Keegan Bakker On Supporting Local Businesses With Isomates

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 653.

Tommy: Happy Monday, Gronks. What's happening? What's going on?

Josh: We've got, uh, Keegan Backer, aka Keegs, uh, in the building, aka his home.

Keegan: G'day, guys. I'm good. Um, congratulations on going 2 shows a day. Is that right? Did I see that correctly? Because I've been waiting to get on the show. I've thought for ages I've been waiting to get the invite to come on the show, and now I've only get the call up when you have literally double the available guest spots. So I don't know what that says about me, but anyway, it's good to be here.

Tommy: We were looking for our first person in official quarantine, and so there's a few things that have happened, mate, that have been right timing. You decided to go to Dubai, and then coronavirus decided to unleash on the world. Uh, what's going on, mate? You're at home 14 days. Are you— can you leave at all?

Keegan: No, so I can't leave at all. Can't even go take the dog out for a walk. So, I've got, I mean, I've got a lot of mates that live nearby and stuff, so they've been really nice and, you know, offering to walk my dog for me and bring groceries and stuff like that. But, yeah, can't go out. I could, there's a chance that I could be interrupted during this show with police knocking at the door because they haven't arrived yet. But they say that they could show up. Really? Any day, just to randomly spot check.

Josh: Talking about the police thing, just before I was mentioning that I could hear a siren. Bree just notified me that there was someone on Smith Street refusing to stop their car. So, there was a very slow chase going on.

Keegan: Yeah.

Josh: There we go. So, there's— I was expecting a better reaction, to be honest.

Keegan: Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, Josh, you're hearing people do some disgusting things. I heard someone licking their credit card and gronk behaviour like that. Someone who is doing something nice is Keegan Backer. Mate, I saw you doing a live stream and I jumped on and I was thinking, is Keegs accidentally live streamed his workflow on his computer? But then I worked out that it wasn't that. What are you live streaming? What have you been live streaming at the moment?

Keegan: So it started just as purely as a project for isolation because I'm pretty bored and I've got nothing else to do and building apps is my sort sort of bread and butter and building web applications. So I wanted to do something, build something new in isolation, in quarantine. And we built, started building something that was going to be useful for the community. So it's just a directory for businesses that are still open that are affected by COVID-19. And yes, I started live streaming the process so that people could follow along and learn how apps get made and watch the, watch the thing get built. So it's felt like it's been, you know, much like this show. I'm sure you guys, you know, with your Gronk Squad, it feels like it's a bit of a community project and it feels like it's being, um, uh, being built by everyone, not just myself.

Josh: So yeah, I think, um, I mean, the cool thing about you, Keegs, is you went from radio being an announcer. I think you were like one of the youngest people on the metro market doing sort of, um, being a day jock and all that sort of thing. And then on the side have built a very successful sort of, sort of audience radio audience tool called AWDATA. Um, what is— what's typically day to day for AWDATA for you at the moment?

Keegan: Well, it's pretty good. I, um, I mean, I know this is a really tragic and disastrous situation that everyone's in around the world, but I mean, the sort of silver lining for me is that I was sort of prepared because I've been working from home since late last year. So over the past 3 years, I sort of transitioned gradually more and more into AllData, which is my business, but still being on air at Fox FM in Melbourne. But then I finally went full-time with AllData at the end of last year, so, and started working from from home, although I started working from home for a couple of months and then it was February, I think, I got into a coworking space because I wanted to go in and be around other people and I got signed up for 6 months there and 2 days in, I left to go overseas for a week and came back and now I'm in quarantine. So, but it's good that I've had the practise of being able to work from home and we've got a small team and they're all working remotely like you guys are at the moment. So, Day to day things are still going pretty similarly. We're lucky that we're in a cloud software space. We make software and that's sort of something you can do from anywhere. There's no direct contact with people face to face. So, yeah, haven't been too affected at this stage.

Josh: And you do a lot of the tech side of things. How much of the tech stuff are you doing?

Keegan: I still do a lot. I do a little bit less now. I have a horrible problem with delegation. I tend to be a bit of a control freak and I like to just get things done myself and I have a real issue with sort of letting other people do things for me which is a fault.

Josh: That's not a fault. People aren't as good as you, you know.

Keegan: Exactly. No, I just, you know, it's that sort of thing of like I just sort of know, oh well, I could just get— I could ask someone to do this thing for me, or I could just— I'll just go and do it because it'll just be quicker. But then, then there's no sort of system in place to scale. So that's something I've been working on, and that's where, you know, we're making a lot of progress in that. But I still do, you know, write a lot of code and build a lot of stuff. I think I just— it's just always something I've been interested in. I've been sort of writing code and doing tech stuff like long, long before AllData, and it was always a little side hobby for me, and now it's— now it's my full-time gig.

Tommy: You deal with a lot of radio stations around the world. What's been sort of— what's happening in the radio landscape around the globe? Are they shutting off shows? Are they continuing work? What's going on?

