt, he works for cricket Victoria, got us MCC seats, six seats, like middle boundary, few ro the front. Wicked seats. We're up by 40 points. First quarter. My multi's killing it. I'm like, it's all, it's all winning. Like, we're done. Like, wrap it up. Second quarter up by 30, 40 points. Third quarter hits one of my players and I'm multi injured. Get subbed off, lose that and Brisbane just go to. We basically lost both quarters. Went downhill from then on. We gave up like a 40 point lead at MCG, so Richmond fans everywhere just copping it all day. We lose by seven points. We gave it up. We're out of the top four. Lose my multi and just went home. Hands between the legs. Terrible day.

Yeah, mate. You lost the game, lost your multi, lost your dignity.

30 minute I just walked home, I was like, I just. I just deserve this. This is how good.

Oh, mate, mate, Unbelievable. Now I'm just looking down at my finger.

So I've got a band aid on.

So you like my finger?

Yeah, man, absolutely brilliant.

So what I did earlier, because Ben kept delaying the podcast because his life is just a shambles, so I did an allergy test, right? So this is the, the food allergy thing. So you can order this off the Internet, right? Cost you a couple of hundred bucks. And what you got to do is just get some blood out of your finger, put it on like five little dots and then send it away and they let you know what you're allergic to and you get some support and all this kind of stuff. So anyway, we're doing the test and I get. Get the Mrs. To read it and do it. She's like a medical scientist. She understands. And then it's time to get the little prick thing and you press it on and it just pricks your finger. And she's got it next to my finger and I'm like, am I pulling away? I'm like super scared. I'm like this, like. It's like, you know that little pin prick if you need to do blood sugar or something like that, it's nothing at all, but they've. They've put it in this little like thumbtack looking thing and you don't know what's inside. You don't know when it presses. It's single use, so you can only do it once. And I'm like, no, I'm not doing it.

No, I'm not doing.

I'm just freaking out like a little kid. And she's looking at me like, you big giant silk. Give me so much crap. Anyway, she eventually just stabs it. Didn't even feel it. I'm like, cool. All right, let's go. But before you stab it, right, you got to do all this stuff. Like you got to do 20, like jumping jacks. You got to Move your arm in rotation, like, 10 times, and you got to heat your hand up under warm water so the blood starts flowing anyway. Get the little prick. Didn't even feel it. And there's something weird about. I don't know what's in that thing. I could literally get a knife and just go like that. No worries at all. But because I didn't know what was inside it, I was just, like, freaking out, which is hilarious because I'm like this giant, like, hunking, like, hulking bloke, and I'm like, oh, my little finger. But needles and everything are fine because I can see him. Anyway, we get it going, and a little bit of blood comes out, and I'm like, cool. And I start massaging my hand like this. And you got to massage it down. And then, you know, usually you cut yourself. Blood just pause out, mate. No worries. Not today. So I'm like, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing, and not one drop of blood comes out. And I'm like, this.

This is.

It's cold today. It's stormy. And so I go heat my hand up. Nothing's working. And eventually I just stand up, and I'm literally, like, wretching my hand to, like, get this thing going. And you got to put this drop. So I'm like, oh, there's a drop, but the drop's not coming off my hand. It's not, like, leaking out like a tap. So you have to just touch the little pad, right? And you're not allowed to actually. Only the blood can touch it. You're not allowed to touch it because it'll contaminate it.

Right?

So I touch it, and there's these, like, six little circles, and you've got to get at least four of them full. And I touch it, and it doesn't even feel like a quarter of the circle. And I'm like, oh, my God. So I'm literally there for, like, 10 minutes, squeezing my hands, squeezing my arm, trying to get blood out. After, like, the third one, I was just, like, going ham on this thing. And then, like, the blood was, like, flowing, and I got it into the little different things. So I've sent that test away, and I think it's only a couple of weeks and I can report back with a full panel. They do, like, 200 or 300 things about what I'm allergic to.

Mate, mate, that it's going to be interesting. Okay, finger off. Try and get some blood out of there.

Oh.

It'S unbelievable. It's nothing at all. I reckon it was too Pissy. The little thing that they gave us, like, stab the side of your finger, do all this stuff, like, man. Just gives a little cut. Let's go. You know, just.

What made you do that?

Like, when I'm cutting vegetables or something, the blood just leaks out, mate.

Do you think you're. Do you think you're allergic to something or, like, why'd you do that?

Oh, for sure, man. I reckon I'm allergic to a bunch. Definitely allergic to brewer's yeast and probably baker's yeast as well, and a few other things. Plus, my brother did it, got awesome results from it. I just want to know, like, I definitely think some foods upset me more than others and now can actually go, okay, don't eat these ones because they'll.

Just ruin you, man.

I'll let you know what the results are. I reckon you should get on this as well, mate. If it's good and they give you. Because they give you support, like, they'll call you up, they'll talk you through it, they'll talk about diet, all that sort of. And you can take the results to, like, your doctor or another professional as well.

Dude. So I think we've got the same stomach problems. Like that acidic, like, nature in your stomach. When you have it just makes you feel like absolute ass. You want to throw up and you're burping like it's.

Oh, yeah.

So I've got these new tablets. I went to the doctor. They're just there. I have one of them a day. Game changer. I can drink as many skewies as I want. I can eat dumplings. I had. I went to movies last night, had popcorn that felt fit as a fiddle. Game changer. Absolute life changer. Honestly, like, I feel great. I can eat whatever. Don't feel like it's unbelievable. It's probably backwards on there.

Oh, no, Sando's is the brand.

They make paracetamol, too.

Pantoprazole, pentoprazole.

20 milligrams of pantoprazole?

Yeah, yeah, it's a. It's a PPI proton pump inhibitor. Same as, like, Gaviscon and. But you can take it daily. That's awesome.

Funny that you just got no idea what's in the. That we eat and drink, like, medication. We just trust that someone's, like. Someone's, like, got good morals and you've. The stuff they put in there is, like, good for you. Oh, you know this. You're from health.

