0:03
It's the daily Talk Show Episode 653 Happy Monday. gronk What's happening? What's going on? We've got Keegan Baca aka key eggs in the building. Okay, he's hiring guys.

0:21
Good um congratulations on going two shows a day. Is that right? Did I say that correctly? Yeah. Is I've been waiting to get on the show for ages I've been waiting to get the invite to come on the show and now I'm going to get the call out when you have literally double the available. Yes, sir. I don't know what that says about me. But anyway, it's good to be here. We were looking for our first person in official quarantine and so there's a few things that have happened that have been right time and you decided to go to Dubai, and then coronavirus decided to unleash on the world. What's going on at your at home? 14 days you can you leave at all?

0:57
No, so I can't leave at all.

1:00
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, 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 some they said that they could show up. Really, any day just to randomly spot check. Talking about Yeah, the police thing just before I was mentioning that 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.

1:40
Yes.

1:42
I was expecting a better reaction to be honest. Yeah. You're hearing people do some disgusting things. I heard someone leaking their credit card and and gronk behaviour like that but someone who is doing something nice is kicking back my I saw you doing a

2:00
Live stream and I jumped on I was thinking is king accidently live streamed his, um, his workflow on his computer? But then I worked out that it wasn't that what do you what do you live streaming? What have you been live streaming at the moment?

2:12
I'm sorry, 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 of bread and butter and building web applications. So I wanted to do something, build something new in isolation and quarantine. And we built started building out 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 Cova 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, if you're growing gronk squad, it feels like it's a bit of a community project and it feels like it's a thing

3:01
being built by everyone, not just myself. Yeah, I think I mean, the cool thing about UK is you went from radio being an announcer I think you were like one of the youngest people on the match in the metro market, doing sort of being a day jock and all that sort of thing. And then, on the side, have built a very successful sort of audience, radio audience tool called or data.

3:29
What is what's typically in day to day for all data for you at the moment?

3:36
Well, it's pretty good. I

3:39
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 three years, I sort of transitioned gradually more and more into OData, which is my business, but still being on at Fox FM in Melbourne.

4:00
But then I finally went full time with order at the end of last year so and started working from home.

4:07
Although I started working for my for a couple of months and then it was a February I think I got into a co working space because I wanted to go in and

4:16
be around other people and I got signed up for six months there and two days in

4:21
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 had the practice 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 our

4:35
day to day things are still still going pretty similarly, we're lucky that we're in a, you know, cloud software space, we make software and that's sort of something you can do from anywhere there's no

4:47
direct contact with people you know, face to face. So yeah, haven't haven't been too affected at this stage. And you do a lot of guys on the the tech side of things, how much of the tech stuff

5:00
Are you doing?

5:01
I still do a lot?

5:03
I do. I do a little bit less. Now, I haven't really, 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

5:14
sort of letting other people do things for me, which is false, but that's not a fault people. Yeah, it's good as you you know.

5:23
Exactly. No, I just, I just, you know, it's that sort of thing of like,

5:28
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 don't go into 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 or daughter and it was always a little side hobby for me and now it's now it's my full time gig. You deal with all the radio stations around

6:00
Around the world, what's been sort of what's happening in the radio landscape around the globe? Are they shutting off showers? Are they continuing work? What's going on? It's really interesting.

6:13
It seems to be a real common thread here in Australia. And I was speaking to some of our customers over in London in the UK at the moment.

6:20
Radio was being hit really hard and revenue. So commercial radio, FM radio stations, I mean, that just advertisers out there to spend money, but the writing's it going through the roof, in a lot of cases, at the moment, like the overall amount of leases, 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 three times the cumulative audience, so the total number of listeners at the moment, just because of this pandemic.

6:56
So they've got bigger audiences than they've ever seen before because people were trying to be

7:00
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 as a bit as a business owner in these times, where does your mind go? Is that? Is that a? You know, is it an opportunity? Is that something you just have to ride? How do you view it? Oh, it's a bit. It's a bit of both. And it obviously it 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 just happened so quickly. There was no real way to prepare yourself for this. And now they've had to shut the doors and they're reacting to it. But every situation is bad as it is to say, is an opportunity in business, I think and I mean, on one on one side, I think one definite outcome is that when we're on the other side of the setting, a lot of these things that we're learning like working remotely

7:58
is going to be a lot more

8:00
commonplace, I just think it's, you know, a lot of these systems and a lot of these processes are probably going to become more of the norm. And so talking about those small businesses, ISO mates, is the the app you decided to build. Can you run us through what it actually does and how it came to fruition? Sure, sorry. At the moment, it's pretty simple. It's just a directory afraid directory for small businesses that have been affected, but I've 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.

