Talking Chang With Maven

Tommy: Wait a minute! Frostface! The Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jacklin.

Josh: It's a Daily Talk Show episode 232, is that right?

Tommy: Yeah, but I'm trying to mount my microphone.

Josh: You've—

Mark: yeah, 232, that's right. I listened to 231 this morning, actually.

Josh: Uh, you would, uh, know this voice. Previously Cycling Maven, now Mark. What are you calling yourself?

Mark: Well, well, that's actually funny. It's just Mark Ferguson, right, on YouTube. But so it's just my name. But the hard part was transitioning from the @CyclingMaven handles on social to something that's like Mark Ferguson's gone. Like, that's a pretty common name. Yeah, right. So I was like, okay, what do I put? And I put _Mark Ferg. That was just tears. I couldn't even look at it. I hated it.

Tommy: You can't. I've always wondered, the people who grow a huge, huge social media, say Insta account, and they have some really whack username. Yeah, like there's heaps of them that you have the underscore at the front and then— yeah, so there is an element of it doesn't matter. Yeah, seeing as you had already built one, but you built it, you built it on a really good piece of land essentially.

Mark: That's right.

Tommy: You had to change to a suburb that you weren't happy with but it was still the same ripper house that you built.

Mark: I love how he's just gone straight into real estate. He's just made the real estate—

Tommy: You came in wearing your suit jacket, so I was trying to be relatable. I got the shit paid out of me because I rocked up to this house party on the weekend in a full-blown suit. I'd come from a wedding and I just hear this guy heckle me, the real estate agent's arrived.

Josh: It's got that vibe.

Tommy: It definitely had that vibe, even though it's a good-looking suit. You're still out of place where everyone's just totally cash.

Josh: You look like a real estate agent.

Tommy: You don't, you look like a travelling salesman.

Mark: That's even worse.

Tommy: But isn't that what you're doing?

Mark: That's even worse. I've just come straight into the podcast and he's just insulting me.

Josh: Absolutely roasted.

Tommy: Because you changed the handle to something that wasn't Cycling Maven.

Josh: So what's your current handle then?

Mark: So it's @ImJustMaven.

Tommy: Yeah, I do like it.

Mark: So it was Cycling Maven, so obviously I've just changed it to I'm Just Maven. Just Maven, and I think that's got a ring to it.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: And so when— what was the last episode that you were on our podcast? It was before 100.

Mark: Uh, yeah, it was pre-Europe for you.

Josh: Uh-huh. Must have been just— yeah, it was.

Mark: If you just type in Cycling Maven, in fact, it was the week before you went to Europe because you were rushing around madly trying to record all these podcast series.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: So that you didn't have to do it from bloody Venezuela.

Josh: Yeah, Venezuela.

Tommy: But we ended up having to do it from Venezuela as well, but we just got to break it up with some guests.

Josh: What's changed since we last spoke?

Mark: So are you talking specifically about the cycling moments?

Josh: No, just fucking everything. Just give us a wrap. I want to hear how you talk about things.

Mark: Well, you know, on the cycle, just give people listening who don't know what I do. YouTube channel. Um, so I used to be Cycling Maven. I've done over 600 episodes, vlogs, travelled around the world doing cycling stuff. But eventually, like, cycling, man, I'm sick of talking about it, you know. So when you name yourself, when you go onto social, you name yourself a specific sporting something, yeah, you've got to talk about that thing all the time because that's where your following's at. And I had to change it, man. I just had to do it too because there's more to cycling in life.

Josh: Absolutely.

Tommy: I know you were I remember you, we spoke maybe a couple of months ago when you were just doing it and you were saying that you weren't sure how people are going to react and your video was like telling people, you made one about telling people. What's the difference in what you thought how people would react versus how people do react?

Mark: Yeah, good question. I mean, I thought obviously the crew, when you get used to something and you get used to a brand, it's almost like your daily talk show jingle. You know, like I know it off the top of my head now. I'm singing it in the car almost on the way here. Not quite, but I know it, you know? And so when you change your brand suddenly from what your audience is following to something else, it's a massive risk, right? Because you've built this brand over a number of years. And so it's a risk and you don't really know. This whole social media thing, we don't even, we don't know. None of us really know what we're doing. We're just winging it.

Tommy: The reality is it's, deeply connected to you. And so the change isn't just like, it'd be like a, it's probably the similar reality to a name change, like by, by law.

Josh: So going in, changing my name from Thomas to Tom to Timmy, but it's not just, the thing is that it's not just a name change though, because what you've inevitably done, say, let's say if we use the analogy that, um, real estate analogies, please, it wasn't actually, please, just if we ever resort to analogy on the show today, real real estate.

Tommy: Come on.

Josh: I don't even, I wouldn't even know what it is.

Tommy: See the twinkle in his eyes? That's a challenge and he's accepted it.

Josh: No, well, you've essentially walked away from, you were real estate maven and then you've said, I'm not real estate maven anymore. Which, do you think that it puts a negative light on other real estate agents who are like, hey bro, like you're moving away from us and they see it as a bit of a personal attack on what they do?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I totally see it. And that was one of the, the problems that I originally had with changing the name. I didn't want to discredit cycling or anyone who is invested just in cycling, but for me it wasn't working. Um, the other thing is maven. Anyone who doesn't know what a maven is, if you Wikipedia it, it's back in the day when I named this channel, it's an expert in a particular field who seeks to pass on knowledge to others. And the truth is I'm not an expert in cycling.

Josh: I thought it was a bird.

Mark: No, it's a raven. Or a maverick.

Tommy: Or a maverick. Maverick, Maven, Logan Paul.

Josh: But the good thing is, to be honest, Maven's fucking great because Guru is stinky as fuck.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, it's tears. It's a Yiddish word actually.

Josh: Maven is?

Mark: Maven, yeah, it's a Jewish word. Yeah, just, you know, incidentally, I just thought I'd throw this.

Josh: No, well, you're fucking dropping truth bombs. And so the—

Tommy: so how do people react?

Mark: Yeah, so when you did it, so yeah, that's, that's, um Everyone was fucking super basic.

Tommy: Basically, people, there's very, there's trolls, lots of trolls.

Mark: So, you know, it's funny you say that because podcasting is great because you can say your piece, you can have a bit of chang with some mates, and then bang, you put your thing up and you don't get much feedback.

Josh: Yeah, hold that thought. Chang.

Mark: Chang. So chang is like talking chang. I like talking shit.

Josh: You keep saying that to me, like, yeah, talking chang, like you're answering the question. So chang is talking. What does chang mean?

Mark: Well, it's fun.

Josh: Well, it's funny, it's actually a Yiddish word.

Mark: You know, we, we sort of, uh, my mates and I, you know you know, when we get pissed and we have a few drinks, we're talking Chang, you know, or we're talking left-handed Swahili.

Tommy: So, you know, like, so left-handed Swahili for a podcast was a bit too long.

Mark: Yeah, it was too long. And I actually, I've got a podcast now and I've named it Talking Chang.

Tommy: So it's great brand integration.

Josh: Well, that was just done because that was the, um, no, because Mark sent me a text message with the artwork and I had an anxiety attack because I was like, I love the artwork, but do I explain that I don't know what Chang is? And given that that was the name of your podcast, so then, well, we're Simple Folks, you were pretty concerned. Daily talk show.

Tommy: Yeah, we're Simple Folks.

Mark: And I'm actually flabbergasted that you, because searching for that on social, yeah, that all the, you know, because you've got the Twitter handles and stuff, I don't know how you got that. Yeah, that's crazy.

Josh: It was very good. But the thing, the thing was that I, when I was actually trying to find this Chang reference, I ended up landing on one of your videos anyway. It was like, I think it was, I thought it must have been a reference to Thailand, Chiang Mai or something.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Because I think it was in Thailand that you were talking Chang.

Mark: Yeah, that's right.

Josh: Which is fucking confusing, but it's got nothing to do with Chiang Mai.

Mark: No, I think it was we were on the booze one night, we're drinking the Changy beers and someone said, stop talking Chang. You know, like one of my mates, Joel Lithgow, actually a good mate of mine from Perth, just an absolute hilarious, he's not a comedian, but he should be. But yeah, I think he came up with it. So I stole it.

Josh: No, I like it. No, well, I'm glad that we did it.

Mark: You can use it too if you want.

Josh: Talking Chang.

Tommy: Yeah. All right, coming back, podcast. I mean, the YouTube.

Mark: So the YouTube, yeah, talking about the hate. So as everyone knows, you get just absolute loose cannons on YouTube.

Josh: Do you filter it? Do you get no, 'cause I noticed with the Matt D'Avella YouTube comments, they were all really nice, but I saw that there was a different amount of numbers in the total So I'd see like 98 comments, right? And then you would click on recent comments or whatever and it would drop down to 89, as if there's been some that are being flagged. Like he's either got a filter that if someone says fuckwit, that it just doesn't post. Have you got those filters?

Mark: You've— they naturally set it up. So if there's swear words or things like that, they will naturally filter through to review comments section. But I don't have anything like that. I just, you know, all the— any engagement is good engagement on YouTube. And it's actually for the algorithm as well if there's engagement. So if someone even clicks the dislike button, it's a good thing for your video. Any interaction with the video is a good thing.

