EP #100 - What If The Future Rewards The Dream Chasers

Episode 100 of the Only Scott podcast! I’m looking back at some of the biggest lessons I’ve picked up from 3 years of podcasting. I have spoken to all kinds of dream chasers including musicians, athletes, creators and business owners, all trying to build something while the ground keeps shifting under us.

I start with the modern music industry, where it’s never been easier to record at home, upload music digital distribution platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, sell merch online, and run your own promos, but it’s also never been more overwhelming. 

From there I talk about social media, AI’s impact on creativity, work, and the weird feeling that the internet is filling up with bots. We finish with mindset and money: the sacrifices behind the highlight reel, the cost of living and debt-based economy pressures, skill building, and building a personal brand. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:13

And here we are in episode 100 of the Only Scott podcast. What the fuck? How the fuck did we get here? Jeez. Um what a crazy few years, bro. Seriously. It's been um I ca I kinda like buzz out of how much time has gone by and uh how many episodes I've done, all the kind of people I've had on been really wild. Um, this podcast started off just uh originally just me and a mate just chatting shit in this room, having a bit of fun. Uh we didn't really have any plans or anything like that. And um then yeah, it's kind of just evolved drastically. And I think one of the things I didn't really understand with with this podcast at the beginning was what I well, yeah, obviously what we were trying to go after, but also I don't think I really understood into episode 50 or roundabout there that this podcast has actually been about talking to the dream chasers. And um, you might have heard me bring this up a few times on some past episodes, but yeah, I've only really gathered that. Um I kind of realized that quite a lot later than when I started. And dude, like we've had some crazy people in this room. Like I've been talking to obviously musicians, um, I've had people come in for who are athletes, I've had people who've uh you know, photographers, I've had filmmakers, I've had content creators, I've had uh people who work in business, a whole variety of different people. So yeah, all those different uh different kinds of people from different places, different uh walks of life, different dreams. Uh it's been uh absolutely fascinating and really, really awesome to learn about a lot of the people who've been on here. And um I kind of wanted to like collate like the best moments of the podcast and some of the things that I've found incredibly insightful and some things that will probably I don't know, I feel like I've learned so much from a lot of people who've been on here, and also just sharing stories, you know, to sort of yeah, like how are people, other people going about chasing their dreams, you know? Um, you know, like there's a lot of things you could say that get stacked against the the dream chaser, um, trying to achieve something great or something out of um you know the status quo. And I think like what I've noticed over the past a hundred episodes was like the most insightful, the most useful, interesting, and general points that I reckon be not only cool to listen to, but I think if you're someone else who's trying to pursue something or chase something, I reckon you'll get a lot out of it. So I want to break this out into about seven different sections. Um uh so one of the big uh things on this podcast have been a lot of creatives, and particularly musicians. Uh so I wanted to make a whole section kind of talking about like the modern music industry, uh, and sort of like what it's like being a musician um in the current uh modern times. So this is done in 2026. Um also a lot of the podcasts have been uh recorded over the past three years, so there's actually a lot of um a lot of the stuff I've been talking about on here is really up to date. Uh so I don't want to like waste all this like really good insights of things that are happening at the moment because I believe that they really do apply uh to you and probably will apply in future, but they really apply right now. Hey guys, just realized I forgot to mention that there's also the uh social media section, which is really important, uh a part of this podcast episode. So um stay tuned for that. Um so yeah, breaking up like musicians uh and creatives, uh breaking up into like talking about AI and AI's impact on different things and different industries, uh talking about mindset, which includes a lot of the athletes who've been on here and how they, you know, have just like incredible um mental strength to power through so many things. Uh, I've also been talking with uh people um in business and also kind of talking about the kind of like the economy and building skills and things that I believe are really important as well to kind of base yourself, you know, in reality a little bit as a dream chaser. Because I think as someone who's going after things, you know, we're so you get so like you've got such big ideas and you've got so many things you're trying to go after, and it's very exciting. And there's a lot of things that kind of, you know, a lot of obstacles you've got to overcome. And I just think it's important also to to look into what um you can do to make sure that you're looking after yourself financially. Uh I have a bit of a section at the end where I kind of do like a bit of a podcast rewind if you want to see how it started and where it came from. It's uh yeah, it's it's come a long way, bro. It's been a bit of a crazy ride, and um I think in the beginning it really shows you that uh this has taken quite a bit to build, even just to get here. Um so yeah, it was a lot of fun. Um so yeah, come on this journey with me. Come and um yeah, learn from a lot of these other dream chases of how they're going about, um, you know, making it happen, and um I hope you you get something from this. Enjoy. And this episode is sponsored by me. Do you struggle with sleeping and particularly struggle with light and sound while sleeping? I think it's time you get the sleep that you deserve. My business Infinity Sleep specializes in sleep well-being products to enhance your sleep quality. I've been using sleep masks and airplugs for the past three years to help improve my sleep, and I'm so stoked to finally have ones that have been created for my own sleeping needs. If you would like to learn more about my business Infinity Sleep, please visit our website www.infinitysleep.co.nz. By making a purchase, you are directly not only supporting a local Kiwi business, but also this podcast. Use the promo code only scot 15% and receive 15% off your first order. Go to www.infinitysleep.co.nz to get the sleep that you deserve. So for a long time this podcast was mainly talking to people from the creative field, in particular musicians and in particular rock alternative and metal bands, punk bands based in Auckland, uh, New Zealand, and that's kind of where this all started kicking off with getting different guests on, and um the reason why it happened that way is because that's my background. I used to play in bands for a long time, and um I used to do like all lots of gigs, and so that's kind of how we managed to get this podcast going uh in the beginning with a whole bunch of different people. Some of the bands are still around, some of the bands are not around anymore, some are still grinding away, some have found a little bit of success, some yeah, it's just the way it goes sometimes, eh? But they all kind of had some interesting overlaps, you know, and there was quite a few, I guess, common questions I would ask, especially about the state of the music the music industry, how people are finding things. Musicians are in a weird spot right now. In one sense, it's actually never been easier to be a musician. You can record, you know, high-quality music and audio in your house. You probably can record music that sounds better than the Beatles, gear-wise, not talent. Okay. Um not only that, you can also upload your music to streaming platforms. So your music can be heard on like Spotify, Apple Music, uh Tidal, uh, Bandcamp, various other ones. Then you've of course you've got YouTube, you can put your music videos on there, and there's also also YouTube music as well. Uh you can uh also put your merch on like a Shopify store, so now you can sell merch directly. Um then you've also got like the um yeah, you've also got promo as well. So you got the meta platforms you can upload your music to to promote like little videos, and then you've also got like you know, you can do Facebook events, invite people along, share your gigs. There's so much you can do, right? So, like it in a way, you if you just look at it like this, it seems so easy, right? One of the things that's so hard about today about being a musician and being creative is like you have to do everything yourself. You know, you have to be the content creator, you have to be your tour manager, you have to be a marketer. It's not, you know, you gotta be like a brand ambassador for yourself at the end of the day. It's not necessarily like a really bad thing, it's just a lot more work than just being a musician and then relying on a record label to kind of take care of the rest, right? Like those days are long gone, unless you're like a Nepo baby, I suppose, and then you know, then I suppose you can afford it. But for 90% of us, that's just not the case, one bit, right? So being a musician, it's a lot of work, it can get expensive very quickly, and it gets very overwhelming with the amount of things that you have to do. And so I kind of wanted to talk to a lot of these musicians about all these kind of different aspects, about trying to be a musician in like you know, the the current climate, you know, in the in the modern tech society world we live in, certain to be run by AI. Whoa, no, um, we'll get to that. But yeah, I kind of um wanted to talk about a lot of those aspects. So yeah, without further ado, uh let's start getting into some of these things. Uh I want to start talking about oversaturation.

