Evolving

Josh: It's a very low barrier to get into the Gronk Squad.

Tommy: That's crazy. We've committed to do The Daily Talk Show for 10 years.

Josh: Hi guys. Hi guys.

Tommy: Put it in the calendar. I just like to cheque the temperature in the room. I told you my squeegee story.

Josh: It is outrageous.

Tommy: Come on, let's go. It's The Daily Talk Show episode 951.

Josh: Welcome. Welcome for your hump day.

Tommy: Thank you for having me, Tommy Jackett.

Josh: Yeah, thanks for joining me, Josh Jansen. Today we're going to cover—

Tommy: We actually got a lovely email.

Josh: Did we?

Tommy: Hey guys, just listening to episode 950. That was yesterday.

Josh: I thought it was Bodhi.

Tommy: Hey guys, as he is in the intro.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah. It's hard to say where the line of reinvention should be drawn, but I definitely forced myself to make some radical changes in my thinking in the past 6 months or so. This comes from Sean, Gronkh Sean, by the way. Yeah. And yesterday we were talking about how if you've sort of had your thinking turned upside down, Yes, I'm doing a PhD at the moment, and right as Stage 4 Melbourne lockdown hit last year, nothing was going right with the PhD, and I took 6 weeks off from it all, effectively unpaid leave. I ended up stumbling across morning pages and stoicism and started reading some books on stoicism and listening to Ryan Holiday and his podcast. I also came across Matt D'Avella on YouTube and really got into that. And that's how I found about— found out about you guys. Listening to Tommy on Matt's podcast talking about Sam Harris got me onto the Waking Up app as well.

Josh: Fuck yeah. I thought I did such a bad job on that episode. I've really beat myself up internally about that. But obviously, I helped somebody.

Tommy: And I've been doing those meditations every day since.

Josh: Fuck yes.

Tommy: Yesterday, was a bit of a shocker with getting caught up in work-related thoughts and doubts. And I was fleshing that out in my morning pages this morning and how mindfulness is such a great circuit breaker for that. Then I listened to the podcast on the way into work and you guys are talking about just that. What are the odds? In any case, I'm still doing my PhD, but I definitely feel a sense of reinvention around my mental health and my general approach to life as a result of taking that time off. Thanks for all that you guys do, keep it up. Cheers, Sean.

Josh: Oh, that's nice. Thanks, Sean. Where's Sean?

Tommy: In Melbourne?

Josh: Yeah, I said when stage 4 hit in Melbourne. Man, that's cool. The, um, Crystal also— Crystal Andrews, she also wrote through on our Instagram around the conversation about purpose. And I kind of touched on in a very non-eloquent way about how purpose is something, is thinking, we're thinking about.

Tommy: It's a human construct, I think was what you were saying.

Josh: Yeah, kind of. I didn't say it like that, but it's like purpose is something that we just like intellectualise and then believe and then we just like embody, but they can change. And so, therefore, it's not like some kind of I don't think there's anything much woo-woo about purpose of something that we don't understand. And Krystal Andrews was pointing out that it is a construct. Like, we have any term, any phrase humans have developed is something that has just been created for us to think about. Career, that wasn't, that's not a thing beyond a word and then what meaning we give it. So, it is funny. It is funny.

Tommy: What was it about the episode with Diavella that you sort of didn't like?

Josh: Oh, I don't know. I mean, we're so used to just talking shit and not needing to be, you know, experts or we're just a couple of guys having a conversation about stuff that we like and stuff that we're interested in and even like touching on stuff we have no idea about, but it helps us grow our understanding of that subject, right? So, it's like fumbling about, you know, is a version of learning as you're going. And that's what the show is. And so, I don't know, maybe there's just a pressure. I was thinking about, we spoke a lot about meditation. I just, I think about when that was and where I'm at now. And so, it is, I think—

Tommy: Well, you're in line now.

Josh: I haven't walked. I've been floating around. I don't— I don't drive to work, I fly to work.

Tommy: But I think that's what makes it relatable. Yeah. And I don't think that you come from a place of I'm an expert.

Josh: I definitely try not to.

Tommy: You're just sharing. You're sharing. But I am.

