The Shameless Business Partnership With Michelle and Zara

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show. It's The Daily Talk Show episode 438.

Josh: Are you sure?

Tommy: Yes. This literally happens every single time. We're with the true podcast professionals, Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald.

Michelle: Would we call ourselves that?

Josh: Absolutely not.

Zara: We're all making it up, aren't we?

Michelle: Well, I feel like every time we see you guys, you've had a glow up in your setup. Every single time there's like a new technology that you're using. And this is beyond anything that Zara and I can imagine doing with our own little podcast. We're waiting on our glow up.

Zara: We see this as a— we have more blowups than glowups. From the outside, they look like glowups. Internally, blowups.

Tommy: I do like that.

Zara: Now we've actually had less blowups, haven't we?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: I heard because you've been meditating, Tommy.

Zara: Yeah. I mean, that helps too. But I think when we— so 3:09, you were last on. We were in a different studio. We were hot. Josh was sweaty.

Michelle: You were hot.

Zara: Knees weak, arms—

Tommy: No, it was extremely— I mean, it would have been February or something. I feel like the weather would have just— we didn't have aircon.

Zara: Well, I think last time we were talking about you girls and people people seeing and calling out that you girls are having a fucking little tiff.

Michelle: Oh my God, they were. Because you know what had happened? Zara had just quit her full-time job. And I think there was probably a tiny kernel of truth to some of that commentary because we were working full-time together and literally living on top of each other half the time in a non-sexual way.

Zara: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: No, no, no.

Michelle: In a very—

Zara: bunk beds.

Michelle: We probably were clashing it. Not a lot. A tiny, tiny, tiny bit because we were just figuring it out. It was the very beginning. It was like the infancy. It was very shameless media. So I think it took us a while to actually navigate that and figure out how to work together and how to pick up on each other's cues that maybe we need some time apart.

Josh: It's only with hindsight that we've been able to see that. Like, we weren't able to see that at the time. I think once we found our strides, we were looking back on that time thinking maybe we were a bit shorter with each other than we needed to be, but we didn't know that that's what we were doing at the time.

Zara: I think the shit stirring is at a great level between you two. Like, hey, listen, high or low? No, no, like at a good quality mateship, you know, you just, you give them shit like, shit, sorry.

Michelle: We've had a really strong friendship ever since we met, but, and it was never like it was in jeopardy when Zara first went full-time with this stuff with me. But I think at the moment we found a really good balance of working together, working apart, and kind of being really brutally honest with each other when we need some space or we just need to go for a run or go to the gym. I think we're really good at that at the moment.

Josh: Yeah, I would agree.

Michelle: Yeah.

Tommy: Do you have specific rituals as a way to make sure that things stay on track?

Josh: Not really, I don't think so. I think we're pretty good at— I mean, we're doing a bunch of work together, but also separately at the moment. So all the work we're doing is together, but some of it we can do ourselves at home. And I think it's been kind of nice being able to like go into our own little caves and being able to do that. But to be honest, if it gets to the middle of the day and we're both like, God, it's quite intense just working with one other person. Hey, I'm just going to work from my space today. Like, it's basically just making that call.

Zara: A lot's happened since we last saw you. I mean, Mr. 97's had two divorces. He's on to his third marriage.

Josh: Congratulations and commiserations all at once.

Michelle: And the new hair colour as well.

Zara: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's found love, lost love, you know.

Josh: Why didn't we get you on our Bumble podcast?

Zara: True.

Michelle: You know what, 97s, we never told you this. We actually had an email from a listener who I think you were DMing back and forth and she thought she blew it. So she emailed us asking for love advice of how she could get back in your good books. And we just didn't reply because we're like, you know what, we've put ourselves enough into Mr. 97's love life.

Tommy: We don't know. The Da Vinci Code.

Zara: That's his nickname now.

Michelle: How do we crack you, 97?

Zara: He's actually committed to the boys. Oh, he's even said he's like, I'm just—

Tommy: as in the podcast.

Zara: As in us. I just like working. I'm happy with that, mate. Yeah, you're a great employee.

Tommy: I mean, yeah, we've committed to 10 years of doing the podcast. Is that being something that you guys have talked about where it's like we are going to commit to X amount of time?

Michelle: No, to be honest, we get asked this a lot. We did an interview a couple of weeks ago with a journalist and she was like, so what's the big picture plan? And I think every time someone asks us that, we don't actually know. I definitely see us doing the podcast 10 years down the track. But I think given we've worked in digital media since we left university, we figured out that this— the industry changes so quickly and it evolves all the time, and the metamorphosis of media and what type of content we're all consuming changes. And I feel like if we had something in the future really long-term, we would kind of get tunnel vision. So we want to have our periphery open and be looking around to be open to moving and kind of shape-shifting. Because that's all very done.

Josh: Because I think the only times we ever have these long-term conversations are when we're being interviewed. Like, we both sit there and they're like, oh, what's our long-term plan? I don't know, I've never spoken to you about it, but this is what I think. And then we walk off and we never have the conversation again. I think there is like an implicit understanding that this is a very, very long-term thing, and I think we're quite flexible with what that looks like. But with regards to some sort of timeline, there's nothing there.

Tommy: I think that's good. I think like that's all you can sort of do, even though we say, I think I forced the 10 years upon us.

Zara: I'll tell you the alternative perspective to that is.

Josh: Oh, I'm sure yours is far more valid than ours.

Zara: Oh, no, no, no. Because I've been in that place of not really having, I want to be fluid and all of that. But I think when someone asks you the question, an answer can be better than sort of wishy-washiness. Even if that's the truth.

Tommy: A bullshit answer. I mean, I guess that's what we've built our whole lives on. It's like a lot of bullshit answers that then we aren't necessarily married to if it doesn't work out.

Josh: Totally.

Michelle: Well, we both know that we're super committed to it, and I think that's the main thing. And I think we both know that Shameless podcast will probably live on in some form, whatever that form is, for decades. But as far as podcasting for 10 years, I probably—

Josh: but I mean, I would like to. I really enjoy the job, and if the market's still there and the audience is still there, absolutely.

Zara: I guess is that it's when someone asks you, what do you do? And, you know, it's like having a solid, rock-solid answer. It either makes you out like a psycho because you just like, you know, you're reverse engineering it, you know, in 10 years, you know that, you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I think coming up with it and I've always, it's all about audience, right? Who are you speaking to? To even have a good answer for it. Because if we're talking to a young kid and talking 10 years about doing this podcast, you'd be like, oh, well, we won't really care. But I think it cements you something, but you've had a bunch of success since we last saw you. Love, etc. She's on the Money. How are you celebrating?

Michelle: We're not, probably not enough. And this is something I'm glad you actually brought that up. We, some of the people we met when we did Mecca Land with Gemma Watts, we co-hosted with her in May. Some of the really successful people we came across told us like, celebrate the small wins and make sure you celebrate them well. Otherwise they pass you by and you completely forget about them.

Zara: Like episode 100.

Michelle: Yeah, we missed episode 100. I think, um, we did celebrate something earlier this year. I can't remember what it was.

Josh: So we were at Mackerland and we had won an award at the Australian Podcast Award, and Jules Von Hepp was there. And he, um, is this like celebrity fake tanner, and he's created this amazing fake tan brand called Isle of Paradise. It was just like a machine in the industry. And he literally sat us down over drinks and was like, if you don't go out for dinner after you've won this award, I will kill you. I mean, like, I don't think he was going to kill us because he lives in London, um, but we thought, okay, we actually really should do this because he said, you don't seem to be celebrating anything and you need to really celebrate these wins. So we went out for dinner after that. We haven't done anything since, and I think we should.

Zara: It's—

Josh: the year's been a bit of a blur though. I think every time something happens and we say to each other, hey, that's like quite a good job, we then say, okay, what's next?

Michelle: There is one deal that we're waiting for the dotted line to be signed, and once that happens, we already have like a planned dinner that we're going to go away with our partners and celebrate that together.

Josh: Yeah, we'll do that.

Michelle: Um, yeah, looking forward to that. But there are so many things like really big picture plans where it takes so long to actually come into action that by the time it does get signed off or it is approved, it feels like it's been months in the making anyway. So it's kind of a weird—

Josh: and I think my mental process is probably very unhealthy around it, but I also don't want to get ahead of ourselves too quickly. Like, I want to keep my head down and I want to keep our heads down and doing the work, and I want the work to be the focus. I don't want to keep looking up being like, how amazing is that? I want to keep it in the work.

Michelle: It's always sound boring.

Zara: What's the fine line? Because it can be productive and Distracting. Distracting, yeah.

Tommy: Well, if it's a marathon, like when are you meant to celebrate a marathon? And if you're celebrating halfway through, are you slowing down? Are you slowing down as you're putting your arms up?

Michelle: And then someone overtakes us at the last minute.

Josh: I'm sure this makes no sense, but I also think the minute you start celebrating, it's like, I don't want us to rest on our laurels because I don't think that we're at the point that we want to be at yet. And that's not to say you shouldn't celebrate little wins along the way. We should pat ourselves on the back more because I don't want us to burn out or not feel like we appreciate ourselves enough, but.

Zara: I think it's probably not a bad thing because you constantly are showing up. So it's not like you've done something huge and then it'd be like making a documentary and then celebrating. Then you got nothing to work on.

Josh: Yeah.

Zara: You've worked on it for 2 years. That would be hard because then you're like, oh, I've got to find my next thing. But when you actually have to release a podcast on Monday and Thursday and, you know, you've got the other girls releasing podcasts and that's when you've really got to— it makes you— then you're showing up. It's like back to work.

Josh: We're still working. We're still doing something.

Michelle: Yeah, I know.

Josh: Maybe you're right. Should we go out for dinner tonight?

Tommy: All right.

Josh: A little cheeky mandas.

Michelle: Not tonight, but maybe another night.

Tommy: How do you work out whether you are, like say weekends for instance, when are you working on weekends? When are you not working on weekends?

Michelle: To be honest, I probably cross the line a little too much and Zara is good at telling me. And often I will look at our text conversation and see that there's a whole lot of blue bubbles and not many grey bubbles in response. I often spam her. I think it's tricky, right? And you guys would know this, like digital media, especially I'm kind of controlling social media for Shameless, and I'm kind of controlling the community side, and Zara controls like logistics and planning, and she's really, really talented at that stuff. So I think when my head is constantly in the now of Instagram and Facebook and all that type of stuff, I am probably thinking about things and sending them her way when she's very meticulous with how you plan and forward plan.

Josh: I mean, I don't even— I don't think I even tell you that I'm not engaging in the conversation.

Michelle: You just don't engage.

Josh: Is it because truly, if I'm out and I'm— I, I'm pretty meticulous about my time. And I think if I'm with my friends or I'm with my family, I want to be there. It's hard at the moment because work tends to infiltrate everything, and it can. I think the nature of how we communicate needs work in terms of not how we physically communicate, but the platform we do so. I mean, we're on iMessage all the time, which is so not healthy. If I'm going between social conversations and work conversations, it literally feels like all you're doing is working. We work through the weekend, I would say pretty confidently. I mean, it's a weird kind of work because you're in the Facebook group or you're on Instagram and you're doing a bunch of different stuff, and I think you're working when you don't realise you're working.

Michelle: And we decided to release a podcast every Monday, and every Monday's podcast is topical, so it needs to be done on the weekend. So we're often recording on the weekend and editing on a Sunday night. So by virtue of that, we have to be working.

Tommy: You've had a lot of success with the Apple Podcast charts.

Josh: Yes.

Tommy: Has the relationship changed with the charts and how you view them? Because we had a tiny bit of success over like 2 days and then we got excited for a bit and then we're like, it's not something that we necessarily measure how we're going. How, how do you look at that?

Michelle: Well, they're so fickle, right?

Josh: They're very fickle. We're quite clinical about how we think about them and we know that they serve a purpose and that is literally maybe just being visible enough to drive new listeners. It's not like a measure of our worth by any stretch. Like at all. I don't ever look at it as a measure of our worth. But to be honest, we're quite clinical in that. Let's try to get it to a certain point so that we drive new listeners. And once that's done, I'm not that fussed about it.

Zara: So you don't look at Chartable?

Michelle: No, no, no.

Tommy: Chartable is great. I look at Chartable and we don't even get into the charts. What's Chartable?

Josh: Of course you do.

Tommy: You can type in, you can type in a podcast name and it will show you where they're in the charts.

Zara: We're a shameless at the moment, Miss 97.

Tommy: And it will have like, yeah, it's great because you can sort of see people's growth over time. So you can see rather than just if they've just jumped in for one, yeah, one day or whatever, you can see how they're progressing.

Zara: You probably have a different mindset if you're looking at Chartable.

