Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's Harps and Tiff because that's
Speaker 1: what we do. It's the new project. I'm sitting here,
Speaker 1: fresh out of the gym in my ac D T
Speaker 1: shirt T shirts brand new Eat and ten bucks it
Speaker 1: came out. I think I'm a big spender TIF Wow.
Speaker 2: We yeah, new shirt. Don't often see you in different gear.
Speaker 1: I'm out of the everlast, I'm out of the long style.
Speaker 3: I mean we're brought on the rapid change.
Speaker 1: Well, I would you know it's still a black T shirt.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's a massive departure.
Speaker 3: A lot of color. There's a lot of.
Speaker 1: There is a bit of color, isn't.
Speaker 3: There branding ac DC.
Speaker 1: A little bit of angus on the front there in
Speaker 1: his bloody kids baseball cap. Yeah, it's multi colored, which
Speaker 1: for me is and isn't this riveting listening for our listeners?
Speaker 1: How are you? What's going on over there? It's bloody
Speaker 1: two degrees in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty chilly. But you haven't even commented on
Speaker 2: a new setup here. It's been one weekend rearranging in
Speaker 2: my studio and you've given me donuts.
Speaker 1: I did notice it that you've got the U project
Speaker 1: banner over your right shoulder, unless you've got this all
Speaker 1: ass about and inverted, but looks to me like your
Speaker 1: right shoulder. And you've got the picture of yourself of
Speaker 1: course you have on Mark c more and noun the
Speaker 1: toes the boxer over your left shoulder, and then right
Speaker 1: behind your head there's a picture of you roll with
Speaker 1: the punches.
Speaker 2: Let's want to be some posters printed for it to
Speaker 2: pop up at a at a gym.
Speaker 3: And I thought i'd pop one in the background.
Speaker 1: Oh kiddy up, Well it looks very professional. You've got
Speaker 1: a couple of well paced placed plants. You could do
Speaker 1: a TV interview and you'd be good to go.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to send you some snippets of me,
Speaker 2: stupid cat and the chaos that went down in this
Speaker 2: studio amidst the rearranging and the introduction of artificial plants
Speaker 2: because she's been demise of all of my plants. I
Speaker 2: used to have no more house plants for tip, so
Speaker 2: I went the artificial path.
Speaker 3: And what she is? Not a nice person?
Speaker 2: That cat.
Speaker 1: Not a person, but not a nice feline. We'll go
Speaker 1: on per she's my person, she's your person. If you
Speaker 1: had to get rid of the cat or the dog.
Speaker 1: I know this is an unfair question, but I'm not
Speaker 1: saying one of them is going to die. But one's
Speaker 1: got to go and live somewhere else for a year,
Speaker 1: and then you get that particular family member back. One
Speaker 1: had to come over and live at my joint for
Speaker 1: a year. Which one would it be?
Speaker 3: I don't think you'd be very nice to my cat.
Speaker 1: As long as it was the dog, I'd be fine
Speaker 1: as song as it was Luna. If it was the cat,
Speaker 1: I'd turn it into Moccasin's stop it.
Speaker 3: That's very naicety.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm joking. I'm joking. I do I like cats.
Speaker 1: I just don't love cats because cats are selfish fucks.
Speaker 3: The thing about Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: But the thing and we can learn everything, we can
Speaker 2: learn different things. I'm learning a lot from help, you know.
Speaker 2: I'm learning boundaries. How to set a boundary. That's a
Speaker 2: good lesson I can learn from Bear because she doesn't
Speaker 2: fuck around when it comes to boundaries. She asks for
Speaker 2: what she wants and if she doesn't want to do something,
Speaker 2: she'd be telling me. And I need to learn a
Speaker 2: lesson or two in boundaries. So that's the lesson I'm going.
Speaker 1: To take see, I reckon when your cat is teaching you,
Speaker 1: you're going backwards. I have something in me says it's
Speaker 1: meant to be the other way around. When you're the
Speaker 1: fucking student and the cat as the teacher, you've fucking
Speaker 1: devolved and you've gone backwards.
Speaker 3: And the fact got things backwards. You've got a fair
Speaker 3: point there.
Speaker 1: You should write a book when the cat becomes the teacher. Yeah. Hell,
Speaker 1: how to give up and throw your life the way
Speaker 1: to a cat? Oh god. But recently there is a
Speaker 1: terrible segueu it. But recently, in fact, this morning was
Speaker 1: one of the times. But recently I've been chatting to
Speaker 1: people who are also I did this the other night
Speaker 1: I was in Brisbane. I had a big chat to
Speaker 1: in fact a couple. I had one this morning and
Speaker 1: then won the week before when I was in Sydney
Speaker 1: with people who are at a bit of a crossroads
Speaker 1: in terms of their professional life. So either they're doing
Speaker 1: a job that is okay, not great, but okay, and
Speaker 1: it kind of ticks certain boxes but not others. And
Speaker 1: that's I think that's pretty normal. It might tick the
Speaker 1: financial box but not the I love life box or
Speaker 1: the it doesn't fill up your emotional or mental or
Speaker 1: social bank account perhaps, but sometimes that's just what's required,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. And I spoke to a bloke this
Speaker 1: morning who's got a pretty good job, as in a
Speaker 1: really good paying job. So it ticks that box in
Speaker 1: a big fat way, and he doesn't hate it, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't love it. And he really feels like he's
Speaker 1: forty two. And I think he's very talented, and I
Speaker 1: think he could do you know, but it's individual, isn't it.
Speaker 1: But you know, for me, like I like starting things,
Speaker 1: I like creating businesses and doing projects. But that's just me.
Speaker 1: That's not for everyone. But he feels like if he
Speaker 1: doesn't do it soon, he's going to open his eyes
Speaker 1: in a minute and he'll be forty five or fifty.
Speaker 1: And so I thought we might just have a chat
Speaker 1: about And again, everyone, this is not advice or direction
Speaker 1: or prescription, but just the pros and cons because I
Speaker 1: had a multitude of jobs when I was younger, and
Speaker 1: then I've had businesses for the last thirty plus years.
Speaker 1: You've had jobs most of your life, but the last
Speaker 1: few years you've been your boss. And I just think that,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I know this is an obvious
Speaker 1: thing to say, but like, we spend so much of
Speaker 1: our adult life working and our waking hours working, and
Speaker 1: even when you go one hundred and sixty eight hours
Speaker 1: in a week and you might only work forty or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know when you take out travel and you
Speaker 1: take out sleep, and you take out paying the bills
Speaker 1: and doing the shopping, and you know, it's like it
Speaker 1: actually in terms of the hours that you have available
Speaker 1: to you just to enjoy stuff and where you're wide awake.
Speaker 1: And we do spend a lot of our high quality
Speaker 1: hours doing a job. Now that's not a bad thing,
Speaker 1: but it's whether or not you know you're doing a
Speaker 1: job that you're surviving or thriving in, whether or not
Speaker 1: you hate it, whether or not you love it, whether
Speaker 1: or not there's good and bad days or just bad days.
Speaker 1: What the ratio is whether or not you're the kind
Speaker 1: of person that would be able to, I guess, embrace
Speaker 1: the vulnerability and the unknown and the uncertainty and the
Speaker 1: unpredictability of stepping out of a job with a predetermined
Speaker 1: wage and maybe annual raises and you know, sick pay
Speaker 1: and holiday pay and all the security and all of
Speaker 1: the predictability that comes with that, whether or not that's
Speaker 1: and I definitely don't think that there's a best option.
Speaker 1: I think there's the best option for people as individuals.