8:36
So if you're a small business, you can go on to icma comm and register and so it's basically if you're, you know, think of local restaurants that have had to close that, 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.

8:58
Different innovative

9:00
responses from different businesses so we're just creating a directory where you can register a 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

9:14
so you know it's it's tricky at the moment because there are a lot of United delivery giants still charging commission large Commission's on ordering phase and things like that. So

9:25
yeah, it just seems it 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

9:34
yeah, businesses tend to tend to be saying there's a bit of a need for it. I've just jumped on and signed in. You can say 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 little infant little bits of info about them small family owned local cafe in Carlton the Vincent the dog cafe. This is cool. Yeah, and yeah.

10:00
So when you're sort of the initial idea, because I, when I jumped on that live stream, you were saying, what should we put in some saying, you know, and in this section so they can leave? Like, how much of an idea did you start with? And how far is it gone to?

10:18
Let's start 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.

10:32
But then as we sort of fleshed out, and it happened, you probably saw it happen to me like in those comments, like people came up with different suggestions for it, and that 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

10:51
then I sort of knew he was on to 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 out

11:00
MVP or minimum viable products that we've got up at the moment.

11:04
But we are gonna 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

11:15
what they, 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.

11:36
And we'll have to, you know, adapt. It's completely not not for profit. But the whole idea is that throughout this whole journey, and this whole process that will be there to hopefully support small businesses and help them connect with the community who still want to look after small businesses. It seems like a great response to that feedback that businesses have been giving around the big

12:00
Delivery giants taking a huge cart?

12:04
How hard is it to actually build a fully fledged solution that would allow payments and things like that.

12:13
It's something we're looking into.

12:17
It's not so much the challenge in terms of technology, I mean, we put we could play definitely gonna add the ability to have like your menu on a or or, you know, update your products, put some pictures out there, that's still coming up.

12:28
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, you know, almost free for businesses to accept those orders. You know, probably the patent the electric car charges up, but otherwise we won't be taking any commission.

12:47
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 would be for businesses, because there are

13:00
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, got a just got a car and she's out driving, doing deliveries for them and stuff. So

13:17
they've got the capacity to do delivery. So that's why we'll be trying to help them out a service Do we have anyone on YouTube and saying, 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. What about caves in these times? security in data, like I mean, what you're doing very genuine and for the right reasons and purpose.

13:48
People are starting to think about like,

13:52
people having our data and being able to track us and log into stuff. Where do you sit on someone who has the sort of online

14:00
Line platforms and needs to sort of implement safety around data. What do you think? What are you thinking about data at the moment?

14:10
Well, that's a huge question. It's obviously extremely important. It's better regulated at the moment than it ever has been in history before. It is different in different parts of the world. So we were talking before about old auto, which is my main business. And that's because we now operate internationally

14:26
and have been challenges the regulation and laws around data security and privacy have very different from region to region. 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 and protects consumers, I would say, a bit better than we do here.

14:47
But these times where everything's a little bit crazy, I think is, you know, obviously we're doing things for the right reasons. And we're not this project is nonprofit. We're not going to be publishing people's daughter. We're trying to monetize people's data.

15:00
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 got to hope that large corporations are doing the right thing as well in large organisations, because so many big businesses, you know, these huge enterprises and giants now just leave off data. They say data is the new oil.

15:39
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. What have you learned about business in the last few years? What's been the biggest learning for you?

15:57
Um, oh, I think the biggest learning for me

16:00
It has been about sales. I found this was really interesting because I was always like, I thought I was like the developer, like the tech guy.

16:10
And particularly, and you guys told me, JJ would know both worked in radio, like I came up through right as the radio sales team. And you have this idea of like, the stereotypical radio sales guy. And I always thought, like, salespeople were just a little bit douchey. Like, I just thought I could never ever do that job. Then even now, you know, since I started my business and had to go and sell my product, and like I thought the most terrifying thing would be to walk into someone business and sit down and try and talk about my shit. And try and sell them my stuff.

16:50
Bodi said My son is coming in and he's he's got into some hand cream and it's Oh my god. It's all over him. Like it's not man. It's

17:00
Don't tell your mom why she's probably watching. Hey, I'll be back.