Michelle: Yeah, well, I think the thing that I've learned is it's not about going in once. It's probably just consistently being in the top 50 would be good. But again, I, we, when we found out, I think we're still working on MIA when we found out that the charts on Apple Podcasts are almost entirely determined by new subscribers, top episodes is determined by downloads. So in episodes, we're often doing very, very well, but in the new subscribers, not always that great. Um, it's been interesting to see She's the Money charts really, really well.

Josh: Yeah, it does, because it's constantly finding a new audience, and I think that's a really strong part about that podcast in particular. But like we keep coming back to, I would never look at those charts and be like, oh my God, we're like 50 right now, we suck. Money, I really just don't care.

Zara: It's very relatable. I mean, everyone has to deal with it.

Michelle: Yeah, and I think it's helpful. I think Victoria and Annabelle on that podcast have been amazing and they've just smashed it and the content's very, very helpful. And I think when people find something helpful, they want to share it. And when you share it, people, new people become into it.

Josh: Well, I think we completely underestimated how hungry women were for money content. They completely underestimated. And I think the success of that podcast says a lot.

Tommy: And do you, what sort of position do you guys play amongst those other podcasts? Are you coaches?

Michelle: So we, we do all the content management. So we come up with all the topics for the shows. We do all of the research for the shows, scripting. We sit in on recordings. So we're the producers. We are the editors. We did train audio training. We did all— we made all the artwork. We run the jingles.

Josh: Yeah, like our fingerprints are all over the entire thing. Like often we've offered to like run socials, run newsletters, like literally have our hand on all of it. I think because we've got such a content background and we are writers by trade, we kind of can do all of it. And we've worked on a brand which is Shameless. For a year. So we kind of now have got a handle on what works and what doesn't when it comes to podcast artwork, just like the minutiae of what makes a podcast good.

Zara: Michelle, you said you look after all the social stuff. Currently don't have the password to our Instagram account.

Tommy: I shut everyone off on our Instagram.

Josh: You are such a dictator.

Tommy: Well, I was just like, I wasn't happy. I went into DMs and I saw that there were a couple of DMs where there were we liked someone and we didn't write to them. And I was like, how can we expect to have conversation? Because I know how much, like, if someone, if someone did that, that's why, that's why you can't be involved.

Michelle: Yeah, I really don't like having too much involvement. She needs to come to me and get something vetoed. But same with the calendar. I can't put anything in our calendar. If someone comes to me and goes, let's do a coffee meeting, when are you free? I have to literally be like, Zara's at a dinner right now. I have to wait for her to be back so she can give me a time.

Zara: I think it does work well.

Tommy: It's like, well, it's for money, like finance for us, I'm someone who's quite a loose unit and will just buy stuff. And so Tommy is the good filter of like, hey, is it cool?

Zara: And receipts, looking after that stuff.

Josh: Receipts, Michelle, how are you with our receipt bank?

Michelle: Not great. We definitely have our own little areas and we stick to them. She is actually pretty good at social media, but she doesn't have the patience to respond to people the way I would like them to be responding.

Josh: I think the way that I would put it is you're more front-facing, I'm more back-facing, right? I would like do more in the business. You would do more front-facing social media brand stuff.

Zara: It's why we're sitting this way, to be honest. It's the last time. Hey guys. I mean, I'm just not looking as sharp as our other guests.

Tommy: No blows.

Josh: We're never usually this dressed up. We have been somewhere.

Zara: No, no, you just dressed up for this.

Josh: Yeah, we so did.

Tommy: Have you seen, I'm curious in trying the people, brands are doing the text messages. Have you seen this stuff where it's like, it's like the new thing instead of having an email list?

Michelle: Well, email, I hate it. I hate it when brands text me.

Tommy: Well, I always feel like I get like, you know, Joey's Pizza. There's a deal like. From Menu Log or whatever.

Michelle: Too intrusive. It's way too intrusive.

Zara: I mean, I've won a couple of hundred billion dollars.

Josh: Haven't we all? I mean, this is where the studios come from.

Michelle: Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, you say how much? Because yesterday I had a chat with the guys and like, I want to trial it in some way. How many things are you finding and being like, I want to trial it today versus being patient and rolling things out slowly?

Michelle: What do you mean?

Tommy: So like if you find something new, if you find something, say, new within Instagram, would you just implement it straight away?

Michelle: No, it's It's actually funny you ask that. We yesterday kind of had a quick chat around Instagram TV and how we want to push into it. And I actually brought you boys up and how I like what you guys are doing with Instagram TV. And so she didn't. We're having a meeting. I did.

Zara: You don't need to compliment me either. It was all Josh. No, no, no.

Michelle: I brought up you guys. I brought up you guys and I texted Annabelle, who is our new community manager, and said, Annabelle, can you have a look?

Tommy: You weren't in on these conversations though.

Michelle: Well, I said to her, I'm like, can you actually look at the Daily Talk Show boys and how they're doing Instagram TV. I want to do Instagram TV. Can you figure out a way that we can do it without all of the incredible equipment and setup that you guys have?

Zara: And the cute little blonde guy over there, Mr. 97.

Michelle: Mr. 97. Um, so yeah, things like that we definitely want to push into. But to be honest, I'm very, very strategic about social media, and I want things to be right. I don't want to just go into them and half-ass it and have it be shit content.

Josh: So it's also a time thing.

Michelle: Yeah, we're having a meeting next Wednesday.

Josh: I think you've got to have the time to actually do things properly. And I think one thing that we've always held very close to us is doing things properly when we commit to doing them. So if we don't have the time to do it properly straight away, we're not jumping in.

Zara: What have you dropped that you weren't doing properly?

Michelle: Twitter.

Tommy: Twitter. Yeah, ours is just sort of hanging on.

Josh: What have we dropped that we haven't— I mean, nothing huge. I'm sure we've pivoted with regards to like how we post, what we post, what we do on social media.

Tommy: Your emails are impressive. It's like the one thing, like it's the most amount of reading I do in a week. Really?

Michelle: Oh, the newsletter. Yeah.

Tommy: Because it's like, it's, there's, yeah, you've, you've taken your craft and what you're good at and implemented it into the email rather than it just being a couple of banners and some click-offs.

Zara: Well, I think, you know, your superpower, that is your superpower, you two. And so if it's not like, think about how much effort that'd take for someone who can't string a sentence together like myself. But it's, that would, so then it's going, okay, what, what am I good at? And should I just do more of that?

Josh: Well, it was strange for us because people came to know us through the podcast, that this wasn't our first love, and it wasn't maybe the thing that we were good at. Like, it was writing, and that was the thing that we loved the most. That was the thing. And it was strange to us that we had this audience that didn't know us as writers. So we kind of wanted to reintroduce ourselves as writers to them and say, hey, this is the thing that we actually really love doing, and this is the thing that kind of makes us incredibly happy, and the podcast is a product of that, rather than the other way around.

Michelle: And it was Zara's idea to do the newsletters as well. I remember she came me last year when she was still working at Domain and said, let's do a newsletter. And I hadn't even thought of it.

Josh: And then in true Michelle fashion, she says, great, let's do it next week.

Michelle: And I said, yeah, which often happens. I'll have a— like, we'll both come up with an idea together and I'll want to do it ASAP and she'll want to do it quite—

Tommy: I'm seeing similarities in our, like, our way around. I mean, the interesting thing is I connect the experiences I have about worrying about the small stuff with my anxiety around like, okay, is this actually something that we need to worry about, or is this me just like having a freakout moment? Have you done a good job in separating the, the stresses of that business stuff versus your mental health?

Michelle: It's an interesting one. I think, uh, at the moment we're having discussions with a few different brands and different companies and stuff for next year. I think when you're looking at big targets, that can be quite stressful. But at the same time, I think I have such an innate belief in the company and what we're doing that I don't actually find it that anxiety-inducing. I thought I would, and I thought it would be a huge pressure on my mental health, but to be honest, no. I think work really, um, it makes me really happy. We're working on a project at the moment that can be quite stressful because I think when you're in the middle of the creative process, there's that really viral meme where it's like, this is shit, I am shit. And I think we're in the I am shit phase at the moment.

Josh: I am shit face.

Michelle: So things like that can be stressful, but I don't think it's a mental health thing. I think it's just a stress thing, which I'm not sure is the exact same.

Tommy: What about the small, like, say for me, it's like, say the DM of us only liking something and not responding.

Zara: It's really making it out like it was all me, isn't it?

Tommy: I didn't mean to gesture you.

Michelle: I didn't mean to point at you when I said that.

Tommy: I didn't realise I gestured, but you did say that it was. Done it once or twice. No, but it's interesting because in like I can actually see myself externally. Like I look at it and being like, you're being unreal. Like I was talking to 97 last, last night. We're talking about like how we're sending out merch and it's just like I had this vision that we would have custom satchels and the guys brought like plain satchels and it's a timing thing because it's going to take 3 weeks to print satchels and also get them out yesterday. Yeah, get it done.

Zara: Custom satchel.

Tommy: 3 weeks. Yeah, exactly. So like, how many of those little things are you guys—

Michelle: to be honest, we don't focus on little things at all.

Josh: I don't, to be honest, I don't at all, because I think I have like this massive obsession with efficiency, like making sure that things are done and done well and quickly. I remember it was Jamila Risby, I think she gave an interview once, and she said, I like things to be good enough. And I was like, that's me. Like, I'm not gonna get done in the detail. I think it's a complete waste of time. I like things being done properly, but if something is good enough, I'm gonna say yep and move on. So for us to get bogged down in the small stuff would I think divert attention and energy that we actually don't have a surplus of.

Tommy: Yeah.

Zara: Well, I think Josh's argument to it is these frictions that are driven by anxiety, would you say? Driven by a certain standard that can translate as anxiety move us forward. So it's like hectic, crazy moment, but then we're taking a step forward, which is his analysis.

Tommy: The freakout has— it's almost like the can't celebrate, got to look down, you know, keep looking forward. There's a little bit in it's like, I've trained myself that if I do freak out a little bit or go, guys, we need to have a meeting about this. This is like, we need to whiteboard it out. We need to sort this shit out. Like that ends up getting it done, which I don't necessarily know whether it's good or bad.

Josh: I think I agree with elements of what you're saying, because there has certainly been times where a ball has half dropped and we have like clicked our fingers straight away and we're like, all right, we're pivoting straight away. Like it's, we have that little freak out and then we're like, all right, things need to change. For example, For example, there was one Friday I remember so vividly, it was only like a month ago, and too many balls were starting to drop. Like, we were completely overwhelmed, and we called up Annabelle, who hosts our She's on the Money podcast, and we basically hired her on the spot. Like, having that freakout was quite efficient. See, I love my efficiency because we thought straight away, okay, we've been sweating about this, we're stressed about this, let's make a change straight away and push us forward straight away.

Michelle: I think as well, those mini freakouts are really great in terms of defining who you are and who you want to be as a brand. And if you don't have those freakouts or have those moments where you're like, what does this say about us? You don't have a really clear shared vision. So sometimes it can be really good to have those freakouts.

Zara: Is it a response to pressure though?

Tommy: I think it's like internal, like part of it's like the storytelling. So we tell a storey of like the reason why people listen is because of X, Y, and Z. When a lot of cases, I don't necessarily think it's the case. And especially I think when you're coming from a craft point of view, The difference, say for instance, if you're a really good writer and you put together a paragraph or whatever for your email list and you're not necessarily that happy with it, you could easily say like efficiency, we've got to get it out and all that sort of thing. But also you've got to think like, is this filter the standard that I've been using?

Josh: Well, it's that overlap between efficiency and quality, right? And I think I would never, ever let quality slip for efficiency. But that said, I think we could spend so much time stewing over things and rereading things and going over things to the point that it's actually not helpful. Like, there have been times where I've punched out an article that I'm not particularly happy with, and I will send it to Michelle, and I'll be like, I don't know if this is good enough to go out. And then she says, actually, this is some of my favourite writing of yours. Like, you just have different standards, which is so fucking annoying, right?

Michelle: It happens all the time. Zara will often send me something where she's like, I have no idea what this is, this is awful. And I'll read it, be like, that's my favourite thing written, because sometimes it might be coming from a different—

Zara: So how do we listen to ourselves then? Because if ourselves aren't always right, then who, which, what point do you go, I feel good about this, this is going to be great?

Michelle: Well, I think that's the perk of having a business partner, right? I think we can kind of recalibrate each other quite well at the moment because one of us might be in a place that is down or low and the other one can kind of lift them up and reassure them. And I think we're pretty good at doing that for each other.

