BIG MEDIA COMPANY Values

Tommy: Wait a minute! Crossface, the Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show, squeak-free Tuesday.

Tommy: I said squeak-free since '93.

Josh: Is that what you said just before? We were just, uh, getting Conspiracy Jimmy out of the building. Yeah, and he locked the door as he left.

Tommy: Yeah, because he knows that something could go down. But it is episode 206 is where I interrupted you.

Mason: Sorry about that.

Josh: That's fine, that's fine. You've put on a timer for 30 minutes.

Tommy: Yeah, well, the 30-minute timer is, is not to wrap up the conversation. It's actually to remind me that the fridge needs to be turned back on because this is a classic case of we turn the fridge off so that there's no hum, but if there's food in there and we forget to turn it back on, we're in trouble.

Josh: There'll be a lot of hums tomorrow.

Tommy: Did you ever— it doesn't happen a great deal having outages anymore where you lose power to your fridge. Like, I remember that happening as a kid, where it was like circuit board systems in houses were a lot crappier back then.

Josh: Yeah, I just loved when like the storms were good enough that it would cut power. Oh yeah, when the SES were— had to be out there and about. I know it's not good, I know we shouldn't celebrate it because shit's going down, But, um, there is something fun about a good storm.

Tommy: Well, I am, I am having a go at power boards and fuse boards, I guess. One of them did save my life as a kid. Christmas time, I'm cutting through Christmas paper, and I, I, it's so clear as day in my mind. I got to this point where I was like, it's really hard, this bit of the paper, so I cut harder and it went like— and there was a smell of smoke. Oh, and I looked at the scissors. I'd cut through the power— the fan cord, and there was a chunk taken out of the scissor. But my old man had the circuit board breaker— what do you call them? The circuit breakers installed where it does turn the power off.

Josh: So, well, he's got the classic son that would put a butter knife in a You know, socket to test it out.

Tommy: Mate, does that— putting a knife into a toaster, now that's something I'm— that's— if you're a real radio show, you should be testing that.

Josh: 131060.

Tommy: Not do we put pineapple on pizza. Oh, taboo to put a bit of fruit on a pizza. But maybe put a knife in a toaster.

Josh: We might end up with a smaller radio industry. Yeah, true. That would make a lot of new— yeah, guys, the PD wants you to get viral. It's like, well, yeah, Dave, we got another one.

Tommy: Dave's dead head.

Josh: The Brekkie Show.

Tommy: Poor Dave from Shepparton.

Josh: Put the knife in the toaster.

Tommy: No, it is definitely one thing that I'm not going to try.

Josh: Electricity in general freaks me out. Don't fuck with it. No.

Tommy: Don't fuck with it. I had my bro come in here and he's electrician and he's apprehensive to do stuff for me that would require— like, here's the thing. If you go into a property as an electrician and you burn down the house, and it doesn't even burn down because of any electrical fault, they will go through and say, who did any of this electrical wiring? Do they have a certificate? So even if it just burnt down, like, they have to go through the checks. And that's where it's like, he's just like, dude, I'm not touching that shit. All that wiring? Nah, you need someone, you need to pay someone that's on the clock. Yeah, as an actual—

Josh: what's like the testing and tagging stuff, you know, when you like go to you know, you make it and you're fucking talking at Fed Square or whatever, and they say your computer needs to be like— all of the stuff that you plug into their system needs to be tested and tagged.

Tommy: It's a good combo of words.

Josh: I think that we'll— I'll feel like I've made it as a business. Yeah, we have enough on the line to justify getting a guy in with a van to test and tag.

Tommy: Uh, test and tagged, like, that's a milestone of a business. Is your business big enough that you need to be tested and tagged? Because the lawsuit that could be at hand.

Josh: Yeah, currently our assets are worth less than it would cost to go to get tested. It would cost— it would be—

Tommy: we'd spend more on the test and tag process than we do have worth of assets right now anyway.

Josh: But, uh, Derek— Scooter Derek, he's good.

Tommy: That's his nickname, is it?

Josh: Yeah, Scooter Derek. What do we think? Scooter? No, it needs to have Derek in it.

Tommy: Scooter Derek. Derek's got a real cut-through for a name. It's a bit old school, unique. I know a few Dereks in my time, all good blokes, all great blokes.

Josh: But Derek was just— had us— was involved in a scheme, a Ponzi scheme. Well, the recipient— recipient, how do you say it?

Tommy: Recipient.

Josh: Recipient, yeah, of a scheme. Like, we were walking past, uh, his scooter shop, yeah, slash podcast studio.

