Hustling telcos, gyms and airport lounges

Josh: It's the Daily Talk Show and it's Monday the— what is it, the 5th of February? Hey, uh, Tommy.

Tommy: Hey, man. Ep 15.

Josh: Yeah, we are 5 eps off going— hashtag going public, hashtag coming out from the darkness of the web.

Tommy: Yeah, to be in people's ears.

Josh: Um, how you going?

Tommy: Yeah, having one of those days, it's like, fuck, you can snowball into a shit day, can't you? Like, you have one things start.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And then you can just feel how your mind really wants to take over and go, nah, your day's done, it's a piece of shit, and it's going to get worse.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But you try and battle it.

Josh: I saw I could have had one of those days because I, uh, I just couldn't wake up this morning. I, I can't. I need 8 hours of sleep. Yeah. I, and I went to bed at, um, like, I went, went to bed at like 9:30, fell asleep at midnight. Yeah, fucking annoying. So anyway, I put my alarm on for 6:30 and got up at 8. I got up at half past, 20 past 8.

Tommy: There's nothing worse. I left my bag at home. It was like, basically, which is my work.

Josh: You fucked it.

Tommy: So I left my— I took the banana and the 2 cans of tuna though, so potassium. It, uh, I managed to get those on and my gym gear and then got to work in 7 said, shit, my work is at home and it's too far to go back, so I'm gonna just— I'm going home after this.

Josh: You know how there's some people that just fucking self-sabotage? Yeah, you know. Was there any bit of you that was self-sabotaging, do you think, or no?

Tommy: Uh, this day I was tired this morning, so it's like, I think so. But I had, I had drinks on the weekend. I had maybe 10 beers across the whole weekend.

Josh: Fuck off, 10?

Tommy: Yeah, it's not that much though, mate.

Josh: Really? How many calories per—

Tommy: I don't give a shit. It's not what I'm going into. What, give it 150 calories a beer? So there's like—

Josh: I probably had more calories.

Tommy: It's like, totally, it's your mindset. Like, if you don't drink fat, you won't be fat, you fucking fat fuck. It's not what I'm saying. It's all mindset. That's what it is.

Josh: No, so are you gonna say to a— but is that what you did as a PT? Such a fuckhead.

Tommy: This is—

Josh: we've discussed you being a fuckhead PT before, and you doing a bit of a, it's your mindset.

Tommy: No, I'm talking about alcohol affecting your mindset. And I think it's like, what could snowball me into this is having a slightly fragile mindset after drinking. Like, I wasn't even— I wasn't wasted or anything.

Josh: You get a bit emo.

Tommy: Definitely does. Really? And you totally I feel it. I feel just a bit sooky, but it's totally what I was feeling all the early days of my life that I'd do this and I'd drink twice as hard as I do now because I can't. I've got a baby, you know, can't be—

Josh: because you're breastfeeding or something.

Tommy: I'm breastfeeding. And so there would be hundreds of thousands of people out there in Melbourne today and across the world that are feeling a bit sooky. And that's why I think it's like a 20% added emotional state that's not really required. That's only been induced by this alcohol.

Josh: Is it, is it good or bad? Like it's a bad state.

Tommy: It's a bad state, I think. And I'm, and I'm hyper aware of the internal state going on within me. So I'm thinking about it a lot and maybe you just think, oh, I'm tired, you know, but—

Josh: How does it come out? How does, how does, how does it show itself?

Tommy: Overthinking? No, I think it's just, you know how like some days, and you experience this and you don't even drink, but it's like some days your mind can get the better of you.

Josh: Yeah. You're willing to just let that fucking lizard brain take over.

Tommy: I think there's just that lack of control a bit on that part of your brain. That's like, you shit, you shit at what you do, you know, like, and so that just creeps in a bit. And I think it's, I definitely think it's the alcohol. Cause it's the only thing that I can—

Josh: How do you turn it around? Is there something, is there, have you worked out?

Tommy: You've got to do that. Like, I'm trying this morning. Have to.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Because otherwise it'd just be—

Josh: The feeling that you have is the same feeling that I have when I eat shit.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: If I eat like really badly and you can either sort of count it as, yeah, like I've— That was a thing. I've done that thing. And now I'm like focused on now because that's the thing, like you work out Oh, like I only need to eat good for one day and I'm back.

Tommy: Yeah, well, I was saying that to you the other day. My mate Craig Harper, if he opens the door, he's gone with bad food. So he just now restricts it. I don't know, he might have a cheat day every now and then, but some people can't do it. Yeah, it's like, it's like the— maybe they aren't an alcoholic, but they definitely have a disorder, disorderly behaviour around alcohol. And so, they know that if they open the door, they'll get absolutely wasted. But then, so they just don't go near it.

Josh: Or it's like if you're drinking when you're sad or shit like that, then it's going to heighten that emotional state.

Tommy: Oh yeah. So anyway, I'm going.

Josh: Alright, enough about that. How about the fact that I went to the gym on Saturday? Yeah, it was big. It's big. That was huge.

Tommy: Yeah. And you've already said, oh, I want to do something every day.

Josh: Can I?

Tommy: Which I think is the problem with most people. It's like they start at the gym and they think they want to do something every fucking day. Do you know the thing that's— I'm fine.