Josh: So you— so do you in that case allow this negative feedback?

Mark: Yeah, I allow negative feedback, but I will— I did go through a phase there where I was a little bit sensitive when, when I went to Europe last year. We had a Kickstarter, so we put a Kickstarter together to our fans and we said, listen, you guys 'Chip into the Kickstarter, we'll make vlogs from Europe. So you guys pay for it and we'll go make some video content for you.' And there was a lot of people that criticised me, you know, saying I was money grabbing and stuff. So I got a little bit sensitive when they were criticising me through, you know, some nasty comments.

Josh: And you also mentioned that they reached— they said shit about Han as well on the—

Mark: Yeah, well, so can I say it?

Josh: Yeah, well, you said it last episode.

Mark: Did I?

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, so someone said the exact— so obviously in Europe you're on the opposite time thing to Australia. So I woke up in the morning one day after posting a video the night before. I woke up to the top comment on my video.

Josh: So that means people have liked it.

Mark: So people have liked this comment, right? Yeah, sorry, Hannah needs a cock in her ass.

Tommy: Oh no, I didn't say that. I wouldn't like that. That's right. I think I then told you.

Mark: I can't believe you wrote that.

Tommy: No, it's just fuck with someone wrote on the haunted house or scary house video that I did. I was looking through this house. The only thing scary about that video is your girlfriend. People are fucked.

Mark: Yeah, people are— some comments are horrendous. And you know what, it's not the outright mean comments like that, it's the passive-aggressive little tears comments that you get. You know, like, you're like, this is the other thing, right? I'm a video creator. I know, I've made 600 videos. I know how to make a fucking video. Yeah, okay, I don't need you Joe Random coming on and telling me that's a good video, but I think you should have done this.

Tommy: Yeah, people always have an opinion and they're the ones not in the arena fighting the, uh, the lion.

Josh: I think that the hard bit of feedback— who's the lion?

Tommy: Um, the trolls on YouTube. No, it's just the— it's probably internal. Like that, if I'm to go back to the metaphor, it is the lion is the internal hate or the internal noise? Because to put out 600 videos, there's a lot of fucking 'I'm not good enough,' 'this is shit,' 'it's not great,' you know, all that stuff.

Mark: Yeah, and I'll tell you what it is. It's, it's just wanting to be noticed. So I find that a lot of these guys make these comments just so that the person notices them, either gives it a love or responds to them, you know. So all the negative stuff, yeah, is to incite a bit of action.

Josh: And so what was the— was there feedback that, that is hurtful, hard to read, but is actually correct?

Mark: Yeah, there, there is sometimes. With the Kickstarter thing, there was a little bit of, uh, it sort of, it sort of struck a chord a little bit because it was difficult. So for example, we're getting some feedback that we weren't creating the content that we promised, but the thing is, when we went to Europe we realised that it was actually a lot more difficult traveling. I mean, you guys know, you create videos. Imagine travelling with all your equipment, going from day to day to day. You've got no internet access. You're trying to make a video sitting in a toilet somewhere, trying to edit this video, just like, you know, wherever, in the car even, running out of battery. I mean, it is logistically a nightmare to create videos on the road. And so, but we did promise that we'd make these videos, you know. So there's There was a little bit of that that sort of came back to bite us.

Josh: Did you feel like you needed to apologize? Did you say sorry? How do you feel?

Mark: I didn't say sorry, but we still created amazing videos. Like, if you ask most of our followers, they said it was great videos, and under the circumstances we did really well. Yeah, but there was a little bit of that, but mostly just stupid comments. Yeah, like stupid nasty shit. And coming back to changing the name from Cycling Maven, I think there's a little bit of legacy that I want to get away from that as well.

Josh: Is the legacy the audience though? Are you going, can you change the name? Can you change, like if you, if part of it is that you've had a bunch of fights at a cafe, so you've got a cafe and there's like a bunch of fights as that can happen.

Tommy: I'm previously, I'm actually listing this cafe.

Josh: Exactly.

Tommy: I'm a real estate ad.

Josh: And so yeah, real estate analogy. Now imagine, you know, you've got a cafe, a bunch of, fuckwits come in, they cause trouble. Changing the name of the cafe when all the remaining people are still there. Do you feel a bit of that? Do you feel like you've changed the name but it's still the same? No, no.

Mark: And that's a good question as well. What I feel as though I've done with the name change more so is just open up my scope of topics to talk about. I mean, I think I've done the cycling thing to death, and I think over 600 videos you— I mean, what else can you talk about? Yeah, what else can you talk about in cycling? I, you know, the new— you know what I mean? Like tyre pressures and shit like that's been done to death. So I think now I can talk— I can start the podcast, I can talk about— I can do tutorials, and you can talk about anything. I could do a news thing.

Tommy: I love the reality is I've spent a lot of time trying to work out how to build an audience and speaking to people with an audience, and some of the suggestions have been like find your niche, your niche, you know, find something that you can then visit every time. And then it's like interesting because that's only just one truth, and then you've got this other truth based on the context of the last, you know, 5, 6 years, whatever it is, to be saying, I actually don't want a niche. I want— you've built the order, you've built an audience, and now you're trying to open it up a bit more.

Mark: I've thought about it. Yeah, yeah, that's a Really good point. And yes, I do believe in build unique. I mean, that's why my audience is really there from the cycling stuff. But I think once they get to know you as a person and realise that there is more to the show, you know, I think it opens up your scope to a bigger audience. But again, are they gonna stay? And that's the question. And we've had a small drop off. I've got 50,000 subs on YouTube. We've had about 1,000 people leave ever since I announced the name change. And every video we, every video we make, there's a few that drop off. Yeah, but I think that's not their cup of tea.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely.

Mark: You know, so that's okay.

Josh: So do you think that it's almost like the niche to me strategy? It's like start with the niche, yeah, build the buy-in on me and what I'm doing, and then slowly introduce them to this extra complexity that is Maven and what you're doing and other topics, you know.

Mark: And I think, yes, I think there— that's happening. But who am I to say whether that's actually going to work? Because at the moment it's not. I mean, well, it is and it isn't. Most people are, you know, if you look through my— the end of cycling Maven video, most people were very encouraging. They were like, yep, I'm looking forward to the next thing. But having said that, if you look at our stats and our numbers we're still getting the views and stuff, and we're getting more listeners on the podcast, but we are getting a drop-off in subscriber rates on YouTube.

Tommy: So Josh is off social media, and I've been thinking a lot about it.

Mark: Are you detoxing?

Josh: No, I've retired. No, don't say quit.

Tommy: Okay, retired. He's— he wants to potentially have a comeback, and in his—

Josh: in his— uh, I don't know. Well, you've got it.

Tommy: You can You can come out of retirement.

Josh: I could definitely, potentially. I think it would be pretty—

Tommy: quitting is really severing the tie.

Josh: No, quitting— retiring— the reason I use the word retiring is because I feel like I've had a really good life on social media. I've enjoyed— quitting feels really negative. You quit from a job. I'm retiring from the whole fucking thing.

Mark: So, so talk to me about that, because I often think about this myself. Yeah, right. I lie in bed at night and I look at you know, now with the shutdown of Cycling Maven and I'm doing other stuff, I've still got a lot of cycling stuff because of algorithms that keeps coming up in my feed, even though I've changed my name and it's all cycling. And I'm like, I don't want to look at cycling shit, I want to look at something else. I want to look at surfing, for example, right? But you look at the cycling crew in the, in the cycling world, and I'm like, I don't, I don't want to see this.

Josh: I don't associate.

Mark: I almost want to bloody cancel my accounts as well.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Well, I think there's the— at that moment you're being the consumer, not the creator. Yeah. So it's just, I think what you've done, Josh— why was that eye roll?

Josh: Well, because fucking Maven says he doesn't want to use a stand because he's— and he literally said yes while having the microphone over his head.

Tommy: What do you mean? I don't know.

Josh: He just said yes, but he said it like this.

Tommy: Ah, so you're rolling your eyes at Maven.

Josh: I was rolling my fucking— Maven knows exactly what the fuck he You did, didn't you?

Mark: Straight away, straight away I looked at you.

Josh: I've got the head—

Tommy: I was trying to work it out.

Josh: I'm the one wearing the headphones.

Tommy: Ah, so yeah, that's what's happening. So the consumer stuff, I think from my observation of what Josh has done is saying he's reducing his consumption, which comes with the buyback.

Mark: So you haven't shut your account down?

Josh: No, so when he says reduce consumption, he's saying that the reason I got rid of the account was to reduce overall consumption. Assumption. I don't— all I have— I deleted Instagram completely. But no, sorry, whoa, when I say that, when you go to Josh Jansen on Instagram, it says— it's a bio that says retired from social media, creating things at joshjansen.com. And I have removed all of the photos, all the posts. So if someone clicks on me, they're not going to see anything of my past on Instagram. The only thing they'll be able to do is go on social, go through to my joshjansen.com.

Mark: So really, that's, that's vetting people from seeing your stuff. It's not vetting you from seeing and being a consumer.