Tommy: He's reaping the benefits of a scheme. Yeah. Is it a—

Josh: So it's a government scheme basically, 'cause what they've done these with, the Australian government have done them for everything from changing your bulbs to be energy efficient bulbs. Yes, yeah. They've done ones where, I remember the ones that we had at our house was the, you would have, you would install something that would go in between the power and the TV and you had to fucking use your remote and turn the volume up and down every half an hour or whatever so it would know that you're still at the TV, otherwise it would switch everything off.

Tommy: Okay, so it's just like for people that leave TVs on.

Josh: Yeah, it's pretty lazy to leave the house. It's the suburbs, you've got, you know, a plasma TV for every wall, but Yeah, so what was Derek's one?

Tommy: So that was, so it wasn't the, it was new lighting system. See, I didn't even know about this, and it sounded like he'd been onto it for a while, or he'd at least seen. I think in businesses that have UV lights or those old sort of longer lights, they've, they're going through and replacing all of the current lighting. Is it called UV light?

Josh: What is that? Is that like the fluorescent tubes?

Tommy: Yeah, I think it's the, yeah, UV tubes. Tubing. Maybe it's not— when I think missing UV light, maybe they're changing it over to LED. Okay, yeah, because it's all about the LED at the moment, which is, yeah, lower power consumption.

Josh: But there's— I feel like there's— when I was younger, I loved a good recall, like a recall on A Current Affair where they were. And I— one of them was the, um, the downlights. I was— we had a new house when I was at my parents and they had like downlights and there was all these houses that would burn down because, that's right, the insulation, you know, like there was that scheme and people were apparently just— Scheme, is that what it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: It's just, it's so funny when the humans are the ones behind the schemes. Yeah, it's opportunity.

Josh: Well, so the scheme was that, what was it, improving insulation in homes to reduce power consumption for heaters and stuff. They're all around power, aren't they?

Tommy: Well, it's such a— it's such a, um—

Josh: But what ended up happening was all these houses burnt down because they were putting the insulation— insulation?

Tommy: Batts? Insulation. Insulation.

Mason: Are you just—

Josh: why do you say it with the E?

Tommy: Insulation. There's a U at the end.

Josh: It's a bit insulate, is it? Insulation. Well, it's not installation, is it? Because an installation is something that's installed. Can you Google it? And that can be our word today.

Tommy: Mason, say it again. Insulation. Oh, he's really putting in the effort as well. Insulation is what I was trying to say.

Josh: Mr. 97. So we asked on Thursday, was it? Or Friday?

Tommy: Yeah, last Friday we had young Mason on the show who helps out around the Big Media Company Hall, otherwise known as the main room, the one room, the one room. Yeah, he helps around. Look, yeah, he's here, he just does stuff. And you wanted to throw him a nickname.

Josh: Yeah, there was a few that came up on our Reddit page, including Mayo. Mason, can you come here for a second? Just— Mason's working today, so he doesn't really, uh, he doesn't have a mic. But can you explain why we— why was your nickname Mayo as a kid?

Mason: Uh, I used it, I used it for a Minecraft username. It was, it was back in, back in, back in primary school.

Josh: So what, 2017?

Mason: Yeah, no, um, it was one of those auto-generated usernames for Minecraft, you know, when you register. Mayo23.

Tommy: So God, it's a pull from his nerd days. Mayo, let me just tell you about what Mason once told me. He said, I was at my mate's place over the weekend and we're all hanging out. It got— it was pretty late, and, uh, yeah, me and my mates all decided to do our tax returns.

Josh: That's what he does for fun.

Tommy: That's the kind of kid we've got in our studio.

Mason: It was 3 AM tax returns.

Tommy: Yeah, mate, no better time to do your tax return.

Josh: But what, what was this, the moment that you thought, oh, we should do our tax? Did, did your mate work out a hashtag scheme to be, you know, like a Tax avoidance. But was there— what was the— do you remember the actual reason why you decided to do it?

Mason: No, not really. It was sort of just, sort of just happened. It's not a bit of work and then it just—

Tommy: well, he doesn't drink or smoke weed. Yeah, so it was neither of those two. So he's—

Josh: I mean, I would— if it was 3 AM, the only difference between Mason and I is that I would have been in bed, so I would have never gotten to it. But okay, so if you had to choose between Uh, the nickname's Mr. 97, which is referring to your Enterscore, which is 97 better than Tommy.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And brings our entire score to around 140. So are you happy with, uh, Mr. 97 or Mayo?

Mason: Mr. 97, let's go with that.

Josh: Yeah, there we go. I think, fuck it, like, what else are you going to use your Enterscore for? Yeah, it's— this is perfect. All right, well, so Mason's helping us at the moment with the Facebook Pixel.

Tommy: Mr. 97.

Josh: But can I just quickly mention the big media company showreel?

Tommy: Yeah, go for it.

Josh: I guess I asked. No, so we've been— no, today we've been working on— so yesterday we spent all day getting— consolidating all of our footage.