Speaker 1: But I also think that you know, like if I
Speaker 1: was not if I was the same person, like, same brain,
Speaker 1: same DNA, but I was say thirty three year old
Speaker 1: Craig and I had a wife and three kids, I'd
Speaker 1: probably have quite a different perspective on this. But that
Speaker 1: isn't and was never my reality. So I acknowledged that
Speaker 1: I had a lot more freedom to take risk and
Speaker 1: to expose myself financially, whereas other people go, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all good for you, but I've got to make one
Speaker 1: hundred grand and feed three kids and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And I get that too. So there are a lot
Speaker 1: of variables around this, But I think one thing is
Speaker 1: for certain that most of us spend a lot of
Speaker 1: our lives working. And I think also we could probably
Speaker 1: say with a level of certainty that a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't love their job and spend sometimes decades doing
Speaker 1: that's not rewarding, not fulfilling, not enjoyable, and maybe even
Speaker 1: detrimental to their physical mental and emotional health. So with
Speaker 1: that in mind, what was your first job ever? Was
Speaker 1: at that job in Lonceston working for that lady that
Speaker 1: you've spoken about a bit for a start, That was
Speaker 1: in Devonport.
Speaker 3: That was my first full time job.
Speaker 2: Yes, but my first job was at working in hospitality
Speaker 2: at well, my parents had a motel and restaurant, but
Speaker 2: I was always too young to really work there. But
Speaker 2: then I worked in a friend's restaurant from about fourteen,
Speaker 2: so that was my first job, little restaurant to a
Speaker 2: little waits food carrier we used to call it.
Speaker 1: Well, my parents always owned businesses. They owned a multitude
Speaker 1: of businesses. They had a hardware store for a very
Speaker 1: long time in Latro Valley. I worked in that from
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. They had a news agency business.
Speaker 1: They had a like basically a mini supermarket slash news agency,
Speaker 1: which was one business. They had an Italian restaurant which
Speaker 1: was very very successful in La Trivalley called Carlucci's, which
Speaker 1: was booked out a month and a half in advance.
Speaker 1: So my parents were always entrepreneurial. Wow Ron and Mary
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So they had businesses when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, so I was always working in the businesses,
Speaker 1: and I always saw, you know, and with respect they're
Speaker 1: not I mean, they're clearly not dumb people. But it's
Speaker 1: not like they were geniuses. But they were just good
Speaker 1: at taking an idea and doing something with it. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, for me, that was so maybe
Speaker 1: that's a bit genetic. Like I was never lazy, like
Speaker 1: I never didn't want to It was not like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to work like I want to work.
Speaker 1: I just want to work at something that I like
Speaker 1: working at, you know, and we talk about we'll circle
Speaker 1: back to this, but you know, we talk a lot
Speaker 1: in the corporate world talks a lot about work life balance,
Speaker 1: and I've had this conversation maybe five times in six years.
Speaker 1: But you know, work life balance kind of infers that
Speaker 1: there's some kind of an equation or some kind of
Speaker 1: quantifiable numerical balance, whereas if we work this many hours
Speaker 1: working and then we're not working this many hours over
Speaker 1: on this imaginary seesaw or scales, then if we get
Speaker 1: those numbers right, then we've got work and life balance,
Speaker 1: which kind of makes sense until you consider the fact
Speaker 1: that like five hours of something you love is way
Speaker 1: less traumatic than one hour of something you fucking hate,
Speaker 1: and in fact, five hours of something that you love
Speaker 1: might make you happy and fulfilled and excited and be
Speaker 1: a positive impact on your mental and emotional self, whereas
Speaker 1: one hour of a job that you hate might traumatiz
Speaker 1: is you. You know, So not all work hours, just
Speaker 1: like not all calories are equal. You know, a calories yah, well,
Speaker 1: as a protein is it fat? Is a carbohydrate? Is
Speaker 1: it nutrient dense or nutrient poor? So we have this
Speaker 1: kind of way of thinking about things that isn't really
Speaker 1: telling the whole story. And so twenty hours of work
Speaker 1: could be something that literally produces dopamine, improves your immune system,
Speaker 1: gives you joy, gives you fulfillment, purpose, focus, excitement, social connection,
Speaker 1: you know, a part of a team, belonging. Or it
Speaker 1: could do the opposite. It could be something that's toxic, stressful,
Speaker 1: and you know, even traumatic, depending on the job, depending
Speaker 1: on your suitability for that job, depending on the work environment.
Speaker 1: There are great environments, there are fucking horrible environments, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on the relationship you have with a boss. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people stay in places for a long time just
Speaker 1: because they love their boss and their boss is awesome,
Speaker 1: you know, the job might be a five out of ten,
Speaker 1: but the bosses and eleven and they love the culture
Speaker 1: and they love the relationship, and so they just hang around,
Speaker 1: you know, like I was talking to I had coffee
Speaker 1: today with Josh Me Me, Me Me Pittman, as you know,
Speaker 1: and he was asking me about Melissa and I how
Speaker 1: long we've worked together, And the answer is twelve years.
Speaker 1: And in twelve years, we've never had a disagreement, let
Speaker 1: alone a fight. It doesn't mean that we've never sought differently,
Speaker 1: but in terms of a problematic disagreement where there's a
Speaker 1: bit of angst or we've never had that. We've never
Speaker 1: and it's because I respect her and she respects me,
Speaker 1: and I want the best for her and she wants
Speaker 1: the best for me, and the same with you and I.
Speaker 1: We've had a few issues, but we've never had a fight.
Speaker 1: And the only reason you and I have issues is
Speaker 1: because we're probably a little bit alike. But there's never
Speaker 1: been any hate. There's never been an argument, you know,
Speaker 1: because we care about each other. I want the best
Speaker 1: for you, you want the best for me, and so
Speaker 1: I assume. So anyway, I'm being very presumptuous, but well
Speaker 1: For me, it's very much like it's important that I
Speaker 1: work with people I like. And I know that's not
Speaker 1: always possible, but if it's my company, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's my business as much as possible, I'm going to
Speaker 1: you know, if I've got to spend a fair bit
Speaker 1: of time with tif Cook, I'm going to make sure
Speaker 1: that I like tiv Cook and hopefully vice versa. And
Speaker 1: so I think there's there's a myriad of variables, be
Speaker 1: they sociological, environmental, financial, commercial, practical, that need to be
Speaker 1: factored in that makes something a good job, you know.
Speaker 1: And like this. People might not believe this, but if
Speaker 1: I had to have a job job, I would rather
Speaker 1: earn sixty grand a year doing something I love than
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty grand a year doing something I hate.
Speaker 1: And I promise that on my mum's life. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say that, but my mum's my most important person in
Speaker 1: my world, right I. For me, money is not that important.
Speaker 1: If sixty grand could cover my expenses, I mean that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, you know, like making lots of money but
Speaker 1: having no joy in that. And I've done that, by
Speaker 1: the way, I've made lots of dough at times and
Speaker 1: in the middle of all of that been fucking miserable
Speaker 1: and it just didn't work.
Speaker 2: You know what is over all the time and all
Speaker 2: the experience you've had, Now, what do you know about
Speaker 2: you in terms of what what do you look for? Well,
Speaker 2: if you had to go and have a job, what
Speaker 2: would that look and feel like? What are the things,
Speaker 2: the traits or the attributes of that.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, all right. So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that this should be all jobs, but this is Craig specific.
Speaker 1: I would need a level of autonomy. I can't have
Speaker 1: someone standing over my shoulder correcting me all day. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't work for me. Doesn't mean I couldn't be correct
Speaker 1: or have feedback. Like if I had a boss, I
Speaker 1: would expect her or him to kind of tell me
Speaker 1: what I need to do with mine and how, and
Speaker 1: then get the fuck out of the way and let
Speaker 1: me do my job, don't micro manage me. So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't need that. If I was going to have a job,
Speaker 1: it would need to be something where there was room
Speaker 1: for me to grow and evolve. I couldn't be put
Speaker 1: in a metaphoric pigeonhole and said you're going to do
Speaker 1: this and a version of this for the next two years.
