Peter Shepherd and the quarter-life crisis

Josh: Wait a minute!

Tommy: Crossface!

Peter: The Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: Episode 107. Wow, The Daily Talk Show.

Peter: Well done.

Tommy: And that deep voice you can hear is our special guest today, Peter Shepherd.

Peter: It's me. Thanks guys for having me.

Josh: Yo, you know, I, um, we emailed— how long ago was it now?

Peter: 3 weeks maybe?

Josh: 3 weeks ago, yeah, it seems like it was under a month.

Tommy: Do you know how many people Josh has got the "I met him on the internet" storey with?

Peter: Okay, that's good.

Tommy: It's nearly all of his friends. It's even Josh and I pretty much.

Josh: I reckon.

Tommy: I dropped you an inbox.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, you got it.

Tommy: Say, "Hey mate, you wanna catch up?" Slid into his DMs.

Josh: That's the word, you see, how uncool am I? What did I say?

Peter: You're so close, man.

Josh: You went into my DMs.

Tommy: It sounds like you opened the application and found me on the DM.

Josh: Anyway, no, so I thought it was really cool because I remember I was on Facebook scrolling past, I saw Seth Godin, and I'd never seen him with a— in his classic setup where he's got his books behind and all that sort of thing. And there was some other dude, and he had similar glasses to what I used to have. I was like, oh, what's going on here? Who's this guy? Who's this guy? Give it a bit of a click. Aussie accent. And I was like, what's going on? It was Peter Shepherd. And so anyway, so you were You were on, it was like his livestream type of thing?

Peter: Yeah, Seth does like a Facebook Live, I think a couple times a month. And I was lucky enough to be in New York at the time and doing some work with his Alt MBA, with the Alt MBA crew, and they teed me up to go on and to play a part in basically listening to some of Seth's wisdom, which was really cool. Really cool days.

Tommy: Well, Josh has also slid into someone else's DMs.

Josh: Well, I tend to email Seth, like every single time I've had something big in my life, first person I email, 'cause he writes, he's actually the most reliable person on email, Seth Godin. He literally—

Tommy: That is crazy for a dude.

Peter: He replies.

Tommy: At his level to be replying.

Josh: Every single, like I remember listening to the Icarus Deception, is it Icarus? What's the Icarus, whatever it is. Anyway, I was listening to his book, audio form, and that was the day that I quit my job at the radio station. I wonder how many times he gets that where it's just like, it's almost like, oh, 'Cool, man.

Tommy: Good luck.' The funny thing is, Josh and I, I've done that too. And we literally read out Josh's email that he sent to Seth about quitting. And then I read out the one I sent to Lewis Howes. Remember that dude? Years ago. Very similar.

Peter: Really?

Tommy: So it's almost a templated email.

Peter: I love that that's the first thing you do is like, I'm gonna email my hero. Yeah, exactly.

Josh: You gotta jump into their DMs. But no, I asked Seth, Seth, how would you describe Peter Shepherd? And he says, Peter's the real deal, the sort of person you'd want to be in the boat if you were going on a long swim in uncharted waters.

Peter: Is that serious?

Josh: That's serious, dude.

Tommy: I couldn't believe he wrote back.

Josh: He wrote back. I sent that email on Thursday at 9:23 PM. He wrote back at 9:26 PM. Took him 3 minutes. He was like, I'm definitely gonna have something to say about P&O.

Tommy: That's crazy. Josh had emailed him 2 weeks ago and he didn't reply.

Peter: Tell me about Tommy. He just got blanked. Exactly.

Josh: Never message me again. No, so I mean, that's pretty sick to have someone like Seth who is respected, you know, and is so well respected within marketing and within business. To have those words from him about you.

Peter: Yeah, I might get you to screenshot that and send it to me.

Tommy: Definitely, print it out and put it up. I mean, is that a big deal for you? Like, what's your relationship with Seth?

Peter: So I work as part of the Alt MBA, which is his, but he's built it up to a point where he's essentially empowered a team to run it for him. So my relationship with him is I've met him a couple of times, but don't deal with him directly that much. Instead dealing with Kelly Wood is the name of the lady who runs the coaching fraternity that is, or the coaching brigade if you like, that is within Alt MBA. And so she deals with Seth a lot directly, but I don't actually deal with him that much.

Tommy: And did you do the Alt MBA? Yeah, I saw. I gather that, I was watching you talking about it. You were mentioning your brother was doing it.

Peter: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: His real MBA.

Peter: Yeah, so I did it in—

Tommy: Or the traditional MBA, I should say.

Peter: Yeah, so I was doing it, I think it was May last year. I had a like a quarter-life crisis moment, as you do when you're 27 at the time.

Tommy: But did you email Seth?

Peter: No, no. Instead I just applied to his Ultimate MBA. It was like, he'll fix everything. Yeah. And I took 5 weeks off my job. So it's a 4-week workshop, took 5 weeks off my job, moved back down home to Ocean Grove. Mum and Dad were away, so I was like at the beach on my own and just kind of immersed myself listening to emo music on the beach with no lights on, candles. Yeah, that was me for 4 weeks.

Josh: What was it, what was Alt MBA like? How do you describe it?

Peter: It's a good question. It's kind of hard to describe. It's like, it's unlike any other learning experience I've had, which I think is a good thing. So it's all online. There's 100 leaders from right around the world that all sort of work together and sprint essentially for 4 weeks. And you deliver 13 projects over those 4 weeks. So it's like high intensity, highly collaborative learning. With no grades, no teachers, no like instruction on this is exactly what you need to do. Instead there's coaches and guides along the way, which is kind of completely different and kind of crazy, but it just works.

Tommy: Is there a fail or pass or is it, okay, so that's—

Peter: So there's no grades.

Tommy: I mean, you do the work.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: Otherwise—

Josh: Tommy's loving this idea 'cause he's like, he didn't even do the exercise.

Tommy: The anxiety I get about having to fucking get 90%.

Peter: Yeah. That doesn't exist.

Josh: Jeez.

Tommy: And so is this something that you literally have to have nothing on—

Josh: to do it.

Tommy: If you're doing it for 5 weeks.

Peter: So when I did it, I think, there are people that do it full-time. In fact, most people do it full-time. I was the exception to the rule 'cause I had a quarter-life crisis. But also when I did it a year ago, there was no Australian time zone. So it's designed to be like 6:00 PM in New York or 6:00 PM in San Francisco so that you can do it after work.

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Peter: 3 times a week.

Josh: Do you mean that people generally do it part-time or most people full-time?

Peter: So it's full-time work, full-time study. It's like, it's a month regardless.

Josh: Ah, okay, yeah, sure, yeah, okay.

Peter: So usually people work full-time and then like, Yeah, between 6 PM and kind of midnight.

Tommy: Okay, so it's K to the US people. Yeah, yeah.

Peter: And so I did it and it was like, you know, 2 AM. So I was like, well, I'm not going to go to work the next day, am I? So I took the week, the month off. And since then we've got a, we've now got an Australian time zone, so it's based in Sydney time, or Sydney time, which is Melbourne time. Um, and so it's, yeah, 6 PM on a Wednesday, 6 PM on a Friday, and then all day Sunday.

Josh: What projects did you do?

Peter: Uh, so there's 13 and they They change a little bit every time, but they more or less stay the same. And we don't necessarily release the curriculum, which is very deliberate, um, for a few reasons. So Seth sort of talks about that if you read the curriculum, you'd probably look at it and go, oh yeah, I get it, I don't need to do that. Yeah, but it's like the process of going through that in the pressure cooker, getting feedback off your peers, and then reflecting on that. So there's like a three-stage process, I guess. You do the project, you get feedback from your peers, and then And then you sort of write a reflection script, which is, here's what I learned or here's what I changed my mind about based on the feedback. And you do that 3 times within a week over 4 weeks. So the projects are many and varied from videos to like writing a blog post kind of thing and putting an assertion out there. And they are kind of general enough that everybody approaches it in a little bit of a different way, which is quite cool.

Tommy: And MBA, what's the real difference? I've got some friends doing the MBA and they're MBA and they seem stressed and over it. Yeah, because the length— what is it, 2 years?

Peter: A couple of years, I think.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: And I think, uh, so there was a student we had recently who described he was doing the MBA and the Alt MBA at the same time, and he was saying—

Tommy: all right, smarty pants—

Peter: I was like, okay, mate, and you're working full-time now? You're just showing off. But, uh, he was saying the MBA, he feels like he's preparing him for like the business world of yesterday, whereas the Alt MBA is like, let's get real, let's do this in a month, and let's prepare you for the world of now, which is, you know, the gig economy and this idea that Anyone can do anything if you really want to, you just gotta hustle and work at it.

Tommy: Well, I mean, for me, I got paid very little to do essentially the amount of content Josh and I are doing, and we do it for free. And so the driver for me at that point was sure money, but, and an opportunity. But now it's like we've created this opportunity and Josh and I always talk about like, what was the thing you said the other day about the break?