Josh: No, I feel there's so much pressure if you are coming from the expert vibe or you're just a gronk trying to figure it out. But anything that I do, it is, it almost, the equation should be where you are now looking back on what you were doing 6 months ago. I mean, that cringe is not a bad thing because you're like, it's either an evolution. If you're looking back saying, fuck, I actually am, I've regressed, that's a different thought.

Tommy: What do you cringe at? Like, what is this specifics?

Josh: I don't know. I actually, it's, I think it may be just criticism of myself and my own performance. And I think, you know, You are your worst critic, but I think I talked about morning routine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he wanted to sort of have it in a focused area that he was interested in.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: That you could talk to. And he knew that you could talk to it because he's interested in what you have to say about it.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So, which is a different vibe just for us. I mean, I've only been on a handful of podcasts that aren't ours and it is always a different vibe.

Tommy: And there's also, I think there's a, there's a time where you're doing a big download of a new idea. So, for instance, Sean just getting into stoicism in the last year. I find that you go through a thing of all Ryan Holiday, all of that sort of stuff. Like you go through these sort of downloads where you learn all of this stuff and then you sort of like everyone sort of moves on to a different version of that. Like I think about minimalism. Once you have cleared everything out and you're doing like— there's not— you don't need to spend every day thinking about it. You have your practices, like your morning pages. That's something that would always stay, but it's almost— yeah, you don't like it. You, you were then living that thing, so you don't need to just be consuming that content. You've sort of done the download.

Josh: Yeah, there's— it's like, uh, people who work in the self-help space I go through times where I'm into somebody and then it's not that I'm not into them, it's just that what they're saying, their message isn't resonating the way it did because there's a new version that I'm seeking out. So, there's nothing better than reading something for the first time or watching a movie and you're like, fuck, this is exactly like what Shaun's saying. It's hitting at every level and you're just like, ooh. And then you find that there is a new version that will hit.

Tommy: Cal Newport did that for me like 2 or 3 years ago in a massive way, like the whole, um, uh, Deep Work stuff. That was when I got off social media. And it's, um, but the interesting thing now is there are amazing YouTubers that have taken all of these thoughts that are in books and, and made them into an entertaining thing that you can just sort of passively watch at home. So, like, the barrier to entry is so much nicer now.

Josh: Oh, yeah. And then there's the reality for these people that there are audiences that are coming and going. I mean, it's for our show. We took a break over the summer here in Australia, and it was like 4 weeks of not doing the show from coming from 2 and a half years, almost 3 years of every single day releasing a show, and I probably talked less for in that month than I have in the last 3 years. And there's, um, everything, it's no different. You come back, you're like, um, you forget what you've done. You're like, uh, 900 episodes. We even had that conversation. You're like, I'm like, it's almost like us trying to rev each other up. It's like, mate, but we've done 900. It's like trying to give yourself a bit of a fucking kick up the ass, because what happens is you start thinking 'Ah, we're no good.' Not that you think you're really good. There comes a level of comfort in knowing that you can do the thing once the mic comes on, which I feel I have had for many years based on the radio stuff. And, but, but it's not like I— my mind doesn't actually think that. My mind is more inclined to think that I'm not capable. Like, and maybe it's the heavier emotion out of the 'I'm capable, we're not capable.' The negative has more of a It's a protective mechanism as well, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: Because then that creates the sort of the momentum. I think that that's what the show did. Like, by us doing so many days in a row, we built a momentum or a muscle that's always there, which you, you have gained through gym, like the gym. So you can, you know what you're capable of, so you can get straight back into it. Whereas if you've never fully committed, if you've never really done it, if the only reference point that you have is doing and then failing, that's a lot harder.

Josh: Or sticking, or yeah, trying, giving up, trying, giving up. Like, but it doesn't have to be that way. The gym analogy is great because it's the 100-kilogram bench press. Josh Jansen, mate, the thought— Well, I mean, I— It's more than my body weight. Most people couldn't bench press their body weight.

Tommy: Okay.

