S4:E5 - Coronavirus: How to Handle Life, Health & Business

Welcome to The Wolf's Den. We have a special edition for you, COVID-19 edition. I have Adrian, Senior Coach, Enterprise Coach, here joining me in the studio. How are we going, Adrian, today?

Good, good. Fun day to be here. We're, uh, interesting topic, very relevant.

We've implemented some social distancing rules here as well, sitting eyeballing to eyeballing. It's not just because I think you smell, but, uh, You do smell.

I do.

But, uh, you know, I can use the, the social distancing.

Oh, it's to help keep that, uh, social distancing. If I stink like shit, no one will stand near me and I won't get COVID.

Yeah, 100%.

Joke's on you, mate.

All right, man, so what's been going on?

Yeah, not much. Um, yeah, I just think, uh, you know, interesting topic. The stuff that's really not being shared is, um, a survival guide to self-isolation. Not many people have been through it before, and I've experienced it a number of times.

Oh yeah, because you were in the army. I mean, we've spoken about this on podcast before. Yes, you've been in submarines.

No, no, no submarines.

No submarines.

No, naval ships, uh, about 4— it was about 10 days. But 10 days on a naval ship is about 6 months in the real world because it's fucking horrible. Um, I mean, living in the space of like 90 people, it's like 5 bunks.

Yeah, but imagine a submarine. Imagine a submarine.

Yeah, they're weirdos. No, they're not right. Yeah, that's not right. It's not good. Isolation isn't good.

What are they called, the ones in submarines?

Submariners.

You've met a few submariners?

Yeah, I met one guy who transferred and I worked with him and he said, yeah, they're fucking weirdos. It's a horrible job. Hated it.

I imagine it would be because they're not big, are they? No, it's small.

It's a tube at the bottom of the ocean. It's horrible.

There's no, there's no light, no light, no view, no view, no cable TV, no Wi-Fi. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that, that, that's isolation taken to another level.

That is, uh, yeah, they're probably the best people to go to, them and astronauts. They're probably the top, like, down below and up above. They're probably the best people at it.

I mean, if I had to pick one, I'd definitely be the astronaut. Yeah, the submariner. The ocean just doesn't— there's nothing about that sounds fun.

Yeah.

At least as an astronaut you can look outside.

You can just imagine just being like a bunch of Reese's too. It's not like, you know, nice people living under there. You're just like a bunch of Reese's crammed in a big can.

Weird, weird people, aren't they? In a can. Be like baked beans, but humans inside.

Yeah, exactly right.

Instead of beans. All righty. So lay it on me, Mr. Isolation. What makes you an isolation expert?

Well, I would say probably the whole— the two deployments I've been on. Make me an isolation expert.

Two deployments? Two deployments.

So the first one was East Timor, right? Um, so that was 6 months, but that was 3 months, then I had a 2-week break where I came back to Australia and then went back for another 3, right? Um, so in that, those spaces, I mean, we probably lived in a building no bigger than this one for about, uh, 30 people.

Wow.

So, and our beds were back to back, and the only separation we had was a like mozzie dome tent.

Right.

And that was just to keep mosquitoes out.

So you were sleeping alone, washing alone, cleaning alone?

Well, you know, we're all together, but that's— I mean, we're all isolated in that one. Like, we can't just walk out the front gate.

Okay.

You know what I mean? It was all in that barracks.

So you guys— like, I just had visions of like you guys playing Monopoly and—

Yeah, 100%. It was just like, you know, it was board games. It was, uh, being bored games, you know, just like you just end up coming up with stupid shit. An environment where there's, you know, so many, uh, mid-20-year-old males It's going to be like females. Uh, no, we had no females at that base, right? And 2 at my one in Afghanistan. Uh, one was a cook and one was retail. And that was about 90 people at the one in Afghanistan. And that was even more isolated in terms of we just didn't move out as much.

So when you say isolated, you weren't necessarily isolated as you as a person because it was—

No, not as a person, but it's—

You're still isolated, confined space, confined space, no Netflix. No internet.

No, no Netflix. Like, these streaming services weren't even a thing then. And the, uh, in, uh, East Timor, there was no internet at all.

Yeah, food, food was very limited. No cafes.

Yeah, no cafe. The food was what we got given by from the cooks, right? Um, and, uh, food in Afghanistan was awesome actually because they work on a budget. So I was like, we've got lobster duck all the time. It was fantastic. It was unreal.

Lobster duck?

Yeah, so you have a budget and you just— we've just asked the chefs what we wanted and then they would just get it. So they'll just send boxes of Snickers boxes. We had lobster would come through when it was fresh enough and roast lambs and things like that. But again, it was a structured meal timing. You didn't get to request what you had.

How many meals a day would you eat?

It would be 3 sit-down meals. So breakfast we would cook ourselves in Afghanistan. So we would just help ourselves to the kitchen and cook a few eggs. A few of us would get together and make a—

So what similarities in isolation have you gotten from, 'cause I mean, I don't know, my end, I kind of feel like it's kind of different. You're isolated, but it's almost different context, whereas here you're—

I'd say same, same but different. Okay, so you don't have the freedom to go outside in Afghanistan, in Afghanistan, or even in Nishtimor, right? It's like, you know, it's, it's a reporting system of going outside. You just don't go walk out the front gate for no reason. Uh, the fact that you are—

so you don't really see sunlight?

No, you do see sunlight, so it's not an enclosed base, it's just pretty much a sectioned off area. In the middle of the desert in Afghanistan. Same, ours was like an old rundown bank with just barbed wire around it. That was our base in East Timor.

So you could go outside to get sun, but it'd be in this very—

Yeah, exactly right. And it'd just be like going in your backyard essentially.

Gotcha.

So it's just like the same area for 5 and a half months in Afghanistan.

So there's fuck all there, like there's nothing to do really.

There's nothing there. And this is where like you start to, exactly right. There's like, there's just no freedom, like the same restrictions that we have now. The biggest ones I find that will be similar is people who do live with housemates and partners as well. How much living in close quarters with someone can actually affect you. So that's probably the one thing that people don't realize how if this goes on for a long time, how that's gonna play on people.

But again, I'm gonna say that it's different living with say a significant other or your housemate who you've lived with say 5 months, you get to know compared to living with let's say 30 people who you kind of know.

Well, you do know, you know these people better because you've done this before, you know what I mean? Like in my— the guys in my section, like we slept in the same room, right? You know what I mean? We trained together for years. I knew these guys for years.

You could call these guys up now today and be like, hey, what's going on?

Yeah, I do that every now and again as well.

Yeah.

And it's just like, hey, what's happening? It's like you walk into them in the street and it'll be like, hey, what's—

you know what I mean? They're still pretty good friends of yours and all this kind of stuff.

Yeah, always. And it's just like, you know, you might not always be in touch, but there's always still that connection.

I'd imagine there's some people who In that group, there's a couple that you never wanna see again as well.

Yeah, 100%. And that's where these things go out of control. And it's like, always reflecting back on that, I'm like, how did that go so wrong? 'Cause it seems like when you look back at it now, it's like little things that like just snowball into you.

Do you have an example?

Oh yeah, I have a great example. This was in particular to probably someone that I worked very close with over there. You just, one of the biggest things and I would say is that you notice when someone starts to become, it might not even be, I would consider selfish acts. So when you don't do things for the greater good of everyone in your environment, when it's a confined space and everyone's living out of the same space, you really start to resent that person and start to see all their flaws. And then they really start to piss you off. So I've seen it explode in horrible ways. So for an example, I know.

So for example, maybe there's 4 kilos of chicken and I want to eat 6 meals a day. So I have 3 of those kilos in one day. Let's just say for instance.

Yeah, exactly right.

And everyone's like, man, you just ate 3 kilos. We only got a kilo. That's exactly right. Now, yeah, it's, yeah, okay.

It'll be as simple as even not like cleaning up after yourself. So he doesn't take out the rubbish enough, right? Kind of thing. It's like, well, why am I always taking out the fucking rubbish? This guy's never taken out the fucking rubbish. You know what I mean? It's just like, and it's just like something you just, you don't think of normally when you're living just constantly in each other's space, that it's like, that's really starting to piss me off now.

Yes.

And it's just like, and it just kind of like snowballs into your complete resentment for someone. So back to your example, uh, probably the biggest example. So this one didn't happen to me, this happened to a guy I know at another base while we're in Afghanistan. When he came back to Australia, he heard a noise on his car and took it to the mechanics and he found a clamp on his brakes. Now this guy was not easy to get along with. He was a pain in the ass and someone even post the deployment resented him that much. They went to the extent— tried to kill him.

Tried to kill him.

Putting a clamp on his brakes. That's how much they pissed him off. So that's what I mean, living in isolation for 5 and a half months. If you're constantly on top of someone and not giving them their own space.

I don't know if you— do you follow Esther Perel?

No.

Esther Perel is a psychotherapist. She specializes in relationships. She has a TED Talk called State of Affairs or Rethinking Infidelity. She's written two books, basically talks about couples, infidelity, all this kind of stuff. And she was saying that crisis of any sort and isolation in these instances is an accelerator. So people who— what you're gonna see is more divorces, more people getting engaged, more people getting married, and more people having kids. Yeah, because there's this whole thing of why wait? We're in isolation, why, why wait? What are we waiting for? Let's do it, let's do it.

And I've seen all those things in both deployments, like guys while they're over there, big purchases while they're over there, like guys buying boats before they get back, you know what I mean? It's a— it'll be like, you know, it's just like, you know, and that's like, we're not going over there to be self-isolated. At the time it was in the midst of a war So quite understandably a crisis situation, you know what I mean? So it's like there's that going on outside. We're not really thinking about the self-isolation part. It's just something that needs to be managed. And it's like we didn't prepare for that. We prepared for the war side of things.

So was there anything that you had being over there or even like this time around with COVID Do you feel like there's anything now that you're like, oh shit, I've gotta do that, I've gotta—

Yeah, well it's like things I didn't think of doing. Like I've never thought I had to do action at the time. It's just the habits I started picking up again. So it was like the one main thing was just like the routine of what you could control. So the routine of what we could control over there was fitness. So number one, everyone had their, everyone like even guys who didn't work out when they were back home started working out. And we're seeing that now again. It's like now the parks are actually busy. People are running all over the place.

Parks like nightclubs.

Yeah, exactly right. Everyone's picking up their fitness activity because it's safe. Such a good stress release, it's such a good distraction, and it's even a better way to break up your day. And the difference between there and here, what I found is, because people are working from home more, particularly clients, giving them the structure to actually end their day. So whereas most of the time I've been, um, I train in the morning or mid-morning mostly, but now I'm training at the end of the day, and I'm suggesting clients do, they get up, do either their walk or run, some sort of cardio in the morning, just to get things going, then they get into their daily routine of work and then they have a point of the day where they do their workout. So that signifies the end of the day. So it's just like, you know, you're actually separating it. So they're not always on their laptop and not always, you know, engaged with work.

That's very good. And then after the workout they can do—

After the workout, it's family time. It's, you know, self-development time, personal growth.

That almost explains my day. I haven't really struggled at all with isolation. I mean, I have realized about myself, I do like people more than I think think I do. I'm like, oh, I can go away and whatever, I don't need people, blah, blah, blah. But actually now I've found that actually no, I do like coming into enterprise and seeing everyone, saying hello and just having that personal interaction. That's basically it.

I realized how much I hate people. This is great. Oh yeah. It's hard to look at you right now without getting angry.

Well, it's like that Chinese proverb about how when a happy dog walks into a house of 1,000 mirrors, it sees 1,000 happy dogs staring back at it. And when the sad dog, you, walk into the house of a thousand mirrors, it sees a thousand sad faces staring back. You know what you put out into the world, you get back.

So I have a thousand mirrors at my house, so I'm always smiling, so that's fine.

That guy's really good looking. Oh, oh, hello. No, but on a serious note, I've noticed that I actually do value quite a lot. But you know what I've been doing, and it's funny, People, I think, in times of crisis, in times of isolation, they revert back to their comforts. And I think I've very much reverted back to my creativity of, let me take on a big problem. So I've actually started writing a book. I'm 24,000 words deep and doing some interesting stuff there. But I start my day, I write and write until the point where I just can't focus anymore on what I'm writing and my writing starts to turn to garbage. Then I get up and go train.

So about 15 minutes.

Nice, nice.

Yeah, no, but I think that's a good way to do it is being task orientated, not time orientated as well. So it's like, you know, you've got, you can, you know, you're not fixed having to travel through traffic and it's like, all right, I'm in the mindset to be able to do this right now. Say write programs for clients. I'm in the mindset to do these calls right now, do those calls. You know what I mean? And it's able to be task orientated instead of just like hour orientated.

So ISO king, what else you got?

I say king, what's next? Yeah, the meal structure as well. That's a big one. So people at home now, it's like, oh, I can eat whenever I want and then they don't eat or they're eating too frequently. It's actually still, it's the best time to get on top of having a structured meal plan.

So what would your, what are your recommendations for that?

Whatever works for you. It's like when you wake up, then you—

But whatever works for you is the opposite of having a structured plan.

Oh, but I mean, it's just like, you know, in terms of timings. I'd say have the times. If you wanna have 5 meals a day, you wanna have 4 meals a day, if 'cause you're not moving as much, you wanna do 3 meals a day.

So basically the way you just do it is, I'm gonna wake up at 7 o'clock, I'm gonna eat breakfast at 8 o'clock, I'm gonna have my mid-morning meal at 11, 11:30.

Yeah, exactly right. It's like, the way I do it is I'll set my first meal timing and then base it off hours after that. And usually I let it flow into having the family meal timing at around 5, and then I usually have something after that before.

That's a really early dinner.

What's that?

5 o'clock.

Yeah, well, I start cooking at 5.

The other little one is there.

