Speaker 1: I get a team with Bloody rolling. We started the
Speaker 1: good stuff before we press the go button. So fuck it.
Speaker 1: I've just put the pause button on Ben Sury, Tiffany
Speaker 1: and called Craig Ethney half of the You Project. We're
Speaker 1: just talking, Ben Surry, welcome officially to the typ Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining.
Speaker 2: Us, thanks for having me, thanks for being hat champion.
Speaker 1: Now we're just talking about your aversion to dogs, but
Speaker 1: your love of cats and Tiff was a little bit upset.
Speaker 1: Let's unpack that. What's she suggested you might be a sociopath.
Speaker 1: I want to hear your defense.
Speaker 3: I have a very clear defense to go straight to
Speaker 3: my backstory. I grew up on a farm in New
Speaker 3: Zealand and dogs are working animals, so you don't play
Speaker 3: with that.
Speaker 2: In fact, you're not even allowed to play with them,
Speaker 2: otherwise you might ruin them and they can't mustard the
Speaker 2: sheet properly. So you know, you guys can come back
Speaker 2: at me with something now if you like. But what
Speaker 2: do you go?
Speaker 1: That's Tiff, what do you I can't see your dog
Speaker 1: must doing anything other than the cat, and I feel
Speaker 1: like your cat's more likely to muster your dog. So
Speaker 1: your two animals apart from being cute, are fucking useless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to I agree with you there, Craig.
Speaker 3: I do look at the domestic dogs in Melbourne. I
Speaker 3: think they are quite useless. They couldn't muster a sheep
Speaker 3: or be of.
Speaker 2: Any use on a farm.
Speaker 1: No, they couldn't must for a fucking butterfly.
Speaker 2: Anyway, they muster my emotions. Doesn't that count? That's a
Speaker 2: bit of a fun that does count.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't. They have definitely corralled you into the
Speaker 1: top emotional paddock and they've got you stuck in the
Speaker 1: corner like a fucking in an emotional prison, with the
Speaker 1: keys being held by a fucking dog and a cat
Speaker 1: being helped to ransom in your own place. Hey, beneficially,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. You're a busy man,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 3: That's an absolute pleasure to chat with you.
Speaker 1: Now without me doing some boring monologue about how amazing
Speaker 1: you are and all the shit you've done. Can you
Speaker 1: give to seven people on in my audience who don't
Speaker 1: know you. I'm suggesting the majority do that who don't
Speaker 1: know you. Can you give us the self bio? What
Speaker 1: do you you know when people don't know you, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure happens periodically, and they go, what do you do?
Speaker 1: What's the answer to that?
Speaker 3: I hate talking about myself in that way, but I
Speaker 3: guess I'm a chef.
Speaker 2: I own a restaurant called Attica in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: I live a very passionate life and I'm into people
Speaker 3: and everything kind of I come from New Zealand and
Speaker 3: I'm a dad friend trying not to fuck anything up
Speaker 3: too much.
Speaker 2: That's kind of generally my my idea.
Speaker 1: Well, you fucked it up with TIF straight out of
Speaker 1: the gates, so you've got about now to repair that
Speaker 1: damage relationship with B.
Speaker 2: I'll try hard.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're an uh. I was going to
Speaker 1: phrase say frustrated, but definitely not frustrated, but I feel
Speaker 1: like you're an artist. Like I knew of you, but
Speaker 1: didn't You and I had a brief chat the other
Speaker 1: day for about thirty nine seconds, and I've got to
Speaker 1: know each other a little bit. I knew about Attica,
Speaker 1: I knew about you, but I didn't know you. But
Speaker 1: the more I've been having to look at your stuff
Speaker 1: and reading about you and listening to a bit recently,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're really just an artist who expresses
Speaker 1: himself in different ways.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting take that you get straight to that
Speaker 3: there's a history of shit of sort of ridiculing chefs
Speaker 3: that call themselves artists.
Speaker 2: So there's always that kind of.
Speaker 3: History in that part of our culture where I'm kind
Speaker 3: of reluctant to call myself an artist. But certainly the
Speaker 3: project of the restaurant is an art project. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not a it's not really like a business that
Speaker 3: makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: It's fairfully independent.
Speaker 3: We work with people for more many backgrounds, from artists
Speaker 3: to writers, to musicians, to makers to growers, and it's
Speaker 3: just a really fun project that's sort of full passion
Speaker 3: and where we really get to expect express ourselves creatively
Speaker 3: in any way we.
Speaker 1: Want to m when you're growing up on that farm
Speaker 1: with those dogs that you treated like bloody slaves. Sorry, Tiff,
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep opening that wound. What did
Speaker 1: you think you were going to do when you were
Speaker 1: in inverted commas? Big?
Speaker 2: When I was big? What do you mean, like like,
Speaker 2: you know, when.
Speaker 1: You're an actual when you were grown up?
Speaker 2: What did you what did you what did you want
Speaker 2: to do?
Speaker 3: Maybe Well, the only thing I ever wanted to do
Speaker 3: from day dot, really from as young as I can remember,
Speaker 3: and it even sort of predates my memory, was to
Speaker 3: become a shift So that starts at h five for me.
Speaker 3: And I'm absolutely certain about that. Why I was so certain,
Speaker 3: I'm not entirely sure. I mean, it's definitely growing up
Speaker 3: around the love of cooking and being so so close
Speaker 3: to primary ingredients and my mother making food from our
Speaker 3: farm and from the land.
Speaker 2: But there was no cooks in my family. It wasn't
Speaker 2: really a thing in the early eighties.
Speaker 3: It's not like it is now where people become famous
Speaker 3: and have large followings, and it's just a completely different time.
Speaker 3: So I guess my desire to become a shift just
Speaker 3: came from a pure love of cooking.
Speaker 1: And what is it like to I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: dumb question, but I'm genuinely curious to have to have
Speaker 1: a business that's been called one of the top Well
Speaker 1: is one you and I chat the other day about
Speaker 1: how do you even evaluate that? But it is regarded
Speaker 1: as one of the best restaurants or top fifty in
Speaker 1: the world. I don't know how many fucking restaurants there are,
Speaker 1: well but let's just go with a shitload. Does that
Speaker 1: make you feel proud or uneasy or like, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's a great achievement or a great accolade at the
Speaker 1: very least, But how does that sit with you?