Josh: Oh yeah.

Tommy: The big break.

Josh: I think it's, what we were talking about was having, getting the big break or whatever. And what I was saying is like, this is, you know, it was sort of making sure that we're both aligned on what we're doing. And what I said is like, this is the big break. Like, this is the thing that we're doing and we're at the start of that, but we're not waiting. And I guess it's sort of Seth's mentality around, he talks about in Poke the Box, which is don't wait to be picked, right? And so that's something that I really believe in, which is we're not creating this podcast so we get a radio show. We're not doing YouTube videos to get on TV, this is the thing, this is the platform and where we wanna own it all. We don't want, not that we've got like venture capitalists knocking at the door.

Peter: There's one around the corner.

Josh: Daily Talk Show, high security.

Tommy: What Peter is, isn't he?

Josh: Yeah, exactly. He's gonna give an offer.

Peter: I'll just see myself out, yeah.

Josh: We actually did see an article where it said something like the growth of podcasting over the next 5 years was gonna be like, in Australia was gonna be $150 million. And Tommy and I said like, well, that's our salary. What about everyone else?

Peter: 75 each. Exactly. Just on that point though, I seem to recall, I think you talked about it with, maybe it was with Hamish, which was like doing things for the sake of doing them because you enjoy it and you wanna own it, but also not being so attached to it that you like, you can be open enough to see where it ends up. There might be something down the track that you had to go through 150 episodes of the podcast to get to.

Josh: Absolutely.

Peter: To see that opportunity. I thought that was a really, really cool point.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, that's a recurring theme on quite a few now. And I find it almost, when I'm in a state of feeling a bit frustrated with where I'm at, that's a really hard thing to swallow. Thinking, you're telling me this is not it? And this hurts?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: It's like this, like this, yeah, this alternate world that you're thinking about. Yeah.

Josh: And it really puts me down.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: Well, I think it's, the thing of the thing that we think that we— I think we're really bad maybe working out what we want.

Tommy: Um, it's scary, I think.

Josh: Yeah, well, I think it's, it's like, I think it's, it's that classic case of people say they want to be— they come out of film school and they say they want to make a Hollywood film.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: Where it's like, what is the actual— for me, it's about like falling in love with the process. Like, you actually have to enjoy doing the thing. And for me, it's also about the default thinking and what we're actually like, that default thinking of Hollywood, or even like with Tommy and my new business, it's like the default thinking is that we need an office and we need all this sort of stuff. And it's like, actually, yeah, like if our advantage is that we are nimble, why would we go and spend money on this or have that?

Peter: Yeah, it's like we're so conditioned to behave and act and think in a certain way.

Tommy: You mentioned quarter-life crisis. How old are you?

Peter: 28.

Josh: 28.

Tommy: Yeah, um, same as—

Josh: yeah, I think— no, I think it's like we're all in the middle. I'm 27.

Tommy: I offended someone so much when I was like, oh, you're quarter-life crisis. Or I said something, I was like saying that they were older than they were, like, oh, halfway— yeah, midlife crisis, meaning you're dead in another 40 years or something. But she was only 30 or something.

Peter: Anyway, it's completely ruined her life.

Tommy: What does that look like for you? I mean, what happened in your world at the time?

Josh: Quarter-life crisis?

Peter: Yeah, so I As I said, I did the Ult MBA, took some time off, uh, and in going through the process, and whether it was the Ult MBA combined— I think it was obviously combined with the fact that I had a lot of time to think and to just reflect on a lot of stuff that we just talked about around, you know, what is it that I want to work towards, what is it that I want to achieve. I was in quite a well-paying job in quite a well-established company, um, as part of the Qantas Group, um, doing some good work but it was like there was something missing for me and I was like, what is it, what is it, what is it?

Josh: What sort of role was it? What were you doing?

Peter: I was doing like, uh, I was like head of client engagement for a project that we're working on. So we're doing like a business transformation project which was bringing in a new software and it was like a tech-based kind of project which I thought was really cool at the time, and it was. And I got to liaise with a bunch of clients and fly around Australia and do all that. And you know, from looking on the outside in you might say, that's a good job. You know, this guy's doing quite well. He's only 27 and he's doing this and this and that. But for me, it was like, it was never the end. It was never the thing that I wanted to be doing. And so what I began to sort of work out was like, or think about was what am I working towards? And if there is something that I'm working towards, which for me ultimately came down to being able to own my own time, being able to work for myself and to pick projects and people that I wanna work with, by my own choice, not because I've been— they've been forced upon me. So then it was like, okay, well, what does that look like? And why— what are you waiting for in order to make that happen? Um, and then over the last 12 months, I've sort of been unpacking that to, to get to where I am now.

Tommy: And does it feel like you're getting closer towards that, like actually putting that process into play? Does that get you there?

Peter: Yeah, I think so. Uh, I think I would now— sorry, I am now, you know, the, the master of my own universe in that I have my own business, um, which is Human Periscope or Periscope Coaching, um, and is something that I have focused on solely full-time for sort of the last couple of months, 3 months in particular. Prior to that, it was like a side project and I had another job. So I left that job that I was talking about, went and helped a guy at a startup, um, as a contractor and helped him build this kind of startup up and thought maybe the startup life's for me, uh, and then quickly realised that no, it wasn't. Um, because again, I was working for someone else, the founders, and we just weren't quite aligning in where I want to spend my time and where he wants to spend his time. And, um, and also I had the Alt MBA work I was also doing as a coach, and then I was coaching people on the side as well as part of, um, kind of a natural, uh, thing that kind of happened. So I had like 3 jobs essentially, um, and so part of me working out, well, the one thing that I want to do is be able to own my own time, so I need to let 1 or 2 of these go. And the one was working for someone else, which was the startup at the time, but totally amicable and we shook hands and we still speak regularly. So, um, and what's the thought process?

Josh: Like, what were the number one fears making that jump?

Peter: I think the number one fear is, uh, it comes down to something that I like to speak about a lot, and I think you guys have spoken about, is imposter syndrome of like, well, who am I to start my own business? Who am I to pick the clients that I want to work with? And how the hell am I going to make that happen? Like, that storey that we start to tell ourselves and the the defaults that you talked about of, but you're meant to have a career, you're meant to have a steady income, you're meant to work and work and work, you know, get married, have kids, live that dream. And I was just like, no, I don't want to do that. So the fear camp comes from, well, how do I make this work on my own?

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: Because no one's going to help me, responsible except for myself.

Josh: Yeah. And it's, and it's that thing as well of identifying whether the thing that we want now is what we want or whether it's a trend. Yeah, you know, like there's probably like startup land has sort of fallen into that trap now where like having a startup is an accessory.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: What was, what was the process in identifying, is this actually what I really want or is this the thing that the world is telling me that I want?

Peter: Yeah, it's a great question. I, uh, I think the, the way that I unpacked that for me was it was looking at my relationship to money, to be honest. So it was, um I could stay involved in a startup, get some equity, have a salary, and potentially, you know, if the storey that you tell yourself is the startup goes really well and you make a bunch of money, that's awesome.

Tommy: Fingers crossed.

Peter: Fingers crossed. Yeah, that's great. If I go out on my own and I'm a freelancer, there's no guarantee of anything. And so for me it was like, well, what's— what does that look like? Do you care either way? Like, if you had $10 million on the table right now, which way would you go? And like, without even thinking, I just knew. I was like, well, I want to go and do my own thing. I want to be a freelancer and want to try and build my own business, in which case that's kind of your answer. Yeah, which is scary.

Tommy: Yeah, the whole journey is scary. Josh and I, I think on episode 1, we kind of introduced each other. Yeah, which is probably the easier option to go with. Yeah, you know, when someone asks you, what, tell me about yourself, that can be the worst, that can be tough. And Josh said that I was an entrepreneur, and I was kind of like, I think I was like, I probably wouldn't identify that as myself. And I totally get what he means. It's like I probably have a more of an entrepreneur approach or mindset versus have done anything that's super entrepreneurial, building something much bigger than myself.

Peter: Yeah.

Tommy: What do you— and I've been obsessed with one of the episodes of Akimbo, Seth, about freelancers. How good is that episode?

Peter: So that's one of the few podcast episodes that I listen to I must have been like 5 or 6 times.

Tommy: Seriously, I've listened to it 5 times and I told you, and I mean, I think you think about a lot of that stuff anyway, but the around, what do you think in this landscape now of so many entrepreneurs or people calling themselves entrepreneurs versus freelancers? What's your thoughts around that?

Peter: Yeah, it's fascinating 'cause I, for whatever reason, the word freelancer felt a bit dirty to me at the time or months ago, it sort of, I was like, oh, To me, a freelancer is like someone who's designing logos that you get on Fiverr and you pay $10 and that's, that's a freelancer.

Tommy: So I agree with you.