SPEAKER_23 9:41

People are worried about AI music.

SPEAKER_07 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_23 9:43

It's like, who cares about that competition? It's like your band is competing with Elton John, you are competing with Zeppelin, you are competing with Bach.

SPEAKER_25 9:50

I think there's definitely lots and lots and lots of uh great bands still out there. Um there's a lot of artists out there as well that are amazing that they just need to be seen, you know? And and the challenge with social media is a saturation. There's so much of it to consume. You you miss stuff.

SPEAKER_13 10:07

It's easier to release stuff, but because of that, more people doing it is more competition kind of. I mean, I don't like to think of it as competition. Like I like, you know, we're all fucking on the same boat.

SPEAKER_07 10:16

But let's start with the obvious one oversaturation. There is just so much content out there, right? And as a musician, you're not even just can competing against other musicians, you're competing against content creators, you're creating, you know, we're talking about the meta platforms, but even like on Spotify, you're competing with like podcasts and shit like you know, motherfuckers like me. Yeah, then you're also competing with um audiobooks um on those, and then on YouTube, you're competing with like not only like the biggest artists in the world, uh, and then AI and shit, you're also competing with like Hollywood style, you know, promotion uh of their movies and their content as well. So your your competition is like crazy. With oversaturation, it's not like what you're actually really competing for is attention. And you can argue it's always kind of been about attention, but now it is all about the vertical video attention, right? The algorithm that we're all trying to compete on decides who gets seen. It doesn't really matter what's good, it's who gets seen, right? And I think a lot of us already know this, but I think this is just a really important point to hammer home. Music is really expensive. Yeah. Because everything gets lost in the algorithm. Like music and like doing creative work has always been very expensive. But I think before it was m probably in a sense there was different challenges. But I think when a label or an uh let's say like yeah, a record label or something wanted to take interest in you, they would invest in you and want to mentor you and sort of help build a career uh for you, but also in return they're building like you know, another revenue stream for themselves out of all their artists or whatever. Um, but now these days, like you gotta fund everything yourself. Like you gotta have a part-time job or a full-time job. Uh probably well, you gotta have like a full-time job, basically. Like you can't really do music full-time anymore unless you're like in the top one percent or something.

SPEAKER_26 12:30

Like 30 years ago, a lot of people could do music full-time, a lot of bands here could be doing it full-time, and and you know, once you get signed, that's it, but that's not it anymore. I think with Spotify, with um how much you know the music industry in terms of artists have lost in terms of revenue uh these days. So it's really hard. I know there's a lot of bands from 20 years ago who were doing it full-time, who've had to get part-time jobs while they're touring just to make you know, break even or make ends meet.

SPEAKER_07 13:00

Yeah, as you can hear from like Chasing Titans, man, like yeah, I mean, they they were signed to a label, not a big one, but they did pretty well for that, they've done it, they did it all right for themselves. Yeah, I think something else that's important to talk about with the modern music industry is that labels are not there to help you. Like, you could say that they probably never were in a way, but now it's like they really not there to help you. They're not gonna spend or invest in you unless the product is already a finished product, which basically means are you like an artist who already has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers on the social platforms, millions of streams? Are you selling out massive gigs and opening for the biggest acts uh that come from overseas? Maybe they'll take an interest at that point, you know?

SPEAKER_09 13:47

It's like a giant lunch that they take from royalty. So everything that we own from Spotify, they will recoup until we eventually die. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 13:57

Kind of in this like interesting point of like, well, what is the value of that music?

SPEAKER_12 14:02

That's the real problem. It's a it's a it's a massive issue, you know. We've we've got to pay for ourselves to get places to play, and we've got to pay for our recordings and things like that. There's no big there's no major label money on the case. No, it's all gone, you know.

SPEAKER_07 14:13

So it's unless you're already making money yourselves, then the label's like, yeah, we'll just pick that up. Exactly. So like, yeah, from Crooked Royals and New Way Home. I mean, these guys are quite well-known alternative bands in in New Zealand, I'd say. Uh Crooked Royals, I've known those fellas for a very long time. They've they work very hard. Um uh they actually played their first gig with my band. I think I might have said that before on here, but I'll just say it again. Claim to fame. Um, but yeah, those those those fellas are pretty sick. Uh but yeah, man, like it's uh even the like the label just gives you a loan and you gotta pay that shit back. It's probably gonna take you a lifetime to pay it back, really. Like, there is no safety net, like there's no safety net now, like with a record label that they're not gonna just put a give you some money and help you out to try and boost your career, like those days are gone, bro. So I guess like looking at it like in New Zealand in particular, like, where is this money coming from, right? Like, um, and I guess you could say this to any parts of the world, like, well, how do you actually earn like how does an artist actually earn money, right? What is the way that you can actually sustain even a little bit of income? Now, one of the bands I've had on here who I love with all my heart are the Boondocks, um, and they've done very well for themselves, but even then, like, you know, they have their own challenges.

SPEAKER_05 15:30

We make, honestly, for most money we make is from doing shows that do well. Most of our money comes from doing live shows and uh Apera, signing up for Apera. So when you record songs and you release them, you can submit them to Apera and they will pay you every time you play it. That's what I recommend to all musicians to do. And NZ Recorder Music pay you for radio playing, and radio does pay, but it's not you know It's not gonna buy us a house.

