Speaker 1: If you position yourself in your own mind as businesses
Speaker 1: ideas are just problem solving activities, then it's about you know,
Speaker 1: I'm actually I found an opportunity and there's something here
Speaker 1: that I think I can do a creative spin on.
Speaker 1: I can solve this problem. And here we've got now
Speaker 1: at the end of the Olympics, in a private anger
Speaker 1: for honors, the athletes coming out of the plane in
Speaker 1: their uniform with their metals on, carrying a July suitcase
Speaker 1: down the stairs, meeting the Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the seas the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 2: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 2: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 2: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 2: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 2: explore the stories of those who found lives.
Speaker 3: They adore, the good, bad and.
Speaker 2: Ugly, The best and worst day will bear all the
Speaker 2: facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a
Speaker 2: spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned fu entrepreneur who's walked
Speaker 2: the suits and heels to copo, matcha maiden and matcha
Speaker 2: milk bar. Cca is a series of conversations on finding
Speaker 2: a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge,
Speaker 2: joy and fulfillment along the way. Hello, lovely neighborhood, We
Speaker 2: are back with another incredible guest whose brand you will
Speaker 2: likely know and love, but whose backstory you may know
Speaker 2: less about, which you, guys know is my favorite thing
Speaker 2: to share with you. If you follow me on socials,
Speaker 2: especially as we just came back from a big trip,
Speaker 2: you'll know we are big fans of July luggage in
Speaker 2: our household. I mean, the specs are insane, a unique
Speaker 2: polycarbonet hardshell, the silent move three sixty spinner wheels, quality
Speaker 2: so high they come with a lifetime warranty. I just
Speaker 2: never thought I would have the feelings that I have
Speaker 2: about my luggage at the moment, which is part of
Speaker 2: the beauty of the brand. But do you know the
Speaker 2: fellow Melbournian co founder and quite the unexpected way that
Speaker 2: he ended up, as he humbly puts it, selling suitcases
Speaker 2: on the internet, Ethan do Daskaloosta off of all places,
Speaker 2: in a humble chucoal chicken shop, which he actually ended
Speaker 2: up going on to buy before stopping off along his
Speaker 2: way you guys. No, I love the dot points that
Speaker 2: connect in the realm of co working and then coffee
Speaker 2: sales and even considering Shelac now kids. Before July was
Speaker 2: born in twenty eighteen. And despite the enormous success you'll
Speaker 2: have seen July experience in the past few years, growing
Speaker 2: into a multi million dollar company recognized.
Speaker 3: All around the world.
Speaker 2: I cannot tell you how I beamed with pride every
Speaker 2: time I saw a July suitcase in the airports. He
Speaker 2: has equally lived through losing ninety five percent of sales
Speaker 2: when travel came to a halt in the last few years,
Speaker 2: but Ethan has survived and thrived to tell the tale.
Speaker 2: So this is just such a fascinating story. Other fun
Speaker 2: facts along the way, Athan met his business partner, Richard
Speaker 2: Lee in a cafe. How very Melbourne of them, and
Speaker 2: Richard actually previously founded Brossa Furniture, another brand that you
Speaker 2: may all have heard of before. He is also married
Speaker 2: to the CEO of the incredible Rationale Skincare. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: there is so much to unpack in this episode, and
Speaker 2: my sleep deprived mum brain missed half of what I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask. I could have spoken to Ethan for
Speaker 2: hours and hours and hours and just tapped into so
Speaker 2: many different parts of his brain. But we did still
Speaker 2: cover so much interesting ground and I hope you guys
Speaker 2: all enjoyed this one as much as I did.
Speaker 3: Athan, Welcome to CZA.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, sir. This is cool.
Speaker 2: We're live and we are so grateful to have you.
Speaker 2: I know you are squeezing this in between two trips
Speaker 2: and just got back from the Paris Olympics. You are
Speaker 2: absolutely smashing life, so we are so grateful for your time.
Speaker 1: Well, you know everyone's busy, right, life is busy, and
Speaker 1: you know you just got to keep going, keep having
Speaker 1: keep having some.
Speaker 3: Phone one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Well, you are someone whose journey I've followed for many
Speaker 2: years now as a fellow Melbournian, and you're really the
Speaker 2: epitome of our fascination at CZA with the non conventional pathway.
Speaker 2: And I read that you never imagined you'd end up
Speaker 2: as a traveling luggage salesman of all things. And we'll
Speaker 2: get into how July almost became a sha lac now
Speaker 2: kid business even it's sex toy business. But I mean,
Speaker 2: thank goodness it didn't because it worked out for the best,
Speaker 2: huge congratulations on all your incredible success.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you very much, and as mentioned before,
Speaker 1: right back at you as well. Right the nonlinear pathway
Speaker 1: say anything, it's a beautiful thing that you know in
Speaker 1: yourself you can you can jump to another category, jump
Speaker 1: and do other things as long as you're finding your purpose,
Speaker 1: your passions, mastering and a little bit of a little
Speaker 1: bit of fun along the way. Why not, right, sexys
Speaker 1: would have been fun to I guess.
Speaker 2: I mean, I also read that one of the reasons
Speaker 2: you didn't do that was because you found it hard
Speaker 2: to differentiate between competitors, and I thought, I, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to I'm not going.
Speaker 3: To go there because I feel like that could get
Speaker 3: very technical.
Speaker 1: That's not for today's conversation. But I feel like the
Speaker 1: people who are doing the sex toys at the moment
Speaker 1: are the right people to be doing that, you know,
Speaker 1: Liz Rage, all the people who are doing them currently,
Speaker 1: they're doing a fantastic job at it. And I had
Speaker 1: personally been enjoying the content series that goes with it.
Speaker 1: So that's something that's not in a dirty way, but
Speaker 1: just in a fun like. Oh, I didn't really know
Speaker 1: that that was a thing that's a cool thing to know.
Speaker 2: Well, as it turned out, July is exactly what you
Speaker 2: were meant to do and you are absolutely smashing it.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm a big lover of quotes, and
Speaker 2: something that's kind of across all of your accounts is
Speaker 2: the idea that you're born with thirty thousand days to
Speaker 2: live and the best strategic planning that you can give
Speaker 2: is to think about that. But I think what often
Speaker 2: comes with that is you want to make the most
Speaker 2: of your life and you want to seize every opportunity.
Speaker 2: And you know sees the a since we're on this show,
Speaker 2: But sometimes that pressure for people is really overwhelming, Like
Speaker 2: they finished school, if they don't know what they want
Speaker 2: to do at school, or they don't know what they
Speaker 2: want to do at UNI or who they want to become,
Speaker 2: they kind of feel lost. It's really there's a lot
Speaker 2: of pressure to find your joy and get there really fast.
Speaker 2: So I like to take a bit of the pressure
Speaker 2: off and remind people that everyone started somewhere and most
Speaker 2: people had no idea when.
Speaker 3: They'd end up.
Speaker 2: So going all the way back to young Athan, like
Speaker 2: what you thought you'd be when you were a kid,
Speaker 2: and what your first part time job was, and you
Speaker 2: know what your hopes and dreams were at the very
Speaker 2: beginning to kind of trace back where all the dots
Speaker 2: started to connect. So what were you like when you
Speaker 2: were younger?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we we we're going back, right,
Speaker 1: that's a we're going back to the beginning. I look
Speaker 1: early days, young Ehan always wanted to be a scientist
Speaker 1: or rock. I was collecting rocks. I had my own
Speaker 1: little microscope kids, and I was very nerdy, very sort
Speaker 1: of germy kind of guy. Just you know, I really
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that kind of I had my stamp collection.