Peter: I was like, I don't know what that, that's not me. And then I heard that podcast and the distinction he made, which was basically an entrepreneur is someone who makes money in their sleep based on something they've built.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: And is kind of building it up to sell it off to move on to the next thing or building it up to a point where someone else can run it. Whereas a freelancer is someone who is, they are the product to a degree, like their expertise, their knowledge, their service that they're providing is the thing. And so it's that time. And so when I heard that, I was like, well, I guess I am a freelancer, in which case I need to let go of all those badges and, you know, accolades of all the, the storeys that we tell again around being an entrepreneur.

Tommy: I think the danger in the blurring the lines of thinking that you're trying to build— and I know I've done that with my business— of thinking, yeah, how can I sort of streamline processes to get other people to do it? But then In that podcast, he talks about you're blurring the line, therefore probably delivering a less— yeah, lesser product because it's not you doing it.

Peter: Yes.

Tommy: And then you hire yourself again, so you become this middle person between freelancer and entrepreneur where you're the cheapest, obviously, to hire.

Peter: Yeah.

Tommy: And so you resort to yourself again.

Josh: Josh? Well, I think it's also this idea that if you be that your true self up front, if you communicate and distil what you do in a truthful way, then there's no surprises, right? Like how many, I know that when I started, you know, my first business when I was, you know, 14 years old and you'd go to the website and I did everything, right? It's like TV commercials, films, TV, like, yeah. And the list, the list. But the thing is I hadn't done any of it, but I'm like, this is what I'm going to do. I think that what's interesting at play and you talk about it on your blog, which is, rather than talking about fake it till you make it, it's the as if, you know, act as if. And I think that the, as powerful, you know, as titles are just titles and labels are just labels and the clothes we wear are just the clothes that we wear, we can add meaning to these things and we choose whether we add meaning or not. And so my choice, like I make some choices where it's like, I know that the clothes I wear doesn't define me or whatever, but if it flicks something in my brain to make me think in a different way, yeah, I'm going to do it. So me dressing as if I'm fucking Steve Jobs, which, let's put the elephant in the room, I have Steve Jobs glasses, I've got a—

Tommy: I thought Steve was here.

Peter: I didn't know. Isn't that what this podcast is? Yeah, this is Steve.

Josh: We sold it in as me being Steve. But the thing is that it's I think that it's fine to be able to do that. I think getting obsessed with labels, I think that there's a lot of people who love the idea, they romanticise being a writer and being at the desk and all that sort of thing. But the actual, and they even buy iA Writer on Mac and they're fucking, it looks great.

Tommy: It looks like the old typewriters.

Josh: Yeah, it looks great, right? It's just like, yeah, I've arrived, guys. This is like, I'm a writer now. I've updated my Twitter bio. And it's like, what else, what more can I, that's right, I can add an H1 tag on my website that I'm a writer, 'cause you know, from SEO. Another great episode that Seth's done about SEO as well. But I think that with any piece of advice, there is a paradox where the opposite can also be true, which I find interesting as well. What's something that you thought was true? This is a fucking, this is a Tim Ferriss question. It's—

Tommy: Sorry guys, Steve is gone, Tim's here.

Josh: Tim Ferriss asks this question a lot, which is like, what's something that you believed 18 months ago that you believe to be true that you don't believe?

Peter: Yeah, okay, it's a great question. First thing that springs to mind is that I'm a coach. So that's not something that I've ever considered some, like a badge that I would put upon myself. And even still, I still get a little bit weird about this idea that I'm a coach, but I've changed my mind about it because through going through the Ult MBA, I was asked to join the coaching team firstly. But what I've started to realise on reflection is the coach is the word, whatever, but the way that I approach things and the way that I think about things and the way that I interact with individuals, regardless of whether it's in the role of a coach or in the role of a client liaison when I was at corporate or doing the Ult MBA or just hanging out with my friends, it's the characteristics that make up the role of what a coach is, which is asking really good questions, being super curious and holding space for other people to talk. If that's what it means to be a coach, then yeah, I guess I'm a coach.

Josh: And that's that as if model, right? And I think that it's probably, I just know that when I was a digital content producer, at the radio station, I realised that I did this weird thing. I went from having my own, uh, business, sort of doing the freelancing type of thing, and I was a digital content producer, and I sort of knew that I was like the— there was above me, there was the digital manager and then the digital director. And then what I found happened is over the, the course of 11 months, I became what the digital content producer was. I was like, not only in what I wear, but the way that I acted in the com— and I knew that when I'm in a meeting, the digital content producer can talk about this, but they don't like, you shouldn't be talking about stuff that's well beyond, 'cause at the beginning I came in and I'm like, all right guys, I was working on Fifi and Julz's show and I was spending more time from a content side of things being like, oh, this would be great gear, let's do like this, here's an idea and less on the digital stuff. And I think that we do inevitably become our labels. So it's important that if you are going to use them, that you embody them. Yeah, you, you pick the ones that are true to you, mate.

Tommy: I did a life coach course when I was 20.

Josh: Really? 21. Yeah, you were. What'd you learn?

Tommy: Um, nothing.

Josh: No, what did you— because the thing is, like, you, uh, you finished, uh, Tommy finished school the age of 17. Yeah, 17 or 16.

Tommy: Yeah, I left school year 11, 17 at the time. Or not even 17, yeah, I wouldn't have turned 17 yet. And so I then went into landscaping, it was my exit plan. My dad had a business, got into that, beautiful, I was allowed to leave. And then I saw that I could be a personal trainer. I saw that I was old enough to do a course to become a personal trainer. So I did that, it was an 8-week, similar to the alt-MBA, you know, short, very intensive, fuck all work really. But I did it and then I I had this moment where I was like, I dealing with people with their bodies and I was like, I want to go a bit deeper. And I was always into that stuff, but I did the course and in fairness, I learned a lot of those, you know, asking good questions and being open and removing your sort of either agenda or ego within, you know, the confines of the conversation. So it's more like you were totally open to what the person has inside of them. And I was too young really to apply it. And to be honest, I went in and it was probably a safety thing that I was like, I'm not actually gonna become a life coach 'cause I'm too young. And sure, I mean, there is kids now, 21, trying to do life coaching courses. The amount of life I have now, I've lived since then is so much. I've got a kid, so I've got more to offer now if I was ever to do that. But I did feel a bit of an imposter there, but I had made some good friendships. And so it was a good experience.

Josh: It's a community. What sort of people were in your class for Alt MBA?

Peter: Yeah, so, uh, it's— it was a fascinating mix, to be honest. So I had, um, in my particular class, I had like a CTO, Chief Technology Officer, in a big casino in Vegas, right through to a management consultant from Sydney, uh, and then, you know, everyone in between. We had people in Seattle, people in San Fran, people in New York, performing artists, freelancers, entrepreneurs, all those labels that we just talked about. Um, we've had since then as part of the coaching team, I've seen people that are 85, people that are 22, um, people from Europe, people from, you know, Africa, people from South America, people from America. So it's really, it's really diverse.

Josh: It sounds exciting because the thing is I feel like I push back on traditional courses, and the thing that I find interesting about Old MBA, it's probably the same sort of thing I feel like with religion, right? Where it's like the thing that like I hear my, you know, mates and in the different, different religions and all that sort of thing, I'm like, man, I actually like the community they have. It's like almost tempting, like, man, if I could just like be there for the community and not have to do— and I've had these conversations with mates where I'm like, bro, it's just you and I, like, do you believe in this bit or is it mainly like You know, because yeah, there's so many elements. Like I think about even—

Tommy: And you didn't grow up with Jewish friends.

Josh: No. The food, dude. Really?

Peter: What do they do?

Josh: What sort of food?

Tommy: Oh my God, after, there's just the best food, so much of it. You would have loved it.

Josh: Well, that's even like, yeah, my main—

Tommy: Community food and the religious stuff.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: And so that's the interesting thing. But alt-MBA, I guess, is almost religion without some of the excess stuff.

Tommy: Everyone's looking for a community to surround them. Around themselves with. And I said, you know, it's kind of what we're doing with the podcast. We didn't— I didn't know you. Yeah, personally, as in one-on-one, face-to-face yesterday. Yeah, now I do. And we're kind of building this up. Turns out you bloody live right near here, around the corner.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, very cool.

Peter: It's sort of what Seth talks about in his book Tribes, right? Which is like, we're looking for people that are like-minded, people like us, to do things like this, is sort of the phrase he uses a lot.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. And so before we, before we move, move on and keep chatting, we've got to at least do this 7-Eleven thing. This feels Now that we've like been talking deep, this is the most gimmicky, jarring transition ever.

Tommy: Josh messaged Peter and said, mate, what's your drink of choice? And he said long black. And so I had the idea.

Josh: So non-Australians wouldn't even know what that is.

Tommy: Well, they— it's an Americano.

Peter: Yeah, an Americano.

Tommy: If you're in America, it's a— what's it in Italy?

Peter: Coffee without milk. I don't know. What do you—

Tommy: I asked for— actually, no, I asked for an Americano in Europe.