SPEAKER_07 15:55

To be honest, like all the streaming numbers and followers, you can argue it's kind of Fugazi, and like, you know, you can buy the followers, you can buy the strings, bots, and all that shit. At the end of the day, bro, who's coming to your shows? Who's buying your merch? And the radio still has quite a bit of you know, like they that they they can still pay you as well. Obviously, it's not heaps, but it's something.

SPEAKER_17 16:16

How else do you support artists? You go to the concert and maybe buy their merch, but the streaming and the consuming doesn't give them any more money anymore. So it's like really fucking hard.

SPEAKER_07 16:28

But yeah, I guess the the full list is like, you know, Patreon, bandcamp, merch sales, physical copies, uh tickets, of course, to your own shows. Um, but it's tough. It's tough out there. So I I I guess like if you're an artist, right, and it's like, okay, well, Scott, like this is a bit fucking doom and gloom, right? Like how to, you know, like I want to do music and I'm very overwhelmed with all the things that you gotta do, and it just sounds like a lot. Um, I think the best band I've had on here that laid out kind of how to go about um I guess the content and releasing stuff, and uh, and I guess not so much with like making money or anything like that, but I suppose how to keep up, how to how to sort of do reasonably well in um in like the modern climate. And I think the band Crywolf who I had on here actually laid out a really, really strong um game plan. Uh you already got on you got music video out for rain, you're already on Spotify playlist. I saw you're on like an alternative one. You guys are doing a music festival appearance next year already at Festival One, very exciting. And you've got merch out, and you've already got reviews out. I'm impressed. Yeah, that's a lot of work. Killing it. But that's a that's a lot of work, but you guys already came out and had it all. We had everything lined up. So what we've with what Crywolf basically did is they just had everything ready before they before they even put anything out there. Obviously, you have to compile a lot of content, a lot of songs, but if you've got like such a steady release of content and you know you've got like a you know a real consistent schedule and you've got new stuff to show people quite a lot, obviously the algorithms love it when you post a lot and if you're posting things that are getting high engagement and it's good quality, you're gonna do probably better than if you just post one song and then you go dark for a while. Um, that's kind of what it was like for a while, I think. Even I was doing that when I was doing music, you know, you've got something to release, you can't wait to release it, and then you put it out there, and you're like, ah shit, you lose the momentum. So you've got to keep momentum going real quick, because again, you're just competing with so many other people in that. Um, I guess maybe you don't have to always look at it as competition, but I guess just look at it as like there's just so much content going out there, back to the oversaturation. So that's one approach you could say is like have so much ready to go, um, and you're just keeping up with your your content calendars and posts.

SPEAKER_11 18:59

That's a lot about just momentum and stuff like that. So like consistently posting and yeah, if you have too much of a break between content, then you kind of drop off the radar a little bit.

SPEAKER_27 19:11

So you know, just with songs, we're like, let's set ourselves up, so you know, let's record these songs and then boom, release one every two or three months and just keep sort of you know, music and content flowing.

SPEAKER_07 19:22

You don't really just have like a big launch, you know, of your EP or single or album. It's like you kind of do like a launch of it and then you have to keep going. Like the the content doesn't stop, it's like go, go, go, go, go. Like there's like a follow-up and a follow-up and a follow-up. And I suppose it's just to be aware and ready with kind of what to follow up and basically like plan out a year or something for yourself, you know. It's kind of overwhelming, I know, but I think if you really wanna you really wanna do it, I think you've got to sit down and plan content and sort of what your plans are for about a year. Maybe that's with like doing tours and gigs and all kinds of things. So yeah, that's what I recommend anyway, and what I've kind of gathered from talking to a lot of musicians on here. I mean, if you look at all the stuff that I've just mentioned, like it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And um, like I say, it can be quite overwhelming, but I think like if you really want it, like you can do it. And all the tools are available for you, and yes, it can be expensive, but there's a lot of ways to save money as well. Like, um, not saying everyone has to go out and get a Shopify straight away. Um, yeah, there's other ways to like sell merch, and so I'm pretty sure you can sell through I don't know if you can do it through Meta anymore, but there are a lot of other ways online than just a Shopify store to sell your merch and stuff, and obviously you can sell them at shows and things like that too. Um, or you can just have people DM you or something, or whatever it is. Like there's a lot of ways to do it. And of course, like uploading your music and that to Spotify or to Apple Music, and you know, you can use DistroKit or DRM in New Zealand. Uh, I think there's like, is it uh I think TuneCore, if that's still around. Uh there's a lot of different uh services out there. Um and I think there's a lot of people in the community who are really cool when you can ask and talk to, you know, like at the end of the day, like we are all kind of in the same, I say we are, like I don't really do much music anymore, but a lot of these musicians are in the same boat, you know. Like everyone's trying to help each other out, you know. Everyone should, you know, the community grows when everyone is chipping in and trying to help out. Um, you know, like a big one for me is like, shout out Doug from Dougfest. Doug is a music festival organizer. Um he's organized uh a few Doug Fests in New Zealand with mostly alternative music, rock, metal, punk, um, a bit of hip-hop and a few other genres. Uh, but yeah, I think it's just like the community is what's important and to back each other up and yeah, like each other's posts, share each other's releases, comment on it. Like all that stuff's really important, you know? Um, and that's what is gonna make everyone thrive. If you want to do something like this, like you gotta be prepared to fucking work uh a bit, and I think you have to be prepared. To just like if you wanna, you gotta get after it. Alright, let's talk about social media, man. We're all on social media all the time, addicted, dopamine themes, getting our hits right, scrolling away, doom scrolling, um, goon scrolling. That's what the kids say. Hey, the gooning. I couldn't resist that one. I look at social media as a tool. I think social media is incredibly effective uh when you know what you're using it for. Like if you really do uh understand uh kinda like how it can be used to reach the people who would be interested in your content.

SPEAKER_23 22:43

Um you optimize for you think of who's gonna consume, right? So now content is phone, right? So like vertical video, yeah, right? Um my face and nothing else, like the vertical video is for maximum egos.

SPEAKER_07 23:00

With making content, like are you making it for something that you wanna get out there, or are you making it for the numbers? I think it's a bit of like a roller coaster ride, right? With the ups and downs of views, likes, followers, fucking shares, you know, this, that, and the other. Oh, did that cool person see it? Did that cool person comment? Like, that does happen, right? It happens to uh all of us, but I think you kind of have to like look at yourself and be like, what am I doing this for at the end of the day, right?

SPEAKER_08 23:29

I think there was. We had this video on TikTok and it got like thousands and thousands of views, and then I was like, Well, it did nothing for us. It's just a like it wasn't.