Keegan: It's really interesting. There seems to be a real common thread here in Australia, and I was speaking to some of our customers over in London and the UK at the moment. Radio has been hit really hard on revenue, so commercial radio, FM radio stations, I mean, they're just— advertisers aren't there to spend money, but the ratings are going through the roof in a lot of cases at the moment. Like, the overall amount of listeners, particularly, I mean, across the board, but particularly with like talkback stations or anything that's got a bit more sort of news skew to it. There's a station in London that's got their talk station— one of our customers has got something like 3 times the cumulative audience, so their total number of listeners at the moment just because of this pandemic. So they've got bigger audiences than they've ever seen before because people are trying to get, you know, consume as much mass media as they can at the moment. But they don't have anyone spending money on advertising. So it's a bit of a—

Tommy: As a business owner in these times, where does your mind go? Is it an opportunity? Is it something you just have to ride? How do you view it?

Keegan: Oh, it's a bit of both. And it obviously depends what kind of industry you're in. And I feel really bad for all the small businesses and stuff like a lot of, you know, cafes and restaurants that, I mean, you just look at those small businesses and I can just like, they could have been, it just happened so quickly. There was no real way to prepare yourself for this. And now they've had to shut their doors and they're reacting to it. But every situation, as bad as it is to say, is an opportunity in business, I think. I mean, on one side, I think one definite outcome is that when we're on the other side of this, I think a lot of these things that we're all learning, like working remotely, is gonna be a lot more commonplace. I just think it's, you know, a lot of these systems and a lot of these processes are probably gonna become more of the norm.

Josh: And so talking about those small businesses, ISOmate is the app you decided to build. Can you run us through what it actually does and how it came to fruition?

Keegan: Sure. So, at the moment it's pretty simple. It's just a directory, a free directory for small businesses that have been affected but have still got their doors open. So, we built a website at the moment. We're hoping to have the iPhone and Android apps launched pretty soon as well. So, if you're a small business, you can go on to isomates.com and register. And so, It's basically if you're, you know, think of local restaurants that have had to close it. Well, they can't have people in the restaurant anymore. So there's a lot of restaurants, you know, in my neighbourhood that are doing like home-cooked meals that you can pick up and take home. Different innovative responses from different businesses. So we're just creating a directory where you can register your business and then if you're a consumer, you can pop in your address and It'll show you the local businesses that are near you and sort of what they're offering. Also, you know, it's just tricky at the moment because there are a lot of, you know, your delivery giants still charging commission, large commissions on ordering fees and things like that. So yeah, it just seems there was a really big response from particularly hospitality, particularly restaurants that were the biggest ones to come out and say this was a really great idea and really wanted to get on here. So, Yeah, businesses tend to be saying there's a bit of a need for it.

Tommy: I, I've just jumped on and signed in. You can see like the Rising Sun Hotel Richmond, family-owned business, just had to let go of 30 staff and we're devastated. So they're leaving like, um, little info, little bits of info about them. Small family-owned local cafe in Carlton, the Vincent the Dog Cafe. This is cool. Yeah.

Keegan: And, um, yeah.

Tommy: So when you sort of— the initial idea, because when I jumped on that live stream, you were saying, what should we put in? Someone was saying, you know, add in this section so they can leave it. Like, how much of an idea did you start with, and how far has it gone to?

Keegan: Well, I started with no idea at all. It started as literally, I was— I wanted to— I just tweeted that I was going to build an app just in isolation, and I said, oh, does anyone— would anyone be interested if I live stream the process? And people said, yeah, cool, we can all learn something while we're stuck at home. But then as we sort of fleshed out, and it happened, you probably saw it happen, Tommy, like in those comments, like people came up with different suggestions for it and it really sort of fleshed it out. And then I got a lot of messages from, you know, cafes, restaurants saying, oh my God, we can't wait to get on this. This is a great idea. So then I sort of knew I was onto something and accelerated the process of building it and getting it out a little bit. And it's still going to go a lot further. It's in its infancy at the moment. So it's just our MVP or minimum viable product that we've got up at the moment. But we are going to add more things to it, but that'll be really informed by the feedback that we get from these small businesses. So once they get on there, they'll sort of, you know, hopefully tell us what they like about it and what they want, and we'll hopefully be able to react. Because that's the whole thing as well, like, this is just— the situation, as you know, is changing so often and rapidly, and, you know, it could be tomorrow with no warning that new regulations might come in place where takeaway might not be an option anymore and we'll have to, you know, adapt. It's completely not-for-profit, but the whole idea is that throughout this whole journey and this whole process that we'll be there to hopefully support small businesses and help them connect with the community who still want to look after small businesses.

Josh: It seems like a great response to that feedback that businesses have been giving around the big delivery giants taking a huge cut. Um, how hard is it to actually build a fully fledged solution that would allow payments and things like that?