Tommy: Yeah, we did. And one of our new principles of our company value is the little things matter.

Josh: Little things matter. Should I go— have we actually read out them?

Tommy: No, we should. So, so Here's the hard thing, right? We've been working on such little things over the last week or so, which I think you can get the feeling that you're not gaining progress, you know.

Josh: I like how you said progress.

Tommy: Progress.

Josh: It's sort of a bit Adelaidean. Thank you, Mason.

Tommy: Is that a thing?

Josh: I think so.

Tommy: Mason's just— Mr. 97's just walked out with our values.

Josh: I appreciate it.

Tommy: On a piece of paper.

Josh: It's currently on just a piece of paper here.

Tommy: Yeah, but don't you agree, like, you can feel like you're not making progress, moving forward, like you're not moving forward when you are doing little things. But I think because they feel like such little tasks—

Josh: but from little things, big things grow.

Tommy: No, but that's what— I'll let you read the values out.

Josh: So the values we have: celebrate others. So I'll read them all and then we can talk to each point.

Tommy: Yeah, I like this.

Josh: So this is the Big Media Company values. Celebrate others. Small things matter. Learn through action. The big picture. Lead the way.

Tommy: Yeah, I just want to say around coming up with values for business, I had this discussion with Jules Lund because it is something that people like Jack Delosa, the entrepreneur, pushes, uh, you know, his people, his people that come through his entrepreneur school, to really hone in on and focus. And I remember talking to Jules Lund about this in the early days of Tribe, when you haven't— so you're sort of manufacturing these, uh, this set of almost rules or beliefs before you've got into the nitty-gritty of the business and really worked out stuff. And for Jules, it was really coming from doing radio into starting this new tech company, hiring a CEO. Whereas I've, I've felt in the past with my businesses that I've had multiple of and haven't seen through, or they've led me to where I am now, whichever way you want to look at it, I've never been able to really hold and lock on to some values because it's probably, I've been, it's been a requirement of doing the business after business after business to sort of gain this understanding or perspective of where I want to be, where I am and where I wanna be and what I'm holding true to. And we did this in half a day where we sort of—

Josh: Which is solid like piece of time. Like we would have spent 4 hours of just you know, deconstructing, uh, problems that we've had previously and basically throwing problems at our values.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Or throwing problems and saying, how would we— how could we actually fix this and get the outcome that we'd want through having a set of values that would filter it?

Tommy: Yeah. And how would they apply to actions that we need to take and what we're doing with our business? And I did find it —much. And so my thought was around the, you know, trying to do this straight out of high school with some new business you've got. It is hard because you haven't waded through all this, like you haven't had the hiccups, the mistakes, the learnings yet.

Josh: I think like the analogy that I think about within a business is if you think about a business as a kid, it's like an actual being, it's a baby. Yeah. And so If it's your first business, creating a set of values is hypothesising with your partner before your kid's born about how you're gonna raise a kid, right? And so you have these perfect case scenario, everything is filtered through the perfect case scenario. And where I think values actually become, Mason, you can just mute that, that's just Bree. Trying to call me. I've got it set up on my new computer so every fucking device rings. Yeah. Anyway, but so if you think about what we're doing, we've actually had a couple of kids by now, right? And we've seen them through a decent chunk of their life and we know where we've gotten things wrong, things that have, we've had conversations with the school about their behavior. We've done all of that. And what it means is that you can move forward on some things, but you can also work out what values I think are important. Yeah, yeah, because it's— Do you think that analogy works?

Tommy: Yeah, I think it does.

Josh: I mean, I haven't had a kid, so it's a bit rich.

Tommy: I mean, all I can think about is my son who's got a mullet, so the values are off.

Josh: I mean, this is your first one. Your third kid will be—

Tommy: I've had more businesses than I've had children. So my business babies is a bit more primitive. Yeah, I'm more advanced in business babies. Yeah, that makes sense.

Josh: Well, maybe one value, if we were to use these values as a way of determining whether Bodhi should keep his mullet, I reckon lead the way, fucking get rid of it. The big picture, think about when he gets older, it's not good.

Tommy: No, I'm thinking 21st. Learn through action.

Josh: You've done it. It looks interesting. Maybe you're small things matter. It's turned into a big thing. So I don't know if you, it was a small thing when it was just sort of starting, but anyway. So what do you mean?

Tommy: Let's start at the top because I think the first value that we came up with is pretty much because of this podcast. Yeah, so it's celebrate others.

Josh: What does it mean for you?

Tommy: I think, It takes some of the focus off us, and by lifting up others around you, it also lifts you up. Yeah. So by default, I think it sets us up for success when our focus is— especially with clients, client work, or creating something for an audience, or, you know, doing a storey on an individual— we need our focus to be on them and celebrating someone else's wins, someone else's success, someone else's story?