Speaker 3: It's a very odd thing for me, because you know
Speaker 3: that there's never been the reason for the work. You know,
Speaker 3: like I said, the work is about being with an
Speaker 3: incredible team of people and serving an amazing group of
Speaker 3: customers and doing this thing with all of your heart
Speaker 3: and mind really, and there's other stuff that kind of
Speaker 3: comes along, these things that other people bestow upon you,
Speaker 3: but also can kind of remove very easily as well.
Speaker 2: It's a bit odd because I've been very careful, Craig.
Speaker 3: To sort of never attach an even my personal work
Speaker 3: to these sorts of awards, and at different times I've
Speaker 3: appreciated them, particularly in my early years. But you know,
Speaker 3: you win something, if you let that go to your head,
Speaker 3: it'll also destroy you. You know, if you think the
Speaker 3: work's done and that there's effectively there's an awards ceremony,
Speaker 3: you're anointed whatever you are, and then the next day
Speaker 3: the work has to begin again. And so pretty early
Speaker 3: on I learned that that wasn't the reason for it.
Speaker 2: I don't know how.
Speaker 3: It makes me feel just kind of odd, Like like
Speaker 3: we discussed yesterday, you know, how can you really say
Speaker 3: what the top fifty restaurants in the world are, Like,
Speaker 3: that's not really possible, actually, and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people that.
Speaker 2: That don't get the attention that they should for various reasons.
Speaker 1: I think it's quite I don't know if you did
Speaker 1: that accidentally or intentionally or intuitively, but that that thing
Speaker 1: not to attach your self worth or your identity to
Speaker 1: the thing that you're good at, or like, you know,
Speaker 1: to an award or a brand or a that's quite
Speaker 1: smart because my experience is when people have their identity
Speaker 1: intertwined with their accolades or their you know, the status
Speaker 1: of their business or their career, at that point in time,
Speaker 1: when that goes away, they're fucked because you know that
Speaker 1: that thing that made them them that isn't there anymore,
Speaker 1: and then they don't know who the fuck they are.
Speaker 3: No, And I couldn't agree more or and it's something
Speaker 3: to be so cautious of. I wrote a line recently
Speaker 3: which I was proud of, which which which which says
Speaker 3: most climbers are killed on the descent. And by that
Speaker 3: I mean you know, actually physically on Everestore or any
Speaker 3: other huge mountain that's you know, you're tied you on
Speaker 3: the way down, that's when it gets to you run
Speaker 3: out of oxygen or the storm overcomes you. But also
Speaker 3: in that sense of like socially climbing or climbing the
Speaker 3: ladder of fame and awards and accolades, nobody can ever
Speaker 3: stay on top forever. And so if you don't have
Speaker 3: some sort of central values to latch onto and to
Speaker 3: lock onto that, and you don't if you're doing it
Speaker 3: for the wrong reasons, you know, and they can never
Speaker 3: be for fame.
Speaker 2: Actually, because that's that's just just fleeting.
Speaker 3: And and if you're not prepared for that to leave you,
Speaker 3: like if you don't understand it, that's just temporary or
Speaker 3: not even real, and then you're going to get really
Speaker 3: lost when that goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so interesting. I wrote a book years ago,
Speaker 1: I don't know, fifteen years ago, one of my books,
Speaker 1: and in this I have this pretend conversation with this dude,
Speaker 1: which was really a reflection of many actual conversations. But
Speaker 1: it goes something like, so I sit down with a client,
Speaker 1: which I used to I used to own gyms and stuff,
Speaker 1: which you know, And I'd sit down with people who'd
Speaker 1: come in because they want to, you know, change their body,
Speaker 1: their mindset, habits, behavior's outcome, health, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And I'd go, so, tell me about you, and then
Speaker 1: they'd tell me about their business, or then they'd tell
Speaker 1: me about their brand, or then they'd tell me about
Speaker 1: their address where they live. Then that tell me about
Speaker 1: their kids or that. I go, yeah, cool, that's all good.
Speaker 1: But none of that is you tell me about you.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me about where you live, or what you drive,
Speaker 1: or what you own, or what you earn, or what
Speaker 1: your job is or where tell me about you. They
Speaker 1: don't know what the fuck to say because they don't
Speaker 1: know who they are beyond all those identifiers. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a philosophical kind of question, isn't it. It is?
Speaker 2: And I imagine for a lot of people it's very
Speaker 2: hard to answer.
Speaker 3: But for me personally, you know, my wealth, you know,
Speaker 3: my personal wealth is never like as a human, is
Speaker 3: not attached to what I do at the restaurant. I
Speaker 3: think I can apply my creativity to other things like
Speaker 3: renovating a house, for example, which I've done multiple times,
Speaker 3: or skateboarding.
Speaker 2: And I've often said.
Speaker 3: That this thing that I love doing, which is running
Speaker 3: this restaurant and with these amazing people, that I never
Speaker 3: let that die.
Speaker 2: You know that I work to protect that.
Speaker 3: But when the feeling, the euphoria from creating new things
Speaker 3: at the restaurant is gone, I will stop doing it
Speaker 3: and I will look.
Speaker 2: To do something else.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I just think that, you know, it's just
Speaker 3: a folly to link yourself to your occupation too much.
Speaker 3: Try to limit yourself even in that way. I don't
Speaker 3: think you can really grow if you're not really thinking
Speaker 3: about who you are.
Speaker 1: Do you run the restaurant yourself? Like, are you the
Speaker 1: are you the day to day boss?
Speaker 2: Yes? One of them? Yep, I'm the director, I guess.
Speaker 3: I run it with my wife Kylie, so we co
Speaker 3: run it. But we also have quite a big team.
Speaker 3: We have forty employees, we have you know, a hitd chef,
Speaker 3: we have a restaurant manager, we have more junior people,
Speaker 3: and so there's a good group of us running it actually,
Speaker 3: But yes, I am their day to day pretty much
Speaker 3: every day. Still, it's down nineteenth year this year. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you've got to love it.
Speaker 1: You know, what's your what's your take on leadership? Because
Speaker 1: I mean you got forty people, there's forty personalities, forty humans,
Speaker 1: forty backstories, forty expectations, you know, psychology, physiology, emotions, sociology.
Speaker 1: What's your take on leadership and how do you do it?
Speaker 2: Well? You know, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 3: In the early days, you know, I started to attic
Speaker 3: here when I was twenty seven, and I was a
Speaker 3: completely useless leader.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know how to I don't know how.