Speaker 1: Even if you're getting paid great dough. I know, I'm
Speaker 1: creating an impossible job description here, and also something where
Speaker 1: there's fun, you know, and it's a good culture, it's
Speaker 1: a good environment, it's a good company. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I probably, I mean it depends. I mean, there might be.
Speaker 1: There might be a version of reality where someone offered
Speaker 1: me something that. You know, if one of the companies
Speaker 1: that I do work for or said we would like
Speaker 1: you to We're going to pay you a fucking ridiculous
Speaker 1: amount of money and we want you to be our
Speaker 1: internal kind of mind coach or whatever for our organization
Speaker 1: to be a company. I definitely wouldn't do a full
Speaker 1: time job. But if they went we want you ten
Speaker 1: to twenty hours a week on a one year contract,
Speaker 1: We're going to pay you an obscene amount. Just being honest,
Speaker 1: it would take an obscene amount for me to stop
Speaker 1: some of what I'm currently doing because I love it all.
Speaker 1: But that would be a good challenge. I would sign
Speaker 1: up for a year. I would sign up for a year,
Speaker 1: and I would do that, and even if halfway through
Speaker 1: I was hating it, I'd finish the year. But I
Speaker 1: don't think I would hate it. You know, there's got
Speaker 1: to be a lot of boxes ticked, don't.
Speaker 2: There lots of people or a few people. What about
Speaker 2: the Is it the people and the culture or the
Speaker 2: maybe the projects and the organization for you?
Speaker 1: For me, it's all of that. I mean, like, I
Speaker 1: want to work on stuff that I find, Like I
Speaker 1: like developing things. I like having an idea. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like my first book. Whether I'm not the only
Speaker 1: person to write a book, but my first book was
Speaker 1: an idea and an idea. I never thought I was
Speaker 1: going to be an author. I had no ambition and
Speaker 1: I went My first book, which is basically about the
Speaker 1: psychology of getting in shape, was born out of the
Speaker 1: experience of essentially having the same conversation. Because when I
Speaker 1: started to write that book, I was working full time
Speaker 1: on the gym floor, full time as a trainer exercise scientist,
Speaker 1: full time managing my team of trainers, having conversations with
Speaker 1: thousands of people a year, lecturing to personal training students,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and I was essentially saying the same
Speaker 1: thing all the time, which was getting in shape as
Speaker 1: largely psychological or emotional process with a physical outcome. You know,
Speaker 1: your body's not the problem. Your body's the consequence you're
Speaker 1: thinking and choosing and lifestyle and mindset is the is
Speaker 1: the catalyst. You know. It's like you don't accidentally eat
Speaker 1: cake or accidentally drink twenty beers or accidentally have ten
Speaker 1: thousand calories a day. These are all choices. But even that,
Speaker 1: you know, that was that was something I chose and created.
Speaker 1: Personal training was something that I kind of of course
Speaker 1: it would have happened in Australia anyway, but I was
Speaker 1: at the ground floor with that an idea that turned
Speaker 1: into some choices that turn in some you know, bricks
Speaker 1: and mortar and a venue and an address and a
Speaker 1: landlord and trainers and you know, all of that stuff
Speaker 1: of coming up with an idea. And by the way,
Speaker 1: more than half of my ideas haven't worked, Like there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of shit ideas in there, but you know,
Speaker 1: for me, that idea of conceptualizing something. First thing that
Speaker 1: I did that kind of worked commercially was screen printing
Speaker 1: and T shirt design. Just like the T shirt I'm
Speaker 1: wearing now that no one else can see but tip
Speaker 1: can see. It's got ACDC like this is literally a
Speaker 1: screen printed T shirt. And so I was at school
Speaker 1: quite good at design and graphic design and logos and
Speaker 1: all of that. So when I came out of school
Speaker 1: and people used to say this is pre computers, I
Speaker 1: was designing logos for companies and brands and even groups
Speaker 1: and bands, and I would design stuff for them freehand
Speaker 1: or using what was called technical drawing equipment TD equipment
Speaker 1: and graphic design old school freehand. And then out of
Speaker 1: that I started to screenprint a bit. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was doing, and then I went, I've told
Speaker 1: that story. I won't tell it again. But I learned
Speaker 1: how to screenprint, kind of learned from someone, then developed
Speaker 1: that myself. Then I started a business when I was
Speaker 1: nineteen called Classics for Imprinting, And you know, that was
Speaker 1: just a thought and I was doing something that I loved,
Speaker 1: which was design and creativity and figuring out how do
Speaker 1: I screenprint? How do I hate treat garments? Where do
Speaker 1: I get garments? How do I how do me? How
Speaker 1: does a teenager turn up to a warehouse and not
Speaker 1: knowing what he's doing by garments, you know, and look
Speaker 1: like I'm a business person, And how do I answer
Speaker 1: the phone, and how do I avoid people coming to
Speaker 1: my house? Because my house was my business headquarters and
Speaker 1: it was a shipfest, I couldn't have people, so, you know,
Speaker 1: I was always creating this kind of reality where I
Speaker 1: knew that I could design the tops, to print the
Speaker 1: tops and deliver good stuff, but I didn't have a
Speaker 1: business HQ per se, you know, so I had to
Speaker 1: figure that out. Yeah, and it was just for me,
Speaker 1: that just solving problems like I love solving problems, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's never stopped.
Speaker 2: Did you Were you someone who would go to people
Speaker 2: for help or would you figure it out on your own?
Speaker 2: What drove you most?
Speaker 1: Yes, so that's also good question. So my first ever
Speaker 1: PT client was a guy called Max, and I still
Speaker 1: see Max. We fell, not we felt, We just stopped
Speaker 1: seeing each other for a long time when our own ways,
Speaker 1: and then we reconnected probably two years ago. And every
Speaker 1: Wednesday morning at seven am, Max and I have a coffee.
Speaker 1: And back then, back in the day, Max was a
Speaker 1: few years older than me. He had his own his
Speaker 1: own business and he was successful. He was probably a
Speaker 1: millionaire in his mid twenties and I was or maybe
Speaker 1: late twenties. And this is back when a million dollars
Speaker 1: was a fucking heap of money. And I was a
Speaker 1: few years younger than him, and I knew a fair
Speaker 1: bit about training and you know, excise and nutrition prescription,
Speaker 1: but nothing about business. So I trained him because he
Speaker 1: knew nothing about that. And while I was training him,
Speaker 1: he was teaching me about business. So I definitely had
Speaker 1: mentors and teachers that I adopted along the way, where
Speaker 1: because I was young and I think I was not
Speaker 1: a bad kid, and I was enthusiastic and I was
Speaker 1: a bit cheeky, they would and I was I was trying,
Speaker 1: you know, I was really trying to build something and
Speaker 1: do something and be something, and I was really trying
Speaker 1: to be a better me, and I was really trying
Speaker 1: to help people, and I was really trying to understand business.
Speaker 1: And so everybody that I met that had more knowledge
Speaker 1: and skill in business than me, I picked their brains.