SPEAKER_07 23:37

What did news mean, right? Is that actually like good engagement? Is that the engagement you want?

SPEAKER_08 23:42

It's like the numbers it doesn't have as much meaning anymore.

SPEAKER_07 23:46

So if there's um if there's a secret, I suppose, to developing like a social media following, right? Or if there's it if there's anything that I that like has come up a lot on this podcast, it's like it's the consistency, and it will always be consistency.

SPEAKER_14 24:02

Because like I've posted for so long, and like if I stop, it just it just feels wrong. So I just I just keep going.

SPEAKER_07 24:09

Being content creators is a career, and it's fascinating of just how well you can do from being a content creator. Um, and a lot of and it's kind of like a lot of people's dream to be a content creator as well, which I find kind of bizarre.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Growing up, I wanted to be a YouTuber as a kid, right? And till this till this day, I would love for my full-time job to be content creating, working with brands and doing all that stuff. That would be a dream for me. What's bad about this world, and it's bad coming from me, is that all these kids these days just want to be influencers, they want to grow up and just be content creators. You don't hear like a 10-year-old kid say, I want to be a firefighter. Yeah. I mean, you probably will, but like a majority of kids these days would just want to be a content creator. They want to be a YouTuber.

SPEAKER_07 24:56

I want to be in front of the camera.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah, I want to be a YouTuber when I grow up. That's what I'm gonna do. So, and not everyone can get that dream. Nah. I truly believe if you have a dream, go for it. I hope you get it, and I'm sure you will. You gotta work, but you gotta really work, and it's it's I don't, it's just it sucks for the next generation where all everybody just wants to be a content creator.

SPEAKER_07 25:14

Being a content creator or an influencer, it's like the new rock star. Um, even if you want to be a rock star, technically you are also like posting on social media, like the modern rock star, right? Like you're posting on social media. Um, you are constantly trying to get people's attention and this, that, and the other. So, like, regardless, even of that, you are a content creator, which is weird and uh, you know, don't know if it's a good thing necessarily, but it's again, it's that's the game that we're all sort of in now, I suppose. Back to the rock star thing. Like, I think before, if you think about like I guess the rock star or the big famous hip-hop artist or whatever it is, these are people who are very famous and are kind of worshipped by other people, right? And you could you could say like well, that influence is like an easy way to be followed and liked by a lot of people. What do people want most of the time? They want to be accepted, they want to be liked. I want to be liked. Where are my friends now? They're all invisible. People want a community, people want um at the end of the day, people don't like them. And people gonna be want-I reckon most people want to be worshipped a little bit. Everything everyone's got a little bit of that. It's like, like me, love me. You know, there's a lot of that with social media. Like, love me, please love me. And I um yeah, like I said, I just think there is something with that that is very appealing to us as humans, and young people see influences getting to do a lot of cool shit, got a lot of cool events, get a lot of free stuff. For someone who's a dream chaser or starting their own thing, like social media is incredible. If you think about it, bro, before social media, how are you gonna get like your little project, or maybe you're an athlete or you're a musician or whatever the business is or all these different things? How are you gonna get that in front of millions and millions of people? Billboards, newspaper, magazines, mail? Like, it's a lot. Oh, like T sorry, prime TV slots. Do you know how expensive prime TV slots were back in the day? Like, I'm pretty sure to have like an advert at like let's say 6 p.m. at night when everyone's watching the news or something, that costs like tens of thousands of dollars or maybe even more. And if if you want to look at like this, uh I'm in America, like the Super Bowl prices of getting getting your ad in front of people, it was like fuck, it's like hundreds of thousands of dollars. So in a sense, if you look at it as a tool to help you to get your get your thing out there to showcase, I think it's amazing. And there's also a paid side to it as well, where you can get you know analytics, insights into your audience, you know, even if it's small, like bro, having 10, 20 people like your stuff, um, you know, and then a hundred, thousand or whatever, like if if obviously if it's a thousand bots, like is it gonna make you feel good? Like, fuck no.

SPEAKER_23 28:00

Most of the likes of my videos are bots or like girls with only fans.

SPEAKER_07 28:05

Um, so having real people like your stuff is what's actually really important. But then it kind of goes, now I'm kind of gonna go on segue into my next section, which is like kind of a bigger question about the internet in general. Like, how much is human and how much is of the internet now is like bots and AI. AI, guys, AI's impact. Fuck, not like you've heard enough shit to have spoken about AI, right? It never ends. But um, part of like obviously in this podcast, like I've spoken to so many different creatives and even people in business about AI um and kind of its impact overall, and I think there's been some really good points and some cool feedback that's come up about it. Obviously, we all kind of understand it on a basic level, right? Like, um, it touches everything though. Like, if you think about like music, it touches obviously art, you know, whether we like that or not. Uh it touches business, um, you know, it's completely changing the economy, it's changing the way that we work, it's changing the way that we operate. Um, and I think it's just really important to like kind of understand it a little more. Again, like for me, I look at it as like kind of talking about social media before, like AI is a great tool to use. I've even used it to help me structure this episode, you know, help out with some of the script bits, um, just so I can keep a good flow, because I fucking go off tangent real hard. Um, and I use it like for some back-end things for my own business and that. So, like, yeah, I I think the buzz for AI, in my opinion, is very much like everyone's kind of like there's a whole so much controversy with it, you could say, especially if you listen to someone like Sam Altman who talks about, you know, oh knowledge should be on a tap. You know, we're gonna provide, you know, like if you think about your plumbing or your electrical, you know, that like um well like ChatGPT will be like essentially like the the knowledge tap you you turn on off in your in your house and you'll you know that'll be like a bill for it every month. Like, what the fuck, man? Um I paraphrased his words there a bit, but he basically said that. Um, which is like, dude, um fuck up. Obviously, if you hear it like that, it sounds really evil and menacing, but I think there's a lot of positives to it and there are a lot of negatives to it, and um, yeah, let's explore some of them.

SPEAKER_16 30:21

But when you start using it for things that require creativity, then your brain just starts getting dumber and dumber. Like I tried to write, like I was trying to apply for a funding application for the studio, and just my brain was just not functioning the way it used to from school. And I think it's just because I've become so reliant on AI, which is dangerous.