Josh: Like I'm going to the gym, I could have been anxious, wasn't that anxious. The most, the thing that I was most anxious about was the fact that I just said, oh, you just let, you just lead the way, you tell me what to do and all that sort of thing. We arrive at the entry and you said, okay, mate, just come walk in with me.

Tommy: That made you anxious?

Josh: No, that was so, I was like, okay, like, am I meant to be thinking, am I meant to like sign something? Am I meant to be paying here?. And I was like, oh, look, we haven't really spoken about it, so I'm comfortable. Then you see one of the managers at the café and the first thing you say is, oh yeah, just snuck Josh in. He didn't pay.

Tommy: So, at the gym where I go, you either have to have this annoying conversation where you like sign up, you're like, oh, and they'll probably annoy you on the phone another day.

Josh: You know, that's every fucking gym.

Tommy: Yeah, but their system is A failure because you could just walk straight past.

Josh: I don't know if that's a fa— Like, I don't know if that's a— You could say the same thing with like, I picked up some strawberries from Coles, walked out, didn't pay.

Tommy: So, is that bad? So, do you think it's bad what you did?

Josh: Yeah, I didn't feel good about it. I was constantly felt like I was being watched by security camera.

Tommy: Is this a guy who is saying this but will eat a grape in the Coles? No, I wouldn't. You don't do that? You know what I do say when I see people walking, like they walk past and grab a piece of fruit and eat it? Yeah. I just say out loud, saw that.

Josh: You're projecting so hard.

Tommy: I get ignored every time I say it. Saw that. Saw you do that.

Josh: I remember specifically, just like being a late or an early family around timing, I think that you're either a grape-eating family or a non-grape-eating family.

Tommy: Do you have to be either? Can you just come in, like saying you're a grape-eating family makes it seem like every time you'll be there, you'll eat a grape. Can you just be coming in and out? 6 months ago I had a grape, today I won't eat one, 2 months' time I'll eat a grape. Are you a grape-eating family? Like, do you have to be sunk into that?

Josh: Yeah, if you're willing to do it at all, then you are a grape eater. Do you reckon you saw your parents do it? Is that why you're so comfortable doing it?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: I think it also depends on— I'd be comfortable with a grape eater if it seems like they're eating it to try it before they buy. If it's like a, you know, if Jamie Oliver did a bit of it, oh, oh, I'm taking— Oh, yeah, I like these ones. I'll try that. That seems okay.

Tommy: Nuts. What about the big long—

Josh: Fuck no, you can't do that.

Tommy: So, I was young and I grabbed a nut, it was a macadamia with honey coat, honey coating, and I ate it like a honey roasted. Yeah, and I, um, broke my filling off in my tooth.

Josh: You know what?

Tommy: Yeah, serves me right.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. Fucking oath. The, uh, you've been having other issues today with your fucking phone.

Tommy: I don't even get into it because it Makes me anxious. If I ever create a business, right?

Josh: Yeah, you have.

Tommy: If I ever create a business that you can see other people are getting anxious based around the customer service I'm providing, please tell me.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Please pull me up. Because that's exactly what Telstra has done. They've been— it's the worst customer service.

Josh: Long storey short, 3 months ago you ordered the iPhone X. Yeah. One of the fucking early people to do it.

Tommy: Pretty much the day it came out.

Josh: And, uh, Basically, you organised a pickup solution where you're picking up from the South Melbourne store and you're doing a trade-in where your old phone was going to be, correct? Yeah. And that you fucking pay $150 difference. And what's happened is they lost the phone between the warehouse and the store. So, there's no like you being a dodgy fuck where it's like you've signed for something and like it's— you could not have done that. And they're being fuckheads and they're saying what they're saying. Until we find the phone, we can't really do anything.

Tommy: That's exactly right.

Josh: But it's been 3 months and they haven't found the phone.

Tommy: Months. It is so bad. I've been handballed around 50 times, had to tell the same storey 50 times. Here's the thing though, the takeaway is processes within businesses getting in the way of customer service. So Telstra, I don't know what's going on, but they've gone downhill in terms of customer service.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And their processes are, oh well, we can't just give you a new one and we'll find that because if we do that you'll be charged $1,000 exit fee.

Josh: But, and that's where you got to step in. And like, I think you've been too much of a soft cock about this.

Tommy: Man, I've said, I came up with solutions and I've handballed them and sent them to them. Right. But what I'm saying is their process is like, well, we can't just, we can't override this. And then they go up a chain.

Josh: I think that's where you override it. Like, I think that where my whole approach to all of these things is escalate as soon as possible. Yeah. And we did today, we did a tweet. And finally, like, I don't know if that's been the reason. I like to think it is, but they're finally fucking sorting it out. Because the thing is that it's, I mean, I love a good escalation. I'll tell you.

Tommy: Yeah, you, Josh is the king of—

Josh: Should I tell you? I've got 3 escalation stories.

Tommy: Well, just what's the highest level of escalation that came out?

Josh: Oh, okay.

Tommy: And the best payoff. I'll do the best payoff.

Josh: Alright. So, one that I loved was Pacific Health. Healthclub.com that I bought and then wrote the whole storey about how they fucking screwed me. And then they basically gave me my cancellation $200. I basically held them hostage.