Josh: Well, I think that the people that I've respected the most in life, when they get to a certain point, there's no room for negative bullshit about people because they're just like, there's no reason. I feel like the only negativity comes from that projection. Yeah. And like, we've— we spoke about that early days a lot. I remember projecting was all like a theme of every show. And, um, I think maybe it's when you've gone through, when you've done a few businesses, you've, you've fallen on your face a few times, you build an empathy to anyone having a crack. Yeah. And it's, um, I also think it's similar to, you know, you made the video about it's easy to sell others than it is to sell yourself. Yeah. I think that it's an extension of that as well. I think that it's actually one of the same thing. So if you think about your— if you think about the negative things you say about someone as a potential projection, or you projecting how you're feeling, if you then celebrate people and have that as your default, I think that what ends up happening is we give ourselves a break and we're actually— we're less negative about our own creative ability, what we can do. Whereas I think that if someone's like, ah, do you see, they missed a podcast. Like they said they're gonna do it every Wednesday and then they didn't fucking do it. What an idiot. Whereas we know how hard it is to do this. We can still hold ourselves up to a standard but understand how many times that we haven't been consistent on those things.

Tommy: I don't think that if I think about applying any of these values to early day businesses, 100%, I wouldn't have been able to use that because in the early days you're looking around with some level of fear within you because of other people.

Josh: I reckon if you had, I think that what you're saying is that you weren't aligned with these values. I don't think, yeah, aligned.

Tommy: Okay, so my example is competition.

Josh: Early days of any business. I know, I don't think, I reckon that you, once you've gone through it enough, the realisation is that the competition is actually irrelevant in a lot of ways where it's like if you lead with sort of celebrating others rather than fucking knocking people who are doing work that you want to do, if you actually shift it to, uh, let's celebrate our clients, let's add value to them, it sort of takes it out of the equation. Yeah, it's like you, you can't It's like that, I can't remember what it is. It's like around gratitude, but gratitude, you can't be angry if you have gratitude. And so that's why having like a gratitude diary, which fell off the wagon for me like 2 years ago because Bree was reading, I think I said this, was reading my gratitude diary. So then I just started writing things to sort of win brownie points. But filtering in messages. Yeah, exactly. I'm grateful. For how amazing, which I was obviously, but it was—

Tommy: Defeated the purpose of a really honest gratitude book.

Josh: So yeah, I think celebrating others is about, yeah, it's less about trying to be selfish with things and realising that when I've created content for other people to celebrate other people, Or actually, I think the biggest one is I've had just so many times in my life where I've said something negative about someone in a conversation and then I've never felt good about it. I always like, I've gone home and I've been like, uh, like, do I— it said way more about me than it said about the person I was saying it. Yeah, about. And even if I framed it like, ah, now that person's a fuckhead. So I think that just for our own mental, uh, for our own sanity, uh, I think celebrating others is a good one.

Tommy: Yeah, and there's a positive vibe to it.

Josh: Number 2, small things matter. What does this mean for you? I love Blink-182. Yeah, do you get the reference? I do, I do.

Tommy: I was not a Blink-182 fan.

Josh: Well, that was one of— oh, the small thing, Jake and the Fat Man. Yeah, we did that song.

Tommy: Um, for me, this one has probably not been a focus of mine, uh, because sometimes the small things can be really hard. I've always looked sort of grand and sort of like, um, I don't know how I can explain it. I think seeing the big stuff excited me, whereas it's like saying then getting into the nitty-gritty of something can be the tedious part of it. But just sort of getting excited about the big trip, and then you actually have to book each little part of it. But the booking of each little part adds to the experience of the big trip. And so for us and all the mistakes we've made in the past and the learnings we've had, the small things for— it could be— and I think this is what we did, we related it to the podcast. Creating videos for clients, creating our own original content, and we applied the small things. And so what would that look like? And the example is the showreel that we put out for the company. It was—

Josh: how do you use that? Yeah, small things matter filter on that.

Tommy: Yeah, I think it's looking— I'm just getting a phone call, sorry. It's happening a lot. It's from a— it's a telemarketer. Should we celebrate them?

Josh: Yeah, good on them. Good on them for—

Tommy: it'd be slightly patronising them as well. Uh, no, the small things for the showreel, it is saying if, if we are going to put something out, we don't just want to put anything out. Yeah, um, we can set some time restrictions, which we did around it, which was get it out by the end of the day. And there was just a few little tweaks that, that added to the experience. Yeah, adding some sound design, the final product, which required us to push the time slightly. Yeah, but if the small things matter at the end of the day, because yeah, we, we needed to make sure we see them through.

Josh: And I think, and then the extension of small things matter, I think, is around communication as well. So it's like making sure if the small things— I really believe that like the— when you focus on the small things, the bigger things fall into place. Because you can never actually— if you want to eat a whole cake, which is a beautiful ambition and one that I've had for my whole life, you want to eat the whole cake.