Speaker 1: So I was really lucky. And also because as you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like well, especially for me back in the day,
Speaker 1: most of my clients were business people, you know, because
Speaker 1: it was a somewhat elite service back then, you know,
Speaker 1: so yeah, and it was, but I think that you know,
Speaker 1: just the idea of trying to figure out are you
Speaker 1: Are you the kind of person that could thrive or
Speaker 1: survive and thrive in the middle of a level of
Speaker 1: uncertainty and unpredictability, Because if you're not or at least
Speaker 1: willing to, you know, white knuckle it and bite the
Speaker 1: bullet and be a bit scared and be a bit
Speaker 1: vulnerable for a while, then probably starting your own business
Speaker 1: is not high on your list or maybe not suited
Speaker 1: to you. Having said that, part B to that advice
Speaker 1: is there is another way which I've advised many people
Speaker 1: to do, which in the old days that there was
Speaker 1: no such term as a side hustle, but these days
Speaker 1: there is. So you know, many people that even with
Speaker 1: personal training, many people that wanted to be a trainer
Speaker 1: back in the day and thought, oh maybe I could
Speaker 1: do the course. And you know, as you know, when
Speaker 1: you start out as a personal trainer, you don't go
Speaker 1: from zero zero dollars income to a grand or two
Speaker 1: a week. And so many people that I helped and
Speaker 1: coached along the way, they started off pteing as a
Speaker 1: bit of a side hustle, and then when they got
Speaker 1: to a certain threshold, then they ditched their full time
Speaker 1: job and you know, went running with the old PT.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a few ways to minimize the exposure,
Speaker 1: the risk exposure, but still it's you know, it ain't
Speaker 1: for everybody.
Speaker 2: What have you seen in people? What tends to bring
Speaker 2: people down? What tends to sort of stop to their
Speaker 2: start when they.
Speaker 1: If they're starting their business? Well, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that you need a very thick skin, and
Speaker 1: you need to be resilient, and you need to you
Speaker 1: need to have a really clear vision about what you know.
Speaker 1: And I know I've told this story too many times,
Speaker 1: but it is a commercial reality. Is this show that
Speaker 1: I did for six hundred episodes over probably three years
Speaker 1: that lost money? The U project that I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: of course, And I didn't know, but as close as
Speaker 1: because you can't predict the future, but as close as
Speaker 1: I could be to knowing in Inverted Commas, I knew
Speaker 1: that it would work because I knew that I was
Speaker 1: getting better at this. I knew that we had a
Speaker 1: decent audience. I knew that the dynamics and the interviews
Speaker 1: and the conversations were good because the vast majority of
Speaker 1: feedback we got was positive. I just knew that it
Speaker 1: was going to take me a while to translate this
Speaker 1: listening experience, which was pretty good, into something that was
Speaker 1: commercially viable in a fucking ever growing ocean of podcasts.
Speaker 1: And you know, like, you've got a great podcast, and
Speaker 1: your podcast probably in the top your podcast, it's probably
Speaker 1: in the top one percent in terms of audience listeners.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not that you're making nothing, but
Speaker 1: you're not getting rich off yours, right, And you've done
Speaker 1: your heading towards a thousand episodes, so you're heading towards
Speaker 1: a thousand episodes. Your podcast from a financial point of view,
Speaker 1: I guess, is kind of a side hustle. It's not
Speaker 1: your main job. It's part of your totality of your
Speaker 1: work life. But if you weren't resilient, you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing it, you know. And that's the thing is, like
Speaker 1: you and I have spoken about this before. The amount
Speaker 1: of people who have said to me, at least fifty
Speaker 1: people over the last five years, something like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I started a podcast, and essentially they say it didn't work.
Speaker 1: And then when I inquire how many episodes did you do?
Speaker 1: It's almost never more than twenty, and it's often less
Speaker 1: than ten, and I'm like, well, of course, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't do something for three weeks and
Speaker 1: go I gave it my best because you fucking didn't
Speaker 1: like giving it your best is sometimes years. And you know,
Speaker 1: in in the instant gratification, quick fixed culture that we inhabit,
Speaker 1: people want to be Joe Rogan by next fucking Thursday.
Speaker 1: And it's just you know, it doesn't I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a fucking grain of rice in the Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan kind of casse role, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, Joe Rogan has more listeners in
Speaker 1: the first five seconds than we have in an episode.
Speaker 1: And we have lots of listeners, yah, but he has
Speaker 1: millions upon millions every episode, you know. So it just
Speaker 1: is what it is. And you know, for me, if
Speaker 1: there's if we make a few bucks, which we do,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm growing and learning, which I am, and
Speaker 1: I'm meeting cool people, which I do, and I'm having
Speaker 1: great conversations like we are now, and it's it's making
Speaker 1: me think in real time. And like you and I
Speaker 1: trained before with Christian and the Gang and the Crab
Speaker 1: and organized to catch up on zoom at five point
Speaker 1: forty five, which was thirty minutes ago, give or take,
Speaker 1: and we didn't know what we were talking about. And
Speaker 1: before we went live, I said, let's just chat about
Speaker 1: career and you know what, whether or not career is
Speaker 1: a good idea or starting a business is a good idea,
Speaker 1: and pros and cons, and then we jump on and talk.
Speaker 1: I've got nothing, no talking points, you've got no talk
Speaker 1: You didn't know what we're talking about till thirty seconds before.
Speaker 1: And so for me, it's like, can we get on,
Speaker 1: Can we get on the mic and just talk and
Speaker 1: talk about something that's hopefully broadly relevant. And some people
Speaker 1: have already jumped out, some people are leaning in, going
Speaker 1: this is actually relevant for me, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: the that's the skill, is to be able to have
Speaker 1: a conversation that is you know, it's not an interview.
Speaker 1: It's not choreographed, it's not rehearsed. There are no dot points,
Speaker 1: there are no powerpoints slides. It's completely organic. Yes, there's
Speaker 1: a theme, but where we go, you know, And I
Speaker 1: think you know for me that I love the fact
Speaker 1: that so much of what I'm going to do be
Speaker 1: create and be in the middle of in the next
Speaker 1: five ten years is unknown, Like if I knew what
Speaker 1: was going to happen, I don't think i'd like it.
Speaker 1: I like that vulnerability. What about for you has been Like,
Speaker 1: so you work for you now, you coach people, you
Speaker 1: do some speaking, some professional speaking, you still do a
Speaker 1: bit of boxing with people, and you do your show.
Speaker 1: What are the pros and cons of working for you? Like?
Speaker 1: What do you like? Is there anything that you miss
Speaker 1: about working for someone else? Like, what's what's going on
Speaker 1: for you? So?
Speaker 3: What I love?
Speaker 2: I love that I get to do what I love.
Speaker 2: I love that I get to choose. I've got to
Speaker 2: make this mish mesh of a bloody career that's a
Speaker 2: little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Speaker 2: And I can sit here and have an idea and
Speaker 2: on a whim execute it and I get excited and
Speaker 2: I can put it out there and I can do
Speaker 2: it my challenges. So when I was in Mark Lebask's
Speaker 2: course over the last two that last week for two days,
Speaker 2: the overwhelming sense of connectedness, especially the first day of
Speaker 2: being in a room for the day with a team
Speaker 2: with it doing something together, and I really I missed that,
Speaker 2: Like there was this sense of presence. There was no
Speaker 2: being connected on the phone, there was no thinking about
Speaker 2: work and tomorrow and sessions and clients. It was you know,
Speaker 2: it was. It was beautiful, and it was like I
Speaker 2: didn't know these ten people and we were all working
Speaker 2: on different stuff, but we were working on it together,
Speaker 2: like on this common goal, and it was and I
Speaker 2: just went, I love.
Speaker 3: I missed that part of it.
Speaker 2: That's why I love working with you on the U
Speaker 2: project and I to collaborate with people. The challenges are
Speaker 2: being my boss, right, so I could. I'm an awesome employee,
Speaker 2: but I'm not always an awesome boss of me because
Speaker 2: you've got to do the things you don't want to do,
Speaker 2: so setting boundaries, making decisions that would be good for
Speaker 2: business and executing them and sitting down and working on
Speaker 2: the business and not burning out.