Josh: Also, I've heard an argument and I don't know where I've pulled this from, but I've listened to do a few interviews on like the creative process and creativity and the idea that your opinion actually doesn't matter at all. Like, your opinion on the work that you're doing is not worth that much at all because it's so infused with ego and so infused with bias that you should actually just separate it all together. And with some of the stuff that we're working on at the moment, I should do that more. Like, I should just separate it and say, well, this is the work that I'm doing and my opinion on it doesn't matter. I'll send it to my editor, I'll send it to Michelle, I'll send it to other people, but my opinion right now is completely irrelevant because it's so infused with so much else. And I think that's kind of nice to hold on to too. That's why it's better to have a business partner and be like, what is this?

Zara: And for us And one of the things that is the antidote to that lizard brain is not editing this show. Because if we gave ourselves that opportunity to look good—

Tommy: It would be 5 minutes long if we cut out all the shit that we talk.

Zara: Definitely. And it's why it's great to have a wife that tells you you got a shit haircut and to get it cut like I did yesterday.

Tommy: So it looks great, by the way.

Zara: Thanks for that.

Michelle: I think it does look great. You guys have been really wise in doing that. I think, because we had an opposite approach when we began, and that was to edit everything. And I think you can definitely go down the route of over-editing and over-curating the content you're putting out. So I think when we first met you guys and saw how you were doing things, that probably influenced us a little bit as well, to just kind of like press record. Yeah, we do repeat some stuff that we say, like if we stumble over a word, we'll probably re-repeat that word and cut out the stumble. But I think the amount we were editing has definitely changed since we saw how other podcasters have done it. I think this is definitely the healthier way to do it. And it's probably the way that helps you be a better broadcaster.

Tommy: Yeah, well, it's not relying on the post-prod, right? Like the classic line is like, we'll fix it in post.

Michelle: 97 will fix it.

Tommy: Exactly.

Zara: Well, if you've got one shot on stage to nail something.

Tommy: As presenters and all that sort of thing.

Zara: I guess you've got to give it everything. And so it's, there is, I guess it's a bit of pressure behind that.

Tommy: Yeah. Zara, you were in New York when, was it Love Etc. came out during your holiday?

Josh: Holiday.

Tommy: Yes. I mean, what was, what was the learning, learning there going, going on?

Josh: Don't drop a new podcast when you've booked a holiday. Yeah, it's the first one. No, look, I didn't mind it. Like, I think the bottom line is we really like the work that we do, um, and it's kind of an unpopular opinion to say that like we don't have any balance. And to be honest, I don't need huge amounts of balance at the moment. Like, that's the truth. I did come out of that holiday thinking that I needed another holiday, which is like not very good for the bank account. Um, but the learnings from that were I mean, a, we can work remotely and it's fine. Um, I wouldn't probably do it again. I think if we're gonna switch off, we should switch off properly, which is something that we really need to do. Um, either we switch off or we don't. Like, you work through the weekend or you don't, but don't half-ass anything. I think that's something we're coming to. But it was kind of, um, it was strange launching that podcast when we were overseas— when I was overseas.

Michelle: So I think it's tricky as well, more generally, if you're used to being quite hands-on and in digital media and podcasting or whatever you're doing that you are switched on— some part of your brain is in work mode probably 24 hours of the day apart from when you're sleeping maybe. But with going on a break and saying we're not gonna work at all can be really disorienting. I know I find it very disorienting if I go actually I'm not gonna think about it at all. I don't even think my brain's trained to do that anymore. So high functioning? No no no! Actually being on your phone switching off is really tricky and when your work is infused abused with the social media apps that everyone uses on their phone on their holiday. I can't really look at Instagram and see it as a social networking app. I can't look at Facebook and see it as a social networking app because basically all I do on those apps is work. And I, when I'm on Instagram, I don't even scroll through the feed. Like, it's not like I'm scrolling through and liking my friends' posts. I literally go on there to cheque the Shameless thing, post something, respond to DMs, or do that on my own personal page. I don't use it for fun at all. Yeah, so going on a holiday and saying we're not going to do any work work is great, and we do need to do it because our brains need to get better at that. However, I find it super stressful and super anxiety-inducing actually to be like, what am I doing?

Josh: There's such a fine line though. I remember when I was in New York and it was maybe the day before the podcast was about to drop, and we realised that it hadn't funnelled into Spotify yet. And I was calling Michelle and the hours were super weird. And I remember being like, I was on my way to Broadway and I was like on the tube, and it was probably like on my way to Broadway, on the tube, in Broadway, and I realised that I hadn't said a word to the two girlfriends that I was with for the last hour because I I was like on the phone and I was biting my nails and I was so stuck in my own head. And I don't realise that's what I do when I get stressed. I completely zone out. And then I heard them talking about me in a lovely way, but I think Maddie was like to my other girlfriend Hannah, like, yeah, yeah, just leave her. Like, she hasn't spoken in a while. And I was like, oh my God, I'm being so rude. But I think that's what needs to change. And that when I was on a holiday and I was so stressed that I'd gone mute for an hour because I was literally in my own head going over and over things, which is not ideal either.

Michelle: We definitely would not launch another podcast on holiday. That's— again, I think, yeah, we would definitely make sure that the 3 weeks we are on holiday—

Josh: I would go back away from that and say the reason that we did that, that wasn't a silly decision. That was a very well-thought-out decision. And it was when we pitched the podcast, we said to them, we'll go on break, and when we're on break, we'll pull all our listeners across to this. Like, that was the idea behind it. And you can't do that when you're not on break.

Michelle: Yeah, I think the difference will be the podcast we're launching in the future might— probably won't have our voices exclusively across them. So it's like, you don't need to give them a break from you and then introduce them to a new podcast. It can just be all like she's in the money.

Tommy: All of these like perfect scenarios don't exist. Yeah, that's the other thing that we're experiencing is it's like every— we talk about like the static carpet effect, which was like we just got a bunch of shit sorted, like hard drives and all that sort of thing a few weeks ago. And then I went to grab one of the drives and I got a little static shock and I said to 97, I'm like, we're going to fucking sort out this carpet because it's like gives me static shocks. It's like every single— there's always going to be a static carpet. There's always going to be something that needs to need needs to be done.

Michelle: Little spot fires to put out in front and center.

Josh: Well, we've realised we get to the end of the week and we always say, huh, what a week. Well, can't wait for the next one. And then I'm like, hang on, like maybe this is just our job. Like maybe our job is putting out those spot fires and getting to the end of the week being like, that was a lot and a lot of little things to sort out, but maybe that's the new normal. And the faster we get used to that, the better it is.

Zara: Well, Josh and I talk a lot about what business do we want to create. And so we've worked in a bunch of different companies. And so you get to start but you get to understand, okay, we don't want some huge agency where we're just highly stressed and money's the main focus. And so we're then trying to create a lifestyle around what we do. Has there been a thought for you girls launching these other two podcasts which bring on more pressure and stress? And are you starting to see that?

Josh: With regards to not wanting to do a high pressure or trying to—

Zara: No, I think just what you actually enjoy and what you don't enjoy.

Josh: Um, I mean, it's not like we've had firm conversations about it. We know the kind of workplace that we want to create, we know the kind of content that we want to push out, and I think that's the fundamental baseline of the conversations that we have. With regards to anything else, I think we're pretty good at, like Michelle said, like if we're working too much on the weekend, at tapping out. And, and I think that sort of inference about how much we want to work and what kind of workplace we want to do is there. But again, look how bad at communicating we say What do you think?

Michelle: Do we seem bad?

Josh: Um, because we're like, we haven't had that conversation. There is a lot of implicitness to what we do, I think, in our relationship with each other. Yeah, because we're very much in sync.

Michelle: Yeah, totally. And I also think there's like areas that we've defined recently that we absolutely hate doing. Yeah, like we hate editing the podcast. Yeah, hate it. Um, we can't wait to hire someone to come on and do it for us because it's just dead time. That's like 2 hours a week.

Tommy: Does it feel like it's something that anyone can do? Because you hear about vloggers who like that's where the craft happens.

Josh: It feels like something we're not good at. It is sucking our time that there are a lot of people out there that are good at.

Michelle: You know what it would be if someone came onto the show and said, I'm going to manage content and I'm going to manage what segments you do. I would absolutely spin out. I would not be able to have that happen at all. Actually editing it and be like, this sound effect goes here, this sound effect goes here, whatever. I'd be totally fine with them doing that. But if anyone tried to put their hands on the content and the ideas and the segments, absolutely not.

Zara: Do you think you girls are risk takers?

Michelle: Ah, risk takers. I don't know. Well, do you guys think we're— I don't know.

Tommy: I think anyone that's going upstream, I think what you guys are doing is not the normal thing. And I think that takes maybe not real like self-belief.

Josh: Yeah, I was just about to say I'm pretty risk averse generally. Like my personality is incredibly risk averse. So I think there is an element of of from the outside it looking far riskier than it is. And I think that comes from having incredible self-belief in what you're doing, because if you do very much believe in what you're doing and what you're pushing out and the audience that you have, then it doesn't feel very risky from the inside.

Tommy: And it's also belief in where everything's going, like you're on like the right side of all of, all of this stuff.

Michelle: Well, I think the magic of it all, and I was thinking about this the other day and talking with Zara about it last night, is that we're creating for ourselves. Like we're creating content and we're doing things that are kind of adapting to what we're already doing as consumers. Is like Zara and I love podcasts, we love video content, we love written content, and we're literally creating for ourselves and our sisters and our cousins and our friends. And while that might seem risky in a job sense, we also know that the audience is there because we are the audience. So it doesn't feel as risky to us because it seems so obvious that of course people would want to have this kind of content because I want this content and I'm a basic bitch.

Josh: You are.

Tommy: I mean, yeah, you think about like the awesome community, like phone when I'm watching The Bachelor with Bree, my girlfriend.

Zara: She'll be like—

Josh: I love the disclaimer in there, with Bree.

Tommy: Not by myself. No, but I can actually go on my phone now because she's in the Shameless community, like commenting. And it's like the best out for me because I can be honest. Like we're both on our phones and she's connecting with people and I'm connecting with people.

Michelle: Those threads are wild as well. We have Survivor threads on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and we have Bachelor threads on Wednesday, Thursday. In their crazy time.

Tommy: Yeah, I love that it's a, it's so much more than a podcast. Like I think if anyone that thinks that Shameless and Things podcast, I think they're like missing like the 90% of the whole thing.

Michelle: Are you boys going to open a Facebook group?

Zara: I mean, Josh doesn't have it. You have Facebook?

Tommy: Yeah, I re-got a new Facebook. Re-got a new Facebook. I signed up again. Well, cause I completely—

Josh: Reactivated?

Michelle: Well, you went on your hiatus for like 6 months.

Tommy: I retired from social media, completely got off it.

Michelle: Yeah, but that worked out really well for you.

Tommy: I know, but the thing is, you're a reformed man.

Zara: Yeah, you look at him.

Tommy: I know, now I've just—

Zara: You've really been hoeing yourself out on Instagram since you've been back too.

Tommy: Like real hard. But this is the thing, like Facebook, 'cause I actually went, when I logged in, I saw that I created like the first few weeks of us doing the podcast, I created the daily talk show. I called it the Street Team that like people could become a member of.

Michelle: Surely you could turn the Gronks into a Facebook group. That would be so engaging.

Zara: Definitely, but I think it's that conversation of what aren't you good at? Twitter, you know, you're not, you know, you're not giving it everything. And I think, you know, we need to respond to our DMs. Gary Vee's approach is that entrepreneur dude. He does everything right. He's like, get it out on absolutely everything. And then there's another school of thought, which is do a couple of platforms really, really well.

Michelle: Yeah.

Zara: Which is probably more Seth Godin.

Michelle: Yeah.

Josh: I think that's more us because we know our audience is, and it's not like we're trying to target target everyone. We're not. We're trying to target a specific demographic. We know where they live, so it makes sense for us to do them both properly.

Michelle: And you guys do do Instagram really well. Like your Instagram Lives are also really engaging. I remember one time we asked for a shout out.

Tommy: Oh my God, yeah.

Josh: And then someone says, do you guys know Azara?

Tommy: Yeah, that was 3D Jill. She keeps spamming me.

Michelle: We were on a tram and we were watching the whole thing.

Josh: I was watching the whole thing like spamming you both.

Zara: So, and then it's about finding the thing that we actually enjoy. 'Cause if we didn't enjoy the Facebook thing, It'd be hard.

Tommy: Well, to be honest, like looking at how Bri interacts with Facebook, it's not how I even see Facebook. Like for me, it seems like a forum or it seems like even though it's called that, it's actually quite strange seeing her interact with it because my thoughts or experience around Facebook are the everyone you grew up with in school. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle: The newsfeed. It's interesting. I only use Facebook to go into the group now.