Josh: So anyway, Tommy has been drinking 7-Eleven coffees, which comes out of a machine. Being in Melbourne, there is a massive sort of hipster coffee snobbery that goes on. Are you part of this culture?

Peter: I feel like we're in the thick of it, right? We're in Abbotsford right now.

Josh: Where do you get your coffee from in Abbotsford? Do you go to Chen Ho? Do you go to—

Peter: I don't, I've been to Proud Mary a few times.

Josh: Dr. Morse.

Peter: Dr. Morse a couple of times. That's around the corner from my house.

Josh: What's your regular? Where do you go? Three Bags Full, I call it.

Peter: Okay, yeah, just down the road from me.

Josh: Good fritters.

Peter: Yes, yeah, excellent fritters.

Josh: You're right, good small talk.

Tommy: Now back to my idea. So what I wanted to do was, because I was like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if we got him a 7-Eleven coffee? And then we're like, what if we got him 7-Eleven coffee?

Josh: It's our first p-p-p-p-perrang on the show.

Tommy: And then downstairs from a good cafe, some, someone that makes legit coffee we get another long black and just see if you can tell the difference. So that's my thing. I've been like, no one knows the bloody difference. $1 coffee, $4 coffee.

Josh: And the thing is that what I want to preface this with is because this does feel very radio show sort of-esque, I want to say that this is more of an experiment than it— like, it's not a prank. Yeah, because there's Peter's across it.

Tommy: You know exactly what's happening.

Josh: So Peter, we've got 2 cups here, 2 cups of coffee. And so we're going to get you to maybe smell both of them first. So smell the one that's in Tommy's hand first.

Tommy: No, I reckon he sips it first. He has to sip it first and then tell us all of the other, all of the above.

Josh: Okay, we're creating the rules as we go. Okay, definitely. Which one do you want?

Tommy: Just sip that.

Peter: Sip this one, all right.

Josh: Sip that.

Peter: This is for the hipsters of Melbourne.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: Yes.

Josh: We don't know what one it is. It's a white cup.

Tommy: Okay, thank you. How does it taste? I'll take that back.

Peter: It tastes quite good actually.

Josh: Okay, do you wanna rinse your mouth with the fizzy water?

Peter: Got my sparkling water.

Tommy: This is what hipster cafes do, they give you fizzy water to cleanse your palate.

Josh: Yeah, exactly, it's like sniff a nut or something, what is it?

Tommy: Okay, so this is, this is the second one, second cup.

Josh: Okay, so Peter has drunk both of the long blacks.

Tommy: Which one was better, number, the first one or the second one?

Peter: I want to say the first one tasted better.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: Uh, and I think That's because the second one is the 7-Eleven coffee. Is that correct?

Josh: Oh, this is controversial. You got it wrong. Yes. And which is amazing because the difference in cost is probably exorbitant. Like the— Really?

Tommy: So the one, the second one was the real coffee. And I wanna, I'll pour it all out.

Peter: I mean, this is a big deal because I can save $3 a day now and start going to 7-Eleven.

Josh: This is huge. You'll be able to buy a house next year.

Tommy: This is him.

Josh: I think that's how it works.

Tommy: This is a nice one. I think it proves my point.

Peter: Wow.

Tommy: That there's not, like in terms of—

Josh: Wait, hang on. That one that you just gave him now is the—

Tommy: Yeah, he gets both.

Josh: Yeah, but that's the—

Peter: This is the nice one.

Josh: Which isn't the 7-Eleven one.

Peter: Was the one that I said was the 7-Eleven one. So now I don't know which one to drink.

Josh: So the nice one is the 7-Eleven. If I've learned anything, it's if you want a nice coffee, it's the 7-Eleven coffee.

Tommy: Yes.

Peter: So now I'm torn about which one to drink.

Tommy: Drink both.

Josh: Yeah, you'll be buzzing.

Tommy: But isn't that funny? So that was my whole thing, that if you're a long black drinker—

Josh: I mean, we're going that Peter's the decider for the world, but no, I'm fine with that. I'm fine too.

Tommy: But anyway, now you got your coffee. That was your drink of choice.

Josh: I hope Jason Fox, who we had on the other day, is just listening right now. Sorry. At a coffee shop, just like, just throwing—

Peter: I've never met Jason, but I'm sorry. I feel like I've let the whole of Melbourne down. Yeah, the coffee scene is now dead.

Tommy: You've helped the video that I'm making about all this.

Josh: We actually need to get Jason to do it, 'cause I feel like he'll get into it in a big way.

Peter: This is the thing about this challenge is everyone watching or listening is like, "Oh, he can't tell the difference. I'll be able to tell the difference." Which is probably true.

Tommy: I mean, were you confident before going into it that you would have been able to?

Peter: I like my coffee and I have a black coffee every day, 2 coffees a day. And I usually treat myself to a cafe, like 3 bags full.

Josh: Bradford Tea.

Tommy: You've been wasting your money the whole time.

Josh: Well, this is my theory. So this is the interesting bit, which is like the 7-Eleven coffee is made out of them with a machine versus barista-made coffee, which is made with a person. I guess there is a certain— there's a level of artistry maybe, but there's also a bunch of marketing that goes on. Yes. You were doing between, I think it was like January and April, you're working on the, or being part of the Marketing Summit, is that what it's called?

Peter: Marketing Seminar.

Josh: Seminar, that's it, the Marketing Seminar. What's the deal? What do you, what's that all about?

Peter: So that's another one of Seth's courses, which is not overly similar to the Ultimate MBA in that it's more self-paced and it's more like his 60 lessons, his 60 videos, his 60 exercises, go through them at your own pace. There is a community of people there that do it with you and you can get feedback and that sort of thing. But, um, that's more, I guess you would say, traditional online learning in that here's Seth's idea, here's his assertion about a particular thing to do with marketing, now try it out for yourself kind of thing.

Josh: What was the biggest learning from that?

Peter: Uh, the biggest learning from that was, you know, it was probably building on some of the learnings from the old MBA for me, which is about this idea of empathy and Like, it's a, it's a bit of a buzz term at the moment, I think, empathy. But, um, being able to truly understand what it means to sit in the shoes of someone else so that you can talk to that person based on where they're coming from. And there's a quote, I think it's from the UltimBA actually, which is that people don't fall in love— um, sorry, people don't change because you tell them to. Like, because you go, here's my pros and cons list, look at all the pros, you should change your mind. It's that people change their mind 'cause they fall in love with a different version of the future.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: So for the marketing seminar and for the marketing and the storeys that we tell, it's about how do you talk to that version of the future that they wanna fall in love with and paint that picture for them?

Josh: Do you think there's, I don't know if it's social media that's doing this, but everyone is following the school or there's a lot of people who are following the school of thought or just copying, say, what the Gary Vaynerchuk of the world are doing and they've got the, the photo of them with a big bit of text and they're all about that hustle.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: What's, 'cause I watched a video with Seth and Gary.

Peter: Great video, isn't it?

Josh: Yeah, great video because I don't necessarily, I think that this school of hustle, there's an alternate way.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: And I think that that's one of the things that maybe Seth, do you feel that he instils that sort of thing in his programs?

Peter: I think so, for sure. I'd say I push back a lot on that word hustle, and I'm not even really sure why. I think maybe the storey I tell about that word is that it's like, ah, work, work, work, grind, grind, grind, hustle, hustle, hustle. And I'm just kind of like, die, die, die, die, die, die. Exactly. And I think, uh, in fact, Hamish talked about this when you guys had him on, which was like, being busy is so overrated. Yeah, right. It's like, what if you just focus on the things that are important to you and do them really well?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: I also don't just believe in wearing how long you spent at work as a badge of honor, which is that whole thing of like, what are you doing between 9:00 PM and 1:00 AM? I'm like, fucking heading to sleep, Gary. I'm in, well, I get in bed at 9:00, I might listen to a podcast, but I'll be asleep by 9:30.

Tommy: Well, Gary was walking around the office at 11:00 PM the other night saying that he was, you know, putting in the work, no one else is here. You're on your phone, bro.

Peter: Sliding into the DMs, yeah.

Tommy: No, but I mean, it's— I think it's different when there's a dude who's the CEO of and founder of a huge company in the workload. Do you think there's a thought in people's minds that they should, they need to be like that, or they, they need to do this, and it's so out of alignment with who they are?

Peter: Yeah, maybe. I think it's a, I think it's a dangerous, it's a dangerous like mould to try and replicate. And I think you sort of touched on it, um, which was that's Gary Vee, who's the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. But what if your goal is not to create a multi-million dollar company? What if you don't want to be an entrepreneur? You know, we talked about freelancing before. What if for me it's just about having, you know, 5 to 10 clients that enable me to live the life I want to live and support the work that I want to support so that I can do the things I want to do? Like, that doesn't mean I have to work 14 hours a day like Gary Vee. So I think it's about being clear on, well, what's it for for Gary? So for for him, that's the way he keeps his company running, and that's the way that he probably gets off. He probably loves it.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: Um, but for people out there that are looking at that, it's like, that's for him. Is it for you? Is that what you need to do to be able to get the things that you need to, um, to make you happy?