Speaker 3: Like I wrote that to ask you what you think.
Speaker 2: About burnout, Like to not burn out, to not do
Speaker 2: too much, because we associate burnout with shit we don't
Speaker 2: want to do, Like I've got a ship job of
Speaker 2: burnt out and working hard for the man. But I
Speaker 2: think burnout you draw that silly little wheel of life
Speaker 2: that people draw, which is not silly, but you know,
Speaker 2: and if you love like I do, if you love
Speaker 2: what you do and then you end up doing it
Speaker 2: seven days a week and you love the shit out
Speaker 2: of it, there's no room in that circle for your
Speaker 2: social and your spirit, ritual, in your community and your
Speaker 2: giving and so parts. So some of your buckets end
Speaker 2: up empty. And it's not because I'm burds out. But
Speaker 2: you do what you love and you've got so much
Speaker 2: flexibility and time off and whatever. You're like, yeah, but
Speaker 2: there's all these other buckets that are kind of empty,
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a story I tell myself too, is it? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I get a lot of my needs met through
Speaker 1: work because it's social. And it's that's true. Like I'm
Speaker 1: fucking terrible at having a holiday. Like I've noticed the
Speaker 1: amount of people who got to mean, when's the last
Speaker 1: time you had a holiday? I go, next question, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's yeah, that's actually that's actually something
Speaker 1: think about. Gone.
Speaker 2: I can think of times where I've I've sat and
Speaker 2: felt overwhelmingly lonely, and then I've looked scrolled at my
Speaker 2: phone and gone, actually, and I can count them sometimes
Speaker 2: and go like ten or twelve people have actually just
Speaker 2: reached out to connect with you today, not even not
Speaker 2: just work stuff, but like just connecting like you're actually
Speaker 2: not lonely, but because I'm out, but you know, it's
Speaker 2: me with my clients or me with my podcast guess,
Speaker 2: and I love it. It's what a great job. But
Speaker 2: it's not the same as social socializing and not being
Speaker 2: someone in those moments.
Speaker 3: So and that's not often.
Speaker 2: But when I feel it, I feel it deeply and
Speaker 2: go you better pay attention to this feeling because it's important.
Speaker 1: What about Oh, actually, now I'm not going to ask
Speaker 1: that question because then I'm changing the necture of the conversation.
Speaker 1: When when did you decide or did you decide or
Speaker 1: was it just a gradual shift out of having a job,
Speaker 1: because before before this also you owned were part owner
Speaker 1: in a couple of gyms, so you've worked for yourself
Speaker 1: for a while and been in business with people. Did
Speaker 1: you go did you one day go out, I want
Speaker 1: to work for people, I want to work for me?
Speaker 1: Or did just an opportunity right as you took the
Speaker 1: opportunity and it's just been almost like an unconscious shift
Speaker 1: or has it been something that's been quite deliberate in
Speaker 1: that you working for you and you having your own business.
Speaker 2: Now an opportunity that kind of unfolded in several little ways.
Speaker 2: One was throughout my boxing challenge, I ended up getting
Speaker 2: the opportunity to do my three qualifications in fitness really
Speaker 2: cheap as an auction item my board at one of
Speaker 2: the fundraisers we were having. So I picked that up
Speaker 2: for five hundred bus. I thought, what a bargain. Wow,
Speaker 2: I should do that because I'd be really interested and
Speaker 2: maybe one day, maybe one day it had come in handy,
Speaker 2: but for now, it's just interested me. And I upgraded
Speaker 2: that and did the pt CORP because it took me
Speaker 2: two years, and I paid two years in a road
Speaker 2: to up to extend the time on it because I
Speaker 2: just didn't plan to use it. And over this time,
Speaker 2: the gym that I was training at I was saying,
Speaker 2: do you want to hurry up into that course?
Speaker 3: You could take a class here. I was like, okay, cool, and.
Speaker 2: He goes, I'll get you a key, and I don't
Speaker 2: need a key because I'm not going to be doing PTS.
Speaker 3: I just do a class a week.
Speaker 2: And then the week that I finished that, one of
Speaker 2: my networking contacts said how much and how often? And
Speaker 2: you're my new trainer.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: He started training with two people did that and within
Speaker 2: six months I was that busy that I went, shit,
Speaker 2: I have to make a decision because I can't keep
Speaker 2: saying yes to clients.
Speaker 3: But I can't.
Speaker 2: And what I felt was, people do this course and
Speaker 2: would love to be in my shoes in six months time.
Speaker 2: They would love the opportunity to throw in the towel
Speaker 2: on work and have PTE in full time. And I
Speaker 2: just thought, I kind of owe it to the like
Speaker 2: to be. I just owe it to the opportunity. And
Speaker 2: I thought, like, what's the worst can happen? I'll go
Speaker 2: back and get a job again, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know if you realize this, but like,
Speaker 1: what's amazing about that story If anyone knows in a failure,
Speaker 1: it's me about personal training and that particular like the
Speaker 1: amount of trainers who do the course and then within
Speaker 1: that timeframe are basically booked out. It's hardly anyone. And
Speaker 1: it's not like you had some big marketing branding scheme,
Speaker 1: some online bloody funnel, you know, It's just like you
Speaker 1: did it. People clearly liked you. You clearly were good
Speaker 1: at it, whatever you were doing, whether it was all
Speaker 1: about or a bit about personality, a bit about the outcome,
Speaker 1: a bit about the training, a bit about the overall experience.
Speaker 1: Like that is a real feather in your cap that
Speaker 1: you may not like just because I mean, I meet
Speaker 1: trainers all the time, and I see trainers in gyms,
Speaker 1: I travel all the time, and there ain't many trainers
Speaker 1: as a percentage who are doing a rock solid twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty sessions plus you know it would be a
Speaker 1: small percentage.
Speaker 2: Here's what I learned out of that about me, which
Speaker 2: is insightful and equally frustrating because I think I'm still
Speaker 2: bound by it a lot.
Speaker 3: But when.
Speaker 2: Safety and security is covered when I don't need it,
Speaker 2: when I'm out of my own way.
Speaker 3: It's easy.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I valued the time that I had outside of full
Speaker 2: time work to do my own training and compete in boxing.
Speaker 2: So I needed to put a rate that was worth
Speaker 2: me not resenting a client. So I charged ten bucks
Speaker 2: more than I was paying my boxing trainer that had
Speaker 2: trained for a lot, like trained for a decade and
Speaker 2: had a bunch of fights, and then out of that
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, you're charging a packet. Now you'll
Speaker 2: value the session. Now you've got to kill it. You've
Speaker 2: got to make it worth their while because you're charging
Speaker 2: them that much. And because it so then there was
Speaker 2: not that scarcity in that lack mindset. When I didn't
Speaker 2: need it, it's easy, and then you don't. I think
Speaker 2: there's an energy to you when you need a client
Speaker 2: to say yes, I've got to give them a price.
Speaker 2: I need them to say yes, what do I do?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And it changes the I don't know whether they sense
Speaker 2: it, it changes the interaction. So yeah, I feel like it
Speaker 2: was easy. But there's something behind the situation for me
Speaker 2: that allowed that to unfold, And I wonder if it
Speaker 2: would have unfolded the same way, a little bit like
Speaker 2: when I said, you know, same with the podcast. I
Speaker 2: started it, and I was like, I don't it's not
Speaker 2: wasn't to make money or be successful or even get
Speaker 2: a lot of listeners. It was to enhance my speaking
Speaker 2: skills and leverage the opportunity to leverage networking, to build
Speaker 2: relationships with people that were superstars like you and all
Speaker 2: of the guests I've had on the show. Because I
Speaker 2: had this opportunity to do that, and then you know,
Speaker 2: in no time, it was like you've got a stack
Speaker 2: of listeners and you're on the charts in Australia and
Speaker 2: you've got sponsors. And I was like, oh that's oh dear.