Speaker 1: I was very big into collecting stamps, and you used
Speaker 1: to be able to order like the ripoffs of the
Speaker 1: envelopes in bags, and I would sit there and soak
Speaker 1: the envelopes and peel the stamps off the glue and
Speaker 1: slowly start to dry them. And I was I was
Speaker 1: a weird kid.
Speaker 3: You're a weird unit.
Speaker 1: And very I would say, very introverted for almost to
Speaker 1: a degree, the opposite of the individual I am now.
Speaker 1: But I was a very intruded kids. Sport was never
Speaker 1: really my thing, and I was a rock collection, stamp collections,
Speaker 1: you know, you're starting to get a taste for it.
Speaker 1: My dad in particularly was a little bit worried about me.
Speaker 1: He's like his kid's he's not engaging as he would
Speaker 1: have thought as a Greek man who's come to Australia, gone,
Speaker 1: you know, I want him to go and play soccer
Speaker 1: and do this and do that. If I reflect, he's
Speaker 1: probably going, you know, something's up with this kid. And
Speaker 1: he actually got me my first job when I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: so I was nine months early than what the legal
Speaker 1: age limit was, and he put me into a chucolate
Speaker 1: chicken chop down on Station Street in Fairfield because he
Speaker 1: knew the guy. And I used because I was underage.
Speaker 1: I used to just get paid in the leftover food
Speaker 1: and so I was, you know, I was young. I
Speaker 1: was the dishwasher. They didn't even have an apron for me,
Speaker 1: so they used to cut the holes in the garbage
Speaker 1: bags and I would just wear the game shot the apron.
Speaker 1: Humble beginnings exactly, super humble, super funny as well. They
Speaker 1: were a great bunch of blokes, and I think my
Speaker 1: dad's whole intentions that like there's a young fun it's
Speaker 1: a young fun crew. You will hopefully break Ethan out
Speaker 1: of his shell, and I ended up I stayed in
Speaker 1: that business throughout most of I would say most of
Speaker 1: high school because they were just a good crew. I
Speaker 1: learned a lot, to the point where I ended up
Speaker 1: opening up my own chocolate chicken chop after year twelve.
Speaker 3: Stop it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was the most you're talking about, like
Speaker 1: nonlinear pathways. Everyone else went to UNI. They were having
Speaker 1: a lot of fun doing their twenty contact hours a week,
Speaker 1: getting as drunk as possible, and I was stuck in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere with a chocolate chicken chop that
Speaker 1: I thought would be a good idea to start and
Speaker 1: I could run this thing. And I did it for
Speaker 1: a year, and it was the worst year of my life.
Speaker 1: I would say I learned so many life lessons within
Speaker 1: that one year. We sold that business. I think I
Speaker 1: didn't get paid wages, but I ended up making around
Speaker 1: forty or fifty grands at the end when we sold,
Speaker 1: and so that's like a year's worth of work. You
Speaker 1: end up, you know, fifty grand up front when you're
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen. It was a lot of cash. And then
Speaker 1: went to Europe to Eurotrip straight after that with a
Speaker 1: couple of friends and I ran back to university. After that.
Speaker 1: That was like I had enough of that world, great
Speaker 1: life lessons, but did not ever want to do no
Speaker 1: one ever do everything. So that was like the beginning
Speaker 1: of I think. I thought, you know, year twelve academia
Speaker 1: studying wasn't for me. Tried my hand at starting a business,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would say successful to a degree, didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't definitely lose lose money of it, but definitely
Speaker 1: won't be doing that ever again.
Speaker 3: Charcoal Chicken was not your future.
Speaker 1: No, No, definitely not. It's just a lot of it's
Speaker 1: a lot of work. I have a lot of love
Speaker 1: for the hospitality industry, particular businesses that run on seven
Speaker 1: days a week, you know, like seven to sevens and whatnot.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's a lot of hours. So it's harder
Speaker 1: than I think. It's only got harder for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Yeah. So then after union, just did marketing
Speaker 1: and business and grew there. I've met met some cool
Speaker 1: people and you know the rest. I mean, I've done
Speaker 1: quite a few things in between all that. But that
Speaker 1: quote that you referenced is somebody else's quote. And I
Speaker 1: can never poor guy, I can never remember the name
Speaker 1: of the guy. I'm sure it's a couple of quick
Speaker 1: so I put it in quotation marks whenever I quote
Speaker 1: it to say that it's kind of not mine. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I don't blow you do the
Speaker 1: effort to get the name right, but I believe in it.
Speaker 1: And if you do the math on it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like basically thirty year blocks of ten thousand, ten thousand,
Speaker 1: ten thousand, and you know, the first ten thousand days
Speaker 1: is you figuring yourself out. The last ten thousand days
Speaker 1: you're sixty plus and you kind of want to be
Speaker 1: winding down and you know, grandkids and all those other
Speaker 1: retirement and traveling and doing other fun things. So you've
Speaker 1: really only got ten thousand days to go from thirty
Speaker 1: to sixty, to get a family, to make some money,
Speaker 1: to tick off all the things that you want to
Speaker 1: be doing, which ten thousand days not a lot of time, man, Like,
Speaker 1: how much time do you waste? Just like scroll just
Speaker 1: so you know, my whole thing is like, I've only
Speaker 1: got ten thousand days. I wouldn't call it about season
Speaker 1: the ya, I'd call it I'm freaking out a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I'm running out of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, whichever way you spin it, I think
Speaker 2: we all need that reminder that you take of all
Speaker 2: the things we take for granted.
Speaker 3: It's like obviously time.
Speaker 2: I think we all assume that we have time to
Speaker 2: do all the things that we want to do, and
Speaker 2: that tomorrow's guaranteed, and in such a it's sort of
Speaker 2: such a glass half empty way to look at things.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's optimistic because then it
Speaker 2: encourages you to use those days to the max and
Speaker 2: to the you know, live up to your potential. I'd say,
Speaker 2: like for even for you, right, when when did you
Speaker 2: start Matching Maiden twenty fourteen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty fourteen, twenty.
Speaker 1: Fourteen, so we're ten years now. That's around three thousand days.
Speaker 1: You will tell me, wow, right, and see what you
Speaker 1: can get done in something that feels like a really
Speaker 1: short amount of Ten years is a long time. Three
Speaker 1: thousand days not that long. So it's crazy. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: There's so much to do, there's so much to do,
Speaker 1: and I feel like we waste a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I feel like I waste a lot of it.
Speaker 2: It's funny that you said waste time, because I think
Speaker 2: that's something else that comes up a lot when you
Speaker 2: really dissect people's pathways and people who don't know where
Speaker 2: they want to end up or what they want to do.
Speaker 2: Look at people like you who have found their purpose,
Speaker 2: who have an incredible business, who have so much objective
Speaker 2: and subjective success, and like it just looks like you
Speaker 2: woke up one day and you did the lemonade stand
Speaker 2: thing as a kid, and then you knew you were
Speaker 2: going to be a luggage person, and you spent your
Speaker 2: whole life preparing for this moment, and now you're living
Speaker 2: in Anybody.