Josh: And I think that there's like— my favorite, uh, word at the moment is paradox. I was catching up with Jason Fox, and he was talking about paradox and all that sort of thing, and With everything that there is a rule for, the opposite is true, right? So with this hustle, there is also someone who, and Derek Sivers or Jason Fried or— Tim Ferriss. Yeah, Tim Ferriss. There's the complete opposite school of thought, which is actually let's be a little bit more thoughtful here. Let's spend less time. I think that it's a—

Tommy: It's 4 hours specifically for Tim.

Josh: Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is with, with Tim, he's even, you know, I think he's come to hate that 4-hour term, right? Because it's the other thing too.

Tommy: Tim took it really literally. If you read the book, I don't think he's talking about actually physically putting in 4 hours of work.

Josh: Well, it's prescriptive, right? And I think the thing is, and the reason that Gary resonates with so many people is it is prescriptive. It's like the way that you're gonna build up your real estate business is you need captions on your video. It's like, as long as you have captions on the video and you can have the progress bar that goes along the video until it ends, because we're not gonna, no one's going to know.

Tommy: If I don't know visually when it's ending, I'm not watching it, man. I saw a— there's a plumber in Adelaide who has a podcast. Maybe he's a plumber or he's a landscaper.

Josh: You don't have to go too specific.

Tommy: It literally looks like Gary Vee stuff. And I think, really, God, this dude's putting in a lot of effort now because I know how hard it is to caption every single video. Yeah. And, and get the aesthetic looking like that consistently. I'm thinking, I wonder if that's paying off for his business. This is a plumbing or landscaping business. Like, is that reaping him the reward of money in his field, or is he— maybe he wants to be an entrepreneur.

Josh: Yeah, I think the other thing too is wherever you put your energy, it will probably end up working out for you, right? Like, that's the other fact of it is like we look back retrospectively and say, man, told you I needed to do the hustle. Yeah, but maybe that's not the thing that got you there. Like, and, and that's a big question, I think, that— and that's Whenever we hypothesise on what we— like, we look back and like, man, told you we needed to do like 100 episodes. We need to do this 20 episodes before we create this story. And the reality is that if we went hard on episode 1 and we kept going, it would have probably had the same effect. We might even be in a bigger place.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: How do you, um, how do you reconcile all of this stuff? What do you, what do you prioritise as especially around coaching. There's, there's lots of different coaches. There's a lot of people selling a dream.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: How do you avoid either getting into that, or how do you reconcile those ideas?

Peter: Yeah, it's a fair question. Uh, I think so one of the questions that I like to ask a lot of myself and of my clients and of everything essentially that I do is, what's it for? And it's a— it sounds like a really simple question, but it basically, it allows you to put intention into everything that you do. So whether it's what's this email for? Because we all get a bunch of pointless emails.

Tommy: Including Seth from Josh.

Peter: Sorry, Seth. What's this email for, Josh?

Tommy: It's for Peter, I'll reply.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for me in terms of, so my coaching business, I ask myself what's it for? And so for me, I'm also a big proponent of Simon Sinek.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: And his golden circle and the idea that—

Josh: Start with why.

Peter: Start with why. So, For me, the coaching is one of my whats, for example, but why I do what I do is that I enjoy helping others see things that they can't see.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: So they can change their corner of the world, right? That's my why statement. And so I'm not necessarily attached to this idea that I have to be a coach forever. I'm obsessed with or attached to this idea that I need to live my why, which is helping other people see things they can't see.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: They can change their corner of the world. Now that might look like a blog, which I have. It might look like coaching, which I do. It might look like the Ultimate MBA, which I also do. So they're all cool things that I like doing that are in alignment with that. And so when I think about things like hustle and grind and you should be doing all these other things, I'm like, what's that for? Is that in service to my why or no? Working 14 hours is actually the opposite of what I want to be able to do. I want to be like Hamish the other day, which is like slowing down a bit and taking time to fucking smell the roses and live my life a little bit. Absolutely. That's what it's for. That's what I see my role is for.

Tommy: Well, it's like yoga. Yoga is good and would be good for everyone, but if it's not If it's not going to help you run the marathon, then maybe it's not the thing to focus on in this moment.

Peter: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: The fourth thing I would say— That's your mum. My mum's a yoga teacher. I just wanted to get a full analogy.

Josh: That was a really— when it comes to analogies—

Tommy: You like that one?

Josh: No, that was horrendous. Okay. Because you're halfway through like, mate, everyone needs yoga.

Tommy: I was thinking about—

Josh: or, or maybe you don't, depending if you're going for a run or no.

Peter: Everyone would benefit from yoga. Exactly.

Tommy: But they would, but I think, yeah, yeah. G'day guys, how good's the coffee?

Peter: Which one? Exactly, the 7-Eleven one.

Josh: I'm so confused. The one Rader loves. The 7-Eleven one is good.

Peter: 7-Eleven coffee.

Josh: No, it's a, um, talking about personal brand type stuff. Yeah, we spoke, we spoke about my, um, uh, transformation.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: Of late, and I am someone who embraces it because I realise that one day I rock up and I've got different glasses on and I've no longer wear snapbacks, and I get that. And when— before we have guests on, I do a bit of social media looking around, stalking.

Peter: Stalking, stalking, stalking.

Josh: No, but I went— you've got a very locked down Facebook page, congrats. But, uh, you got the privacy locked in.

Tommy: Is that on purpose?

Peter: I didn't even know that.

Josh: Yeah, no, it's really good. Or you just don't post at all.

Peter: Yeah, I think it's the latter.

Josh: You, uh, 36 weeks ago, whatever it was, I mean, who's counting, you did a profile— you had a profile pic and I could 100% relate to what was going on, which was like there's a slight pivot in what Peter's offering to the world, which is black and white, a little bit more sophisticated. You know, this is gonna be the— and you just see Peter's mates being like, and maybe it's an Australian thing, but it's like, what's going on here, bro? What the fuck? What's the— Who do you think you are? This isn't LinkedIn. What's going on? Oh geez, looking sharp, bro.

Tommy: Is this a fair assessment of what went down?

Peter: That's 100% true.

Tommy: God, I love Josh.

Josh: The only thing that annoyed me about that film The only problem with that photo was I didn't have my glasses on at the time.

Peter: I had my contacts in. And so I'm like, if I would redo it, I would have these glasses on. 'Cause I just got them. These were like a week old at the time.

Tommy: Fiverr, you get that done.

Josh: Literally we waited, the rebranding of the Daily Talk Show was to coincide with my new glasses. So Tommy probably didn't even know that. But we waited for Tommy to have a kid so he could get a free family photo out of it. No, but do you think that there's a pushback in the world for personal change? Do you think that we dislike the idea that someone is externally changing who they are?

Peter: That's a really interesting question. I think in Australia in particular, we have this notion, I think it's in New Zealand too, of tall poppy syndrome, right? Which is like that you cut down the guy who's trying to stand out. And so I think when people see things that are different, and to go back to what we talked about earlier around the way we're conditioned is to be like, 'Well, that's something I notice. That's something that's out of the ordinary. I'm going to comment on that.' Yeah. No, I don't know necessarily that we deliberately have like malice behind it, like I want to cut him down because who does he think he is? But it's more like, 'Well, that's different.' It's observational, right?

Josh: Yeah, it's almost— but it's the— it's projecting, I think, in like the highest order. That's one of my favourite things. Anyone that ever says anything a little bit negative, I just say they're projecting. But it's a way of completely taking out any responsibility of my action.

Peter: No, because I think like the thing about that photo is like it's hilarious that you picked up on it.

Josh: It's a beautiful photo everyone, you should cheque it. It's also, you've used it as the header, which is exactly what I would do.

Peter: I'm really trying to own it.

Josh: Yeah, you have to.

Peter: The thing about it is like you talked about like the, the, um, like the, the fear that I had even just of putting that photo up because I knew the reaction that I got would be exactly what I would get because it's like this is pretty different. Like I haven't posted on Facebook for a year. Yeah. And The other thing was it was in service to one of my friends in New York who took the photo, who's a really good photographer, and I was like, I'll put it up for you, man. But I knew like that there would be this reaction. Yeah. Which is interesting.

Tommy: And now you're gonna have nightmares Josh has brought this up. But I guess people are looking in. Yeah, I don't know, Josh is one of the most interesting people I know in terms of—

Josh: Thanks, Tommy.

Tommy: Looking in and almost working out. And I think a lot of the time you're pretty spot on, dude.

Josh: No, I just think it's, um, there's these universal things that happen. I think like I'm an overthinker.

Tommy: Josh sometimes says to me, I've seen you've been changing these things.

Josh: My Bree's just leaving, so when you see Bree more— Bree works at Hey Tiger, which is a chocolate company that does chocolate, but all the money, all the profit goes to the Hunger Project in Africa. So it's a good cause.