Josh: Well, so I've also deleted Instagram, so I'm, I'm not logging in, I'm not seeing DMs. I'm, I only just re-downloaded Instagram and put the daily talk show on there just because I see that as a podcast thing, and I'll just post something, and I'll just be in that little world. I'll just look at the posts we've done in the comments and consume and do stuff on there, but I will actively not click through and fall into the fucking rabbit hole that is clicking on bios, clicking on it.

Tommy: I actually don't think we think about the strategy that we're implementing with being a creator. So you, I don't know how much you've thought about it. I've been thinking about it a lot. So my hypothesis is what we know is that if you don't choose a strategy, it's still a strategy to not focus on what you really want to achieve with it, how much you want to create, and then you just start posting. That is a strategy, right? But I think that strategy is dictated by the social platforms.

Josh: The algorithms.

Tommy: The algorithm, the feeling that you get from something, you know, likes. From the attention, from how many subscribers you got. So that's what dictates the person's strategy who doesn't choose the strategy.

Josh: Yeah, I'm gonna do Instagram TV 'cause Instagram TV's available to me.

Tommy: Yeah, so they've chosen for you.

Josh: Rather than thinking about everything being an actual question of like, does this filter through with what I wanna do?

Tommy: And the benefit is for the platform. And sometimes the byproduct of the benefit for the platform is someone winning, getting a million, followers on Instagram, like, but that's so rare, like from a percentage point of view, that is so low to actually get any of that success. And so choosing— and what I see Josh doing and the pushback he's had from people about getting rid of it, all he's doing is choosing another strategy that isn't what the status quo— isn't the status quo. And so it's really fascinating to think about if you were to limit what platforms you're on, because I counted 15 over the last 10 years that I've actually been posting on, you know, like 18 accounts across all of these. So who's—

Josh: how do you—

Tommy: if the— you know, how do you find success across 18 different things? It's spreading your focus 18 times.

Mark: You're dead right. And it's, uh, it's thinning out your resources as well. We've only got limited time. But there's another— I think there's a number of things going on here too, because we get— it's these social media, uh, apps are designed to keep us from creating. I mean, most people are consumers.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And there's, you know, very few people that are actually creators. And I could— so I can see merit in that. One thing I'd be questioning is, are you— you're creating a brand of, you know, yourself on, on the daily podcast. So what if people want to sort of— what if they get hooked on you and they want to learn more?

Josh: I reckon that— so I read Deep Work by Cal Newport. I don't know if you've heard of that book. He was talking about the difference between deep work and shallow work, and I just think that the stuff that I can post on Instagram, Instagram is almost too easy. Everyone can, everyone can post on social media. There's no real skill to it. So what I'm trying to do is only focus on high skill content creation, so writing longer form making video content, doing the podcast, and thinking that that is, if people are left with wanting more, but I'm still being consistent, I think that that's a win.

Tommy: And I think you can only think that's a bad strategy if you think the opposite is the better strategy. So you think it's better to post on every single platform, post trying hit as many, like, but then that, if you think deeply on that, is just that, you obviously think that's correct. And a lot of people think that's correct because it's like a logical way to go about it, right?

Mark: Yeah.

Tommy: Oh, post on everything.

Josh: Some people make it work too. I think the thing is that I've got the luxury of not having an audience. Yeah. It's a lot harder for you because you've built an audience and you've made it work. And so it's, for me, I'm like, okay, well, I'm in the unique position of, I don't have anything. Like when you've got, it's like the equivalent of like if you've got a house and kid and all these responsibilities, all these things start to change in the way that you approach life versus someone who has nothing, doesn't have to think about all that. I think that's what maybe I've applied to the audience, which is day one, if I just did the things that I wanna do, what does that look like?

Mark: And you make an interesting point with posting good quality, high quality content because that's hard to do for most people. Yet anyone can pick up their phone, take a photo of a flower and post it on Instagram. So guilty. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I often do the same thing. Like, I'm not a great photographer. Yes, I can create videos, but you know, when I think about what am I going to post— because you need to remain relevant too. If they don't see you in their feed, who is this guy?

Tommy: Who's dictating that? Well, I think that feeling—

Josh: I think that that's because the way that we consume content. But I think that I'm banking on the idea that it all will hopefully change. And so, what I've been thinking about is social media is micro, micro comparisons that's constantly happening, right? So, the way that the feed is designed, I'm only going to be on a piece of your content for a minute, let's say. Max, but you're sort of turning through it. It's like radio in the sense that you're in the car and you're tuning between stations and you're flicking between all these different breakfast shows until someone triggers something and you're interested in it. And I think that the difference between what podcasting does or what a blog does, it's like, no, you're arriving to MySpace and you're choosing to be here, so the buy-in is much higher. Plus there isn't the back and forth of comparison that can happen where it's like going from you, Maven, on fucking, on a bike, something different, say you're on a bike, maybe you've just sold a—

Mark: It's more to me than that.

Josh: You've sold a house at a real estate, in front of a sold sign.

Tommy: He's on a bike in a suit. And so— Traveling salesman.

Josh: Can we just keep real estate sales?

Mark: I have done that, I have done that.

Tommy: Traveling real estate salesman.

Josh: Fuck, you see the rebrand happening live on the show.

Tommy: He's gonna walk away as a real estate maven.

Mark: I think there is already one.

Josh: Is there?

Mark: Yeah, I think there is.

Tommy: He's trying to rebrand as well at the moment.

Josh: So the thing is that, yeah, with the podcast, people who are listening to this are going to listen to this for 35 minutes, 40 minutes.

Mark: Yeah, because they're here for you guys. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Josh: It's slower. It's much, much slower. How do you think that you actually built your audience?

Mark: Well, I mean, again, it was like what you were talking about earlier with the— if you're even not having a plan. I never really had a plan. I had a rough plan in my head when I started making these videos, and I had no idea how to make videos. So I went on to lynda.com and I started watching how to create videos on Premiere Pro, and before you know it, I was creating these really crap videos. But I sort of figured at the time that if I keep making them, I'll get better at them, and people will get to know me through the videos and realize, hey, I'd like to watch these videos, and eventually I'll build up a pretty big audience, yeah, right, in that niche of cycling. But, uh, again, I never really had a strategy.

Josh: But you were— the niche was part of the strategy though. You had identified that, yeah, the cycling stuff.

Tommy: But it was, it was your interest.

Mark: Well, I suppose that's exactly right. It was my interest. I mean, I didn't really— there's things I could talk about and talk about other topics. I can talk about drinking coffee. I could have started the Cafe Maven and just gone around to cafes and stuff, but they would have got You would have had a heart attack by now.

Josh: What would the niche be if you were to start, if you had to commit to a niche today? Yeah, something maybe.

Tommy: Put a gun to his head, he has to commit.

Mark: Oh, I don't know much about real estate. What is it? Uh, yeah, that's a good question.

Josh: And what, what are the filters, I guess, that you use?

Mark: Because I suppose I know a lot about, as I've said about 10 times in this podcast, I know a lot about video editing. Yeah, so I could start sort of niching in video editing. And the thing is with YouTube is that there's so many people there to learn because they can't afford Lynda.com at $350 a year. Yeah, so they go to YouTube to learn the video creation. So that, that would be a— that'd be something.

Tommy: Why do we— why do we— because I've always seen people pretty early days, and I got told about this guy who I've seen his videos and he's messing them up a lot, but this dude told me who works with him, oh, he's actually going to start doing a course for teaching people how to do it.

Mark: Well, it's a great way to make money.

Tommy: Well, so money is one of them, but I've always thought, and I've even done it, I've got, okay, I'm going to run a day workshop. It's like there is a moment where most people, I think a lot of creators look to, how can I teach people? How can I then become the teacher?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And I, I've kind of given it some pushback, and Josh said a great question, when is the right time? When can you be the teacher? Because if it is, if it seems like it might be too early for a lot of people—

Josh: Seth Godin says he's a teacher. Like, I think that's because I think that it's like coaching. Coaching has so many negative connotations because of, I think, what has happened within the industry of a lot of people who are 18 who have been part of some form of coaching programme or, you know, working remotely, you know, make money on a beach type of thing. And I think teaching, there isn't— that spreads to that, but there is so much benefit from teaching as well.

Mark: And teaching and/or coaching, you know, there's something about age, right? So as you get older, you— people look at you with a bit more cred.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: As a teacher. So if you start talking, you know, like you're a maven about, uh, you know, real estate, people are going to listen to you if you're in your 40s as opposed to if you're in your 20s.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Um, so, you know, I mean, I think I'm 45. Well, this is the thing, right? This is the other thing I was going to say. I'm 45 years old and I don't even see myself as a teacher. Yeah, do you know what I mean? So I think you have to, in your mind, get your head around the fact that if, you know, if you want to be a teacher or a coach, you have to start positioning yourself as an authority on the subject, which is something I never did with cycling. I never really went in my videos and pretended as though I knew a lot about that subject.

Josh: What was your brand filters, do you think, for that? Like, what is— if you were to say, finish this sentence, Cycling Maven is— what was Cycling Maven at that time?

Mark: Cycling Maven, for all of the duration of my vlog, was just a cycling frother, you know. But really, in retrospect, if I had my time again, I would have positioned myself as an authority, and I really would have read up on the pro cycling scene and, and, and known my shit about the subject. Because I think scalability-wise, in terms of making it a full-time gig, uh, if you're an authority in the subject, then you can make a living out of it. Whereas if you're just a cycling frother, yeah, who's making videos, and you mentally position yourself as just a dude who just makes videos just for fun because he loves cycling, then there's not really long-term prospects of making a full-time living out of hence why I'm sitting here in a suit selling surgical devices on a daily basis.