Speaker 1: Who's worked with me who's listening to this will probably
Speaker 1: laugh at that and know that that's definitely not true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I started a soup business when I was
Speaker 1: working in advertising. I started a soup business to sell
Speaker 1: soup to people for lunch. One week of that, I
Speaker 1: knew I was definitely not doing that again. I've done
Speaker 1: a coffee business where we sell coffee beans online. Yes,
Speaker 1: that worked, but there were ten other ideas between all
Speaker 1: that that didn't sort of work. And I think if
Speaker 1: you position yourself in your own mind and as businesses,
Speaker 1: ideas are just problem solving activities and going I just
Speaker 1: want to try that I want to challenge that. Then
Speaker 1: the category doesn't really matter. Then it's not about being
Speaker 1: a suit case salesman or a match a maiden. It's
Speaker 1: about you know, I'm actually I found an opportunity and
Speaker 1: there's something here that I think I can do a
Speaker 1: creative spin on. I can solve this problem. Let me
Speaker 1: give it a shove in my own way, and then
Speaker 1: it's fun. And then it's about you, and then it's
Speaker 1: about giving it a crack. You're not putting any pressure on.
Speaker 2: Yourself, and I love that because I think coming back
Speaker 2: to the wasting time thing, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people assume that if you're not in the chapter that
Speaker 2: you ultimately end up in, or if you're not in
Speaker 2: your yay chapter like your I found my joy, I'm
Speaker 2: living my passion, they think it's a waste of time,
Speaker 2: Whereas I kind of take the opinion that, yes, you
Speaker 2: only have thirty thousand days, But if you're in a
Speaker 2: chapter that you're learning something from, like all the businesses
Speaker 2: that you did that didn't stick or that might have
Speaker 2: you know, kind of objectively been a failure or that
Speaker 2: you ended up not liking, none of those were a waste.
Speaker 2: Like sure, they didn't end up being here forever.
Speaker 1: Thing.
Speaker 2: But I feel like the waste of time is when
Speaker 2: you're not trying, or the waste of time is when
Speaker 2: you're just sitting and doing the same thing all day,
Speaker 2: every day and existing. So many people exist on this
Speaker 2: productivity hamster will. They're not exploring different ideas and trying
Speaker 2: to see what fits and see what doesn't. But I
Speaker 2: love that it did take you so many tries.
Speaker 1: I say what I love I related to traffic and
Speaker 1: that sometimes when you're stuck in traffic, even if you
Speaker 1: turn down the side street, it might take you twice
Speaker 1: as long, but at least you're moving and you're driving,
Speaker 1: and you feel like you're progressing. That to me is
Speaker 1: what starting things and doing things. And you don't always
Speaker 1: have to start a business, but it can be entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: It can be doing something new within the business. As
Speaker 1: long as you feel like you're moving and trying something new,
Speaker 1: one opportunity will lead to another, will lead to another,
Speaker 1: and we will lead to another. The coffee business, I
Speaker 1: started a online coffee distribution business while I was working
Speaker 1: full time in advertising, and that business was the re
Speaker 1: I didn't make a lot of money from that business,
Speaker 1: but it was the reason I met everybody I know
Speaker 1: today that I still work with. And so it's that
Speaker 1: business then turned into something else, then turned into something else,
Speaker 1: that met my co founder here, that started the idea
Speaker 1: for we should do something with July. So to say
Speaker 1: that July was the beginning is it's the result of
Speaker 1: a decision that I made thirteen years earlier.
Speaker 3: You never know that that's around the corner. Like, you
Speaker 3: just kept going.
Speaker 2: You just kept putting one foot in front of the
Speaker 2: other and positioning yourself right until the right idea.
Speaker 3: Kind of came around.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that's really interesting
Speaker 2: about July is that the advice that you get so
Speaker 2: often in business is I saw a gap in the market.
Speaker 2: I was the ideal consumer, and I wanted to close
Speaker 2: the gap for myself. And that was very much what
Speaker 2: happened with matcha Maiden. It's a cliche for a reason.
Speaker 2: It's because that's kind of how a lot of people
Speaker 2: stumble upon their business idea. What I love about you, guys,
Speaker 2: is that you weren't sort of the eternal in the
Speaker 2: eternal search for the ideal suitcase, and then you found
Speaker 2: all the reasons. You two bonded in a cafe over
Speaker 2: the reasons you didn't like luggage, and then you fixed
Speaker 2: it together. I like that you were actually searching for
Speaker 2: a business idea, Like people say, you can't reverse engineer
Speaker 2: it that way, but you obviously did and it worked,
Speaker 2: and so I love that. It's not the way people
Speaker 2: would expect that it happened. So how did you, guys, Well, firstly,
Speaker 2: you met in a cafe, But how did you reverse
Speaker 2: engineer an idea for a business without it being because
Speaker 2: you fell into it?
Speaker 1: If it really happens like that, sure that it's a
Speaker 1: great story. But I hate this. There was a dto
Speaker 1: c era that everybody just made up these simplified stories.
Speaker 1: You know, I fell at the airport and he picked
Speaker 1: up my suitcase, then we kissed, then we started list
Speaker 1: It's so American. It's so this like pretend vibe of
Speaker 1: how you start things. The biggest thing is that Richard is,
Speaker 1: in particular with July, rich is the complete opposite to
Speaker 1: me in one way, very sort of supply chain driven,
Speaker 1: that the numbers guy, extremely smart individual. We would connect
Speaker 1: over different things and we just enjoyed each other's company
Speaker 1: in respect to how we would tackle our own business
Speaker 1: problems in our individual businesses. Prior, I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of money, so my ways all organic marketing. It
Speaker 1: is a way of growing the business without paying for advertising.
Speaker 1: I had a big subscriber base, it was growing significantly,
Speaker 1: but I didn't use any money in marketing. That fascinated Ridge.
Speaker 1: And on the other side, I'm like, I just don't
Speaker 1: know how to scale these things. I'm so used to
Speaker 1: handtouching everything. I don't know how to go from this
Speaker 1: to this and still be saying and do it in
Speaker 1: a way that I can support it without raising any capital.
Speaker 1: So we would just connect on all these things. It's
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing because, as you know, you're having coffee
Speaker 1: with so many different people, and then some people you
Speaker 1: actually enjoy having coffee more often than others, and you
Speaker 1: naturally just go to a from a once every six
Speaker 1: months to once a month or once a fortnite cycle
Speaker 1: because you enjoy the company and were hanging out and
Speaker 1: chatting with them. So that's what happened with Rich and I.
Speaker 1: We just enjoyed each other's company, enjoyed learning about other
Speaker 1: things from each other, and we were just constantly talking
Speaker 1: about direct to consumer, constantly talking about new opportunities, the
Speaker 1: opportunity around well, he had a lot of data in
Speaker 1: regards to what was moving in Australia and across the world,
Speaker 1: but mainly in Australia and this is your comment around
Speaker 1: sex toys and she like now kids. That sort of
Speaker 1: data came from groupon days where when groupon was a
Speaker 1: really big thing. Rich had access to that data seeing
Speaker 1: what were the biggest movers and this is where they
Speaker 1: came in in suitcases obviously was another one as well.