Josh: And it takes years to get to a base level of strength to be able to push 2 plates, 100 kegs, um, 220 pounds. Yeah, yeah, I've done that. But getting up to that— not this year, I don't know, but in my mind, I fucking done it. Yeah, I reckon I could do 1 right now. Yeah, I could rip a pec because I'm not conditioned to. But getting from 88 kilograms, 90, 92, 95. Like, the barrier in my mind of 100, 220 pounds, was fucking huge. But now I'm like, I've done it. Which is your point?

Tommy: Same thing with the— to be honest, the Grampians, me not dying. No, seriously, when I thought that I was going to die and I didn't die, and thinking about the lack of fitness that I had, like, that was the big first big walk we'd done in a while. I think I could give that another go.

Josh: You definitely could. I've said we should go do it. Did I tell you my mum had a similar thing?

Tommy: Oh, no.

Josh: I think maybe at the Olympics.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: I'll get her to tell you the story. I can't remember. But it is. It's like we are— Everyone's so hard on themselves. If you're not hard on yourself ever, who are you?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Like, I mean, the other thing too is changing your mind. So, for instance, Sean with his PhD, it's so easy to be like, oh, you've told all your friends and your family you're doing the PhD, and it's like you've probably amped it. Like, it's probably— I would feel it would be a stretch just doing it, right? So committing to it. And so what do we do when we're committing to it? We have to convince ourselves. And so the convincing ourself looks like, yeah, this is going to be great. This is going to be— this is the way. This is what I need to do. This is going to give me so many opportunities. And then things change. And the hardest bit is changing your mind, I think. But I think there's a, there's a lot of people that are doing things in life because they're worried about changing their mind, because they think that by changing their mind, they're somehow flaky or unreliable. Or when the reality is, if you created a strategy of where you wanted to be, at the start of last year, and then that strategy changes. Things change. Life change. Like, you've got to make, you got to make moves. It'd be crazy to think I'm— the decisions that I made a year and a bit ago, I have to stay with them because that's a decision. Where it's like, if you were navigating on a road, you worked out the map based on what you knew, and then you realise when you got to the road that it's on the side of a crazy cliff. And there's one road in that's way safer, you're not going to say, well, I fucking did the map here, so I've got to commit to it. You just go the other road. And that's like the beauty of like not being stationary, like you're moving along, you're finding, you're getting new context.

Josh: Or you've just upgraded your GPS map and there's a better route.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: We, when I was in doing, I did Route 66 and had a Mustang convertible, me and Fitzie. Hired a GPS. This was back in the day, you had like, your phone wasn't good enough.

Tommy: $10 a day for the GPS.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard the hack was blow up at the end and say it wasn't working, you get a discount.

Tommy: Oh, that's a good one.

Josh: I did it. I don't think it worked.

Tommy: I don't think it worked.

Josh: But this thing took us this off-road, and it's like going over a fucking train track in the desert. Just like, where the fuck are we going? I think we should turn back. This thing's cooked. So technically I told them that story. I may have got like a day discounted, but it is like, then the other, the paradox of that is like, how do you, is what you, is the changing direction or changing your mind a pattern in what you've done previously? Which is a hard one because it's so unique. It's like, am I the guy that has started and stopped, started and stopped, and then But isn't that part of that?

Tommy: Like, that can be part of the journey as well.

Josh: I think it has to be part of the journey. So if that is the realization— but what I'm saying is I don't have the answer because it's like, I've done the start and stop my whole life. I think everyone has a version of that. But then it's like, when is resilience needed? When is perseverance required? So for a business let's say our business, the friction of fucking the years and 3, you know, 2 years, 3 years, and then it's like easily could give up easily. And so, and you and I've had those conversations about like, oh, I would have fucking thrown in the towel years ago. But then, and, and so I don't know why. And this is the thing about—

Tommy: well, you have a framework maybe, like maybe you've got like a certain— so look at like, um, Relationships, I think, are like this. It's, it's when you're in a long-term relationship, if little things happen, you, you've taken off the table that this is going to be the catalyst for breaking up, right? So, when you do that, that becomes the thing to like work, like I guess that's the whole like marriage, long-term relationships, like that's the working at it type of thing. So, it's like, okay, what is the consistency and then what are the changes within that that you could be making?