Keegan: It's something we're looking into. Um, it's, it's not so much the challenge in terms of technology. I mean, we could— we're definitely going to add the ability to have like your menu on there or, you know, update your products, put some pictures up there. That's still coming up. Maybe we'll look at online ordering and the ability to have payment processing and that kind of thing, particularly if we can make it almost free for businesses to accept those orders. You know, they'll probably have to pay like a credit card surcharge or something like that, but otherwise we won't be taking any commission. The only challenge is, of course, with your delivery companies is that they have the network of delivery drivers or riders. So that's the one thing that— that's the tricky part. So it would be for businesses, because there are still a lot of businesses out there that have their own delivery capacity. Or we've had a couple of emails from small businesses, restaurants and stuff, where it's literally the business owners or their family or their daughters, you know, just got her car and she's out driving, doing deliveries for them and stuff. So they've got the capacity to do delivery. That's where we'll be trying to help them out.

Mason: Hey, Sevs, do we have anyone on YouTube in the, in the comments saying, uh, such a cool idea, a database like this will be able to help these small businesses stay afloat in very trying times? And Jordan also says great idea.

Tommy: What about, uh, Keegs, in these times, uh, security and data? Like, I mean, what you're doing, very genuine and for the right reasons and purpose. Um, people are starting to think about like what people having our data and being able to track us and log into stuff. Where do you sit on someone who has these sort of online platforms and needs to sort of implement safety around data? What do you think? What are you thinking about data at the moment?

Keegan: Um, oh, that's a huge question. Um, it's obviously extremely important. Um, it's better regulated at the moment than it ever has been in history before. It is are different in different parts of the world. So you were talking before about, um, AllData, which is my main business, and that's because we now operate internationally. Um, and a big challenge is the regulation and the laws around data security and privacy are very different from region to region. Um, in Australia we have the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles. Over in Europe, in the EU, they've got something called GDPR, which is actually far more stringent, um, and protects consumers I would say a bit better than we do here. But at these times where everything's a little bit crazy, I think is, you know, obviously we're doing things for the right reasons and I know that we're not— this project is nonprofit, we're not going to be publishing people's data or trying to monetize people's data. But there's probably going to be some, you know, nefarious actors out there who will be trying to take advantage of people, I guess. You know, unfortunately the sad reality is there's always You know, not even just small, like, you know, scammers or criminals or things like that trying to trick people into getting data and register with businesses or websites that aren't necessarily legitimate. But also, you've got to hope that large corporations are doing the right thing as well, and large organizations, because so many big businesses, you know, these huge enterprises and giants now just live off data. They say data is the new oil. So hopefully, hopefully, you know, there's a lot of responsibility on them. No matter how much regulation is in place, there's a lot of responsibility on them to do the right thing.

Josh: What have you learned about business in the last few years? What's been the biggest learning for you?

Keegan: Oh, I think the biggest learning for me has been about sales. I find this is really interesting because I was always like, I thought I was like the developer, like the tech guy. Particularly, and you guys, Tommy and JJ, would know, you both worked in radio. I came up through the radio sales team and you have this idea of the stereotypical radio sales guy. And I just always thought salespeople were just a little bit douchey. I just thought I could never ever do that job. And even now, since I started my own business and had to go and sell my product. I thought the most terrifying thing would be to walk into someone's business and sit down and try and talk about my shit and try and sell them my stuff. Sorry, I've got a bit of a—

Tommy: I've just had my son, he's come in and he's got into some hand cream and it's, oh my God, it's all over him.

Josh: It's a nightmare.

Tommy: Oh, don't tell your mum. Oh, she's probably watching. Hey, I'll be back.

Keegan: Hopefully it's disinfecting.

Tommy: I'm gonna deal with hand cream all—

Josh: this is not good.

Tommy: I'll be back, guys.

Josh: Not ideal.

Keegan: Um, I just, I feel so bored in isolation or quarantine at the moment. I can't imagine parents stuck at home. Like, it must be just such a different thing. But anyway, so, um, sales, sales has been the thing I've learned the most. So I think I've sort of, I've sort of learned 'cause I thought it was, I just thought it would something I would never ever be able to do. I thought it's just not who I am, the ability to just talk myself up and whatever. But I've actually found it's been, I've been able to go in and just still feel like I'm a genuine person and believe in the things that I'm saying and going to these businesses who are now our customers and sit down in front of some of the largest media businesses in the world and genuinely think that I have something to offer them. And genuinely believe that they can, you know, we can do something to help them. And that's what's worked really well. So I've learned a lot about that.

Josh: You hear there's the memes going around about like, ah, the company that I bought a domain name from 15 years ago has just sent me an update on their COVID-19 response. What has been your take in communicating as a business through these times?