Josh: Yeah, same. I don't think I've looked at the newsfeed in months.

Zara: I reckon there would be a bunch of people that just have the app for your page.

Michelle: We have said, a few listeners have said, I redownloaded Facebook or I got a Facebook account just so I can join the group. Yeah, it's pretty crazy in there.

Zara: And so if, if you start, did you have, I mean, you start a community and a page in mind of growing it, right? But then if it doesn't work, I think this is the hard thing. You found success quite early, which is amazing. And so when when we've got 2 people in our feed, it's like—

Michelle: It's awkward.

Zara: We were saying doing a live with 1 person on there is just like a FaceTime call.

Michelle: It's very uncomfortable. I think very few creative people actually talk about that phase. I remember when I started blogging when I was 20, it's incredibly embarrassing and uncomfortable to start something, but I think until you actually kind of push it out there and just give it a go, no one's gonna be able to find it. So with the Facebook group, I mean, I remember the first time Zara and I saw someone join who wasn't one of our family or friends, friends, and we were like, oh my God, who are you and what are you doing? Yeah, exactly. And it's funny because we were so embarrassed. I remember being so embarrassed even to invite my best friends into the group, or my sisters, because I'm like, yeah, we're trying this weird thing and it's a little bit different, and there's every single chance in the world this might fail.

Josh: And nobody talks about that, about like, people want to do things, they want to go work for themselves, but nobody talks about that sense of discomfort that comes from the start of telling people that that's the thing you're trying to do. Because I think people naturally roll their eyes, and they don't mean to, but I think we do live in a culture where people, the people that try to work against the grain or, I don't know, push against the status quo, it's embarrassing and it's awkward and it's not cool by any stretch.

Tommy: You only start with one person, and that's the thing. It's even like, yeah, yeah, business, you start by making a dollar and then $10 and then $100,000, a million. But everyone's like, I think they're, as a culture, a society, we're constantly thinking about if you've got a podcast you're broadcasting to heaps of people. It's such a good point. But there's a day one where it's like Tommy and— if we look at our graph and we look at the first month, it's like we didn't tell anyone for the first 20 episodes. Really? Yeah. And we would have had like 5 listeners probably.

Zara: So then do you think it's productive? Say, for instance, now this podcast has the most listeners it's ever had. And I feel more—

Tommy: 10 listeners.

Zara: Yep.

Michelle: Yep.

Tommy: We've doubled.

Michelle: Welcome, all 10 of you.

Zara: Thank you for being here. But I'm more confident in telling people because I'm more more personally convinced about what we're doing. And so I've always been wary of the people who are seeming convinced at a very early stage because I'm like, ah, I see what you're doing. And you know, it's just a bit of bravado right now, but maybe I'm just— it's tall poppy syndrome.

Michelle: I think you always have to fake it till you make it. And I think that's what we did with Shameless. I remember the first few episodes had the same, like no downloads. And It's hard. I think very few people talk about how scary it is, but I think I definitely adopt the idea that you have to fake it until you make it, and you have to just push full steam ahead until you try and find some kind of audience. And to be honest, we're super strategic as well. Like, it's not like we're throwing this thing out there, and it wasn't the case with the first few days of Shameless at all. It wasn't like we were just putting it up and hoping people would find it. We were making sure people found it, and the amount of effort that was taking like before my shifts at Mamma Mia, before Zara shifts at Mamma Mia, going through RMIT uni and putting posts on the back of bathroom stalls and all that type of stuff. I think we spoke about last time. We wanted to make sure it was going to get listeners. And if people hadn't come on then, yeah, I probably would have had a real crisis of confidence. But we were very lucky. I think it was a lot of timing that played into our hands.

Josh: I think so.

Zara: Lil Nas, you know, Old Town Road. Have you heard about what he did?

Michelle: No.

Zara: Oh my God. So that was the longest in the charts for any song. He found the beat online. Of mine, and he, and then sort of released it, but he made 200 memes and he built a subreddit that was like, do you know the song? And so he started releasing, so he knew what he was doing. Super strategic.

Michelle: Amazing.

Zara: And so it just got into culture through his memes and through the Reddit and through him in there doing the backend.

Michelle: And that's what I love because I think when you're starting something fresh, I mean, we were 23 when we started Shameless, we're 25 now. We had no money, like we literally had no money to funnel into it. So you've got to find a way to market without without any ad spend. And that's crazy. Like, so many people would probably just go, oh, well, Facebook advertising, we'll put $1,000 behind it. We had— I remember when we went to Officeworks, it cost $67 to print out 200 pages of paper because we did it so many times. And I remember being like, okay, $67, where's that going to come from? Zara, transfer me $33. Like, it is that level of—

Josh: but I think that's the thing that we learned working really early on. I think one of the biggest blessings was working in digital media at a time that the Facebook algorithm made basically every digital news outlet crash, and there was no way to get eyeballs to content. And that was literally our foray into the industry. And it was a very depressing time to start as a digital writer. And when we started working together, it was always this sense of, okay, yes, I could write the most beautiful piece of writing, but nobody's going to read it. So how do you make sure people read it? So literally became this strategy of 50% content, 50% strategy. The content doesn't matter if it's brilliant, people have to see it. And that's the— that's what we took on board with Shameless. It's like, yes, this podcast could be great, but people have to find it.

Tommy: Is there anything that you didn't do or haven't done based on the friction of feeling like, ah, we're above that, or we don't want to do that, or like ego? For us, I think about like the, like the embarrassment of say like how much we're posting. Say like the idea of, ah, we can't— you hear the storeys of people like, you know, post 20 times a day or whatever, and then our brains say that people think we're fucking crazy if we post that Well, I think it's the, like I post that photo of my haircut, just give me another plug.

Zara: Feeling real good, guys.

Josh: That looks good, Tommy.

Zara: Thanks a lot.

Michelle: Wait, you got a haircut?

Zara: Yeah, yesterday.

Josh: I saw it on Instagram.

Zara: No, but I put up this photo and I was like, I feel shit about putting up this photo of me. I never do post like that. And I did it on purpose. Really? And I got lots of validation.

Josh: I didn't even think about that. This is the thing. I am much worse than Michelle at this, right? I let my ego get in the way of a lot of these kinds of things. I hate running my own Instagram account. I hate posting on my own Instagram account if it's not with my friends out on a Saturday night.

Tommy: Who else is going to run your fucking personal Instagram?

Josh: Exactly, it's like, Josh, can I hire you to run it?

Tommy: Davison97 would. He actually would.

Michelle: What's your rate, 97?

Zara: A shout out.

Josh: But I'm so concerned, I think, with coming across as a wanker or a narcissist that I overthink everything I put on there. That like, I might meet new people and they might follow me and then I'm like, that aren't associated with my work. And then I think, fuck, they're going to think I love myself sick or I'm so obsessed with myself. And I don't push out as much on my Instagram because of that fact, because I just, I don't want to seem like a dickhead or that I take myself too seriously because I think there's a huge element of that on Instagram.

Tommy: So it's removing the filter. Is that a good thing? Like, are we leaning in? Because I feel like I'm like, you know what? Who gives a fuck if people think I'm a wanker?

Zara: Yeah, I agree.

Tommy: But maybe. I don't think anyone can think anyone else is a wanker.

Josh: You need to look at your photo and be like, oh my God, Tommy's posted a photo of himself. Like, it doesn't even cross my mind.

Michelle: First of all, we thought it was the best haircut we've ever seen. To go halfway. I think you need to remove that filter. Because if you think about it, taking yourself too seriously, like, I can't put this photo off of myself because everyone's thinking about what I'm doing— that's narcissistic. No one gives a fuck what you're doing unless you're being a real wanker. So in my mind, I'm like, if I—

Josh: where's the wanker line?

Michelle: But if I want— my filter is, if I want to post it, I'll probably post it. But if it's overly self-indulgent— for example, I wouldn't stand in front of a mirror and take a bikini photo. I think that's a little bit self-indulgent. But would I take a selfie where I'm like, I'm going out with my friends and I'm smiling, I look happy, happy. I'm like, what?

Tommy: And I'm wearing a bikini in front of a mirror near my boobs.

Michelle: I just think there needs to be like a bit on both sides because I think if you're in either camp where you're posting everything about yourself, yeah, you're a bit of a narcissist. But if you're like, everyone cares so much about me, I don't want to look like XYZ, you're probably a bit of a narcissist.

Josh: But I think that Instagram— but the other line of thought of that is I think Instagram is like, by virtue of what it is, incredibly self-indulgent. And I think our self-indulgent line has moved too far along. I think we skews more than we used to, and the, the sense of what's normal has become skewed. And I think that's part of the conversation too.

Michelle: You know what it is? I remember coming to this conclusion a couple years ago. I think you should share yourself, and if you're happy with how you look, whatever, whatever, share yourself, but share your personality at the same time. I think if one becomes entirely aesthetic or something, it looks very narcissistic. If you're sharing your personality and what you have—

Josh: did you share your personality when you did the haircut photo?

Zara: Um, what did I write?

Michelle: It was at a Weedy Cafe. You can get a lot of way with a lot if you have a witty caption.

Zara: Oh, thank you. It's another compliment. I said, yeah, she cut my hair off. Cut my hair off.

Tommy: Quiff's back.

Michelle: Yeah, good.

Tommy: It's getting a lot of airtime.

Michelle: Yeah.

Zara: Just as I want it.

Tommy: Michelle, you're one of the few people in the room working towards getting a house or an apartment or— Yes. What's the deal?

Michelle: We're waiting for our tax return to come back from our accountant. But it's going to be tricky because we've only had Shameless Media, the company with an ACN, for like, what, 5 months?

Josh: Yes.

Michelle: You're supposed to have a company for 2 years before you can apply for a loan.

Josh: That's why I'm not buying a house.

Michelle: It's very, very lucky Mitch has a stable long-term job, but we're waiting on that. So we're waiting for an accountant to get back and then we can go to the mortgage broker and all that type of stuff. But saving up a deposit took fucking a lot of energy and it took so long. So hopefully once we do buy, probably at the beginning of next year, we wanna go on a trip to Europe in the middle of that year. 'Cause we haven't been on a proper overseas trip trip in so long. Look, we've done Bali here and there a couple of times, but Mitch and I want to do like a proper 3-week Europe— well, 3 weeks isn't very long, but that's how long our break will be in the middle of next year, hopefully.

Zara: As she gestures to Zara, hoping that that's okay.

Josh: I just want to go to Europe long before that. So she's officially jumping on.

Michelle: We're literally practically married. Like we almost have to message each other like every morning. It's like, what are you wearing? We need to be on the same page if we're meeting up with someone.

Josh: I'm going out for dinner, I'm not gonna be on my phone for the next hour.

Zara: I appreciate that. Well, a business partnership requires a level of commitment and we've worked that out, right? It's like my actions directly impact Josh now and Bri and, you know, our whole situation.

Michelle: That's why the meditation is so handy.

Josh: And my moods too. I think you can definitely fall into the trap of being like, oh, we don't have, you know, our workplace is all over, you know, our workplace is all over the place at the moment. We could be going for meetings, we could be working from our houses. So we could fall into this trap of thinking that it's not a real workplace that I'm working with my friend, but it's incredibly important that you actually show up in a good mood, in a positive headspace, because if not, you're going to drag the other person down.

Michelle: Are you telling me that me saying I'm so tired a million times a day drags you down?

Josh: It's just not helpful.

Tommy: It is fun. I feel like we're both like— our energies are pretty aligned now. Like, maybe it's just because we've both been working out, so then we're both tired.

Zara: Yeah, but that's where it does feel humble, bro.

Tommy: No, no, but it feels like it's like—

Michelle: we're just working out so much, it's really hard.

Tommy: Definitely not working out. Working, not working out. Definitely not working out. The In Conversation stuff, I feel like when you came on the show last time, that may have only just started.

Michelle: Yeah, it would have. We were doing it fortnightly, I think, the last time we spoke to you boys. And now we do it weekly, which has been a big commitment, but it's one that we really, really enjoy. I think it's such a privilege to sit down with influential, successful people and pick their brain for 45 minutes because I think we've found found— we just learned so much from all these different diverse people. And it's so fun to be able to say, yeah, quick hi, and get a quick recommendation and be like, cool, all right, tell us about— I don't know, like, what are you scared of?

Josh: What makes you sad? What makes you happy? I'm sure you guys would experience the same thing. It's like you get to have a proper conversation with someone that you really respect. And I think it take— it took us a little while to realise how much of a privilege that job was.

