81. How To Build A Startup As A Remote Worker + Ben Finds $20k of Ethereum

That's not going to happen. Security's going to throw me out. So it, I just looked like I knew what I was doing. Put the shoulders back and just walk with purpose. Walk through where people come out. Ruby Revivals lounge in through where the security is. The security is looking at me like I'm who's this bloke? Walked all the way through, right up to the security point. They waved over the police officer. Police guy comes over, he's like looking around. Welcome back to another episode of the Bennebergs Podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and CEO of Collective Shift. Alongside me is Bergs, your favorite MBA and COO of Collective Shift, Australia's leading crypto portfolio insights company, providing professional analysis and portfolio strategies for crypto investors. Like you, Bergs and I are a unique blend of established and the self made and we're here to break down crypto business and personal growth. But we don't just talk the we give you the insights that you need to make better investments, build successful businesses and level up your life. And today we're talking Bali. I have moved back here for the next month. I've been here about four days. It's been a roller coaster of the last three or four days. But for those that are a nomadic or look to do remote working or can remote work, Bali is probably my favorite spot to work. The clarity I get, the focus I can get over here is just second to none. And it's been awesome to be back here. Honestly. Burgs, I'm keen to share like the lessons I have of like being a nomad back here in Bali, what I've learned, you know, from day to day, how it's different this time around because it's been a bit of a, what did I say? Tumultuous start, mate.

Always is with you. I give you a call and you're like this happened. Oh, mate. And then this and then this. But we got the masterclass and it's all good, mate, I'm keeping positive. But I got no money because this happened. You just land. Actually it was before you actually landed, mate. You what happened with your clothes? Kick us off at the start.

So to kick things off, I left my suit jacket and my two shirts at the hotel I was staying at, so I left those there. I also accidentally stole the, the room service iPad, took that with me and I left my AirPods in another hotel. So I switched hotels twice, left everything everywhere and ended up having to go to Bali that day. And I just spent a Shit. Lot of money in an Uber to swing around and pick everything.

Amazing, mate. So off to a flying start, off.

To a flyer, get on the plane, get to Bali. It's super late, I'm super knackered. Got a bit of a head cold. Like, I've been just going hard, needed a rest. It was like 2am Go get some money out, get some money out, then go get my SIM card. And as I'm getting the SIM card, I need to get my money out to pay for it. I go look at my wallet and there's no card in there. I was like, where's my car? I'm like, oh, the atmosphere. Left my card in the atm. Run back the atm. There's no card in the atm. Someone stole my card. I don't have another card. Fuck. What am I going to do? I don't have a second card. It's like 2am in the morning. All I want to do is sleep. There's no one around. When I spoke to this guy, I'm like, mate, I don't know where my card's gone. Either someone's stolen it or it's in the atm. I don't know what he's like, you know, couldn't really understand me. And he's like, basically, long story short, couldn't do anything that night. They don't have key for it. Got to come back the next day. I'm like, oh, for sake. The next day, I've got the masterclass. I'm going to move hotels. I'm like, right after a cracker start. At this point, I'm just like, you're a fucking idiot, Ben. Like, so standard. I did the same thing in Thailand. So standard of me. Just like, tired, adhd, just forgetting everything.

You literally get off the plane, you go to the atm, you put your card in your car, just doesn't come out. You're like, oh, amazing.

Such a good start. So he's going to text me the next day at 10:00am I'm going to, you know, he's going to tell me if I can come back or not. 10am comes around, 12pm comes around. No message. Brilliant. Okay. At this point in time, I'm just assuming I don't have a card for the next three weeks. I've got $100 to my name in cash.

I'm already, like, connecting with people online to figure out how I'm going to move, like Bitcoin or stables to someone and do like an OTC trade to get cash out.