Keegan: Oh, I, I'm— I mean, I kind of— I agree. I've had so many— I've had like 100 emails from different, different organisations I've never heard of. You're right, like you give someone your email address 7 years ago and they're sending you out, here's our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like, okay, great, your team are working remotely, I don't care. Um, so it's interesting. I think only— can you— I just think it comes off as really just not genuine, I think, a lot of the time. Like, unless you're really— unless you're putting in— unless it's actual information. So I think if you're a business or you're a brand and you're putting in place some more factual communication, so here's how things are changing day to day, here's what we can do if you're affected, you know, as opposed to just coming across going, we understand this is a difficult time and it's a strange time right now and these are unusual times and We're responding to the pandemic and just, it's just like, you know, people, there are people around the world who are really suffering and certain places are doing it really tough and you're just sending out a massive email going, we understand, come back and buy a domain name from us.

Josh: Yeah. So what do you do? What's your response then?

Keegan: Well, we've had, I've had the only issue first of all has been because we are still seen as a small business, you know, we're a small team of, you know, 5 or 6 people, and our customers are publicly traded enterprises, you know, so they're enormous companies. So they've— we've been, you know, been in contact on the front foot with them. I've reached out to a couple of our customers directly, so the IT managers and whoever, you know, looks after these businesses, to just sort of reassure them that we have business continuity in place. So that, you know, a lot of their businesses depend on our software, so They just need to know that we're not going to, you know, we're not one of these businesses, as our Prime Minister is saying, that's going to go into hibernation, and we're not going to be turning off the software for the next 6 months or something. You know, we're going to continue to be there. So assure them of that. We also put in place a remote readiness program. So we just did some free webinars and some resources that we sent out to help our customers transition to working remotely and working from home. 'Cause again, it's something that seems very natural for a lot of small businesses and you guys, you know, you sort of switched from being in your studio to working from home very easily 'cause when you're a small agile business it's quite simple, but when you're a large, a really large enterprise organization, things move very slowly.

Tommy: It wasn't without speed bumps. I've just confiscated the Brazilian bum bum cream that my son has got into. But I tell you, mate, it smells absolutely unbelievable. I'm thinking around tech businesses that seek investment, you know, capital raising. I wonder if it's going to change the whole landscape and really make people look at the problem they're solving and whether that problem is able to sustain something like this in the future. So I wonder if less companies will be able to get funding for projects that seem just a bit wishy-washy, the, you know, the business model is not quite there yet. What do you think? About the sort of investment space in tech.

Keegan: I hope it does. I feel really strongly about this issue because I just think there's just such a weird cult vibe in tech, particularly. I really hate to use the word startup to describe AllData, and people always introduce me, "Oh, here's Keegs. He's got a startup." I hate the word startup because people, if you have a tech business, it's a startup, but if you have any other business, it's a business. And people create startups and they feel like because it's a startup that they are immune to the laws of business. Like, they— oh, we don't have to worry about making money because we're a startup. Um, and it's just absurd that there's been this big bubble in venture capital, particularly in Silicon Valley and the like, and now around the world, where people throw obscene amounts of money at these founders who come along, usually young people, 20-something white males come along, and because they might be the next Steve Jobs or whatever, people just throw— I mean, WeWork, you can look at that as an example. You know, these obscene amounts of money at people without real strong business practises or a real strong business in place. And then it's created this culture, I think, where so many people get into create startups or, you know, whatever they're doing. Um, everyone's business is, oh, it's like Uber but for this. And then everyone focuses on raising money instead of making money. So no one's thinking about how they're serving customers, no one's thinking about how they're delivering value for society at large. All people are focused on day to day is, oh, we got to get our seed round, and then we got to go get our Series A funding, then we got to go get the next round of funding so we can employ more people. And before we've even figured out how we're a business, we've got to grow so we can employ, you know, a new VP of marketing or whatever. Um, and it's really interesting because I think maybe you're right, Tommy. I think it could be on the other side of this. I think maybe we'll just, as a society, you know, around the world. Maybe we'll just all cool down a little bit more and not take everything for granted so much.

Tommy: And well, I think even like, think about trying to do projections for cash flow even when you are a startup that doesn't have a business model dialled in yet. They're still trying to create some kind of, uh, snapshot at what the future may look like from a revenue basis. At the moment, that's like, you can't How can you say what you're going to be earning in 6 months in this climate? It's very tricky. And the problem thing, I think it'll be more of a focus on, which seems like it should be the thing. What's the problem? What's the solution? How great is that solution? Because there's a bunch of businesses that have a pretty low-ranking problem and people are still willing to drop cash on, which those things are going to change instantly. When you're thinking twice about getting a coffee and how much you're spending on a goddamn coffee. It's, um, it's interesting times. I think it's, you know, the reset and what the shift in priorities. Josh and I were talking about like the almost— it's like, um, it'll be fear, it'll be damage to people in terms of wanting to go out. Like, uh, it's almost like, what do you call it, like, um, uh, we've been all affected by this, so how can we jump back into going to shopping centres instantly. It's almost like a bit of, um, damage internally. It could possibly be the same for the startup culture, or just residual.