Tommy: Yeah, as if you haven't eaten the whole cake.

Josh: 100% I've eaten a whole cake. And Bree and I actually once went to the cheesecake shop and we got this was on in our fat days, we got a half-half, like she picked a cheesecake she wanted and I picked a half that I wanted and we just fucking ate the half each. Whose idea was it? It would have been a joint mission. It's literally like if you've ever walked along Collingwood and you see like the guy and the girl junkies are fucking walking along, like encouraging each other, that was us. That was us going to the cheesecake shop. But why is that? Why is there always— it's always a couple junkies. I guess that they— that's a community. They're sort of— it's annoying, isn't it? That's the thing.

Tommy: Yeah, no, we did notice that the other day around here. I think it's— yeah, having someone to do something with is more fun than just doing it alone.

Josh: And I guess you need to know that, and that's one of our values.

Tommy: No, so small things matter.

Josh: What the fuck? Oh yes, the cake analogy. Yeah. You, even if you want to eat the whole cake, you're gonna, you're probably gonna start a slice at a time. And it's that same theory of if you want to write an entire book, you've got to start with a single page. If you want, I think the famous quote, maybe it was Mark Twain or someone said it, which was every journey starts with a single step.

Tommy: Yeah, I think the one thing, because it's something you really care about, the small things, and you pick up on things. And one of the things I thought about around this was, um, if you're really caring about the small things, you can't react to them like they are big things because more small things happen. Yeah, there's more small things going on constantly. So it's about like taking them on board. But I think if you lead with, I care about all the things going on, yeah, it allows you to—

Josh: paradox. The paradox is that small things, uh, on their own don't equal much, but altogether equal a lot. And it's give it the emotional importance in your head that you're going to deliver, um, but then it's the understanding that at the beginning we're still identifying all of those things. And so if one of them gets dropped, what I'm happy with now is I have 3 words that I can say to you when something, if we don't do something that we should have done, I can say small things matter versus trying to come up with some like blow it up and saying, well, like you should have done that because blah, blah, blah. So it's very easy now for us to identify those things. And so it, for me, it goes as far as reaching out to clients or contacting them, getting back to them, to a shot. Like if we export something and there's a little flicker at the end, if small things didn't matter, it's all about shipping and getting it done. You might say, ah, fuck it, we won't worry about that. But small things matter. It's like, oh no, let's do it. And I think that by being intentional like that, it will have a flow-on effect where it's like, why do we— I mean, I have, I've fallen into this where it's like, uh, especially when I wasn't feeling good about myself, I would grow my neckbeard and I just—

Tommy: and, you know, and could have coincided with the time you and Bri were at the Cheesecake Factory.

Josh: You could have. Yeah, it was Cheesecake Shop, not to be confused with Cheesecake Factory. Okay, for our American American listeners, we have a Cheesecake Shop, which is not the factory. And the Cheesecake Shop is, it's a sort of greenish imaging, is like brand. Yeah. And you just get cheesecake from there. And it's more, it's not an eat-in, you don't get the—

Tommy: it's all takeaway.

Josh: And you can get half-half according to— exactly, you can. Josh, your name is—

Tommy: I was going to call you, um, Mr.

Josh: Cheesecake.

Tommy: Now, what was your band name? Fat Man and Men.

Josh: Jake and the Fat Man. Jake and the Fat Man. So Fat Man would have just been a bit aggressive. No, the, um, no. So using that sort of theory around it is how much better do you feel when you shave your neck? Yeah. And what's the weird thing is it's so small, so then you end up with— so if shaving the neck feel makes you feel really good, then it's one of those keystone habits that lead to all this other stuff.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, I think we're looking— I think there's a drive to look for making big change because it feels grand in the moment or has a real sort of disrupting or altering emotional response, whereas the little things don't, which is like this stuff today, launching your Facebook page, adding a video here, putting a little post up there. It adds, but when you do think about it, it's like these, all these things matter for something bigger.

Josh: And they're different to every single person. So if you are haunted by perfectionism, if you can't ship, and then maybe you don't need to worry about the small things matter. Maybe everyone's gonna be different. So for others, it might be about like being seen is better than perfect, or good is better, done is better than great or whatever the fuck. And so I think that's a good one. Learn through action.

Tommy: I think it's been pretty much the basis of how I've forged my career so far is by starting not knowing what I'm doing, but starting somewhere and then learning from that and then coming back and trying again.

Josh: And it's the— it's not the analysis paralysis, avoiding getting into the cycle of theorising about the best approach rather than actually, oh, learn through action. Okay, I don't know the answer, you don't know the answer, so we need to actually do something to then come up with the, um, the answer.