Speaker 1: We'd seen what was happening overseas in some of the
Speaker 1: bigger growth markets of America and Europe, and nobody was
Speaker 1: looking at apac here. We had a marketing person x
Speaker 1: strategy director for a large multinational agency. We had another
Speaker 1: person whose supply chain guru, being a very strong conjuit
Speaker 1: between China and the West and supplying product and manufacturing
Speaker 1: product at scale, and so we thought we had a
Speaker 1: really good chance at tackling that market. So it's a
Speaker 1: really weird one as well. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: competitors and a lot of different things. In luggage, there's
Speaker 1: only a couple SAMSUNGI dominates most market share across the world.
Speaker 1: Like I call it thirty percent, then it's our vmah,
Speaker 1: and then everyone else is a long tail. So I've
Speaker 1: said that a few times and that still stands true.
Speaker 1: There are not that many competitors out there. So our
Speaker 1: opportunity is, can we create an interesting brand in a
Speaker 1: bording category. Can we do something a little bit different?
Speaker 1: Can we turn it into a fashion accessory? And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're a couple of cool guys, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if we're necessarily fashion people, and so wanting
Speaker 1: to create something a little bit different in the category.
Speaker 1: It was a learning curve for us to you know,
Speaker 1: it was a high risk thing where we had to
Speaker 1: invest quite a bit in design and manufacturing a product
Speaker 1: we did not know was going to land well with people.
Speaker 1: And I remember early days. Currently, if you know what
Speaker 1: the suitcase looks, I know you do, but the people listening,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, there's our logos molded into the suitcase.
Speaker 1: That was a really big issue for people in our
Speaker 1: first year because nobody knew what the brand was and
Speaker 1: what it represented, and they didn't want such a big
Speaker 1: logo in the suitcase that they didn't want to be
Speaker 1: associated with. So for us, it was really early days
Speaker 1: trying to mean something, trying to be as authentic as
Speaker 1: possible in order for people to be able to trust
Speaker 1: us in a category that is predominantly most people know
Speaker 1: the one brand that they want to buy.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, there's so many reasons why.
Speaker 2: That makes me really excited, because I think the biggest
Speaker 2: barriers to people kind of starting something or having an
Speaker 2: idea and rolling with it is often being intimidated by
Speaker 2: the landscape that already exists. So if there's a Samsonite,
Speaker 2: you kind of self select yourself out of it and go, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not even going to try and go up against them,
Speaker 2: So most people wouldn't even try. Secondly, not having experience,
Speaker 2: like you've not worked in luggage before, either of you,
Speaker 2: and if you don't describe yourself as a fashion guy
Speaker 2: like this would be, you know, quite a new venture
Speaker 2: for all of you.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm bad at it, you know, I
Speaker 1: know nothing about the category, but I think maybe I
Speaker 1: can do it.
Speaker 3: I can do something here is yeah, and yeah. I
Speaker 3: think it's a really important reminder.
Speaker 2: You don't have to People will assume you have to
Speaker 2: be first to market really to make a big splash,
Speaker 2: but you just have to do something slightly different in
Speaker 2: a category that already exists.
Speaker 3: You don't always have to be the first. You don't
Speaker 3: always have to be inventing.
Speaker 2: You know. I've heard you say a couple of times
Speaker 2: reinventing the wheel, but before we actually move further into July.
Speaker 2: It so one of the questions I find really interesting
Speaker 2: because CZA is so much about more of the macro
Speaker 2: of your journey in getting there to this idea and
Speaker 2: the relationship between happiness and success. When you were doing
Speaker 2: three thousand Thieves Coffee, and that was ten years ago,
Speaker 2: it was going really well. You were already successful in business.
Speaker 2: What I get really fascinated by is when people agitate
Speaker 2: for the change that brings about the next chapter. So
Speaker 2: because you didn't stumble upon July as like a there
Speaker 2: was no aha moment of you guys meeting at an
Speaker 2: airport lounge, It didn't just fall into your lap. The
Speaker 2: timeline to be something you actually brought about yourself. And
Speaker 2: when you're already successful, or when you're already doing something
Speaker 2: that's worthy and you feel really fulfilled and good about it,
Speaker 2: I always wonder I don't worry about people who are
Speaker 2: unhappy because I think they'll inevitably change something when it
Speaker 2: gets too unhappy or too uncomfortable. But people who are
Speaker 2: fine and that they're okay on the journey they're on.
Speaker 3: Did you think you'd do the coffee business forever?
Speaker 2: Like? What made you think, oh, maybe it's time to
Speaker 2: start something new?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 2: Were you happy and successful before that? Or did you
Speaker 2: feel you needed more? Like what brought about the whole
Speaker 2: chapter that we now know you on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what an interesting question. I have a theory about things.
Speaker 1: I don't know is the answer, But I have a
Speaker 1: theory about things that yes, I know. Child. We're talking
Speaker 1: about children before, and I having children for women is
Speaker 1: a big life moment, and I believe it to be
Speaker 1: one for men as well. And if you take even
Speaker 1: just the sample of your group of friends, men who
Speaker 1: are about to have a child always do something drastic
Speaker 1: every time. I almost nine out of ten times. Men
Speaker 1: will always go and they might not consciously think it,
Speaker 1: they will say, I'm going to do something. I'm either
Speaker 1: going to double down and this is going to be
Speaker 1: for the next five ten years, or I'm leaving and
Speaker 1: going to start something. We're going to go join another
Speaker 1: firm or do something else. Just before you have the child,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's like something where where we're building,
Speaker 1: we're sort of dnading to figure something out ours for
Speaker 1: ourselves to make sure the survival of our offspring. That's
Speaker 1: a really weird comment for that answer for that question,
Speaker 1: but I genuinely think men try something, they start to jump,
Speaker 1: they do something drastic. At that point, I didn't think
Speaker 1: that that was the reason I did anything. It just
Speaker 1: so happens that when my first daughter was born, we
Speaker 1: had registered the July business, so within within a week
Speaker 1: or so, and leading up to that was obviously the
Speaker 1: build up to the July stuff. So knowing that Richard
Speaker 1: as well, rich was gearing up for it too, so
Speaker 1: there was a bit of momentum there. And I've seen
Speaker 1: it with all my particular friends that at that particular
Speaker 1: life moment for the first one, there is something that
Speaker 1: triggers and goes, well, what am I actually going to
Speaker 1: do for the rest of my life. The coffee business
Speaker 1: was a side hustle that I started while working in advertising,
Speaker 1: and it grew to a point where I was getting
Speaker 1: worse at my job because that was growing, and I
Speaker 1: had to make a judgment call and go, well, am
Speaker 1: I gonna Am I going to stay here or am
Speaker 1: I going to give this thing a go? You know,
Speaker 1: half the money? But I want to see it. I
Speaker 1: want to see it grow. I've personally found a lot
Speaker 1: of comfort in this autonomy, mastery, purpose framework for how
Speaker 1: you run your life. And it means that you don't
Speaker 1: really have to do any particular category as long as
Speaker 1: you feel like you're succeeding. As long as you feel
Speaker 1: like you've got a purpose in what you're doing and
Speaker 1: that you like being associated with that thing and that
Speaker 1: you're good at it, you can make your own choices
Speaker 1: and may I also suffer your own consequences as I
Speaker 1: find out lot of comfort in that. And so I
Speaker 1: made that jump, and I enjoyed being the coffee guy
Speaker 1: for a few years. I enjoyed doing that and meeting
Speaker 1: people and it becomes a really nice part of you.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I've lived almost four different lives
Speaker 1: being you know, one like the chicken guy, the advertising guy,
Speaker 1: the coffee guy. At one stage I was a cowork
Speaker 1: guy and now being the suitcase guy. So I feel
Speaker 1: like I've lived those differences and been happy to jump
Speaker 1: ship each time. You know, I wouldn't call it. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not complacent, But at the same time, I think
Speaker 1: it's a niche, and maybe it's a niche that is
Speaker 1: a little bit psychotic that my wife or my parents
Speaker 1: don't necessarily find comforting. You know. I would imagine it
Speaker 1: was pretty tough for my wife for the longest time
Speaker 1: because I was floating in between ideas and is this
Speaker 1: one going to work? What's going to happen? When are
Speaker 1: we're going to start a family? We're never going to
Speaker 1: do all these things. And you imagine now being six
Speaker 1: months pregnant, and I'm like, how about suitcases? What do
Speaker 1: you think about? It sounds a little bit crazy. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: And I can see that you would have to have
Speaker 1: a lot of patience. And I imagine my parents after
Speaker 1: all the investment, not you know, after all the years
Speaker 1: of education, after everything, that's what they've done, like, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go to UNI. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to odd a suburb's Victoria and start a chuck
Speaker 1: old chicken shop. I would imagine there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of there was a little bit of discomfort there.