Josh: Yeah, just like the, the, the ongoing effect, I guess, of all of that stuff.

Keegan: Yeah, well, I think, I mean, it's going to refocus even just, you know, in that area of startups and tech and those kind of businesses. Um, I mean, it's going to really put a different sort of filter over how you evaluate those businesses and what they're offering. Because, you know, there are startups out there, and I say startups, you know, they get funding because they're trying to develop new ways to cure cancer or deliver internet to, you know, third world countries or something. Maybe they're the ones that need these giant, you know, seed rounds as opposed to someone who's built an app that does some funny filter on your face, you know, like Yeah, I think maybe we'll look at just what value you're delivering and some of these, yeah, some different priorities.

Josh: What was it like traveling? Because when did you actually get back to Melbourne?

Keegan: I got back on Monday. So, I probably wouldn't have left had I known that I was going to have to isolate. I flew out the day that they announced it. So, I left Melbourne Airport, I flew to Dubai and I was on an Emirates flight, so I had Wi-Fi. And it was a couple of hours into the flight and I checked my phone and it said all returning Australians will have to self-isolate for 14 days. So, but I got to Dubai and it was actually, it was really nice. It was just, I mean, obviously they were taking it very seriously there, but it felt a lot calmer and a lot like no one was stabbing each other for toilet paper over there. And I'm just like watching on Twitter and stuff and Instagram just what looked like Australia descending into absolute chaos. I think things have sort of calmed down a little bit now because I think when I was there, it was like every day there was another big, huge headline or new laws or restrictions introduced.

Josh: But— And so, with Taiwan—

Keegan: What I found really interesting—

Josh: Were they actually experiencing issues? Were they having, like, how many? What was the toll like and the numbers?

Keegan: I don't know where they're at at the moment, but they definitely— I know it's easy to say, you know, compare them a huge country like Australia compared to a small, you know, like the UAE is a very small country. But, um, when I got there, I think they had around 80 confirmed cases, and the day that I landed was their first day where they recorded more recoveries than new cases, which tells you that they were early on, on the ball.

Josh: So what were they doing?

Keegan: The other thing I noticed was they just took heed of the They just take heed of what the government tells them to do. I don't know whether it's respect or fear for the government that they have there, but just a different culture where the government says, "Stay home, don't go out," and everyone's like, "Okay, yep." The places were empty. People just weren't going to work. It was— everyone took it really seriously. Whereas I think we have a very different culture here in Australia where Aussies just take the piss a bit and we'll just push it right until the limit. No matter how many times, you know, leaders and experts come out on telly and say, "You need to stay home," People are at the beach and people are at the park.

Tommy: We've got a meme culture. I mean, people just— it's like a snowball effect of jumping on the Prime Minister, whether he's good or bad. Subjective. But it's like, I like seeing the memes about, you know, he came out and said that you can go, you know, his wife went and bought a jigsaw puzzle for the kids and that's an essential item. And so, there's all these memes about, you know, you can go out You can't exercise in a group of 10, but you can go and get your jigsaw because that's priority.

Keegan: Can't go to barre classes.

Tommy: How do you, Keegs, deal with— what's your sort of natural emotive response to uncertainty and not knowing what the future looks like?

Keegan: Not good. I'm someone— I have a lot of problems with anxiety. I've had mental health issues around anxiety in the past, so This is a real, real bad one for me. Luckily, I've got a lot of strategies for managing that now, and I've had to be a bit more stringent with them and a bit more practised on that. You know, things like meditating and that kind of thing has been fantastic because I don't deal well with uncertainty. I'm not someone who is casual, go with the flow. I'm someone that needs to know. Where things are going to go and what I'm going to be doing and, you know, what the, what the numbers are going to be. And at the moment, no one has that in any sort of remote sense. So it's been, it's been challenging, it's been definitely strange, but I'm managing it pretty well, I think. But I've just had to make sure I'm taking time, putting time in my calendar every day to you know, meditate and try and stay on top of it.

Josh: Have you noticed that the way your anxiety shows has changed in a time like now?

Keegan: I don't think so. I think it's still the same kind of underlying signals and triggers and things that I sort of feel. It still feels very much the same. It is kind of nice. I mean, I know it's hard to sort of look at the positives of something like this, but it is sort of the one silver lining that I take away is that it does feel like everyone's in the same boat together. And I mean, we're all in this together is the phrase that every news outlet has thrown around quite a lot. But it is true. Like, exactly. You know, like everyone around every country, every, you know, every socioeconomic tier, no matter rich or poor or different races or different parts of the world, it's sort of everyone's facing the same challenge. So it does, there is sort of a sense of camaraderie in, you know, the fact that, okay, well, previously I kind of, you know, particularly I think I started, you know, with my personal mental health, I started having issues with anxiety like 7 or 8 years ago, when it really came to the fore. I'm grateful that in those 7 years, as you would know, like mental health awareness and the stigma around it has been challenged quite dramatically and has changed quite a lot. So there's that. So, you know, back then I sort of felt a little bit alone and couldn't talk about it, whereas now very different, very different situation.