Tommy: He's priming for free chocolate. Yeah, but you once, you said to me, Josh, oh, I've noticed you've 'Is the aesthetics changing a bit on your Insta? What's happening?' And I actually was like, what the fuck are you talking about? But maybe it was, maybe I'm not in touch and maybe I am changing something or haven't been doing. It was like, yeah, do you remember me saying that?

Josh: And I could, yeah, I don't think I told you that. Well, I think that this is an interesting time that we're at, right? 20 years ago, my mum could be a dental nurse and she, has her friends and she, you know, she just has to worry about the people that are at the shops and what she wears and all that sort of thing. And all of a sudden, every single person, doesn't matter what industry you're in, you have a platform, you have a channel, and you have a brand. And all of a sudden, my mum, who's a dental nurse, needs to know like what is her bio gonna say? What is the 140-character version of me? And like I see it where it's like when my dad would travel for work, mum goes, "Oh, make sure that you cheque in at the lounge on Facebook." Status. Put a photo up of the free coffee. Yeah, put up the, and it's an interesting idea, which is what Tommy and I have talked about, which is this all for content, which is how much of what you are doing do you think about the people Like say, having Seth, being on the live stream with Seth Godin.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: I reckon if I was sitting there, my smile would be at all the fuckers who said I couldn't do it. It is a little bit like, hey, you thought Josh Jansen was gone? I'm on the phone, I'm in fucking New York.

Tommy: Do you legit would?

Josh: I know, I seriously, there's a small part of me which is just like, and I think that what I use, there is a part of the fuel that I have, which is I don't really have enemies and I don't have anything, but I do, I take any little form of criticism and I just like put it into the machine. That's like the best bit of energy that I'm gonna have is any, like anyone that goes, "Oh, you're doing a podcast." Like, geez, is it not like that gives me fuel. That gives me fuel to be able to do it. Like, can you relate to this? Is it, what's your internal monologue saying?

Peter: So my internal monologue is not necessarily to use it as fuel. I like that. Um, mine's almost the opposite, which is— so we talked about what's it for earlier. My second favourite question you ask is who's it for? And in relation to that, who's it not for? And so if and when— more like when— I feel like I'm getting criticism or negative feedback or someone's calling me out on something like, hey, you started a blog, who do you think you are, it's 2018, I tell myself, well, it's not for them.

Josh: Yeah, right.

Peter: That everything that I do is not for everybody. Yeah, it's for a specific group of people who are interested in the things that I have to say or the things that I can help them with. And if someone is outside of that sphere, outside of that box, and they want to criticise me, that's fine. It's not for them. Yeah, that's what I tell myself. It's harder in practice, obviously, because you hear something or you read something, you're like, oh, come on, man, like, that's a bit hard taking on criticism.

Tommy: Like, even like, I feel things come up with a mate of mine who messaged me before said, you should change the title of your video to this, or you should put this in there. And automatically, you know, when you get a bit of a feeling, like, ugh, nah, but, justifying.

Josh: And that's been, I think, the journey that even Tommy, I've seen you go on, which is the role isn't to counter every piece of feedback. And so I try and it's that empathy game. If we can have empathy for others, we can understand what is the journey that they've been on to realise that. And so your friend is someone who's got a content mind, they're thinking about it, they've done it at scale and they have taken a position of mentorship. And so for them, they see this low-hanging fruit of being able to provide advice and give value And I think that if it's, I see those opportunities, like those moments as a real blessing because it, to me, it's like that we're close enough that they're bringing me into their inner monologue, their own anxieties, and then I can choose how I filter it. Is this default thinking or is this, is there actually something to learn? Just like if you go and do a traditional MBA, there is going to be a wealth of value that you're going to get, but it's probably not the value that you would have gotten 30 years ago. It's completely different.

Tommy: Yeah, I even feel like that hasn't changed, like the feelings still arise, but I think I've just got better at dealing with that feeling of criticism.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so like that came to my mind, I jumped on straight away, I changed it, messaged him back saying good pickup.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And I was— and I feel better about it. It's like, no, he actually made sense. And so when I actually just acted on The thing, 'cause you know when you've, you know when you probably should have done something or someone who is somewhere else gives you advice and you're like, I knew, yeah, 'cause I was kind of thinking that.

Josh: Well, you don't have the context, right? It's like with people saying, oh, for the first 100 episodes that we did, it's like, oh, you should be doing this or you should be doing that. And the thing is that it's not even that it's not for them, but they're looking at a different part of the journey. They're playing in a different game.

Tommy: They don't have to deal with Josh every weekday. And also, Josh has to deal with me, geez.

Josh: I have to deal with myself every day. It's pretty relentless. That's tough. Peter, you talk about, I was reading your blog, you were talking about in the shower, being in the shower.

Peter: Yep, which one? I've mentioned showers in a lot of my blogs.

Josh: It's a topic. No, you were talking about the, that it's the 5 minutes in our day where we can just chill out. Yeah, we— the, the thought—

Tommy: until you get a kid and you miss 2 days.

Josh: Really, you're going to do that?

Tommy: Seriously?

Josh: And you're having a go at me for not washing my top for 4 weeks?

Tommy: And I'll continue. I told you I can't handle criticism, bro.

Josh: Yeah, but I think that the, the interesting thing on the, the, the shower is it— I got really reflective on it because I'm like, I've actually realised that in this hyper-optimized world I have a podcast on, I have an audiobook, I have literally covered any— I will listen to an audiobook and then just put the sleep timer on and so then when I fall asleep like I'll then end up going back a little bit but there's no time where I'm not with noise.

Peter: Interesting.

Josh: Do you find that you need to fight to maintain that level of silence?

Peter: Totally, yeah, I think I, I used to, I used to have like a podcast or an audiobook on every time I showered, for example. Let's take the shower example, and I've forced myself to stop doing that. Yeah. And what I find is, and I think a lot of people have this, which is like your best ideas come to you when you're standing in the shower. And I was like, why is that? What, what is it about standing in the shower that all of a sudden sparks this thought, or some neuron connects and you remember that idea that you had 3 weeks ago? And What I tried to, or what I boiled it down to in my assertion is it's like time away from everything. It's no screen, no noise, just you and your subconscious mind processing the things that you probably don't even realise you're processing that sort of all of a sudden sparks a thought. It's not based on any science or anything. This is just my assertion.

Tommy: Well, I mean, the yoga guys, this is why.

Josh: But it all comes back to yoga. Unless you run, unless you run, which you don't need yoga. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: But yoga's good.

Josh: But the, um, No, it's interesting. It's the exact same reason why I thought the worst thing to ever happen to me— and this gives you a sense of my, uh, my life journey— the worst thing to ever happen was getting Wi-Fi on a plane. Yeah, because I agree with that. Yeah, because I was just like, I went from having this sacred time where I was just with my own thoughts to being like, you know, I could do email, right?

Peter: I totally agree with that.

Tommy: People do on a plane, it's go through photos and delete old photos from your photo book. It's really strange. I do that a lot.

Peter: I do that too. So I just had a trip from, you know, from— I flew from Dallas to Sydney, which is 17 hours, and there's no Wi-Fi.

Josh: Very quickly, before you even talk about that, do you know the difference between Perth to the US versus Melbourne to the US? Because Tommy was saying— I was talking about this. So Tommy was saying—

Tommy: Tommy, after— I was watching all the criticism, so here we go. He's going alpha.

Josh: He's He stood up off his chair.

Tommy: No way.

Peter: This is threatening.

Josh: What I wanna know, 'cause Tommy was like, "Ah, bro, they think bloody Perth's further away than Melbourne." I couldn't actually work out the math to, like, is there significant difference between flying from Perth to New York? Like East Coast. So going from Perth to New York.

Tommy: Well, you're not flying back over Auckland if you're flying from Perth. I think you fly the other way.

Josh: Yeah, but so you'd go through like, you'd go like Emirates or would you go like, What would—

Peter: so now you can do, I think there's, well, in fact there is a Qantas flight actually that goes Perth to London direct now. Yeah. So call that, I think it's 17 hours, um, and then London to New York I think is like 8.

Josh: Yes, that's huge.

Peter: So that's like you're talking like 25 hours versus flying from Melbourne to Los Angeles, which way, it's like 14, and then from there to New York's about 5. Yes, it's a little bit shorter.

Josh: Glad we got that covered. Sorry, because it was seriously on my mind. I'm like, maybe there is something, maybe there is something. And it was because I think what confused Tommy is he thought that you could only go one way around the world. The world is flat. Yeah, but it's flat. I think that was the problem. It is right. Yeah, I can't even remember what you were saying now. I just had to get that off my chest.

Tommy: Josh 1, Tommy 0.

Peter: That's right.

Josh: So what was meeting your idol is—

Tommy: Is he your idol?

Peter: I mean, he's someone I look up to. Yeah, someone who's— I appreciate and look up to.

Josh: Yeah. What's the internal monologue on that sort of thing?