Josh: What did you nearly do that— did you— I mean, because that's a choice. You, you could have gone down the route of, I'm now influential in this play, in this space, like a Cycling Tips or something. Did you consider doing that?

Mark: Not really, because I never really felt as though I was that interested. You know, for example, for me to sit down— I'll give you an example. Matt Keenan, he's a cycling commentator here in Australia. He you'll start to hear him talking on all the TV shows about cycling. He'll be the guy in the future. He knows a lot about every pro rider, when they won races. He has read a lot of stuff, and I look at him and go, kudos to you, bro, because I can't even get up in the morning and look at cycling news. I don't give a shit who won the race yesterday. And so that's part of the problem. You've got to be madly passionate about what you do to be an authority in it.

Tommy: So for someone who is thinking that niching is the way to go, is the advice, unless you are 100% dead set into it, love it, live and breathe it, don't do it?

Mark: Exactly, don't bother. I mean, you could start it out and see— see, I wouldn't say don't start because you can start it out and realise that you're actually madly passionate about video editing and creating videos on YouTube. So you might go into another area. So, and this is what I say to Hannah, you know, she's always saying to me, well, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I mean, she's 32 years old, she's sort of, she's young still. And I'm like, well, just start something. Yeah, just start knitting and you might realise that you like, actually you like crochet.

Josh: Or I don't know, crochet maven.

Mark: What is crochet?

Tommy: Actually, something with knitting, like needles, like a needle on that. My wife does it, I'm pretty sure.

Josh: I'm pretty sure, pretty sure.

Tommy: No, this is the whole thing, crochet.

Josh: She's got a bunch of woollen crochet.

Mark: But isn't it just, just coming back to you, um, who was your inspo for getting off? So obviously there's a big movement at the moment, you know, a lot of people are saying that social media is mentally not good for you.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Who was your inspo?

Josh: Me, I reckon. No, I reckon, no, I think there's probably 3, 3 key people. Uh, Cal Newport, uh, who wrote Deep Work, um, Seth Godin who has been writing a blog post every single day, you know, for the past 15 fucking years or whatever it is, a very long time, and doesn't use social media outside of a few.

Mark: Like, well, Twitter, he started— I remember when he started on Twitter, he was telling everyone to get on Twitter. This is years ago, 2010, even earlier. And he didn't even start his own Twitter account. It was just Seth's blog.

Josh: Yeah, getting automating, just broadcasting. Yeah, yeah. And so, and The other one, Matt D'Avella with the social detox stuff. And so what I recognised was, I guess that you can commit to not having meat for a month or you can just completely get off it. And so for me, I thought, I looked at who do I wanna be, who do I aspire to be, who inspires me, and also what do I wanna do on a day-to-day basis? And I saw a misalignment between who I wanted to be, which is a guy who is well considered, who spends time in things to give it proper thought, that is—

Mark: A maven.

Josh: Yeah, maven, exactly. And I don't think that you can be a maven on social media.

Tommy: He got a maven tattoo, but he got a bird.

Josh: It's actually a cycling maven, it's a bird on a bike. That would have been a great logo. Can we just— what was the bird that I was thinking of?

Tommy: A maverick.

Mark: Raven. Which is often what I say to people, you know, when I say, you know, they say, where can I see this video? I say Cycling Maven. And they go, oh, what's that? I'm just like, just think of the bird raven and then replace the R with an M.

Josh: I mean, what if you were to give pushback on this whole me getting retiring from social media? What is it?

Tommy: Or even the strategy?

Mark: Look, I don't really have any pushback because I've been thinking it myself. If I think about what cracks me me, you know, is seeing other people who I know that I don't necessarily like doing really well. And you know, you should be thinking, yeah, good on that dude for working hard and doing well.

Josh: So true.

Mark: But there are elements, and I can't help it, where I go on social media and I'm a little bit, oh, like I'm— it doesn't even motivate me to create, to compete with them. It's, it's actually quite demotivating to see people doing really well. And it looks effortless. And yet I put so much work into my videos and my podcast and stuff like that.

Tommy: It's only an illusion though, because they're doing the exact same thing. And then they're looking over as you're putting your finger up at someone else at the back of their head, someone's putting their finger up at the back of your head saying, fuck you, I wish I had what you've got.

Mark: And I suppose my point is, even with an audience, which is what, you know, I haven't got millions of subscribers, but even with an audience, someone like me, uh, Even we, even people with 200,000, 1 million subscribers, they're all sitting there thinking, God, what's that guy doing?

Josh: So what is the appeal? Or what do you actually think? Where do you reckon it's gonna land with all of this for you personally?

Mark: Look, I'm with you.

Tommy: Real Estate Maven. Real Estate Maven.

Mark: No, no, I really think getting off, I think being a creator is important. So creating something, having fun with it, and sort of trying to get as much away from this comparing yourself to others thing as possible, which is detoxing from social media. In fact, getting off it completely. I think that's where it's at for the future.

Josh: What do you think replaces— how much time do you spend a week on social media?

Mark: Well, you know, you forget about the times that you're sitting in the car, you know, have you got an iPhone? Sorry, sitting in the— in bed. I've got an iPhone, yes, but sitting in bed, you know, for me, for my day job, I'm sitting in theatre waiting for the surgeon and I'm sitting there flicking through Instagram. So these are all the things that are just subliminal, yeah, you know, you don't even know you're doing it.

Josh: Do you actually look at— because the iPhone has screen time.

Mark: Have you— I don't cheque it out. I don't cheque it out because I don't trust it. It's like when you have the sleep app, how does it fucking know?

Tommy: We've got another conspiracy, Jimmy, on our hands.

Josh: It's got that vibe. You've got very conspiracy.

Tommy: Would you look at how, how much that app—

Mark: Jimmy, Jimmy. Timmy and I need to hang out.

Josh: Yeah, conspiracy.

Mark: Yeah, I don't mind a good conspiracy. 9/11 was definitely one, but we won't go down that rabbit hole.

Josh: The, um, now can you pull out your phone and see how long you've— can we do it for the first time?

Tommy: All right, I'm gonna get mine.

Josh: Okay, so TJ's gonna get his. The funny thing is maybe I'll do it on mine, which could be embarrassing if I've spent more time on social media.

Tommy: Um, what was it?

Josh: It'd be a week ago.

Tommy: It did say a heap, but there was one that was open. It could have been Reddit, Google Maps, Google Maps. Yeah, that's right.

Mark: Do you know where this doesn't, uh, record naughty sites?

Josh: Does this— settings—

Tommy: where is it? Um, screen time.

Josh: Let me go settings.

Mark: So settings, number one, screen time. It's front and center. Yeah, here we go, here we go. So this is my— well, I've got two phones. This is my work phone, so I'm really good.

Josh: Would you have social media on?

Tommy: So do you want last 7 days, or— so if you click onto that, Maeve Dogg.

Mark: All right.

Tommy: So today, so if you go to the top, you can cheque between today and last 7 days. Let's do last 7 days, guys.

Josh: Can we start off with today because my numbers are impressive for today?

Tommy: Here we go, here we go. Today and then into last 7 days.

Josh: So today, go. So Josh, you go. Uh, leave with Tommy because he wants to have the final—

Mark: well, you've got an unfair advantage because you're off.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Mark: So it's really between Tommy and I today.

Tommy: So, um, what's that say?

Josh: 1 hour 46 minutes in total.

Tommy: That's across productivity, entertainment, social networking. So 1 hour and 46 minutes.

Josh: How much on Instagram?

Tommy: Um, Instagram, 4 minutes.

Mark: Oh, good effort.

Josh: 4 minutes on Instagram? That's crazy.

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: So where's the main amount of time? Mail. Okay, sure.

Tommy: I was right.

Josh: What about you?

Mark: See, well, that's the thing. That's interesting because I cannot write emails on my phone. I have to wait. And this is part of procrastination as I go home and just get on the computer. But anyway, that's insane.

Josh: Sorry guys, gotta go home.

Tommy: I need to write an email.

Mark: You know, the best excuse is actually quite interesting because I'm mid-40s. So it's like, I can't, you know, where you guys just bang them out.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, what do you, what do you got to do? You got to get your fucking—

Mark: I like to have the settings.

Josh: You got to ink up the fucking—

Mark: what is that, the format? I like the font on the, on the computer too, whereas the font on this is tears. Anyway, so, so I'm an hour and 22.

Josh: I'm 32 minutes, but 13 minutes on Instagram because I was responding to— because I did that, um, You just run it to a message? Yeah, I was— no, not to a message, to comments on our daily talk show stuff.

Mark: So most of mine's Twitter, Aaron's 22. Okay. And Google Maps.

Josh: And so if you go to the last—

Mark: where I'm going—

Josh: if you, if you go to the last 7 days, um, what's your top app?

Tommy: So what's your top app, the most used app? And it will tell you the amount of time you've used it.

Mark: Twitter, Aaron, 22.

Tommy: Far out. Instagram, 4 hours and 31 minutes.