Tommy: I've got a friend who— Sorry, mate. I've got a friend who's struggled with mental health as well, and like a lot of us, and I was speaking to him over the weekend and I asked him, 'How's your mental health at the moment?' And he answered, but then he said to me, 'Oh, why did you ask?' Like, 'Why did you ask about my mental health?' Which I've kind of just been reflecting on, uh, how you could as a friend ask somebody. Do you— would you— how would you respond when one of your best mates— I mean, we're friends, but you know, someone from back in Bendigo that you grew up with that you chat to all the time— how do you feel being asked, "How's your mental health?" A very direct approach?

Keegan: Yeah, I think I'm okay with it. I think I've tried to be really, you know, like I said, over the past few years and my journey with it, I've really sort of tried to realise that it's not a weakness or not a, you know, not something that should be embarrassing or shameful. So, I kind of, you know, like to think that, you know, I'm happy if people ask me that and cheque in and want to know how I'm doing. Yeah, but I can appreciate obviously perhaps not everyone is in that same situation. So, for some people there still is a bit of a— I had a really good friend of mine who, you know, I caught up with him a few weeks ago, obviously before social distancing came in, for beers. And he said he was, you know, he'd been dealing with anxiety for a couple of years quite badly. And I had no idea, absolutely no idea. And I thought he was one of my very close friends, but he'd just not, never spoken about it to me. And I just, it's just interesting because I just wonder how many people, you know, are in sort of immediate social circle or how many people we might interact with that perhaps aren't comfortable speaking about it or or talking about it, or even asking someone or mentioning that they might not be feeling too great. Um, yeah.

Josh: TJ, what do you think would be the difference, say, asking, how's your mental health, versus how are you going? Do you see a distinction in those two questions?

Tommy: Yeah, the Aussie response is, yeah, good mate, how are you? Yeah, it's, um, it's a very specific— like, I get this, you could— there's 20 questions you could sort of ask that are less direct and get a sense of somebody's feelings. But I thought this person, I just thought it was trying a more straightforward, open approach, and it got an answer. And it got— and it was more— I, yeah, it, um, I guess there—

Josh: what did you learn?

Tommy: Um, well, I just, I mean, he gave me the response and, you know, all good and It was what it was, and but it was just the response after it of saying, why did you ask that? What, what were you thinking? Like, it's trying to— it was just flipping on its head and putting it back onto me.

Josh: And what do you think that he was seeking in asking, asking you that?

Tommy: Do you think that it was like, is there signs? Is there— no, I think it's more like, what sort of prompted you and you know what, where, um, where is this coming from?

Josh: Because everything's fucked.

Tommy: Yeah, I said it's a hard time before. It's hard time. And I know it's been hard for you in the past, and I wanted to make sure you're all right. Like, it's, um, you know, for this— some people, I guess, Keys, you're like your mate who, you know, hats off to him coming to you and actually saying that he's struggling is a huge, huge thing. And I know when I've got problems, it's almost like sometimes you just want somebody to ask. And it's like, you don't want to— I don't necessarily want to instigate, but boy, I want to be asked.

Keegan: It's a hard one. Yeah, it's a hard one. I wouldn't know. I don't think I'd know. Like, I'm happy to talk about it and I'm happy to be asked about it, but I still don't think I would know how I would start that conversation if I was in that, if I was in his shoes or if I was someone that was struggling a little bit and I didn't know unless someone asked me. I don't know that I could sort of Like, because it would feel like a bit of a dick move to sort of, you know, go, "Hey, let's go for a beer," and then sit down and then all of a sudden just put all this head— all this weight on your mate by just saying, you know, whatever's on your mind. I think I would find that really difficult.

Tommy: Yeah, and that's why I think your mate did such a great job. It's Brené Brown just released a podcast talking about how she sort of deals with you know, living with her husband, and when they're both not feeling amazing, and then that clash when you're both at a low level of energy. And so then it's like their strategies of being able to help each other, you know. So when I'm at a 20, my wife's at an 80, she can sort of prop me up. And, um, and one of their strategies is talking about— yeah, I mean, it's actually the situation currently. My wife's making 80% of the bacon. But it's— no, but just giving your feel, your mood, your sort of energy, everything, a sort of a percentage. And so what are you running at today? And it's a nice sort of reset. I loved it between yourself and your partner or yourself and your business partner. It could be one of these, any sort of relationship, just putting a number to it to understand who's got more in the tank and how could I assist that person who doesn't have as much in the tank today.

Keegan: So is that what Brené Brown actually said, was putting in, like, using a specific number, like actually assigning it a numeric value? Yeah, right.