So. Yeah. So story time, right? So back in the day, I used to go to Bali quite a lot. So I always get sick there. I always get dehydrated. And once I got Jardia, which is like a real up bug, right, I had it for like a year. There's no real treatment for it. It's just oral rehydration. It's kind of like Ross river virus, right? And it's like you feel crooked two to three weeks out of the month. Your bones hurt, you're lethargic.

It's.

Anyway, when I saw GP and he smashed me with, like, Flagel, which is like this, like, top shelf antibiotic. You up. And I'll be. I reckon I've been up ever since. And my journey is literally to get back to, like, normal gut health and, like, normal, because even when you have more bugs, that flares up. And it's like this journey to find out all these little things, like these little allergies and food allergies and dust mites and then like, all this kind of crap. It is absolutely ridiculous. What a minefield. And that's it. You trust this doctor? Because I went there and I went back and I'm like, bro, I'm still sick. I'm getting sicker. And he wanted to put me on those antibiotics for another two months. And I was like, get the out of here.

I just leave this guy from Bali or this guy.

You know what blows my mind, Doctor? No, no, sorry, this. This Australian doctor. Yeah, back here. I got the bug in bar. So what's wild as well is, like, how often we do this in our lives. Like, we just hear something once and we trust people. The one that blows my mind is we jump on a plane with a pilot we've never met, and we just trust him. We're like, yeah, he's a lad. He'll be fine.

That, then, that, by the way, there.

Is no like, or she's a gun.

No, like, you know, some different place you can trust somebody. Sort of like, safeguarded, right? Like, I'm trying to think about what that might be, you know, like, let's. Let's say you're bungee jumping or something like that. Like, you're not just trusting the human that's throwing you off. You can do your own check. So you can, like, check, make sure the cables, like, all connected together. You're probably like two guys there. It's a whole crowd. It's like, you know, that's. Yeah, I would never bungee jump. But, like, that's relatively like, you're gonna be okay, right? In a plane, some guy wants to, you up and everyone up. Like, you're done. Like, there's no. There's no one saving you. Like, who wants to turn that thing into the. Into the ground. This guy on the ground.

Oh, what about other situations? Like, if you go to the barber and they literally hold a straight razor to your neck? Like, you got a man that you don't really know holding a razor to your neck. Like, what if they're crazy? It's like all these trusting situations where we're like, oh, no, they're legit. They're fine. We don't realize, like, they're humans with, like, crazy lives. Like, we have heaps of problems. Even all the screening they do with pilots, like, it's just. It is unbelievable.

Man, do you trust.

And he's so crazy. He's putting our lives in other people's.

Would you trust a robot or AI to, like, cut your hair or drive a plane over a human, mate?

If I could look at the source code, hell yeah. If I couldn't, then probably not.

Do my. Dude. Do my due diligence.

Or if the robot was, like, slow enough. Oh, yeah, a robot could give me a buzz cut, mate. No worries. As long as it doesn't have, like, the power to push hard or, like, knock my head off or anything like that, I would go for it. Okay, you want to know what the real ultimate scary thing is? So this. This is what really, really frightened me. So when you have a kid, it's like a very. It's a traumatic experience. No matter what anyone tells you. It's completely. You don't know what you're doing. You got this little thing that's crying, and all the time it doesn't sleep. You don't sleep. You're anxious. You basically, the sleep deprivation. And then you don't really eat properly. You're all up, and it just ruins you. Even the broken sleep, if you manage to get it. And then like, you're like, okay, cool. You know, eventually get used to it. And then you go to work and, you know, you kind of fart around, do stuff. And then you realize everyone's been through this. And you start to look at people like surgeons that work insane hours, that still have kids that don't sleep, and they got to operate on people all day long, like, serious. And then you're like, holy. Like, these people aren't gods, they're just humans. But they end up doing all this stuff. And you realize, like, this the thing. Like, okay, let's say you have no kids and they recommended is eight hours of quality sleep. If you have seven hours of sleep, you're legally drunk, you're over 0.5 done. And these guys sleep maybe four hours, five hours, if that. With kids and all this shit going on. Isn't that crazy?

It's fascinating, isn't it that it's false. That and you would know that any of the difference. You go in operation, life changing, like life, you know, I'm life changing. But you know, you need to have a surgery that could be like live or die. And you've got your hands, your life's hands in people that you've never met before. They may have just broke up with their misses or had too much to drink the night before, didn't get a good sleep or who knows, they might be, I don't know.

Or they get, they get into their own product. It happens a lot.

And one, one is so crazy you're.

Oh yeah.

Or the anesthetist is keeping you alive, right? And looking at all these machines. And then the wildest thing is in health is like it's very high communication than hate, face to face kind of stuff. There's lots going on. You don't communicate everything and you realize it's just a business. It's a very complicated, understaffed business. And if you're a patient you have to advocate for your own health. Always question everyone, ask them to repeat stuff because they're only human. They're seeing hundreds of people a day. Literally someone will die on the table and they'll go and see another patient and then they'll go to a meeting and then they'll have to have a performance review with someone. It is a mental, mental job. They are only human. I've talked to doctors and in their phones they literally have alarms to go to the toilet and do away to eat something and to do other stuff because it's just mental. As soon as you get in there it's just reactive. Shit's just happening. Things are being thrown at you. It is a crazy, crazy environment.

So quick, quick, just like context here for the pod listeners. Aaron used to be the Chief Digital Officer at.

Wwa. Basically I'm not sure if you want to mention the name but out in Perth West Australia. So Aaron's like worked literally hand to hand combat with these guys every pretty wild.

Yeah. So I worked for the Fiona Wood foundation and out at Fiona Stanley Hospital and raw Perth Hospitals. So I work in the, with the clinicians in the clinics and the wards so right next to them and help them with their IT Build out products, systems, all that kind of stuff. And, man, when you see what these guys have to do, you just want to build any piece of technology you can to make their lives just a bit easier, to give them that extra five minutes because it is hectic. It is so, so crazy. Even these kids that are like, I want to go into medicine and they start studying because they got top grades, and then they see what it's really like. I'm like, whoa. Do you realize the life that you've chosen? Like, you really have to want it. It's like being the CEO of a crypto startup. Like, most people would not do your job. They would not cope. It is crazy. You have to do insane things on an insane schedule. Things change all the time. Like, not even 1% of people in the world would take that on, let alone be successful.