Josh: So you mustn't—

Mark: if you've got it on 7 days, I do, but the problem with this is, and this is where it's not legit, so I need to add this and my other phone, my two phones. I really need to add them together.

Josh: Full drug dealer. Yeah, so yours, yours is irrelevant. So what was yours, T?

Tommy: 7-day is top app is Instagram, and I used it for 4 hours and 31 minutes.

Josh: So my Instagram usage is down to 1 hour 21 minutes.

Tommy: 7 days. Okay, and then what's your top app? Chrome. How long are you in Chrome?

Josh: 4 hours and 10 minutes. That's because I'm checking Instagram.

Mark: No, so checking how to delete Instagram.

Tommy: He's gone in the back way to look at the desktop version.

Josh: Yeah, but, um, that's so, that's so funny. Yeah, so what would, what do you think you would replace with all the—

Tommy: Oh, hang on, sorry, I just want to say one more thing. Scroll down, there's a how many times you've picked up your phone and it tells you per day. So this is like Pull it up.

Mark: This, you're educated.

Tommy: This is good. So, um, but you won't believe the numbers anyway.

Josh: For people playing at home, you just go into settings on your iOS phone, yeah, iPhone, and there's a little purple time, and then you click through.

Tommy: And so pickups for me, 97 per day is how many times I'm picking up my phone.

Mark: That's big.

Tommy: What have you got?

Mark: That's double mine.

Tommy: That's double.

Mark: In fact, it's almost triple, but again, two phones situation, so it's not—

Josh: okay, wait, so did you go on the 7 last 7 days.

Tommy: Scroll down and it's like it says pickups, 70 per day for me. Interesting.

Josh: So what's your total pickups for the total pickups for the week?

Tommy: So week is 683.

Josh: It's 495. You've got it, kid.

Mark: 270. I wish I'd have brought my other phone actually to just, uh, because I think I'd be up there.

Tommy: Is that the, is that the one that would have the numbers? That's his email-only device.

Josh: I know he doesn't email. Sorry, sorry, I don't think the typewriter I've got a typewriter app on.

Mark: Yeah, um, no, good, good question. So what's going to replace it? Um, well, you know, this is the thing. I reckon if I shut down all social apps, you're going to sit there twiddling your thumbs, really, aren't you?

Josh: And that's almost what I want.

Mark: More time with Hannah.

Tommy: You would, you'd have to fill the time.

Josh: You would.

Tommy: We've got to know, because you've got a little bub. How old's—

Mark: so Jack's, uh, 9 months now.

Tommy: Yeah, so mine's nearly 2. And we've, after the Seth Godin episode, I got back from New York, from America, and I said, Amy, I reckon we don't use any device around the kids, so we don't show him any videos when we get home. And we've stopped it. Maybe there's like, literally we've gone down, I reckon, 95% from what we were doing. Not that we're doing it a fuckload, but it was a go-to if he was just losing his mind. If you're desperate, yeah. Desperate, as you know, it's just—

Mark: You have to, if you're desperate sometimes you just have to put something down.

Tommy: 100%. And it has 100% mean that we actually spend more time together as a partnership. Partnership, that's how I say my relationship, full-blown business partnership. No, but just as a couple and with Bodhi, he loves it. So it's like, and what I realized—

Josh: He loves like to slide down.

Tommy: No, actually what we realized, so we get home and we take him to the park 'cause all he says when we get home, slide, slide, park, park.

Josh: What he was meaning was slide, like unlock the phone. Slide, slide.

Tommy: He would love the phone as well, but he also loves the park. So if you just choose for him, the park's more productive, as if for a baby.

Josh: That's my point.

Tommy: Yeah, so we're all big babies.

Mark: And see, this is something I want to improve. And, and as I've said, I've been putting a lot of thought into this detox thing. And so I've got, uh, well, then you've got Audible. So is that considered an app?

Josh: No. Well, so I was using the thing with Audible.

Mark: It's not really social.

Josh: Yeah, no, so it's not social. I I got Audible 10 years ago and I've got like a couple of hundred books on there, used it religiously. And I've, but what I felt is it's such a different experience than actually reading a book. I have only read a book from start to finish in the past, for the first time, I'm 28, for the first time this month.

Tommy: Is there a correlation between the social media?

Josh: Yeah, well, the thing was, well, the funny thing is the book was all about why you should get rid of your social media. But I was, the biggest tip was around underlining, which we've spoken at— we spoke about—

Mark: if we're big babies, and which we are, yeah, which we are, which we are.

Tommy: So for my son, I've made the decision, which is choose the park, which is more beneficial, more productive for him as a person, over giving him a phone. So if we're big babies and we had an adult that had to make a decision for us based on what was most productive and beneficial for us, it's not the fucking phone. No one's choosing social media as the thing, if they're to be honest about what, how much we can develop based on doing something else, you wouldn't choose it. So we do it, choose it for ourselves.

Mark: Yeah, I think also when you remove the social media element, I mean, it takes more effort to be engaged with your kid and, you know, and play and throw the ball to him and stuff, and to spend more time with your missus talking about shit that doesn't necessarily interest you. Just talking Chang, talking Chang, you know.

Josh: But do you talk Chang with your missus?

Mark: Yeah, we talk all the time.

Josh: No, but I was wondering, you actually talk Chang? Chang is a universal thing that you do?

Mark: Yeah, we're just talking shit. Okay, we talk all the time. In fact, we talk mostly shit. Yeah, but, um, but you know, the truth is it is more labour intensive, right? But it's better for your well-being, I think. And I think we're seeing now this massive movement of people writing books about social media and how tears it is. And we're seeing the tears.

Josh: He said that two times.

Mark: Tears.

Tommy: It's better than saying how bad cancer is.

Mark: Tears is like—

Tommy: that's what the young people say.

Josh: Tears is—

Mark: yes.

Tommy: Have you heard that? Young people saying that? That's cancer.

Mark: I don't hang out with young people.

Josh: Yeah, but where the fuck did you get tears from?

Mark: Tears is another one of our isms.

Josh: It's just— oh, that's a Chang thing.

Mark: Chang. It's tears.

Tommy: Something's tears. Crying. It's sad.

Josh: Shit.

Mark: It's too sad.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: So yeah, so I think we're seeing more, and people are writing books about it. Yeah, so we're seeing more of this movement away from—

Josh: not that we've read them—

Mark: a lot of mental health stuff, you know, there's a lot of mental health stuff associated with comparisons. And, and so, and we're seeing an increase in, in mental health issues. So yeah, I'm all for it, man. Let's start reading books together.

Josh: Have you gone to— because you were having You were going through your own mental health struggles.

Mark: Yep.

Josh: Did you go to a therapist?

Mark: I didn't really wanna. Nah, I'm only kidding. No, no, I did actually. So when I had Jack, they reckon that 1 in 10 men suffer from anxiety and depression. And I'm, mate, you guys pretty much, what you see is what you get. I'm pretty, you know, I've always been the sort of bloke to go to a party and just, you know, be one of, not necessarily one of the life of the party, but I can have a conversation.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: I've never, never had problems with mental health whatsoever. Not that I thought anyway, right? But, um, when I had Jack, I was 44, started late, and I think the sudden realisation that you can't be this selfish prick anymore— I think it— and, and not only that, but, you know, when you're getting into your 40s, you start thinking about your own health, like, you know, physical health, not getting cancer and dying and stuff, and who's going to look after your kid if you do So all this stuff sort of— I got a bit of postnatal anxiety, not so much depression. I got a little bit depressed because I had anxiety. But anyone that hasn't suffered from anxiety, it's quite, it's quite a terrible experience, right? And so for about 3 months there, I had really bad anxiety. Uh, come out the other end of it now, but, um, but I think all this stuff, this, you know, Cycling Maven thing and being so prolific on social as what I've been for the last 6 years was a contributing factor.

Josh: I'm interested in the therapist stuff 'cause TJ and I have talked about it. I've never done it. Bree has. You're looking at the time for us. We're all good. We can go over for an hour. The whole therapy thing. I want to understand your thought process of picking a therapist. What are they like? Do they always side with you? Like if shit's going on, do they have a fucking hard talk and say, say, mate, you need to sort this shit out.

Mark: Mate, I reckon they should do more of that, to be honest with you. I mean, so what happens is you get in Australia, you get this option which is part of Medicare, and obviously the healthcare system is identifying the fact that mental health issues in people are a big problem at the moment, and it's only increasing. So what they've facilitated is you can go see a psych for a subsidised rate for 10 sessions. Right? And so what you do is you go do 6 sessions first, yeah, and then if your GP still thinks you need more, you can go back for an extra 4, which in all reality, let's face it, if you've got issues, you need, you need, you need to be going every week for the rest of your bloody days, right? But it's going to cost you a fortune.

Josh: Yeah. So you went to the GP.

Mark: So I went to the GP and I said, and I said, look, I don't know what this is, but I think, you know, and he said, it's anxiety, you've got postnatal anxiety. So he said, here's some drugs. I didn't want to take any drugs. I've never been into drugs.

Josh: What sort of drugs?

Mark: SSRIs. They gave me some Zoloft.

Josh: What does that do?