Tommy: So, you wanted to cancel your gym membership?

Josh: I, yeah. And I was—

Tommy: Because you weren't using it.

Josh: And the gym mem— No, the gym membership was part of— We got a deal as part of our apartment block. And what we were told by the fucking sales dude was You can cancel when your lease is up. Okay. Go to cancel, like, no, you're going to have to pay like a $100 fee or like $150 fee each or some shit, right. It was like a couple of hundred bucks for Bri and I. Yeah. And yeah, so I fought it. I ended up spending. So, what I did was I first said, hey, I want you to waive this fee, blah, blah, blah. They're like, no. The sales guy didn't work there anymore. So, there was no recourse in that regard.. But then I said, if you do this, I am going to spend $200 on Facebook advertising telling everyone what happened. And they said, well, you know, we'd prefer if you didn't do that. So, I did that.

Tommy: You spent $200?

Josh: I spent $200. And then not only that, I was like, I didn't get a reaction. So, I was thinking more and more, like, I just want them to fucking give me my $200.

Tommy: So, at this point you were $200 out of pocket.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: And you were still trying to get $200 back from them.

Josh: Exactly. So, then their website was southpacifichc.com, like for health club. Yeah. Like, you fucking idiots. Southpacifichealthclub.com was available, .com. So, I bought it. And .com's a lot easier than .com.au. .com.au, you need to be, you need to have a business that's sort of registered that would be connected to that.

Tommy: Yeah. So, it has to be legit.

Josh: Yeah, .com, didn't have to worry about. So, anyway, yeah, did it.

Tommy: Bought SouthPacificHealthClub.com.

Josh: Made a website just on WordPress with my experience. And yeah, I got a call like, hey, okay, we'll do a deal.

Tommy: So, they called you based on the website being up. How did— Did you notify them of the website going live?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, I did. I'm sure I did.

Tommy: I'm sure I did. How much did you spend on advertising that?

Josh: No. Well, I think I just called them. I said, look, I'm really disappointed. I've set up a website so everyone can know forever and I'm going to SEO the fuck out of it. So, people get it when they type in, 'cause I know too, I could rank for South Pacific Health Club. So, when people type it in, it would be the first thing that came up. So, I did that one. Another one that I did—

Tommy: And so, hang on, they just, what, they waived the fee or they gave you money back?

Josh: Yeah, they gave me the $200 back, but I'd already spent—

Tommy: On the condition you had to—

Josh: Yes. Yes. And so, I was umming and ahhing, but I'm like, look—

Tommy: Did they write it down? Was it in an email or—

Josh: Yeah, I probably—

Tommy: Statement of agreement?

Josh: I could probably—

Tommy: No, don't pull it up. You don't need to pull shit up.

Josh: Alright. No, yeah, I would have an email.

Tommy: Okay.

Josh: Another one, the Telstra one that I liked was I was— There was this loophole where they were doing double data, right? So, if you paid for 1 gig of data, you would get 2 gig and all that sort of thing. This is when like the max you would sort of get is 2 or— 2 gig of data or whatever. Anyway, what you could do is you could get a low plan and then just add a data pack, right. So, rather than normally if you wanted the 6 gig plan, you'd have to go on their $150 plan or whatever. But what I read online was you could go on one of those like $30 plans and then add a 6 gig of data pack, which would double to 12 gig and it was only costing you like $70 or $80. Anyway. I read online that the loophole was being like, that this was a loophole and that they were honouring it. So, I opened this Telstra account, like set up a phone contract.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And they were sort of umming and ahhing at the Rowville store. And I said, no, this is the way it is, blah, blah, blah. And I said I'd printed out the article where like the Telstra spokesperson had said, yes, it was. We can do this. We can do this. They're like, oh, look, anyone could print that, blah, blah, blah.

Tommy: Anyway, they said, okay, can anyone set up a WordPress website? Exactly. Fucking SEO the shit out of it.

Josh: Got telstra.com. No. So I, they said, oh, look, well, we can't do it within our system, but we'll sign you up today and then come back in a week and we'll be able to sort it out because we'll be able to speak, blah, blah, blah. I came back, I signed up to the contract, came back and they said, sorry, we can't do it. Oh, and I'm like, fuck these guys. So, what I did was I found the Telstra spokesperson. And the reason I remember this storey is because he liked one of my LinkedIn posts last week.

Tommy: Recently.

Josh: He was the head, like, communications advisor for Telstra, and he'd been quoted in that article. And he'd also— Communications people, when they put out press releases, they'll put in their phone number., right, for, um, for the media to contact them.

Tommy: So you had his phone number?

Josh: Yeah, so I called him, I said, hey, you know, my name's Josh, this has happened, you quite— I, I actually mentioned your quote and they're not honouring it, blah blah blah. He sorted it out for me.

Tommy: No.

Josh: So I had that one. And the final storey which got me in the, um, The Age and MX Mag was, uh, this was Facebook when you could be like granular advertising. You could advertise to basically individual people, right? Because you had so many settings that I could say people named Tommy living in St. Kilda who likes—

Tommy: are you telling— are you giving everyone my—

Josh: exactly— who likes Frisbee and Co, right? And I know that that's the only Tommy in St. Kilda who would like that page.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So I can do— so you could do those sort of granular things. I had this situation where I bought a product, it was Avid, you know, like Avid the editor.