I barrel back the airport and so the ATM where I got the money at was just outside the arrivals section, like just through security. And on the way there I'm like, how on earth am I going to go and get to the arrivals? Like, you know, like through security. Like this is like just after security. Like you've got to go through like where everyone walks out, where everyone's holding the signs. Like you've literally got to walk through there, back through the terminal the wrong way to get into the arrival center where like the ATM is. Because I was still in the term and I'm like, that's not going to happen. I'm going to. Security's going to throw me out. What's the, what's the alternative? There is an alternative. So I said, fuck it. I just looked like I knew what I was doing. Put the, put the shoulders back and just walk with purpose. Walk through where people come out, rivals lounge in through where the security is. Everyone's walking backwards. The security is looking at me like I'm, who's this bloke? I'll just. I had my bag on me, so I look like I was maybe just arrived. Walked all the way through, right up to the security point to find the ATM and finally found a guy. They waved over the police officer. Police guy comes over and I'm like, mate, I think my atm, my card's in there. He's like, he's like looking real angry. I'm like, nah, dude from yesterday. Like I, I left my name. He's like, are you Ben? I was like, yes. He's like, ah.

That could have, mate, that could have gone either way. They're like, this dodgy bloke's just selling us a story. He's probably got a bomb in his backpack.

I was only gonna get arrested or is he gonna have my card? He's like, are you Ben? I was like, yes. He's like, haha.

Oh, how good?

Yeah, and all of a sudden he was real happy. So yeah, got my card and then yeah, moved down to this villa. So in this new villa, mate, sort of four bedroom villa, it's a shared villa, so other people like to hear. And yeah, got my own space. Been super wet though the last few days. But yeah, man, it's been, it's been awesome to be back. The, the, the time I get to focus back on work and no distractions like just going to the cafe and just dialing in brain fm, getting out of socials, putting the phone away really can go deep. And also.

The I'm back to the gym, mate. So four weeks after my operation, I went back to the gym for the first time yesterday. Did the ice bath and a sauna for the first time in four weeks, mate.

How'd it feel?

I was super anxious going into the ice bath, man. I didn't realize my body was really pressing against going back in the ice bath. Like I was super like, don't do it. Like the part of your brain that's just telling you you're an idiot, like, why are you doing an ice bath? Was really pushing back. Did it anyway, did the two minutes really hard. The first two minutes I was like, this is colder than I remembered. Went back in the sauna, went back in the ice bath, mate. Felt like, felt like, God, I was like, I'm back. Feel amazing. Went and did a workout. Like half the weight of what I would normally do. Like lost so much power and a muscle over the last four weeks. Like, oh yeah. Literally I've done nothing. Takes like a day to lose muscle and a year to gain it. It's so frustrating, but just good to be back, honestly.

And how are you feeling post surgery, mate?

Feeling much better post surgery. I'm optimal, mate. I feel as I'm literally trying to optimize everything. My. I'm like, I'm so competitive on my sleep score. I had two drinks last night, I went out mate. Had two beers and my, my heart rate was elevated. So my readiness score was down and I was so gathermate. Like, I think I'm gonna just quit drinking because honestly, like that's good. Like I want to get my sleep score up because I'm trying to optimize my energy throughout the day. But yeah, that back into my Vedic meditation. I'm getting two 20 minute Vedic meditations in per day and I feel so Zen. Getting journaling in twice a day, reading and then just like working pretty much all day. Like it's Saturday today, got a big day, work today. Like, just feel like I'm really pushing forward, man. It's something about being over here is very stimulating.

In my head so I can really focus, you know what I mean? There's no distractions.

Being overseas for you is a big hack where they're huge accelerators for the business because you'll take time, you'll focus on a specific area, you come to a really good outcome. Whereas back in Australia you'd be having meetings, you'd be distracted, you just not as productive as you are when you're overseas.