Josh: Then what about, um, the interpretation of the struggle is thought. It is how you're dealing with your thoughts. So what is your, your— what's your strategy for interpreting, interpreting the emotion that something's causing you? Which is a— on Sean's practise of meditation, what I do with the app, it is like the— Sam says always, it's like, how do you dial back the intensity 30% from whatever you're feeling? Because all it is is reaction thought happening. And then it's like, that could be what changes and makes all the difference in starting and stopping.

Tommy: How do you avoid the temptation to tell people how to live their life?

Josh: Um, I mean, I've created a business around it. No, no, no, no.

Tommy: Uh, so think about like the meditation stuff that's working really well for you. But there's heaps of examples like that. You've got that, like, you've a mate that starts Bikram yoga, changes their life, they become a yoga teacher.

Josh: Bikram's probably a bad one because the guy was a fucking nutter.

Tommy: Yeah, but great, great.

Josh: Next minute in the cult. No, you're right, great practice.

Tommy: Yeah, so So, if you have that though, if it's— if you are— because that's my thing, right? Like at the beginning, I think maybe it's the start of the journey. So, when you are at the start of something, you just see if you're making a big change, all that you see is the broken bits because the broken bits help you make the change. So, for instance, when you're leaving a job to go freelance or whatever, the past— the month before you leave, My boss is a fucking idiot. The people around me are fucking idiots. Like this. Like, why did I wait so long? Right? But then, like, that's a coping mechanism to be able to then be like, look at it from a different perspective. And I feel like that's like with them. I remember when I did, went veggie for a month, I would see meat on Instagram.

Josh: Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And it's— But that's the, like, that's the coping mechanism. Or not even the coping mechanism, that's like the mind shifting. And so then that's why I think that when I think about how quickly I can change with stuff, then I give it— Like, I have empathy for other people around. Of course. Yeah, of course you're going to think that way.

Josh: I think there's a For anyone who's doing things for years, there's probably a version where it does dial down in terms of how much they're spooky and willing to tell people this is what's going to change your life. And I think people are excited and passionate about things that have helped them.

Tommy: Well, you're humbled. I think you're humbled by the process maybe too. So, you realise that it's not like a clear, it's not like a— nothing's a guarantee. Everything is hard. It doesn't matter where, like it's— I heard someone say like companies are like, I think it's Swiss cheese or whatever, you know, the cheese that's got holes in it.

Josh: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: But it's the holes that you can't see from the outside. So, I don't know which cheese that is, but they're like every company is like Swiss cheese.

Josh: We're more like a loaf of bread that's got all those holes inside.

Tommy: I think you used this exact analogy previously. But yeah, everything looks good, but—

Josh: But you're pissed when you find out what's inside.

Tommy: But yeah, yeah. No, but if you think about it, every single person that you're close with, when you chat to them and talk about their work, 9 times out of 10 they're like, oh yeah, I know it's like that, but then there's this, this, this. Like, every single, like, mate of mine that I'm close to, that I'm having conversations with regularly, have work problems. Yet, like, we always internalise or think that it's like, oh man, fuck, like, everywhere I go there's all those always issues. There's fucking issues everywhere.

Josh: Very much so. See him every morning in Abbottsted. People struggling. I think that is one of the other things about meditation is that there is a version of empathy that you gain that you then realise that when you realise how much you're struggling, as soon as you start think— thinking, as soon as you start becoming more self-aware about the suffering you are in, you realise how much suffering everyone else is having. And everyone's swimming in it. And it is so true. It is so true. And then that is a way of going, oh, I'm in trouble. Like, maybe I should fucking dial back my emotion on how I'm reacting to this fuckhead, which I feel in the moment. But they're not really a fuckhead. They're just in their head too.

Tommy: And so— Everyone's reacting and responding. And then you put the COVID stuff on it and you see that most people aren't being their best versions right now. Yeah. Don't you think that? Like, I think about like road rage. I see it on the roads walking in. Like, there is like, there's a people, there's a lot of people who are sort of at their end's wits or whatever the fuck you say. Wits end. Wits end.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Little dyslexic.

Josh: I'd like to know what that means.