Tommy: Yes.

Josh: I got an inbox which is like for plugging in musical instruments or microphones. I got it from B&H in the States, got it shipped here, opened it up, turned it on, it was fucked, it wasn't working. Contacted B&H and they said, "Oh, it's fine, we'll be able to sort it out for you, blah, blah, blah, here's a number." Anyway, long storey short, Avid said they would be able to sort it out in Australia, which was great. Then 12 days went by and I had been calling like every third day to try and work out what was going on.

Tommy: Currently unemployed at that point.

Josh: Yeah. Self-employed, whichever way you look at it, Tommy. And they basically at the end they said, "Sorry, we've actually realised we can't do it." I'm like, "No, I've just spent fucking 12 days waiting and you've said I would have gotten the US process done by now." So, I created a WordPress, like a blog post again. I got the M box and I Photoshopped flames on it.. And I did this article about everything that happened. And at the end of it, I said, if you know the managing director of Avid, contact him now and tell him this story. Anyway, I put it up on Facebook as an ad targeting all people who worked at Avid. Just them, right?

Tommy: That's amazing.

Josh: I had 20 click-throughs in one night. So, 20 people who worked at Avid had clicked through. I had a Facebook message and an email from the managing director. That day asking for my address so he could send out a brand new one.

Tommy: In fact, he'd messaged me.

Josh: Do you want me to please take down the post? You know how I'd said about the Telstra guy, how he had liked one of my things?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: This guy from Avid is still like the most senior person in Australia. And I realised a few years ago he'd actually deleted me off LinkedIn. So, he must have thought I was the biggest fuckhead for like annoying him.

Tommy: You either, I mean, there's a few things people can think. It's like fucking modern-day hero.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Or big weird unit with lots of time on his hands.

Josh: Bit of both.

Tommy: I believe that there's a bit of both there. But that is, it takes balls. So they know, like I was speaking to TPG 'cause I moved house and my internet, I changed the connection. All I wanted to do was send it downstairs.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: There's no installation, nothing. Sorry, sir, that's going to be $100. I said, it's not going to be. I'm moving downstairs. I've been with you for 2 years. I can go somewhere else and pay $100 to get a faster internet connection because yours is terrible. Yeah, but I'm happy to continue. And anyway, which makes you just sound like a fucking little bitch. The thing is, they came back, oh yes, we can do $70. I said, no, $70. How about $0? Yeah.. And then they came back and said, oh, well, could you sign into a 12-month contract and we waive the fee? I move into a 12-month contract for my lease.

Josh: So, I said yes.

Tommy: But it's like all the people out there that have been walked all over by companies because they don't think there's another option.

Josh: You've got, like, you've got to push, like, to— like, I've spoken to 2 different call centres in the last 4 days hustling. One of them, Virgin Australia Velocity. Lost my platinum status, right? Because I think I had told you this. Yeah. I'd had enough status credits, but I hadn't flown enough sectors, which basically means you have to— You can earn status credits when you fly Air New Zealand, Singapore, all these different airlines. However, they say there needs to be a minimum amount that you need to fly on Virgin Australia. I'd smashed the amount of status credits because I'd flown Air New Zealand premium economy and stuff like that. But I'd only flown 6 times on Virgin in the last 12 months. You needed 8 to get Platinum. Anyway, so, I called them today and managed to get them to give me Platinum again.

Tommy: Really?

Josh: Which is pretty, like, people struggle and I think the key is that you just— Progression. Well, yeah, it's— No, I think it's about what I did. So, this was my strategy. I was like, okay. I called on, so my, the, I lost my Platinum or the Platinum was up for renewal over the weekend on Sunday. I called them on Saturday, the department wasn't open. So, I went, I basically got to their fucking answering machine or like their response saying, "Hey, we don't, we're not open today, blah, blah, blah." So, I did another call where I went through and went through to their booking, People, right? Because that one is open and they're an Australian call centre.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And then I said, hey, I was— So, I changed the storey a little bit to being like just inquiring about my platinum status to I'm wanting to book a flight because I want to make sure that I retain my status and I'm wanting to know whether I like if I have to do it now or if I could book it this month, blah, blah, blah. And the person was completely underqualified to obviously tell me about it. So, they— So, I basically could talk them into a bit of a circle where they're like, "Yeah, you'll be fine. If you do it this month, you'll be fine." And so—

Tommy: And the call's recorded for customer service.

Josh: Yeah. And that's why I said— So, basically when I called them this morning, they said, "Oh, no, like you've missed your period." Like unless you— I'm like, "I'm pregnant." No. What?

Tommy: No.

Josh: So, I said to them, yeah, you basically just give it all that sort of stuff and then you like— I do a bit of hint, hint of like, I'm going to be booking a lot of flights. And the funny thing is they said, "Oh, we're not—" What did they say? "We're only doing this 'cause it's the first time you're doing this, blah, blah, blah." However, I didn't tell them, but I don't know if I was with you. Yeah, we were in Brisbane. And I called— Yes. And I got—

Tommy: We were working in Brisbane on a shoot and we got to the airport. We realised that Josh didn't have status to get us into the lounge and we had hours to kill and we really wanted to go in there and relax and have food. And so, Josh jumped on the phone.