Mark: So it's an antidepressant which has an anti-anxiety effect to it. And, you know, read up on it, anyone that's listening, read up on it. But it messes with you. It messes hardcore with you. So I decided not to take it and just get into the exercise and eat healthy. And I thought, you know what, we all need a bit of therapy. So I went and saw a psych as well.

Josh: Had he given you already the referral?

Mark: Yeah, he gave me a referral, and I actually found that there was a psych about 100 metres around the corner from my house. So I went and had a chat with her, female. I don't recommend a male going and seeing—

Josh: I don't know whether I should say this, but I don't think that's your personal opinion.

Mark: Yeah, it's my personal opinion, but I don't think a male should go see, because I didn't really bond with her.

Josh: You want to be able to talk Chang, talk Chang.

Tommy: You're saying go with the man.

Mark: So I think males— and this is very general, so— but I think males are probably better with males because women really can't empathise with a male, even though they try. Yeah, you probably can't.

Josh: So what are they— how did— how was it?

Mark: My connection wasn't great with her.

Josh: And so what were you expecting and what, what did it end up being?

Mark: Well, you know, I, I started— so, good question. So I went in there and I sat down and I basically I thought, okay, I'm gonna make the most of this. And I'm an open book. I'm an open book, right? I don't give a shit. I'll tell you guys right now. Have we got another hour? I'll tell you everything. But you know, I'm an open book. So I went in there and I just told her everything about my life and about the fact that I've had a kid and I've been selfish all my life.

Josh: Was there pressure? 'Cause I feel the pressure of part of the reason of not going to a therapist is I've like, it's too much shit and I wanna get everything down and I'm gonna have to fucking dot point. Like, 'cause I know even with these podcasts, I'm like, I want to keep talking. And so my concern is that I leave being like, motherfucker, we didn't get to all the shit that I wanted to get.

Mark: Yeah, well, that's what the, you know, the sessions are spaced out because they really want to get a good understanding of you. But the thing is, I really felt with her that, you know, I was sort of this flowing river of information and she was just sitting there. And in the end, and this is the other thing, right, unless you have experienced anxiety or depression, because, you know, like traditionally if someone If someone's, you know, 10 years ago, if someone said to me, I'm a bit depressed, I'd say, how the fuck up, let's go drink some beers and fucking let's have some fun, right? But the problem is, is unless you've experienced anxiety and depression yourself, you don't truly know what that person's going through. And I can tell you now, now that I've had anxiety, it was one of the worst few months of my life. Like every day waking up, mate, the moment I would wake up and open my eyes in the morning I'd be in a state of panic, and I'm talking panic.

Josh: Would you be— would you go on social media then? What was your first thing?

Mark: No, no, no, I wasn't doing anything. I could barely get out of bed and go to work. Yeah, all I was thinking about— and this is where it gets into this vicious cycle— all I was thinking about is get out of bed, get in the shower, get dressed, go to work, and try to just forget about it. And that was the massive struggle, was just to get out of bed. Yeah, so So unless— my point is, unless you've been in that situation, you don't know. And so I'm talking to this chick, and after about 4 sessions, I was like, I turned around and said, have you ever suffered from anxiety and depression? And she goes, I don't really want to talk to my patients about that. And it was at that moment I realised that we, yeah, we cannot continue. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: You can't have— it feels a bit— that's what I hate about retail. Change the pace. But the fact that you fucking— there's a lack of honesty maybe with it. Like she's playing a certain role and she can't— but I think what you need is her role to be human. And is that a human thing to say? Yeah. I don't think it fucking is, right?

Mark: Yeah, and it was quite— I felt as though it was just a one-way, you know, here's me just spilling my guts about my life and being completely vulnerable and open. Yeah. And this chick's just sitting there taking notes and looking at me. And I was in the end, I was like, Do you know why? If you're going to go see a therapist, you need to connect with them. It's very important.

Josh: How many sessions did you end up doing?

Mark: Well, I think after one session you need to decide whether that person is the right person and then go see someone else.

Tommy: Who was that who said recently that— oh, it's in that Boren Letters book that you were reading. It says try something at least twice. Do yourself that favor.

Josh: Yeah, interesting.

Tommy: Because the first time you build this understanding based on the interaction the second time you test it. Yeah, because it might be different and you might be different. Like, I totally get that the therapist, psychologist needs to— a part of their job is to be relatable in some respect. I don't know how that is. It could be matching your warmth or your sort of tone or something like that. If you transition that to other positions of service, like a personal trainer, you don't have to be a personal trainer. You don't have to be a personal trainer. You don't have to have been fat to help someone lose fat. Sure, you can empathise to the state they were in, which is maybe the mental state, but it's not the defining factor, I don't think.

Josh: But I think Maven's point is it's actually not that she did or didn't have anxiety, it was the fact that she, her being professional, like her answer to me, if she said, no, I don't, like I haven't, I think that that would actually be different.

Tommy: So what you said before, Josh, about all those internal thinkings going into these psychology sessions, no different. I've had that. I've been and I experienced that, and I thought, I want to get to the fucking point. Why are we breaking this up? I want to keep going. There's so much more you haven't even gone— you haven't even dug yet.

Josh: Yeah. And so there is like being on someone else's podcast.

Tommy: Yeah, you— it's, it's like there might be a— their strategy which might not to serve your needs is 10 sessions to get to that rapport building, which is super hard when you're in a vulnerable place. So I get that and I kind of see that. I think what's good is that you fucking went and you had an experience.

Josh: But do you think if you go again, like is there this testing ground where you go to 5 different ones? That seems like a lot of mental energy in recontextualizing empathising every single time and saying, hey, this is who I am, doing that whole—

Mark: yeah, I think for someone like me who can talk to anyone, I can meet someone and I can tell them straight up that I'm, I'm suffering a little bit, I've got a little bit of anxiety, so bear with me. And I'm that sort of guy. But there's other people who are quite—

Tommy: I mean, there's less at stake though with those people, because I reckon I would have more— I reckon I'd be more okay with just opening up to a random than the person that's gonna fucking— is this person judging me and having to respond with an answer? Like, I feel like that would give me more anxiety. Like I'm saying, I reckon I'm more— you can relate to that. I can relate to you in that way.

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: And so, but that's even like the podcast. We talk about the fact that we'll say shit on the podcast that we probably aren't comfortable saying to people's faces, or like you wouldn't say to your family or your friends, but on a podcast you get a mic and it gives you a little bit of fucking—

Mark: well, you know, we're sitting here with 3 blokes in a room just talking, talking, talking, talking, chatting with each other.

Tommy: He doesn't want to cross-brand.

Mark: Yeah, that's right.

Josh: Allow us to use the term.

Mark: I just want you guys to, you know, assist. But, um, but you know, it's, uh, we're relaxed here, whereas if we were sitting in an auditorium with, you know, X amount of, you know, thousands of people that download your, your podcast every day It would be a whole different dynamic. And so, you know, going back to the psychologist thing, it's a— for me it was an easy thing to do, but for other people it can be quite difficult. And so they'll need more sessions, right? 10 sessions. I mean, Medicare have to put a number on it. Yeah, they have to put a number on it.

Josh: So that's fair enough. What was the final vibe when you sort of— you asked that question? Was that at a level of frustration that you had where it's like, I don't feel like I'm connecting have you— was that the tipping point where you said, said that? And how did it all sort of end?

Mark: I, I realised after a few sessions that—

Tommy: so you went back?

Mark: Yeah, I went back for 6 sessions to her. Yeah, to her, to the same one. But I realised that after about 3 sessions that what was happening is there was a pattern of me going, talking Chang for the whole duration of the hour and not really getting anything back. And so what she was doing was just getting— trying to get me to, as a male, to talk about my problems, right? But I do that anyway. Yeah. So for me, I didn't get any value out of it. For other people who have trouble with that, or talking with a loved one or a friend, I highly recommend doing counseling.

Tommy: Because the reality is there's good and bad psychologists.

Josh: Yeah. Well, there's also right, right for you, right for you, wrong for you. Yeah. I mean, what's the, um— if you were to tackle it again, do you think there are questions that you could ask the therapist up front that would sort of hack the system to know if they're a right fit?

Mark: Yeah, it's a crazy thing. I mean, look, I pretty much know when I meet someone within, you know, 5 minutes of talking to them, even less, whether we're getting along. Yeah. Or whether I like this person. And I think that's pretty much most people, right? And I think that's what you got to do when you go see—

Tommy: it's just, that's rapport, right?

Mark: It's just rapport. And I think she had— didn't really have any people skills. And so it's one thing to be a professional and talk to professional, but you need to build that rapport. And so my advice to her is, if you're listening, um, I won't say her name, but, uh, you need to, you know, you need to be able to bond with people.

Josh: Yeah. And is the, um, did you look at— did she have certain skills where it's like specialises in ex-cyclists?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ex-cycling YouTubers. That's very niche.

Tommy: Have you built built an audience.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, she's niched. And that's funny you say that, the YouTubers is a funny niche because they're all a bit fucked.

Mark: That's right, social media. See, this is the other thing, right?

Tommy: There's—

Mark: I said this whole thing coming out with social media, people getting fucked in the head. And you can see a lot of big YouTubers are, you know, there's people breaking down left, right, and center.