Speaker 3: To support people or prop people up or you know,
Speaker 3: give them any kind of feedback, and so like I
Speaker 3: really failed those early teams, you know. But there's something
Speaker 3: that I absolutely linked becoming a great leader of something
Speaker 3: I linked to I guess, the overall performance of the
Speaker 3: business and not just the performance, but the well being
Speaker 3: of the people there too. So in the last decade
Speaker 3: OR worked really hard and one of the things on leadership,
Speaker 3: but one of the things that I rise over everything
Speaker 3: else is directness, respectful directness. Just tell people what you
Speaker 3: need and what you think, do it in a way
Speaker 3: that doesn't hurt them.
Speaker 2: Do it in a way that they.
Speaker 3: Know that you've got their personal growth in mind and
Speaker 3: that what you're saying is more than benefiting the business,
Speaker 3: but benefiting them long term too.
Speaker 2: So I really acutely disliked bullshit.
Speaker 3: So I will kind of sort of leader that will
Speaker 3: work through the business to kind of eliminate any anything
Speaker 3: that I think is bullshit that we're doing and not
Speaker 3: direct because I want to kind of be as direct
Speaker 3: as I can with our customers in our expression as
Speaker 3: well creatively.
Speaker 2: And there's a variety of.
Speaker 3: Things and unusual kind of ways we go about bringing
Speaker 3: this team together. But I always believe very very strongly
Speaker 3: that empathy is the oldest sibling of performance. So we
Speaker 3: need to have an empathetic workplace. That's not to say
Speaker 3: that that stuff doesn't happen, or things don't go wrong,
Speaker 3: or sometimes people might.
Speaker 2: Have an argument or dislike each other. That's just human nature.
Speaker 3: But I guess I'm really talking about eliminating toxic negativity,
Speaker 3: you know, And so I'm pretty strict on that. Like,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever's going on in your life, you know,
Speaker 3: you need to still come to work with a super
Speaker 3: positive attitude. Now, if you can't, of course, we're going
Speaker 3: to support you and look after you and try to
Speaker 3: help you. But really like your personal mental health and
Speaker 3: your well being in an environment, in a job where
Speaker 3: it's fair, that you're properly paid, that you're not getting
Speaker 3: bullied or harassed. It's your responsibility if those things are straight,
Speaker 3: you know, And and that begins and ends with me
Speaker 3: as well. Right, So I can't come to work in
Speaker 3: a shitty mood with a shitty attitude, because I'm asking
Speaker 3: my team to come to work with a great attitude
Speaker 3: and to bring it every day. So no, really, I
Speaker 3: think the leader has absolutely got to live what they're breaching.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so interesting. It's I employed con what did
Speaker 1: I employ about five hundred people over the years in
Speaker 1: my gyms, and it was a constant juggling act of
Speaker 1: psychology and sociology and practicality and trying to create that
Speaker 1: trying to create a place where people want to be
Speaker 1: ben You know, I do lots of corporate speaking now,
Speaker 1: and one of the things I ask bosses, managers' leaders
Speaker 1: is do people want to be in this place? Do
Speaker 1: people like coming here? I know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other questions after that, but if the answer to that
Speaker 1: question is no, you've fucked.
Speaker 2: So I could not agree more great.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It's like people. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you've got to be their best friend, but if
Speaker 1: they don't kind of like you or respect you, that's tough.
Speaker 1: And then if you've got a place of culture and
Speaker 1: environment that people don't want to be in, fack, there's
Speaker 1: lots of work to do. So yeah, and it's again
Speaker 1: with different because you can say one thing to Sally
Speaker 1: and she's cool, you say the same thing to Tiffany
Speaker 1: because she's high maintenance and oh sorry, tif oh you
Speaker 1: know it's not gonna it's not going to work. And
Speaker 1: so you've got to navigate this myriad of complex kind
Speaker 1: of social interactions as well as being tough and strong.
Speaker 1: That's a real jug, yeah, actor.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, I think the main thing
Speaker 3: that people are listening here and wanting to be better
Speaker 3: leaders and better in business, the main thing I would
Speaker 3: say is to is to actually just try try to
Speaker 3: improve yourself, try to improve your leadership and do it incrementally.
Speaker 3: But it's pretty easy to think, you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: a really shitty leader and I've got no hope. But
Speaker 3: I would say, just try to change a small thing
Speaker 3: one percent every day perhaps about what you're doing, and
Speaker 3: over time and pretty quickly you will realize that you've
Speaker 3: kind of revolutionized the culture.
Speaker 2: To your point about the psychology of workplaces.
Speaker 3: I mean, my wife, Kylie, who's really responsible so much
Speaker 3: for the success of our business.
Speaker 2: She's three quarters of the way through a psychology degree.
Speaker 3: In no small part to basically deal with exactly what
Speaker 3: you're saying. You know, humans are complicated in our once
Speaker 3: and our needs and our desires and our emotion and
Speaker 3: ups and downs, you know, and that's never going away,
Speaker 3: no matter how the team you've got, no matter who
Speaker 3: you select, that's always going to kind of be a constant.
Speaker 3: But I would say that there's a rule that I
Speaker 3: kind of apply and I think it's helpful. And I
Speaker 3: learned this through coaching youth basketball through my son's team.
Speaker 3: But I say, the low's never too low and the
Speaker 3: high is never too high. And by that I mean
Speaker 3: if you just kind of come through the middle as
Speaker 3: a leader and you don't overreact when there's a low
Speaker 3: point in the business or something goes wrong, and if
Speaker 3: you don't over celebrate something that you've done really well,
Speaker 3: like just kind of keep it in the middle.
Speaker 2: I think there's sort of a security in people for that,
Speaker 2: you know, like with your.
Speaker 3: Team, that the leaders not over celebrating the winds and
Speaker 3: not and not doubling down and going super aggressive when
Speaker 3: things go wrong, because they will go wrong, and they
Speaker 3: go wrong in every business.
Speaker 2: And I think the other thing is is from.
Speaker 3: The outside people look in it, a successful organization can
Speaker 3: go well, everything must just be perfectly every day, And
Speaker 3: the reality is nothing is further from the truth.
Speaker 2: And every successful organization is.
Speaker 3: Really finding the same problems as any as any other one.
Speaker 3: And the reality is it's just sort of how you
Speaker 3: deal with those problems and who you deal with them with.
Speaker 3: And also think just lastly, you know, not not repeating
Speaker 3: those same mistakes as a pretty big one on leadership.
Speaker 3: You know, if something goes wrong, analyze it and you go,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm not going to end up back
Speaker 3: there because that sucked for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I read a book years ago which you
Speaker 1: you're way younger than me, which is fucking annoying. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so called the myth. Have you ever heard of that book?