Josh: And managed to get gold. I ended up telling them how like I was, which was all true, I was going to be flying business class to Fiji and I'd be getting it, blah, blah, blah. And they gave it to me. Yeah. So, I've been very— And I know people who are, especially like Qantas and stuff where people have been Like Bree's old boss would like fly business all the time, like London, like Melbourne, all that sort of thing. And she didn't get fucking Keeper Platinum and they didn't give it to her. Like they went hard. But there was that one. And then the other tactic was iiNet went over my allowance, the data allowance.

Tommy: Uploaded too many photos. Yeah. And so, it's what? How many? You have a terabyte?

Josh: Yeah, I had a terabyte.

Tommy: 1,000 gigabytes of downloads.. And you went out and you went over it.

Josh: So, they went on a different strategy this time.

Tommy: I was like— What did you want? What was the mission you took from it?

Josh: So, what I wanted was I like, they had slowed down my internet to 200.

Tommy: Which is a standard practice.

Josh: Which is so slow. And now I don't do this much, right? So, I call them.

Tommy: I don't do this much, but I just tell them 4 storeys about when I do do shit like this.

Josh: I don't go over much. So, anyway, I called them and I was like, she was a bit— The chick that I was dealing with was, I could tell, just a classic employee salesy, just wanted like, just trying to fuck me in every regard. And then, so I said to her, I was like, "Oh, where are you from, by the way?" And she said, "Oh, I'm at a call centre. We're in South Africa, in Cape Town," which I knew and which was awesome because then I said, I've been reading all about the water issues, the water crisis. Do you know about the water crisis?

Tommy: Yeah, it's leaking. The city's leaking?

Josh: Yeah. Well, they reckon in like 2 months they're going to be out of water.

Tommy: And it's because— Because why? It's leaking?

Josh: Well, clearly I didn't read enough. I'd been reading all the headlines, but they've been restricted to how much water they can consume, like in a huge way. So, she was saying, oh, it's so bad. We can only do 50 litres a day, blah, blah, blah. And so, I anyway, and so, we spoke, no joke, for 5 minutes about that. And I said, oh, like my issue seems small now. But is there something like, is, can you sort of help me out? And she was a bit of an idiot anyway, but she ended up, she ended up saying, look, yeah, we'll give you, I can. I said, can you give me $100? Because I'm like, I don't want to pay anything. And you've got to also like oversell things. So, I'm like, I just don't have any money to be able to pay for this. You know, I can't be spending any more money. And she's like, oh, look. I said, can I have— It was 6 days left on my plan for the month. And I said, can I have 100 gig? Please? Please. And she said, oh yeah, that's like $70. I'm like, I don't have the $70. And she said, oh, look, I'll speak to the supervisor.

Tommy: I'll just spend it on bottled water.

Josh: Exactly. And so, she spoke to the supervisor, came back, gave me 50 gig. I don't think that was necessarily me talking. I don't think necessarily helped.

Tommy: Talking your way into places. I've done it. I talked my way into the Qantas lounge. I was flying to LA. Doing a Jules Lund. He loves doing it. And here's the thing. I reckon this could work. So, I actually legitimately had at home.

Josh: Maybe I didn't. Vouchers?

Tommy: No, I reckon I just made this up. My friend was given just a voucher. It was just, it looks like a business card and it says admit one to Qantas lounge and you have to be flying with Qantas overseas to access it. So, I had my boarding pass for an LA-bound flight and I was so hungover and it was like 8 in the morning and I got to the airport and I was like, I have to get into this lounge. And I walked up and I just said, one of the people in PR, because that's who actually can give them out. One of the girls in PR gave me an entry pass to the lounge and I've left it at home. I'm so sorry.

Josh: Is there any way I can come in?

Tommy: I've got my boarding pass. And there's some sweet old ladies, they're just like, yeah, sure. And I went in and got the smoothies they were handing out.

Josh: Because you would fucking use and abuse it. They're like, they don't know what's— tell me what's gonna happen. Like, how much cheese did you eat?

Tommy: I had— no, I was too— I was annoying, I was dumb, I was hungover, so I like didn't, didn't go to town, of course. But I had a really comfy chair, I could wait to the last minute when they were boarding the flight.

Josh: Lounge is a bit overrated though, isn't it? 100%. It's like— But talking—

Tommy: Have you talked your way in anywhere? Because you're quite a confident dude when you're out. Like, I think you can have a— You might be internalising it and feeling a bit worried inside, but you can definitely front as very confident.

Josh: Yeah, I've gotten into LA Star Alliance. I'd lost status. And basically, it's just a willingness to bullshit a little bit or just like talk. And that was the longest one because it was Star Alliance. So, it wasn't Virgin directly. It was like one step away. So, it was even harder. But Bri was probably outside of the lounge for 40 minutes while I was talking to them. And basically— Took you 40 minutes? Yeah. And I ended up getting in, though.

Tommy: I think they just get annoyed. They're just like, whatever, this guy's so annoying.