Yeah, it's something about, something about being on the road I mean there's pros and cons, right? So we had our masterclass on Wednesday. 320 registered books be big event, right? You know, I was, I was building up to it, you know, I was like, right, this is big, big opportunity for us. Did, did the, did the test webinar. Did, did everything with maps, setting everything up. Internet, right? Internet's the biggest thing right here in Bali, you know. Loaded up the, the old villa, Wi Fi here, 0.5 megabit upload speed, like amazing. That's fucking great. Not going to work load though. Got the 200 gig hotspot, add on pack on my mobile for backup. So plug that in. Everything was running smoothly. We're all good. We go live. There's 175 people on the, on the call live. We hit live. It's all happening. We're ready, good energy. And then. I can't hear anything. Matt's talking, I can't hear anything. Like, what the fuck? What do you say, Matt? Matt, your audio's not working. All the chat goes, no, no, we can hear you both. I can't hear Matt. Okay, cool, calm, collected band. Right, New software. How do you change the order? You can't. Once you go live, you can't change audio settings. Okay, cool.

Oh no.

So we're about to go a live hour back and forth with Matt and I can't hear him starting to get sweaty palms. Everyone's like, okay, let's ready to get into. It's a couple minutes in. What the I'm gonna do. And honestly I'll put this down to like meditating because in, in previous times I would have freaked the out like 170 people live and like we just can't do anything. It's like, like Matt's co hosting this thing. I don't even know when he's talking.

Get him on WhatsApp, get him on a call. So he's, he's got his phone like on his desk loudspeaker and we're going back and forth and we're muting and unmuting each other. So there's no echo coming through the mic. Turns out we get it through. We executed really well. We can, we converted pretty well. The feedback was great. So we got through it. But it's like one of those things about new environment, first night, new Vlad. There's no Internet. The audio doesn't work. Like, it's like one of those things of traveling that, that, that you build that, you build that, that muscle, you know where like it's very easy to go holy and just be like completely overwhelmed. Like this is ridiculous. But like you trying to build that over, over time and you just, you know shit's gonna happen.

That's, that's a really good solution, man. What I think I was like, oh, what would I do if that happened to me? And I'm like, I'd probably just join the webinar on my phone so I could at least hear Matt.

Yeah.

And talk. But mate, to do it like last minute while you have to go, you got like 170 people live. What a nightmare. But your Internet now is brilliant. It's 50 times better than your Tasmanian Internet.

Yeah, it's good, man. I so again, lessons like you learn this over time. Get. You don't need 10 gig. Get the max. I've got 200 gig like data on my hotspot. Like you just gotta get to get everything right.

Dude, it's just so great. Like dropped off my clothes to get like Wash USA $5. Done. Done within a day, folded, packed, done, ubereats. Like just what the grab stuff just comes and delivers it. Ice bath, sauna, gym, all in one place. Cafe next door. And the gym has a dispensary where it's like the most freshest quality. Dude, this food I had, yes, I had 200 gram salmon fillets, rice, broccoli and a protein smoothie for like $18. I'm like, this is just like the cleanest food. Everything's there and you just, you just work like, it's just phenomenal.

I saw the video you put up on. It might have been Twitter about. You're walking around your villa, which looks absolutely incredible with the pool, the different areas. I see you got the big princess bed in the background, mate.

That's where the magic happens, mate. Over there with my cup of tea and my, my book.

Your audiobooks.

And mate, not only this, you've had a bit of a win, mate. You found a little something something.

What do you mean, mate?

In this, in the sock drawer, mate. What did you.

I was like, where are you leading here, mate? What are we talking about? What are you set me up for? So I opened up the sock draw yesterday burgs and in just between the underwear and some, some, you know, odd socks, I found 7 8th.

So there's just 7 8th there. The blockchain was just going through your drawer and you just picked it up, mate. You just picked it up off the blockchain. Amazing.

Scooped it up, mate. And Twitter was, Twitter was going wild, man. So I posted Posted yesterday. I like just found 7eth amazing and.

At 100 likes it's been seen by like 10,000 people. Had like 44 comments and people just like.

You better be explaining this investment strategy on our next webinar.

How good? So, so for those that, that don't know, the current price is about probably what, 18 to 20 grand Australian.