Tommy: Yeah, so because the problem is when you both get back and you walk, you know, you both get home, you're 20%, but you want to get into bed and the other person wants to do exactly the same, and then there's a conflict. The kids need to be fed and the dog needs to be walked, and so who's doing it? And so it's just, you're at loggerheads at that point, and And if you both— and this is the thing, right? It's like just even saying you're feeling anxious is a release for some people. And so just giving the percentage out into the world can make you feel like a bit lighter. And it's— yeah, I mean, how— what's your percent today, Josh?

Josh: Uh, uh, today I reckon probably like a 60.

Tommy: But, um, I think that the, the interesting 6 out of Pick a number out of 10. I know you usually go 7.

Josh: Well, I think that 6 is lower.

Tommy: Yeah. No, but it's everyone's now 7.

Josh: You're giving me the shits. I'm 40. The— No, I think that one thing that I've discovered is that I've been uncomfortable with if Bree says, are you okay? And I'm in a bad mood or whatever, but I can't identify the specific thing that's annoying. I've previously said, yeah, I'm fine, because I feel like I don't have— until I have an answer, what's the point? Whereas I think I've gotten comfortable being like, yeah, I'm a bit off, I don't know why, but, um, yeah, I'll leave it a bit funny. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: I mean, Keegs, for me, anxiety— I never really identified as having anxiety, and maybe it was— it's been more spoke of, and mental health is very prominent in the media and learning about it. But it's like you said, it's like 7 years ago I started feeling anxious. Do you think you're feeling anxious well beyond 7 years or you just sort of identified and looked inward more?

Keegan: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's been a lifetime thing, but I'd probably— it was a very— it became— it manifested itself in a real sort of physical way. It was 7 years ago. Yeah, about 7 years ago. So does that coincide when you started working at SEA in Melbourne or? Well, yeah, it was my first year at Fox, so who knows.

Josh: I mean, it's being on in the public eye or being young and having to, especially because you are a high performer, you're always trying really hard. Do you think that that was turning on the mic became, you know, part of the problem?

Keegan: I definitely think so. I think I felt like there was a bit of a sense of, you know, a bit of imposter syndrome or whatever because I was very young. I was, you know, 21 or whatever when I got the gig at Fox Workdays. And at that point, that was quite a remarkable achievement. You know, you're supposed to go through all the regionals. I came from Bendigo and then I did a stint in Perth and then I got the biggest station in the country, which was kind of the dream job. And I got it at 21, 22. And there was so much pressure to be like the guy to sort of prove that you deserved it. Like every day, you know, you do another shift every day on air and every time you turn the mic on, you're supposed to do something that's like, wowing or amazing people. So, and I didn't, it didn't bother me that much directly, but I think it probably stoked the fires a little bit. And it was on a subconscious level, it probably contributed a bit. But yeah, that was when I sort of developed what was diagnosed as hypochondriasis. So I thought I was dying all the time. I thought I had real critical illnesses and believed it genuinely. And it took a good year for, you know, to the point I was hospitalised one night. Long story, but I thought I was having a heart attack. Yeah.

Josh: So, what was it? How was it manifesting? Because I find that breathing and stuff can become difficult, which is really annoying when coronavirus, like they talk about all the breathing and shit like that.

Tommy: Well, Josh's stomach has a heartbeat now.

Josh: Exactly. Yeah, it's a new, it's new. I've released a new beat. It's coming out of my stomach.

Keegan: Make? Well, for me it was, um, for me it was, I was, I was obsessed with, I thought I was having a heart attack. So one night I was sitting there and my, I physically, um, I got like, it felt like I had a pressure on my chest, which is exactly what they described heart attack feeling like, and then pain shooting down my arms. Um, and so I got driven to the, um, emergency room and my heart was, heart rate was like, you know, 180 or 200 or something like that. It was, you know, insane. Um, and the doctors sort of rushed me straight into the resus room and they kept saying— I was there for like 24 hours and they kept saying, oh, it can't be anxiety because anxiety wouldn't make your heart do this, but we can't find anything wrong with your heart. Um, and then it took like a good 12 months of talking to other— like, I went to like the top cardiologist in the state and he, you know, they did all the tests and they're like, nothing is wrong. And I'm like, no, it's definitely not anxiety. And then eventually, you know, they, they I went in to see a psychologist, and that was the beginning of sort of that life-changing process of being diagnosed with anxiety and saying, yeah, okay, it is what it is. And I think it sort of changes a lot when you know you have, you know, diagnosis is a sort of unpleasant word, I guess, but when you can put a name to it and you can sort of, attribute those kind of feelings to something, it's good because then you can start to sort of feel like, you know, if you're sick you take medicine. If you've, you know, if you've got anxiety, it's just an illness, as most mental health is. And so you can start sort of dealing with it and find treatments and solutions, whether it's meditating or exercise or whatever it might be, just starts to put it in a bit more of a real sort of sense.

Josh: With the, um, uh, your business, what do you find that because you are, uh, sort of the, you know, the, the person that's running it day to day and things like that, like, how do you keep the mental health stuff, uh, in check? Or what do you sort of communicate from a business perspective so you know that you've got the support you need?