Josh: Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? And that's the willingness to be annoying. It's the willingness to be okay with being the fuckhead.

Tommy: So, I tried it. I tried it recently. A year and a bit ago when we're going out on our honeymoon. But they've just got like blanket policies, like if you're not flying business, you can't come in. Yeah. So, or if you don't have status, so if you don't have gold or premium, if you don't have any kind of status, you're not coming in. So, they've got blanket rules now that cut out a lot of English.

Josh: But they also, the thing is that I see people trying to hustle the same way and they just don't know how to fucking do it. Like you can tell that they go on. I saw a guy when we were flying to Fiji that I think it was his honeymoon and he was trying to get into to business class. He's just like, oh, shit.

Tommy: Trying to get up the front. Yeah. Fly in a seat. Yeah. That's not happening, mate.

Josh: I know, but he— That doesn't happen. He really like, and you could hear the people, like the air hostess or whatever, being like, oh, sorry, like we need to keep them available, blah, blah, blah.

Tommy: Oh, God. But talking away, what about outside of an airport? You've done it? We haven't been to nightclubs. It's a big thing in the nightclub space. Where people— are you pretty good at it? Yes. People, like, you know, there's a massive line to a bar and people just want to jump the line. We did it overseas and it's probably a bit easier. Two Aussie guys walking up, there was a line around the corner, 100 meters, and we just told them that we got this online TV show and we'd love to speak to the manager, we'll feature you in the show. And they just walked us straight through the back. And then we just partied. And then in Melbourne, actually, we, um, we had— I met this guy in LA who was friends with this big DJ, Paul Oakenfold. He's like a big techno DJ, old school. He's worth like $40 million or something. I don't even know, like, I didn't really know his music. Yeah. And he's got a huge cult following. Quite— he's an older dude, but still just people love him. Anyway, he's playing here in Melbourne and our friend from LA said, come to the show, I've got tickets on the door and we can go backstage. And so me and my mates, sick, and we went, no tickets at the door. And then we'll just like, what do you mean? Oh, um, it will be under like Paul's list or Dean's list. His best mate, Paul's best mate Dean, was our friend. Yeah, nothing here. And so we just were just going like, we're at the front of this venue, festival hall in North Melbourne.

Josh: And shit fucking venue, shit venue, but it was good for a rave like this.

Tommy: It was literally a rave. And so within 10 minutes we'd just be there. I think they were just annoyed. They're like, okay, we can give you entry. Here's some tickets. They just gave us tickets. They were $100 tickets. And so we're just not, obviously they had known of someone's name. We must've been using right names. And so then we got in and then waved down our friend and then he was behind. And anyway, we got up the back, we were behind the DJ. Sick.

Josh: The one time I actually can think of is when there was a WordPress meetup here in Melbourne.

Tommy: You can see the difference in our lives. I was at a trance party, Josh was at a WordPress meetup.

Josh: And that sold out because it was a big deal because Matt Mullenweg, the one of the lead like developer of WordPress, creator of WordPress, was in town speaking.. And I bumped into him and we were talking and he said, are you coming tonight?

Tommy: Hang on, you bumped into him. You don't know this guy? No. Never met him before. You've seen him online.

Josh: Where did you bump into him? Okay. I wasn't going to go into the craziness of the story, but I'll keep it short. Keep it very brief. He was coming—

Tommy: Because most people are trying to work out what WordPress is.

Josh: He was coming into the Envato office where I was working at the time, right. I was really keen to see him, but he was meant to be in at 3 o'clock and at 4:30 I had a meeting in South Melbourne. Envato was in the city. So, I'm like, fuck it, I can't wait around. I start walking to South Melbourne for my meeting. As I'm crossing over the Yarra, there I see Matt Mullenweg walking towards me. So, I go, oh, Matt. He stops. I'm like, are you looking for Envato? He says, yeah. I'm like, oh, I'm actually from there. I'm like, "Just keep going straight, turn right, blah, blah, blah." That was all done. I was like, oh, that was a funny interaction. But that was it. Had my meeting, walk, that goes for an hour, come back to the city and the CEO, my mate at Envato, Collis, is out the front with Matt Mullenweg and they're chatting and they're saying goodbye. Collis says, oh, this is Josh. He works for Envato. Matt Mullenweg says, oh, I know, I've already met him. I've just met him before. He was treating me like a rock star.. And then he said, are you coming to the WordPress meetup? I said, I don't have tickets because I'd been travelling. I'd just done my 3-month trip and I'd just gotten back. He said, oh, just mention my name at the door, which is such a fucking funny thing. It's like the main person and WordPress is a small community. So, I rock up to the WordPress event with all these people that I know at the door being like, oh, Josh, you got a ticket? I'm like, "No, I saw Matt Mullenweg and he just said, say his name." Like, "Oh, I don't know about this." So, they thought you were bullshitting. Yeah. But I ended up getting in. But then talking about how, you know, serendipity and all of this stuff, I ended up getting Matt Mullenweg on my podcast, right, where I interviewed him. And the way that I got him on was I was like, I said to myself, I need to be able to ask a question at the question time. So that we can have that like connection of, he know, like, you know, sort of cementing that I rocked up. Anyway, so I had a question, which the key to this is you should only have a fucking question if it's a good one. And it was a decent question. Asked him the question. And when I stood up, he said, "Oh, hey, do you have a ticket to be here?" So, it was perfect, right? So, yeah, he's playing a joke.