Speaker 1: I have not known? Buck Off all right, anyway. Now
Speaker 1: it came out the same time as the Bible anyway,
Speaker 1: so wow, the Old Testament New Testament was proceeded the
Speaker 1: New Testament. But anyway, a guy called Gerber wrote that,
Speaker 1: Michael Gerber, I think it was. And the e myth
Speaker 1: is about this idea, Mike Ben that you've got to
Speaker 1: work on the business. Not you've got to work in
Speaker 1: the business, but to be able to build it and
Speaker 1: develop it, you've got to be able to step awongeally.
Speaker 1: It's hard to be objective about the thing that you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of. And you know, I've always immersed
Speaker 1: in my business, which sometimes gives me a really good, visceral,
Speaker 1: subjective experience of what's going on. But it's only when
Speaker 1: I step back into the macro and out of the
Speaker 1: micro that I can kind of have that bigger picture vision.
Speaker 1: My clumsy, long winded, fucking question is, in terms of
Speaker 1: your career and Attica and all the things that you do,
Speaker 1: how much of that is kind of big picture planning,
Speaker 1: macro strategic, long term timeline projection, and how much is
Speaker 1: you just in the middle of it being instinctive and intuitive.
Speaker 3: It's probably ninety nine percent of me just being in
Speaker 3: the middle of it, living in the moment, knowing and
Speaker 3: kind of understanding that the moment, like right now, I'm
Speaker 3: You're the only thing I can focus on right now,
Speaker 3: this conversation, this interview. I'm not worried about what's happening
Speaker 3: after this. That's really kind of how I go. I
Speaker 3: really really want to ring the most out of my
Speaker 3: life that I can, and I've found by absolutely focusing
Speaker 3: on every day and just living it to the fullest
Speaker 3: and trying to get the most out of it that.
Speaker 2: I've been a lot happier.
Speaker 3: I'm not a great forward planner, and I'm not really
Speaker 3: tremendous at reflecting on the past either, because I've always
Speaker 3: kind of wanted to evolve. But I'm fortunate in our
Speaker 3: business that I do have other people who are making
Speaker 3: those longer term plans.
Speaker 2: But for me, a long term plan is a month.
Speaker 3: You know, I kind of don't want to talk about, like,
Speaker 3: unless it's something that's obviously like critical, I don't really
Speaker 3: want to talk about it, you know.
Speaker 2: I kin't want to talk about what are we going
Speaker 2: to do today again kind of idea. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So here's a philosophical question to feel free to
Speaker 1: jump in. I feel like you might have a question
Speaker 1: for the great man. My research is around this thing
Speaker 1: I don't know if I mentioned to you when we
Speaker 1: chatted the other day called metapception, which is essentially your
Speaker 1: ability to understand the Ben experience for others. So the
Speaker 1: question at the core of my research is what's it
Speaker 1: like being around me for the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: but my wife, for my kids, for my team, for strangers,
Speaker 1: for my customers. What do you think the Ben experience
Speaker 1: is like for others?
Speaker 2: What a fascinating thing to study.
Speaker 3: Great I think that's amazing that you've done that, because
Speaker 3: I think so few leaders actually think about how they're
Speaker 3: affecting other people, either positively or negatively, and I think
Speaker 3: we all, to.
Speaker 2: Some degree affect other people positively negatively.
Speaker 3: I'm acutely aware of of my influence over my team
Speaker 3: and of others, and that's why I do call myself
Speaker 3: a leader for my industry, because I think that especially
Speaker 3: chef's chefs will do anything for each other. We are
Speaker 3: mad generally, right, like, we have a history of working
Speaker 3: insane hours and being put through, you know, various forms
Speaker 3: of kind of torture by our industry and by our
Speaker 3: employees historically, and so I'm acutely aware of that history
Speaker 3: and also of my own personal history about how.
Speaker 2: I've I've gone through that too.
Speaker 3: At the age of forty, I'd already worked the retirement age.
Speaker 2: I'd already worked the amount of hours that are somebody.
Speaker 3: Retiring at sixty five had, you know, And I did
Speaker 3: reflect upon that. You know, I probably didn't think that
Speaker 3: was that well, that's great, you know something. It wasn't
Speaker 3: paid for them, and so that obviously makes you think
Speaker 3: about your own, your staff's experience, but also just of
Speaker 3: your influence on them. So what I'm kind of what
Speaker 3: I'm kind of trying to say to you, is that
Speaker 3: I am really mindful of my own ambition with my
Speaker 3: employees because there are times literally if I asked them
Speaker 3: to walk up a cliff with me, they probably would,
Speaker 3: you know. So I need to be self aware in
Speaker 3: that way. There's little things that I do, I suppose
Speaker 3: and little rules that kind of I personally have with
Speaker 3: the staff. And one of them is very simple, and
Speaker 3: I think it's it's not an exceptional rule, but it's
Speaker 3: just say say hello, how are you to every single
Speaker 3: person in the building every single day. Yeah, And so,
Speaker 3: and not in a formulatic way, not going around hi, no,
Speaker 3: actually genuinely just take thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: So just ask hey, how are you?
Speaker 3: And you know, occasionally somebody will say, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm not great, and I'll say, well, hey, you know
Speaker 3: what's going on?
Speaker 2: You know, and now they may tell me or they
Speaker 2: may say, no, I'm going to be all right. I'm
Speaker 2: just I'm just having a bit of a day. But
Speaker 2: I've got my you know, I focus on the job.
Speaker 3: And other times, you know, we'll have a coffee and
Speaker 3: we'll chat about it, you know, because I guess I'm
Speaker 3: one of the older members of the team. You know,
Speaker 3: I've been through most of the struggles that that people
Speaker 3: go through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so i'd really try to be aware.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can ever be fully completely aware
Speaker 3: of how you are. But one thing I strive not
Speaker 3: to be is ever harsh, because I think you can
Speaker 3: really crush somebody, particularly somebody that looks up to you,
Speaker 3: just by talking to.
Speaker 2: Them the wrong way.