17:05
I'm gonna deal with angry. Oh,

17:09
this is not good. I'll be back on

17:14
board and isolation of Korean say at the moment. I can't imagine parents. I'm like it must be just such a different thing. But anyway, sir. So sales has been the thing I've learned the most. So I think I've caught up sort of Lent, because I thought it was I just thought I would something I would never ever be able to do. I thought it's 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 go into these, you know, businesses who are now our customers and sit down and some 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

17:59
and that's great.

18:00
It's worked really well. So I've learned a lot about that you hear there's the memes going around about like our, the company that I bought a domain name from 15 years ago is has just sent me an update on their covert 910 response.

18:17
What has been your take information communicating as a business through these times? I I'm I mean, I kind of I agree I've had so many I've had like hundred emails from different

18:31
different organisations have never heard of you right? Like you give someone your email address seven years ago and they're sending him out. He's our response to the carbon 19 pandemic like Okay, great. Your team are working remotely, I didn't care.

18:44
So it's interesting I think I think I just think it comes off as really

18:50
just not genuine I think a lot of the time like unless you really unless you putting in this is actually information so I think if you're a business or your brand and you're putting in place

18:59
simple facts

19:00
Communication. So he'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 scowling. We understand this is a difficult time. And it's a strange time right now. And these are unusual times and were responding to the pandemic. And

19:19
just, it's just like, you know, people, there are people around the world who are really suffering and said, places are doing a really tough and you're sending out a massive email going. We understand come back and buy a domain name from us. Yeah. So what do you do? What's your response thing? Well, we've had I've had the only issue first of all has been

19:39
because we are still seen as a small business. You know, we're a small team of, you know, five or six people and our customers are publicly traded enterprises, you know, so they're enormous company. So they've, you know, been in contact on the front foot with them, reached out to a couple of our customers directly, so the IT managers and whoever you know,

20:00
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 gonna, you know, we're not gonna have one of these businesses as Prime Minister's saying that's going to go into hibernation and we're not going to be turning off the software for the next six 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 programme. So we just did some free webinars and some resources that we sent out to help

20:33
our customers transition to working remotely and working from hard

20:38
because, again, it's something that seems very natural for a lot of small businesses and you guys, you know, you sort of switch from being in your studio to working from home very easily because when you're a small agile business, it's it's quite simple, but when you're a large,

20:52
really large enterprise organisation, things move very slowly, and it wasn't it wasn't without us.

21:00
conference guy did the Brazilian bum bum cream that my son has got into? I'll tell you about it smells absolutely unbelievable. Cake. So I was thinking around tech businesses that seek investment, capital, you know, capital raising, I wonder if it's gonna 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 same just a bit wishy washy, the you know, the business models not quite there yet. What do you think about the sort of investment space in tech?

21:39
I heard that does. I think I feel really strongly about this issue because I just think there's just such a weird cult vibe in tech, particularly. Like,

21:50
I really hate to use the word startup to describe our daughter and people always, you know, introduced me to his colleagues. He's got a he's got a start up and I hate the word startup because people if you have a tech business, it's a

22:00
startup, but if you have any other business, it's a business and read startups. And they feel like because it's a startup that they are immune to the laws of business like they are, we don't have to worry about making money, because we're a startup.

22:13
And it's just absurd that there's been this big bubble and venture capital, particularly in Silicon Valley and the like, and now around the world where people throw obscene amounts of money at these, you know, pit 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 just throw. I mean, we work you can look at that as an example.

22:41
You know, there's obscene amounts of money at PayPal without real strong business practices or real strong business in place.

22:50
And then it's created this culture, I think, where so many people get into create startups or you know, whatever they

23:00
Doing

23:02
everyone's businesses, oh, it's like a robot, but to this

23:06
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 delivering value for society at large, old people have focused on day to day is, Oh, we got to get our seed rounds, 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 even figured out how we're a business, we've got a growers that we can employ, you know, a new VP of marketing or whatever.

23:37
And it's really interesting, because I think maybe you right, tell me, I think they 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 we'll cool down a little bit more and not take everything for granted so much. And I think even like thinking about trying to do projections for cash flow, even

24:00
When you are a startup that doesn't have a business model dialled in yet, they're still trying to create some kind of

24:06
snapshot of what the future may look like from a revenue basis at the moment. That's like you can't, how can you Yeah, what you're gonna be earning in six months in, in, 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 thinking twice about getting a coffee, and how much you're spending on a goddamn coffee. It's it's interesting time. 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, it will be fear will be damage to people in terms of wanting to go out like

25:00
It's almost like a What do you call it? Like?