Yeah, about 20k in the software, mate. So how do I find 7 8? Well, I was having a meeting with our finance manager yesterday and about two years ago I moved a heap of ether mine to the company to you know, to do some investments, whatever else and kind of forgot that I'd done that. Like I probably moved a lot more than 70. I reckon I was probably, I don't know, I was at the time I think it was like 35, 40k worth of ETH. I moved across and I forgot about it Wasn't until I caught up with Ed, my accountant boogers was over in Perth. He's like, didn't you move like a bunch of eth to the company? I was like oh yeah, I forgot about that. And then I spoke to our finance manager yesterday and he was like, let me check. Yeah, you, you actually there's all these eat. I'm like where the is that load up the ledger? Like oh there's seven eighth there.

Giddy up.

So yeah, it's good. I don't think I'm going to do anything with it. It's like it's got, it's a good bit of exposure to eth and I mean I haven't pulled the trigger on the alts yet. I'm waiting on one final investment piece analysis from our senior analyst Nick. Before I pull the trigger I've whittled the the list down but dude, one of them, the one that Matt posts about to members is up 600% since he post about it.

Like incredible.

Like it's, it's the old adage of like have you missed the boat or you know, are you still going to look in a year's time and look back and go well you missed the boat and missing the boat, you know, like because you thought you missed the boat.

Well, the goal is to outperform bitcoin, right?

Yes.

Yeah. All right, so we'll talk about this offline then we'll bring it to the pod.

We'll read to the pod. But yeah, so found seven eighth and yeah, like literally just my day to day schedule right now is kind of working on optimizing a little bit. I yesterday I got up you know, was starting to work at about 7am through to, I had some meetings in the morning with some us guys, you know, worked through to about, I think it was probably about 2:30. So from about 7:00am to 2:30 went really hard. Then I did gym in the afternoon, which was kind of interesting. I've never really done that. I did gym, sauna, ice bath in the afternoon for about two hours, which was kind of a good breakup because by the time 3:30 rolled around I was kind of fresh and ready to go again. So then I went, it went hard again from about 3:30 through to 5:30, then did another meditation.

Had a shower, sort of chilled out, checked up on the cricket schools and went out for dinner. And that day was one of my most productive days yesterday. So I'm, I mean an arring like look because I'm usually a morning gym guy, but potentially like the breakup in the day I'm gonna play around with next, next week because I'm all about just trying to see what works well, test, see, see how you can sort of optimize the day. I've never really been a gym during the day guy, but that worked really well yesterday. So I think that's something I'm trying next week.

That's interesting. I'm always a gym during the day and if I can't get to it because I've got a lot on, it'll be at night. And now I'm like, look, I just have to do it in the morning because sometimes I just don't get around to it. So what I'm going to start modeling is in the morning. I've got a gym membership now, so I'll just go down the gym and I'm going to do cardio in the morning to wake my brain up. Right. I hate cardio. But you have to do it like a minimum, like half an hour elliptical train or something like that. Then build my way up and then I love lifting weights, can do that anytime. I'll do that in the afternoon or I'll do a yoga session. So when I start, so in the morning I'll actually wake up, my brain will be on. I'll be able to perform till about 2,3 o', clock, brain will start to die. Then I'll do either a yoga session or body balance or lift some weights and then get power through the rest of the day. I'm going to start modeling that for a month or so and see how that goes.

So that's fascinating, right, because I, I, I'm, I'M sharper and better working environment in the mornings and then I go out and do an hour and a half gym session in the morning. I feel as I'm using my physical energy but my mental energy, you know, isn't being utilized in the morning where when you're at the gym you don't use your brain, you're just using your body. So like should you optimize for the morning to go harder mentally? So get up at like so that 536 range, do your meditation, do your journaling, start crunching into work like 7am through to 1 or 2 o', clock, have a gym to break up the day, come back and do lower level like work more admin stuff in the afternoon. I feel as though that's probably a better schedule.