Speaker 3: And so if I ever do that, which is very rare,
Speaker 3: and I can think of an example in the last
Speaker 3: three years where I was actually doing an interview but
Speaker 3: like this in the office and a young chef is
Speaker 3: a really lovely person. Came into the office, came in
Speaker 3: behind me, and he sort of just started talking to
Speaker 3: me over my shoulder and ask me questions, and I said,
Speaker 3: can you just just give me a second, you know,
Speaker 3: And I was just kind of like frustrated and a
Speaker 3: bit annoyed, but he's he's such a genuinely beautiful person,
Speaker 3: and so I huffed at him a little bit and
Speaker 3: I said, oh god, you know, that would have bloody
Speaker 3: crushed him a bit, you know. So a couple of
Speaker 3: hours later, or an hour later, after I finished that call,
Speaker 3: I went in and I said, hey, listen, I'm really
Speaker 3: sorry about that.
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, no, no, there was nothing to
Speaker 2: be sorry about. I shouldn't approach it.
Speaker 3: And I said, no, no, I didn't live up to
Speaker 3: my own expectations. You're a really great person. I'm really
Speaker 3: sorry about that. And he sort of beamed, you know,
Speaker 3: and we both knew that was the truth.
Speaker 1: You know, that's amazing, well one mate, and I'm not
Speaker 1: pissing in your pocket. That's amazing awareness, situational self awareness
Speaker 1: and also social intelligence to know that that's the right
Speaker 1: thing to do, and humility to be able to go no, mate,
Speaker 1: I'm the problem. Like that's so. I listened to this
Speaker 1: podcast the other day and there were these two two
Speaker 1: people talking and they said this. One of them said
Speaker 1: this interesting thing. This so I forget this psychologist. And
Speaker 1: she said something like, for all of the problems that
Speaker 1: you have in your life, you're there for one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of them. That's incredible, right, And also for all
Speaker 1: the dysfunctional relationships and problems in relationships you've had, you're
Speaker 1: the only common denominator.
Speaker 2: Right. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that's not to say that
Speaker 1: that person's always the problem, but it's like, it's funny
Speaker 1: how when people talk about shit, they really go, ah,
Speaker 1: this is going on in my life with this bloody Ben,
Speaker 1: Me and Ben. And by the way, I'm the problem.
Speaker 1: Nobody says that no.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: So that awareness, that awareness that you had to go no,
Speaker 1: made one hundred percent me And that's great and rare.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think the bucks has stop with
Speaker 3: me ultimately, you know, if we succeed or fail, it's
Speaker 3: come and going to be on me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I've had some really great teachers in that way though, too.
Speaker 3: And I'll give you this example of this friend Miriam,
Speaker 3: who we were having this conversation. She's from South Sudan
Speaker 3: and we're having this conversation at her place once about
Speaker 3: this guy that had kind of come in to her
Speaker 3: garden and just sort of started ranting about how terrible
Speaker 3: the garden was.
Speaker 2: And we were having a bit of a laugh about.
Speaker 3: It, and she was saying that being negative is a
Speaker 3: full time job, and she was joking about how his
Speaker 3: realist person was really putting.
Speaker 2: It back into it. You know, I really committed to it, like.
Speaker 3: And I like to have kind of examples of people,
Speaker 3: you know, who find kind of culpability their own culpability
Speaker 3: and kind of almost any situation. And for Miriam, you know,
Speaker 3: had been this experience of racism that was so pervasive
Speaker 3: when when there was this rhetoric in the media about
Speaker 3: African games, and she is a migrant, and she said, well,
Speaker 3: what could I do about this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And she decided that she could educate people, that she
Speaker 3: could bring people into a home and teach her about
Speaker 3: her culture. And I said, oh my god, you're being
Speaker 3: subjected to this horrible, horrible racist trope, and yet you
Speaker 3: are going I'm going to try to find some small
Speaker 3: solution about it. I'm like, well, what example, what could
Speaker 3: I possibly have to stop me from not finding some
Speaker 3: culpability in any kind of aspect of my life. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, we're seldom ever completely innocent. I would say
Speaker 3: that she was completely innocent, but yeah, she is like,
Speaker 3: well I need to do something about it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. It is amazing, and it is it's
Speaker 1: so easy to be all about problems, and it's so
Speaker 1: easy to be all about blame and transference and avoidance.
Speaker 1: But to be able to go you know, it's like
Speaker 1: when I talk about which people get uncomfortable with. But
Speaker 1: I was a morbidly obese kid, right I was, I
Speaker 1: was over I was like ninety five kilos when I
Speaker 1: was fourteen. I'm eighty five kilos now, and I was
Speaker 1: six inches shorter and my name at school was Jumbo
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. Right, But yeah, but I talk
Speaker 1: about like I created that, you know. It's like and yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a kid, but I ate my way into that,
Speaker 1: and at some stage I needed to take responsibility and go, well, look,
Speaker 1: nobody's making me sit on the couch, nobody's making me
Speaker 1: eat all the fucking cake that I love nobody's, you know,
Speaker 1: and that being being able to be self aware and
Speaker 1: responsible without the self loathing bend. You know, I think
Speaker 1: where you're you're just taking ownership without beating yourself up.
Speaker 1: There's a big there's a big space between I could
Speaker 1: do better and I'm a fucking idiot. I always get
Speaker 1: this wrong, you know, there's.
Speaker 3: A big space. Old line thinking is hard. Blaming as easy,
Speaker 3: isn't it, you know? And I mean that's a you know,
Speaker 3: that's a profound personal experience that you've had as well, Craig.
Speaker 2: You know that's that I can I can relate to
Speaker 2: that on some levels.
Speaker 3: You know. It was also an overweight teenager. You know,
Speaker 3: it was at one hundred and three kilos at one point,
Speaker 3: and you know, I went down into the late seventies
Speaker 3: and now I'm at about age six, and you know,
Speaker 3: I think also, like for men, it's not like something
Speaker 3: that it's easy to talk about our weight or our
Speaker 3: body image, e the you know, something that I've kind
Speaker 3: of had to come.
Speaker 2: To terms with in the last couple of years. I've
Speaker 2: always struggled with it.
Speaker 1: So I really.
Speaker 3: Sympathized with you, you know, and understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 1: Well, I grew up very much with digressing, but fuck it,
Speaker 1: this is where we're going. Like, I grew up very
Speaker 1: much identifying with my body, you know, and I thought
Speaker 1: because I was, you know, that was my name. My
Speaker 1: name was my jumbo and you know all that stuff
Speaker 1: which my listeners have heard too many times. But you know,
Speaker 1: being picked last for sporting teams and all those things
Speaker 1: that come with being unathletic and unfit and fat, and
Speaker 1: you know, and the social stuff and the emotional stuff
Speaker 1: and the physiological stuff and the practical stuff, and then
Speaker 1: it's hard when you Then I got in shape, like you,
Speaker 1: very fit, very strong, very lean, started to become, probably
Speaker 1: in an unhealthy way, obsessive and all that shit. But
Speaker 1: then then I really started to identify myself capital s
Speaker 1: self with my body, and they became indistinguishable. Where I
Speaker 1: went well and if I looked good, I felt better,
Speaker 1: and if I look put on two kilos, I felt shit.