Yeah, exactly right. Oh, the little one, we get him like heavy. It's pretty much 5 o'clock is Nate's routine. And then that's like the next hour and a half until his.

You make the pasta sauce?

Yeah, I did make tomato sauce the other day actually.

I fucking knew it. It's awesome.

Tomatoes from my dad's garden.

There you go. There you go. So we've got routine. You got what times you wake up. You got your meal time. What else we got?

Yep. So the routine one's covered. The other one is being kinetic in this time. So this is the one that interests you. You like this one. I know you're going to love this one.

Ever played with some kinetic sand?

So, but yeah, actually I have some. Fantastic.

Messy as all hell.

So kinetic is the concept of it is basing off the law of physics is where it's like something's traveling with enough momentum. So initially you want to be kinetic. You want to be traveling with enough momentum that little things don't bother you. But it also means that with something that an outside force that is really powerful and crosses your path, like the COVID crisis, we can't resist that. So if you're trying to resist what's happening right now, it's going to fuck you over in the end, right? So what you have to do is go with that force and then change your plan with it, right? So it's either have enough momentum that little shit doesn't bother you, it doesn't get in your way, And then it's like when something big enough comes along, like COVID.

You know what visual metaphor I have for this right now? What? Have you ever seen the movie Tron or Tron Legacy? Yes. It's like— And then like, so you're coming towards me. If we go directly into each other, we're gonna like—

Game over.

Do we have some Tron clips up here? We're gonna go—

Disney will just shut that shit down though. We can't do that.

That's the visual metaphor.

Exactly right. You've gotta go with it or you're just gonna fucking crash and explode.

What'd you call it? Kinetic.

Kinetic. Yeah, we'll change it to Tron.

Tron.

The Tron.

Law of Tron. Law of Tron. So be Law of Tron right now. Yeah, implement Law of Tron.

Be kinetic. So it's just like, and it comes to that part of like humility with it as well. So it's not kind of like, no, no, I'm just going to tough it out.

I'm just going to grind through this.

Go through the wall. Fucking go straight through that wall. You're just going to end up coming up the wall. It's game over.

Exactly. I do like it. I do like it.

I knew you'd love that one.

Yeah, it's really good.

But be kinetic. Be Tron.

It's just that thing of picking your battles. You know what it is? More than that, there's this concept that you're very familiar with from someone who we both love, which is Jocko Willinks. The idea of extreme ownership. That's like everything. I'm responsible for everything. But also when you say that I'm responsible for everything, there is on the flip side of that, well, actually you're not responsible.

It's not.

You're not that good. You know, it's like the world doesn't spin because of you. You know, you did not make COVID-19. You did not do this. Like you're actually not that good. So taking a step back and going, oh, maybe 50% is me, but the other 50% is actually how I respond to it. And I think the kinetic aspect of it is letting go of some of those things and not dismissing yourself and dismissing responsibility, but realizing there's that outside force that you're not gonna get through that wall. So you gotta be like Tron and make that deviation.

And this is that whole— this is the whole part, and this is a big one that plays into that. And this is the consumption and spread of information as well. So it's like around this time, and this is the exact same things that I see when happens when we're overseas, is like, oh, we're going to be changing this, we're going to be going home at this time, or the battlefield space is changing there. And it's like, until I hear it from a source or, you know, a commander tells us this is exactly what we're going to do on this date, then it doesn't exist at that point. So it's like, you know, you hear a lot of reporting in the media, is the Swedish model better where they open everything up and let's go for herd immunity and just suffer the losses now? Or is this better? It's like, well, most of us are not in a position to make that change. So there's not much we can do about it. So if you're resisting, it's like, no, you know what? We should be doing it this way. We should be doing it that way. Getting on, you know, your keyboard and just venting your frustration. With Scott Morrison, it's like, well, this is a policymaker's time to be under stress. That's a stress that we actually can't control. It's a stress we don't have to deal with.

You know, it's interesting you say that because the way I approached this was with the same philosophy and thought process where is I want to be doing evergreen activities now. Do you know the term evergreen? So evergreen, basically, like if you talk about in marketing, right? Let's say for example, you did a post on how to get fit in COVID-19, right? If you did that post, then it's only relevant for right now, right? The minute COVID-19's over, it's done. So a lot of what I've seen, a lot of businesses, not just fitness related, but they're doing a lot of temporary situational things. And I thought to myself, you know, this will pass. I don't wanna do, like I could spend my time doing a lot of situational things or I could spend my time doing a lot of evergreen things. And that's what led me to the conclusion of actually start writing a book because if I write this, then this is gonna last me for 10, 15, 20 years. I don't have to redo that because of the situation at hand. Yeah, 100%. To your point, evergreen. Until you hear it from the commander controlling the situation, my mind frame has been create evergreen content, be evergreen. So learning new skills, learning whatever it is. At the moment I'm actually learning about— have you seen Masterclass?

Yes.

Yeah, it's awesome. Pretty good, man.

I always get ads for them.

Chris Voss, listen to his stuff. It's awesome.

You're doing the Masterclass?

Yeah, Chris Voss. With Chris Voss. He's really good.

My last tip for isolation is just being kind. So this is a part of the whole not being selfish thing as well.

Wow. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever been kind to me, so I'm interested. Tell me more.

I was directing this towards you, Mark.

Oh, okay, okay.

So if you're, if you're so oblivious to you not being kind, you're probably the problem. Just don't worry if you have a clamp on your brakes soon, anytime soon.

Alrighty, well—

Being kind, try and be kind, particularly to those who you live with. Do something kind for 'em every day.

What are some kind things that you've been doing?

I don't know, like, you know, just helping out.

Struggling to come up with ideas there.

Yeah, I know, I've gotta— She's really self-reflective.

You saw it on a coaster, you thought, be kind. Oh yeah, be kind, that's good advice. I'm gonna put it in my notes.

Don't be an asshole. Just don't be an asshole.

Just don't be an asshole. Yeah, make someone dinner.

Yeah, make someone dinner. Yeah, cook for someone. Ask 'em how you can help out.

Do the washing.

be prompted to do something. You know, clean up after yourself. Particularly if you're living in that self awareness. Just self awareness.

Other awareness.

Self awareness. Exactly right. Everyone's kind of thinking this, oh, self isolation time. I get to work on myself a lot more.

Me, me, me, me, me, me.

You got to think about the people, particularly if you live in a close proximity with them. So it's like it's not. It's about your little community at that time and how like you can improve that space around.

When you look back on the time you spent at the base, were there some kind people there?

Yeah, and some assholes too. And again, sometimes you're going to be an asshole.

What's the kindest thing at the base someone did for you?

Um, geez, I don't really thought. I don't know, I just think some of the stuff we did together as well. Like one time we went out on a patrol and we just made like damper bread together over a fire. Oh, like that was just cool. Like it was just a fun memory. Yeah, we're just sitting around.

No one made it for you?

No, well, they kind of did. They just knew how to make it and they made it for everyone. Oh wow. So, you know what I mean?

That is awesome.

Yeah, I wasn't like, I'm making my own damper bread. Or we'll do like, you know, uh, you know, big cook sessions of just like— it would just be like pasta and Spam, just whatever we could get our hands on that wasn't ration packs, right? You know what I mean?

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Mental health.

What do you want to say about mental health?

Well, what do we want to say about mental health? Um, I think everyone just needs to be aware of it at the moment. This is going to be a very trying time. Like you said, we're going to see probably higher divorce rates than ever before.

I think the question is, I think the question is, you know, the bigger question with mental health is, is it worth locking everyone down for the risk of mental health?

I don't— yeah, that's a hard one because it's like we don't—

because it's the—

you take deaths now with that, that might be a problem, but this is a problem right now.

It's almost certainly will be a problem.

Yeah, it certainly will be a problem, but it's like, to what extent do you think that— I don't think will cause more deaths than what this virus potentially will, or the stress that's put on the health system.

If you look at suicides per year, was it you who told me that they underreport suicides Purposefully. Someone was telling me they underreport suicides purposely because if they report the actual true numbers of things like suicides, it becomes almost a normal stat.

A prompt.

Yes, in some ways. Like there's a herd, "Oh well, it's not that bad," kind of thing. And then it exacerbates the problem further because someone was saying like, it's like 9 a day or whatever. And then if you speak to train drivers or whatever, like it's one of the most common ways that people neck themselves is jumping in front of a train. So I mean, no doubt. Well, if we even put it in a statistic, point.

This is a good point. In, um, it was the guy who wrote Sapiens. So in his second book, he throws out a few stats, and considering how people always thinking like, oh, this is the worst time to be alive, everything's getting changing, everything's this, where everything's always been changing. Um, in fact, he kind of points out that it's the best time to be alive. But one of the stats he throws out is that in terms of conflict and war and murders, you're more likely to die by your own hand than any other type of violence in the world. That's including every type of like war, conflict, murder.

So he includes like car crashes?

No, no, he's more like the— if like someone killing themselves more in terms of harm, right? So you're more likely to—

way more than a homicide, way more than any—

it's more deaths than any war, any homicide. Way more.

So on the topic of mental health, and as I said, what my question I was trying to get out is—

You're saying this could lead to more? Well, that's a big what if compared to what's actually happened.

To destroy the economy the way it has, to destroy people's jobs, to do all these things, you're putting people like— there is on one side the economy issues, there is mental health, there is the onflow effect of that, and then you have COVID-19. And as you said, it is a what if and trying to put all of the things into a philosophy, a working philosophy, and then one needs to make decisions from, well, which one actually poses the greater risk? Is it actually Is it the actual disease or is it the flow-on from the disease?

I think in terms of like a policymaker, and this is what we see now, obviously, like you've got to think how politicians work. They're working on their next reelection. Is it easier to take, like do the thing now that saves lives and think of like, 'cause you can like put the mental health aspect onto it's an indirect cost. So it's like, it's not directly linked to self-isolation. You can kind of spread that out. And it's not going to all happen at once. Whereas if we do not— if they do nothing now and heaps of people are dying as a direct result—

by that rationale, you're obviously going to go after the COVID-19. Yeah, but this is— I don't know if you saw— I don't know, I haven't paid much attention to like what they're doing. Are you saying Sweden, they've changed the model?

Yes, Sweden, they're just going— they're pushing for herd immunity. Yeah, so the idea is they leave— they're only protecting the elderly who are at most risk.

Do you know how that's going?

Terribly, terribly, terribly. They— but they're looking at that, they're assuming long term that there'll be less death. Okay, so per million they have the most deaths in the world at the moment.

Is there an end date of when they're gonna like— well, there isn't.

Hey, I don't think anyone does. Like, I mean, they've just left it open.

But you see what happened in America talking to mental health as well. Have you seen that, the riots?

And it's chaos there though. I just, I just think there's—

it's almost like they're just too big a country.

It's like I just I feel like it's too big. There's too many different opinions out there.

Oh yeah.

I think number one, they're probably too entitled. Like it's like—

When you say entitled, what do you mean?

I mean, it's just like, I have the right to be out. I have the right to be getting my hair cut.

Well, you know what?

I love the sign. They're so self-absolved.

I love the sign that I saw. It's Lord, give me liberty or give me COVID-19.

I was like, wow.

Yeah, I know, right? That's one way to look at things. Yeah.

I just, I think the people who are protesting just don't have a community mindset. It's a— I think it's a very selfish mindset. I think it's like, I'm okay with that person dying, then, uh, you know what I mean, then me sacrificing a few weeks in isolation.

Well, I think what this comes from is the mistrust of information that gets spread.

Yeah, I think the way they deliver it has been horrible as well.

Well, I mean, this has been a problem. I mean, the thing is, if the information— if we had information that got disseminated that was correct, people would be a lot more okay with it. But because a lot of the time is science is the new religion, right? People are wanting to say, you know, look at this, you know, Trump is the Antichrist, or Trump is the new savior. Oh, these really super polarizing ways to look at things. People, they don't know what to believe, I think. And because of that, they're like, well, fuck it, you know, the numbers are wrong, the numbers must be wrong. I drove past my local hospital and no one's in hospital, therefore they're not. I think if they actually saw evidence to the fact, there would be a lot more believable. I don't, I don't, yeah, I don't know, maybe I don't want to think, I don't want to think people are that selfish to go, well, fuck, fuck everyone, right? Just don't worry about, you know, I've got to get my haircut and that person can die. I don't want to believe that. I think it really is more to the fact of the information that gets spread, like, oh, this hospital is barely empty. Yeah, people are believing that, oh, this hospital is empty.

And then there's evidence, had a massive issue of that, of where people are like, hey, there's no one in this hospital, and it's been in one place. It's like, no, we're doing that, that's fine now, It's like here, it's like our cases are nowhere near the rest of the world. Well, you know, it's like, is that a result of us being in isolation? I would say yes. It's— it's—

no, I disagree with that. I don't think it's a result of us being in isolation. I, I think it's a result of Australia being an extremely spread out country. Like, we are a big country, we're huge, so we could isolate.

What happens in population density isn't a problem.

No, it's not. So I mean, you look at Europe, Europe's had the biggest, one of the biggest problems, right? Well, because people live on top of each other. You know, there's the idea of having a backyard in Europe is, you know, somewhat laughable. But in Australia, if you don't have a backyard, then you haven't reached the true Aussie dream. You know, a backyard is quite a normal thing for most Aussies.

But I mean, is there a link in us with cases from when— because we had the foresight because it's obviously going to come here.

Yes, and this is where Scott Morrison and the Australian government have done a terrible job, I think personally, because Okay, you see this typhoon of issues that are coming a mile away as the Australians— we did as Australians. Shut the airports. Done. Shunt international travel. And instead, how slow to the party was Australia? Yeah, I think let's let the Italians in because of the Grand Prix. Now, what, the F1 team ended up having it? We let, what, 13 people from the F1 team who had it and spread the disease? We saw it coming a mile away.