Speaker 2: If that had to been the goal, I want to
Speaker 2: ship myself at the start and probably not achieved it.
Speaker 1: And you know the irony, I love that story. And
Speaker 1: the irony is that like when you like when you
Speaker 1: don't need clients in inverted comments, like you're happy to
Speaker 1: have them, work with them, but you don't need there's
Speaker 1: no desperation, right then you're more attractive as and then
Speaker 1: it's like with my speaking now. And I mean this
Speaker 1: with humility and grace because there was a long time
Speaker 1: where this wasn't the case. But I can pick and
Speaker 1: choose because I don't have much free time, and so
Speaker 1: you know, if people want me to do a I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about helping people out here like work with
Speaker 1: charities and stuff, it's different. But if somebody wants me
Speaker 1: to do a professional speaking gig, then there's a certain
Speaker 1: rate and I'm like and then if they try to bargain,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's not Victoria Market, bro, I'm not bargaining.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, if you want to buy you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you don't fill up the car with petrol
Speaker 1: and go, I won't pay you one hundred, but I'll
Speaker 1: give you sixty. No, dude, it's a hundred for the ptrol.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like this isn't you know, it's what
Speaker 1: it is. And I mean that in it. It's the
Speaker 1: same with you know, It's like I say to people
Speaker 1: all the time, Look, if you just want a cheap speaker,
Speaker 1: there are heaps. There's a lot of people that are
Speaker 1: weigh and that's and I don't mean that in an
Speaker 1: arrogant way. It's like, and there are probably some speakers
Speaker 1: who cost a lot less than me per hour who
Speaker 1: are pretty good. So you know, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: if you know, without mentioning a number, but let's say
Speaker 1: my ALI rate is four x, right, if somebody rang
Speaker 1: up like an Z or whoever, or Telstra or any
Speaker 1: of the big clients that I work with on a
Speaker 1: semi regular basis, and then Melissa, who does all that,
Speaker 1: if she went, oh that'll be one x. That go
Speaker 1: what they would go, No, no, no, we want Craig. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that, you also need in that space. You need
Speaker 1: to charge at a certain level or above or people
Speaker 1: won't think you're any good. So it's actually a really
Speaker 1: like the perception and the psychology of value. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, I think about this, like I
Speaker 1: was talking to a trainer a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: and they're good, you know, they're not amazing, but they're good.
Speaker 1: They're rock solid. And then I you know, this still
Speaker 1: blows me away. The average trainer, or the average pretty
Speaker 1: good trainer now is about one hundred dollars an hour, right,
Speaker 1: And you think, oh, imagine if you work in the morning,
Speaker 1: let's say six to ten, you know, and then at night,
Speaker 1: let's say you do just five till seven. And let's
Speaker 1: say you do that five days a week, right, So
Speaker 1: six till ten in the morning, five to seven at night.
Speaker 1: That's six hours a day. That's six hundred That thirty
Speaker 1: thirty hours. Thirty hours, yeah, or thirty hours times one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. Of course it's three grand, and you're like
Speaker 1: three that's one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year
Speaker 1: for a part time job walking around the fucking gym
Speaker 1: in sneakers and some shots or real it's hard or
Speaker 1: a tracksuit or like, and it's not like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but no one's doing that. No, that's not true. People.
Speaker 1: And of course, like I said before, the majority are
Speaker 1: not making a killing. But I mean I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I know a lot of trainers who
Speaker 1: make one hundred dollars an hour or more. And I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, like, unless you're a fucking neurosurgeon or you know,
Speaker 1: like I mean, imagine where you can do a part
Speaker 1: time job working in an environment that's if you like
Speaker 1: that environment and you're all about health, fitness and coaching
Speaker 1: and helping people. But for some people, I think, wow,
Speaker 1: what a dream job, you know, or you might go,
Speaker 1: you know what, I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Think about
Speaker 1: this for a business model. I met a girl I've
Speaker 1: told this story before, a lady I should say, in
Speaker 1: the States, and she used to work Monday, Wednesday Friday.
Speaker 1: And back then, this was twenty years ago. She used
Speaker 1: to earn about one hundred thousand a year US twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, right, and so that was you know, that's
Speaker 1: the equivalent of about one hundred and thirty or forty
Speaker 1: grand Australian now. But this was twenty years ago. Now
Speaker 1: you think she worked three days, which meant she didn't
Speaker 1: work four days. You times that by fifty weeks, that's
Speaker 1: two hundred and eight days a year that she wasn't
Speaker 1: working while making way more than the average person made
Speaker 1: in America. And she was just great. She was very efficient.
Speaker 1: She'd work hard for a day than a day off,
Speaker 1: so she never worked two days in a row. So
Speaker 1: she had Tuesday off, Thursday off, Saturday off, Sunday off
Speaker 1: every week, and then of course she'd take holidays. But
Speaker 1: I just think that, you know, this fix to the
Speaker 1: idea of could I design my own life, and could
Speaker 1: I design my own job in the middle of that life?
Speaker 1: What would that look like? You know what if in fact,
Speaker 1: Michael who used to work with me, shout out to Suzi,
Speaker 1: he ended up. I don't know what he's doing. Oh
Speaker 1: I do know what he's doing now he's doing something
Speaker 1: totally different. But he got to the point where he
Speaker 1: would start training people at five and finish at twelve.
Speaker 1: So every day of the week work's done it midday, like,
Speaker 1: never working past midday. I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And if you're an early morning person, Bibbity Bobby Boo.
Speaker 1: You get up at four, get yourself a coffee. At
Speaker 1: seven eleven, you're on the gym floor telling old mate
Speaker 1: to get on the bike and asking him about what
Speaker 1: he ate last night at the fucking corporate dinner. And
Speaker 1: then it's mid morning and then boom, it's midday and
Speaker 1: you've done it and you've worked and you're never working
Speaker 1: past me, and it's not like you're working through the night.
Speaker 1: Like there are so many ways to build something that
Speaker 1: not that's going to be you working for you, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just something that you do on the side.
Speaker 2: Self worth and valuing yourself. That's like, that's something that
Speaker 2: comes into play when you start working for yourself, because
Speaker 2: I mean, I was in sales before that. I worked
Speaker 2: for a print company. It was the last job that
Speaker 2: I had. They are amazing. We weren't the cheapest. We
Speaker 2: weren't cheapest. I'm out getting quotes, I'm looking for new business,
Speaker 2: I'm creating relationships, and price wasn't an issue. But then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, when you're working for yourself, the
Speaker 2: price conversation and the justification and the terms and conditions,
Speaker 2: it's like you want to print this with us, This
Speaker 2: is our price, this is the terms you've got to
Speaker 2: pay before it pray or not doing the order, you
Speaker 2: pay before it before it's printed. And then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, we're going out, I'm a personal trainer. Oh,
Speaker 2: this is my rate. Oh you know, we have all
Speaker 2: this story about that, and then they cancel for the
Speaker 2: first time and you go, oh, you know, like, I'm
Speaker 2: a lot more lenient now. But in the beginning, my
Speaker 2: cancelation was it's one hundred percent cancelation rate for twenty
Speaker 2: four hours.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: And it worked really well for me. And what I
Speaker 2: found with a with the rate that I was charging
Speaker 2: and the terms and conditions, the clients that were attracted
Speaker 2: to me. As clients were committed, they go, oh, that's
Speaker 2: the price. That's my investment for a year. That's a
Speaker 2: year's training. We're not bickering over. There's nothing worse than
Speaker 2: someone going, oh, I can't afford to train this week,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, I can't really fucking afford to
Speaker 2: not earn money today, But you get to make that
Speaker 2: choice and then it's on me. So there's all of
Speaker 2: the emotion around that that I think people need to
Speaker 2: think about and go, what are my terms in creating
Speaker 2: this and find the happy medium and you'll be flexible
Speaker 2: where you need to. But you have to have boundaries.