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe the right answer is that it's
Speaker 1: not about It's not about me, and what I think
Speaker 1: I can do between them. But maybe I've surrounded myself
Speaker 1: with people. I've been lucky enough to have people around
Speaker 1: me that are fully supportive of the erraticness of jumping
Speaker 1: between ideas, because without that support, maybe none of that
Speaker 1: would have happened as well.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, well, I definitely want to come back
Speaker 2: to that, because I don't know that many people know
Speaker 2: about your beautiful wife and her incredible career, and I
Speaker 2: definitely want to touch on having two big careers in
Speaker 2: one family and the support network.
Speaker 3: That you provide for each other.
Speaker 1: He's a champion here.
Speaker 2: Oh you're batting for sure, soz just calling it how
Speaker 2: it is. But coming back to just quickly what you
Speaker 2: said about being four different lifetimes. You've lived so far,
Speaker 2: and this might not even be the only one. Now
Speaker 2: that you live, you will continue to live many more.
Speaker 2: I think that people really silo themselves and they think, oh,
Speaker 2: I've started a coffee business.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be the coffee guy forever.
Speaker 2: I jumped out of my comfort zone once, pat on
Speaker 2: the back, I'm going to sail off into the future.
Speaker 2: Now I'm happy and successful and I've ticked all my boxes.
Speaker 2: But I think what's really refreshing about you is that
Speaker 2: it's okay. You're embracing that it's meant to be a
Speaker 2: different chapter all the time. And what holds a lot
Speaker 2: of people back from that, I think is firstly like security,
Speaker 2: wanting certainty and stability, and of course there's financial commitments
Speaker 2: and whatever, but it's also your risk appetite, your ability
Speaker 2: to to see that something could work rather than seeing
Speaker 2: that it could only fail. It is having the right
Speaker 2: support network in place to say, you know what, it's
Speaker 2: a bit crazy, but like someone's got to try it,
Speaker 2: and someone's got to have success, so why not you
Speaker 2: have you found? And this comes up a lot more masternalinization,
Speaker 2: but a lot more for women than it does for
Speaker 2: men that in the jump between categories and between chapters
Speaker 2: of You, you did face any kind of imposter syndrome doubt?
Speaker 2: Did you worry about failure? Did you worry about perception?
Speaker 2: Did you worry about like what if it all goes
Speaker 2: to shit? What if suitcases doesn't work? Do you think
Speaker 2: about that stuff? Or do you just run so fast
Speaker 2: at the next idea that suddenly you're in Paris at
Speaker 2: the Olympics as the official luggage wants and you're like,
Speaker 2: holy shit, were here?
Speaker 3: Like do you ever face those barriers or do you
Speaker 3: just rip the band aid?
Speaker 1: I mean, I like to think I put on a
Speaker 1: really good face where people go this guy has got
Speaker 1: the confidence and the arrogance that is in abundance, and
Speaker 1: there's nothing that can take this guy. And I definitely
Speaker 1: put on that persona as much as possible. The imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome thing is real when you're killing it and you
Speaker 1: think that you shouldn't be. I remember feeling weird about things,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know how to call it, but
Speaker 1: weird is going to be the word I use.
Speaker 3: Because this is an ongoing theme. You and the Weird
Speaker 3: Unit thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird. It's all weird. It's just weird. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm going to read more books that my vocame's not
Speaker 1: very good. It's weird in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: you're at a barbecue at a dinner party and it's
Speaker 1: always like, oh, so what do you do? And the
Speaker 1: work thing becomes part of you. I feel like in
Speaker 1: certain groups people don't ask about work, which is always
Speaker 1: great and a big relief for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Is it such an anxiety moment? When you go to
Speaker 1: a dinner party, you're not really proud, or maybe haven't
Speaker 1: been as successful in a certain area for a little
Speaker 1: bit of time, but you have to be You're representing
Speaker 1: your choice in work at that point in time, and
Speaker 1: so you have to you have to carry that choice
Speaker 1: at the dinner party, and sometimes it doesn't play off,
Speaker 1: and you do feel that anxiousness. And I remember for
Speaker 1: a long time, you know, a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: are working for Google and doing all these cool things
Speaker 1: and making some big money and traveling the world, and
Speaker 1: you know, I had the coffee subscription business, this little
Speaker 1: business that was kind of cool to talk about, but
Speaker 1: not really not really something that at that level people
Speaker 1: could engage with. They're like, oh, that's that's kind of cool,
Speaker 1: and that would be that would be about it. And
Speaker 1: I remember that being a big thing for a long time,
Speaker 1: just not really knowing how to answer that question at
Speaker 1: parties or when meeting people. So you know, that feeling
Speaker 1: has been around for a long time. You know, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of people in my life who I've
Speaker 1: met who understood that weirdness and understood that awkwardness and
Speaker 1: always protected me, which is such a funny thing, and
Speaker 1: I acknowledge it now and I knew it back then too,
Speaker 1: but I really appreciate it now, and I try and
Speaker 1: pay that forward a little bit whenever I see somebody
Speaker 1: in that in that position where they've kind of understood
Speaker 1: that everyone else is in banking, everyone else is doing
Speaker 1: their thing. Somebody comes and says something that's little bit
Speaker 1: left of center for the group, and they come in
Speaker 1: a verbally outwardly supported and engaging conversation in that to
Speaker 1: the group. I feel like that that kind of barbecue
Speaker 1: test has always been a moment for me where am
Speaker 1: I happy with what I'm doing and is it reflective
Speaker 1: of who I feel like I am In reverse to
Speaker 1: all of that weirdness now where I feel like I've
Speaker 1: had some success with July, I play it down even
Speaker 1: more now. When people ask me, oh, so what do
Speaker 1: you do? I say, I sell suitcases on the internet,
Speaker 1: because like, Okay, you're in Melbourne and you get it,
Speaker 1: You're you know, across Melbourne and Sydney. People understand, oh yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: it's July addsid but no one else really really knows
Speaker 1: the brand and it doesn't mean anything to them.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're playing it down right, now I think
Speaker 2: that's definitely not true, but okay, continue in certain circles.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I sell suitcases on the internet just
Speaker 1: to see the reaction that I get from people, just
Speaker 1: to see how they handle it when they're given a
Speaker 1: curveball where they're trying to find something to relate to
Speaker 1: have a conversation with me over dinner, and it's quite funny.