Tommy: So, which was— What did he say?

Josh: What was your response? I laughed and then he said, yeah, I actually just— Yeah, he said, I actually just met him at Envato, blah, blah, blah. So, after the event, he's getting swarmed by all of these fucking nerds. Yeah. Because basically that's what they are.

Tommy: And Josh being the 6-foot-3 nerd that he is, swarmed them too.

Josh: No. So, I was like, I wanted him to be in my— on my podcast. So, what I did was I sent him an email instead. I said, hey, this is Josh. You let me into your event. I would love to have you on my podcast, Josh speaking. I can be flexible. I can record it wherever you are, blah, blah, blah. He wrote back to me 2 days later and said, hey, Josh, I would have loved to. I'm now in Sydney, though, and I'm just flying to Auckland tomorrow. I said, hey, Matt, no worries. Happy to come to Auckland. And he was like, okay. And so, we organised it. And do you reckon he was expecting that? No. I mean, people put up filters and barriers so that you don't. So, most people, most fucking tyre kickers won't follow through.

Tommy: True. And so, you flew over how long from the time you sent the email? It was within like 3 days.

Josh: You just jumped on a flight. Booked a flight with Qantas.

Tommy: Did you somehow get a free flight by calling?

Josh: It cost me like 5— This is the thing, right? It cost me like $550. And so many people like would say, fuck, what are you doing? Like, I know that my parents at the time were like, what are you doing? What are you spending that much? Where are you going? Why are you going to Auckland? Like, people don't understand that, like, I'm literally spending $550 to sit down with an hour with someone who is really coveted for interviews, right? Like, he doesn't just give interviews out.

Tommy: So, do you reckon he only gave it to you because he met you in those exchanges?

Josh: I think that, that plus my willingness to fucking fly to Auckland. The thing is, I think I also overstated how much he actually cared that I was flying because like on the day he was sort of talking as if I lived in Auckland. Yeah.

Tommy: Well, it's never as much thought in his head as it is in yours.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: Because he doesn't have to do anything other than just rock up, say yes. At his hotel room? Yeah.

Josh: And so, we had it, we actually did it in the hotel library. So, I like set up in there, like I rocked up to the Sofitel. It's a good hustle.

Tommy: It's kind of like that work experience kid that just rocked up at my place looking for— Have you spoken to him since? He never got back to me, so.

Josh: Classic. He got busy. He got better offers. He went down the street, spoke to someone else.

Tommy: You totally got to hustle, but I think there's like, Speaking to Jules Lund, who I've spoken about on this podcast yesterday, and he said— I told him about this podcast. Yeah. And I just said the barrier to entry is so low, like for you and I, it takes us half an hour to record this and then it's up 10 minutes later.

Josh: Although this is the first fucking podcast where I just had to pause it twice. Yeah.

Tommy: Hopefully you didn't know because Josh wanted to make it sound seamless. But now I was talking about the fact that we stopped this podcast. To take some calls.

Josh: We don't normally do that though.

Tommy: Yeah, because it's annoying. My point is, solo to start a podcast, yeah, means someone like Jules gets 10 requests a week, yeah, to be on people's podcasts. Yes. And so for you, you— how long ago was that? 10, 3, 4?

Josh: Yeah, that was 2004. Yeah. Oh, sorry, no, no, no, sorry, 2014.

Tommy: Still a while ago in the land of podcasts. Yeah, absolutely. So that guy Matt Yeah, he would be getting flooded. The dude who created WordPress. Yeah. Or even getting flooded to get on podcast.

Josh: Austin Kleon, who wrote Steal Like an Artist, best-selling, uh, New York Times bestselling author. Got him on my podcast and he tweeted saying, I never do these, I never do podcast interviews, but Josh sent me the nicest email and I couldn't say no. And that's how he promoted it. So, he was clear that like he doesn't fucking do it. I think that the—

Tommy: are you setting goals? Like, what do you— like, it's one thing to write a few words, it's another thing to— you think about this, like your internalisation on that whole Matt thing. Yeah. Oh, you know, if I ask a question, it's a good one. Yeah. Like, is that your legit thought process? Absolutely. So, because then there's— I think there's an element— I think I do a lot of that naturally. Yeah. I don't think like you at all. Yeah. But then there's people who could do your process, which is like map it out, you know, go, you know. What's not mapping it out, right?

Josh: So, it's this thing of like it's mapping it out on the fly. It's the serendipity of, okay, there's this opportunity, so I should do this. Versus what most people would do is they would see the after party as the— And that could be a strategy. If I drank, if I was someone who knew the best places in Melbourne to go to drink, I would put myself front and centre in organising where we're going to drink because I'd look like a fucking top dog. But I know that that's not the game that I play. So, if the game that I play, and for me, the game that I play is in that personal interaction and it's modern-day stalking.

Tommy: Yeah. Without the illegalness of it.