I think it was a mile away. Yeah, I think that was it again. That was probably something they were trying to protect. The economy, they didn't want to jump the gun on it.

Well, really good job now having closed everything.

We're fine. Yeah, all right.

Well, no, our economy is going to suffer and it's going to suffer in a big way.

Yeah, I mean, it'll, uh, but at what cost, you know what I mean? It's the cost of life.

But when you look at Australia, right, so all of Australia, we've got— I wrote it down, uh, 6,000 on— oh, it's on your piece of paper over there, I think. What is it? 6,600 Here, give me my stats. Yeah, I'll give you yours. So my stats that I got today, as we've done the podcast, we've got what, 6,687 cases of COVID-19 in all of Australia, right? And then there's 5,273 cases that have fully recovered, which means there's only 1,414 cases that are still out there active. Now, if we lock down for another 2 weeks, then potentially all those cases are going to be—

and that's what we're looking at. We're doing it as a periodized time where it's like, you know, we'll assess it in the next 3 weeks.

But with that said, I suppose my question is, you know, the idea behind this was not to stop the virus. The idea behind it was to flatten the curve.

Yeah.

So the curve is, is flattened. Yeah.

So the idea that let's keep the kids at home, let's close all schools, even where there is another thing, they're slowly going to start reintroducing kids to school now. So my wife being a school teacher, they initially got told, and this is like, I just don't think anyone knows what's going on. It's because we're kind of learning on the fly. And this is where I was saying, just rely on the policymakers. They'll make the decision because we're not in a place to make a decision.

Yes, but what happens when the policymakers are incompetent?

Well, what are you going to do about it?

Well, I don't know.

That's a good question.

Become a politician. Do we need to protest? Do we need to protest on Parliament and make our voices be heard more? I mean, but it goes hand in hand with the Australian attitude of, she'll be right, mate. She'll be right. No, she won't be right.

No, but I mean, it's just like, what's the protesting going to do?

Well, potentially change and push the policymakers to—

Yeah, but then I think a civil unrest is probably a worse push.

Well, there already is civil unrest though.

Nah, here, no way. No one's protesting here.

Well, you know what they did do, which I think it would have been a very different outcome if they didn't do this. Construction hasn't shut down.

Yeah, it's a good time to do construction.

Think about all the men in construction, some of them having, you know, some pretty rough backgrounds. Now, if you put all those men on their asses and said, you know, you guys aren't going to earn it, in fact, you guys don't have a job anymore, you're in unemployment, I think there probably would be a different outcome of this. I think there would be civil unrest because you'd have more people who aren't tolerating potentially more—

more structures.

Oh, correct. I, I think so. More people would just be out, out and out. More people who are more likely to get enraged.

Yeah, but I think it is a good time to honestly ramp up construction because no one's out and about. There's no disruption to the public. Everyone else is isolate.

Hang on, construction workers can still pass on COVID-19 to each other, can they not?

Yeah, but if they're in, you know, I mean, it's— we're trying to limit most of the social interactions.

Okay, but then you can make an argument for accountants, and then you can make an argument for lawyers, and you can make an argument for just about anything.

It's just a big— well, I mean, accountants can work from home. Construction workers can't build a building from home.

Wow.

You have Excel and an internet connection.

Well, yes, that's, that's, it's true in theory what you're saying, but also the argument is about social isolation though. No, but the argument is about social isolation.

Yeah.

So we, we give a free pass to the— yeah, well, well, at the end of the day, there's what, 1,414 cases in all of Australia?

Yeah, and that's a good thing. That is because we self-isolated.

The, the curve is pretty flat now. Yeah.

And you look at it, it's like, okay, we've we've just flattened it. So that was that first block, and it's like, all right, this did work. Let's just push a little bit on the side of caution, give it another 2 weeks, see how it responds again. Because we know— and again, that video I showed you before, but you can have it for 2 weeks, more than 2 weeks, it's just 3 weeks. A week fudge factor, let's throw that in there as well.

Okay, so, so May 11th, May 11th, May 11th rolls around, May 11th we can start spitting in each other's mouths, licking doorknobs.

Probably not that far as well. I think that's what they're going to start reintroducing kids slowly. We've got to start slowly opening things back up. We have in China, everyone shows up to the same national park on one day, then they have to shut it down again because too many people were there just to even go on the—

That's what's going to happen though. How are you going to stop that?

I think people will be able to start a caution because we're seeing it happen around.

I think there are two types of people here. I think there are those who are like, this COVID-19 stuff is all a bunch of bullshit and I'm just going to go out and rock it. And then on the other side, you have the people who are like, "Ooh, COVID-19, I'm never leaving the house again." There'll be enough people to kind of slowly ease them back in, 'cause eventually those people will come around to it. Yeah, but the all-or-none people, if you're in the 50% of the group who are just like, "Whatever," then—

50% of people not doing anything?

They're going out, they're gonna go get something and spread it.

Yeah, but I mean, if we've now flattened the curve, that shouldn't be an issue though. Now we're kind of like, "We'll see how it goes." I mean, I just don't think no one like this is, again, this has only been like, research only started coming out on this in January. So there's been like, I think over something like a few hundred public papers now published in it. And so it's like, this is very new. Like you think of everything else we deal with, usually research takes years and years. Years and years and years. Now we're doing it in a turnover. It's very fast.

And this is what concerns me about the V word. And no, not vagina.

Or Volvo. What are you usually afraid of?

Vaccines.

Vaccines.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh geez, we're gonna get into this fucking topic now.

Oh, I feel like we need to. It needs to be said. It needs to be said, man.

What's wrong with them? Jab up, it's fine.

Jab up. I feel like you just said, all right, you said something very pertinent. It's new, right? And the research that needs to be done. So the idea of, you know, let's get this vaccine out and, you know, put some restrictions, social restriction like they've done in schools where kids aren't allowed to, you know, essentially be in school unless they get their vaccination schedule up to date or whatever it is. You know, what if they pass a bill? All right, you can't fly. Unless you've had the Corona vaccine.

Okay, so now you're going into like some sort of nanny state.

Well, we already are in a nanny state.

I wouldn't say that. Oh, now at the moment it's just like, we'll see.

From a corporate side, corporate Australia point of view, we are in a nanny state. We've got unions, we've got HR, we've got, oh, you want to fight? Oh no, we've got minimum wage. Like, we are in a nanny state as far as I'm concerned from a corporation point of view. And that's why this problem started, in my opinion, in the first place. Because what did we do to combat the nanny state? I'll tell you what big companies did to combat the nanny state. They went to China where there is no nanny and they pay guys 2 cents an hour or 2 cents a day and, oh, you're tired? Oh, you died at your desk? No big deal. Let's just get another fucker in here to do your job. That's the opposite of what you get. You get somewhere in the world where there is absolutely no regulations and they treat people like filth. Yeah. So I'm not saying, you know, that's the answer because it's certainly not. Yeah, but overregulation—

that's the model we run at Enterprise.

And don't you forget it, Adrian. Don't you fucking forget it.

Into the ground. I would burn you to the bone.

Next. Oh, I hate you so much. It's fun how we can joke about this.

Yeah, joke.

So that's, you know, one of my ideas actually was to get like microchipping inside your hand and have like a keyboard.

Oh yeah, it doesn't shock you and just—

But anyway, I digress. My point being, thanks for derailing that one for me. No, but the nanny state, the nanny state is a very real thing. I mean, it is, isn't it?

I mean, I just don't— yeah, who wants that much control? Like, I mean, again, well, that's my point.

We don't want that much control. We don't want our government saying, you know, you have to get a vaccine to fly.

Oh no, I don't think it'll go to that point. I don't think it'll go that far. No, I don't think it—

like, yeah, well, okay, people said get the idea of getting rid of cash wasn't going to happen, right? So Australia, if you spend over $10,000 in cash on something, your name gets flagged on a database. Now, $10,000 is very easy to make $5,000, and then from $5,000, it's very easy to make $2,500. But wait, we— and I've heard people in finance, I've got a friend who's spoken to me about this, about— I forget the exact term around negative interest rates or negative interest gearing. So basically, instead of the economy— and what he's saying is almost panning out exactly. Is the idea of getting rid of cash while the economy is in such a bad way that instead of the government bailing out the banks, we the consumers are going to bail out the banks. And you might ask, well, how are we going to do that? Well, all the money— let's say you have savings, right? Let's just say you have these round numbers, $10,000 in savings. Okay. Instead of you earning at the moment, you earn interest on that savings. So you might earn 2.5%, you know, years ago, say 5%, 4%, whatever it is, right? Instead of it being 2.5%, you'll be charged 2.5% to have your money in the bank.

Gotcha.

Which then what that does is it encourages spending. So no one holds on to money anymore. Let me buy that. Let me buy this. So that's what's going to reinvigorate the economy. Now to do that as well, well, very conveniently in many ways for the banks of the world and the government.

So you think that was the idea of them trying to get rid of cash?

People are scared to use cash now. Yeah. Okay. Well, the Royal Australian Mint has gone on the record to say—

I'm feeling like a tinfoil hat situation.

Hang on, hang on. Let me finish my point right before we put tinfoil hats on. The Royal Australian Mint has also gone on the record and said there is no evidence whatsoever that we should stop using cash. Right. They're of the opinion that we can still use cash and cash is not spreading.

Can I jump in for a second? Are you offended by the idea of not using cash because you're a WOG?

You got me. You should be too. You should be outraged right now. Your last name's Ferranza.

I'm tapping on my watch, I'm tapping on my phone and use I don't use cash anymore. Someone tried to hand me cash and I didn't even know what it was.

Really? Man, you were one of those new school wogs. But look, the idea of cash, the reason I'm not either for or against it, I'm just simply saying like, this is the way it is, right? This is where we are going. So when I say that the idea of cashless society 10 years ago, 5 years ago was something that you would say, no, that can't happen. But today—

I can definitely see it happening.

I mean, you can absolutely. People aren't accepting cash in the stores. I went to go pay with cash the other day and they're like, oh, sorry, we don't accept that here. I'm like, fucking serious? It's cash, man. We got to either pay and all this kind of shit. So I mean, we're not too far from that. Okay, let's say in 10 years you can see it happening. It's a reasonable idea.

And you think they'll start charging us to hold money in the bank?

Possibly if the economy gets bad enough. That is one solution. And this is where—

That's a big what if. And I just think it's not like, it's not even necessary to worry about.

Here's the thing, I don't want to put on the tinfoil hat. I'm certainly not—

it is so on, you're like, you're so shiny.

It's not a conspiracy theorist, but I think with COVID-19 what has happened is maybe, you know, I think there's one school of thought which I kind of described myself with—

vaccines have microchips.

No, that's not it. That this was a fuck-up in, you know, Wuhan. The virus was man-made and it got released by mistake.

Okay.

And now we pay—

I want to touch on this one as well.

Okay, cool.

Okay. It doesn't matter. Okay, whether it was someone ate a bat who ate a fucking armadillo who ate something. The matter is it's here. It's here.

It doesn't matter.

It could be a fuck-up. Yeah.

And every— and my point being with this point that I'm making about cash and vaccines and everything else is everyone, everyone is going to use it to their agenda and their advantage. So it's not a one-world government trying to control people, I don't think. I think it's more a case of people going, oh, we can, uh, we can make money this way.

Slide this bill in this way.

Let's get this policy.

Yeah, well, it's, you know, you definitely saw a lot of things happen like that with 9/11. Where they were sliding things in with like a Patriot Act and they're like, just put that in there as well.

Yeah, 100%.

Let's put this in.

Let's put this in. Oh yeah, no cash, that works for the banks.

Yeah, but you know what, it's the government, we'll just tax everyone. She'll be right.

Fucking Australians. Fucking Australians.

I was like, what can you do about it? Are you gonna start a revolt?

Maybe, maybe enough people watch this podcast and this YouTube and we'll share it and then we'll get banned.

And I tell you what, ask me in another 6 months if we're still in lockdown, then we'll have a— we'll discuss from revolt, man, and we'll discuss a rebellion. I think we should use the Star Wars rebellion symbol. We're just going to rob that. Let's start a rebel alliance.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd actually appreciate if you'd be on my team on that one.

Probably not. I think we'd be like separate warlord type factions here that will kind of maybe cooperate every now and again, a common enemy. But I'd really hate you deep down still. So can I imagine that playing out?

All right, well, shoot down my plans. It's good to know the rules of engagement before we begin.

Yeah. There are none. It's guerrilla warfare.

All right, remember not to pay this week too.

That's cool.

Yeah, that's cool. Done. All right, moving right along.

Remember to get that— tighten that clamp on your brakes. Okay, what you can do to protect yourself. Mark Ottobre. Use a condom. Now they cured HIV, so you don't have to use a condom anymore.

So that's fine.

HIV? Yeah, no, apparently two, uh, two cases they've now completely cured. I don't know I haven't read too much of that.

You, you, you?

No, I've still got it. I'm not trying to fix it. It's just me. It's who I am.

It's okay.

No, I don't have AIDS, please don't spread the myth. Now what you can do to protect yourself with coronavirus, what we know is there's a lot of like, I guess again, misinformation. I think one of the, some of the best ones I've seen are from our own industry in terms of bullshit being spread. So there's like the charlatans and the fucking snake oil salesmen salesman getting on behind, guess what? Oh, keto can now cure coronavirus. You know what I mean? Oh, you know what?

It was keto can cure—

Yeah, everyone's like, whoever was on a diet plan, it's like, this was the best option. The carnivores are on like, no, this was the best option.

People are actually saying people are saying this crap out there.