25:03
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 damage internally. It could possibly be the same for the startup culture, which is residual. Yeah, just like the, the the ongoing effect, I guess, of all of that stuff. Yeah, well, I think I mean, it's gonna refer to as even just, you know, in that area of startups and tech and those kind of businesses. Um, I mean, it's gonna 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 roll and 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 feel

26:00
on your face, you know, like,

26:04
yeah, I think maybe we'll look at just what hat what value you're delivering. And some of these. Yeah, some different different priorities. What was it like travelling? Cuz when did you actually get back to Melbourne? I got back on Monday. So I probably wouldn't have left Had I known that I was gonna have to isolate. I flew out the day that they announced it and so I left Melbourne airport, flew to Dubai and I was on an Emirates flights, I had Wi Fi. And it was a couple of hours into the flight and I checked my phone and said overturning Australians will have to self last like 14 days.

26:42
So when I got to Dubai, and it was actually it was really nice.

26:47
It was just I mean, obviously they would take 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 disappeared.

27:00
what looked like Australia descending into absolute chaos?

27:04
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 but and so what I found really interesting was that we're experiencing issues but I having my camera, what was the tone like and and the numbers. 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 some huge country like Australia compared to a small, you know, like the UAE is very small country. But

27:33
when I got there, I think they've had around 80 confirmed cases. And the day that I landed was their first day where they were they recorded more recoveries than new cases, which tells you that they were early on on the ball. So what would they do? Other thing I noticed was they they just paid of the they just take heed of what the government tells them to do. I don't know whether it's respectful fee for the government that they have there. But just a different culture where the guy

28:00
Then says stay home Go out and everyone's like, okay, yep, the places were empty. People just might go into work it was everyone took it really seriously. Whereas I think we have a very different culture here in Australia, where all these just take the pace a bit, and we will just push it right until the limit,

28:16
no matter how many times, you know, leaders and experts come out on telly and say, You need to say hi, people are at the beach and people are at the park. We've got a main culture, I mean, people just, it's like a snowball effect of jumping on the Prime Minister, whether he's good or bad.

28:32
It's like, I like saying the names about, you know, he came out and said that you can get you know, he he's 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 you

28:53
can go to ballet classes.

28:56
How do you Keynes deal with what's your

29:00
Sort of natural, emotive response to uncertainty, and not knowing what the future looks like, 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, you know, 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, someone that needs to know where things are going to go and what I'm going to be doing,

29:45
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

29:56
it's been it's been challenging. It's been definitely

30:00
Strange that 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

30:10
and try and stay on top of it. Have you noticed that the way your anxiety shows has changed in a time like now?

30:21
Hmm.

30:23
I don't think so I think it's still

30:26
the same kind of underlying signals and triggers and things that I sort of feel it just still feels very much the same.

30:36
It is kind of not, I mean, I know it's, 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 like everyone's in the same boat together. And I mean, we're all in this together is the phrase that every you know, every news outlet is thrown around quite a lot. But it's true. Like, exactly.

30:59
You know, like, everyone knows

31:00
around every country, every, you know, every socio economic t member, ritual 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. And in, you know, the fact that okay, well, previously, I kind of, you know, you know, particularly I think I started, you know, with my personal mental health, I started having issues with anxiety, like seven or eight years ago, really came to the fore. And I'm grateful that in that those seven years as you would know, like mental health awareness and the stigma around it has been challenged quite dramatically. And this changed quite a lot. So there's that. So, you know, back then I sort of felt a little bit alarmed and couldn't talk about it. Whereas now a very different, very different situation. Friend,

31:48
sorry, my friend who 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 ends

32:00
But then he said to me, are Why did you ask? Like, why did you ask about my mental health? Which I've kind of just been reflecting on? 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 and very direct approach?

32:26
Um, yeah, I think I think I'm okay with it. I think I've, 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

32:42
not a weakness or not a you know, not something that should be embarrassing or shameful. So

32:49
I kind of you know, like to think that

32:52
you know, I'm happy if people ask me that and check in and want to know how I'm doing.

32:58
Yeah, but I can appreciate obviously, that

33:00
Not everyone is in that same situation. So for some people, there still is a bit of a

33:06
I had a really good friend of mine who,

33:09
you know, I caught up with him a few weeks ago, obviously before social distancing came in for BS. And he said he was, you know, he'd been dealing with anxiety for a couple of years quite badly. And, and I had no idea absolutely no idea. And I thought it was one of my very close friend, but he just not never spoken about it to me and

33:30
and I just, it's just interesting, because I just wonder how many people you know, are in sort of immediate social circle, how many people we might interact with it, 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.