Speaker 1: Now now I like to I like to play around
Speaker 1: with it. So I think it goes to and from
Speaker 1: in terms of your success levels and where you feel
Speaker 1: comfortable what success is. I've met a guy the other
Speaker 1: day who's done a credible building career, but all he
Speaker 1: thinks about is roasting coffee. And it just met him
Speaker 1: the other day for the first time. He goes, I'm obsessed.
Speaker 1: I'm roasting at home, I'm doing all these things. I'm
Speaker 1: trying this. But he needs to support his family and
Speaker 1: his lifestyle through the work he's doing in building, but
Speaker 1: he's obsessed with coffee. And so we spent hours, like
Speaker 1: I couldn't care less about the building industry, but I
Speaker 1: love talking to him about coffee, and I think he
Speaker 1: appreciated that I had some connection to coffee and that
Speaker 1: we could continue the conversation there and go deep with it.
Speaker 1: So's I don't know if I answer your questions.
Speaker 3: No, I love it.
Speaker 1: There are moments where you do feel weird about saying
Speaker 1: what you do and like you're an ex lawyer, right
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly? Yes, yeah, And so here's the
Speaker 1: funny thing about ex lawyer. You can do anything towards anything.
Speaker 1: You can sell fairy floss and as long as you
Speaker 1: call yourself an ex layer because you've already half validated
Speaker 1: that you can.
Speaker 2: But I chose, do you know what's so funny? I
Speaker 2: often say that I leave ex lawyer in my bio
Speaker 2: and in all of my like kind of self you know,
Speaker 2: self marketing materials, the deck for MCing and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Because of that, it is such a self validation. Like
Speaker 2: as much as I'm like I've gone and lived the dream,
Speaker 2: I've seized maya, there is something so much about you know,
Speaker 2: like am I still successful enough? And I have to
Speaker 2: drop that in there? And it does come from a
Speaker 2: place of self doubt. It's fascinating when you really reflect on,
Speaker 2: like why did I leave that in there?
Speaker 1: It is and it's the right thing to do, right
Speaker 1: because other people do judge and they read into it,
Speaker 1: and you've got to kind of take them on that
Speaker 1: journey in the shortest way possible. You know, it's nice
Speaker 1: to be able to have those things, and I think
Speaker 1: you take those things away, it makes things a lot harder,
Speaker 1: and I feel like some of that anxiety starts to
Speaker 1: come back and go, like, what's the best way to
Speaker 1: explain what I do? In a really funny story, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you a really quick one. I don't know if
Speaker 1: how we're going for time, but tell you a really
Speaker 1: funny story. I had a friend travel with me recently
Speaker 1: and he is the importer for Redheads products, so matches
Speaker 1: and things like that, and so in our meetings, you know,
Speaker 1: he's tagging along to a couple of meetings with me
Speaker 1: and they'll ask him, They're like, oh cool, you know
Speaker 1: you part of lad what do you do? And so
Speaker 1: he's had to be in a position where he he's
Speaker 1: not talking to Walworth or Colls, He's completely out a
Speaker 1: category and has to jump to a really quick explanation
Speaker 1: as to what he does and how he explains things.
Speaker 1: And so we workshopped it. After like five or six
Speaker 1: different meetings, we ended up workshopping the right answer because
Speaker 1: he started to sound like a drug dealer. He's like,
Speaker 1: I do import export. You know, we say that, mane,
Speaker 1: you know that sounds dodgy. So we landed on something
Speaker 1: that was really funny, which was, you know, the supermarket
Speaker 1: and how they sell food. And they're like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I do the non food.
Speaker 2: Yeah nice, Yeah, I get it now, but non food
Speaker 2: it's such a branding exercise.
Speaker 1: It's such a funny thing anyway. So all that thing
Speaker 1: comes back to how do you feel like you're succeeding.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it is how you can
Speaker 1: convey yourself to other people when you're chatting to them,
Speaker 1: and how confident you are in the position you're in
Speaker 1: at the time you tell them that, look, I'm doing
Speaker 1: something that I love. Success is what not only would
Speaker 1: I see, but were you see me as well?
Speaker 2: I could talk to you about that for a whole
Speaker 2: episode in itself. The reason this podcast started was because
Speaker 2: I'm so fascinated by the matrix of success, joy fulfillment,
Speaker 2: and identity and how like so much of it is Hi,
Speaker 2: what's your name?
Speaker 1: What do you do?
Speaker 3: It's not high what's your name? What do you love
Speaker 3: what makes you happy? Like are you happy? Is anyone
Speaker 3: even happy? We don't even ask that question.
Speaker 2: And so I want to spend the last part of
Speaker 2: the podcast on the part of your identity that isn't
Speaker 2: always about July and what you do in your output
Speaker 2: and the success that you've had, because I think that's
Speaker 2: also like a beautiful part of getting to know you.
Speaker 2: But before we do move on to that, because you
Speaker 2: have had such incredible success with July and have just
Speaker 2: been at the Olympics, which I definitely want to hear about,
Speaker 2: but first must acknowledge that you play it down, Like
Speaker 2: you mentioned that you play it down sometimes when it
Speaker 2: is going really well. But what a lot of people
Speaker 2: might not remember is that you lost ninety five percent
Speaker 2: of your revenue. It's only been around for five years,
Speaker 2: and in that five year period you've had the highest
Speaker 2: highs but also some like drastically low lows, like the
Speaker 2: world stopped traveling.
Speaker 3: You know, a year into your business.
Speaker 2: In those moments, I can imagine it was very hard
Speaker 2: to tell people that you sell suitcases, like in the
Speaker 2: middle of COVID, what do you do? I mean, travel
Speaker 2: items that people need when they travel, which no one
Speaker 2: is doing how do you deal with the shitty bits
Speaker 2: of business?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was tough. That was really shitty. I would
Speaker 1: say July's definitely represented the highest highs and the lowest
Speaker 1: lows for me today. There's always shit in business. There's
Speaker 1: always stuff that happens when and if you're killing it,
Speaker 1: something else will. You know, there's there's a culture people problem.
Speaker 1: If the revenue is not there, then it's about resourcing
Speaker 1: and cash to get there. I don't think business ever
Speaker 1: sort of sits still where you're like, oh, everything's absolutely
Speaker 1: amazing and let's not touch anything. I think the whole
Speaker 1: nature of business is that there's always something that's on fire,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's just not revenue. Sometimes it's just over
Speaker 1: the other things. So, yeah, Covid was definitely tough game.
Speaker 1: I think it was even I wouldn't say worse, but
Speaker 1: was really tough. Is that in the e commerce community
Speaker 1: in particular, there were people who are absolutely killing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not tough because I love them and I
Speaker 1: love that for them too. They were doing really, really well.
Speaker 1: But there were some people just through covids making a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of money and having a lot of success.
Speaker 1: And if you remember COVID. It was meant to end
Speaker 1: every month, but didn't and just kept going and kept going,
Speaker 1: kept going, so we didn't see the light at the
Speaker 1: end of the tunnel. It was great to have a
Speaker 1: supportive business planner, supportive family who you know. It just
Speaker 1: kind of like went on with the punches. But again,
Speaker 1: we all work and we kept the lights on and
Speaker 1: things were pretty good. So there's always going to be
Speaker 1: shoot parts of business. I think you've got to be
Speaker 1: weary of the fact that that's what business is about.