It's just like now they're pushing their own ebooks to like make money off this new, uh, the disease that they're all going on. I have seen that vegans are blaming, oh, it was a bat, so it's Animal Flesh. PETA released a statement. Animal Flesh was linked to COVID-19. The pricks at PETA. Fuck PETA. Don't get me started on those. We'll start a whole other podcast on those guys. But, uh, you really hate PETA?

I fucking hate PETA.

I feel like I want to press that one, but let's keep moving forward. Um, yeah, so because, you know, COVID was made in a lab. Oh, Jesus Christ. Whether it was a bat or a lab, it doesn't matter. It's here.

It was the vegans.

It was the vegans who did it to us. Get rid of those wet markets.

But let's just think about flying into the Wuhan markets where it's polluted.

Yeah, where it got in the lab, got out, and then flew into the—

and then got caught and got eaten.

Yeah, um, just don't eat bats. Fucking bat.

Have you seen those wet markets?

Uh, yeah, there's a lot of shit going on in there. Yeah, I didn't understand what a wet market was. I just assumed it was maybe in like ankle-deep water and just everything was wet. I don't know what did that do.

No, it's just like live and—

yeah, live and not—

I saw this I saw this video on YouTube.

It's like shit where it's like, yeah, where we go into the whole regulation thing. It's why you don't like, you know, restaurants have a policy where that's a meat sink. This is a vegetable sink.

They don't take it too far. That was just everything. There was no bats. Like they go through, they pan through, right?

Things like scorpions. It was just deep fried rats. Yeah.

Deep fried bats, live snakes chopped up like salami, dogs in cages, dead dogs on the street. Horrible.

Yeah, so it's like, I feel like that is a cesspool for disease. Whether it started there, who knows.

For decades.

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, that's where it's like things like SARS and stuff like that. It's just like another— it's a SARS, like, whatever fucking virus thing.

They've been eating bats for decades too.

Yeah, well, this one just had the bat AIDS.

Yeah, but why would a bat fly towards a polluted city? That's to avoid pollution.

I don't know. I have no idea. But anyway, what was your point? Um, what is my point? What actually works? Like, what does work? Do we know what works? Well, there are a couple things.

Okay.

All right, so hands— washing your hands with soap was the big one.

Sing Happy Birthday twice.

Sing Happy Birthday.

I think it's also important to know that viruses actually aren't ever alive, right?

I didn't know this.

Yes, bacteria are alive. Viruses aren't alive. So the idea of like, you know, you can obviously— you want to use a soap that can bust through lipids because they are protected in a lipid lipid structure. So this is where like dish soap can actually be quite helpful.

Okay.

Yeah. What's your stance on masks?

Mask is an interesting one because there is, um, you know, there's that creases. What's that?

Some people say it increases the risk.

Increases the risk?

I don't know how it would increase the risk because you touch the mask and then there's—

well, it's the same as just touching your face, I think.

But I suppose unless you—

if you're not washing it frequently, I just— like, yeah, the mask thing I think is an interesting one. There's that one that is the actual virus mask that, uh, what is it, the, uh, N1, whatever. Yeah, the M, the M1 company, M2 company. It's like an N95 mask. It's a proper filter. Um, with that one, I think that is actually quite effective, right, at stopping a virus. Um, because it's got that filter on it. I don't know, it's purposely designed to stop viruses from getting—

You see, Louis Vuitton made their own N95 mask. Sell it for like 3 grand.

But I think the idea is like with that one as well, that should be, if I would say people, they can wear that one if they want to, but if there's not enough in stock, I would say save it for the public health service 'cause that's the one that's most effective. If there's not enough getting around, it's like, do you really need it? Are you out that much that you need to be, you know, having a fucking proper gas mask on? Wasn't that the point?

Again, I'm gonna come back to the thing. All these preventative measures and lockdown, wasn't that the point of getting more masks? Hasn't that been like—

we weren't running out?

Yeah, wasn't that the whole point of slowing, flattening the curve, was to get our preventative and protective gear in order to do all this?

And I think they're just, they're just playing on the side of caution. Like, they're just— I think they're just being probably overly cautious now at this point. And it's just like, why not be a little bit extra cautious? We'll see what happens. And I honestly think after that May date comes up, I think we'll start to see things go back to normal. So even my wife's school, they're Victoria's a bit on the err side, so Daniel Andrews doesn't really want to send people, kids back, but he's locked into that full term 2 lockdown, whereas New South Wales, they're going to start reintroducing kids back to school maybe a year level at a time with precautions. So maybe keeping distancing.

So what are you saying about your wife's school? They're going to go back?

They don't know yet, right? That's the thing. It's like, it's because Victoria is playing it a bit on the side of err, we don't really want to do that. So they're is a rumor out there that they're gonna start, 'cause even they've been like having to adapt weekly. So before week term 2 started, pretty much days before, they're like, all of term 2 is online. When they thought they were probably gonna go back to school at a limited capacity.

See, the private schools, they're all, they're definitely—

Private schools, they kind of, they still have to follow state, but a lot of them are taking the side of caution.

Yes, the whole term 2 off.

'Cause I know like my sister's kids went to a private school they shut down a week earlier than everyone else.

Yes. And they were just like, a lot of them have committed to the full term. Yeah.

So it's like, yeah. And they, a lot of them, even compared to, again, they, they don't want to be the money that way as well. Uh, I think I know it's some, some have, uh, given out discounts and things like that.

Yeah, not very much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I thought, I don't know how, I don't think it'll make much difference to them.

No.

Um, but yeah, I think they're probably, they don't want to be the school that caused the spread. Of course, you know what I mean? No one wants to be that, you know. And I think it might even be the same in our industry. It's like, oh, it's like, who wants to be like, you know, when gyms start to slowly open up again?

I've got a good authority.

No one wants to be the Princess Mary.

Gyms are going to be in the same category as like nightclubs. And so it's going to be airports at the top, then nightclubs opening up, you reckon, then gyms in that order. So we're like in that last segment, but maybe personal training gets a flag in because we can control the one-on-one and—

Yeah, exactly.

It's the same, you're in the park anyway.

Fancier.

Yeah, you're not getting, uh, people in.

Yeah, yeah.

So what else are you saying about protective?

Oh yeah, that with the masks, like, yeah, like, um, I like it. They know with masks it's only protecting the wearer from spreading it but not from getting— not from getting it if it's a cloth mask. So then there's surgical masks which has some protection. So there's a good site and we can put it in the links on this, which is examine.com, and they did a full kind of like a little infographic on the protectiveness of masks, right? And where it had that cert, that proper M, that N95 one. Yes, that M295 one at the— that was like the best. Then it's like surgical mask, and then it was the cloth mask, which didn't do much with you getting it, right? It had minimal.

So N95 can prevent me getting it?

Getting it, yes.

Right.

So it's good protection for the wearer and from spreading.

Right. And is there a percentage of protection, or you can still potentially get it?

I think they just— no, it's like, it just has it. Yeah, I don't know.

I would just get like a full gas mask.

Yeah, then it's just hot. They suck. They fucking suck.

You've worn them a couple times?

Yeah. Uh, the Mark II gear is like—

it's like dangerous, man.

It's for like radiation, right? So it's like charcoal suit that you wear, and it's got a big canister filter. So that's to stop radiation, nothing getting you through that bad boy. Um, but it's hot. It's like stuck to your face because obviously you have to have a good seal. Oh yeah, of course, around to it.

Um, so you sweat and so you can't really see.

Hey, now you can see out the things, but if it gets foggy, it's pretty fucking shit.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, I've been in it. That works like in essentially probably the best scenario was like a tear gas scenario. So you don't feel it in the tear gas. So it filters that perfect clean air. Like you'd be in a cloud of tear gas.

How does that work? Like, it's pretty amazing.

The tear gas?

Yeah, well, the filter that, uh, basically—

it's a big fucking thing though. It's like that big, and you can only— I think training with it, I imagine they last a week and then you've got to replace that filter.

Wow.

Similar thing with that mask. I don't think that small mask, you know what I mean, it's got a little filter if you've seen them, a little square filter on the end. I don't think it would last that long. Like, you've got to go through them pretty frequently, right? Like, um, yeah, so that big filter, they— I can't remember what they're quite—

the mask, guess expert, huh?

Yeah, yeah, I wasn't expecting, you know, it would just be like, yeah, it's like because of, you know, it doesn't work with the gas masks. They fucking work. Like, I mean, that's protect you from—

how frequently the gas masks will they fog up though?

Um, imagine sweaty if you're getting hot.

Yeah, imagine a massive problem. Um, especially—

I actually can't remember because I've done plenty of like, uh, attack scenarios through them and I don't remember fogging up too bad, to be honest. Pretty good. Yeah, it's just hard to breathe. Right, it gets hot.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, uh, because obviously you gotta suck in like through this. It's like sucking in through a straw. Imagine like you're snorkeling.

Wow, that's what it's essentially suffocate, pretty much.

Yeah, especially if you're in a panic to put it on. It's fucking— it's pretty—

yeah, you know from experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they surprised us. They, um, kind of tried to throw us off. So when we went over to Timor, because we're handling tear gas, they— we had to be had to carry gas masks with us. And so they were— I left the cap on my filter because I wanted to protect the filter. And so they decided to try and surprise us with CS gas. Oh, essentially we'll just— yeah, they were just like, we'll just do it. They're like, they made us— oh, it was so funny because they pulled us all out and they said someone had done something wrong. I can't remember the exact thing, but it's like, until you guys own up— no one did anything wrong, by the way— so until you guys own up, we're gonna keep fucking smashing you with PT. So making us do push-ups. Everyone's like, who the fuck What the fuck was it? Like, just own up. And then as soon as we were like all in a push-up position, they just throw gas.

What gas was it?

Uh, CS gas.

What was that do?

Uh, so it's like, uh, it's like essentially what tear gas is, what you see in all that riot stuff. Um, the grenades are awesome, man. They, um, they'll clear out a fucking room really good.

I thought it was like these little crystals, and once they heat up, they essentially turn into little spikes that essentially pretty much stop you from breathing.

They get everywhere. And the best thing about them, if it's on your clothes and you wash your clothes, then put them in the dryer, it reactivates those crystals. So essentially you open up the dryer, you gas yourself again. So you always had to be careful about washing your clothes after being exposed to it. But yeah, so I put my gas mask on in a hurry, which you suck a bit in. So it's just like everything runs, it cleans out the sinuses pretty good. So I'll be like snotty eyes, snotty. And if you get a little bit caught out and you've— I've just seen guys like even in a room because that whole— imagine like a small room and then you fill up with a gas grenade. That's just a cloud of smoke and it's just like you can't see through it. And the guys who— their seals broke on their mask and it's just like, that's end game. Like you get a little bit in and they're just coughing and spitting and vomiting.

Wow.

Yeah, it fucking sucks. You just— it's like, you know, it's like you see that movie, I think it's in like, uh, what's that one with, uh, Steven Seagal, Under Siege. And the girl sprays him with capsicum spray and he's like, you get immune to it. She gets sprayed and he's just like standing there. It's like, that shit doesn't happen. You never get immune to it.

You just know it's— Steven Seagal's probably true.

Yeah, probably did that.

Use the keto on it. It's like, I'm just gonna use a keto on this fucking capsicum spray. Mmm, tastes like pizza. That guy's eating it. Have you heard about that guy like in real life?

Yeah, he's awesome.

He's amazing.

Like a cop. He started a dojo and you Japan.

Yeah, he's full on, huh? He's like 6'4" or something. Yeah, big guy, right? And there's like these videos on YouTube of the— like a kid.

But now I can't get away with it now. It's cultural appropriation now for him.

What do you mean?

It's just taken on the Japanese culture. It's like a white dude, it's just like fully absorbed in it.

Yeah, yeah. Apparently I've heard stories about, um, how like in the movies when he was getting in shape, like someone, one of his trainers had to say to him, hey man, you're not in shape, or you haven't lost weight. You just fucking cracked and like smashed shit. Like real intense personality. Good old Steven. So I could see, I could see like that actually being based on a true story. They spray Steven Seagal with pepper spray. He's like, yeah man, fuck this shit, something into it, whatever man, tastes like pizza to me. Oh, he's fallen, man, he's fallen. So that's masks.

So it's masks. I'm sorry, but yeah, the thing is it's just like wear it. I don't see what the harm is in people wearing it. I think it's going to cause more of a problem. The whole thing, I think if people want to wear it, wear it. If you— because the whole thing with this, we don't know someone can be carrying it for up to 14 days and not know they're sick. So if you're even just wearing a cloth mask protecting others from getting it, that's helping the stop of the spread, right? I don't see the big issue with wearing or not wearing it. I don't know why it's even a debate.

It's just like, why was there a debate?

I just— people saying don't wear it, it's not necessary.

It's just— I've heard that as well.

What's the harm in wearing it? I just don't understand if people feel safer wearing it.

I think, I think the debate comes from, uh, wearing it can actually increase I saw something about increasing.

Yeah, that one I haven't heard, so I don't know.

Because when people are touching, if I touch and put, yeah, you know, germs on my mask, you know, I'm breathing in those germs, so it makes me more susceptible.

What's the difference between touching something and then touching your face?

Um, good question. Well, that has air to breathe, like it can come off.

If there's a filter in between, would that be less likely I'm going to get sick if I'm already touching my face?

So it's there. Well, I suppose it's on your face anyway, hey? So I mean, questions for the, I don't know, oracle of some sort. She'll be right. She'll be right. You know what this one is?

It should be right.

You want to wear a mask? I want to wear a mask.

She'll be right.

She'll be right.

Get the Louis Vuitton one if you want.

I agree. She'll be right. She'll be right. I agree. She'll be right.

So I don't care.

So our summary on masks is wear it, don't wear it, she'll be right.

Yeah.