Tommy: I can look it up for you.

Josh: At your wits end.

Tommy: Wits end. What do you think?

Josh: Wits. Wits. Wits. Like your wits about you. You've got your wits about you, your senses at your wits end. You're fucking blown up. Your senses are in overload. Maybe that's it.

Tommy: Yeah, it means, yeah, it's completely puzzled and perplexed, not knowing what to do. For example, I've tried every possible source without success, but where does it actually come from? That's what I'm curious about.

Josh: Not far.

Tommy: Yeah, I can't see. I've got my laptop here now, so I can search.

Josh: I decided to bring nothing today, as in just nothing.

Tommy: Anyway, we had someone knock at the door.

Josh: What was it, Jess?

Tommy: Someone's wanting— Oh yeah, someone's wanting to take a photo.

Josh: Oh yeah, so I, um, there's a big mural in our street and I saw the guy who was on the mural. Oh really? Standing at the bottom of the mural.

Tommy: Oh, that's cool.

Josh: Having a photo with the mural, probably his Facebook photo. Yeah, just fucking upgrade. What's the big face?

Tommy: Yeah, okay, interesting. And then so he wanted the car moved to get a clear shot.

Josh: Oh yeah, I don't know. Is that what happened?

Tommy: Who knows? Okay.

Josh: But I don't think we can help him. Maybe he thought it was our car that was in front of the mirror.

Tommy: I mean, the— Yeah. Whenever I hear the doorbell ring at the moment, it's all about packages.

Josh: We have a few good packages.

Tommy: Yeah. Well, it's funny because, I mean, have you ever had a time in your life where you've got so many packages on the go that you forget what's coming?

Josh: No.

Tommy: Well, just— Never. Yeah. So, we've got like a few samples of merch, upcoming merch and all that sort of thing, and they all come separately. And so I'm getting so many messages. The thing I hate the most, AusPost sending a message saying your package is coming today. Don't know which package, what package. Do I get excited? Do I not get excited?

Josh: And then you get excited that it hasn't been lost in the mail.

Tommy: Yeah, that's probably the best, best version.

Josh: I'm surprised more shit doesn't go missing in the mail.

Tommy: You set up security cameras from Trev. Trev hooked us up with heaps of great stuff.

Josh: Thank you, Trev. Got one going. Can't get the other one working. Reset button.

Tommy: It's not working.

Josh: Maybe you've got magic fingers, but I'm driving that metal into the reset hole and it's not resetting.

Tommy: Maybe you're powering it up while doing it.

Josh: Yeah. With the USB on. It's foolproof, I think. Like it really is. And I'm either a fool or it's broken.

Tommy: And so where have you set— You've set one of the cameras up?

Josh: Yeah, I've got to get— I've got to actually fix them into the wall. But it's, it is interesting having cameras at your house.

Tommy: Do you find that you look at them a lot or what's that like? Do you feel safer?

Josh: Yeah. I mean, yeah, kind of. But then it's just, we've talked about this before. It's like, do you, does it just bring more alertness to issues? And it's like when you think about seeing a red car, you're going to see a shitload of them. Am I going to see more crime? Yeah, hopefully, hopefully I don't. But, you know, maybe, maybe at least I have it on camera. I mean, that is, that is the byproduct of it.

Tommy: When you caught up with mates at the end of the year or the start of this year, were the conversations different? Because I feel like there is a little bit of the end of the year. It's like, oh, like we, we were all having the same conversations over and over and over again. Do you slip back into that stuff or have you found other things to fucking talk about?

Josh: I mean, COVID chat is the new weather chat. No one talks about the weather anymore. It was always, mate, fucking hot week.

Tommy: Wow.

Josh: You know, it's just COVID. But no, the people that I hadn't seen in a while, which was a lot of people because everyone was just at home in their bubble, chatting about what they did in that time. But then, I mean, it goes pretty quick. It depends on who, what kind of mate they are. Like, they, uh, someone I've known for 20 years and we're just, we're just, I don't know, it doesn't even register what we talk about. We're just talking shit and connect and being around each other is all we need.