33:47
Yeah. TJ, what do you think would be the difference say asking, how's your mental health versus how you going? Do you see a distinction? Those two questions? Yeah, the audio responses. Yeah. Good, Matt. How are you?

34:00
Yeah, it's, it is very, like, I get this you can there's 20 questions you could sort of ask that a 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 I got an answer. And I got and it was more I yeah.

34:25
I guess there are learn.

34:27
And well, I just, I mean, he gave me the response. And, you know, all Gordon 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 it on its head and putting it back on to me.

34:47
He was seeking in asking asking you that, do you think that it was, it's like, is there science is there now I think it's more like what sort of prompted you and

35:00
You know, what, where? Where is it coming from? Everything's fucked. Yes Is our 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 right. Like, it's,

35:12
you know, for this, some people, I guess kz 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 I boy, I want to be one. Yeah, it's a hard one I wouldn't know. I think I know like, I'm happy to talk about it, and I'm happy to be asked about it. But I still don't think that would know how I would start that conversation if I was in that if I was in his shoes, or if I was if I was someone that was that was struggling a little bit and I didn't know in this someone asked me, I don't know that I could sort of like cuz it would feel like a bit of a dick move to sort of, you know, go out let's go for a beer and then sit down and then all of a sudden just put all this headquarters.

36:00
White on on your made by just saying, you know, whatever's on your mind.

36:05
I think I would find that really difficult. Yeah. And that's why I think you might did such a great job. It's Bernie brown just released the podcast, talking about how she sort of deals with, you know, living with a 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 at, she can sort of Prop me up. And, and one of their strategies he's

36:38
talking about Yeah, I mean, it's actually the situation currently making it.

36:44
But it's no but just giving your feel your mood, your sort of energy, everything as 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.

37:00
And 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. So that what Bernie brown actually said was putting in, like, using a specific number, like actually assigning a

37:16
numeric value. Yeah, right. Yeah. So because the problem is when you both get back, and you walk, you know, you both get home near 20%. But you want to get into bed, and the other person wants to do exactly the same. And then there's a conflict with the kids and they'd 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 had, this is the thing, right? It's like, just even saying you're feeling anxious is

37:44
a release for some people. And so just giving the percentage out into the world can make you feel like a bit lighter.

37:52
And it's Yeah, I mean, what's your percent today, Josh?

37:56
Today, I reckon probably like a 60. Better

38:00
Um, you know, I think that the the number six, Pick a number out of 10 I usually go 716 is lower, ya know, whatever, it's everyone's, you give me the shits on 40

38:14
B. Now I think that one thing that I've discovered is that I've been uncomfortable with your braces, are you okay? And I'm in a bad mood or whatever, but I can't hide 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. And I why, but um, you know, funny. Yeah. Yeah. I mean caves 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

39:00
Learning about it. But it's like you said it's like seven years ago, I started feeling anxious. Do you think you're feeling anxious? well beyond seven years, or you just sort of identified and looked inward more?

39:11
Yeah, no, absolutely. It's been a it's been a lifetime thing. But I'd probably it was a very

39:18
it became it manifests itself in a real sort of physical way that seven years ago. Yeah, that's seven years ago. So I said coincide when you started working at FCA in May?

39:30
Well, yeah, it was my first year at Fox

39:35
been 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 a, you know, part of the problem?

39:52
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

40:00
Giga Fox workdays, and at that point that was quite a remarkable achievement. And you know, you're supposed to go through all the regionals I came from Bendigo. And then I did a yeast in Perth. And then I got the biggest station in the country, which was kind of the dream job, and I got to 2122.

40:15
And it was so much pressure to be like, the gods to prove that you deserved it. Like every day, you know, you do it another shift every day on air, and every time you tend to mock and you're supposed to do something that's like,

40:27
you know, whaling are amazing people. So and I, you know, I didn't, I didn't I didn't, you know, it didn't bother me that much directly, but I think it probably start 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

40:46
what was diagnosed as hypochondriasis. So I thought I was dying all the time. Thought I had, you know, real critical illnesses and believed it genuinely and it took ugly for, you know, to the point I was hospitalised one night long story.