Tommy: Yeah, I've found that my thinking towards making a video has sometimes gone— and I don't always delve into this. That's meant me to put the fridge back on, but I'll stop that because we're having a great conversation.

Josh: Small things matter.

Tommy: Yeah, learn through action. Learn through action. So okay, you fucked one avocado. I've got an avocado in the fridge. That's why I'm paranoid, because it's gonna go off.

Josh: Did you really? So you said yes, you said to me before we started, you said, oh, I fucked one avocado because you kept, you didn't turn the fridge back on. So yeah, yesterday's episode. Did it actually, were you being hyperbolic? Were you being over the top? Slightly. Was the avocado, did you eat the avocado?

Tommy: No, it's still in there. That's why. So when it goes from, 'cause when we turn the fridge off.

Josh: So you haven't even opened the avocado? No, you can feel it.

Tommy: So it was harder and it gets ripe really quickly and then the flavour can change.

Josh: But you said that the, we fucked one of the avocados. It's in there now.

Tommy: It's so— you haven't even opened it.

Josh: You can't— I know, but that was super dramatic to say one of the avocado— yeah, we've ruined one of the avocados because it could— it's probably perfect guacamole texture.

Tommy: True, but I wasn't going to eat it as guac, but I could take it home.

Josh: All right, snowflake is right. I love that's becoming you. Snowflake is so funny. Anything else on the learn through action?

Tommy: Yeah, so I've found that making videos is hard and you are essentially, if you see it as a problem and the problem is you don't have the product yet and the problem is you are up against all these challenges in the process of creating this thing, so you don't have the narrative yet, you need to find the narrative, you don't, so when you get back to editing there's a whole bunch of other challenges you'll face. And I've always found that if I bathe in that thought too much of this is a problem, there's so many things going on, it can be almost paralyzing. Whereas if I just start and I do the process of bringing in the footage, I do the process of looking through and finding the best bits, I listen to the interview, it slowly starts to evolve and I'm learning about this problem that I'm facing, which is I don't have the product yet, and I need to go through the process to learn and find, you know, the result.

Josh: I think that people focus on the wrong M word. I think they focus on motivation and what they need is momentum. And the only way that you can create moment— I'm really happy my ears started ringing because I thought that was such a good idea. That's a good one. Isn't that good? Guys, could you imagine me doing a prezo about that? I've already squashed the idea. Quashed or squashed? Mr. 97, squashed or quashed? What is it? I don't think quashed is a thing.

Tommy: I'm pretty sure it's squashed because you'd squash a problem, you'd squash something.

Josh: Quashed, quashed. Invalid or put an end to is quashed. Um, no, I quashed. What up, Mr. 97? Mr. 97 bringing in the goods. But that's good that I know the difference now because I've said squashed before. It should be quashed.

Tommy: I tell you what, we're doing something for his personal brand. He's just gonna be known as this smart guy. It's great. It's a lot of pressure, Mr.

Josh: 97. So no, I quashed the idea of it. And the early days were like, you know what? Be good to be doing some speaking. And then we're like, no, fuck, we need to learn through action. We need to be doing heaps of shit. We've had a lot of runs on the board already with our businesses, but we wanna show that we can do it within a partnership, that all the theories that we have are going to work. Within this new context.

Tommy: Yeah, and it's only gonna happen by taking action.

Josh: Yeah, uh, the big, the big picture.

Tommy: Yeah, I love this one because we were wanting to create something that, um, sort of tipped its hat towards strategy and taking a care in, you know, and, and I guess, um, us take— having the thought of the bigger picture, which is how it came out. You said the big picture was essentially what strategy is. Where is this going to go at the very end?

Josh: And if you're thinking about the small things, then it's— I think you also want to be looking at where it's placed in the bigger picture. And I think a lot of the stuff that we're doing as well, it doesn't have like a clear return on investment from a short-term point of view. I think most people, we have things that are short-term, which is, okay, cash flow, that is a thing that we need to think about now. And it's the, we need to see a return on that investment now. But then we have these other things, which is like, no, we don't actually need to have any cash flow related to the podcast. And so by doing that, you're enabling the big, picture to those things to still survive and flourish because we've actually got a value around them. And this is a—

Tommy: it's quite a great roadmap to apply to any tasks, or if we're getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty of something, to go, you know, to go from the small things matter to then apply the next thing, which is like, are we obsessing about this thing too much? Is this serving the, the greatest strategy in the big picture.

Josh: Yeah, I think one of the interesting things will be how much of the big picture we need to actually have locked off versus just the value. So being able to say this is where we want to be versus having buckets, which is the only reason that we're doing this is because we think it's going to be good for us longer term. Yeah, without— with— and having, um the ambiguity and uncertainty in that as well.

Tommy: Well, I think it also relates to— and it is an evolving process— you and I will really sort of lock in some of those future goals for our business as we learn through action.