Tommy: Have you noticed the transition going from, you know, COVID Tommy to like ISO Tommy where the, you know, is this about my appearance? No, no, no, to being out and about? Have you learned anything about, like, so for instance, it's like when Melbourne opened up, opened up, everyone was social for like the first week or two. Like, that was a big thing. And then it like slowly sort of adapted or whatever.

Josh: There's still a lot of people being social, dude. This is the fuck.

Tommy: Do you feel, do you feel like you've been out everything every weekend doing something?

Josh: I have been, but, um, even going, like, I've become more lazy with my mask situation. Like, I don't have one in my pocket. I used to have one, but like, I don't know, like, what's the deal?

Tommy: When do you even have to? Office Works, you need to?

Josh: Supermarkets or like places like Office Works. I went into Office Works without one. I feel a bit naughty. Jess and I went for a walk to the supermarket. Actually, we're just going for a walk and then we were like, let's go to the supermarket. And then we both didn't have masks. And there's a bit of power about it, you know, like people don't want to come near you. So, yeah. But anyway, I don't— It's at the end, like, Melbourne's had 28 days of zero local transmission, which I think is good. Sounds good.

Tommy: And I empathise when I listen to podcasts that are recorded in different parts of the world. You just hear people like just even struggling to do interviews and stuff. Like, you just see the sort of people are drained.

Josh: Oh, dude, I think about the— I mean, we need to register our energy based on— No, no. Our energy. We need to— What will determine if we take another break is if both of us are having eye twitches at the same time. Like my eyes haven't been twitching. Remember how much twitching we have?

Tommy: Yeah, that was true.

Josh: So tired, dude. We had Twitch City.

Tommy: Well, we were doing two— For context, our video production business, basically, we were doing pre-production, but it grinded to a halt from the perspective of actually filming.

Josh: They stopped our industry from operating. Literally in the fine print.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: Video production.

Tommy: No.

Josh: Computer says no.

Tommy: Yeah. And so if we think about like, if we count the amount of shoots that we did last year, I did one. It would have been, it would have been less than, than like 10 filming days for the entire year, dude. And so things like JobKeeper and stuff became so important and we were lucky that we could do this.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. And so But then you see how it's— we're doing the thing we enjoy doing. Doing the thing you enjoy doing, you can still burn out.

Tommy: Well, I also think the other thing is doing the thing that you love doing without having the sustained, sustainable business model is still exhausting. If you are like— essentially, it never feels as good as making it work, right? It's like getting funding from a from a VC or an angel investor, right? You get money, that's just a runway. But there's a point where the runway ends, and by the time the runway ends, you need to be flying. If you're not flying, you're going straight through the barricade wall. Yeah. And so that— I think that that's the thing, is it's like that was a temporary solution. And that's why when you read the headlines and you read the news, it's like, oh, you know, what's going to come from all of this? Because yeah, we've had this this moment in time where we have had that support. But it's the, you know, like if we think about it from a shoot perspective, the way that production companies work, the way that you get more video production work is by doing video production work. So there's been this weird time where it's like you don't have huge amounts of recent work to show because you haven't fucking done much for an entire year.

Josh: I mean, Josh Frydenberg was our angel investor.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And then he said, no more.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: We're not giving you more cash.

Tommy: So what's the deal? So I guess around Australia all open. So WA is just finishing off their lockdown.

Josh: On Friday.

Tommy: Sydney, Brisbane, all of that sort of thing there.

Josh: I just spoke to my friend in Sydney and he said, he called me, he said, where are you? He said, on the ED. Lucky I lived in Sydney because I wouldn't have known. Eastern Distributor, which is a CNT of a road in the morning or any time, like it can have a lot of traffic on it. And he was on the way to work in his car. Traffic. It seems like, I mean, that's back to just being, you know, shitty traffic.

Tommy: Yeah. It's, yeah, I wonder, I think that the next thing will be, I'm very curious to see about Easter because it seems like everyone's got big plans for Easter. Don't you think?

Josh: That's what I said to him. He said, when are you coming to Sydney? I said, mate, Easter is probably the next available time. Like, you know, you get like 4 days or something. You can— it's worth coming there considering. And we just said considering COVID.