Keegan: That's a good question. I don't think I do. I think that's probably an area where I could definitely improve. At this stage, I don't know that I do have like— I think internally, like within myself, I think I do. Like I think I've got those cheques and balances that I sort of, you know, run through with myself. You know, how am I feeling and being aware of that and not letting all this anxiety bottle up when you're not aware of it. And then all of a sudden it sort of explodes, you know. So staying in touch with your mental health is important. And I do that. I don't know if I have any sort of— if I communicate that with people perhaps as well as I should, you know, people who— it is tricky in business. You don't want to sort of come across like you can talk to your mates about mental health. You don't want to sit down with the customer and go, I'm not feeling that great today. I'm at about a 40%, but here we go.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, I think the people think that the leaders are the strongest within the business or whatever it be, the pack, and everyone's human. That's the thing about mental illness, it doesn't discriminate. It will— it's a part, it's a part of everyone's human experience to some degree. I think you nailed it, knocked it on the head. I think it's those coping mechanisms. So having this conversation, like Thanks for sharing, Keggs. It's confronting to share and it's vulnerable. And I think the stigma is being taken away from what it means to share the fact that you are struggling with mental illness. I wonder if, you know, the press release or the email out to current clients about COVID-19, I wonder, like, you never see a company saying if we're, you know, something around mental health. Maybe this should be the email to all your subscribers. Hey guys, I'm, uh, I'm out of 20. Um, how are you?

Josh: Well, it feels like also leadership is, is all about communication, and it's also, I guess, about, um, asking for help as well. Like, I think that for a long time I thought leadership was about, um, leading and being, you know, that's this, that sort of, uh, cliché around it's lonely at that sort of CEO level or things like that. But if we can all empathise as a complete workforce, if everyone understands that, hang on, like the person, the CEO in my company that's making all of these decisions, they're actually, they're struggling just like all of us. And I guess that from that scope, the side of things of SCOMO is it's like That's the empathy that I have where it's like politics aside, it's like, oh, you know what? It would be really, really hard right now to be leading any country.

Keegan: I totally agree. I like you was told you were saying before you love all the beans. Let's go, America. That is Australian culture. And so do I. Like, I'll be the first to take the piss out of him on Twitter. But God, it must be tough. Like, you could not pay me to be in his situation at the moment. I mean, You could argue he didn't handle the bushfires pretty well, but regardless of that, he's had two pretty much unprecedented disasters, absolute catastrophes back to back. And at the moment, like every press— last night he did a press conference and he just looked like he'd been through the wringer. I'm like, oh, like it must be the weight of the world.

Tommy: I think the more tired he gets, the sort of more appealing, more empathetic he seems. It's when he's had a good night's sleep and he gets a bit of a— gets a bit chipper, starts smiling, and he's talking about, you know, not your 10 people, yeah, 2 people, you know. It's, uh, mate, it's what it would— I don't— I wouldn't want that job even if you paid me 5 million bucks.

Josh: To be honest, guys, I'll just say I don't think anyone's asking either of you guys to be—

Keegan: you don't have to.

Tommy: Yeah, so I just wanted to put it out there just in case you Thinking of asking Keegs or I? We're not up for it, mate.

Josh: We don't want to. Right. 97, would you be prime minister? How much would you need?

Mason: Yeah, no, I wouldn't do it.

Josh: Okay.

Mason: All right.

Josh: Well, no one asked you either. 97, what are people saying in the comments?

Mason: I agree with the feeling, feeling like a burden if you drop your problems on a friend. I feel I have some friends that I can talk to about mental health and others that I don't want to. It's not in a bad way, just different purposes. Emily also says, thanks for sharing, Keegs. As someone who struggles with mental health, I always find it encouraging hearing others speak about their experiences.

Josh: Absolutely. Uh, Keegs, thanks so much for coming on the show. We would, uh, love to get you back as, um, ISO Mates develops as well. And plus, because we're doing 2 shows, uh, a day, yep, we've got more, more time for Keegs.

Keegan: I will be your filler guest whenever you don't have the A-grades.

Tommy: Hey, can you just host it for me, please? I want to take a day off. No.

Keegan: Perfect.

Josh: It's a Daily Talk Show. If you enjoyed the show, you can watch live at YouTube, youtube.com/thedailytalkshow. We're also doing the thing like we always do, which is uploading them as podcasts, and you can listen to that on your favourite podcast app. Definitely cheque out ISO Mates at isomates.com. And Keegs, is it easy for people to sign up if they're a business?

Keegan: Yep, isamates.com. If you're a business, there's a link in the top right corner that says businesses. So click on that, pop in your business details, and then, yeah, then you're up and running.

Josh: Perfect.

Tommy: All right, thanks for the work.

Josh: Catch you guys.

Keegan: Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.

Tommy: See you guys.