Speaker 1: It's always revenue problems to begin with, and then there's
Speaker 1: other problems that come in as well that just require
Speaker 1: different levels of solution. Just got to get in there
Speaker 1: and try to solved things. But nothing's ever going to
Speaker 1: be peachy. The difference is that maybe one day you're
Speaker 1: making a little bit more money than you were before.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean now you're also achieving incredible things. Tell
Speaker 2: us about parents. I mean, you just came home. You
Speaker 2: were the official luggage sponsor for the Olympic team, and
Speaker 2: that's I mean gigantic, like massive. Do you stop and
Speaker 2: celebrate the wins? Is this been in the pipeline for
Speaker 2: a really long time? What's your ultimate vision for July.
Speaker 1: That was a really cool one. That was we've done
Speaker 1: a couple of Olympics, but nobody really talks about them.
Speaker 1: We did Beijing Winter but again that was a tough one.
Speaker 1: And then Commonwealth Games. Nobody really talks the Commonalth Games
Speaker 1: in Birmingham in Birmingham, and so then we had Paris
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, and so we'd already been supporting the
Speaker 1: Australian Olympic team for a few years, but this was
Speaker 1: our first chance that everybody actually really wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about it, and the case looked starting. But we had
Speaker 1: this magic marketing moment again like we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: Australian five years in relatively small business on the grand
Speaker 1: scale of some of the partners that are with you,
Speaker 1: the Olympic team, the Australian Olympic team. And here we've
Speaker 1: got now at the end of the Olympics in a
Speaker 1: private hanger for conas the athletes coming out of the
Speaker 1: plane in their uniform with their medals on, carrying a
Speaker 1: July suitcase down the stairs, meeting the Prime Minister. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there taking photos of worrying like this is
Speaker 1: really what are we doing here. It was such a
Speaker 1: cool moment that I am forever grateful to the team
Speaker 1: who engaged us and the team who made the product
Speaker 1: here in July was such a magic thing. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I sell suitcases on the incience there like it's not
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, We're not saving children at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. It's an interesting product category
Speaker 1: where people have fallen in love with because a lot
Speaker 1: of people travel and they you know, they love their suitcases.
Speaker 1: They love the memories it represents. And we're just so
Speaker 1: lucky that we could be part of this training. The
Speaker 1: useem in Paris and we went Richard and I went over.
Speaker 1: It's been a week there, We met the athletes, we
Speaker 1: watched the games. Is iconic. I mean, where do you
Speaker 1: go from here? You know, I know, I know it's
Speaker 1: all down hill. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, at least it would roll smoothly because your
Speaker 2: wheel balance is just amazing. So I mean, it is
Speaker 2: actually really incredible the buzz you've been able to create
Speaker 2: with an item that isn't an everyday item, Like it
Speaker 2: isn't something that you have a touch point with every day.
Speaker 3: People don't travel like that regularly.
Speaker 2: But yet July has become a household name in such
Speaker 2: a short amount of time, given that for three of
Speaker 2: those years we weren't really traveling at all. So I mean, huge,
Speaker 2: huge congratulations. That's like quite a feat to achieve that
Speaker 2: we're so in love with our suitcases.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a super cool thing, Dorry. I feel
Speaker 1: it every day, so I don't take it for granted.
Speaker 1: Add all. I love it. I love chatting to people
Speaker 1: about it. Just before, the reason why I was late
Speaker 1: to this phone call is because I'm buying a suit
Speaker 1: for my sister's wedding the day before I leave. That's
Speaker 1: the level of unpreparedness that I live my life too.
Speaker 1: And I spent fifteen minutes talking to the guy behind
Speaker 1: the counter about his suitcases because he was obsessed with
Speaker 1: suitcases and details. I'm like, we've got to keep chatting,
Speaker 1: you know that. That was the level I knew that
Speaker 1: I was late, but I had to keep talking to
Speaker 1: this guy because he was just so into it. He
Speaker 1: was into the category. He knew every detail about every brand.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this guy's just an enigma out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: That's so random.
Speaker 1: I love suitcases that much. It's just a weird. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting category. It's a really interesting category.
Speaker 2: It's also really interesting. So that leads really nicely to
Speaker 2: the last section, which is just all about your joy.
Speaker 2: Really you're yay, but it has to be something that's
Speaker 2: outside of your working identity, because I think nobody can
Speaker 2: be consumed by their work and like sustain that.
Speaker 3: It's just not sustainable. But it's also not the way
Speaker 3: we were built.
Speaker 2: You're not meant to work and die. Even if you
Speaker 2: love what you're doing, you can't kind of stay fresh
Speaker 2: and have new ideas if you don't have a family
Speaker 2: life and other passions. And one of the things I'm
Speaker 2: pains to always emphasize is that what makes someone excited
Speaker 2: could be someone else's nightmare. Like my favorite episode we've
Speaker 2: ever done was the Thai Cave diver, whose joy is
Speaker 2: swimming through coffee colored water in tiny claustrophobic holes, which
Speaker 2: is my idea of hell. But that is his joy
Speaker 2: and he sticks with it, so good on him.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: The guy that you spoke to, his joy is suitcases,
Speaker 2: Like who knew that someone could be so passionate about suitcases?
Speaker 3: So for you, what is your joy? Is it still
Speaker 3: the stamps. Do you have anything in your life that's.
Speaker 2: Just that thing you do that like you would do
Speaker 2: even if you didn't make money from it, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like you would pay to be able
Speaker 2: to keep doing that in your life just because it
Speaker 2: brings you joy and it makes you forget what time
Speaker 2: it is, you know.
Speaker 1: I And now I feel like I should have read
Speaker 1: the questions and prepared for this one, but better because
Speaker 1: I say that, like I've always We've had a joke,
Speaker 1: running joke with a couple of friends of mine where
Speaker 1: we're kind of out of hobbies at the moment. We're
Speaker 1: not really in hobby moment. We've dropped a couple of things,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not really going and doing these things.
Speaker 1: We're out of work where you know, we're super engaged
Speaker 1: with it's only been the last twelve to eighteen months
Speaker 1: where we're phoning ourselves now we're all being too busy
Speaker 1: to do the hobbies, and so like, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to answer the question, but I'll throw a few things
Speaker 1: at it right because I'm three kids deep right now.
Speaker 1: We are a six year old or four year old,
Speaker 1: an almost one year old, and that takes up a
Speaker 1: lot of joy, and a lot of time. Everyone loves
Speaker 1: their kids, right, No one's going to say that they
Speaker 1: had their kids. I absolutely adore my kids, and any
Speaker 1: waking minute that I've got outside of work, I end
Speaker 1: up spending with these guys. It's super fun watching him
Speaker 1: learn how to ride a bike, taking him skating, doing
Speaker 1: all the fun things is It's just a great way
Speaker 1: to spend the weekend. And I know I've had a
Speaker 1: good weekend. When my step counts like hit over twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand, I'm like, oh, great's I've done my job
Speaker 1: as a parent, as a dad, I've done my job.