Speaker 1: And if someone complimented my appearance, I felt good. And
Speaker 1: so I was always seeking approval and love and connection
Speaker 1: and validation through this thing that I lived in. Right,
Speaker 1: That's that's a journey, and that's a journey like a
Speaker 1: lot of people are on I think.
Speaker 2: Oh, one hundred percent, such a tough one. You know,
Speaker 2: it's so difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you and I got through it. I'm still
Speaker 1: a work in progress though, I'm still a fuck with
Speaker 1: around food. Hey, I wanted to ask you a little
Speaker 1: bit about dealing with pressure, like you were talking about
Speaker 1: the the craziness that goes on in kitchens. When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, my parents owned a restaurant and sell
Speaker 1: in a restaurant, and I remember the the interesting chefs,
Speaker 1: you know if they were interesting and talented, artistic, creative,
Speaker 1: high maintenance some of them. But tell me about your
Speaker 1: the way that you deal with pressure and expectations and
Speaker 1: all the you know, the behind the scenes drama that
Speaker 1: can be in a very high profile, very successful because
Speaker 1: when people are coming to Attaka, they expect awesome, and
Speaker 1: so you've got to do Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, there's a great question.
Speaker 3: There is a lot of pressure, and the way that
Speaker 3: I've dealt with that pressure myself, this is probably not
Speaker 3: quite the same as the way that the staff have
Speaker 3: to deal with it. The way that I've dealt with
Speaker 3: it is to and without wanting to say on egotist
Speaker 3: school or arrogant is to sort of understand that I'm
Speaker 3: the expert.
Speaker 4: In this and that I've dedicated my life to this
Speaker 4: craft completely since the time that I was a small child,
Speaker 4: that I've worked the seventy five eighty l weeks, that
Speaker 4: I've struggled and built this thing through determination and through
Speaker 4: my hands and through my mind.
Speaker 2: Therefore, I set higher standard for myself than anybody else
Speaker 2: could for me. Does that make sense to you.
Speaker 3: Yes, So that's sort of just like that's not something
Speaker 3: I've really shared with anybody before, but that's kind of
Speaker 3: my mentality. And that's not to say that I always
Speaker 3: get it right or that I'm always perfect, but genuinely
Speaker 3: I said my standard.
Speaker 2: For the team.
Speaker 3: You're completely correct how our customers come with really really
Speaker 3: high expectations. You know, some people come expecting, you know,
Speaker 3: a near religious experience, and that's actually not something to
Speaker 3: believe it or.
Speaker 2: Not that we can offer.
Speaker 3: But but it doesn't mean that we that we won't
Speaker 3: die trying. You know, we are completely committed to two
Speaker 3: excellence for our guests, but for our staff, we want
Speaker 3: that that excellence to be manageable. And traditionally, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: kitchens are ruled through fear, you know, and and sort
Speaker 3: of they've been very misogynistic, male dominated places.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a fact.
Speaker 3: And they still are largely the you know, women still
Speaker 3: don't have the same opportunities as men in hospitality in
Speaker 3: regards to running kitchens.
Speaker 2: So that I think we just have to say that
Speaker 2: and and understand it.
Speaker 3: But they've been ruled with an iron First, there is
Speaker 3: a system of hierarchy that comes out.
Speaker 2: Of France and kitchens, and and you dare not.
Speaker 3: Make a mistakeless or put a foot wrong, or the
Speaker 3: fist will come down upon you, sometimes actually physically, but
Speaker 3: often mentally.
Speaker 2: So there've been places of abuse and fear.
Speaker 3: And to me, you know, the idea that a kitchen
Speaker 3: can't be kind and high performance is kind of counterintuitive
Speaker 3: to performance.
Speaker 2: To me, I just I.
Speaker 3: Could that never sat with me. I came from the
Speaker 3: back country in New Zealand. I did endure and experience
Speaker 3: kitchens of this kind. But to me, they were never great,
Speaker 3: They were never doing meaningful work. And and so for me,
Speaker 3: how we deal with that that pressure and is that
Speaker 3: we try to eliminate that kind of fear. You know,
Speaker 3: that's we don't have people running the kitchen who are ranting,
Speaker 3: yelling or abusing our teams. They are calm during service,
Speaker 3: and there's always catastrophes in kitchens. A chef's life is
Speaker 3: in a state of fluid failure.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's not if things will go wrong, it's when and
Speaker 3: how often and will anybody fucking notice?
Speaker 2: That's literally how it is, right.
Speaker 3: And so we're trying to fix everything as we fuck
Speaker 3: everything up, and we're trying to hide it.
Speaker 2: Right, I've been truthful here, you know. You know it's percentages.
Speaker 3: Maybe our idea of a fuck up is not the
Speaker 3: same as a normal person's, but yet there it is.
Speaker 3: And I think if you don't count those little percentages,
Speaker 3: then then there is a tangible effects. You've got to
Speaker 3: be really disciplined. But so we're hustling and trying to
Speaker 3: just working so hard to just hold it all together
Speaker 3: kind of every night. But if we if and this
Speaker 3: is the same in any kind of high performing kitchen
Speaker 3: in the world, now, if that same kitchen is run
Speaker 3: by fear, then what those cooks will do is they
Speaker 3: will hide those mistakes. And we implore our people to
Speaker 3: bring the mistakes to us immediately and then calmly as
Speaker 3: a team, we can figure out how to fix that quickly,
Speaker 3: because whatever catastrophe there is in life, it requires calm
Speaker 3: and persistent attention to fix. If you're losing your shit,
Speaker 3: if you're losing control of yourself, you're just making things worse.
Speaker 2: And you just got to think straight and think about this.
Speaker 3: Problem about how you're going to overcome it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: If it's a really big one and it requires some
Speaker 3: level of this this one, then that can be done
Speaker 3: post the mistake in a calm manner, not in the moment,
Speaker 3: but typically in kitchens it's.
Speaker 2: Been you've bucked up.
Speaker 3: Now I'm screaming and spinning in your face, and you
Speaker 3: feel terrified and ashamed, and you've lost your dignity. So
Speaker 3: I think it's really important for our people not to
Speaker 3: lose their dignity within the mistakes that they will absolutely
Speaker 3: make as I make them.