Speaker 2: See my cat's taught me those.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Thank god for the cat cding you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm with you, but like I also think,
Speaker 1: like your clot your clients need to and it needs
Speaker 1: to be genuine. Your clients need to feel like they
Speaker 1: are more to you than a meal ticket. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's like, you know, if my
Speaker 1: clients would ring up and go, oh fuck, dude, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: my daughter's been up all night with Tonsla, I'd be like, yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: of course, look after him or her. See you next time.
Speaker 1: You can't go, oh, well, I don't give a shit.
Speaker 1: You know, they're sitting in Sandringham Hospital with a sick
Speaker 1: kid and I'm going, well, that's going to cost you
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks. You know. So I think rules are good,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, in that kind of dynamic with
Speaker 1: clients where you genuinely want to care about them. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're not your buddies, they're still clients. It's still a
Speaker 1: commercial arrangement. But I remember, so I shut Harper's ten
Speaker 1: years ago this month, right, so that's interesting. But towards
Speaker 1: the end where I wasn't training many people, my team
Speaker 1: were training people, even I would say fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: which is say two thousand and nine. I you know,
Speaker 1: I had clients, but as people would drop off, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take new people. So fifteen years ago, if somebody
Speaker 1: wanted to train with me or to train with one
Speaker 1: of my team, that was sixty dollars an hour fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, which was a lot back then, right, because
Speaker 1: the average I don't know, the average wage was probably
Speaker 1: fifteen to eighteen dollars back then in I don't know,
Speaker 1: sales or perhaps customer service or something, maybe not even that,
Speaker 1: So sixty dollars was like three to four times what
Speaker 1: a lot of people were earning per hour. So it's
Speaker 1: still a good right wage. And I put up my
Speaker 1: basically just assuming that people would go, ah, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it, because I didn't want new clients because I
Speaker 1: was doing other things. And in a nice way, I've said,
Speaker 1: how things have a use by date. I didn't hate it,
Speaker 1: but I just wasn't excited about being on the gym
Speaker 1: floor being a trainer anymore. So I worked with the
Speaker 1: people that I had had for a long time, and
Speaker 1: when one dropped off, I wouldn't take on a new one.
Speaker 1: So I put up my price to two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars an hour in two thousand and nine, and
Speaker 1: still regularly people would come in. Now they could train
Speaker 1: with Tiff on the floor at sixty bucks an hour
Speaker 1: in the same gym, on the same equipment and do
Speaker 1: pretty much the same thing. And a lot of people
Speaker 1: did that, of course, but there were still people who
Speaker 1: would choose to pay four times the amount to train
Speaker 1: with me, and I would try to talk them out
Speaker 1: of it, and the most I would do is one
Speaker 1: a week with them, and I would say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like this is silly because you can go do
Speaker 1: you know. And I had ten trainers that were somewhere
Speaker 1: between good and fucking great, and then another bunch that
Speaker 1: were pretty solid, right, so you know. But again that's
Speaker 1: that perception where people think, oh, well, you know, like
Speaker 1: for some people they might think two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars with me is actually better value than sixty bucks
Speaker 1: with someone else. I don't think it is, by the way.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that people like that's that psychology of value.
Speaker 2: But and that's it, Like you don't get to choose that.
Speaker 2: You don't get to choose what someone's taking out of that,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I realized after all these years that
Speaker 2: everyone is having a different is placing different value and
Speaker 2: has very different needs in how I show up as
Speaker 2: their trainer and it's got nothing to do with the
Speaker 2: exercise on the day, you know.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Josh today as you know, and
Speaker 1: Josh Pittman, who was who is one of Australia's best,
Speaker 1: if not best, stage performers, Fantom of the opera Laims
Speaker 1: Cats a whole bunch of staff London West End. He
Speaker 1: was the phantom. He was also the Phantom in Australia.
Speaker 1: And also what's the lead in Le Mis Jean Paul
Speaker 1: val someba I don't know, but anyway, not my space,
Speaker 1: but anyway, world renowned stage performer. And he was talking
Speaker 1: to me about, you know, just work. We were talking
Speaker 1: about he's starting to do a little bit of corporate
Speaker 1: stuff and speaking and I'm helping him with a few things.
Speaker 1: But he does he does corporate singing where he'll do
Speaker 1: an event. Now I don't know what, I actually don't
Speaker 1: know what, but I'm guessing that having Josh turn up
Speaker 1: for an hour or something is going to cost somewhere
Speaker 1: between ten and fifteen grand That's what I'm thinking. And
Speaker 1: you think, oh my god, that's you know, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and you go, well, here's the thing, right again, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: we could get a singer to come in for probably
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars, someone with a pretty decent voice. But
Speaker 1: they're not the Phantom of the Opera. They're not the
Speaker 1: guy who played the Phantom on the West End in
Speaker 1: London to rave reviews and sang on the Sydney Opera
Speaker 1: house stairs to a global audience and bleue Andrew Lloyd
Speaker 1: webber Away, who then asked him to come. He's not
Speaker 1: the guy who sat and sang for King Charles at
Speaker 1: a table with the King on the table, you know,
Speaker 1: he's the guy who sang to ninety two thousand people
Speaker 1: at the mcg live. I mean, so that's what you're
Speaker 1: paying for, right, And it's like, yeah, he can sing.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who can sing, but obviously
Speaker 1: he's amazing. But it's still like you're kind of buying
Speaker 1: the brand and you're buying the product, and yes, he
Speaker 1: can sing great, but you go, oh, we've got the
Speaker 1: Phantom of the opera or the guy who is the
Speaker 1: Phantom of the opera is coming and blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. People want that. And there's probably people out
Speaker 1: there as good or better than me, perhaps that might
Speaker 1: be able to do a corporate gig for one x,
Speaker 1: not four x, but no one knows who they are.
Speaker 1: And so this is the part of the you know,
Speaker 1: and that's the journey you're on now with corporate speaking.
Speaker 1: You're on the journey of building brand, profile, experience confidence.
Speaker 1: But as I've said to you one thousand times, your
Speaker 1: potential is vast and your hourly rate is worth way
Speaker 1: more than it was a year ago, and way more
Speaker 1: than it was two years ago. And it's not that
Speaker 1: you're of course you're better, but your hourly rate has
Speaker 1: grown exponentially, while your skill has just grown. Yes, because
Speaker 1: it's still about oh so you do corporate speaking, yes,
Speaker 1: whereas a few years ago it's now I'm starting, But
Speaker 1: now you do it. Yeah, you know. So it's that
Speaker 1: perspective of like what people think of you will influence
Speaker 1: their their perception about and whether or not that's as
Speaker 1: an accountant, or whether or not that's as Josh singing,
Speaker 1: and whether or not that's as a pt or whether
Speaker 1: or not it's as you know, if I'd pay a
Speaker 1: grand to go and see an awesome doctor, not that
Speaker 1: I want to pay a grand. Let's be more reasonable.
Speaker 1: If I had to pay three hundred bucks for an
Speaker 1: appointment with an awesome doctor versus one hundred for an
Speaker 1: average one, I'll pay three hundred. I want awesome when
Speaker 1: it comes to my health. I want the best person
Speaker 1: I can get, So I'm not looking for the cheapest doctor.