I want to circle back to the other side of what we just spoke about. Like, there's a lot of. There's risks with everything, right? You know, getting on a plane, going for surgery, whatever. Let's. Let's flip the. Let's. Let's tell the other side of the story. Let's go back, like a thousand years and say you needed an operation or you wanted to. Or you wanted to travel somewhere, or you wanted to.

Drive somewhere, or you wanted to eat a certain food or knows what, that would not be possible. Like, imagine you were a caveman back in the day and you needed hard operation. Like, you don't get in the heart operation, mate. Like, you're done. You're cooked. You're. You're toppling over at 30. Or. Or you want to go traveling. You get on your donkey or your horse and go walking for, you know, 10 days. Like, that's your. That's your holiday. Yeah. You know, now we've got, like, all this, like, unbelievable transportation. We've got smart people, we've got technology, we've got robots, we've got science. All this stuff that has improved the quality of life for humans. But, you know, everything's got. Everything's got a downside. Everyone's got a risk. But if we're living like a thousand years ago, like, different ball game.

Oh, two things that blow my mind. One, we didn't have, like, antibiotics 100 years ago. So it's like, if you get an infection and your body can't fight it off, you're dead. Bang. You cut your toe, get something, you're dead. That's it. See you later. The other one is anesthetic. I don't know when that came out. But people were having operations without anesthetic, mate, it's like, here, have some booze or bite down on.

Here's some whiskeys.

Like, we don't appreciate that. We've got clean running water. I can press a button on my phone and food will arrive to my house. Did you know that surgeons and barbers were the same thing back in the day?

Really?

Do you know that? Like, so, okay, yeah. So what happened was there were just barbers, right? And you go to a barber and, you know, they cut your hair, they do all this stuff. But they also did like minor surgeries because they had all the knives and all that kind of crap. And then they branched off and they went into kind of medicine and surgery and barbers, right? And then like, barbers were still to like, you know, they'd chop your leg off or cut out a wound or do some crazy stuff. And then it went into its own field. And that's how it came about. Because the tooling was identical back in the day. How crazy is that?

It's. I just want to take another, like, angle here quickly is like, because we've got this on here is like the ability to view the world in a different way, I think is so powerful. So I'm like doing this new morning gratefulness I used to do a little while ago, but like trying this new idea of like trying to just think about. Because I've heard like, you know, morning gratefulness can. Has like cured a lot of people's depression, anxiety and like people's just whole viewpoint on the world.

Yeah.

And just the ability to cognitively, like think every day. And it might be a grind, but like to think about, you know, five to ten things you're grateful for. List them out, read them out, tell somebody, whatever your ability over time to build up the way your. Your neurons or whatever the it is in your brain to like the way you think about life. For example, just then we went down that path of like, holy shit. Like you're trusting those people. It's quite a sort of negative look, but it's like, it's very. I don't know if it's pessimistic, but it's like risk adverse look versus, like the ability. It's where you can also like see things of another angle. Like if you listen to what we just said for doctors, you know, the first, the first little half we said like, holy shit. Like, you know, you got all these, you know, who knows who's doing it? You could die. Like, you know, you trust all these people versus you think about it like the advancement we've had from a thousand years ago to now. It's two completely different. It's the same thing, talking about the same thing, but two completely different ways of looking at it. And that's so fascinating because you could you look at that at whole of life, right?

Yeah, man, I've always thought that. And if you want to be cured, just read any history book ever and see how hard people actually had it compared to what we have now. And even simple things is something ridiculous. Like over half the world doesn't have clean running water and toilets. Super basic stuff. Clean running water and toilets. That is absolutely insane when you think about it. We complain about our lives where we sit in front of our computers, we work from home, we've got heating, we've got clothing, we've got any food that we want, we've got the Internet, we can learn anything, we can change our lives. We're so privileged that we forget we've got these first world problems. But we need to relate that back to how are we really doing in the world like right now, just being on a computer, talking to each other, being in the station of life that we are in, the jobs we have, we're in the top 5% globally end off just with the money we earn. It was something ridiculous. Like if you earn more than, I don't know, 50 or 60k US, you're in the top. Like how many percent I think start top 10% of the world. And we forget because we don't visit these countries, we don't see what their day to day is like. We don't understand war, running away, you know, having to flee a country, being a refugee. We've had the biggest time of peace in our history and having that morning gratitude really changes your perspective. I completely agree, man.

Just to wrap up this conversation, even.

Even the stoics used to do a thing with like. Yeah, even the stoics had a thing with negative visualization. Like what would my life be like if I didn't have my arms or my legs or I lost my sight? And instantly when you visualize those things, you are just grateful. Instantly.

100 dude. Just to wrap up this little segment here, what's your. What's your kind? What's your gratitude or kind? Deed of the week. I know we've added that. I think that was. You added that. I love that. What's your. What you got something?

Oh, we've added it in and I haven't even thought of one, mate.

Have you got one?

If you got one, go for it and let me think of mine.

I've got a kind deed of the week, by the way, full disclosure, I didn't do this knowing that this is a segment. It was the other day in Launceston. I was going to pay for fuel and the two people in front of me, like, their card wasn't working. I was declining or something. And they were like pressing buttons. I was like trying to. Their cards just wasn't working and I just paid for their. I don't know what it was. Paid for their fuel or their drinks, whatever the hell they were buying. And they were like, oh, my God. Like, he said, like, thank you so much. Like, he dropped everything, he turned around, he shook my hand and said, man, thank you so much. Like, he was super grateful. It was a really nice feeling. The guy at the petrol station was like, man, that was really nice. I was like, you know, I don't know what it was. Like, 40, 50 bucks, 30 bucks. I don't know what it was, but just like, I think that probably just made his day. And on the way out, like, he was waving to me. He's like, give me a big thumbs up. He's like, you know, and that, that ability for those guys to maybe pass that on to someone else, not that this was my idea that it was like, it, I'll just pay for it. Save you going out to try and find more money, they might pass it on to someone else. The petrol guy was like, oh, that's cool. Might do that something. It's like that natural sort of distribution of just kindness. I love that sort of stuff.