Speaker 1: That's such a such a high level understanding from a
Speaker 1: sociological I don't mean sound like a bloody scientist, but psychological,
Speaker 1: emotional cultural like that awareness of it, apart from all
Speaker 1: the food stuff and the cooking and the business stuff
Speaker 1: and the keeping the you know, the customers or your
Speaker 1: guests satisfied on top of that understanding how to optimize
Speaker 1: or try to optimize the dynamics and the energy in
Speaker 1: that cauldron. That's some high level shit that you just articulated.
Speaker 1: Most people don't even think like that.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. That means a lot.
Speaker 3: I would just say as simply as this, though it
Speaker 3: comes from an understanding that humans don't want to do
Speaker 3: a bad job.
Speaker 2: You have to have that kind of understanding as the leader.
Speaker 3: Nobody's coming to the kitchen today to fuck up? No,
Speaker 3: why would they do that? Like, I really don't think
Speaker 3: I've ever met somebody even like the employees that haven't
Speaker 3: worked out that truly in their heart came to do
Speaker 3: a bad job today.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, So outside of outside of business for
Speaker 1: a minute, how do you manage you? How do you
Speaker 1: stay focused mentally, emotionally healthy, excited, curious? Like what it
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about you? How you kind
Speaker 1: of optimize yourself or you don't think of it like that?
Speaker 2: No, I do think of it.
Speaker 3: I sort of have a philosophy that and this is
Speaker 3: just you know, some people will walk.
Speaker 2: At this and go that's ridiculous, But this is just
Speaker 2: for me, you know.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying as I detail this, that, this,
Speaker 3: this is what I think other people should do, But
Speaker 3: this just works for me. I just I just try
Speaker 3: to apply one really high standard to everything that I do.
Speaker 3: And I don't differ that standard whether I'm working or
Speaker 3: whether I'm at home. So if I'm parenting, I'm sort
Speaker 3: of trying to do it at the same level that
Speaker 3: I would run Attica. If I'm skateboarding, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not a very good skateboarder, but like, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: do it to the best of my ability, you know,
Speaker 3: if I'm I love, you know, making things, I'm making
Speaker 3: stuff up, you know, crafting stuff for I just try to.
Speaker 2: Do it at a high level. I just find it
Speaker 2: easier to do it this way.
Speaker 3: Then I don't have to sort of lower or raise
Speaker 3: my standard for things. Am I always meeting it? Of course?
Speaker 3: Not like am I beating myself up when I don't
Speaker 3: like no, no, I'm not, no, But but I'm trying.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm not a good example of somebody
Speaker 3: that kind of makes time for themselves. I will pack
Speaker 3: everything and that I can, and sometimes too much, and then,
Speaker 3: you know, like anybody'll occasionally complain to myself about it.
Speaker 2: But but realistically, like it's on me. You know, I
Speaker 2: have wonderful friends.
Speaker 3: I think that that's so crucial to surround yourself with
Speaker 3: with people who really genuinely care about you for you,
Speaker 3: and like back to this earlier conversation around not for
Speaker 3: what you do or or how famous you are, but
Speaker 3: for you and.
Speaker 2: People that see that see that value in you. I
Speaker 2: think it's so crucial.
Speaker 3: And those friends you know, have helped me through the
Speaker 3: best at times and the worst times.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah, you need that. You need that
Speaker 1: sounding board sometimes and I call it, I use this
Speaker 1: term called an unreasonable friend, and it's someone that loves you,
Speaker 1: cares about you, but will tell you sometimes what you
Speaker 1: need to here, not necessarily what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: Best guy a friend, right, you know where it's likely
Speaker 1: I'd sell people. I don't need a fan club. I
Speaker 1: don't need you to tell me I'm amazing when I'm
Speaker 1: being a dickhead. It doesn't help you, it doesn't help me,
Speaker 1: and it's not true, you know. And I think that
Speaker 1: ability to be able to be okay with getting things
Speaker 1: right and not right and not beating yourself up. And
Speaker 1: I think also because thinking when you're talking about how
Speaker 1: much you work, Like I work a lot, TIF works
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, I'm full time work, full time study,
Speaker 1: seven podcasts a week, one hundred and twenty speaking gigs
Speaker 1: a year, consulting, lots of shit, right, But all the
Speaker 1: stuff that I do is somewhere between I enjoy it
Speaker 1: and I fucking love it, Like I don't do anything
Speaker 1: I hate. Right.
Speaker 2: So, in.
Speaker 1: The corporate speaking, coaching, mentoring workshop space, you know, they're
Speaker 1: for one hundred years, not really, probably fifty years, they've
Speaker 1: been talking about work life balance, And for me, it's
Speaker 1: a redundant concept because it kind of suggests that there's
Speaker 1: a like almost a number, like a balance that we
Speaker 1: get this much work, Ben and this much not work,
Speaker 1: and then when we get the scales right, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's a numerical thing, and I'm like no, because
Speaker 1: you might do twenty hours a week, which is not
Speaker 1: many hours, but you fucking hate every hour and that
Speaker 1: is really bad for you mentally, emotionally, physically, versus you
Speaker 1: do eighty hours, which again I'm not suggesting neither's Ben,
Speaker 1: but you might do eighty hours a week periodically of
Speaker 1: shit that just fucking excites you, stimulates you, grows you,
Speaker 1: gives you joy, pleasure, Like right now, I'm you're I'm
Speaker 1: not pissing in your pocket. I love you, You're awesome.
Speaker 1: I could hang out with you. This is my job,
Speaker 1: Like I'm talking to you. This is ridiculous. This is
Speaker 1: fun for me. This is for me. But this is
Speaker 1: one of the components of my work. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you do shit that I know, people go when
Speaker 1: you do what you love, you never work a day
Speaker 1: in your life, and that's kind of cliche and not
Speaker 1: always possible all the time. But yeah, like for me,
Speaker 1: the stuff that I do, and I think probably the
Speaker 1: stuff that you do, despite the periodic stress and anxiety,
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's a positive like it's it's
Speaker 1: a net result, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And sometimes even when it's negative, it's kind of positive,
Speaker 3: you know, Like, and I couldn't agree more with what
Speaker 3: you're saying.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a matter.
Speaker 3: I hope nobody listening thinks for him, he has to
Speaker 3: work so much. No, I'm choosing that, you know, just
Speaker 3: like you know, I chose to turn up for this
Speaker 3: interview on time.