Josh: Well, there's that app. What is the app that everyone's been— have you seen this? There's a, a mental health app that people have been doing sponsored content for. Did you see this or no? Like Smart Mind? Yeah, no, no, no, it wasn't one of them.

Mark: It was one that was— Better Health.

Josh: Better Health.

Mark: Okay, so Philip DeFranco.

Josh: Yeah, there was a whole— there was— did he— he did a whole exposé on them or what was— what was—

Mark: you know, they're like the, uh, you know, when you go to YouTube and you see the, uh, this, uh, advertisement is this, uh, video is sponsored by Squarespace. Well, I think Better Health is the equivalent to Squarespace in the mental health space.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And And I've never actually checked it out, but—

Josh: I think the criticism that people were having was they were pitching it as a solution instead of going to a counselor, that you could just use an app and get help. And the other thing too is it was a little bit gross because people were using their mental health stories, and then at the end, it was a, "If you're feeling like this, use the BetterHelp," which I could see the benefits of that, but I could also see how it's—

Mark: Yeah, these things, uh, you know, mental health's a funny one to talk about because you can get other people with mental health issues when they're in the depths of what they're going through can get quite triggered.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And so this is why at the bottom of, uh, and this is the other thing is people don't like talking about. So for example, a friend of ours within the cycling community committed suicide recently, a local Melbourne guy. And you know, it's, it's tough talking about in news articles when, when these these media outlets are writing these things because they don't want to specifically say suicide because it can trigger other people. And I find that quite interesting that when you read these articles, you don't know, oh, you know, this person, this young person that you know passed away.

Tommy: Well, if you look at the bottom of the article, if they mention Lifeline, yeah, 100%, it's usually something is— there's been tough times.

Mark: And I don't know whether you're allowed to even to, you know, so this is something I'm quite interested.

Josh: And what's your— TJ, what's— you've had suicide throughout your life growing up with friends. What's— do you— did you find that helpful, them not talking about it? Or did you find that it was—

Tommy: who not talking about it?

Josh: Like, say, the way that society communicates with it. I remember you having pushback on the radio station saying, oh, Lifeline, like doing that whole bit beforehand.

Tommy: Well, I always felt there was a it was ticking the box. So the empathy I have for the radio announcers is half the time they're having to talk about this shit. He has a podcast, doesn't know how to turn his phone on. It was his wife, partner. But I empathise for the fact that sometimes you just like have to talk about it. And then I felt like that it was the box tick at the end. But then what I do also think now, not that I've changed my mind, But I was thinking about that app, right? There's casualties within that space. I mean, if they're promoting, don't go to therapy, you can use our app. The reality is there's probably a small percentage that use the app and actually got heaps of benefit out of it. So there is so many ways and it's like, don't not do something. It's like every bit counts. But if they're being stinky with the business model, it's hard. It's such a hard thing.

Mark: Look, I think what the reason people don't— as I said to you earlier, they don't want to— for you it's okay. I don't know, I mean, I don't know what you're, you know, whether you're having any mental health issue, but for people who are suffering from bad mental health issues, I can understand that someone committing suicide can trigger them to have those thoughts. And so that's— it's exclusively for people who are suffering themselves from mental health issues, because I've been there, man, you know, I've been in that place.

Josh: So do you think that having been in that place that we should all constantly have that lens? Do you think it was beneficial not having that externally available to you?

Mark: Absolutely. Like that when, you know, I was going through these hard times when Anthony Bode— is it Bode? Bode committed suicide and I couldn't even look at the computer whenever I saw anything like that. I didn't want to know about it because it was not just him, it was also that female, famous female, what's her name? I can't remember her name right now, but two people in the States committed suicide at the same time.

Tommy: Mick Jagger's wife? No, Mick Jagger's wife? One of the designers. Oh yeah, the designer, the handbag.

Josh: Yeah, handbag lady. Yeah, yeah, what's her name?

Tommy: You know, Kate Spade.

Mark: Yeah, Kate Spade. So, and I was going through a real tough time then, so I couldn't look at any of that stuff because I was so down, and that just made me worse. And so now, as someone who's, you know, come sort of I've sort of come out the other end. I look back at that and if, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I wouldn't take it as hard now as what I did then.

Tommy: It's an interesting perspective. I've never thought about that. And when we were encouraged, see, I was never told that. As someone working in a broadcast, a big broadcast business, there was never comms around. And maybe there's just no thought to it about talking about suicide. Could trigger suicide. Yeah, we say, you know, like, it's so fascinating.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about doing a video on my channel actually about what I've been through myself, and— but the only thing that's holding me back is triggering other people who are in that real rut.

Tommy: The hard thing is, what if you save lives from it? What if that video is the catalyst for someone to go and seek help? And that's what I mean about the The— it's so hard because we— they're hypotheticals. That app, they help people, they didn't help people. Their intention was probably good creating it. It's like, we could help a fuckload of people.

Mark: Yeah.

Tommy: And it's a really— it's a predicament. We don't know.

Josh: I think probably the— I feel like the answer is deeper conversations lead to empathy. I think the problem is that social media, Instagram have these micro moments where we don't have the ability to build empathy. You talking about suicide on an Instagram post, the same area where, you know, my mum posts a photo from being away or stuff like that. I think that context switch of the, the chicken barley in her bikinis and then Maven talking about, you know, his mental health struggles I think that is the hard bit.

Mark: Yeah, that's right, and that's a good point because you're at the mercy of the algorithm really.

Tommy: But the vlogger that has a sick life, is that potentially not a trigger point for someone who has, to them, is the worst life?

Mark: Definitely, that's a really good point.

Josh: Well, that's why we need to be conscious of what we're consuming. Assuming. We need to— I think we need to be hyper, hyper, hyper critical. We've allowed all these people in, we've followed all these people because Instagram says to follow, and you click through and you're accumulating, and it seems like a bit of a game, and you follow me and I follow you, and it's this mutual thing. But what I don't think that we've taken into consideration is the actual damage that it's doing. It's like we're fucking eating the whole cake and we haven't realised that the flow-on effect to that is going be huge.

Mark: Yeah, and exactly, like, look at my situation with the YouTube channel. I mean, there's a lot of my followers that, you know, probably think I have this amazing life. And, you know, I've had comments that, you know, when Hannah and I are in a video together, some of the comments are like, relationship goals and stuff like this between them. And I look at comments like that and think, fuck, if only you knew how much we fought. So, so it's not real. And I suppose part of what I'm doing is I'm trying to propagate that I'm just a normal dude. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I still don't know what I'm doing, and I'm still frustrated with things. And I'm just like you, and you might have 20 followers. How do you— I'm talking about you because I've seen you've got more.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, 22.

Josh: How do you do it in a genuine way? Uh, how do you— because there's obviously people who are posting their, um, I look, I'm, I'm also a bit fat some days, and and they post a photo of them where they've just had a fucking loaf of bread. How do you do authenticity?

Mark: So are you saying these people are seeking, this particular person is seeking attention or?

Tommy: They're doing what they think authenticity means. That I've eaten a loaf of bread, I'm a bit bloated now, here's the before and after. So what's authenticity for you?

Mark: Yeah, okay, so I get it now. We only have to go look at our little circle of friends and see them posting, you know, like, you know, Joe Bloggs might post a photo of him and such and such in this, you know, like we see those epic photos where you're like, oh, you motherfucker, I wish I was there doing that with you, right? But the truth is, I think guys that I follow, some people I follow are just like, they're doing these raw shots and they're not trying to put a filter over them. And I think that's the way to do it. I think what I'm saying is I could make a Casey Neistat style vlog, but I think it's better for me to hold the camera shaky, just not orchestrated in any way, just talking. And I think being authentic without any real video production is the best way forward because it— people can then relate to you.

Josh: So then does that just become a, um, yeah, it's interesting because I could see that being— if that's the benchmark, if the benchmark of authenticity is the camera work, then we end up living in these mockumentaries where we're taking shit photos of really contrived things. 'Cause lighting can do it. Like a lot of people criticise Photoshop, but fuck, I can make someone look good by just changing the way that light hits the face.

Tommy: Do you think a video of you talking about mental health is more authentic, thoughtfully authentic, as opposed to a vlog where you're just talking about your day and like family stuff? Like, what's more authentic in your eyes?

Mark: Yeah, I think the vlog's probably more authentic way of doing it because you can do that on a consistent daily basis, you know, or however often you post your videos. But I think to intermittently come out, for example, if I was to make a mental health video every week, after a while you'd sit there and go, look dude, I don't fucking like coming to your channel because all you do is whinge about your problems, right?

Tommy: So I tell you who'll be trolling you, the psychologist that you did 6 sessions with.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: You fucked up. Yeah, 6 sessions was not enough. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: Maven needs a dick in him.

Mark: He needs a cock in his ass.

Josh: Well, we're glad we brought that around. I was actually going to cut that that whole bit because we've gone a bit over today, but we'll obviously keep that in, uh, Maven. So you're 3 episodes into your podcast.

Tommy: Oh, can you give us some— I know you're only 3 episodes in, but we tried to film our podcast yesterday and I saw that.

Mark: I actually—

Tommy: footage is great, it's what we do, but the feeling that it gave us— maybe that's all you know right now.