SPEAKER_07 30:40

It's only really as good as the prompt you give it. Like I've noticed quite a few times, especially for like my work, um, AI will respond really well. Obviously, if I'm uh, you know, reasonably like I'm kind of like an expert on a subject, or if I have like a lot of knowledge and detail uh on something, then it will probably give me something quite good to work with. Um, generally I've found if I use like Claude or Gemini, it's been pretty good. Um sometimes though, Claude will give you back some bullshit and you're just like, what is this? I found that if I give AI guidelines, you know, staying inside a certain box, like do not go outside of um the researching apart from uh XYZ. I don't want you to like ramble on for 10 paragraphs. I want you to give me like a summary of like a paragraph um at most or like 10 bullet points. I've also found AI really good for like bouncing ideas off as well. It's been really, really helpful. Sometimes for me, my brain goes like a hundred miles an hour, and I kind of need help like structuring my thoughts. Uh so I find that if I kind of bounce ideas off AI and like you know, comes this, that, and it kind of does like you know, like a like a like like a like a table tennis game, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then at the end I'm like, ah, that's what I'm trying to go for. Okay, that's really good. And um, that's been really helpful too. So there's a lot of positives, I think, in it if you use it like a tool, like I said. But I think like um there are parts about it that um we're gonna get into that are probably not so good. Yeah, I think um something else that is important to to make a point about AI is that it's not creative. Like AI is pulling off a database from like all the music, all the art that's been created, all the um, you know, things that have been done in the past. AI can't really create something brand new out of thin air. It has to go off with the prompt or whatever that you've given it. So, I mean, not yet, right? But like AI isn't creative or inventive in that way. I mean it can help you kind of get there, but at the end of the day, it is you who is coming up with it. I think something I want to talk about with AI now is uh also back to kind of ties back to the social media part earlier, is like coming back to the bots and how much of the internet is real, how much of um the comments that you're reading, are those real accounts? Are they fake accounts? Like, you know, where are we at?

SPEAKER_11 33:10

Some of those profiles have like 500,000 followers, and then they're not like pretending that they're real, they're like saying that they're AI and they're still paying paying them.

SPEAKER_07 33:21

It's ridiculous. AI and that and people having AI content, AI influences, and then also with comments as well. A lot of the accounts that you see even in comments are bots. So it's like if you think about it, like at this point, now I do wonder, especially like Instagram and the meta platforms, even YouTube now, how much of this is uh is humans and how much is bots, and then the content you're watching as well. Because you can now, if you see some of the AI video stuff it's created, I mean it's just like a multi-million dollar Hollywood movie, some of it. The Dead Internet Fairy, I think it's something that we should talk about a bit more in detail. So for those that don't know what the dead internet theory is, it's basically like this theory that a lot of people kind of came up with talking on forums probably back in 2016, that the internet died and a new version was born, and there's been a lot more bots and fake accounts and not as many real users. So a lot of this kind of concept was like tinfoil hats, all conspiracy shit, it's not real. But then a report came out last year saying that 51% of the traffic estimated on the internet is bots. Half the internet is not even is not even humans anymore. So that's actually been confirmed. Uh so it's not even a conspiracy. So yeah, keep that in mind when you're looking at your social media numbers. So I guess like with all this stuff about AI, automation, taking our jobs, this, that, and the others, replacing musicians, replacing artists, blah blah blah blah, well then how do you like combat AI in general, right? And the answer to that, I think, from what I've gathered, is just be human.

SPEAKER_12 34:50

If you are writing music that is uninspired, and it can be pop, it can be metal, if you're just writing the same riffs you've heard a million times and doing the same lyrics you've heard a million times, AI is gonna get you and it'll write the exact same shit you just wrote and you'll get spat out. But if you're writing interesting stuff that's a group of minds that have come together and it's different, until AI catches up with that, which I don't think it ever will to be honest.

SPEAKER_07 35:16

So when it comes to music, right? Like it obviously you're just gonna pull on a database of all the music that it's got, but at the end of the day, like it can't create anything new. Um so being human and coming up with something yourself is gonna beat AI every time. And I also think as well, like I don't believe that people should fear it. Again, like kind of going back to like when the internet first came out. Like people are curious, but don't really understand it, it kind of scares some people, you know, new things do that. One of my good mates, Tim, he's a marketer, he's got like a really good take on AI.

SPEAKER_24 35:50

Yeah, AI is coming at the end of the day, and people are oh jobs and all this. Like, at the end of the day, what is a job? It's the transfer of money for value. You've you've provided value.

SPEAKER_19 36:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_24 36:02

So although AI might do parts of it, there will still be a transition of value, and it's always a person who's doing it, who's getting the value.

SPEAKER_07 36:12

And that's all the most important part. The value of what we do, even with jobs and even with art or whatever it may be, is human to human. It's not human to AI to AI or human. Like obviously, like I said, we're using it as a tool maybe to refine some bits, but at the end of the day, the value is gonna be human to human always. So I would make sure that you remember that. And um, if you're ever getting kind of freaked out or worried about AI in that sense. I think just keep an open mind about it, and um I think create some some cool stuff for yourself and use AI to help you build the things you want to build, and I think you can um I think it's just another tool like the internet. Let's get into mindset. Yeah, the grind. Underneath like AI, algorithms, social media, all that shit, it comes down to a person, right? Um, and somebody who wanted to do the work. So when it comes to music, like this is kind of what I gather is like the ethos with a lot of other musicians.

SPEAKER_20 37:18

As an individual or as a band, you've just gotta reflect on yourself and be like, why do I do this? Right. Why do I create art? Why am I in a band?

SPEAKER_17 37:25

And I fucking scream my fucking lungs out without even knowing what I'm gonna say. So therapeutic. Cool. It is, but it's also so vulnerable.

SPEAKER_13 37:36

I'm just kind of like trying to express myself. Obviously, I've got a lot to say, you know, or a lot of my mind that I want to communicate musically.

SPEAKER_07 37:43

And the same kind of applies for combat sports as well. It's it's a lot of mental work you gotta do to be like, doesn't matter if I'm half asleep, doesn't matter if I haven't eaten right, I'm gonna win. And like you said, and then that's for your rent money. Yeah, that's for your rent money. For most of them, it's for fuck all. Yeah, like you don't do it unless you really love it.

SPEAKER_15 38:02

And uh when it comes to costs, like sport costs a lot of money as well, bro. Especially like at professional level, you gotta pay for like physio, strength and conditioning coach, sometimes like weekend sessions, you might have to hire someone to do pads for you or something. Yeah, gym sessions, like recovery, sauna, diet. If you hire a dietitian, bro, that's a that's pretty much like your whole fight, PJ gone.