Speaker 1: And yes that's a lot of money, but you go, well, fuck,
Speaker 1: what is my health worth?
Speaker 2: You know, when you like it just reminds me of
Speaker 2: who you were to me at the beginning. Like I
Speaker 2: remember taking a phone call from you and I was
Speaker 2: still working at fight fitting Collingwood. I remember standing out
Speaker 2: like it's funny you remember moments I remember standing I'd
Speaker 2: ask you to if you look over my speaker bio
Speaker 2: and you rang me and I was pacing up and
Speaker 2: down in front of the gym talking to you on
Speaker 2: the phone, and you said something along the lines of
Speaker 2: it's good, it's not as good as you are, And
Speaker 2: I just remember that that just like the way I
Speaker 2: held on to that feedback and you said, I'd like
Speaker 2: to let me spend some time on it and I'll
Speaker 2: help you write it. It's really good, but I think
Speaker 2: that it could be a lot better. And I just
Speaker 2: went that Craig Harpert just said like I was like,
Speaker 2: Craig Harpert just said that to me. Hey, Carpet just
Speaker 2: said that to me, like the confidence I got from now.
Speaker 2: Anyone else could have said that, Oh great, old have
Speaker 2: been whatever. I don't care, but you said it right,
Speaker 2: And it's about what matters more is who am I
Speaker 2: when I'm around that person? Who am I when I
Speaker 2: choose that person to be in my corner? Who do
Speaker 2: I show up as?
Speaker 3: And what does it?
Speaker 2: What effect does it have? Well in both ways, if
Speaker 2: you've got a ship person or a great person.
Speaker 1: And you know that I've given you tough love and
Speaker 1: I've given you love love, and I'm always speaking what
Speaker 1: I be believe to be the truth, and you know
Speaker 1: it's like my job. I feel my job for you
Speaker 1: as whatever I am in your life a mentor obviously
Speaker 1: a friend first but mental coach, whatever is to help
Speaker 1: you be great and all of whatever that means in
Speaker 1: all of the ways that it can mean something right
Speaker 1: to whether or not that's as a communicator, a business person,
Speaker 1: a podcaster. Ah, you know you've already nailed that, I think,
Speaker 1: But you know, a corporate speaker, my job is not
Speaker 1: to make you feel great for thirty seconds, or my
Speaker 1: job is not to stroke your ego or manage your emotions.
Speaker 1: And I know that, and I you know, I think
Speaker 1: part of the problem these days is that that's what
Speaker 1: people want from a friend or a mentor, is someone
Speaker 1: to make them feel good. Like that's a fucking problem,
Speaker 1: Like that's a problem. I will definitely, I definitely don't
Speaker 1: want to hurt your feelings. I definitely don't want to
Speaker 1: be a source of whatever emotional or psychological pain for you.
Speaker 1: But I would rather tell you what I believe to
Speaker 1: be the truth if I think that's going to help
Speaker 1: you over the long term, you know, and you know
Speaker 1: that's I think, which harkens back to that idea of
Speaker 1: an unreasonable friend. Somebody who loves you, cares about you,
Speaker 1: wants the best for you, but they're not always going
Speaker 1: to tell you what you want to hear because it
Speaker 1: doesn't actually help you. It doesn't you know, the great
Speaker 1: molly coddling of the twenty first century is we're all
Speaker 1: got to tell each other that we're all fucking amazing
Speaker 1: and special, but we're not. We're dumb cunts sometimes, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes we're just fucking idiots, including me and you, And
Speaker 1: sometimes you're an idiot and sometimes you do dumb shit.
Speaker 1: But do you have vast potential? Yes? Do you have
Speaker 1: great genetics? Yes? Can you learn well? Yes? Are you improving? Yes?
Speaker 1: Are you better in everything you know? In terms of
Speaker 1: the stuff you know? Even you in a gym, like
Speaker 1: you've never really trained properly with weights until a year
Speaker 1: and a bit ago. Now your body's very different, your
Speaker 1: training's very different, your understanding of how to not only
Speaker 1: train yourself but tray others with because you've been through
Speaker 1: this learning process, right, and you know I train you
Speaker 1: sometimes and it's not fun, but the outcome is fucking great.
Speaker 2: True, Then the value of that because I'm now heading
Speaker 2: into my forties and my clients have so many clients
Speaker 2: that are forty fifty sixty plus, and the so much
Speaker 2: content that I've consumed around how we need to strength
Speaker 2: train in this period of our life, But that has
Speaker 2: been coupled with the experience with you, which is just like,
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for it because it's literally changed how
Speaker 2: I've been training people. I've dragged them into a completely
Speaker 2: different type of training, and I have completely different conversations.
Speaker 1: I think you and I both probably even despite all
Speaker 1: of our individual and independent research and study, and you've
Speaker 1: done a bit and I've done a lot, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm okay at study. Let's be honest.
Speaker 3: I'm not a superstar, and you're PhD candidate.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, but I'm I'm not fucking killing it,
Speaker 4: am I. I'm just fucking humpty, dumpty. I'm just fucking
Speaker 4: I'm just the I'm the turtle, you know, of the tortoise.
Speaker 4: I should say I'm the academic tortoise, but I'm.
Speaker 1: Okay with that. But what I was going to say
Speaker 1: is I'm an experiential learner. You're an experiential learner. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about how to deadlift. I'm
Speaker 1: going to show you. I'm going to deadlift in front
Speaker 1: of you. Then I'm going to get you to deadlift,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go no, change this, do that
Speaker 1: movie feet, movie hips, head up, activate your tva do that? No,
Speaker 1: nearly there, No, yep nah nah yet perfect done right,
Speaker 1: And that's going to take seven minutes, Versus I could
Speaker 1: give you a one hour lecture on the fucking theory
Speaker 1: of deadlifting and you won't remember it and you'll get
Speaker 1: in the gym and you'll do a dogshit deadlift because
Speaker 1: that's not how you learn optimally. Can you learn like
Speaker 1: that a bit? Can I learn like that a bit?
Speaker 1: Is that optimal for you? No? You know? And this
Speaker 1: is this speaks back to everything, and whether or not
Speaker 1: it is a job good for you depends our Alma's
Speaker 1: good for you. It depends. Is this kind of learning
Speaker 1: paradigm good for you? It depends, because it's all about
Speaker 1: the person in the middle of whatever the activity or
Speaker 1: the process is. It's you know, this assumption that there's
Speaker 1: a best way to do anything is built on ignorance,
Speaker 1: because if you actually did a deep dive or even
Speaker 1: opened your eyes a bit or your mind a bit,
Speaker 1: you'd realize that there's no best way for virtually anything, like,
Speaker 1: you know, everything from grieving to eating to sleeping to relationships.
Speaker 1: You know, is there a best relationship model? Nah? Is
Speaker 1: there a best way a single best way to build
Speaker 1: a business, nah, you know, and that's the thing. So well,
Speaker 1: it's been fun. We went a lot of places.
Speaker 5: As always, if people want to reach out and contact
Speaker 5: you because they want somebody who's good but doesn't fucking
Speaker 5: rip them off like Harps, how do they do that?
Speaker 2: Can check me out at tiffcook dot com and all
Speaker 2: of the social places.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And if you've fucking cashed up, you can
Speaker 1: go to Craig Harp't there and I'll rip you off
Speaker 1: like a fuck. No, I won't, No, I won't, No,
Speaker 1: I won't. I won't do that at all. All right, everyone,
Speaker 1: love your collective guts is Thanks Tiff, Thanks HAPs