Tommy: It's gonna be hectic.

Josh: Well, we thought that in the Christmas period and then it was— it shat itself.

Tommy: But think about everyone who was going to do something during Christmas.

Josh: I'm not flying, I'm driving. It's much easier for a family.

Tommy: You're in your own car. But just in general, like, I just think like cafés, like people out and about. It's surely—

Josh: This is the empathy for the businesses. Like I mentioned this at the start of the year, we went to Healesville and then we went to, I think it's the town of Healesville. Oh, dude, the people were slammed. The cafés, the pubs, the bars, like booked out. Like, yeah, but you see the pressure it puts people under.

Tommy: Like they haven't fucking worked properly for months. And so you go from having hardly any work, just, you know, being at home playing PlayStation. Or if you're fucking the business owner trying to work out how you're going to keep your business. And then you have the other problem, which is like— and the fucked up bit is, even if they're busy, they're probably just paying the debts down that they incurred through all the lease stuff that they have to pay back.

Josh: Oh man, a mate of mine has a gym and he said they're $300K behind. But yeah, there is— it sucks. It sucks that end of the year we even got into. So you come out the back of the lockdown and then you're trying to ramp up what the business once was. And then all of a sudden you actually are kind of busy like these people that are still in it. They're just flat out. I mean, we had a busy break without a break. We had a busy end of the year. Which you see how coming off, like you're saying, the start of the year, or when you enter into the COVID lockdown time, everything shifts. And so the strategy's a different start of the year. Then you're all of a sudden in the new normal, which is a silly term, but was the new normal, which is after, you know, COVID's coming off the back of COVID You can't un— you can't not remember the time of COVID And so it's like embedded in your mind. And then you start your business again. And then we— that's how we got burnt out then the last year was doing—

Tommy: you just have to say yes because, yeah, you just don't— like, if a client's like, hey, can you do this shoot? Like, ah, like they've been waiting for a long time to be able to do it. So then it becomes that game of like bring everything forward as soon as you can do it. Because the other thing too is like, especially in that time, in that sort of November period, uh, we didn't know— like, we, we didn't know how long things would stay open for, when things would shut down, even if You think about December, there's, you know, there's border closures and all of that sort of thing. Um, and so yeah, it feels like, you know, December, January has always been interesting for— from a video production perspective, because people are still getting into it. Um, you know, they're finishing early, they're, they're getting back, they're trying to work out budgets, forced closures of businesses.

Josh: Like, it's, it's the time that in Australia, because it's summer as well, it's like Americans I mean, they're not a good comparison for annual leave, but it's— but you see, like, it is all operating the winter month, you know. Here it's— yeah, it is really— a lot of people just put— take their foot off the gas.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: But it was a funny time last year because we're already in Feb.

Tommy: Just a reminder, everyone. Yeah, it's Feb 3rd.

Josh: I feel much more optimistic about, um, the future off the back of like December, January, um, you've— in that time it was like, God, are we putting— are we just like— you have to persevere, have to push forward even if it closes again.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And it hasn't. And so I, I'm of the feeling that, um, we haven't closed again. So it has— it's feeling a bit better. Even that December period where it got a bit dicey, but I, man, like we had, we had 2 lockdowns last year. People are listening this morning, one place is on their third COVID wave. They were saying it's like, which just is a clusterfuck for everybody, health and businesses, you know, dude. Anyway.

Tommy: Yeah, it feels good. And I think like doing less shows, like it's consolidation. Yeah, it's simplifying, making things so it's like We don't have that burnout and we've got a great business, which means we can keep doing the show where you guys don't have to pay anything unless you do want to pay.

Josh: I mean, you can.

Tommy: Our PayPal, yeah, hikey@thedailytalkshow.com is where you send cash to the PayPal.

Josh: I mean, we said us before, send cash, and people were.

Tommy: That's true. Yeah, we've got a lot of different currencies. Um, thank you, Sean, for your email. Uh, thank you, Crystal, for the, for the comment as well. Olivia, always, uh, sending great emails.

Josh: We appreciate it.

Tommy: Uh, thanks everyone, enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll see tomorrow. Have a good one.

Josh: See you guys.