That's awesome, man. Yeah, I look out for those opportunities whenever I can. I've had a thing. I do think I have one. So this was in one of the mornings. And my daughter's school has like a coffee and catch up once a month, where you go to the staff room, you meet all the teachers, that kind of stuff. And it's early in the morning and I'm fucking tired and I'm sore from working out. I'm like, I can't be fucked. Like, I don't want to do this, but I ended up going down. And the reason I like to go down is to let them know what a fucking good job they're doing, because teachers just do not get enough credit. And the amount of programs they have in this school, the amount that they help the kids, especially even ones that have extra challenges and needs, and I made sure that I had A conversation with all of the teachers and gave them feedback and closed that loop for them and let them know all the awesome things that they're doing. You should just see the smiles they have. Just absolutely beaming, like, they know they're doing these. These awesome things. They can see the change in the kids. But then to get that feedback from the kids through the parents and just putting that effort to go down there and tell them, instead of being like, nah, she'll be right. And it was. It was amazing for me. Like, I get a real kick out of just being around them. Like, it's so much energy when you see people practicing their craft, they're really in love with it and they're doing the best stuff. And then you start brainstorming together and you start talking about a bunch of stuff. It was just. It was awesome. So that's kind of my gratitude for the week. I don't think I was kind in what I was doing. It's just. It's just what you should be doing if you've got awesome people in your life.

Just saying thank you, just showing up. That's really cool.

Oh, 100%, mate. So now we've got a segment and I've wanted to do this for a while, mate.

Hit us up, mate.

So let's, let's. All right, I'll share my screen right now. Ben, when I say barbecue and you go to your mate's place, what happens? What is a barbecue to you guys?

Mate, we throw a couple of. A couple of hamburglas on the barbecue. Got some snags. I usually bring a bit of steak because none of my mates can afford steak. So I bring a bit of steak. Have a steak sanger. It's pretty basic, man. Yeah, we might. A bit of bacon, maybe.

Awesome, man. So, yeah, all right, so when I say barbecue, this is what's barbecue to me. So this is American barbecue. So you got an Australian teaching you about American barbecue. I've been in love with this pretty probably for the last, oh, seven, eight years, I reckon. So this segment is going to be how to cook American barbecue for under 100 bucks. And it is so, so easy to do. You'll be blown away. Stop going to, well, you know, support these guys. But when you go out to, like, a barbecue joint, they charge you, like a million dollars for a bit of brisket or some ribs or something like that. So, look, this is what we're going to do. You're going to need four things. You're going to need a Weber, something to cook on you're going to need some charcoal, you're going to need some meat and you need some smoking wood. It is just simple as that. All right, let's get you started with your Weber. Get something like this. Don't get those cheap ones from Bunnings, all that sort of bullshit. Get the Weber brand. It doesn't have to have all the fancy shit. But seriously, I bet you you've already got one in your backyard. You've never used it because you're a dog. Or you're going to like your parents place, right? And they'll have one that they bought for like a turkey once a year and. And no one knows how to use it. Or.

Or it's got cobwebs on it.

Seriously. In road cycle.

Cobwebs, you know, like the old ones. Cobwebs, yeah.

This is too hard. This is too hard. I can't do it. It's simple. Anyone could do it. You're all working from home now. You might as well be cooking up some good food. So get a Weber. Even in the curbside collections. Grab one of those. Or jump on Gumtree or bloody marketplace. And they're about seriously 60 bucks secondhand. Grab a second hand one, they last forever. There's your Weber. Great. Grab one of those. Right, now let's flick over to how you're actually going to set this up. I'm going to teach you how to cook awesome pulled pork. So what we're going to do here is we're going to set up your Weber. You're going to buy charcoal briquettes, right? These are just simple things he beads. You can get them from Coles, you can get it from Bunnings, you can get them from anywhere. Now these photos are from a local legend called Gus Face. We'll link to him in the show notes. He's a barbecue hero. Such a legend. This is called the Snake method. So you got your Weber, you take the lid off and you arrange your little briquettes in little rows. So you do two on the bottom and then you do one row on the top and you just snake it all the way around. Then you stack your smoking wood about two or three chunks, just like in the photo there. And you put an alphor tray in the bottom. The alpha tray is just a cache of drippings. Real simple. Now with your smoking wood, don't buy any of these Bunnings crap or this kiln dried Weber crap where it's really dry, that's all disgusting. And don't buy wood chips and soaking I've seen you do it. And if you do it, I'm gonna pop up behind you and I'm gonna give you a left. Right? Good night. Do not soak those wood chips. That is disgusting. Go to a barbecue place or even on, like, you know, marketplace. All the, like, fruit tree people in your area, get yourself some hickory or some apple or even plum, cherry, all good. Cost you next to nothing. Makes amazing food. All right, so here's what we're going to do. Line up your briquettes like that. Take about 10 or so briquettes, light them up until they're ashed over, and then just throw them over the front of the snake, just like in this photo here. If you Google Snake method, you'll be able to see it or you can just see it on the pod. Here's a photo of it set up nice and close. So this is actually one of my photos. I've just got it in a little chimney there. Lighting them up. You can just light them on the bottom of the Weber, dump it on the front of the snake. And what this does, it creates the perfect temperature, about 225Fahrenheit. I think it's maybe 110Celsius. And this just burns around from briquette to briquette and goes around for about 10 hours. You don't have to worry about temperature. You got the top vents open, the bottom vents open. Absolutely. Simple, simple, simple. Right, let's get onto your mate. This is the kind of meat you want. You're going to start off with some pork. Pork is real easy to do. So you've set up your briquettes, you've lit them while they're lighting and you put them on the snake, go inside. Right, what you want to get is a pork Scotch or a pork neck, so there's no bones or anything in this. Or if you want to be fancy, you can get a Boston butt, which is a bone in scapula. Now, where do you buy this? You can go to your local butcher. You can go to any kind of anyone that says, I highly recommend Linley Valley pork because they only use sows, not boars. So you don't get that really like awful boar like wet dog kind of smell and taste. Or you can go to Costco if you want. So, right, grab this. It comes in a bag. Open that bag and then all you gotta do, you don't even have to trim these guys up, you just gotta put a rub on it. So you're gonna do the Holy Trinity first. Salt Pepper, garlic, and then we're going to get fancy. You should have all this shit in your pantry anyway. You can add some cumin, you can add some chili, add some paprika for color, and then add a little bit of brown sugar just to round it out with sweetness. And after you've got that rub, put it in a shaker. Or you could buy like a $5 shaker rub. Seriously, just taste it, make sure you hit all those notes. Awesome. Grab that shaker, shake it all over the top just like I have here. Go out to your Weber, throw it on there and you're done. Literally put the lid on with both ends open and you leave it for eight hours. Simple as that. So let's have a look through. This is what it looks like after about four, three or so hours. So that snake is burning around, it'll hit the wood. And when it hits the wood, what you want is like a really thin, blue, sweet smelling smoke to come out that draws you in. You don't want like heaps of wind in this big white smoke that smells acrid and bitter and disgusting. I mean, that might happen for like a couple of minutes and then it will calm down. But if you've got heaps of wind or that's happening, just close down your vents just a little bit and then just leave it. Seriously. You can put this on at the morning when you start when you're working from home, and by night it'll be absolutely ready. So this is about, you know, the three hour kind of mark. This one's a bit later on as well. You can see in the background through the grill there, the smoke, like the chain through the snake is kind of burnt through. And at this point you kind of want to check it. You want to be like, oh, is it too dry? Is it too moist? This one's kind of fine. You can spray it if you want, with some beer or some apple cider vinegar. Look, if you're in a rush, you could just take this now and put it inside. The smoking's done. You pretty much just got heat here. You can put it in your oven inside. Or if you're in a real rush, you could just wrap it in butcher's paper or you could wrap it in al foil and that'll just speed up the cooking process. When you're around kind of the four hour mark, generally it takes around, you know, six to eight hours. And honestly to tell if this is done, you. You grab a skewer and you poke it through. If it probes like you're probing butter, you're done. That's it. Don't worry about the temperature. The temperature will be fine. And what you're doing here is you're overcooking the meat because you're breaking down all that intramuscular fat and then this is just going to pull apart. It is just phenomenal. And this is the end product. Have a look at that, mate. It just looks phenomenal. So this is about 2 kilos of pork and it's got a beautiful mahogany color to it. It's got beautiful bits of fat, lovely bark, which is nice and crispy. It's going to have all the flavor. And you have that smoke that just penetrates the meat as well. It just looks amazing. And there's, there's another angle for you.