It's our official summary. Okay. Are you looking to get into the best shape of your life? Are you looking to lose that last 5, 10, or even 20 kilos? Well, I founded Enterprise Fitness— well, I should say I started personal training in 2006, and Enterprise Fitness has been an evolution of my career and finally has brought me to this point of opening up this facility here. And that— this facility is dedicated to bringing you the very best standard of personal training bar none. We have trained over 250 champions in competing and in a variety of different sports, as well as quite literally thousands of before and after transformations, helps people get in the very best shape of their life. And heck, we've even educated a stack of trainers throughout the world. This has become a travel-to destination. So folks, if you are in the Melbourne area, hit us up. It's melbournepersonaltrainers.com. This is the place to train. You can email us at info@enterprisefitness.com, or the website is melbournepersonaltrainers.com. And make sure you check us out on Instagram as well. Reach out to us, we're here to help. And again, this is the place you want to be if you're serious about your fitness and physique goals.

Um, supplements.

What about it?

People relying on supplements when they've had a shitty lifestyle leading up to the virus are probably screwed.

So definitely, yeah, it's just like, um, you know, it's like anything else, someone's not going to solve people's issues.

Yeah, and the same thing, it's like people either finding it's like, oh, we need vitamin D, all right, I'm going to high-dose vitamin D. It's just like, no, just keep it as a regular supplement like we normally do with people here, especially going into the colder months, you know, it's— and being isolated, not getting out as much, or for some people they might be getting out more, to be honest, not being stuck in their office and walking more, but keeping that like, you know, I keep like the standard is 2,000 IUs a day. Like I do keep that as a continuous supplement.

Well, I mean, vitamin D is one of those things that, what was it in 2012, the standards, if you get your bloods done in Australia, International units. In 2012, I was getting like labs done and stuff, the standard would be anywhere from 80 IUs to 120, 125.

Yeah.

Some labs would even go up to as much as 150.

That's like an optimal standard as well.

No, they were the standards that you would get from your— if you went in, in like 2009, 2010, or even 2012, you went to a doctor and you got your vitamin D ran, the range that the lab would come back with was 80 to 120, 125, depending on the lab, right? So now if you get— go into the doctor and get your labs done on vitamin D, it says above 50, right? So as long as you're above 50, you don't get flagged, whereas back then—

well, they adjusted it to a sick population, correct?

That's exactly what's happened. It's adjusted to a sick population, and the mean and the score has been down. So really, like, if you're looking— and I was speaking to Kayla Daniels, uh, Thursday, and also Bob Guel, my mentor in functional medicine, said the same thing, is that Your vitamin D actually can be quite high so long as your vitamin A is in ratio.

Okay.

So if you look at vitamin A and vitamin D, they're synergistic nutrients, kind of like a tricep bicep, right? In terms of the action of the humerus.

That I get.

Yeah, I thought you might, right? So I like to think of it like this. Vitamin D, think of D as down and A as accelerate, right? So one of vitamin D's function is to modulate the immune system or not to depress it, but to bring it down. So if you have a reaction, if you see a disease or you see a pathogen, Vitamin D's function is to regulate that and calm it back down so it's not overregulated, whereas vitamin A is to upregulate the immune system, right, to accelerate antibodies. So, and, and the dispersing of T cells and, and B cells. So if you look at, for example, if someone has an autoimmune disease and they have a flare-up and they take vitamin A, what will happen is they'll have more of a flare-up. So if you've, let's say, got an autoimmune disease and you're you're going through a bout, you don't want to take vitamin A at that time because you're going to get— it's going to be more accelerated. The immune system that's already overreacting to what's happening is going to be accelerated. It's going to be worse. With that said, you want to take vitamin D because vitamin D is what's going to help calm and modulate the immune system down. So vitamin D for autoimmune is very good. So one of the things is what a virus does, and obviously coronavirus, well, it's a virus, it gets into your DNA, but it also affects the way the spleen releases T cells and— or thymus releases T cells. It affects the way the spleen releases B cells, which is your first line of order in terms of fighting a virus. So basically virus comes in and stops the production of B cells as a mechanism for the virus to duplicate or replicate rather, because obviously it's more than duplicating, it's replicating inside of the system. So at the time of getting a cold or flu or virus, you actually want to take a really high dose of vitamin A because that signal of vitamin the signal that the virus gives to stop producing B cells. Vitamin A gives that signal to the spleen to then produce more B cells.

How high is a high dose? So when we're talking like high dose, it's like for a short, like a short period of time, and I don't want to say how much on air. Okay, yeah, fair enough.

But it's a lot.

Yeah, but this is where I'm saying where someone says like, it's like they're leaning into, it's like take vitamin D, and then someone goes out, it's like I'm going to take all the vitamin D, you know what I mean?

It's just like, well, it is, it is somewhat depending upon your nutritional status.

Yes.

So one of the sensible practices would, would be, well, number one, start with sunlight if you can. And obviously if there is no sunlight or it's a cold day, you want to look at your, your— I mean, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, what are these essentially? They're fat-soluble vitamins. So where are you going to find them? In saturated fats.

Yeah.

So what, what great source? Butter. Yeah. Uh, ghee, lard, coconut oil, bone broth. Um, you're going to have— well, not coconut oil so much rather, but, um, certainly, uh, your butter, animal fats, and any animal fat, right? Bone broth particularly as well, because it'd be high in collagen as well. So those things are going to boost up. Another natural way to get vitamin A, a lot of vitamin A and D, is liver. So getting like cow's liver, chicken liver, they're fantastic sources where you're going to be boosting up vitamin A, vitamin D synergistically, and not have to worry about so much ratio. So potentially, you know, if people are worried and want a nutritional— you know, I want to take supplements as a boost Liver is probably the food. And also you can look at cod liver oil. Not fermented cod liver oil like the Weston A. Price Institute recommends, cod liver oil. You can't ferment cod liver. Fermentation's done with the carbohydrate. There's no, so there's an idea of—

Right, sorry, I didn't realize it was a—

Yeah, so never fermented, just straight out.

It's just not a thing? Is it just them?

Well, there is a company and this is in one of the podcasts that I did I did, it's coming out, it'll be out by the time this one's out. A podcast I did with Kayleigh Daniels, she wrote the book, The Whole Soy Story. She was in the Weston A. Price Institute for some time and Weston A. Price got behind, well, not him as a person, but the institute, the organization with Sally Fallon, they got behind a product called fermented cod liver oil. I never saw it, I wasn't really paying attention to that. And you think of fermented, well, fermentation's done with the carbohydrate, some of the sugar. So how do you ferment something that doesn't have any sugar? You can't, it's a bit odd. So anyway, Kayla got all, got it, we speak about on the podcast, but she basically got it tested and found it was a rancid oil, the fermented cod liver oil.

Right.

Yeah, cod liver oil, good.

I was just trying to get rid of old cod product or some shit.

Yeah, fermented cod liver oil, no good. But again, if you wanna do more of a natural side of things, and I still like the Weston A. Price Foundation, I think they do good work, but yeah, don't do fermented cod liver oil.

Okay.

So that's your vitamin A, vitamin D, liver, but vitamin A particularly, is, is important. Vitamin D, you want to look at labs. So, you know, I aim around 125, 150 international units. Don't use American units. So sorry for the folks who are watching this in, in, you know, Europe or America, or don't use international units. That's what I look for in terms of blood markers. That's where you want to shoot. You want to be on the high side. But again, making sure you have enough vitamin A. Zinc, obviously important for immune function. Zinc and copper.

Yeah, because the big one they have on the exam one as well, and they say in reference to, uh, this one I hadn't heard before, which I found interesting, they were saying zinc lozenges. So the idea, because the virus attaches itself to the back of the throat, it's actually helping with that.

And what's the antiseptic in some ways, is what that was all they're saying.

Yeah, so it's like, uh, it may reduce symptoms severity for common cold due to inhibiting viral replication at the back of the throat. So to stop it from what, kind of like, uh, growing into something.

Yes, it's having a localised effect. Yeah, it's almost like an iodine spray.

That's an interesting one. I didn't think of that because they'll always have zinc zinc on hand if I got sick, but obviously in capsule form. I didn't realize.

Well, we've got the lozenges. I ordered heaps in because I saw that, that it was helpful and I thought I better order some lozenges in from Orthoplex, which is one of the Australian companies doing zinc lozenges.

Yeah. And they're the ones that they kind of have, kind of know that actually work. Well, I mean, like the C, D, and A, but they're comparing it to cold and flu because we have no, we don't know what works against coronavirus.

If you look at C, D, A, if you look at all those vitamins, what are they? They're immune boosting vitamins. I mean, it's not rocket science, right?

Yeah, exactly right.

Really look after your immune system. Don't let pathogens in. And it's— so if you've got a broken immune system to begin with, well, then you are in a susceptible group. So where does the immune system start? Where does the immune— you should know this.

The brain? What are you talking about?

Gut.

The gut. Gut.

So, you know, what is it? 95% of the immune system is in your gut. So if you've got a compromised gut, this is where the autoimmune relationship between gut comes into play. So if your gut is compromised, because you've got your tight junctions, right? So your tight junctions, uh, basically the gatekeepers to your mucosal barrier. So you have the tight junctions, they're open, uh, if you have food that essentially gets into the bloodstream, now it becomes the job of the immune system to get rid of that once it's in. It's a, it's a macro or micro molecule inside of the bloodstream. So that's what triggers the immune response. So this is where a lot of the autoimmune issues start and permeated by having a compromised gut. That's where the question comes in, well, was it the gut or was it the immune system? Did the immune system— or, and stress is also a big— so it's like, think of it like a triangle, right? Yeah. Stress can also damage the gut, and stress can also elevate the immune response. So all of the— and stresses— so if you think of stresses, so like gluten, for example, is a common one, because for everyone, gluten will open the tight junctions regardless of whether you're a celiac or not. Um, the, the question is whether it gets into— it breaks through the mucosal barrier and enters into the bloodstream, which then becomes part of the immune system, and that's where you get that immune response. So once you continually get that, and this is where it's not just about the calories of it, it's about the immune system being triggered to then get, yeah, being combated what's coming in, if that makes sense. So this is where, as I was saying, that, um, your gut, especially at this time, you don't want to be eating and drinking things that are going to compromise your gut because your gut is the first point of call in terms of your immune system. Now zinc also corresponds into that because zinc is also part of of helping the body upregulate things like hydrochloric acid, which is very, very important in terms of digestion of protein.

So yeah, yeah, which comes to the main point, which is like not relying on, okay, this sub— or someone says this supplement's going to work, so I'm going to do that, if you know what I mean. If the gut's compromised, if you're not already having a healthy balanced diet, it's probably the time to focus on that.

Well, another thing that you 100% want to do is that you want to look fat-soluble vitamins and water-soluble vitamins. A common mistake that people make in terms of supplementation is they will take one or the other. So for example, what I see a lot of time is they'll take vitamin E. You're like, oh, okay, that's good. But on its own, it's not really that good. Yeah, you need vitamin E encapsulates a toxin many of the times, and then has to— like, toxins get stored inside of the fat, but that fat-soluble vitamin needs to pass it off to someone who is water-soluble, because water-soluble can be extracted. So when people say, oh, you know, they took a supplement and they saw more excreted, excretory vitamin C in their pee. Well, that's what you're supposed to see. Yeah, it's supposed— because it's passing off those ions are being passed from the fat soluble to the water soluble to be then passed out. So certainly water soluble vitamins like, you know, your vitamin C is hugely— vitamin B as well, the B family really hugely important, especially at this time, to make sure that detoxification pathways and processes. But as with always, you never want to be— it's always a bell curve approach.

Yeah.

So So, you know, a little bit won't do much. There's an optimal. And then from optimal, which is the peak of the bell, then when you take more, let's say, for example, someone says to you, take 10 grams of vitamin C, right? It's probably way too much. It's a— it has a counter effect now. Like, you know, let's say 3 grams, you're good. Then you start taking 4, 5, and the further you go, the more of a hindrance effect you're going to have from that. So it's not a matter of just taking all the supplements. Everyone has an optimal place and optimal. Usually once your levels start to get high enough and you overcome sickness and your body becomes I suppose stronger, you need less, right? That's what I always find with clients as well and myself is that you actually need a lot less than someone who is sick or unhealthy. But again, my tips would be right now, look after your gut. It's not the time to go out and be eating junk food, fast food, and things that are going to compromise your gut because then you're setting yourself up for immune issues and to be more susceptible because 95 whatever percent of your your immune system lays inside of your gut as its first point of call. And then once it's inside the gut, it becomes the immune system's problem. So protecting your— boosting your immune system. Christine, she does a whole bunch of naturopathic herbs, which I take almost religiously every day. And as well as the amino acids, collagen, zinc, vitamin E, vitamin C. I mix and match every day. And vitamin A, I like to get in cod liver oil. That's what I like to do with vitamin A.

Yeah, so getting the mixes of things, not just taking isolated things.

Yeah, and usually, you know, for me, I've got a lot of different supplements at home. I've got my supplement cupboard, and, um, you know, I'm not always taking the same things every day. You know, I'm taking a whole bunch of different stuff, and sometimes Christine will make me up a custom blend of like different herbs and stuff. Uh, and, uh, yeah, they taste foul, but they work. They work really, really well.

The cold and flu one.

The worst herbs you can take, naturopathic herbs, are the immune herbs, as in the most disgusting tasting, right? The adrenal herbs, they're not so bad, right? Because you've got licorice and stuff which can kind of make it sweeter in this. But the, the immune herbs are foul, um, but they are sensational and will kick, kick, kick your immune system in the balls, let's just say that.

So I quite remember that one.

You've had it before?

Yeah, the cold and flu one she made up.

Oh yeah, that one, uh, that one's okay actually.

It tastes like tree bark.

Yeah, that one's actually okay. That one's not so bad.

Really?