Peter: So there's a bit of imposter syndrome, first and foremost, especially because I knew, so I'd met him once before, but this time it was like, I'm gonna be sitting down with him one-on-one on Facebook Live. So there was, of course, there was that like, who do I think I am? Who am I? What am I gonna have to say? He's gonna find me out, I'm an idiot, I'm an imposter. So all of those storeys went through my head naturally. And what was really cool uh, when I met him was that he's just a guy.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: And he's the most humble, down-to-earth guy. He sets up in like a co-working space, not dissimilar to this, and we sat down and we had a chat, and then we both did some work, and there's other people working, and it's like just 5 people in a room doing some work. Yeah. Only he's broadcasting to, you know, 300,000 people around the world. Um, and then we go away into his little room, which is like set up with cameras and the bookshelf and everything, and, and he was just the most humble, nice, down-to-earth dude. And he speaks how he writes or he writes how he speaks, whatever order you wanna put it in, but—

Josh: Short sentences.

Peter: Basically short sentences, these short assertions and they're always ridiculously articulate and profound and you're like, how did you even do that?

Josh: Does he have that like double bass sound that he has on the song? Bom ba dum bom ba dum bom. Yeah, well, how does that go? Bree was getting upset 'cause I'd listen to that when I go to sleep and all that sort of thing. And if he goes through heaps of thoughts in one go, it's almost like a singing.

Tommy: It's a lot of fat bass. How are other people to him? You know, because you said he's just a dude.

Peter: Yeah.

Tommy: And I, and I think, you know, Josh and I having businesses where we're dealing with other businesses, quite, you know, big name companies and stuff, and you realise that the success, like, they're just having the same conversations as us, they're just at a different level.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: What are people surrounding, you know, in a co-working space, what are they looking at a dude like him? Are they— can you notice that?

Josh: Because the context that Tommy's pulling from is it's like having been in radio, it's like you'll have Will Ferrell or you'll have Justin Bieber or you have, you know, these big guests in.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: And you sort of become— yeah, you become aware of everyone is just a person.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: Um, Seth is one of those people who I— like, I would be more excited to meet Seth than I would Beyoncé or something like that, right? And so, yeah, it is— I find it an interesting thing because I almost like that's where I can, I can't relate to the whole Kim Kardashian thing or stuff, but being, having read someone's work for so long and to have someone who has informed so many of your beliefs.

Peter: Yes.

Josh: And it's like meeting the Pope.

Tommy: Intellectuality rock stars.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Was there a vibe of people around the office like?

Peter: So it was, so when I say coworking space, there were the, it's, it was what they call—

Tommy: Maccas.

Peter: Yeah, exactly. We were at Cap City, who was like old MBA headquarters. So it is the, the two other people in the room at the time work for him as part of the old MBA.

Josh: So it's an open plan office.

Peter: It's basically a converted apartment, like it's an apartment block he's converted into an office space. There's a kitchen, he cooks lunch, like it's crazy.

Josh: Yeah, great.

Peter: Um, so the two people work for him, they're both, uh, I would say, I think they're both probably my age, quite young. Um, but the way he interacts with them is like they're just, they're anybody, and he is anybody. So like he'll be working on something and then he'd walk over and say, well, Josh, what do you think about this? And just like have a conversation, and then he'll go back to his laptop and away he goes. And so I don't think for them they necessarily have this like stardom. In fact, they're probably used to it by now because they work with him every day. Um, but certainly I think, like you said, Josh, is some people do— is like, that's Seth Godin, I could never have a conversation with him, or whatever.

Josh: And I just find it fascinating in the sense of also like from an age point of view too, like a wisdom sort of thing, is it's like he has gone through Email, like, you know, you— I bought an old Seth Godin book that was like e-marketing. Like, I've bought a book on, uh, celebrity famous people's email addresses that he created. I just like, just for a bit of shits and giggles, I'm like, what's like the oldest Seth Godin book that I could buy? I bought one on, um, different emojis, like different like keyboard smileys or whatever, which is funny because he now— I remember reading a blog post about him talking about not liking people doing like smileys, emojis, emojis in email.

Tommy: Yeah, um, because you get just all emojis.

Peter: Did you send him a smiley?

Josh: I haven't said— and the other thing too, I just, I change, you know, it's the equivalent of me dressing like Steve Jobs. My— I do my own pet peeve, which is I always say, like, if I'm sending you an email, I'll be like, hey Peter. But I've started a bit like— the last email I looked back on, I was Seth, comma, which is like such a, like, there's some sort of, a lot of people do that now. It's the same people who write best at the end of an email. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's—

Tommy: I do it to you sometimes just for being—

Josh: and then you spell my name wrong. No, it's, it's, it's interesting. The, um, yeah, the, that, that idea of he's got so much wisdom, he's come from such a long way. But the other thing too is that it's like Alt MBA is starting to, he's leaving, that's gonna be his legacy in so many ways.

Tommy: You did really well on that. I mean, just from—

Josh: The livestream you're talking about?

Tommy: Yeah, the livestream. You nailed it. You were really articulate and came across really well.

Peter: Yeah, it's hard to see that yourself. Obviously you guys would know what it's like when you see yourself on video for the first time or in a conversation live, you're like, oh, why did I say that? What are you doing? Why are you moving your head so much like that?

Josh: Well, we've done that 107 episodes. There's like a sort of a few hours of self-loathing after every single one. I look forward to that after this episode.

Tommy: Did you fist pump as you walked out? Yeah, nailed that.

Peter: No, I was, it was almost like one of those moments where you like black out.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: And I walked out, it was like, I have no idea what I just said. I hope it was articulate, I hope it made sense, but that was kind of fun.

Tommy: You know, the internet has connected Josh and myself to a lot of people and a lot of cool things have come from me putting out videos. I told a storey on this podcast about how I've become friends with a dude who's got his, got a show on Netflix. Yeah, called Longmire.

Peter: Awesome, awesome.

Tommy: 6 seasons, watch it.

Peter: But I will.

Tommy: This crazy story, it's one of my favourite storeys to tell. Yeah, you have to go back. Anyway, it turns out this dude saw one of my videos, told me, hey dude, I love that, cheque out my show. The dude lives next door to me.

Peter: Oh really?

Josh: Yeah. And so this is an Australian actor, older dude, his name's Robert Taylor. He spends a lot of his time in Hollywood and all that sort of thing. And he sent, he was in California, I think he was actually in New Mexico working on his show. And he sent Tommy a message about his O-Bike video that Tommy did.

Peter: I just saw that by the way, it was awesome.

Josh: I loved it. And so, you know, he said—

Tommy: Trying to land single-handedly.

Josh: Yeah, he's like, yeah, I'm like in the US watching this video, that sort of thing. And Tommy told me about this and a week later him and I are walking on the weekend with Amy, Tommy's wife, and Bree and Bodhi, and we, um, and Amy and Tommy like, I think that's Robert.

Tommy: Yeah, we walked past this guy and I was like, hang on a second, did you say anything? Yeah, and then I went back. He's like, hey, give me a hug! You're that guy!

Peter: Internet friends.

Tommy: Yeah, and then we went for a beer. Yeah, but my, so my point is that sort of like these things have connected me. Is there anything that happened from I guess being on Seth's thing.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, so I, uh, not necessarily from the Facebook Live, but like this idea of internet friends is something that I've come to love because all of the people that I work with in UltimBA are remote.

Josh: So they're on like Slack or what do you use?

Peter: Slack and Zoom.

Tommy: Well, you've got free accommodation in Vegas if you go.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, true, the casino.

Josh: You're right, I should have to be a server room, but yeah, but one of those.

Peter: Yeah, one of the ones that springs to mind is, um As a coach, I was looking after the Pacific time zone for the Ult MBA in November. And I've met this lady by the name of Jen Waldman who has since become like a friend, a client, a mentor, like just a really significant part of my working life and just my life in general, which we reflected on when I was in New York. And it was, she came to be in that time zone by bad math. So she was in New York and she thought, oh, if I do Pacific time, I'll get an extra 3 hours. But in actual fact, she lost 3 hours. And so because of that, we came to meet each other, and now we're working with each other, and now we're going to do a podcast together. And it's like this crazy serendipitous moment that you just never would have predicted. Yeah.

Tommy: And I think when you don't put weight on what you're getting out of it— like Rob said to me, I don't quite know what to do with you, you know, like he said, but he's looking at me going, I love what you do, but I— so it's like, I'm not relying on him. Yes, he's a lovely dude and we get along, we live next to each other.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: I think that people expect too much. It's this weird thing, it's the paradox again, right? Where it's like, it's the invest, like you need to be willing to invest in relationships with zero expectation.

Tommy: Totally.

Josh: And I think that everyone is trying to seal the deal or network in that sort of traditional sense where it's like, for me, it's about connecting and connecting with great people and, I think that that's, you know, the internet has done that so many times where it's like I've gotten so many clients and I've had so many, like back in when Twitter was just a thing that you'd get text messages, right? Like you would send text messages and it would go to all these other texts. Like there was so many people that I ended up catching up with or even Russ Keys who listens to the show. You know, he was talking, man, yeah, I emailed you in like 2011, you know, when you were doing Melbourne Game. It's a super powerful thing.