Zara: Yeah, and it still is such an enriching What have you learned from podcasting personally? Because I find it cathartic. I find the showing up daily, it actually keeps me more consistent. You're talking about mood. It's like we actually got to show up each day regardless. I can feel shit. I can feel great, but it just, we have to show up.

Michelle: I think podcasting has taught me to be really thoughtful about what I want to put out in the world. And I think you need to take your time to formulate what you think and what you believe before you say it. And it's good to have an audience that keeps us really accountable in that if we fuck up or if we say something offensive, or which I hope we haven't done so far, but of course we're going to say things.

Tommy: Guarantee.

Michelle: Oh yeah, totally.

Tommy: I think that's part of it, right? I don't even know if that's the— Yeah, because everyone's going to be— someone's going to be pissed off about something.

Michelle: I think it's about being thoughtful and putting a lot of effort into sharing your opinions because again, it's a privilege to have a microphone in front of your face and not everyone has that privilege or that platform and you need to be responsible with it?

Josh: Well, I do have a real resentment, and I think that's only kind of exacerbated since we've done the podcast, for people that have incredibly passionate opinions about something they've like not bothered to do any research for, like at all. And I think for me it's exactly the same thing. It's making sure that anything I say or any opinion that I have can be backed up with something. And if it can't, if I can't, I'm not going to sit in a conversation and pretend I know what's going on. I will literally say I have not read enough about this to have an opinion that's worth anything. And I think it's also humbling in that sense to be like, I'm not adding anything. I'm just a stain on this conversation. If I join in, I'm going to take a step back.

Tommy: I mean, I like that stain on the conversation.

Zara: It's really impactful.

Tommy: That could be the tagline about the show.

Zara: I think so. There's one— there's another side, like there's people out there that push and say things that obviously aren't correct or they don't know enough about because it draws attention to them.

Michelle: Yeah.

Zara: There's the reality of saying stuff like the tribe thing that was, I connected with that. It was so interesting to hear. I'd never knew about that. Never thought about the word tribe or its origins and then whether it's okay to use. I was thinking about Jules Lund. He's got a business called Tribe. I was a bit worried for a moment, but I'm not anymore because you did your research. But yeah, you see how that has become a learning experience for a bunch of people. So we are a catalyst to learn for some people and it could be a result of something that we misspoke.

Michelle: Totally. And for anyone who missed that, it was basically that we'd use the word tribe in a Love Etc podcast, and someone came into our Facebook group to say, hey, that was actually offensive. And I impulsively apologised and laid down and said, I'm really, really sorry, it will never happen again, we'll never use that word again. But when I actually had time to go through and do my own research and kind of engage my own critical thinking skills, I came to the conclusion that no, the word tribe's not offensive. Using specific tribe names names is offensive, and using other words in the vernacular are offensive, like powwow. Powwow is offensive because it refers to a specific Native American spiritual practice. I don't think that's appropriate to use. So I'm happy I did the research because no, I won't use powwow in everyday language anymore. I won't use it in the podcast unless I'm explaining what it actually means. Tribe though, I think it's important to have an environment where everyone can come to their own conclusion within reason, of course. And actually do their research and use those critical thinking skills. Because lots of people since that podcast on Monday have reached out who are Native American and said, actually, I really enjoy people using the word tribe in a happy, positive context to refer to family and friends. I like that. Please don't use my specific tribe name, but use the word tribe.

Tommy: Can you retract an apology then?

Zara: Or—

Josh: I did.

Michelle: Well, on the podcast I did say— I came on and I said, I actually really regret apologising for that. I regret how I reacted to that, because I think it's great to listen to minorities in particular, and always endorse people to do that. But I think on that occasion, I've read that article and instead of going, I'm going to have a think about it, then reply to it and then approve the post, I approved the post and instinctively went, I'm so sorry, it'll never happen again. When that's wrong, because then no one's having a discussion. And if we're not having a discussion, no one's communicating. And if we're not communicating, we're all staying in our separate fields, probably holding some type of resentment and not knowing why.

Tommy: Yeah, it's, it's being, being okay with under, like, the under, like, working out the— I just had a stroke halfway through.

Michelle: This is why we edit.

Tommy: It's never happened before.

Zara: It was the underline, the underline bit.

Tommy: No, I think it like, working out what the meaning is of something. Like, you can see how that you can go down rabbit holes to like, I need to know everything before I speak versus, I guess, what I like about about podcasting is we have the opportunity to go back and change and transfer. And also from an audience point of view, it's like you might say something on episode 70, but then episode 75, you actually change your mind.

Josh: It happens a lot. And I think the Facebook group is a real blessing in that sense, because there are times where someone will come in and say, hey, Zara, you said something like this and I didn't really like it. And I have the opportunity in that moment in front of 24,000 people to say, actually, I phrased it really badly. Like, this is actually what I meant, and here's how I would phrase it had I had my time again. And everyone says, oh my God, okay, I completely understand where you were coming from now. And that's a real blessing too, not just having the post-production and the editing and being able to change your mind 5 episodes later, but cultivating a community where they will listen to you if you do want to clarify.

Michelle: Yeah, and we've said things that are wrong in general before. Like, I remember we, um, spoke about the Hunter Markets, which is kind of like an influencer marketplace where people can come and sell the gifts and the clothes and the accessories that were gifted. And we came on our podcast and went, that's so stupid, like give it to charity. Why are you making money off things that companies are sending you? And the founder of Hunter Markets actually reached out and said, actually, this is really good because it means people are recycling. It means that things are being bought secondhand and that's good instead of these women going out and buying these designer goods or whatever from a supermarket, from a, not supermarket. You wouldn't get designer goods from a supermarket, but from a—

Tommy: Coles or Woolies.

Michelle: Shopping centre online.. And we came back on the podcast, I'm like, absolutely, we did not think about that. There was another influencer that we spoke about where she does, um, mummy blogging. That's not probably the best word to use it, but that's the only phrase that comes to mind at the moment. And we came on the podcast and said, oh, but like, it's not a long-term career to be doing this type of stuff. Like, what is she thinking about? What's the background?

Josh: And I remember she came out and said, well, I'm a mum first and foremost. Like, that's, that's my goal. And I think for two 24-year-olds at time, who were very career-driven. We had our blinkers on to assume that everybody would have the same goals and dreams that we have, which is just so close-minded and so insulting.

Zara: She's since pivoted. I get that. We were talking yesterday about stereotypes and you could easily stereotype as a mum, you know, get— and so that's what I was talking about yesterday, learning about drawing attention to a stereotype. And I'm not even talking about racially. It's just about, you know, a bunch of people that are similar or they do, you know.

Tommy: Well, we have our own stereotype. I'm sure people like see us and say, okay, these guys are this, this and this.

Josh: What do you think your stereotype would be?

Tommy: I reckon a couple of gronks.

Zara: Yeah.

Tommy: Well, no, I reckon our— Yeah, I think that, I mean, that's part of it, right? It is just a couple of gronks who are doing it who aren't necessarily—

Zara: We're not the smartest. We're not the most talented, but we're committed to what we're doing.

Michelle: Do you reckon that's what people think though? Nah, I reckon people think like you guys are kind of, apart from the fact that you don't like football as much as I would like. I kind of like the everyman, like very relatable.

Zara: Well, I think we're, and I think that I've never been called the everyman.

Tommy: The everyman.

Zara: I like it.

Tommy: Let me just say one more time. The everyman.

Zara: To our experience.

Michelle: Has a ring to it.

Zara: That actually means, and that's what the term gronk is like. We're all gronks. We're all just trying to do our best. And we all struggle and we all have great days. I feel shit about the stuff we do. I'm really inspired sometimes, not others. I think that's like the human experience. And so if we can share our learnings as we go, we're not here trying to be, you know, have all the answers.

Tommy: Exactly.

Zara: And that would be hard. Sam Harris, the guy who does the meditation, he's a neuroscientist. He can't be stupid. He can't say dumb stuff because his brand is I'm really smart. I'm a scientist. And so, you know, the opposite is us, but I think it's a platform for us to learn as humans. And that's what's nice about it.

Tommy: I reckon—

Michelle: It's so funny that you think you're the opposite of Sam Harris though, because I think you guys are incredibly thoughtful and insightful with some of the things you talk about, because there are lots of male-led podcasts, one in particular that comes to mind.

Zara: The Simpsons. That aren't— The Simpsons case study.

Josh: That aren't hipster anymore, Michelle.

Michelle: Yeah, we're not talking about them, but that aren't like that. So it's funny that you guys see yourself as the antithesis of Sam Harris when I don't.

Josh: I wouldn't say that. But I think there's something to be said. I was thinking about this when I was listening to your interview with Zoe Foster-Blake about like the makings of a great brand in marketing strategies and stuff like that. And I feel like particularly in the female space, the brands that are doing really, really well at the moment are the ones that position themselves on the same playing field as their consumer. So you think about, I mean, these are all beauty brands, forgive me, but like your GoTos, your Glossiers, anything like that that speaks to the consumer from the same level is incredibly powerful. And I think that's hopefully what we do with the Shameless community as well, is like we are literally all on the same playing field right now. I think trust that comes from that is pretty huge, which is what you guys do too. It's that positioning on the playing field, I think.

Tommy: With the in-conversation stuff, have you learned things about yourselves being in that environment, the posture of interviewing and being able to react?

Josh: We've learned body language with each other.

Michelle: Oh, like from an interview?

Josh: How do you guys do it?

Zara: Engage, call, engage, call.

Tommy: Yeah, one person has to engage the other one.

Josh: But it is though. Is that a joke?

Tommy: No, I literally don't have a call.

Zara: He always jokes about just having this in there.

Tommy: Yeah, I want to get to the point. Like, yeah, I'm just—

Zara: So for us, whether it's just some words we're using to describe it, but we try and have conversations, not interviews. And so for us, and what that does is allows us to be a bit more open to not be as scripted, do our research, be interested in the person. We don't have people on that we're not interested in. I think everyone's interesting.

Tommy: So yeah, I think also it's like being okay. Also that we have on.

Michelle: Definitely not everyone.

Zara: That's what I was meaning.

Tommy: No, but I think it's okay. There is some freedom about us being okay with being a bit dumb. Like, I think that the day that we are like, no, Michelle, you are right. I think that we are very similar to Sam Harris is the day this whole fucking thing ends. Hang on, clarification.

Michelle: I never said you were very similar. I said you weren't the opposite.

Tommy: Every man. I'm the every man.

Josh: Every man in Sam Harris.

Tommy: Your words.

Josh: But when you do say, like, when it comes to what we've learned interviewing, I think there are a couple of things. I think it's like doing research for people is the most simple thing you can do, and what a lot of people don't do in this industry is— I would hate to demand someone's time, get them to sit down with us for an hour, and ask for us, for us to look like we don't know anything about them. We act like stalkers when we interview them because they're like, yeah, so when you said this in 2006 with this magazine. But I think giving people the respect of doing research on them is very good to make them feel comfortable. It's good for their ego too, to be totally honest. And I think with that comes a better conversation, better answers, and more clarity as well.

Michelle: Yeah, I think like one of the biggest pats on the back that we've had all year was when one of the interviewees turned around after the interview and she said, that is the best research interview I've ever done. Like, I can't believe how much you guys knew about me and knew about my story. I really appreciate that because sometimes I walk in a room and it's very clear the journalist or interviewer has no fucking clue who I am or has read one interview or whatever. And I think that for me, when she walked out, I felt so good about what we had done because it's such an effort to come in and like, not right now, we love coming in, but like it's such an effort for someone to take time out of their day for you when they've never met you, they have no idea what Shameless is, whatever. We want to make them feel valued and like we've put in energy as well. So yeah, we always wanna do as much research as possible and know as much about their storey as possible because it's nice for them. Feel seen.

Tommy: Yeah. Well, Mr. 97 and I watched your whole 21st birthday video that Clare did. Where's this?

Josh: I haven't, no, I can't even watch this.

Tommy: On YouTube.

Michelle: Can I ask you, you messaged me saying we watched that. I'm like, why were you Googling me?

Tommy: Oh, well, so now he's told everybody.

Josh: Josh's Google history would be amazing to see.

Tommy: Definitely. No, but we set up a task. We've got like all these spreadsheets that we're like building out stuff. And one of the things was one of our brand filters was like surprise and delight. And then Mr. 97 was like, how about I get all of the friends of the show's birthdays and we do something for them on their birthday? I'm like, okay, great. And so he was going through—

Josh: When is my birthday?

Michelle: You can look it up. Mason, you can look that up on Facebook. Why are you looking it up on YouTube?

Tommy: He was on Google and so he typed in—

Michelle: Oh no, people are going to send people their birthday.

Josh: I'm going to post this video on the Facebook.

Tommy: How long does it go for?

Michelle: It's like a feature film.