Yeah. So with me if I wake up and let's say I journal and meditate, I will not be as on compared to if I worked out. So if I worked out my brain will be on like a hundred percent. And the reason it does that for me is my brain has 10 million thoughts thinking about everything like all these ADHD traits. Right. And then if I meditation and journaling helps with that. But having the physical stimulus of exercise turns on all those switches and I can focus on the thing that I need to with absolute clarity. I can even hyper focus and be very high performing in those areas. So it's more of a tool to get me into a specific state.

Yeah, so that's a, that's a really good point. I kind of forgot about that. You know that clarity you get coming out of coming out of the gym, that clarity you get is something that I do miss. So I'm going to be interested in that. One other thing I wanted to talk about Bergs was the ice bath and someone was talking about this on my Twitter thread because I posted how I.

Do you do it Backwards mate.

Backwards. Well, I used to do it like gym first, then ice bath but then I read something about actually doing it the other way.

So you know what it says here is like cold exposure can have positive impacts on endurance but a blunting effect if done immediately after workouts where the desired result is strength or.

Hypertrophy. So it was saying that like that dopamine hit that you get is like I think for about four hours after you have that cold exposure and then go. So going from ice bath into the gym you actually get that increased workout.

Strength because you're getting, you're taking that dopamine into and that energy into your workout session. Yeah, problem Being with that is one of the. If. If you don't warm up through a sauna or a pool after the cold plunge and you actually just let your body heat you up, like, that's where you actually start to get the cells moving faster. And, like, it's actually better for you as your body starts to get used to heating up naturally. But going from cold plunge into gym, if you're like freezing cold, like, you're gonna do an injury, this.

This is it. And I think, like, yeah, you can be rooted in science, but again, if you look at the papers, how many people were in it, the way they did it, how they controlled for it, mate, just try it and go with whatever works for you and base it on how you actually feel and how you perform.

Yeah, yeah.

If that's like backwards but it works for you, who gives a shit?

Who cares? Yeah, I agree. It's a big test in iterate.

That's it. Now, you got a couple of things here. You got maccas and you got driving rules, mate. Yeah, tell me about those barley quirks, dude.

So, like, went out for coffee this morning. Just had quick break before the pod went out. Quick smash. Good feed. Bit of a coffee come out, mate. And my scooter's parked next to the cafe. And then what's going on? There's two scooters parked directly behind my scooter. Like, there's no way I can get out. Just old mate just pulled up right behind me with a surfboard. And I'll make his park right behind me, like, so I'm in front, wall in front of me and two bikes directly behind me. Like, there's just no way of getting out. Just like, that's it. I was getting stuck there. Looked is not around. Like, this is Pinnacle Bali. So what I do, I just move their bikes. Just like, all right. Gotta got on their bike, pulled the thing up, right pushing you over here.

And no one gives a mate. They probably do the same to me. Like, you can't just park forever here. 100 driving rules. No one gives a flying for who's around here. Like, people are like, you just, you.

Know, it's really loose in Bali, mate. I remember you saying the transition, like Thailand was somewhat ugly in Bali.

It's just mental n, mate. It's just like, you know, if you see an opening, you just go. Like, you can't. Like, if you hesitate, you're like, it's full negotiation, mate. Yeah, and the horn isn't used to, like, get out of the way. The horn is A warning sign here. So, like, if you hear a horn, there's someone overtaking it. So everyone just on their horns, like, hey, don't, don't, don't move because I'm going to kid you.

That's it. So, like over here, it's warning you did something wrong over there. It's like, I'm coming, I need to let you know.

Yeah, yeah, Wild. And then last time I went out for a couple of frothies with a couple, couple of lads about 10:30 o' clock and I was just like, we just had massive feed, mate, pizzas. I had like a burrito bowl. Just smash a heap of food, mate. And they're like, the burrito bowl last night too. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, so good.

10:30 rolls around, I'm like, I feel like Maccas because some guy was talking about maccas during the day. Sarah.

They get stuck in your head.