Yeah, there are some others that are just— I don't know what it is, but there's— I forget what the exact herb is, but there is some. Because the thing is, like, you know, this is a side rant, right? But you know, you know a lot of personal trainers who get into like functional medicine, right? Myself included. I mean, I know a lot of stuff about this stuff, right? But at the end of the day, like, I can't treat any of it.

Of it.

Yeah, you know, and nor do I want to, but I can't treat any of it, and I don't have, I don't have access to those supplements either. Yeah, so anyway, to get access to those is to be a naturopath. Yeah, or to be a clinician.

So you married one?

Yeah, I married one. Exactly. It's like, that's the only way I was getting access to it, right? Um, no, but, but in truth, like, if you actually want to— because a lot of people come in like, um, pathogens, or they come in with parasites. I'm telling you now, like, parasites are fucking hard to get rid of, and you need to know what you're doing.

Yeah.

And if you're just a trainer or even you've just got regular access to things.

Trying to go down that path or trying to—

You're not gonna be able to do it. Yeah.

Also the classic of know what you know and then shut the fuck up.

Yeah, yeah, stay in your lane.

Yeah, stay in your lane.

Yeah, parasites are hard to get rid of. Hard to get rid of and you need to know what you're doing and you need access to the right supplements. Like oil of oregano on its own ain't getting rid of a parasite. Just not. Yeah, might help with some like overgrowth issues, but then you gotta look at repopulation, you gotta be doing stool tests, you gotta be doing all those things. And it's complicated. There's a lot of factors and you've got to look at labs and all those other things and, and manage those variables inside out. So, but you know, the more, the more work I do in this area, the more I realize that it is all interconnected. And that's where, as I said, the triangle between stress, the gut, the immune system, you know, which one came first. And this is where for a lot of people, like with COVID-19, they might be just so stressed out of their mind that now they get a gut issue, which then turns into immune issue. Or maybe they already had the immune issue.

Yeah.

And then they're eating worse, so now they've got the gut issue as and that's causing them stress.

Yeah, right.

So you don't know where exactly where it starts, but you do know that they're all interconnected.

Yeah.

So you've got to look at each area individually and maximize and optimize each area. Calm down the immune system, make the immune system do its job by doing that. Eat proper foods. Don't offend your gut. Look after your stress, right? Minimize stress where you can. Get a plan for that. So yeah.

All right. The next one, living in iso. What are your staples for your cupboard?

Okay, meat.

Yep.

So when I heard about isolation, I rang up my butcher and just did a bulk order of meat.

You and everyone else.

I bought a freezer to make sure.

So, so you were the problem. You were the problem why the rest of us—

No, but that's my standard order. I just order lots of meat all the time, right? So it's not really—

Oh yeah, I almost felt somewhat selfish because I I bulk order my rice and it had arrived before it all kicked off. So I was just like, I had 20 kilos of rice and I'm like, I'm not a part of the problem. I was already doing this.

Already doing this. Already doing this. Yeah, I bulk order rice too. 'Cause we eat so much, right? We bulk order here at Enterprise.

Exactly right.

Between us trainers. Bulk ordered meat, meat, rice, blueberries, surprisingly. Been eating a lot more blueberries.

I think this was the thing where it led into the panic buying was again, was the, our government not doing enough soon enough. People just had to— felt like they had to take it into their own hands and they didn't know what to do. Get with that toilet paper.

Why is it still sold out?

Why? Oh, it's come back. I don't know, I haven't been, uh, I haven't been out for—

right, yeah, I went to the supermarket like a couple, like 2 weeks ago, whatever it was, and I'm like, surely there will be, you know, people have stopped buying toilet paper. It's still— there's no toilet paper.

I think there's got to be some accountants out there that can work out a spreadsheet for how many times you wind wipe your ass and how much you actually need to get through a 6-month period.

Apparently, a 24-roll pack should last a family for 3 months.

Well, I mean, that's—

That is a significant amount of time.

That's what we do though. And it's like we just had brought a roll like we normally do 'cause we ran out before everyone started buying it. So we haven't had a problem with it because it still lasts, you know what I mean? And now we've just gotten, we had to buy some again and it just happened to, be there when we had it and we just bought that roll that's gonna last us another 3 months. It was so weird that one and then people relying on paper towels. Does no one have hoses? I don't know, what's going on? My toilet's next to my shower so I'll be fine.

Exactly right, just have a shower.

And knowing how much, but I just don't think people realize how much meat they actually eat. I think a lot of it would've been thrown out. I think there were photos one council was posting about like bins full. Of meat because people were just bulk buying, panic, not having freezer space, and then fucking throwing it out. It's so stupid, so dumb.

Did you see that? Like, there's mass amounts of people trying to refund stuff as well. Yeah, and then Coles and Woolies went out on a statement saying you can't refund any panic buyers once you get funded.

They should be kicked in the teeth and thrown to the curb for panic buying.

Uh, what else? So butter, butter's been another thing that I— I mean, I eat too much butter.

I was— yeah, I was the same boat. I've always I'm always buying like at least 3 sticks of butter in the shop, just like always have at least one spare.

I might have 5 or 6.

Yeah, the thing I don't understand is like you have like even the things with like sprays around the house. Like I usually get a company called Co. So we've been ordering that online. They send it in a box. When I know that's getting low, I order some more.

Yes.

It's the same with like, you know, if you've got a stick of butter, 2 sticks of butter, you take one, you buy one to replace the one that you've done. You know what I mean? Or whatever you use. So I go shopping once a week. I think we're in a good space 'cause we know how to, we plan.

People were buying a lot of the things that they're buying like Doritos and packaged foods. Yeah. Pringles and all the stuff that we just wouldn't eat anyway.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

A lot of those foods like Coca-Cola and that. Yeah, I think a lot of people—

Yeah, I saw the soft drink aisle and that was completely bare and I was just like, okay, I'm like, get yourself a Coke.

Water filter and you'll be good and healthier for a very long time.

Exactly right. It's unnecessary. What happens if you run out of Coca-Cola? You're going to be better off without it.

How have the BottleOs gone? I ask because I don't go into BottleOs.

I think they're in the same boat. I think they never closed. I think people started bulk buying stuff there as well for whatever reason.

That's a worry. That one's a worry.

That one's a— yeah, I understand why they didn't close it. So there's like, you know, a couple of issues with closing them is like dependency, violence, dependency, violence, the illegal market kicking off.

Oh yes.

There's a whole thing with the prohibition, how that works so well and the whole, you know, it's a big tax income. So it's like, you know, gambling's come right back. You know, people are still allowed to horse race because I think they, you know, that's taxed heavily. So it's like they're gonna get not much tax from—

see, this is where it annoys— they've had to shut casinos like me. Yeah, when we say, okay, we're gonna say on one hand it's about social distancing, okay, but oh, by the way, you can still go to the bottle-o, you can still go to the casino, you can still—

well, casino's been shut down as well. That's why they're not going to close bottle-o's. It's like they'll just cause, I think, absolute mayhem. But I mean, it's just like, I think there's— and there's going to be an issue.

Yeah, exactly. This is what I'm saying, like this 'she'll be right' attitude isn't always the way. We need to be a little bit more outspoken, you know?

Yeah, well, it's worth like the control what you control. Yeah, as well.

I mean, there's a side for both, right? If it's up to me, it's— if it's meant to be, it's up to me, on one hand. Yeah, you know, but control what you can control. Uh, you touched on something else before. I don't know what it was.

A lot of things.

Yeah, you do, don't you?

Especially your face around here, because you have to say you have to disinfect everything.

Yeah. What were we talking about again?

Um, grocery staples. That's where we start.

That's right. So for me it's meat, so it's chicken, it's red meat, it's butter, blueberries. Yeah.

I think it's understanding how much you consume as well.

Like I might have a little bit of kombucha. Chocolate is another staple for me. Dark chocolate, 90%, 80%, 90%, usually 90%. It's probably it, man. My diet rice, pumpkin, sweet potato, potatoes. Yeah, I don't really like vegetables all that much, but I eat them. It's like, I don't think I make cellulite. I remember when Bob, uh, muscle tested me and stuff. He's like, you don't make cellulite. He goes, no, first of all, he goes, you don't like vegetables. I go, how did you know that? He goes, you don't make cellulite, right? I was like, yeah, well, it's true. So, right, yeah, your guy's fucking Yoda.

What about you? Um, yeah, I'm in the same boat. It's just like, I just understand how much I consume a week, and then I buy that to refill, like, on my shopping meat hasn't changed. I don't need to bulk buy anything. Uh, the only one I was like, the— I like different cuts of meat. I know for a while the supermarkets were only putting out the basics because people were just taking and taking. So it was just like they had mincemeat and chicken breasts. I was just like, fuck, this is boring as shit. But, um, now it seems to be somewhat back to normal, back to my slow cooking. I buy a couple roasts a week. Yeah, do a brisket every other week over the coals. Now I've got time to cook, I can monitor it all day. Yeah, smoke about 8-hour cook for most things. So it's good fun. Yeah, did brisket, just finished that this week. Doing spare ribs and lamb.

With some liquid smoke?

No liquid smoke, smoke, smoke. All right. Wood, just wood. So you don't need the liquid smoke.

Is liquid smoke bad for you?

No, so liquid smoke is, so when you have a smoker, essentially all they've done is just put water in there and then the flavor infuses with the water and then they pour the water into the liquid smoke.

Oh really, is that what it is?

That's all it is.

It's not carcinogenic?

Oh, fuck if I know.

I feel like every time I use it, it's carcinogenic as fuck.

You smell it?

Yeah, it smells great. It tastes great.

It's great. No, it's just, it's just the smoke from it. It should be the same as cooking your meat on fire.

So it is carcinogenic as fuck. I want to take some more methylators, some methyl donors. No, it's good fun every time I have it.

It's good, it's delicious. All right, well, home workouts, how are you finding them? Are you doing home workouts? Are you sneaking in here, you fuck?

Next question.

Next question. How are you finding self-isolation?

How am I finding self-isolation? Um, I'm writing a book. Yeah, that's how I'm finding self-isolation. I mean, you know, my kids are, um, uh, you know, kids are 24/7. Yeah, right. The best kids are 24/7. They need a lot of attention. So in, in between kids and, and life. And I, I'm working on this book and, um, I'm learning a lot, doing a lot of research and pulling out like papers on soy and gluten and just really like commercial dairy and farming and looking at how soy is actually farmed and the issues with soy from, you know, storage mold to actually the plant grows with mold, you know. So really like I'm using this time to—

soyboy culture. Sorry, soy boy culture.

Yeah, what's that?

So you have not heard of soy boy? I'm gonna get the Urban Dictionary.

Soy boy culture.

Soy boys, you know who it is?

Well, I saw, I saw a website. I know soy boys. Soy boys are like, you know, your girly boys. Yeah, right. Yeah, but I didn't know there's a soy boy culture.

I mean, it's just that like the whole idea of the hipster skinny gene, the boys that embrace being low testosterone.

Um, well, I think it's like they don't embrace it, but it's like they, they are Oh, well, when you say soy boy culture, I thought you meant like it's seen as a good thing, like it's embraced.

No, I don't think it's embraced at all.

Yeah, I've heard of soy boy, the term. You're a bit of a soy boy.

All right, mate.

Got some tofu cooking over that brisket. You know, you're like, oh guys, I've got some brisket tonight.

I don't fucking touch tofu.

Meanwhile, smoked tofu. This is so good for the environment.

Snarky.

Yeah, yeah, well, that's, that's how I'm— how are you finding it?

Yeah, fine, uh, good time with the family. I mean, it's just like, yeah, I'm interested to see how the little one goes with us not being around 24/7.

Yes.

Now, but he's just like, uh, I think is when we are trying to do things at home, him being a toddler, he's like, no, I want all the attention. Still, he's, uh, 2 and a half or turning 3 in July.

Yeah, magical age.

Oh, he's, uh, yeah, he's really fun. So it's like, yeah, we've been pretty much just trying to keep him busy and out of our hair.

I saw that flip that you did.

Yeah, it's so fun. He loves it.

I wanted to share it. That was pretty cool.

Yeah, couldn't you?

No, I don't know how to share shit on Instagram.

Pain in the ass. But no, he's, uh, he's really fun. He's, uh, you know, he's— we just get to be there all the time, so that's awesome.

Yeah, it is fun.

Yeah, it is good.

That is one good thing about, uh, lockdown, eh?

Yeah, definitely. And we're working on that, uh, you know, uh, training out of nappies now, so we get to isolate and work on that, which is good fun as well.

We're doing maths. I'm really trying to get my boy to— Oh yeah, some good solid maths. Yeah, it gets met with, Daddy, maths is boring. I don't want to do maths. Look, you'll need it one day. Yeah, he's like, yeah, yeah.

But anyway, yeah, I do feel sorry for all those parents with the—

they—

because, uh, who have the school-age kids who are now understanding how— what teachers are going through as well. They're kind of like, oh my gosh, It's just like, yeah, I imagine how swamped they would be now trying to— it's, uh, some half homeschool, half workout, like keep them engaged as well.

I like the idea of homeschooling until I actually had to do some homeschooling.

Like, so much better to outsource.

Yeah, it's so much better, you know.

And they needed to learn from other people as well. They can't just rely on you for all your information.

There's a level of familiarity as well, I think.

Yeah, that's just—

yeah, you know, I'm like, oh yeah, this is that. Yeah, what did you say to me? He goes, no, Daddy, you're writing tens wrong. Wrong. Like, how do you write 10? He goes, 0-1. Like, no, it's 1-0. No, Mummy told me it was 0-1. I'm like, there is no way Mummy told you it was 0-1. Like, no, it's 0-1, I'm telling you. And then Grandma comes in, shows him a book. Look, Max, it's, it's 1-0, it's 1-0. He's like, no, that's what it's in.

I guess that's how it is now.