Tommy: Yeah, we watched the whole thing.

Michelle: You know, that's actually a kind of ritual or tradition in our family. We each make 21st birthday videos. We made one for Tom. He's the youngest. It was his 21st birthday a couple months ago. And we spent, I think it was 11 hours making videos.

Tommy: The spinning wheel on iMovie, I saw that.

Michelle: I really enjoy it though. It's really nice to look back on. My one is particularly embarrassing 'cause it's from the blogging days.

Josh: Amazing. My family definitely doesn't love each other enough to do that.

Michelle: We're very family-oriented. We're very, very family-oriented.

Josh: I'm very family-oriented.

Tommy: 97 birthdays.

Michelle: 20th of July.

Josh: Thank you.

Michelle: That's correct.

Zara: And Michelle.

Michelle: If you don't even fucking know my birthday after watching that full video, I'm going to be so mad. You've probably got the wrong day.

Tommy: Give me a sec. We even down to the day.

Michelle: No, wrong.

Zara: Oh, is it a day, 2 days after, a day or 2 after?

Josh: You're in the wrong month, mate.

Zara: Is it the 13th of one month? Hang on, hang on, hang on. Oh, he's on the wrong Michelle.

Tommy: I got the wrong Michelle.

Michelle: Michelle. Here we go. 17th of March. Yep, correct. What year? Oh, I don't know. '94.

Tommy: Wow.

Josh: Wow.

Tommy: I feel old. Do something for your 30th.

Zara: But I got a great haircut.

Josh: I was just about to say, the haircut's taken years off you.

Tommy: Seriously.

Michelle: You don't look a day over 14.

Tommy: On the guest stuff, I find that when, like, we ask someone to be on and they say no or they don't respond, I, like, in my head, like, in my head, I write their name down is like, you've said no, I'm going to remember this forever.

Josh: We blew you off like 3 months ago.

Tommy: No, no, no, no. But we've had you on. I guess part of it is—

Michelle: But we're friends of the show.

Josh: So we're the biggest wankers in the world. We said we're so busy and we probably will be for the next 3 months. We're so sorry.

Tommy: No, but that's 100% fine.

Michelle: But that was Zara's, Zara's the calendar person.

Tommy: So, but how do you take rejection? My point is, how do you take rejection?

Josh: Pretty fine. I think I would like to think we're pretty fine because I don't I'm still surprised when people have heard of us. So I'm really still genuinely very surprised when we might ask someone on the show and they know who we are. So I always come from the default that they have no idea who we are. We need to sell it to them. And if they don't know still then, or they're not keen after that, I'll think pretty fair enough. I think the people that we're asking are incredibly busy anyway. And I think it's a big commitment outside of the calendar of work you're already doing. So I'm not particularly offended or take it personally. I mean, it doesn't mean we're not gonna ask them again. We probably will annoy them again.

Michelle: And we have had success with people rejecting us us and then we get a little bit bigger and we go back and we're like, how about now? And they're like, yeah, okay.

Zara: A few inbounds coming.

Tommy: I asked Bree 4 times to go out with me before we started dating.

Josh: That was her sister.

Michelle: Why did she say no?

Tommy: She didn't, she said she didn't want a boyfriend, but then she ended up dating a hairdresser named Jordan who on their first date gave her hair serum.

Josh: You're fine about it.

Michelle: Yeah, I was fine.

Tommy: But the thing was the way that I ended up finding out is like I had asked Bree, and she said no. And then a month later, we're at a party and she came over and said, by the way, I've told everyone we're going out now.

Zara: And so I was like, yeah, that's great.

Tommy: Thank you.

Zara: I asked my wife to be my girlfriend early days and she said no. And then she asked me to ask her again.

Josh: You guys are some real Romeos.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty sad. What are you guys excited about?

Zara: What's—

Michelle: Oh, that's a great Good question.

Josh: A lot of stuff. Michelle, you start.

Michelle: I hate clickbait because it's also true.

Josh: The thing that I'm excited about the most, we're literally like not allowed to talk about for another 5 months.

Michelle: Yeah, the thing we're most excited about won't even be in people's orbit for another year.

Zara: So will you be not excited about it when it rolls around?

Josh: Uh, no, I think we will be because it's such, um, it's a project we're working on together with nobody else really. And I think it can be kind of isolating, particularly when you're working on it without each other. Like, there are times at home and you are in that creative process meme that we've been talking about where it's like, oh my God, this is amazing, this is average, this is shit, I am shit. And when you're in the depths of I am shit and what am I doing with my life, to see it eventually out in the world and people consuming it, I think will be really lovely. Like, I think it will be very overwhelming, so I don't think it'll lose that excitement.

Michelle: And I think like the things we've shared in this project and the essence of it is very different to what we've done so far. I think there's a lot of soul in what we've done so far, and now that Love Etc. is wrapped and She's on the Money is wrapping in 2 weeks as well. I think being able to have, like be investing more energy and time into it every single day will mean that it eventually gets there. And I know it'll get there and I know it'll be great once it's done. But yeah, I'm so excited for that to be out in the world because it feels like that's where our head and our minds and our souls are at the moment. And no one has any idea other than our family and friends.

Zara: Sportsbet are currently running odds. They've got a few things that they've—

Tommy: I mean, there's something to say. I'm pregnant.

Michelle: It's true, I'm baby. I'm making a baby, Zara's the dad.

Josh: Jesus Christ. The other thing though, I think we're super excited to push into video next year. Like that is a real priority for us in 2020. And it's just how we're gonna do it at this stage. I think we're in a huge planning process of what that's gonna look like. But that is very exciting to me to actually do something different. Don't feel like we're getting stale or like I said, resting on our laurels. I think it's really good for us to be pushing into new territory.

Michelle: What are you guys excited about?

Zara: Upgrade of office by the time you hear this. A new place.

Michelle: You'll be in the Rialto penthouse apartment or something.

Zara: No, I think we're just finding our feet and just getting started. So I mean, it's taken 440, how many? 438 episodes.

Tommy: I was going to say 210.

Zara: I feel like we're in a good place. We're feeling good about it.

Josh: I think you're in a great place.

Tommy: I mean, part of it, I think part of it too is it's like, like, uh, there's like the constant feeling that you want everything to be perfect. It's like ridiculous. Every single time, every week, there's new things that we're like getting done. And so I guess it's part of it is just enjoying it as well, which is part of it, which is like actually not looking forward to anything and just looking forward to today and doing it and continuing to do it and knowing that I guess we're happy with the the fact of the slow growth that we're experiencing. And as we get those little bits of success metric or whatever, we don't want to hang on to it too much. We want to just sort of keep— yeah, keep focused.

Josh: So I sometimes— I wonder— oh, it doesn't make me sad, but I think I— we will definitely look back in a couple of years and say this 6-month period would be like some of the best 6 months of our lives, like the most fulfilling 6 months. And it's weird being in the thick of that because you aren't acknowledging it. And I hope that we don't get 3 years down the track and say, I wish we held on to that more. But that said, maybe it is incredibly fulfilling because we keep putting our heads down and we keep working and it keeps— the work keeps working.

Michelle: We'll go to that dinner, that's for sure.

Zara: Well, I think we're stacking, right? So you have a ceiling and a year ago it was here and now it's here and you're adding more things and it's feeling not as crazy as it once did. But I was even thinking about 3D Dill, our intern going home and what he has to think about. And I was like, we can't really turn off. But then I was thinking I'm thinking it feels nice that it doesn't feel like that anxiety of if that was the reality where it's like, I want to turn this off right now. And so that's just, that's a win for me. Not feeling like I want to quit this thing.

Tommy: Who do you guys listen to with feedback? Are there certain people where it's like, I think Brené Brown talks about the few people you keep in your wallet.

Josh: Yeah.

Michelle: I think that's another really good question. Each other. Each other. Listen to each other a lot. A lot because we have, we have very different— well, we have shared skills, but we also have different skills. And that Zara is really, uh, smart, to be honest, really, really clever. And sometimes she'll think things through in a way that I haven't. So I really listen to her, to be honest. Our sisters, our sisters are the biggest, uh, think tank that we rely on. Evelyn and Claire, my sister, and Mira, my sisters, and Mira, Zara's sister, are so, so clever in their own different ways, and they all have really different kinds of thinking and analytical skills. And often when we face a problem or we need to cheque in, we go straight to our sisters.

Josh: Yeah, they're really good for that, I think. Um, I think our families are pretty good at like inflating or deflating our egos depending on the day, um, both of which are very important. Um, so we go to them for feedback all the time. They're a pretty good check-in tool because it's a pretty weird job. I think you can get caught up in negative and positive feedback, and for someone to sort of send to you, it's really good.

Tommy: What's the deflating bit? What is— when Where does that come out?

Michelle: I was gonna say, what is the deflating bit?

Josh: I think my— yeah, well, it's not like we've ever got big heads, but I also think if you take on— I think my mom says it all the time, it's like the minute you take on all the positive stuff, you have to take on the negative stuff, or if you take on the negative stuff, you have to take on the positive stuff. And it's kind of like their push for me to remove myself from all of it and see it as white noise. So rather than saying like, hey, you've got a massive head, it's more like, don't take any of that that seriously because none of it matters. Um, so they're pretty big. I would say we've got a couple of people that we've worked with who kind of understand the industry pretty well. I mean, you guys have helped us out. Like, I'm not even just saying that. Like, the emails that we shoot to you with some of the dumbest questions— people would piss themselves because you guys have been great for us. Because we don't— we didn't know how to run a business. We didn't really know what we were doing. All we knew was content. So you guys have been great. Um, I would also say someone like Sophie Aubrey, who was our old editor at Mamma Mia, Monique Bowley has been great for podcasting. Those kinds of people who understand the industry a little bit to and can help you when you feel like you're going a bit crazy.

Michelle: Yeah, Jamila Brisby would be another one.

Josh: She's been great. Yeah.

Zara: Mum called me this morning and said, did you really get a haircut? Really?

Tommy: She thought it was all hype.

Zara: She said, well, I thought it might have been a wig or something.

Josh: And did she think it was good? She loved it. Mum's great. Positive reinforcement from Mum.

Tommy: If Mum doesn't love you, who will? Exactly. Has the friendship groups changed? Much through like, uh, in this current path. I feel like early 20s and all that sort of thing, you can— those things change. I noticed you were on a big piss-up on the weekend with a bunch of girlfriends.

Michelle: Um, yeah, that was kind of like a heartbreak weekend. One of my girlfriends went through a pretty brutal breakup, so we all went away for the weekend together to literally go to a winery and get drunk. It was the best weekend ever. But as far as friendship group goes, I don't know, like, I feel pretty close with everyone that I was close with before Shameless was a thing. I think maybe my group would be a little bit smaller, um, simply because we don't have a huge amount of time outside of Shameless and amount of what— outside of what we do. My words are starting to get jumbled.

Josh: That's so fun. I know, I would agree that the friendships are still the same, but I think that the circles might get smaller just by virtue of time and energy. And I think you— we are incredibly selfish and a little bit self-indulgent with the work that we do. And I think to have people around that are happy for you to go and do your thing and still be there.

Michelle: And our boyfriends are very understanding of that. Like, we are very, very lucky that we've got two boyfriends who are very—

Tommy: each?

Michelle: Oh yeah, two boyfriends each. So polyamory is my thing. Um, no, but we're lucky that our boyfriends understand the nature of our work. And for Mitch, my boyfriend, it was a new thing. Like, we went to— we were together before Shameless was a thing, so this is all new for him. And, um, yeah, I think it's good to have partners who just I just know instinctively that you need to be dedicating that amount of time and maybe I'll pull my laptop out at 10 o'clock at night and need to do something. So that's been helpful as well.

Josh: Yeah. It is just being around people that are patient with your selfishness. Cause I do think we are selfish in the way that we live our lives at the moment. Do you think that?

Michelle: Well, I think every business owner is, right? You have to kind of be a little bit selfish.

Zara: Oh, we're not selfish at all.

Tommy: No, we, that's, I mean, that's our whole life.

Zara: But our friendship circle has really diminished.

Josh: No, but it really does, doesn't it? I think it's just a time thing.

Tommy: I mean, the funny thing is it sort of doesn't feel selfish when it's, it feels like we're doing it for this community or we're doing it for people. And like, that's part of it too. And like being a team, right? Like you're doing it for Michelle and Michelle's doing it for you. Like, so it becomes less selfish when it's a team.

Josh: It's a funny word to use. Maybe selfish is not right.

Tommy: I think it's focused maybe.