Speaker 2: You know, But but I really think, like.
Speaker 3: You know, for me, it's kind of trying to I
Speaker 3: don't differentiate really between I don't really do work and
Speaker 3: I don't really do home.
Speaker 2: I just kind of do life.
Speaker 3: And maybe that sounds a little cliche, but I really
Speaker 3: don't like the strong demarcation between work and the rest
Speaker 3: of life. Certainly don't like the idea of having to
Speaker 3: work for the rest of life. Like I just think
Speaker 3: that the work part is just too big a part
Speaker 3: of life for it not to be enjoyable, at least
Speaker 3: on some level. You know, maybe it's not possible for
Speaker 3: every person in the world to find as much joy
Speaker 3: in their work as you clearly do, and I clearly
Speaker 3: do it, even though I would really hope that for people,
Speaker 3: you know, But I would say that trying to find
Speaker 3: fun and stuff and joy in it is just central
Speaker 3: to happiness. And I'll give you a Philly example from yesterday.
Speaker 2: We found this enormous cactus on Facebook marketplace.
Speaker 3: It's like three point eight meters tall, it's got multiple heads,
Speaker 3: it's hundred kilos.
Speaker 2: I spent six.
Speaker 3: Hours dragging it from this guy's backyard to get it
Speaker 3: on as Bunning's higher.
Speaker 2: You right, it's absolutely insane.
Speaker 3: Like I am prepared to do things that are ridiculous
Speaker 3: if that's not clear yet.
Speaker 1: You know, you know there's people who can do shit
Speaker 1: like that, right, you know you don't want to personally
Speaker 1: do that yourself, you dickhead.
Speaker 3: I'm actually going to say, I don't know if there
Speaker 3: is in this case, because nobody would be stupid enough
Speaker 3: to move this flip and plant, and they couldn't sell it.
Speaker 2: It was quite cheap. It's beautiful cactus. Anyway. The story
Speaker 2: is a battle, in a battle, in a battle to
Speaker 2: get it to our house.
Speaker 3: I get it off the you our fantastic chefs, and
Speaker 3: they have to you know, they come up to help me,
Speaker 3: which thank god, we thought we were going to die
Speaker 3: as we stood it up. I get it in the ground,
Speaker 3: I stake it. It looks amazing. All the neighbors are
Speaker 3: very happy. And then the wind come on Monday, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know how long it would take the route, and
Speaker 3: I had a state for a month old that's probably
Speaker 3: going to be okay.
Speaker 2: I removed the state. The wind blows the thing over.
Speaker 3: Now, that same day, i'd been to the doctor who
Speaker 3: told me that I tore a tendon in my knee
Speaker 3: moving that fucking cactus. So you can imagine how that
Speaker 3: made me feel right like, kind of very depressed, and
Speaker 3: I've been told I can't bend over and lift stuff
Speaker 3: at the moment for a bit. The knee's going to
Speaker 3: be fine anyway. In a fantastic name this long story,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to quickly wind it up. Fantastic neighbor
Speaker 3: rang me and said, I've got six builders renovating in
Speaker 3: the front of our house. I'd like to send them
Speaker 3: over to help you pick up your cactus. And so
Speaker 3: the builders came over. And I've been around. I grew
Speaker 3: up on building sites. My father and my uncle builders,
Speaker 3: and there were such nice people and we had such
Speaker 3: a good time, and we were just making jokes about
Speaker 3: eating cactus and it was such.
Speaker 2: A joyful thing.
Speaker 3: The six of us working out how to pick up
Speaker 3: flip and cactus and put it back in the ground.
Speaker 3: Took us about thirty minutes. We all shook hands, they
Speaker 3: all joked about how now I owed them a meal
Speaker 3: at Attica.
Speaker 2: And it was the highlight of my day picking up
Speaker 2: a silly cactus. You know, joyful, trying to find that.
Speaker 2: I just try to find the joy and everything.
Speaker 1: You know, one hundred mate, I could talk to you
Speaker 1: for a long time I haven't even spoke to you
Speaker 1: about art or bikes or music or all the other
Speaker 1: things that you're good at and into. But maybe we can,
Speaker 1: Maybe we can reconvene it a later date. Do you
Speaker 1: want to point do you want to point anyone towards anything? Oh?
Speaker 1: Did I forget that you're writing a book? Have you
Speaker 1: just written a book?
Speaker 2: I have written a book. Yes, tell me about the book.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the Book's called Uses for Obsession.
Speaker 3: And it's out on the first of October in Australia
Speaker 3: and the UK. It's a book about the search for
Speaker 3: the meaning and everything. It's kind of a memoir meets manifesto.
Speaker 3: It's searing, hopefully, it's hilarious. It tells a bunch of
Speaker 3: brutally honest stories. And you know, I'm really excu it.
Speaker 3: I've spent the last two years writing it. Writing is
Speaker 3: one of my greatest pleasures. Yeah, it's it's out soon.
Speaker 3: It's got three recipes for bolonnes in it, and I
Speaker 3: invite the reader to join my bolonnaise cult and to
Speaker 3: progress through the cult. They've got to make these three recipes,
Speaker 3: starting with really basic, kind of beginner bolonnaise, then kind
Speaker 3: of a mid range one then like expert level.
Speaker 2: So that's my sales. That's my sales, pitch.
Speaker 1: I love a good cult. Just tell me the name
Speaker 1: of the book again, uses for obsession. I love it,
Speaker 1: such a clever name and two uses for obsession? Is
Speaker 1: it so it's out on October one in all good
Speaker 1: and shit bookstores. Is it going to be on audio
Speaker 1: as well?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I rated the audiobook myself about six weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Was a hell of an experience.
Speaker 1: How many days did that take you?
Speaker 3: Six six hour days and about six hours of prep
Speaker 3: on either side?
Speaker 1: And so what is the end product? How many hours
Speaker 1: is the audio book?
Speaker 3: I think it's about eight and a half. I haven't
Speaker 3: actually heard the whole thing yet. It is a fascinating,
Speaker 3: fascinating experience. Yeah, I don't believe how many how many?
Speaker 3: How I mispronounced so many words you would never imagine,
Speaker 3: like you've been called out by the producer every thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: Say that again, that's hilarious. The book's called uses for obsession. Mate.
Speaker 1: It's been really nice to chat to you and get
Speaker 1: to know you a little bit, and I would love
Speaker 1: it if you would come back. We'll say goodbye fair
Speaker 1: But for the moment, Ben, thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Greg, and to really appreciate you guys.