Apparently. The maccas in Bali was amazing. Like, I know where the maccas is. It's like 15 minutes away. It was like raining. I was like, I'm going to Maccas. So right, boys and girl, get on the scooter, mate. 15 minutes out to Maccas. Just absolutely tolly for a chicken burger. Garrett and Maccas ordered so much food. Order like fried chicken nuggets, burgers, chips. I just ordered everything. He got, got out, came out, sit down. I looked at it like, right, skinny, do it.

First of all, I ordered the spicy burger and I can't do spicy. Had one bite, nearly fucking blew my face off. Couldn't eat it, mate.

Asian spicy is different, mate. Like, their medium is like, blow your top off. Like, it's crazy.

Like in my head, I'm like, oh, this won't be spicy. Just gets. It's like, I don't order spicy food. Orders of spicy food in Asia. Takes one bite, nearly fucking died.

It's just on fire. You just go bright red.

The chicken, the chicken came out, looked at the chicken. I was like, I can't fucking eat that. Like, I'm going to be sick. Like, I can just see it. I'm going to get barley belly. So I didn't even eat the chicken nuggets. Ate like six chicken nuggets. I was like devouring them. After the six chicken nuggets, I'm like, oh, I don't feel so good. I probably shouldn't have eaten those and then smash a Diet Coke and then make this morning just no good. On and off the toilet. Like, just should not have eaten maccas, man. Like, messaged my Buddy from last night, like that was a bad idea, man. Should not half an hour return trip to eat barley maccas was just about poor idea.

So what you need to do. Have you had KFC over there?

No bro.

Get amongst it. So even wherever you are they do deliveries as well. Or you could get someone just to go on a scooter and bring it back to you. Kfc, awesome fried chicken. And they serve it with rice, mate. So it's like literally like you know, like a cheeseburger wrapper. It's like one of those and inside is just like a bowl of like rice and it is the most delicious thing you will never have. It is incredible, man. It's incredible. You got to get a basket. So you're there for another what, three weeks? You got any plans on the horizon? You stay in the same place. What do you got on mate?

Stay in the same place. Just work next week and I think I'm going to go to Ubud next weekend and just like disconnect. I've been looking at a couple of like shacks where like literally no, no phone connection. Like throw the phone out for two days. Completely disconnect. Looking forward to that. But yeah man, that's about it. Just, just working tips for Bali, like accommodation.

I. I'm finding like villas where they're like shared villas. It's cheaper in a sense that you can. You're not just getting one village yourself and you also meet people. I kind of like that. Like met a German couple that are like YouTubers in Germany and we're like exchanging like strategies on YouTube, which is kind of cool. Then this other couple like from the us I think the other, the chick was Russian and there's like this mum and her daughter and you just like meet in the communal area. Just like the amount of people you meet here is just phenomenal. All doing like completely random stuff that just like self sufficient nomads. It's like fascinating.

That's wild.

Yeah.

And it's so close to Australia as well. And I think you sound like you're having a much better time than Thailand because when you were over there everyone was kind of Russian. No one really spoke English over here. It seems like they've all got a bit of English. You can kind of converse with them.

And there's so many remote workers here. Like there are the influencers, remote workers or they're on holiday, you know. That's kind of like. That's kind of like the three segments. So now I'm enjoying it. Definitely recommend if you're wanting to go somewhere to remote work. Bali is definitely the vibe.

Incredible, mate. Oh, well, we'll do another update in a couple of weeks and we'll see your adventures and what you get up.

To when it comes to the live.

Thank you everyone, for listening. This is the Burn and Bergs podcast. If you've got a friend, a family member, or you want to just travel Bali, hopefully that's been. It's been helpful. We'd love for you to share this episode with a friend. It's how we get the word around. We're a year into Bennettburgs, we have no plans of shopping, so thank you, everyone for listening. As always, you can tweet at us at our new Twitterburgs on Twitter or at Babyback Berg. My Twitter is at Bensimpsonau. And we'll see you next time.

See you, champions.