He's just doing it because it's Daddy. Yeah, he wants to see how far he can push, you know, that That thing of like male challenging with sons.

I swear to God, my son's already doing it as well. I've got boxing gloves in my garage and he goes and puts them on and demands to fight every time. He's just like, he's an animal. I gave him a Nerf gun thinking that'd be a good idea.

No.

That didn't end well.

I bought some lightsabers by mistake. But we have played another game, right? 'Cause I've got my kid in jiu-jitsu.

Yeah.

So I get him, 'cause he hasn't begun a jiu-jitsu class, we play a game. This is really fun. He put like, he started with one leg and you can go two legs, but you have to hold onto my legs. Yeah. And you like, you say when, so it's when, and then you have to get out, but you can't use your hands. So it's actually quite difficult for you. And like he's got his whole arms and legs wrapped around your legs and you're having to like wiggle out. And it's a test for him, but it's also actually a test for you because you have to like really try and like he's holding on.

Fight this child.

Yeah. And then now he's getting really, he's really getting really clever. Like he'll let one leg out one of my legs go and like trick me and then grab the other one. I'm like, oh fuck, I'm fucked.

Yeah, they've got to work it out because they're, you know, they've only got these little levers in there.

And jiu-jitsu is good because it's like mental, it's physical problem solving. Yeah, constantly problem solving as you go through.

100%. That's the, uh, that's the plan for Nate as well. Gymnastics are starting him off on it already. We started swimming before this kicked off. We had one lesson.

Oh yes, um, that was it.

That was it. Well, I was just like, yeah, that was the next week everything shut down.

Yeah, I'm surprised I'm surprised pools aren't still open, you know, because you can't really spread shit in pools.

I don't know, what the fuck?

Chlorine kills everything. I'll just open up a pool.

Yeah, it's true.

Chlorine kills everything.

Oh, it was just before it was happening, we went to our first lesson and he was like putting some of the toys they had in his mouth and I'm like, oh Jesus Christ.

Soaking in chlorine.

Yeah, it's all right.

He's probably fine.

He's probably under for a bit.

Anytime we're going to the pool.

Yeah, he loves it. He loves the pool and stuff.

People pissing in it and baby piss and toddler piss.

I think we'll get him in a few odds, like, you know, the sports groups as well. Yeah, let's start that once that all kicks off again. But it's like, yeah, I think that's a, that's a different one. I don't know, I'm glad he's kind of this young though. Yes, there won't be too much of an impact. It is because I feel sorry for the kids maybe in like VCE or who are a bit younger to kind of get it but not understand it. So they just get the fear of it, like they just like, and they just don't know uncertainty.

I swear though, if I was younger, say I was like 16 and I was going gone through COVID-19 when I was 16. Doom Eternal came out. Oh yeah, that, that would be it, man. That would be it. Yeah, that would be it.

I'll tell you what, I've allocated my time at night. I think I've got about 2-3 hours of, uh, Call of Duty Warzone. Well, so it's, uh, yeah, me and Josh have started a pretty sweet team.

It's pretty amazing.

We're great.

Yeah, yeah. I've been, I've been watching 20 minutes of The Simpsons tonight, one episode.

You've got the Disney Plus. It's got them all on there.

Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, they did a Futurama and Simpsons crossover. Yeah, yeah, pretty good. Crossovers normally suck.

Sure, if anyone watches them anymore, but it's cool.

You don't watch them? No. Oh man, you're missing out. So, Adrian.

Yes?

Science is the new religion.

Tell me about it, Mark.

So what you have, like back in what, the 1800s, right?

Yep.

You had the church and you had the state, or the king, I should say, right? So basically the church would say, listen to your king. And then the king would say, make sure you go to church, right? And then the church would also say, well, it is— the king was selected by God, and this is the way of God, so you must listen to your king. And anyone who went out of that was ostracized. And more than that, they were told that their soul would burn in hell.

Yeah.

So you had to listen to your king because it was a moral obligation of your soul. It was this higher force. You have to listen to the king. So if the king said we're going to raise taxes, you would say, well, that's the will of God. Yes, I will accept these taxes because if I don't accept these taxes, God will strike me down.

Okay.

Right. Modern-day version of that is the state, aka the government and the media. So with media and government, media, you know, whatever it is, the media station, Rupert Murdoch, whoever it is, gets on the phone to the politicians. What are you doing for us? Right? Politicians are saying, well, we need coverage. Okay, we'll give you coverage, but what are you going to do for us? Well, we'll give you this and this. Okay, maybe I want this and this. Okay, well, we'll— and you see this in America, right? You've got the networks that support Hillary and, you know, the Democrats, uh, and you've got the networks that support Republicans. You know, was it like Fox is a Republican network? I'm not I'm not sure the Democratic networks, but you've got that. So you've got politicians who now are essentially your kings and you've got the media, your networks, and this includes Facebook and this includes, you know, Google, so all YouTube obviously, but it certainly includes Facebook because Facebook do determine what you basically see.

Well, I found that during the election they would favor their preference in terms of if they were left-leaning, they would favor left-leaning posts that were positively supporting that again, same, the negative.

Correct. So it's not objective, right? So then what I have, what, you know, my philosophy and the way I view it now is in the world of today, right, you know, 2020, we have the influencer, right? The influencer. And the influencer is the, the person on, uh, you know, social media. Well, it's not even the influence today, actually it's even more so, it's like science as a whole. And there was something that I got sent that I wanted to see. The media having a fallback now of the whole fake news Oh yeah, and Trump is hilarious.

I love anything that pisses him off. Yeah, he was directly the best one. He's so funny to watch.

He's so funny. He got put into politics and I think his opening speech is, I'm not answering any questions from CNN, the fake news. But I do, before we digress into a different issue, I want to read out something that was sent to me just recently which said, uh, in the past, basically the headline of it is, editor-in-chief of the world's best best-known medical journal, says half of all the literature is false. Quotation marks: Science has taken a turn towards darkness. Now, uh, in the past few years, more professionals have come forward to share such truth that for many people provide difficult to swallow. One such authority is Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of The Lancet, considered to be one of the world's most respected peer-reviewed medical journals. Dr. Horton recently published a statement declaring that a lot of the published research is in fact unreliable at best, if not completely false. And this is huge. When I read this, I was like, fuck, this is, this is a big deal. And I think people have seen this. But he went on the record to say the case against science is straightforward. Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may be simply untrue, afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analysis, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance. Science has taken a turn towards darkness. Now, if that wasn't enough, chief editor of the New England Journal, uh, Marcella Angiullà, is considered another one of the most world's prestigious journals, also made her view quite known on the topic and said, it is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authorities' medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in the conclusion which I reached reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. Now, the reason I wanted to get onto this and say like science is the new religion is because what people do now is if you go against, let's say, the science— now we see it all the time in our industry, right, with calories in versus calories out. If you even present, you know, there's gut issues at play, or you say this is someone's immune system, it's not just about calories, you must be an idiot. So instead of it being a attack on our souls and our enlightenment of going to heaven or hell, right? People attack us through science and say, you must be an idiot, you are sure you're one of those, oh, you're an anti-vaxxer.

This is the evidence.

I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I want to know the truth. But when, say for example, in the example of vaccinations, when you make it, uh, you're not allowed to report vaccination injuries and you're not even allowed to talk about it or bring it up. And if you say, hey, you know that when you— there's a vaccination injury, it doesn't get reported, well, you're an anti-vaxxer. No, nothing to do with anti-vaxxer. What does that come with?

But like, it's like, how do we know if it's directly related to—

I just wanna know the truth. I don't care who has the answer as long as I get to know it, right? And that's what science is. That's what it's supposed to be. So when I say it's now morphed into this thing of when we have credible research and science, that's what we need to get back to without the agenda of pushing forward of the way it's supposed to be or the way we think it is or allowing the corporations to manipulate whether it's the food or the big pharma manipulate manipulate the research and data to push an agenda of making money. It's not— that's not science. And I think more scientists, more people, more consumers, more clinicians need to stand up against this nonsense because it's intolerable. It's— we might as well go back. I mean, if that is the way forward for the scientific community, we might as well go back to church, get on our knees and pray to a god and hope for the best.

But most, most studies have to be funded from somewhere. Like, they all—

all studies have to be funded somewhere, and then they just don't clear, and there is made clear whether it is.

And that's when it's eventually you can't base your, um, I guess your judgment off a single study. And that's why they have things like meta-analysis, where it's like a whole control group of studies on the subject, and it's like this many are suggesting that. Oh, 100%. So with all these studies, that's kind of like— and they need to fit a certain criteria as well. Again, there's still going to be heaps that are probably not relevant or miss certain things, particularly when it comes to, even if we like put it in our industry, if we're doing studies on training and how someone, you know, glute activation drills and things like that, it's like, well, who's the person being trained? Are they general pop? Are they someone who—

Context matters.

Yeah, exactly right. It's like, it's like that might, that is pointing that way, but is that relevant?

There's this over-reliance and this This is what I'm saying is that people are using, taking that study and then saying this is the gospel according to science when they haven't actually taken all the facts.

I think that, yeah, it's definitely a dangerous thing. We can't follow any one study that comes out. It's why you kind of need to take a step back. And it's like, this is where I think the whole, even something like a vegan agenda comes from. It's like, well, meat is bad for you. It's a clear cut, this study said so. And it's like, well, No, when they looked into it, when they do like a, where is it? It's like a—

Meta-analysis?

Not meta-analysis where it's like a population, like an observation of a group of people. What's the word I'm looking for?

I'm not sure, observational study?

No, it's not observational.

It's like a— But this is also what I'm talking about though, right? So you have the king of, let's say carnivorous diets and you have—

Epidemiology, sorry. Epidemiological study.

And you have the king of vegans, right? And you know, king or queen of each camp. And then both of these are then using science, or said science, to prop up their opinions.

Yeah.

And then people go, oh, well, look at the science. And then this camp is saying my science is better than yours.

Yeah.

This camp is saying my science— I mean, there was no better example than that when, if you heard the debate on the Joe Rogan Show between James Wilks and Chris Kresser, where basically it was a debate of, yeah, my science is better than your science.

Yes. Which to me was like, it was like the appeal appeal to higher power again. Like, that's like the God sense. This person knows better than you, so you're wrong. And it was just like, yeah. And it was just so—

exactly my point. Instead of the higher authority, instead of your soul being condemned because God is going to get you and spite you, instead of them using, you know, this third party, they're using science. You must be simple.

That was a great example of how wrong it went. That must be stupid fucking movie. The, uh, that—

Game Changers.

Oh, The Game Changers. That was the best example of how how it can go so wrong. The best example was I think Brad Schofield. He did a study. So an actual scientist, his study was used to support their agenda. And he come in and said, it's like, that's not even what I meant. Like, he was just like, he's like, no, that's not the fucking point of it. Like, he's like, that's not what the conclusion was. It's like, you've cherry-picked one statement out of the whole thing. The point is that most of us don't know how to read research papers. And it's like, and then you're picking, they're picking one study and it's like, this one study said this, this one study said that. Well, overall it's not pointing to the fact that a vegan diet is superior. It's appointed to like, you're watching what you fucking put in your mouth is superior.

100%. Yeah. So anyway, my point being that people put a lot of reliance in when you start asking questions instead of being met with, you must be an idiot. Usually there's reasons why people ask these questions. And I think if you, disarm people from the fact of having these conversations. A lot of it gets pushed underground. And certainly, like, when you talk about sensitive issues with vaccinations, I think one of the reasons why that's sensitive is because children are involved.

Yeah.

And but when you— we push down, I think really there needs to be a lot more of a level-headed to and fro, getting the top people in the world at these topics, giving them forums like YouTube or whatever it is, and actually getting to have an open discussion and come together and think. Without corporations— I know I live in a very idealistic way this would be, but but actually coming to the truth, I think that would be—

I just don't think even like some people just always, you can't change someone's mind. Like I'm not gonna sit here and debate a vegan 'cause at the end of the day, we're just both gonna end up pissed off.

You can discuss with a vegan.

What's that?

You can discuss with a vegan.

Can I? But I'll still think they're wrong at the end of the day.

But it's not necessarily true.

Yeah, it's just like, yeah, what are we to discuss? It's like you do your thing, you do mine, just don't make me do your thing.

But then again, this comes back to my point that people are gonna be using science Science is a religion.

Yeah. And pushing it, it's like, you need to do this because this is—

Yes, because science said so.

Yeah. So you think it's now a science, uh, what is that, government and science state? Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's, that's a big part of it too, right? The government props up what we were— well, this is facts.

I think that's a better thing than relying on religion to prop up your other side. It's like, as if they're doing it in the right way.

It's like smoke and mirrors.

If it's like—

because if it's the science is fake, if they purposely falsified data, which often happens I think that's a big one to go down.

Like, that's a, that's a big what-if, and I'm sure it's definitely going to happen. But I think on the whole it's a better option.

Well, many— if you look at what genetically modified foods, that is what happens, you know. They passed the bill rapidly. Was it the, the chairman of what Monsanto then became the chairman of the FDA, ran out, passed the bill, and then went back to the, the Monsanto and became on the board of Monsanto? And it was this revolving door between the FDA and Monsanto to get bills passed. Yeah. Which is very scary. And that's certainly the science and the things that the reports of things that had to get approved needed 2 years, 3 years of trialling and testing, but instead it was dumped in and said, you need to review these today. Oh, when are they due? Today. Well, that ain't happening today. That's where the science gets scary. And that's where people say, oh, you must be a tinfoil hat wearing. Well, hang on, it's not tinfoil hat wearing when there is a line and there is—

Yeah, I think it's like anything though, you should always side on the caution of It was like, be skeptical even of the, you know what I mean?

Yes.

Of the, of be skeptical of what's presented to you. And it's just like, okay, it's like if it's presented enough, then it's obviously pointing in the right direction.