Have you, have you got a photo of you this cut open? Sun, heavy breathing. Show us the inside. Did you cut it open?

All right, so this is another one. I don't have that exact one. There you go. So this is what it looks like, right? So this photo is not the greatest, but when you pull it apart, it just looks amazing where you've got all these pieces of like really nice, awesome meat with a smoke ring on it and you've got pieces of fat and you've just got all this deliciousness that just goes together. Seriously, when you're pulling this apart, you can just use a couple of forks and it just falls apart. It is so delicious. And so I had it for dinner and this is the next morning, mate. So I got a bit fancy, I made myself a cup of coffee from my house best. He's got his latte, self rated latte.

With his pulled pork. Look at this guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I stuffed, I stuffed up the latte art. I'm still learning, but it tastes good. And then I've got the pull pork on the plate. Got some leftover chips from dinner the night before and I cooked up some scrambled eggs with and, and I put truffle oil over the top, mate. And this thing was just incredible. It was like, man, if you want to feel rich, eat this. And then like an hour later when you burp, you're burping truffle. Seriously, it is amazing. It is absolutely amazing. So honestly, with the method I've just taught you, the snake method, just a simple recap. Line up your briquettes in a snake, light up 10 of them. As soon as they're ashed over, put them on the front of the snake, put your smoking wood there, go inside, set up Your meat, put it in there over a tray and just leave it. And these are the things that you can cook with this method. You can do pork ribs like that. These pork ribs are absolutely insane. It takes about, depending on how thick your pork ribs are, anywhere from three to five hours. And mate. Oh, these are just off the hook. Everyone always requests this. These ones, this is delicious. These are beef cheeks cooked in stout. Yeah. So you can. So beef cheeks are like this beautiful gelatinous meat. And I've rubbed it there with just a rub that I made. I smoked it the same way with the snake and. And then I put it in a tray. So smoking for maybe an hour or two, put them in the tray and then just pour some stout in there and just let it cook in there and it just absolutely falls apart. This is a brisket. So this was like an 8 kilo brisket where it's like, it's pretty much cow chest and it is just so meaty and delicious. Oh, my God. This is like the cut. Oh, mate. Have a goal.

That looks like a croissant.

Look at this. So this same method I probably use.

So I use less briquettes with this one. So you get like a, you get a cheese, right, A brie or a camembert and you wrap it in prosciutto and then you smoke it. So you've got this beautiful smoked melty cheese. You take it out and you cut it and the cheese just oozes out of it. And then you can put some smoked honey over the top. Have this with a nice glass of wine as a nice starter and just dip whatever you've got like beautiful sourdough bread or, or any like, crackers or anything into it. Amazing starter, mate. Oh, get amongst that. Jalapeno poppers. Exactly the same way.

Have you ever had these jalapenos? But that looks all right.

Oh, mate. Okay, so get, get a jalapeno, hollow it out, put some cream cheese in there, little bit of Gouda, wrap it in bacon, put some rub on it and smoke it. And these are just incredible. These are the most delicious things on the planet. These are the beef cheeks. When they're done, mate, like, this is just rich, thick, gelatinous meat. And it is just unbelievable. Number one thing, this is the beef cheek served over mash.

Holy, mate.

Now, now we're getting into it. This, this, this is the ticket, mate. This is the ticket. And this is a little tease for next week. So we've gone through the basics of how to smoke meat that is probably as complicated as it gets. You can go look at. We'll drop these in the show notes. Gus face David Ong with Pitmaster University or my favorite barbecue pit boys. They're just a bunch of like cowboy looking dudes that cook with minimal tools and make the best stuff. But next week I'll teach you how to cook the perfect steak and I'm looking forward to that.

Wow, dude, I'm so good mate.