Josh: Yeah. I think it's coming to my attention more when I've had friendships that maybe have needed me more than I've been able to give. And I felt innately very selfish in those moments because I've thought, well, this is my priority. And I don't know, I don't actually think I can shift that. Like I can only I only give certain people in my life certain amounts of energy. And I think that statement objectively sounds very selfish.

Zara: This patterning though, from when you're a young teenager into your high school, late high school into uni, whatever, it's like there are, you hang around people that, you know, you weren't really questioning the friendship or what they're into, what I'm into. So my friendship circle has completely shrunk. I have a bunch of people on the outer that are acquaintances that I just, I see and I say, hi. But I'm more okay with it. Having a kid really too is like—

Michelle: I was just gonna say, that really recalibrates everything. It is funny. And I mean this in the most humble way possible, but since Shameless has had like a little bit of attention and like a little bit of a following, it's funny. It's funny how some people will reach out and want to grab coffee with you who you've literally haven't spoken to in 10 years.

Zara: Pick your brain. That's a really good sign. Pick your brain.

Michelle: People who just want to catch up or people who pretend that you're like been their friend for ages and like, let's go get brunch. It's like, hang on. I don't even know your last name.

Tommy: And also it's like, I think the other thing is when your circle does get smaller, you start to realise like, I don't actually have time for my best friends, let alone—

Josh: Do I not say this to you all the time? Whenever I think, 'cause we have a foot in a couple of industries, like we have a foot in the podcasting industry, we've accidentally got a foot in this like influencer industry. And there's a lot of social stuff that goes on with that. And I go to Michelle, I don't wanna fucking go to this thing because I would rather hang out with my friends. Like if I'm gonna go and socialize, I wanna do it with my best friends because they don't get as, I don't get to spend nearly as much time as I want with them. 'Cause I would hang out with them all day, every day. If I could.

Michelle: Yeah.

Josh: So with those kinds of events, it's a, it's a weird industry to be a part of, that one in particular, because it's like work masquerading as socializing. Um, and that can get very confusing. And I think we tend to call it the black hole a bit because it's like, don't get sucked into that.

Michelle: Yeah, the black hole. I know it well.

Josh: What, have you been sucked in?

Michelle: No, it's just when you say it's funny. I think Gemma Watts would say the same if you guys asked her about it. That's just an interesting industry to have foot in.

Tommy: Just that you end up getting sort of dragged into a bunch of social stuff.

Michelle: I just think some— so not every— certainly not everyone, but there is an interesting dynamic that plays out in the influencing world. And sometimes I think, yeah, the visual aspect of it or the optics of it can be very misleading.

Josh: Well, I think it's that idea, right? I just said it's like work masquerading as socializing. And I think with that comes a very complicated industry where your perspective is a little warped and the relationships can be, um, people can be friends but they also can be kind of work competitors.

Michelle: It's like frenemies.

Josh: It's strange, and I think you have to be quite wary of it. But the perspective thing is huge. I think the influencing industry is pumped with money, more money than anyone would probably realize. These people are getting handed things that nobody else is, and I think by virtue of that there is a lack of perspective, because I think that comes when you're making a bank of money for doing, um, a different kind of work.

Zara: I think when someone sees someone as a frenemy. They're probably, they're probably an enemy.

Michelle: But you know what it is? It's a competition thing. Everyone's in competition for the same brand deals with each other, and it breeds a real competitiveness and a real animosity towards certain people in the industry. I mean, you'll see them post together on Instagram and know full well that those two people do not get along because that girl got the brand deal over that girl and she's earning $200,000 for it. So it's that type of stuff as well.

Tommy: I mean, that's why I I think that maybe going back to our stereotype, what we like is maybe we've paved a different thing for ourselves, which feels nice because it feels like we're in one of the few positions where we can actually be friends with everyone. And it doesn't feel like we're having to—

Zara: But I think we consciously do that. So I think it is. So it's a reaction to feel that sort of you're looking to your left, to your right and feeling jealous. Why have they got that person on? Why have they, you know? I think that's an easy, natural reaction. But then you got to cheque yourself, right? To go, okay, so if that's my natural reaction and I didn't choose that, what can I choose? And if I can choose, that's awesome. But if it's like, tell them why you should win.

Tommy: But I think the difference is that it's like the luxury that we have is we're not like, imagine like audition, like people who do auditions or things like that. Or even if this was the radio landscape where it's like we're a breakfast show and there's another breakfast show.

Michelle: Yeah.

Tommy: We're not in the business of being picked. And so the only time I, I think I put a tran— I put a, a spin on feeling like I'm looking over at someone thinking, oh, look at— they've got that and I'm pissed, is, ah, that's actually a reflection on us and where we need to be better. Yeah. And so if you can use that feeling as energy to go, well, if we've decided to do this ourselves, we now— what can we do if we've got ourselves here and they've got themselves there? You know, now No one's picking anymore.

Tommy: I heard Michael Bungay Stanier, who's this great, he's wrote a book called The Coaching Habit.

Zara: Has one of the best names.

Tommy: Yeah. And he's gonna be on the show in a few months, but I was watching one of his videos and he was talking about reframing negative storeys about people. And I'll probably butcher it a little bit, but the basis of it was that say if it's Tommy and you say all these things like, Tommy's an attention-seeking whore, all these sort of things. He's obsessed about his hair. He's got the worst haircut. Worst haircut.

Zara: Not true.

Tommy: Basically reframing it so it's actually you, you actually say that about yourself. So, you say, no, like, you are this and it actually, like, when you say it out loud, like, you're an attention seeker, you're this, it actually creates, there's a level of truth in that, I think, for a lot of people, right? Like, we all have varying levels of stuff and sometimes people doing stuff are triggering those those moments.

Josh: I think that's totally true because I think the thing that you pick apart someone else in is probably your biggest insecurity, or the thing that you don't want to be that you might be, or something like that.

Michelle: I think as well there's also a lot of power in looking at why other people have the audiences they do and the success they do and figuring out what it is about them that is so success— that makes them so successful. I really enjoy doing that, for example, with Zoe Foster-Blake or with Jamila Rizvi, with all these women in the media that I look up who I'm probably a little bit envious of, but in a productive way. I'm not looking at them and going, she doesn't deserve that. I'm looking at them and going, okay, what is it about what she does that makes her relevant and makes her fun to follow and fun to buy, like buy her products and read her books? I think it's really good to look at people in that sense and figure out what their strengths are and not compete with them because there's only gonna be one spot for that kind of person. You need to have your own spot and your own niche. Niche and things that make you, you.

Zara: And the success that they have won't be what you see as a success. You can't replicate it.

Josh: It's not relevant because you're not going to find it because if you start trying to eat into their turf, they're just going to ruin you anyway because they're better at it.

Michelle: Yeah, but it's also they've got it. You can't take ours. You can't steal the house.

Tommy: It's like it's only, yeah, there's only one of everything. You've got to figure out what your thing is.

Josh: You've got to build your own. I mean, I am very much wanting to like head down and stay in our own lane and like not look elsewhere. And it is pretty much what we do. Like I don't really listen to many other podcasts anymore. I listen to ones that I really enjoy for entertainment, but ones that are trying to serve a similar demographic to me, I don't even touch.

Michelle: Yeah, we don't listen to any of our competitor podcasts, which some people might find really odd.

Tommy: It makes a lot of sense.

Michelle: We don't listen to a single other one because we don't want to, um, subconsciously bleed into what we're doing or affect the way we do our show. So basically, since maybe like a few months into Shameless, I do not listen to another podcast. Pop culture podcast.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, I think it makes sense because even we've had moments where it's like we'll say something and then it will be like, oh, that actually— I think so and so. Yeah. And then because we— and but what the powerful bit of that is how much content can actually change us. And so if we put in the right content, then I think it can be a really powerful thing for positive change.

Michelle: It's interesting because like the High Low, which is a British pop culture podcast, was one of my favourite podcasts ever, and I don't listen to it anymore because I felt like it was affecting the way I did shameless too much.

Josh: So yeah, no, I was exactly the same. I just want to make sure that everything we're putting out is our own ideas. But they did a really good segment like a year ago on the concept of ideas, and I think that's the other thing that I'm very conscious of. It's like, you get this idea in your head, you need to be very self-aware that it probably wasn't your idea and think back to where you actually found that idea and try to credit as much as you can. I mean, I know I've quoted random ideas on this thing being like, I don't know where I found it, but it's not mine. But I think that idea in this space is, I don't know, not acknowledged as much. It's like, where did that thought process come from? Because you probably didn't come up with it yourself. And I think the more we avoid podcasts that are targeted to similar places that we're going, the better we're going to be and the better our work is going to be.

Zara: I mean, sometimes people need to not copy, but need to replicate someone else's model to get the ball rolling.

Tommy: Or like parodies. Like you think when I was a kid and I was making videos, It was like all Aussie adventure parody videos. And I think there's a lot like that's all you've got at the start, right? It's like, and Zara, you were talking about Ira Glass and the gap, the creative gap. And it's like there is the time when you start something where it's like, you know where you want it to be, you know how good you want it to be, but you can't do it for whatever reason. You can't work out how to get the camera to do the thing that—

Josh: That's one of my favourite quotes ever, I think. 'Cause it's like, you can literally see it with Shameless. And I think the quote, I'm not gonna be able to quote it off the top of my head, but Ira Glass speaks a lot about how creative people start with like a spark, but they don't have the talent. And when you're starting, your work is basically gonna be shit. Like he doesn't say that, but there is gonna be a gap between what you're producing and what you want it to look like. And I think if you go back through the 100 episodes of Shameless, that gap is very obvious. What we wanted it to look like was not what we were producing, but the consistency of what we put out, regardless meant that we could eventually get it to a point we were happy with. But you have to push through that discomfort we keep talking about, that really unattractive discomfort, the dorkiness that comes from pushing out a product that people are kind of confused by.

Zara: Well, it's enjoying process too.

Josh: Yeah.

Zara: If you didn't enjoy it, you're not going to build the skills.

Michelle: Yeah.

Zara: It's going to be way too hard.

Tommy: And I think it's exciting too to think like you're at episode 100 of Shameless thinking about episode 200 or 300 or 400. And just like think about how you feel about stuff that you did 100 episodes ago.

Michelle: Yeah.

Tommy: And think about how much growth, how our opinions will change completely.

Josh: Like, there will be stuff— I'm sure there's stuff that I've said on the podcast in the last few months or the last year that I fundamentally disagree with now. Yeah. Um, but hopefully we have cultivated an audience that are quite understanding of that and are also impressed by that. I mean, the more our opinions change, the smarter we all become, I think.

Zara: Yeah.

Tommy: And it creates less drama and in some ways in the conversations we have, like empathy. Like if you think about it, as we start to evolve and understand and meet people, say the influencer thing, when you start meeting people and you start connecting it with faces and/or you actually start playing the game yourself, all of a sudden what you would have said episode 10 about influencers, you're like, oh, well, we actually do this now. This is—

Michelle: Yeah. And I think it is. We are certainly more empathetic, I think, to people in that industry because I think once you're on the inside of it and we're not influencers, that's the thing. I think we have a a taste of it.

Tommy: Influencers, you're an influencer.

Michelle: But I can honestly say I would hate for someone to look at us and be like, influencers before they say journalists. Like, that would really—

Josh: or like writers.

Michelle: I really want to be known as a writer and podcaster before I'm known as an influencer because it's fun.

Josh: Like, we don't do that.

Michelle: Yeah.

Tommy: What is it? I guess that's the thing is people with influence, I guess, influencers, right? But there's a certain type of content that has been created, which is that sort of very quick churn stuff.

Michelle: Yeah, like we're not going to go on our Instagram profile in bikinis and pose with like, I don't know, a hair removal device. That's not our kind of content.

Josh: Yeah, and I would say we're not influencers because the only sponsored content that we do on Instagram is tied to podcast episodes. That's like a rule we've had from the start. And if we are doing social content that's not tied to a podcast episode sponsorships, it's because we're ambassadors of it. Like, that's where our line is. And I think that's for many reasons, but I think the first one is because we would always want to be known for the content we're pushing out as journalists more than anything else. And the minute muddy that the minute we lose credibility, I think, for what we want to do.

Michelle: Going back to before though, I think we have been definitely more empathetic about people in that industry because I think having a taste of it, you've realised how many, uh, layers there are to everything that you see on Instagram, or layers there are to the different storeys and the people themselves. So I think even interviewing some of them and meeting them socially has definitely made us more sympathetic to what they do and why, why mistakes might happen.

Tommy: And it's like, also, what are people's options? Like, if they've been able to make a business doing it, it's like, can we really credit— like, what is the other option for people?

Zara: It's also new. It's, you know, it's—

Michelle: everyone's learning.