Speaker 1: And so right now, that seems to be the things
Speaker 1: that's consuming a lot of time in what typically would
Speaker 1: be the hobby space. It feels like a cop out
Speaker 1: to just be like, my family is my joy, and
Speaker 1: they are everybody's family should be their joy. But I
Speaker 1: do feel like that you still need to have your
Speaker 1: own time. You still need to have personal time to
Speaker 1: be able to sort of recover and feel fresh, to
Speaker 1: be able to have the energy to bring back to
Speaker 1: the family and back to the job. I will answer
Speaker 1: in a way with jogging. At the moment, I found
Speaker 1: that practicing to jog getting better at jogging. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: say I'm very good at it just yet, but getting
Speaker 1: better at it and seeing the milestone growth and slowly
Speaker 1: slowly getting the numbers up and getting better at it,
Speaker 1: and putting their headphones in and listening to Coach Bennett
Speaker 1: on the Nike app, slowly slowly getting me to the five,
Speaker 1: the six, six and a half, you know, the seven
Speaker 1: point two. Then you add another song and you get
Speaker 1: the seven point four. That for me has been the
Speaker 1: small winds in between all the craziness that's happening between
Speaker 1: family and work.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's also a really nice acknowledgment. The
Speaker 2: fact that you haven't had hobbies is that in an
Speaker 2: ideal world, it's artificial for me to say.
Speaker 3: Everyone els to have a platigo. You have to have time.
Speaker 2: But you know, like if you have three kids and
Speaker 2: a huge business and your wife is the sea of Russianale.
Speaker 2: Everyone who doesn't already know this huge, two biggeries in
Speaker 2: one family, you know you're not always going to have
Speaker 2: time left over to just go and like forage for
Speaker 2: mushrooms and plant your own whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Forage for mushrooms. There's too much media out there with mushrooms.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm like, yeah, that was a bad example.
Speaker 1: Oh forage for Parsley. You know, you don't hear much
Speaker 1: about herb Foragers. It's always mushrooms.
Speaker 3: Parsley is good, you know, nice and innocent. Let's just go.
Speaker 1: So safe.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, just to finish out because I
Speaker 2: wish we'd touched on it more, but I've got to
Speaker 2: way too carried away. How do you guys go I
Speaker 2: feel like often there is one big career, especially with
Speaker 2: a new business, that is you're the founder. You know,
Speaker 2: you're out at the forefront kind of driving this all
Speaker 2: the time. There's often room for one of those in
Speaker 2: a marriage and let alone three children, and then your
Speaker 2: wife being a CEO with her own massive career as well.
Speaker 3: How do you guys do that?
Speaker 2: And do you find like how does the ego in
Speaker 2: who's kind of getting the time or getting the support
Speaker 2: and how.
Speaker 3: Does that work?
Speaker 2: Like if we struggle with that, and especially when we
Speaker 2: work together, but now that we don't, we often find,
Speaker 2: you know, it's push pull all the time, both having careers.
Speaker 3: How do you guys balance that?
Speaker 1: It's tough. We look at the weekly revenue figures and
Speaker 1: whoever's making more money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good answer.
Speaker 1: I mean she's the talent I think the main thing.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm going to say that, right, but she
Speaker 1: actually is. And if you I mean you know her,
Speaker 1: you meet her, she's clearly ten x on anything else.
Speaker 1: But the really interesting thing, and the really funny thing
Speaker 1: about our relationship is that, particularly with Chamani and her work,
Speaker 1: her main part of her job is dealing with the
Speaker 1: founder and the founders. We come up with crazy ideas,
Speaker 1: we're erraty, we want to jump onto new things, unjustified,
Speaker 1: gut feeling, big movements. She has to deal with that
Speaker 1: day to day at work, and then she comes home
Speaker 1: and she sees me and probably just goes, I can
Speaker 1: deal with it. I know exactly how to deal with
Speaker 1: this thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got the toolkit for this guy.
Speaker 1: I'm light compared to that man is an actual genius.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I for sure she just comes
Speaker 1: home and just goes like, I know this playbook in
Speaker 1: and out. I'm not going to react. You can do
Speaker 1: whatever it needs to do, and just make sure that
Speaker 1: you're home by ads so we can feed the kids.
Speaker 1: I think that says a lot about our relationship. I
Speaker 1: think she knows how to be with me, and I
Speaker 1: love being with her. So it's been a great way
Speaker 1: to be able to grow and raise a family and
Speaker 1: obviously fully supportive for the longest time. You know, we
Speaker 1: bring up COVID. Before July, I wasn't making any money.
Speaker 1: She was putting me in the family before that, doing
Speaker 1: a few other crazy ideas, and you know, before she
Speaker 1: joined Russia. Now you know, me helping her guide her
Speaker 1: through what her next career point is going to be.
Speaker 1: It's been a good working relationship in just helping each other.
Speaker 1: And you know, you want the other person to succeed,
Speaker 1: right like, you want them to grow and be happy
Speaker 1: and do all the things. And if that's what makes
Speaker 1: it happy, then by all means you should do.
Speaker 3: It swings and roundabouts too.
Speaker 1: I think I hope she thinks the same thing about me,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure the same thing with your relationship as well.
Speaker 1: You want your guys to be happy, like, there's nothing
Speaker 1: worse than being in an unhappy relationship. So support in
Speaker 1: any way you can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Well, I have taken up so much of your time,
Speaker 2: and I'm very aware that you're leaving tomorrow. I had
Speaker 2: no idea it was tomorrow actually, so thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your time. That was fascinating. Congratulations on all
Speaker 2: the success. I hope you get some time off and
Speaker 2: have some hobby time over in Greece to enjoy the sunshine.
Speaker 2: And you obviously travel with July bags, right or do
Speaker 2: you find that weird?
Speaker 1: No? I travel. There's no way that I know not
Speaker 1: in a July, and I'm close enough to them, I
Speaker 1: will literally unpack their bag and make sure that they
Speaker 1: get into one of mine's. There's no way that that happens.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope you have the most amazing trip. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for your time. I've have spoken to
Speaker 2: you for like five hours. I wish I had been
Speaker 2: more eloquent and had less of a mumbrain because I
Speaker 2: had so much more to ask.
Speaker 3: But when I come back, yeah, I appreciate.
Speaker 1: It so much. Older you'll get some sleep, I'll get
Speaker 1: some sleep.
Speaker 3: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Thanks Sarah, Thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Me what an absolutely fascinating human being, an incredible backstory
Speaker 2: behind a brand we.
Speaker 3: All know and love. As I said at the start,
Speaker 3: I wish that I had had five hours to speak
Speaker 3: to eight.
Speaker 2: Then I could have kept going and as soon as
Speaker 2: we finished recording, I thought of eight hundred questions that
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask that I didn't get to, but
Speaker 2: maybe we'll have to do a part two that I do.
Speaker 3: Hope you guys.
Speaker 2: Enjoyed that hour, and if you have any other questions,
Speaker 2: please to forward them on I can pass them on
Speaker 2: to him. If you have any major takeaways or anything
Speaker 2: that you enjoyed in the episode, please do share so
Speaker 2: that we can keep spreading the neighborhood love as far
Speaker 2: and wide as possible, and also show our guests what
Speaker 2: we took away from them so generously giving us at
Speaker 2: their time. Now that we're back recording guests, if there's
Speaker 2: anyone you want to hear from or anything you want.
Speaker 3: To hear about.
Speaker 2: Always, you guys know the dms are open and we
Speaker 2: love to hear feedback so that I can make sure
Speaker 2: I'm giving you exactly what you want. And in the meantime,
Speaker 2: I hope you're having a wonderful week and are seizing
Speaker 2: you're yay.