So good.

I'm a bit hungry now.

You got to get amongst it mate. It is the easiest thing to do. And you've got so much leftover meat you can just vac seal it, you can make sandwiches. It's the most efficient cooking. It's, it is awesome. If I go to a barbecue now and they pull out the gas barbecue, I'm like this ain't barbecue, this is frying. I can do this in my pan. Nah, nah, no way.

Nice dude.

Oh, no way mate. Not for me.

You still haven't. Yep, there you go. You haven't give me the barbecue at your place yet. I'm have to, I have to fly over soon, man. I've got no purchase coming. I might have to book something in. I just hate coming to Perth.

Mate, you're a digital nomad.

You're ready. Come around, come to the barbecue.

Such a dog, such a dog. Like you fly in and then you just like I have Barbie and fly out.

It's like Tasmania. You in Tasmania? Oh Taz, you nah not going to t that.

Okay, first of all, Taz minus one degree, I'm not doing that. But you haven't invited me out for. I want to have some of that. It sounds amazing.

Come down, come out.

How is it explain to people what.

Mutton bird is, dude. So you basically you can only get these things in the top northwest coast of Tassie, like on an island basically. And my pop goes out every year for mutton bird hunting. And these bird, they're birds that live in the ground so they dig themselves these holes and the most like tender, most like it's like caviar for meat. So you to get these things you've got amazing. Stick your hand in the ground, you pull your hand, you push your hand into the holes where the birds live, you pull them out, snap their necks and you throw them in the bucket. Hope this is, that's not too visual for. Listen mate, it's real life.

Honestly, we're no here. This is just.

You slow cook them on the barbecue, you wrap them in foil, you've got these like Greases. You put a bit of, like, you know, seasoning on them. You wrap them in foil and you heat them up. You slow cook them over a few hours. Once they're done, there's these little birds to have them. There's not much meat on them and they're very greasy. Like, you know, we have one or two. They're very acquired taste, but that you get these like little bits of meat and it's like. I don't know how to explain it. It's like duck. It's like, you know how duck is such a very tender meat.

Yeah.

But this like, really, like, unique sort of greasy version of that on a bird. And it is unbelievable. You have the skin. You try and peel the skin off and you're sitting there. It's like a. It's like solving a Rubik's Cube trying to eat this thing. And you're trying to get as much meat off the bone as you can see.

I. I still remember when I was seven years old, I went to India and I had mutton curry and how delicious that was. It was just a completely different flavor. It was fatty and it was just incredible. I still remember that taste. Unbelievable. We don't really do, like mutton here. Lamb and like, young kind of sheep. It's a shame. That stuff is delicious. Speaking about that, man, like, I bought a fire pit like a couple of days ago. I can't wait to get that cranking, like just getting it out in the back during winter and it's got a grill over the top. The amount of things I'm going to cook, even when we're away on the trip, we end up cooking damper and all this stuff and just having like, damper, like, while you're sipping on wine with like some jam. Nutella was just so good, man.

Sick.

It's getting amongst it.

That's a good leading to. One of the last things was like, the difference around what I'm calling the birth lottery. The difference of a life you have.

Yes.

Depending on where you're born and the differences. So, like, I recently obviously came back from the States and seen America, seen, like, let's say New York. New York is this concrete jungle, eat or be eaten mentality capitalism. I'm gonna win, you're gonna lose. I'm gonna kick you when you're down. You, you don't go to university. You, you're gonna be homeless, you're gonna work at a bank, you're gonna be a lawyer, you're gonna be on the stock market. You're gonna be a broker, you got to earn 120k USD just to like live in Manhattan versus Tasmania. Yeah. And what are you on the weekend? I don't know, you go to clubs or. I don't even know what you do on the weekend in New York. Like you go, you know, you go to a bar, you don't go to grass, you don't go play golf, you know, you know what I mean? Like there's no, like you don't go to the outback, you don't go for bush walks. Like that's New York. Tasmania, you grow up, you grow up with country football, you grow up eating pies, you go to the Scottsdale Bakery and have a coffee on the side of the road and smell the fresh air and the non polluted, you know, air that you live in Tasmania there's a, there's two lanes on the road that cars barely drive in and you're just loving life. You're on a walk, you go to the water, you go for a swim but you grow up as a tradie or a farmer or some sort of retail 9 to 5 and you're earning 50k a year and that's just the world you live in. Some people never leave Tasmania but some people never leave Australia. Like that's a different world, isn't it?

A lot of people don't leave the States, like a lot of them don't have passports but you're right with a birth lottery like even me where my parents, my mum left India, my dad left Austria and they met over here. Like how lucky is that just to come to Australia first of all, be born over here, have decent parents that you know, saved all their money, did all that stuff, made a lot of sacrifices to be the person I am today. If they didn't do that or if I was born somewhere else or something else happened to me, I would not have those opportunities. And even the States like even with like going to, okay, I did my MBA right and doing it in the states is about 200, 250k USD right over here it's 60k aud for a top university and it is just, I can't fathom that amount of money to get in that debt to have that status and how they're all like what school do you go to? Where do you summer? How does this happen? I was just talking about this with a friend the other day about class levels, like and I'm like in Australia, like who's upper class? Like who is you know, nobility or anything like that. And I had to think really hard. Like I know some, you know, some fancy people, some surgeons, some lawyers, some judges, you know. Yeah, maybe. But there's such a low power distance in Australia. There's a very just, you know, very country town kind of attitude to the whole place. Not you can't be here or you don't do this, you don't belong. That still exists. But it's not like other places like Europe or it's fascinating.

Like on that point, the salary you can earn in the States compared to America is so much bigger. Like you know, to live in California you need like 120, 150 US just to like, you know, you know, in LA for example or like live a comfortable life over there. It is insane. I was actually so I was at. Yeah, I went in Sydney, I went to a, a fireside chat with airtree, the biggest web3VC fund in immutable X. The founder, one of the co founders, can't remember his name of Mutable X and he's like, it was a bunch, it was a, it was a route. Robbie Rob. It was a room full of builders, founders and investors. And he said, we are so lucky here in Australia because the talent here in Australia is so much cheaper than anywhere else. Well, no, sorry. Than America. If you want a software Engineer at the U.S. yeah, you're looking minimum 200 to 300 U.S. k salary a year.