Josh: So we start saying, you know, what, what ends up sticking. And also giving stuff enough— I reckon it's like the dip, like what Seth Godin talks about is, you know, we, we do drop off a lot of times before we're actually about to see the success. And so by having a longer-term look at these things, looking at the big picture, we have more room to fail, to learn through action, all that sort of thing.

Tommy: Well, I think where I've experienced a time where I was too focused on the big picture or the end goal was like when I was wanting to be a TV presenter, and I get to the point where I managed to get a role on a TV show hosting something, whether it was, you know, it was low paid, but it was on television. Yeah. Which essentially was the goal I had written down, but it didn't feel that great, didn't feel like I thought it would. And I think I was too fixed on this end goal, and I hadn't realised the progression I'd made by trying to get there and sort of reassessing. So yeah, it kind of does shift.

Josh: Yeah, well, I mean, we're talking with someone today who has had a very successful radio career and he's sort of pivoting to something else. And you can see how he was talking about, you see the bigger picture almost at the start as, yeah, the radio show or the TV or, and what ends up happening is you can be in a bit of a bubble where you start actually thinking that is the only way of doing it. And so it's identifying that the big picture will actually end up dictating what you care about from a smaller level. And so you sort of need to get a sense of— like a lot of people have said, have you guys— do you want a radio show eventually? Do you want the— and it's good to be able to actually be clear on the fact that we don't. And that to me is the the big picture. Yeah. And it's— the big picture is, is much about the uncertainty and realising that we, we believe in these core things around independent creation and 1,000 true fans. Um, yeah, that type of thing. Uh, lead the way, our final, uh, value. What does it mean to you?

Tommy: We were talking, I think it was yesterday, and probably the— we talk every day, so we're talking at some point over the last week, and it was around, uh, not actually making a decision on something can be, uh, like— and being in that moment where you're kind of weighing up all the options, looking at what you could do, looking at what sort of goals you could go after, what projects you could start— that being— you can get stuck in that. Yeah. And I think if our— one of our values is lead the way. Yeah. And if I apply it to that conversation, it is about us making some decisions to head in a direction. Because I think if you look at leaders and you see what they do, they make a decision to head down that path.

Josh: And what's the decisiveness? Yeah, it's—

Tommy: yeah. And that is hard sometimes, being decisive is difficult.

Josh: Yeah, and it's also, I think it's about giving us permission as well. So I think that when you say, you use the phrasing, you know, lead, it gives you a, um, it also means maybe leading over your fears or leading over the lizard brain. So I think that sometimes we feel like we can be led by the market or our boss or our clients, but lead the way actually means that that you can't fall back into blaming others for the position that you're in. And so that if you aren't happy with it, it's your responsibility as the person and the company who's leading the way to make it right. So if a client's taking the piss and they are calling you at all hours, they're, you know, there's a huge amount of scope creep. It's actually, it's an internal process in us saying we haven't led the way. Yeah, we haven't been able to articulate the process and what we want. And the good thing about it is there's a lot of empowerment in saying, okay, well, let's, let's make some changes. I'd much prefer that than blaming it on someone else and then being helpless.

Tommy: Yeah, and I've also found in previous businesses I've probably lost work or not taken an opportunity that was there, but I just didn't really know how to approach it. So for instance, we have a lot of people coming to us they fall into a few camps around videos. We know what the video is we want and we want you guys to create it. We have no idea what the video is that we want created, but we want to create one. And if they fall into that, that's a person that's looking for someone to lead the way. And I probably haven't, you know, because it's harder, it's actually a harder path sometimes to lead the way for that client because then And then it's about explaining to them the, or showing them this is a path that we can take.

Josh: Well, I mean, it's why we cost more than what someone who hasn't been doing it for 15+ years is because what we bring is we've done a lot of this before. And so we know what works, what doesn't work. Making a video whilst exciting to a lot of people, especially clients who are coming to us Uh, to us, that's by default not exciting. Like, if you've got that as a tool set, if you've got a, a drill, and there's going to be a time where that drill just becomes a tool that you're using, and that you're not going to use a drill on every single project that you're working on. And so I think that that's— we bring that, we lead with, well, and I think it's also the, the celebrating others and the small things matter, all these things about saying— and the bigger picture, to the big picture, to actually say, uh, what we offer isn't actually what you need, and this is what I think that you might need. And the big picture in saying that, that's going to be— that's honouring that client and that relationship more than it is to try and take their cash and, you know, just follow their, their thoughts on what they need. Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah, which is the easy option.