Be skeptical, but don't always have a default mechanism of pointing to the other side and assuming that they're wrong because they don't believe the same as you.

Yeah, exactly right.

You need to come at it with an open mind. To vegans, they're wrong. All right, well, uh, maybe we switch gears into the final topic of today.

What is— yeah, you tell me. This is all you, Mark.

This is all me? It's all me, huh? I thought it was all you.

Is it?

Yeah.

Okay. Fitness industry, what's happening? Are we all fucked?

Uh, well, my biggest concern— this is my biggest concern— yeah, is that COVID-19 has made people scared of people.

Okay.

Now, I don't necessarily think this is the case, but I did go to the supermarket and the thought did cross my mind where I saw this woman. She had white gloves on, a hat, sunglasses, and a white face mask. And I was just buying some butter, and there was this girl behind me. She was waiting for me to move. She wasn't far away from me, she was waiting for me to move. I was just being polite, got my butter. She walked past. Oh, you can go past. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. She's freaked out. Freaked out. I'm like, this girl, lady, older woman, whatever it was, she was freaked out at human human contacts. And I was like, wow, that is some shit, man.

Yeah, that is.

That is some shit. And I think there are some people who potentially after this is going to be freaked out by human contact.

Yeah, this will change a lot of people, the way they interact.

So I think on one side you'll have people who are like, yeah, it's fine, you know, there's more risk of me getting in a car accident or doing something else. So that's one side of the coin. I think the other side is people are going to be freaked out. So as it relates to the the fitness industry, I think we probably will go through a lull. I don't— I think the ones who want to train will certainly come back and can't wait, and things will be—

I mean, I'm getting that vibe. I'm like, a lot of people are missing it. Yeah. And I think, I am thinking that a lot of people will kind of take this time as like, oh, I am actually at risk. Like this, yes, this is targeting smokers, it's targeting diabetics, Anyone with liver issues, and it's like, oh fuck, it's like, that's me, I smoke, I drink, I'm nearly diabetic. I'm like, I will die if I get this thing. So it's like, I need to change my lifestyle habits because this is like, you know, even though they're probably on the same path that they were going to be whether they got COVID or not, they're still at the same risk of getting any other disease that's going to make them sick and potentially die. But now it's just like, oh shit, big slap in the face.

So we've certainly taken a lull, we've certainly taken a hit. Fitness— everyone is taking a hit, right? That's everyone. So the question is, when we re— when gyms are allowed to reopen, will there be a spike?

Uh, well, I think it'll be the only way. It'll be January 1st.

The only way is up for us, right? The only way is up. It really is. Uh, we can't get any— like, this is the worst thing that could happen to the fitness community, really, or that, you know, gyms everywhere is closing, being forced to close.

So I genuinely think it'll be flooded with all the main-goers. Like, they'll be like rearing to get back in.

The only thing I see with personal training though is a lot of people dropping their pants. And what I mean by that is I think you'll see a lot of trainers who are nervous price slashing.

Okay, yeah, to get people correct.

You know, if they're charging whatever they're charging, they put it in half or whatever, and then they're stuck with clients. And this is more, I suppose, a high-level strategy. They're stuck with clients who are underpaying them them, not paying their full rates, and their actual business is going to turn over less.

Yeah, they're going to try and ramp it up.

If the market stayed true and just said, these are my rates and we'll go back and people I think will pay it. But look, the unpredictability is this. The unpredictability is people, as always. People losing their jobs. So people might want to train, but do they have the financial means? Will things like personal training go into the basket of a luxury item? Will gyms go into the basket of— like people going outdoors and they say, I actually actually prefer outdoors now. Like, I don't think that's true. I think people— everyone who's kind of gone from the gym and then, you know, ends up doing like a barbell workout or whatever it is, they also— oh, fuck, I've missed this so much better, right? This is so much better. So it was like, oh, I love it outside, and then they go into the gym like, oh, this is so much better. Um, so I, I think people will quickly adapt. So yeah, look, um, businesses on a whole, let's hope, let's hope for the spike. That's what I want to see. And if we get a spike, awesome, you know, off to the races we go. But are we Fucked. I don't, I don't, I don't think we are only as fucked as long as we're closed. Yeah, I think once we're open we can, we can manage.

The fact that everyone's in the same boat though, I think that makes it easier on the industry as well.

Yes, correct. Yes, because it's, it's a level playing field.

Yeah, it's not like a business who wasn't getting— no one's showing up.

Yes.

And they're just alone, it's just like, well, it's not your fault, this, you know what I mean?

It's correct. It's not like some gyms can open and some gyms can't.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm expecting to see a spike. I know I'll be raring to get back in, but obviously it's, uh, something I'm all about though.

Yes, yes, it will be interesting times.

Yeah.

Other questions about business?

Um, yeah, what personal trainers should do during COVID What should we do?

I've done, I've done quite a few group calls and Wolfpack and stuff on this, so You know, play within the rules. You can still do park sessions. So nothing like— a few of my coaching students have really got on their grill about this, but what should they do is, if they haven't already, man, call every single client and let them know that just because the gym's closed, that they have— they don't have to stop training. Like, yeah, get them in the park. Yeah. And the first week they might say no, that's fine. Call them the second week. That's fine, call them again third week, fourth week, fifth week.

I guess they're fine, they're raring to get out now and it's like, okay, I need it.

Yeah, because people were like, when this happened it's like, oh yeah, 3 weeks I won't train. And then it's like, no, no, it's not gonna be 3, it's gonna be 6 weeks.

Oh, it's gonna be 8 weeks.

Yeah, as soon as that happened it was just like, oh fuck man, I better adjust to this. And then speaking people's language, it's like, I get it, you're at home, address the elephant in the room, you're not doing anything, you're in isolation, you're probably getting fatter, right? You're probably eating the wrong foods. It's easy to do nothing. It's so easy to do nothing right now. And you're having these personal conversations with your clients and explaining, Like it's absolutely easy to do nothing. I'm gonna encourage you, well, don't do that because it was Will Smith who said, "It's a lot easier to stay ready than it is to get ready." So in saying that, focus on staying ready. Just keeping that routine. Okay, the gym's not the same. It's not the same as when we, you know, train in the gym and you're not able to do heavy squats and all that, but you are able to get a workout. You're able to keep that routine. You're able to keep that sanity. So let's keep that going. And really, I think your clients, clients for personal trainers actually need their trainer even more during this period, not less. So it's actually a place to leave accountability aspect, lean into it, right? Don't lean out, lean into it. Get on the phone call. I said to one of my students in my mentoring group, I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm redoing my logo. I go, that's great. Logos don't make you money. You know what does make you money? Calling people. Call your clients. And I said, you have to give me a report by 7 o'clock How many clients you've called and how many have taken you up on that park offer? He called back, he said, 7 of my clients have taken me up on my park offer. In dollar value, obviously that's a few dollars a week extra that he made out of nothing, that he wasn't early. So I think the default for trainers, I think the default for people is to do nothing. And I think—

And wait it out, sit in hiding, go into hiding.

You can get your clients online, you can do a Skype workout. You can do group workouts for your clients, you can do park workouts for your clients, you can still play within the rules, which is perfectly fine. And that's, that's what I would say, you know, the gold standard right now is to have a face-to-face client one-on-one in the park. That would be the gold standard. Down below that is you're doing online training. So either training them, they got a home setup and they get on. And look, you know, if I was a consumer and I wasn't doing my workouts and that, that would be a godsend, right? To have my trainer actually hold me accountable at 7 o'clock. I have to stop my day and I have to train, right? Because otherwise I'm not gonna do it, right? But my trainer, he's there, I'm not gonna do nothing. Oh, he told me to do some squats.

Yeah, I gotta report to him at the end of the day. Yeah, I gotta do something.

And I feel so much better from doing that, right? It's actually worth the price of investments for just the accountability factor and to have someone do to break my routine because it is unbelievably easy right now to do absolutely nothing.

And in terms of coaches, it's a good chance for them to work on how to keep them accountable when they're not with you. In the gym is to work on those procedures and their reporting structures. Like we do our check-ins here. It's like now they're like, oh, actually, like now I get to see how I can set them up properly. So it's like now I've gotta work on how that, what they're doing outside of the gym.

The other thing that's very important for trainers is you want to keep all your clients marinating, cooking at this time. So it's not about necessarily giving them the same service 'cause you're not able to do that. But it's about, when we open, they're engaged.

Yeah.

And they're ready. They're not thinking, oh, too hard.

Yeah.

You know, it's actually— you've kept them, you've kept them going, you've kept them engaged, you've kept them on track to the, to the best that you can right now. Because as you said at the start of this conversation around, uh, Tron, the analogy of the Tron, whatever you call it, uh, factor, we're just going— yeah, it's like, okay, we'll change direction, let's just keep going. Yeah. And then when we open, it's It's a lot easier than pivot.

Yeah.

If you do nothing, then you've stopped momentum. So it doesn't make any sense to do nothing. Keep those park sessions.

Yeah.

Keep online, regularly contact weekly. I mean, you're not doing the same amount of sessions. You've got time on your hands. You should be calling every client at least once a year.

But body weight is going to keep them as well, injury preventing as well. It's like if you just let them sit at home doing nothing and they're doing that, they're going to come in tight, they're going to come in and you're going to have to go through that whole process of going through structural balance, this is a great time to lay foundations of that physical strength. Get them comfortable, get them feeling the muscle groups a lot more, get them in control in a pushup. This is a great chance. Like how many people can there do the pistol squat? How many people can do a chin-up? There's plenty of things to work on just body weight-wise. Yeah.

And even if just a very simple level, everyone can stretch. Yeah. Oh, fuck.

Doing that gymnastic body stretch routine.

Yeah.

It's fucked up. It's not a stretch routine. It's fucked.

It's a workout.

It's so fucked.

It's a workout. It's awesome. Yeah, love it. So that would be my overall tips. And I would resist the urge to do anything major in business right now. I know some people are thinking about, oh, now's the time to open up my second shop or close my shop or whatever it is. I think either way—

Or completely change the business model if you like.

Exactly right. I think that's probably one of the worst things you can do because the truth is when you're thinking of business, what you want to do is you want to go out to the market and ask the market what they want. Thoughts about enterprise around, you know, maybe I should change what we're doing or change the model or do this, or maybe we should do it this and this differently. And I spoke to one of my friends and he's like, man, ask the market. I'm like, man, it's such a good point because I don't even know what the market is because I'm isolated. I'm so out of touch. I'm not speaking to people going, hey man, what do you want? And when you get on the phone and you talk to people and it all calms down and you see people face to face—

Yeah, they all want to get back in. They all want to get back in.

And then the fog moves. 'Cause you could say, "Hey man, what do you, I wanna do PT, I wanna do one-on-one." I don't need to change shit.

I don't need to change shit.

I just needed to wait. That's all I needed to do.

Yeah. And that was the other thing with like building those, you know, the online workout videos we were just filming before. It's like now I'm not calling them just for isolation. It's like when someone goes away on holiday, bang, you've got a video to send them.

Travel guide. Travel guide now.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Evergreen.

Yeah, exactly right. It's something that we can now, it's like, oh great, I don't have to now, I'll show them in the session how to do these bodyweight exercises. It's like, boom, videos, videos.

Okay, the other thing I'll say for a lot of trainers is now is a great time to learn. Yeah, you know, I've got, you know, my Sales Mastery course, I've got my Wolfpack online resource business course that I provide trainers with. And it's like, you know, I've got one guy in my group who is going through all my material, and there's no doubt when he gets back, he's ready. You know, it's like, uh, in Batman Begins— I'll use this analogy, right? You know, Bruce Wayne is Bruce Wayne, and then he goes and he wants to be more, he wants to be someone else, right? Comes to the Batman and he goes with Ra's al Ghul and he lives with criminals and he purposely gets thrown in the world's worst prison and he learns how to fight and he puts himself in these positions. He locks himself down, he learns all these things to then go back to his Gotham City and be the Batman and overcome. And it's the same thing now in business, for businesses everywhere, not just trainers. But this side of lockdown is you're locked down. How you emerge out of this, you can be the Dark Knight rising to save Gotham City and fight another day and be at a completely different level. Or you can say, poor me, and do jack shit and go back to the bit of Bane and try and blow everything up.

Cool.

So, um, should we leave it there, Adrian?

Yeah, that's done. All right, so enough of you already. Back into isolation. Fuck off.

Let's, let's, let's do our, let's do our roundup. Um, yeah, awesome.

Good seeing you again.

Yes, likewise. What's your Instagram?

Uh, adrian_ferranz.

You want people to follow you?

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, give us a follow. I post things occasionally when I feel like it, so don't worry about following him. Follow me @MarkOttobre. It's M-A-R-C-O-T-O-B-R-E. But of course, one, one place you definitely should follow is follow Adrian, follow me, and follow Enterprise at Enterprise Fitness Melbourne. Uh, if you haven't subscribed already, what are you doing? Hit subscribe. Definitely subscribe on YouTube to all that great clips. Adrian's done a video series that's coming out very soon. What is that?

Yes. The, the workouts you're talking about.

Yeah. Tell us about it.

Yeah, the workouts. So they're going to be for our online and park training clients. So just so they have something to reference and they can learn the movements at home.

Yeah.

So instead of just writing the program and then trying to back and forth between their coach, it has the— to kind of streamline. Yeah, streamline.

So it's like providing it as a resource on YouTube for everyone.

Are we? Yeah.

Okay. Our whole, our whole YouTube Communities.

Oh, nice.

So it'll be great. So make sure you subscribe for that one. Adrian didn't even know that. He's like, I thought it was just for clients. No, no, we're, we're putting it on YouTube. So make sure— this is why you want to subscribe. So subscribe. We've got some good stuff coming down the traps. So hit that button, subscribe.