Yeah.

That is insane. Yep.

That's just a software developer. Good ones are like north of 500k plus equity package.

And, and who's to say, like it is mental. And Tim and Martin for example, they're unbelievable guys, they're killing it. Would you expect that you, you'd get more.

Yes.

Out of that person you're paying half a million US dollars for than these guys? I don't know, I'm probably not. You know what I mean? Like they're probably snobby. Snobby rich folk that don't give a fuck.

Exactly.

Because we're on so much money and living in Beverly Hills.

Well, that's it. Because what took us out of the GFC was tech companies that was like the, you know, the knight in shining armor. And then people started working there. Then there was a war on talent where even though you need, didn't need the devs, you had so much money and you were hyperscaling that you bought them, didn't even put them to work so your competitors couldn't get them. And then it just started going up and up over time. Things became more and more ridiculous, as did valuations. Then, you know, everything goes up in step. Like if you live in San Fran, it's like your cars cost more, your housing is, you know, millions of dollars just for an average house. And everything goes up from there. Your rent goes up and then salaries go up as well. It is absolutely crazy. It is hard to find good talent and it costs a bomb. It is unbelievable.

We are very, very lucky and coming back to, like, Australia, man, I love, like, country footy. Winter, when I watch me mates the other day in Launceston watch the country footy game, there's nothing better than a. Than a savvy few, few frothies at the footy. Around the fire, watching country footy, guys going at it, everyone's just loving it. Everyone's just getting in the umpires, everyone's just getting stuck in couple of fights. Just awesome. That's just so sick. So good, isn't it?

That's real good. New York catching up with you. Yeah. See, this is the thing. That's it. You get around, your mates are in there, they're in, they're in the fight. And then everyone hates on each other from the different teams getting a bit of a beef. Bring the biff back, you know, have a couple of frothies to numb the pain. And then everyone slays off the umpire and he has to quickly duck off so he doesn't get bashed.

And then after the game, go, you go in the brooms, listen to all the boys. Everyone's just old and sore. Then you go in the rooms and both teams are there, have a few properties together, like nothing happened. It's just sick. Just good.

So good. So good, mate. All right, we're talking about food. I want to. I want to punch out meal of the week. I've got a cracker this week. Do you have a meal of the week?

Do you want to go first?

All right, all right. Yeah, I want to go first because this, this is like, oh, man. Oh, oh, oh.

All right.

All right. This was my meal of the week. And this is called Bakute, which loosely translates to meat bone tea. Right, so this it on the screen, you've got this bowl of this amazing broth and it's got like all these kind of like, herbal kind of stuff in it, like star anise. Anise, lots of spices and it's got pork bones in there, literally pork ribs that you can see poking out the top. Just cooked, so it's just falling off the bone. Lots of garlic mushrooms. Amazing on the Side, you've got your chili, your soy sauce, your garlic. You've got these.

What do they call it? You chuckwe. It's like fried bread that you can put in there as well and rice and man, this is the tits. Like I had this in Singapore and it was just unbelievable. Unbelievable. This one is just like a local one that I have here and it just. Man, if you're, if you ever. This is like the Asian chicken soup, man. It is so good. If you ever need a pick me up or you're not feeling right, or you just want a warm hug, get stuck into this. It is absolutely phenomenal. It is the dish. When, when we come down. When you come down, we're having this man and mate. It'll put a smile on your dial. And out of 10, I'm only going to give this an 8. And I'll tell you why. Because I went to Singapore. Yeah, I went to Singapore and I ate at one of the original Bakute places and it's a Michelin star restaurant and it costs about 10 bucks to eat there. And seriously, you eat. You eat it and mate, you just want to cry. It's like, it is unbelievable. It evokes so much emotion and it just tastes right. And it's like if someone put you in a machine and they're like, what does this human need? Bucketeer would just come out and you would have it and you would just feel amazing. You would feel complete. This meal.

Okay, that's a big call. I'm going to Singapore in a couple of weeks. I'm going to see. Can you like message.

Oh, tell me. I'll tell you. I'll tell you the place to go.

Send me messages later. Okay? Yeah, okay. Okay.

I might have joined. I'm so keen. I would literally fly there just for that meal.

I expect to be just rocked my world rocked.

Oh, seriously, you will be. You will be. The, the line's really long, but they get through people quickly, man.

Okay, you need to get out of your screen so I can.

All right, what do you got for me? It better not be. It better not be an emperor. That was disgusting.

I had a few messages going. You're. You're a joke. You're a scam. Basically, you couldn't even see the meal before it was eaten.

Well, I mean, they're not wrong. Yeah, look, you're just rushing so much. You don't have time to take a photo mate in between investor calls. Stuff in your face with the curry.

Hey, Booze, I'm pretty excited about this One, because I'm. I'm back on the weekly cadence. I'm back on the chicken burgers. Yeah, I'm back. I had a week off and I had withdrawals. Oh, so good. What we have here is from the Launceston Airport, we have just a traditional Southern fried chicken burger. Now, what I loved about this chicken burger is that the coleslaw was fresh. We had our onions, our carrots. We had a little bit of lettuce, very fresh on the bottom. Just giving that first of all that cold texture, which I just love. Moving our way up, we had a really thick bit of fried chicken. Now, this wasn't just a fry bit of chicken. That was just like. You know what? You know when you get way too much batter on a fried chicken, you're just like this. It's just like. This is just all better. This was.

Yeah, yeah, like kfc. It's like breaded. Disgusting.

What you had here was a very well thicked. Thick. I'm gonna do the word thick team. Thicked batter.

Well thick.

Don't think that's a word.

But seriously, we need a rating score and one of the criteria is well fixed. And you can give it.

I think that's a word when you use it. Beautiful bit of chicken. Then we had this two layered cheese. And I hadn't seen this a little while. We probably got like our cheddar, just like a layer of cheddar, as you can see on the right hand side there. But then you had this like orangey velvety mozzarella thingo. I don't know what it was, but it was the bee's knees. Then you had like aioli and mayonnaise on the top. You had sauce on the side and you had this bun. And like, if you were looking at this band, you're gonna say, that's a. That's a thick bun. But what it was, it was actually quite soft. It was toast on the. On the. On the top, it was soft on the middle, accompanied by just a well portioned bit of sauce chips that were all cooked burgers. This was up there. This is one of the better fried chicken burgers I've had in a little while.