SPEAKER_07 38:25

Like when it comes to combat sports and fighting, from what I gather, and even like what I've seen in terms of like you know, spending a bit of time with the fighters, like you don't really make money um in the sport and probably a lot of other sports, unless you're at the highest fucking level of it. Most of the time you're just trying to cover rent and meet ends meet. Sorry, and make ends meet. You're paying to compete. You're kind of getting paid to get punched in the head, which is very interesting. But um, you know, the mindset of these guys is is absolutely insane. But yeah, like it takes a lot of years to grind to be able to even get to those showcases, all those shows, um, in combat sports. And even if if you're if you're an any other athlete, I imagine to you know get into like a really good team, like you have to spend years and years honing your craft um to even then get noticed to then even be able to get on a team or to be to showcase your skills. And um, it's the same with music, man. Like before you drop an album, like you've got years in the process you've been trying to build build up your band or your project.

SPEAKER_09 39:31

I think we just made that album and it went out and they were like, Oh, they got signed to periphery, and that's how it all worked. No, there was like five years before that where we just did a hard grind of playing to no one, no one giving a shit, um, losing a lot of money to recording where fucking 10 people listened to it and yeah. And it was just it's just a slow grind.

SPEAKER_07 39:48

And it's like I said about Crooked Royals before, but like I've seen these guys play for like 10 years straight. Like I've seen them grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and the how hard they've worked to get where they are.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah, it was the last one, the the UFC Perth one. I I missed one of my best mates' wedding. I knew him since I was about four years old. So I missed I missed his wedding, but I sent my mum and my dad in my place instead. So that was cool. Um, but yeah, he was pretty happy that I won my fight. But I mean, it's just stuff like that. Like um, I remember Blood Diamond told me he was like, you can't have it all if you wanna if you wanna have it all, like you're gonna have nothing.

SPEAKER_07 40:26

Yeah, I mean like what Cam said, right? Like he missed his best mate's wedding, probably missed a lot of other events. Um, and then when you look at like fighters, like, yeah, are you gonna see all the sacrifices on the highlight reel? Like, no one wants to see that shit. No one cares. You don't see the the Rocky montage or whatever, you know? Like you you know, like no one cares about the hard work you put in. They just see like, oh wow, look at that great thing you did. How cool! Like, lucky you. It's like never mind the the decade or you know, however long of work that you put in to get there, like fucking you know, that seems to get glazed over all the time, right? And that's just us humans, right? We want to look at the shiny thing, and then it's like, oh, all that work, oh put that over there. Get that out of my site. The way that Cam puts it makes it sound kind of miserable, and obviously, like it does sound kind of negative in ways, but uh listen to how he actually talks about it. He's real positive.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, I mean, you've gotta I guess you just gotta really enjoy it if you're that's the thing with me. Like, I just enjoy training, I love being in the gym. That's what makes it a lot easier.

SPEAKER_07 41:31

It doesn't really feel like that much of a sacrifice, like yeah, and I think like kind of again, like circling back uh almost to what the bleeders said, like, why am I doing this? Like, you know, and it's to pursue like such a massive goal and a massive dream you've got. But also, like, again, like Cam just said, like, at the end of the day, he's hanging out with his mates, he's having a good time, he's really enjoying what he does. Like, is it really work? Like, you're kind of living the dream. Like, maybe you're not a million making millions, billions of dollars and living in a massive mansion and this, that, and the other, but like at the end of the day, you're kind of you know, he is especially living the dream, but he's also, you know, worked really hard and put in years and years of effort. Um, I really recommend checking out that podcast with him. And I think also like with the thing that you love, or if you can find what that is that gets you excited to get up in the morning, you know, that's like a blessing in life, right? If you have that in your life. And when you're working towards certain goals or you're working towards something, you know, significant for yourself, you want it so the grinding doesn't feel like grinding. Like the the thing you're working towards is so worth all of that. And that's kind of what I reckon the key is at the end of the day. Make the grinding feel like it's not grinding, you know, it's the journey, not the destination. But there's some truth in that, seriously. You need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, right?

SPEAKER_21 42:54

That's the biggest thing though, is the challenge of getting outside your comfort zone, of doing those extra things. You know, it's easy to be comfortable and it's easy to say no or come up with excuses, but it's just that drive of how much you really want it at the end of the day. Because at the end of the day, you know you're gonna die. So just go fall at it. You can't come up with any excuse, you know. Like at the end of the day, what you ever you want to grow, you must put light onto it, you must put water into it for it to grow.

SPEAKER_07 43:19

You're gonna die. You're gonna die at the end of the day. Fucking make it count, bitch. Um, but honestly, like a lot of cliches end up being true, bro. The older I get, the more I'm like, ah, fuck. Like, there's always these cliches, and it's like, oh they're cliches for a reason. Um life is short, you know. If you don't go for it, do you wanna get older and be like that guy who's like woulda, shoulda, coulda, you know, had over, coulda done this, coulda done that, uh you know, do you want to be that person? Like I don't think so. I think you want to be the person who at least gave it a go and really tried, you know? Even if it didn't happen for you, like, so what? At least you know and then you can build and work on other things. So So uh it's all been it's all a part of it. Yeah, and I I think as well there's something about chasing something that seems so crazy and so hard and difficult and whatever, but like at the end of the day, like that's kind of what's exciting about it, right? That's kind of what my sister says.

SPEAKER_22 44:15

I think at the beginning, what was exciting about Paris was it was hard, and I sort of thrived on that, and then it kind of became easy. And maybe that made me a little bit bored.

SPEAKER_07 44:29

So, like, as like my sister said, like, she got bored, like when it got easy, right? We get comfortable, we get sort of like, you know, it's uh you're kind of you know, waking up in silk sheets, I guess. I don't think it was it wasn't like that for her, but like um, you know, when things get comfortable, you're kind of you're not in a position where you're you're really like I guess pushing yourself as much, you know. Um, you know, oh the the great Alexander Volkanovsky, UFC fighter, you know, adversity is a privilege. Uh there's very much something in that. I think it really drives people to to achieve not only amazing things, but there's something about the grind of achieving something big that's really exciting and it pushes you more than if you're in a comfortable position. Because when you're comfy, like you're pushing yourself. Like my sister said, you know, she's uh you know, things were getting a bit boring because they were getting comfortable and then you know, chasing tires, talking about you know, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, but then there's like the next level above that, which is most I think fighters have this mental, uh insane kind of mentality when it comes to drive and determination and excitement for for conflict.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Like I was mentally, I was actually excited because like I was like someone like I can actually go war wolf. Yeah, and then apparently I think Coach said we get like a two-minute break. So my whole plan was to like just go all out from the start.