Zara: Yeah, if someone opened a shop that was selling clothes, you probably wouldn't— I mean, you might say it's a bit late to do something like that, but you don't really question. It's like, oh, I see what they're doing. But then the business model—

Tommy: opening a shop.

Zara: Yeah, opening shop.

Tommy: I mean, a shop It could be a good business.

Zara: What I'm saying is it's an old business model.

Josh: Is it too late for shops?

Zara: Definitely too late for shops. I'll use a better example.

Tommy: Milk bars.

Zara: Start an online store.

Tommy: Could do really well.

Zara: Online store. Or start a cafe. Are we getting bogged down?

Michelle: We're definitely getting bogged down. Maybe like start a VHR store.

Josh: What's a VHR?

Michelle: VHS. I'm so millennial, I don't even know what VHS is.

Josh: What is that?

Zara: Don't talk about something you've never used.

Michelle: DVD store would be a little bit progressive.

Tommy: No, there is something nostalgic about it. Are you into this? Are you guys into nostalgia or not?

Josh: In what way? I mean, it's quite a broad question.

Zara: It's a personal question because he is— I just— I've never met anyone more obsessed with the past.

Tommy: We've seen before the show, terrible short-term memory. Yeah, but love— what I'm excited about this moment right now is not this moment.

Zara: It's yesterday.

Tommy: It's actually— it's this moment in a year's time.

Michelle: Oh wow, that's a great way to live.

Tommy: We'll be reminiscing and we'll be celebrating whatever it is that you guys have been working on.

Michelle: All that you guys have been working on.

Josh: I mean, I guess I like nostalgia. I mustn't like it as much as you like it because I don't think about it enough. I think I have a weird relationship with nostalgia like a lot of people is because I think I look back on things as far rosier than they were, and that can be incredibly dangerous for present day because you can think, oh my goodness, I wish my life was like it was then.

Michelle: Josh is going to have an existential crisis if you keep talking about it.

Zara: Memories can be distorted.

Josh: Well, yeah, I think I do distort them and think that things were way more fun or way more exciting or way more social than they were.

Zara: What's the opposite? Really dark, really negative. You know, I think it's probably like, it's the same question of do you like fond memories?

Josh: That's exactly right, because you don't remember like the sprinklings of loneliness or sadness that you might have felt like during those times.

Tommy: Yeah, that's true. Sorry, Billy, you're off mute. I just wanted to know whether you like milk bars or not. Green frogs?

Michelle: You ever had a green frog boss? I'm not like offended by it.

Tommy: Do you guys play like netball? Did you have like—

Michelle: I loved netball. It's kind of funny. Some of the stuff I loved as a kid, I do not like at all now. Like I used to be so obsessed with netball and I would hate to play a game ever again in my life.

Tommy: I couldn't because of my knee of having surgery.

Josh: How old are you, Jack?

Tommy: 28. 29 actually in September 14th.

Zara: Yeah, a couple of weeks.

Tommy: If you're creating a database.

Michelle: We're not creating a database, but we can.

Zara: I can say confidently we won't.

Michelle: Do you want to just send me yours, 97, and we can just add Tommy and Josh?

Tommy: Can you give us another interesting birthday?

Josh: I'm wondering what the deal is with the database when I didn't receive a happy birthday message from the Daily Talk Show.

Tommy: It was literally the day after. It was your birth— 97, what happened with the Zara thing? He's doing two things at once. Why didn't Zara get a happy birthday message?

Michelle: I don't know.

Tommy: When did we do the database? No, because I remember he was like, what's going on here? We just missed Zara's birthday. Do you remember saying that?

Josh: So, could I get like a retrospective happy Happy birthday.

Michelle: How about we all sing? What can I expect? Can I expect like an email or like saying everything?

Tommy: We probably shouldn't have mentioned it.

Josh: Now everyone listening is gonna be like, hey, it's my birthday.

Tommy: Yeah, it's a bit of a nightmare.

Zara: It's mine on Sunday, so don't forget.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Oh, this Sunday?

Michelle: Was this a birthday haircut?

Josh: It so was a birthday haircut.

Tommy: It was a shameless haircut actually.

Josh: It just felt like— Definitely birthday haircuts are so a thing. And you pretend it's just like, oh, this old thing that just happened 4 days before I'm about to see everyone I know.

Zara: It's a big day. It's my father's birthday. Thursday and it's my birthday.

Michelle: So do you get double presents, do you reckon? Or one bigger present?

Zara: Well, I'm getting a fire pit. I know what I'm getting.

Tommy: Oh man, who's digging the hole? Who's digging the hole?

Zara: No, I'm getting a fire pit. It's not, it's a, you know, from Bunnings. It's like a nice big sort of rusty looking.

Tommy: He's moving into the suburbs. So he's got the room to be able to do it.

Michelle: I'd ask you what suburb, but we're not live, but we're going out to all your 10 listeners.

Tommy: I mean, I think you've said it before.

Josh: Bulley. Bulley.

Michelle: I fell into a fire pit. Well, not fall in, but I hit a fire pit when I was drunk when I was like 16 and I have a scar on the back of my leg.

Josh: Yeah, my best friend nearly rolled into one at a 21st.

Tommy: I've got a 2 and a half year old, it's all be open to marshmallows. I'm pumped.

Michelle: S'mores. Yeah.

Zara: Oh, s'mores.

Michelle: We had s'mores on the girls' trip away.

Josh: These tangents are amazing.

Zara: Actually, you've seen what I want is a sandwich maker, like a Jaffle maker.

Michelle: Yes, nice.

Zara: You can put it into the—

Michelle: Absolutely.

Zara: You could probably do waffles.

Tommy: Look, we can have a fire at my house.

Josh: Thanks, Drew.

Tommy: There is something really nice about just a fire. 'Cause I've only started drinking in the last year, which sounds depressing.

Michelle: It's not. What happened to you?

Tommy: I don't know. I just like started having a little bit of wine or whatever. But now I'm associating with like, I never really understood some things, but when you drink, I can understand the power of like being in front of a fire and sort of—

Zara: A glass of red.

Josh: I was gonna say, I said, was it to you that I said the other day, or maybe it was my best friend on the phone. On the phone. No, I— we had this conversation. My best friend lives in London. She's like, oh, I've just learned why my mom, you know, always wanted to crack open a glass. No, you did say this to me. I said it to you after we had this conversation. She was like, oh, such a long day at work, had to get myself a bottle of wine. I can understand why mum needed a glass after parenting us all. And I was like, yeah, yeah, same, same. Oh my God, I need a glass after a long day. And then I hung up the phone and I was like, we're 25 with like no stress, like, what are we talking about? Like, yeah, I can So understand.

Michelle: It's pretty depressing. So anyway, maybe our birthday celebration can be at your house with a fire pit.

Zara: We'll get Gemma Watts.

Josh: We'll be there.

Michelle: Queen Gronkh. If Gemma's Queen Gronkh, can we have like minions?

Tommy: We've actually stopped all hierarchies. No, but you've already started.

Michelle: And now there's a girl hierarchy. So I want to know where I sit.

Tommy: Well, this is the hard thing. This is what— because I—

Michelle: Are you telling me you want to take away her crown?

Zara: No.

Tommy: So this is what happened. I cancelled all hierarchy. Chucky's about 2 weeks ago due to some issues. And there was a lot of backlash from Gem and her. I didn't realise how much her audience has sort of injected themselves into ours. And so if she goes, they all go.

Zara: Well, we've got Uncle Trev.

Tommy: Yeah, we've got Uncle Trev.

Zara: So what's her cousin or godmother or grandmother? We'll be Princess Gronkh.

Michelle: Aunties. I was actually thinking of what's secondary to like Queen Gronkh. And I was like, I don't know what that is.

Josh: The Duchess Gronks.

Tommy: What about like General Gronks? Now what's the one, who's the—

Josh: Peasant Gronks?

Tommy: Who are the people who liaise between the Queen and the—

Michelle: I couldn't think of Princess, so you should have asked me.

Josh: Are you talking about the Governor General?

Tommy: Yeah, the Governor General.

Michelle: I'm gonna be Governor General.

Tommy: I think that's pretty cool. Governor Gronks.

Josh: Wait, wait, I'll be President Gronk.

Tommy: No, absolutely not.

Josh: Oh my God, am I allowed to swear?

Zara: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: Too late. We're excited for when you can announce things and we should go to La Porchetta or something nice as a little celebration.

Josh: Is La Porchetta sponsoring this?

Tommy: No, no, they're just getting freebies, but it's a nostalgia moment for him.

Josh: Of course.

Tommy: Did you ever do La Porchetta?

Josh: Yeah, lots of nostalgia going on here.

Tommy: I remember having the—

Michelle: I went to netball games.

Tommy: Did you really? Yeah, yeah. I've really tapped into something.

Zara: Nostalgia.

Tommy: Before we go, Killer Pythons. Did you have Killer Pythons?

Josh: Absolutely.

Tommy: The netball?

Michelle: Yeah, I did.

Josh: What about the Sour Straps?

Michelle: Yeah, The killer pythons are great, $1 for a huge killer python. What were the other things? Whiz Fizz was another big one.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, actually, you, I mean, you are the queen of lists at the moment. What's the hierarchy? What was the last hierarchy?

Michelle: The last hierarchy was one that I just did on my feed, which was antipasto platter foods.

Josh: The thing about Michelle's hierarchies, and I haven't raised this with her, is that she chooses a genre, but the genre's a bit fucked, and the things that she chooses don't really make sense. Sense. Like, there's a lot of like black spots. That's what I mean.

Tommy: I don't realise Zara wants some very obvious, clear—

Michelle: to be honest, the more controversial the better, because everyone gets it.

Josh: I'm all for the controversial hierarchy. It's just the—

Tommy: where did blue cheese go on there?

Josh: Yeah, she probably didn't have to pick random items.

Michelle: Category went number 1. I think it was cheese number 1. Uh, number 2 was olives. Big, big, big fan of olives. Oh, any, any kind of olive. I'm I'm not kidding. Like olives, I could live on them for the rest of my life.

Tommy: What about dip? Is that a whole genre?

Michelle: Dip was quite low down actually. It's a category. It's a category. I said hummus.

Josh: That's the thing. You can't have cheese as one category and hummus as another.

Tommy: You have to have the same categories and subcategories.

Michelle: Excuse me. Who's made a name for themselves as the hierarchy queen? I don't know what to say.

Josh: I might just start doing that.

Zara: What's the next one that you're doing?

Tommy: Can we start one now?

Michelle: Yeah, sure. Do you want to give me a topic and I'll do it this Friday? Dog breeds.

Tommy: I think she should do people.

Michelle: That's a great one.

Tommy: Dog breeds.

Josh: No, Zaya thinks she should do people. I feel like something really brutal, like influencers.

Michelle: Maybe in conversation guests. I'll break them all.

Josh: People in my life.

Michelle: Maybe I'll just do the Daily Talk Show boys. There'll be 2 spots, 3 spots.

Zara: You know who's winning best hair.

Tommy: Josh, definitely. All right, well, looking forward to the La Picchetta. It'll be great. There is the pizza that you have on, like, that's like a, it's like a sealed thing.

Zara: Are you talking about calzone?

Michelle: Yeah.

Tommy: First time I ever—

Zara: calzone?

Tommy: Calzone?

Josh: I don't know. I'm not Italian.

Tommy: Anyway, we'll have a calzone together.

Zara: Together.

Tommy: Definitely. And maybe a hot chocolate.

Michelle: Jan or Feb, we'll be able to announce.

Tommy: So we'll do something. Oh, it's gonna be quite hot. I don't know if I feel like lapok set up in summer. We'll get some gelato. Gelato would be nice.

Michelle: Is it a gelato?

Josh: It's actually, I worked at an ice cream store for a long time. I got a bit of RSI in my wrist from all the tough flavors.

Zara: And you've done, you've sued them.

Josh: My dad used to strap my wrist.

Michelle: Did he?

Zara: Really?

Josh: True story. I used to go with bandage anyway.

Zara: Gelato. Gelato.

Tommy: That would also be a great hierarchy.

Zara: Totally.

Michelle: If any ice cream or gelato brands want to reach out and sponsor us, I'll also say yes to smoothie brands.

Zara: Messina. I mean, they're great.

Michelle: Sure. Messina, if you're listening, come on board.

Zara: Peter Pippo.

Josh: Peter Pippo.

Zara: Peter Pippo.

Tommy: Quite liquidy. Anyway, it's The Daily Talk Show. hypedthedailytalkshow.com is the email address. Shameless. Just look at the top charts and they're there. Yeah, yeah.

Zara: And they're on the podcast.

Tommy: Yeah, we'll see you at the top 500, guys. See you tomorrow.

Michelle: See ya.