You know what I like about this? It looks well balanced where you've got the kind of greasy chicken, but you can see there where it's cut, the batter's like crispy and it's puffed up, but it's not too thick and breaded. And then the soft floor where you just push it down. But the coleslaw where you know it's fresh. So you've got that crunch, you've got the play between hot and cold, and then you've got the greasiness but the acidity to cut through it.

I couldn't celebrate myself. That's exactly what's going on here.

This barbecue and fried chicken. Burgers. Burgers. This has come in at a 9.2 for me. I'm really happy with this. I'll be back on session. Airport. Yeah.

Whoa, mate. For an airport meal, this is incredible.

It's up there, that is.

Thank you.

I'm going to Meme of the Week.

That is phenomenal. Oh, all right. Oh, all right. We do. And I'm gonna come out to Lonnie just for the muncher and the chicken sandwich, mate. Don't want to see you. Don't worry about your doll.

I'll just.

I'll just have Christmas with your family. You can go somewhere else now.

Are we getting canceled this week? Is this meme spicy?

Because we.

It was pretty spicy last week.

No, it's not that spicy, mate. No. No. Good. Oh, my mates and everyone, they were talking about that Elon meme. They're like, the. The Tesla torso was the one they lost it at. So good. So I'm bringing up this meme because this was. We're talking about this on Thursday night in the Discord Live. So for those who don't know, we're collective shift company as part of our membership, you get to join our Discord Live, ask us questions, and we cover the events from that week. Just macro crypto investing. It's amazing. But this week, like, Nathan, it was a nighttime one, so Nathan wasn't. When it wasn't available. Nick was sick. Poor bugger. I think he had covered for a second time. And Ben's just like, oh, la di da. I'm gonna catch up with the big wigs, have a couple of frothies, you know, talk around a little bit. Just do a little bit of, you know, here and there. Just do whatever. And I'm like, whatever, fine. And then I realized poor Matt's by himself. So I'm like, right, I'm gonna jump in. You know, I'll help Matt out. You know, I'm not gonna let him do, like, a Discord live by himself. Matt's like, no, I'm fine.

I'll do it.

Like, nah, man, we're a team. I'll get in there. So we ended up talking about inflation, all this stuff. We also talked about how sore our backs are. From carrying the team and it hurts. Even Matt said. He was like, oh, I came back from the gym and I did feel that twinge. I'm like, mate, that's been letting us down. I actually had to. After that, I had to go and do some deadlifts to strengthen my back. Because, mate.

So good.

All right.

Meme of the week. So this is from Lena Seek, I think it is. She's. You'll see her all over Twitter. She creates these hardcore bitcoiners. She's also known as Headphone. Girls love her stuff. So this is classic main. The government's there with people gathering around. They're holding up a sign, there's no inflation. Then they change. They throw that sign away. The next sign, inflation is transitory. Throw that away. Inflation is good for you. And you can see this through all Biden's posts. It's amazing. Throw that away. Inflation is Russia's fault. And then they're crossing it out. They're like, there is no recession. We actually don't know how to qualify things as a recession. And it's just so unbelievable. And then this led on to. This is probably the best tweet I've seen in a while. It's not a recession unless it's from the recession region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling misery. It was so good. So good. So this is just for those that don't know it's a play on, like, champagne, being from the champagne region. Otherwise it's just sparkling white wine.

But you know what was funny about that last meme is that they ran out of signs, so they had to use the back of the sign and cross it out. They were using existing. The beats with that many signs have changed the message so much.

Yeah, because they keep changing their minds, yet they keep upping rates. Biden's telling you, oh, look, fuel's gone down by 20 cents. That should give you some relief. I'm like, people are destitute. They can't afford food, mate. It is just. Mate. Unbelievable. But just to end on this, the Fed, you know, everyone's reading into this like, they're literally going through the Fed's statement and seeing what they're talking about and trying to understand the tone to do forward projections. And they're not meeting next month, so they got a month off. It's going to be two months. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens in the markets in that time.

Speaking of markets in that time, Berg's Collective Shift, we were talking a lot about in our membership about the upcoming Ethereum merge. Nick did deep dive into Ethereum. Very bullish on Ethereum right now. What did you say before the show? Vitalik actually said it's undervalued. He thinks.

Yeah. He was saying it's not priced in and ethereum's only like 55% complete, which is. Some people freak out at that. Whereas I'm like, that's amazing because.

So Ethereum got their merge coming out. There's proof of.

Work to proof of stake. We've done a deep dive for members. You can sign up for a dollar for seven days and read that in our membership platform. We're launching the Dashboard soon. Bergs new mvp. That looks pretty sick. So you're gonna be able to say getting personalized insights based on what you own.

Amazing.

And we just got heaps of stuff going on.

Yeah, I'm super psyched about that. We do. It's all happening. It's. It's building in the bear market. Keep delivering. It is awesome. It's just hit after hit.

Yeah.

And if you're doing nothing with your life and you want to learn about crypto CollectiveShift IO at least look at our top tutorials so you understand it. Get into the dollar for seven days and look at the Ethereum merge and read about that stuff. It is super interesting. Get the insights and learn about this stuff.

Because you will need 50 off your first month as well after your dollar for seven days in the link below. Bergs, once again, I'm now hungry so I'm gonna go get some food. I think after that was like half food.

Oh, so am I, mate. Looking at all those barbecue photos that, you know what?

Oh, really? That got you across the line? Yes.

I could go one of those. It did. Because the other stuff, I'm like, I've cooked that. I know what it is. I had barbecue last night. I'm good. That chicken sandwich.

I was like.

Matt, Matt, Tim and I barbecue tonight. So I'll report back. I might have a meal of the week for next week. Yeah, tomorrow.

Oh, lovely. Get amongst it, mate. Cook up some Bulgi. Delicious.

Oh, fam.

Amazing.