Josh: I've done it so many times. Like, and the people—

Tommy: Can I just say, I won't interrupt. I was just thinking, good radio stunt. I want you to try and get someone on this podcast of note, like someone who's worth— like, people be like, wow. Because if you did it for your podcast back then, yeah, we're 15 episodes in. Yeah, surely by the time we've done 30 of these, we could have a pretty big guest on the show. Yeah, absolutely. It's just shooting the breeze. It's okay.

Josh: So, uh, guess— and this is the thing, we're not a fucking guest podcast.

Tommy: No, but they come into our world, they're going to be just chatting with us. Sure. We could literally be talking to them about—

Josh: Who do you want?

Tommy: I don't know yet. I'll, I'll think about it. But like, I know there's a few low-hanging fruit. We could probably get Kenny. Shane Jacobson. He's an icon, Australian icon. Well, there's—

Josh: I think that we maybe cut my network like we don't do someone that's with my network.

Tommy: I want it to be a challenge where you're going to have to send a few emails. Yeah. Set up maybe a WordPress website. Someone who is across the board liked, so it's not too niche. Like it's not like— Matt Diavella, who has the Ground Up Show. Yeah, he's mentioned on most podcasts.

Josh: You get a big crush on him. Yeah, he's, uh, he's trying to get, uh, fucking The Rock.

Tommy: Yeah, and I'm not going to set the challenge of getting someone like The Rock, but I think we could probably get someone cool. Yeah, I think we could 100% get someone cool. So networking is an interesting one. Like, the, you know, we talk about networking, it's fucking reek of awkwardness. And yeah, and when it's sold in as a, like, come to this networking event I mean, that's for people who probably don't have the opportunities or the mind, the headspace or the approach that you take.

Josh: It's also about like, if you're going to— So, there's a few things. You need to be giving value. And if you're not giving value, you can't be taking away value. So, you need to make it like there is a transaction that's going on. And what that means is it's, Well, there's a few elements. The reason the Matt Mullenweg thing worked is because we had a connection and that was Envato. And then from there, I was able to cement it with the other things that happened. So, having a base, having some sort of in will be— make things easier.

Tommy: Yeah. And I've done that thing also of knowing where they'll be or like if you know a good bar or, you know, a café where they are. All you need is that exchange. And it's just a hello, it's just top of mind, and then dropping them an email. Yeah, because if you've seen them, you've got a reason to then go, hey, saw you.

Josh: And it's okay just to— the other part of it is sometimes you just want to connect with them. Like, you just like, hang on, we're really aligned, we should connect. And it's not about fucking trying to get something out of them. It's really just like, actually, I think that I can bring you value. Yeah, I think there's heaps of stuff that I can help you with.

Tommy: Yeah, I definitely approach it like that. Creating video content, it's like, as much as I know that they'll give me money at some point, but it's also like, you know, that you can create something awesome for them and that's where they're winning. Yeah. And that's the offering. So it doesn't have to be as much like, I'm going to, you know, lift this rock for you. No. And this, and you know that I'm going to come over and lift that rock for you. It's like, it can be the exchange of what you do is going to bring them a lot of value.

Josh: And that's what I think being a hybrid, being not just a video person, but having other things to offer makes you way more appealing. Because when I speak to a client, we end up speaking about branding, about their website, about startup culture, about HR, all of those types of things, which then leads into I'll eventually do a video for them.

Tommy: But it's just being friendly as well. Yeah. Like business, most of it is all around relationships. Do they like you? Do they want to work with you. And that's the same with networking. It's, you know, for me growing up, knowing lots of people, people have moved on to businesses that could work for me. I could do something for them. It's like the same thing. It's an exchange, but it's all driven by being a nice person, being a nice person, honest, actually honestly being a nice person.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: I think pretending to be nice.

Josh: And that's what grossed me out about that fucking Art of Charm is it was like this idea that It is this two-step process. And if you dress up as a kangaroo, that fucking people will start inviting you to cocktail parties. Yeah. That's when it, yeah.

Tommy: That's when networking falls short when you dress like kangaroo.

Josh: This was a different, this was another different episode. I feel like I do this every fucking time, a little retrospective.

Tommy: I've got some shit I want to bring tomorrow. And I'm going to think about that guest. I've got something I want to talk to you about. It's some scary technology. What is it? I can't— no, okay, the thing about Josh, when you say I want to talk about something and I'll tell you tomorrow, he's hounding you. Well, because this isn't a— please, please, please, this isn't—

Josh: you treat life like a fucking radio teaser. Stop trying to sell in tomorrow.

Tommy: No, but I want to sell in tomorrow because it's something we— I, I was going to bring it up today, but we delved into how you stalk A lot of people online, you've single-handedly taken down businesses.

Josh: Well, this is something that I wanted to talk about but didn't, and we can talk about it tomorrow. I'll just say it's doing business beyond your borders. Okay. Working with companies in other countries, having employees in other countries, all of that sort of stuff. That's what I was thinking about. So, we can talk about it tomorrow. Yeah. It's the Daily Talk Show. We're at thedailytalkshow.com and we're on iTunes as well.

Tommy: A big guest coming soon. I don't know.

Josh: Who will it be? I've got some ideas, but I guess it's you to decide. Alright. Have a great Monday, everyone. Bye.