Josh: Well, I think the other probably distinction too about leading the way— to lead the way, you need to ask questions. Leading the way isn't saying that you have all the answers, but it's a willingness to at least ask them and to shift an approach. And I think that we've been able to, through our journeys as creators, we've found these key things that happen over and over again that we can actually bring. And that's what people are paying for, is that we can identify, uh, this is what you need to worry about, and also taking that away. So if someone— like, I would much prefer a client to give us the autonomy to work on something and to creatively execute on their idea versus them holding on and us being led on their vision that might not completely align with what they actually want.

Tommy: Yeah, which is a bit of a headfuck. Yeah, definitely. And I think I've never felt or had the realization— or never really— I've never felt that having these was a necessity, but now that we've gone through the process and actually come up with them, it makes total sense to have them. Yeah. As some guidelines for just making some decisions. But I get it, that younger version of me that wasn't quite there yet and giving the pushback, it was like, it was valid too at that point. It's just not part of the process. I just wonder if you were to force these out at this stage, is it beneficial?

Josh: What do you think? No, no, I think that it's got to be based— I think that having a crack and asking those questions, what do I value, can never be a bad thing, even if you're at the start. I actually think that coming up with what sort of parents do we want to be, even if you are remarkably wrong, the exercise in doing it will actually at least bring you closer to understanding and you're at least being mindful of that process. And so I think that even if it is your first business, being super— You know, experiences come from all different ways. It might not be a business. You may have been an employee somewhere and seen all the wrong things and saying, this is— these are things that they didn't value and I think they should have. But values are a great way to be able to determine what to say yes to, what to say no to, and to actually dictate what you should be doing.

Tommy: Yeah. And then what do you think from your personal value set isn't on this list but you still bring it and feed it through all of these?

Josh: I think like just like that very basic, I think the value— Cheesecake isn't a value. Cheesecake is not a value, okay, well scrap that. Dairy, not a value. I think maybe around, there's something around the gratitude stuff, I think that, The— I feel very lucky in the position that I'm in, and so I think that that's maybe part of it too, which is not ignoring the fact that I've had a lot of lucky things happen in my life, from where I was born to the parents that I had to the interests that I, you know, was sort of luckily found. And so there's probably something around there. There's I wouldn't know how to articulate it, but there's a gratitude to, I think, what I want to be doing. And I think that empathy and stuff leads from gratitude.

Tommy: Yeah. What about you? Uh, one that I've always employed for myself is around fun. And I've always thought that— I don't think it applies to— because I can bring this sense of fun into all of these things and into our business. So it does feed into it, but I've always felt— and it's like the gratitude and anger don't live together. I've always felt like fun and sadness don't really go together. And I feel like when you are trying to have fun, it translates as happiness. Yeah. And you are happy when you're having fun. Yeah. And so that's just one that's not on the list, but I hold highly in, you know, how I parent Bodhi. My relationships that I have with people, my interactions with people, I want— and the podcast. Yeah. And so there, there are other ways to sort of— you can find your 5 values or whatever you want, however many you want, 25, 100. But you can also then thread through things from— because we are essentially the drivers of our business, and where it changes are when you were trying to— and essentially you hold— have a value set of your company company when it's small and you want the people who come in to align with those and at least try and align with them. It's, it's hard when you have a big company, like being at the radio station walking into the toilets and there's the value set on the wall. Yeah, but I don't actually know how they—

Josh: well, there's not really an onboarding process. I didn't even know really about HR when I was working. HR was a joke. I think it was like 2525 was the HR phone number. So anyone would do it, and you know, if someone would come up and hump the back of your chair, you'd be like, "2-5, 2-5!" I can't remember what the number was. I don't know if that would go to HR.

Tommy: Yeah, and so I think it can be lost, but while it's still in the early days, you can really sort of embody them as founders and as just a small business.

Josh: And I think it's just a good way of making decisions. Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's a daily talk show. We've just put our Showreel Live, you can go to Big Media Company on Instagram or just go to bigmediacompany.com. Give us a follow, share us, you know, share some love to us, whatever you want to.

Tommy: I did think putting out this— you and I put out content and it's all free and it's all not really asking for much. And is this our first, first ask?

Josh: Why?

Tommy: I, I like fell into a paralysed state when I was trying to work out the call to action, if you will, or just like, hey guys, if you need help with this, let us know. But I was like, why is this? Why am I feeling like this? It's because we don't ask for much at all.

Josh: And so I think that probably the ask is—

Tommy: actually, we asked Mason a fair bit.

Josh: Exactly. But I think probably the, the ask is around if you, if you have a company that's doing cool shit, a brand, or if you're an individual and you see that what we're doing resonates with you, if you see that you actually have a storey and a need for what we're making within your business, uh, get in touch with us and we can, uh, maybe collab, make something cool.

Tommy: That's it. That's a, um, stab at me because I use the phrase collab rather than collab. I thought it was collab.

Josh: It's a Daily Talk Show, everyone. Hi@thedailytalkshow.com if you want to send us an email. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow. See you guys.