Mark: Yeah, this is in line with what we were talking about earlier, and I don't want to rattle on because we're wrapping the podcast up, but It adds a— like, for example, this is pretty easy. You get the audio file, you tweak it a bit, and bang, you can, you can— and this is what Seth Godin would say, is just get your content, bang, don't, you know, ship, just get it up, right? Doesn't matter, it's not perfect.

Tommy: I never said that.

Josh: Well, he, yeah, he said just merely ship, which is slightly different apparently. It sounds like you said merely shit.

Tommy: Just merely ship, which I'm— I, I struggle to understand that. Do you?

Josh: I think, yeah, what he's, um, yeah, no, I, I think that it's, it's he was saying he was extending it to be, um, you don't have to ship shit, it's merely ship— I don't know, unless you're in just merely ship, merely ship, ship what is something that's of good reasonable quality. Yeah, exactly.

Mark: And I think when you throw the cameras in, it adds this whole new element of complexity, especially if you're not a video editor. So for example, for me, I then have to go through my hour-long Talking Chang podcast video version that I'm going to I put on YouTube, and then I have to go through and do the multi-camera.

Josh: And so that takes me an hour or, you know, what about the on-camera bit? So what we're finding especially is the camera shit we're fucking done before, it's our bread and butter, but the actual being there with the microphone and all of a sudden realising that your facial expressions are being caught. So when you're saying something that's really serious, when you're talking about your mental health things, when we're filming, I have to think 'Okay, am I looking sad enough?' No, they say I'd never think of that.

Mark: And that's part of authenticity. This goes back to our authenticity thing.

Tommy: Yeah, but maybe you just don't know any other— anything else.

Mark: Well, you know, and again, I'm a wrong person to talk to about because I've done lots of videos, so I'm at a stage where I can look at the camera and I just don't care what I— it's me, this is me.

Josh: Well, actually, maybe it's not even that. I should, I should backtrack.

Tommy: Your quote, Josh, I can feel my nose on my face, which is a heightened awareness to hyper— yeah, hyper-awareness to what you're just being.

Josh: I'm realizing, so normally I think that 100% video version of me right now isn't as authentic as what you're hearing, and the reason— or that what you're experiencing, because what you're experiencing, I don't have to think about it. What I think just happens over time is we'll get to a point where it doesn't become a thing. But at the moment, I feel that all of a sudden the visual communication, just purely by having the camera there, body language and stuff— am I sitting up straight? All those types of things just play in the back of my mind. I think it only happens through repetition and doing it a lot.

Mark: Yep.

Josh: Um, that you get better with it.

Mark: And you're spot on, you have to do it multiple times just to be before it, you just forget about it.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And, uh, but I think it's good. I think it adds a whole new element to the podcast that— because I think people want to see you and they want to build that connection with you. Because I think your listeners will be loving your podcast at the moment. I mean, I love it. And so I want to get to know you guys a little bit better.

Tommy: We got told by a friend of ours, Conspiracy Jimmy— what do you say?

Josh: He said that, uh, the video is like— you risk, uh, losing some some of the Mystique.

Tommy: Yeah, but then I, my thought of that was there's a, there's a different audience. So if there's like a bright— so you've got your audience which compiles people coming in from all different angles, you break down those audiences, there could be some that only watch the video version, they actually don't use the podcast app. So then that is another person. So I don't think it's a reason to say no to it based on losing the Mystique. It could be the thing that actually makes it work.

Mark: Well, the thing is, you guys are presentable, right? You're good-looking roosters, right? Today, you know, if you were, you know, just a 3 out of 10, then I'd probably say stick with the podcast.

Tommy: Well, nobody—

Josh: no, well, Derek said something. Scooter Derek said that if you— he heard us, he would think that we were a couple of fat guys with Hawaiian shirts. Yeah, which I think, like, I'll stand by that.

Tommy: I have to wear Hawaiian.

Josh: I have been. I think we should— fuck, that's what we're going to do. The Daily Talk Show Hawaiian shirts. How sick would that be?

Tommy: Where can we get them from? We just need—

Josh: you need Hawaiian shirts, and then we'll get a really nice patch that says— this is what we're going to do.

Mark: This has already been done though, right? Because Rupert Guinness, who's a Sydney Morning Herald reporter is for 20, no, nearly 30 years he's been wearing a Hawaiian shirt in all his news things.

Josh: Really?

Mark: Yeah, Google it. Rupert Guinness, legend. He's a great guy too.

Tommy: He's beat us.

Josh: The Hawaiian shirt thing I think could be a thing. But do you know what I want to do is our next, uh, cool merch, uh, patches. Yeah, so that people can then sew them onto their bags, or they can— do you think that's cool or no?

Mark: How many people know how to sew? Yeah, I mean, I'm ex-Navy, I know how to sew.

Tommy: So I'll take the sewing away from it. They look like they've been stitched, but then you can iron them on. So there's ones with just a back that you iron.

Josh: Who the fuck owns an iron?

Tommy: Who the fuck owns a thread and a needle?

Josh: I thought that that could be a fun—

Tommy: The dude who's into crochet.

Josh: Why don't we do this?

Tommy: That too likes that.

Mark: I'll give it to Hannah.

Josh: What we'll do, we'll get 5 of them made up and we'll work out some way of giving them away. These are fucking primo. There's 5 of them, right? That's all you and I. TJ and I are gonna have one each.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So there's only fucking 3 left. So I'm just gonna get one.

Tommy: But how the hell do we decide?

Josh: Well, so we've gotta work out a way. How can we give them away? But not only—

Tommy: If we do an auction, can you do the auction?

Mark: I'll help.

Josh: You might as well be the real estate agent on that.

Mark: I'll vlog it.

Tommy: Vlog it.

Josh: So now how about this? We'll get 3 of them done that we'll give them away. But what we'll do is we'll also include a needle and thread in the mail so that it's—

Tommy: Can you send sharp items in the mail?

Mark: Well, you're actually teaching people. Well, that's a good question. Think so, but you're actually helping teach a new skill. Well, this is good. I'm liking it.

Josh: This is like Cubs. I never did Cubs, but I would have loved to. Did you do Cubs? Did you have to do that before Navy? Did you do, uh, what's the other thing after Cubs?

Mark: Uh, Scouts.

Josh: Scouts. Do you do Scouts?

Mark: No, I never did any of that. Just straight to the Navy because I was a rebel kid and my dad wanted to get rid of me.

Tommy: Hey, can you, um, can you, uh, please tell me the video where there's someone wakeboarding behind a huge ship?

Mark: Yeah, yeah. So Google on YouTube, Google water skiing behind HMAS Torrens and you'll see me water skiing behind a destroyer escort.

Tommy: Totally illegal, but fuck it.

Mark: Totally illegal off the coast of Darwin.

Josh: Did they ever get in trouble or anything? Anything happen from it or no?

Mark: No, no, we didn't. We were actually in action stations with the United States and we'd been working nonstop for like 2 weeks, so we pulled off What does that mean? Action stations is when you do 4 hours on, like you're full, everyone's on the ready for war.

Josh: Did you just say for 4 hours though? So you do 4 hours on, 4 hours off, 4 hours on, 4 hours off. You could do 4 hours. I haven't done action, I haven't been in my action station today.

Mark: So yeah, so we pulled off, the ship pulled off and we just found a little patch of water out in the middle of nowhere.

Tommy: International waters.

Josh: So were you in a war?

Mark: No, it was war games. So every year they do Kakadu something. So we have war games with all the United States, F-18s firing cannons. Yeah, you name it.

Josh: Like it's probably the Olympics sort of thing.

Mark: Like the Olympics, but for warships with real, with real stuff.

Tommy: Well, yeah.

Josh: So what do you shoot at?

Mark: So you shoot at targets. Sometimes F-18s will carry a thing behind them.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: So then we shoot it with the anti-air stuff. But, um, but yeah, you have all these ships, man, aircraft carriers, things, and they're all trying to sink each other.

Josh: Hypothetically, the Navy— if you're in the Navy, do you have a gun?

Mark: Well, you learn how to use guns, but I was an electronic technician, so I had a submarine.

Josh: What does that actually mean? So you were— so what would you actually put together then? What were you dealing with?

Mark: So I was electronic, so I was looking after all the cryptographic and the radio equipment, so the ships communicating to each other. I had to make sure all that equipment was running.

Josh: So if I had like a Uniden CB radio that wasn't working, would you be able to fix it?

Mark: I used to, because we used to— back in the day, we used to work at component level. So we used to fix resistors and capacitors and solder them and things like that. These days you just replace the whole unit.

Josh: So what you're saying is you could go to JB and get me a new one?

Mark: Absolutely. These days, definitely.

Tommy: He lost his job because they just—

Mark: yeah, that's right, I'm redundant.

Tommy: Isn't fixed.

Mark: Everything's cheapened. You get China— put China made be redundant.

Josh: Um, Talking Chan is, is the name. Sorry, Chang. Have I been saying Chan the whole time?

Tommy: No, no, you just said it then.

Josh: Okay, Chang. Talking Chang. Uh, mate, it's been good talking Chang with you.

Mark: Thanks.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show, hi@thedailytalkshow.com. Have we got any emails or no?

Tommy: Um, mate, we've blown this way out, so we'll save them for tomorrow.

Josh: Have a good one, guys. Catch you guys.