Tommy: You mentioned you're doing a podcast at some point with her.

Peter: Do it. Yeah.

Tommy: Make it happen.

Josh: What's the— doing the whole podcast thing, like what's the putting your coaching, can you coach yourself?

Peter: That's a good question. I think to a degree, but also not because we have too many preconceived ideas and storeys and notions in our head. So one thing we do within the, I feel like the old MBA keeps coming up, but we coach each other with the other coaches. So there's about 40 coaches and part of it is carving out time to just work on each other and helping each other in the projects we're working on.

Josh: And you, as I said, I always do a bit of social media research. You love to. Every single time I say this, he winces a little bit like, what the fuck have you found? I'm curious.

Tommy: Defy My Rebrand in 2002.

Peter: In 2004, you tweeted.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. No, man. You weren't tweeting then, you started in 2010. He's actually right. But the thing, you love sport. You're really into sport. You know, you— This is your life? Right now? Yeah, we're gonna bring out all of the people that you follow.

Peter: Yeah, he's your favourite footballer, Corey Anright.

Josh: No, but into sport. And so how much, what's the difference between a sport coach and the coaching that you do?

Peter: Fair question. I think, uh, the first thing that springs to mind is I think with a sports coach there's usually an element of them having a structure, an idea, a thing that they're trying to communicate. They're almost helping you work within a framework.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: I think with a, with a coach, and certainly I see my role, is not having any preconceived notions of where this needs to go, of having an open conversation, being curious enough to ask a question and not being attached to the outcome.

Tommy: And we sort of talked about this earlier, um, so only interested in their outcome. Yeah, yeah, what you're thinking about the outcome you want.

Peter: Exactly. But, but not even saying this is the outcome that I want to get this person to, just being like, let's see where this goes. So I think it almost comes down to like, a sports coach to me is almost what you would call, I guess, a mentor in a professional context, which is like, based on my experience, I think you should do this. To me, a coach is like let's talk about this. What are you hiding behind? Where's the fear come from? What would it look like if you did this or that? Without being attached to, this is the way you need to do it.

Josh: What's the opening question? You sit down, like if you were sitting down with us right now, like you are.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: Uh, and we, we, you know, what would you— without even— if we were to set a meeting, would you ask questions before we even got there? Is there a level of preparation?

Peter: Yeah, so there's usually one question I usually get them to fill out, say, on a, on a form, or like a contact form, is what are you working on at the moment? Um, but the first question I would ask in a, in a face-to-face meeting or a Zoom meeting is essentially like, tell me the Josh story.

Josh: Yeah.

Peter: And just like, and just let them go. And sometimes they speak for like 25 minutes. I'm like, well, this is where it all started. And other times they're like, oh, I'm a podcaster at the moment.

Josh: What are you identifying with that?

Peter: Uh, nothing really specific that I'm looking for other than I think the way that they take that question can dictate the sorts of things that they're interested in focusing on. So if they immediately go to, when I was at school, I, you know, studied this and this and that, and you're like, okay, so they're quite attached to their past. That's, that's interesting.

Josh: Fascinating that you say that because the thing that Tommy and I talk about regularly is, you know, the format of the show and what we talk about. And the thing that within the podcasting context is, uh, which I struggle with and don't like asking is, you know, tell the audience who you are.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: And because I maybe I put in the same basket as what do you do.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: But maybe to finish up, you could tell us what is the Peter Shepherd story?

Peter: That's a fair question. So I've only got 25 minutes because that's how your clients usually do. No, so I too don't like the question of what do you do? And so I would bring it back to why I do what I do, which I think I mentioned is I seek to help others change their corner of the world. And I do that by helping them see things that they can't see.

Josh: And so that's the story. So is that the story? Is that— would that be the Peter story?

Peter: I think so.

Josh: Yeah, I think that's really interesting because I think that that's a, um, it's a forward-thinking story.

Peter: Yeah.

Josh: So it's not necessarily connecting to narratives in the past.

Peter: Yeah. So yeah, I like— I mean, I went to Melbourne University, had a scholarship and all that, and I don't—

Josh: I don't just don't give a shit about any of that. I don't care, man. If I did, you would hear about it so much.

Peter: I just drop it in, which I didn't mean to do.

Tommy: I think they all contribute to who Peter is. Yeah, it's me. I mean, what you've done. I was a stripper, Peter. If you dig deep, you will find.

Peter: I'm gonna do that tonight.

Josh: Yeah, you don't actually have to go that deep. You just gotta have a YouTube channel.

Tommy: I lead with it so that no one— if anyone finds out, it's not like I'm hiding anything. But, but, you know, that's— it hasn't shaped who I am, but it is a part of my journey to get where I am now. Literally, I was on stage once like bringing up one arm, left, right, doing the fucking muscle man.

Josh: Can I just explain that when Tommy said left, he had his right arm up.

Tommy: It was in a mirror. No, but like, I remember going, what the fuck am I doing? And it was a pivotal moment for me to go, what is this? And then literally after, like, not long after that, I transitioned out and wanted to get into this, and it led me to the next thing.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But it is a part of my story.

Peter: That's interesting.

Tommy: I can't avoid it. And so, you know, I think your answer is the thought-out version. If you were to blurt out like a client would, yeah, it'd be all of those things. Yeah, they've got you to this. But I think the beautiful thing about this podcast, any podcast, is that we've just talked for over an hour and we've heard a lot of what you've been doing, where you're at.

Peter: Yeah, no, the coffee taste, quarter-life crisis, the fact that I can't tell the difference between a good coffee and a 7-Eleven coffee.

Josh: People turned off then.

Tommy: But it's good.

Peter: I'm sorry.

Josh: And so the— I've heard it referred to as a crucible moment. So it's a moment where, you know, for Tommy it was raising his hands in front of a stage. It was one of them, I had many. But what was that quarter-life crisis? How did it actually play out? What did it look like?

Peter: I think I would step— so I would probably take it all the way back to I could trace this back a long way, but I'll trace it back to a moment when someone recommended I read "The 4-Hour Workweek." I must have been like 24 at the time. And that led me down a massive rabbit hole of like that idea of thinking differently and like approaching—

Josh: Did you ever have a virtual assistant?

Peter: I did not. I looked at it though.

Josh: I nearly tried that. I tried it for a little bit, but it's like, mate, I have to explain everything. I'm just gonna fucking do it myself.

Peter: Exactly. And I tried Amuse and I tried all those things. But that led me to his podcast, which led me to the Seth Godin interview, which led me to the Alt MBA and now you're here. Wow, yeah, yeah. And here I am talking to you lads, so yeah.

Tommy: Man, it's a great, like it is a journey and it is fun. And I think thinking back on all these things, they are what life is all about.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Stripping, no, no, just the journey, experiencing things.

Peter: Yeah.

Tommy: Like it's one of my favourite things. And back to why you should do the podcast you mentioned.

Peter: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: It's seriously therapy. It's amazing to talk to a best mate, to people like you constantly. It's mind-opening.

Peter: It's a good excuse to have a conversation with someone, right?

Josh: And it's also, I think, probably the same reason that you have your blog. It's about repetition. It's about showing up. And it is that synthesising of thoughts. It's us saying like our, this podcast is allowing us to get really clear on our thoughts and we realise that what we're giving people is we are opening up. So throughout this episode, there's probably moments where it's like, man, is the real jackass here? Or there's this problem here. And that's fine because like I have those voices anyway. And this is part of the journey. So that's what like, that's what's really exciting with the guests is it's like there's always the post-episode blues where you're like, man, I should have said this, I should have said that.

Tommy: And you're a friend of the show, so welcome back on.

Josh: Yeah, you can come back on to rebut, but I think that the bigger part of it is, is it's like, this is the price that you pay for openness, and it's something that not everyone is willing to do. So thanks for being on the show.

Tommy: No worries.

Josh: Peter, it's a Human Periscope. Yeah. Is your company and all that sort of thing. So it's been 3 months, did you say? Or how many months?

Peter: 3 months full-time, yeah. And prior to that it was sort of a thing I was doing on the side.

Josh: Yeah, man, that's super sick.

Tommy: And cheque out the Seth Godin livestream on Seth's Facebook as well.

Josh: Yeah, cool.

Peter: Check it out.

Josh: That's awesome. Thanks everyone, it's The Daily Talk Show. Send us your emails, hi@thedailytalkshow.com. We'll actually, we got a few, but it's hard when we've got guests on to go through them.

Tommy: Michelle. I did read your emails, the two.

Josh: Yeah, that's amazing.

Tommy: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing.

Josh: Yeah, Wynn had awesome thoughts as well. She's living in Canada at the moment and kicking ass with stuff.

Tommy: So I'll get back to you.

Josh: Yeah, it's The Daily Talk Show everyone. Thanks for listening, bye.