SPEAKER_07 45:49

Yeah, Saran, he's a funny dude, bro. That was that was a fun podcast, that one. But it's kind of mental when you think about what he's saying, right? Like he's excited to go to war, he's happy to have these, he's a you know, and obviously if you're a combat sports uh athlete, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what you're doing, right? You go in there to have a fucking scrap. Um, you know, that we're gonna put it simply, you know, it is um a fight. So but these guys very inspired really inspire me in the sense that like they kind of invite the the uncomfortable. They uh you know love it, they live in it.

SPEAKER_06 46:23

You know, I live here, brother.

SPEAKER_07 46:25

Oh, Rob Whitaker, they're right there. But yeah, like at the end of the day, like, yeah, like I mean, it's it's the hard thing, right? Like with fighters, like, you know, you're going in somewhere very scary, you're gonna get punched in the face, you're gonna get hurt, but you know, you're leaning into this very like primal, uncomfortable state. And I'm not saying we should all sign up and be combat sports athletes or try and be a UFC fighter or kickbox or whatever the fuck. Like, but like I think there's something worth uh all of us learning from from from people who do this kind of who do that kind of sport, like the determination and grit you have to have. And again, like as the dream chaser, like you have to have that. You kind of have to embody this mindset of like overcoming a lot of like uh obstacles and pushing through when things get hard. And um, who does it better than combat sport athletes, really, at the end of the day? But yeah, when the when the when the going gets tough and the obstacles start stacking up, it it gets hard and uh you get tired and you gotta bite down.

SPEAKER_10 47:26

Because yeah, as soon as like say you're you're not feeling it or something like that, you're gonna be like, Oh, it's half an hour to get there, I'm running late, I might as well not go, all that sort of stuff. Like when you're exhausted, you it doesn't take much to try quit.

SPEAKER_07 47:38

Yeah. Guess the the that determination and that mental fortitude, like where did you learn that from? Or does it just come with you just you feel like you've just come naturally? Per perseverance, I suppose.

SPEAKER_15 47:51

I think some people comes naturally. I think for me I had to go in for it. I think there's a lot of like adversaries that I faced in life that made me way more mentally stronger. A lot of losses before King of the Ring that I had to go through that made me so much more stronger. Uh like fight losses and like. Yeah, even in my personal life, so many losses I've had to go through that just made me like want to push forward even harder.

SPEAKER_07 48:12

Yeah, I mean like with Daniel, um he um uh in order to get to some of these kind of prestigious events in New Zealand, like King of the Ring, and um which is like one of uh New Zealand's biggest um kickboxing competitions, um, even to get there to fight on those big uh tournaments and stuff, like you have to have already gone through quite a lot. And a lot of these guys suffer quite a few losses and setbacks and injuries, um, and they just fucking like push themselves through it and then they just keep going, which is absolutely amazing to me. Yeah, and I think the other thing as well is like one thing, again, like I have so much respect for the for for the sport, um for combat sport athletes, is like after you go out there and you go and perform, right? Um, similar to kind of musicians in this way, after a gig, maybe, like you go out and do your thing, and then afterwards you start reflecting on like how can I be better, what can be improved, like um what's something that could have been better in like the fight camp, or what something could have been better in in my exercise, my diet, my lifestyle. Not everybody reflects on themselves of how to improve. I think it's uh a special skill to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_06 49:22

I or after every camp, I try to look back and go, what can I do better? You know, what can I add? What can I subtract that's gonna make the finished product even better?

SPEAKER_07 49:32

I think it's really important to reflect and uh how on on how you can build and be better. Uh but something else like I like I want to touch on as well, and this came up um uh with uh Stag's Yarrow uh with Hamish, and he was talking about like, you know, with the work that you're putting in, like you need to be intentional with it and you need to be smart with it.

SPEAKER_13 49:53

If you like put in the work and also you're smart about it, like you could put in so much work and do it really inefficiently, I guess. But if you're smart, you're smart about it, you take the time to like kind of strategize and think and reflect and you put in work for a long time, you know, like that's that's I guess sustainable success.

SPEAKER_07 50:10

Yeah, so be uh intentional with your time with how you're working. And I think this can be quite difficult, but again, you won't really know until you get started. You kind of need to get involved. Um, you know, you kind of need to work hard and then work smart. That's what I've learned anyway.

SPEAKER_28 50:25

Because it's it's all discipline at the end of the day, you know. You just keep losing and losing and losing until you win. And a winner is just a loser that tried one more time, you know. And that just goes with everything.