41:00
That was 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 brain the edge and like well Joshua's stomach has a heartbeat now it's a new it's a new released a new baby it's coming into my stomach

41:20
well for me it was funny it was I was I was obsessed with I thought it was having a heart attack. So one night I was sitting there and my physically I go, like we 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.

41:36
And so I got driven to the emergency room and my heart was hot, right was like, you know, 190 or 200 or something like that it was insane.

41:48
And the doctors and sort of rushed me straight into the resource room and they kept saying I was there for like 24 hours and they kept saying like coffee anxiety because anxiety wouldn't make your heart do this, but we can't find anything wrong with your heart.

41:58
And then it took like a good 12

42:00
months of talking to other like I went to like the top cardiologists in the State Committee, 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 wanted to see a psychologist.

42:16
And that was the beginning of sort of that life changing process of being diagnosed with anxiety and saying, Yeah, okay. It's, 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 an unpleasant word, I guess. But when you can put a name to it, and you can sort of,

42:38
you know, attribute those kind of feelings to something.

42:42
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 a, it's an illness, as much as mental health issues and so you can start sort of dealing with it and find

43:00
treatments and solutions, whether it's meditating or

43:04
exercise or whatever it might be just starts to put it in a bit more of a real sort of sense.

43:11
With me,

43:13
your business, what do you find that because you are 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 staff in check or what or what do you sort of communicate from a business perspective? So you know, that you've got the support you need?

43:35
That's a good question. I don't think I do. I think that's probably an area where I could definitely improve.

43:44
At this stage, I don't know that I do have, like, I think I think internally like within myself, I think I do like, I think I've got those checks and balances that I sort of, you know,

43:55
run through with myself, you know, how am I feeling and being aware of that, and not letting go

44:00
Anxiety bottle up, but you're not aware of it, and then all of a sudden it sort of explodes. You know. So staying in staying, you know, in touch with your mental health is important. And I do that. I don't know if I have any sort of, 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 kind of come across like you can talk to your mates about mental health. You don't want to sit down with the customer and you're not feeling that great. today. I'm at about a 40%. But here we go. Yeah, I mean, I think

44:29
people think that the leaders have 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 case, it's um, it's confronting to share and it's vulnerable.

45:00
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, the the press release or the email out to current clients about Cova 19. I render it like this, you never see a company saying if we have something around mental health, maybe there should be the email the to all your subscribers. Hey guys, I'm Amanda 20. How well feels like also leadership is is all about communication. And it's also I guess, about

45:36
asking for help as well. Like I think for a long time I thought leadership was about leading and being you know, that's this sort of cliche around it. 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

46:00
No, 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, Scott this the side of things of como is it's like, that's the empathy that I have where it's like, politics aside, it's like, Oh, you know what?

46:18
It would be really really hard right now to be leading any country. I totally agree. I like he was told he was saying before you level the sky mark is that is Australian culture and started a while 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 any situation at the moment. I mean, you could argue he didn't handle the bushfires pretty well. But regardless of that, he's had to pretty much unprecedented

46:45
disasters absolute, you know, catastrophes back to back and up environment. Like every press last night, he did a press conference, and he just looked like he'd been through the ring up from like, oh, like it must be. It must be the way the world

47:00
You know, I think that 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 cheaper. start smiling.

47:11
You know, not your 10 people yeah to pay.

47:16
My it's what it would auto I wouldn't want that job, even if you pay me to 5 million to be honest guys, I'll just say I don't think anyone's asking either of you guys.

47:29
I just wanted to put it out there just in case you were thinking about in caves or I would not ask for it. No, no, no, no seven. Would you be Prime Minister? How much would you need? Ah, yeah, no, I wouldn't do it. Okay. All right. No one

47:44
said anything in the comments. 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

48:00
also said thanks for sharing keeks as someone who struggles with mental health I always find it encouraging hearing others speak about their experiences.

48:09
Absolutely. cakes. Thanks so much for coming on the show we would love to get you back as ISO mates develops as well and plus because we're doing two shows a day

48:21
yep got more time Okay, I will be your guests whenever you don't have the

48:28
host it for me, please.

48:34
It's a daily talk show. If you enjoyed the show, you can watch a live at YouTube youtube.com forward slash the daily talk show. 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 check out ISO mates at ISO mates.com and cakes. Is it easy for people to sign up if they're a business? Yeah, I say thanks.

49:00
COMM if your business there's a link in the top right corner that says businesses click on that, pop in your business details and then yeah, then you're up and running.

49:10
Thanks for the work.

49:12
Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Take off