SPEAKER_07 50:34

A winner is a loser who just tried one more time. I mean, yeah, it's not really about being the most talented, it's not always about being the luckiest person. It's about the person who gets knocked down and gets back up again and goes again, get knocked down again, go again. Like, that's actually the winners. Um, but the winners lost heaps. Like, that's the story with like there's so many stories of this. Like, um, I think a couple of my favorite ones are like I've mentioned on this podcast before, is like when one of my favorite bands, Lincoln Park, like they got rejected by like 40 record labels before they were signed. Then their album Hybrid Fairy became they sold like a million copies in a week. Um, I mean, like, there's so many guys and so many sports who probably wouldn't have ended up there, probably got rejected from heaps of organizations that no one wanted them. And then suddenly they go and show their skills and you know show how good they are, uh, and they mention opportunity, and then everyone's like, oh man, we want to sign them. Like, this is amazing. So, like, or yeah, even with business, like heaps of business ideas almost never came to fruition. Like, you just have to be determined to make it happen, and that's just how it goes in life. Like, that's what you gotta do, and that's why you have to be relentless and resilient um to to go after these big uh goals. I mean, this all sounds pretty intense, right? Like losing all the time till you win, like trying to not get like punched in the face, you know, whether that be um you know, literally or non-literally, um, you know, getting up and giving Ann up a go. I think again, coming back to the grinding, right? Like it's about loving it. Like you're doing something you love and doing something that you want to make your life so it doesn't feel like work. And like like with pretty much everybody who I have I've had on this podcast, like everyone's loving what they're doing. Like everyone's been enjoying what they've been pursuing, right? And the love is the fuel. The love is the fuel that's gonna keep you going when the times get tough, when you know a lot of obstacles stack up and things kind of get in the way of you trying to get to that next stage of your journey. Um, and as a dream chaser, you just have to have that determination. But at some point, the thing that you love has to survive rent, bills, and putting food on the table. The modern economy. Um, I'm not an economist, by the way. Uh, I'm not a financial specialist, I'm not an accountant, I'm not like a crazy investor, stock market analyst. So don't expect like the most craziest professional, most 120% certified take. I mean, even then, a lot of that shit changes and all the time and markets go up and down or whatever. But regardless, like, you know, I'm saying this based on my experience of the guests I've had on the podcast and also kind of my opinions and thinking, and also as a small business owner, as a dream chaser, kind of how you look at like, you know, the what's going on in the world around you and how that impacts you to make decisions because of your financial situation, etc. So, like at the end of like the last segment, I said, like, you know, because um at the end of the day, like rent, grocery bills, uh, all that stuff, um, you know, the dream can't always pay for that, right? Like that somehow you need to survive, you need to live. You're not really earning anything while you're trying to chase your dreams or trying to chase the big goals in mind. Um, you know, you've got to work jobs or you've got to try and do a bunch of things or savings or whatever. And um what I've noticed anyway in the past five to ten years, but I think especially since COVID, I feel like we're really living in a different economy than I like, for example, for me that I was kind of raised in. We're very much in the debt-based economy. Um, and I will talk further about what that means and uh have some, we've got some, we had I had some great guests on the podcast to tackle this subject. Uh Luke Keemies from Keep the Change Podcast, and also um Mikey Smith, who owns a mortgage business and is also a frequent guest on the Keep the Change podcast. Um a lot of the things I'm probably going to talk about are mostly applicable to New Zealand, um, even Auckland to a point. I think there would be some parts you can take away and probably relate to what's happening overseas in the Western world in particular, but um a lot of this focus is on New Zealand. So just take kind of if you're from another country listening, just you know, take some of that stuff with a grain of salt and maybe do your own research into what's happening in your own country. Yeah, so I guess like go talking about the debt-based economy, like Scott, what do you mean by the debt-based economy? Like getting loans out, people getting heaps of loans or heaps of mortgages, like what are we talking about? And it's just like, in general speaking, the amount of people who are just in debt, you could argue with like credit cards. I think credit card debt, I don't have any stats for this, but I mean, I actually recently recovered from some credit card credit card debt myself last year. Oh no, sorry, earlier this year, and like that was really hard to get out of. And considering even then, like that's credit card debt, but then you've got all these different things that are now very normalized in life, like after pay, um, you know, the buy now, um, you know, sorry, the yeah, the the buy now pay later services, um, all the different subscriptions we've got to, you know, not just like Netflix, Spotify, you know, and then even like software is subscription-based. So so many things that we're using is subscription based. I mean, you could even argue the power bill and all that shit's subscription based as well. And then you've also got like the cost of living crisis. I mean, like, this is obviously beating a dead horse a little bit, but I regardless, we should be talking about it, right? I mean, it's been mental, man. Like, if you're out living on your own, uh like I am, uh, you know, the watching the price of you know your basic necessities skyrocket has been mental across all your groceries and even yeah, your power bill, water, um, you know, like gas has gone up, like like what hasn't gone up in price, right? And probably in a lot of basic goods and shops, you know, cost of materials, etc. Like it's intense and um it can be quite stressful and overwhelming for the majority of us who aren't like like let's say an accountant or someone who deals in financial services, who is maybe uh more educated uh to understand kind of what's happening in the economy where it just feels like everything's going up in price, everything's increasing, uh my salary's not increasing, you know, like my wages are not, you know, the inflation's going up, like holy shit, like how do I even like keep up with this? How do I combat this? Like it gets quite um stressful. Um and you don't really understand it because I mean for my someone like myself, like I've you know, growing up, I was, you know, I have very basic financial literacy. Um, but like I'm not I've never been someone who's been like crazy interested in like financial markets and investments. Um it's not something I've particularly been interested in, but you know, as I've gotten older, like those things become very important. And I believe for the like the dream chaser in that, you kind of need to pay attention a little bit to this stuff um that's going on because yeah, like I said, like your wages there'll be it's hard for them to grow. You know, people got to jump from company to company or job to job to even increase their um you know their salary or their you know overall worth. Um and it's tough out there. The other basic things talking about like most people are priced out of buying houses. I mean, that's kind of like another whole conversation, but you know, a lot of things that you could argue for a long time, you know, for the past, probably since post-World War II, a lot of things that were normal are now not normal anymore. Like um, yeah, owning assets for the majority of the public don't own them. Um, a lot of things have been privatized, the majority of things have been privatized. Again, that could probably be another podcast in itself, but um, let's I'll try to stay on track. So a lot of us dream chasers aren't really, or people kind of depending on what you're going after, of course, if you're starting a business and stuff, then it's different. But let's say if you'd want to be an athlete, musician, something creative, um, or something outside, you know, in those sorts of spaces, I guess. Um, something that isn't probably necessarily always business related. But even then in business, people get caught up in it. Like, you don't really understand the economic situation, and um, I think it's important we delve into that. And uh no one says this better probably than this than uh Luke Keemies um from the Keep Change podcast.

SPEAKER_04 59:05

We're basically constantly marketed to to spend, and then we're constantly marketed to that it's all good to spend more than what you have and pay it back over time, and you basically can't buy anything in this day and age property, a vehicle, you know, within reason, um even you know, consumer finance, consumer product, shoes and shit without debt. And it's normal to do that. And I think for a long time it wasn't, but we haven't really educated people well to deal with the debt-based world.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

I think it's like also mental to you know, if you go look at any 30-year mortgage, if you take out a million dollar loan, like on average of a five percent interest rate, by the end of its 30 years, you've paid two million. True. You know, like but that's not mental, that's normal.

SPEAKER_07 59:46

So we've normalized that, that seems acceptable. Yeah, interesting. Actually, that's a good point. Like we've normalized certain debt. Uh yeah, like debt used to be, I used to think it was like a last resort. You know, you don't you don't get out, you don't want to get into debt at all unless you like have no choice to get a loan or something like that to push yourself into debt. But we're now living in this very like weird paradigm where debt is very normalized.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

I remember a Gem V, no, it might have been Q Card or Gem Visa, or someone came out and was sort of like you can go to countdown or New Wheel to something with your card and your rum was a bit like, whoa, what the fuck? You can finance your groceries.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:23

Like you can finance your groceries. That's fucking cooked when you think about it. Like that you finance your basic necessities. And like I laughed, but like it's also really sad. And the problem is, is that because of like talking about the cost of living crisis, a lot of people are having to take out loans to pay for the basic necessities of things. It's really, really sad. And like, and it's hard to keep up with, right? Like paying back, um, keeping on top of all those different loans or different, you know, afterpay payments or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

I mean, this sounds a bit cliche these days, but the the most common sort of I guess like f personal financial fault that you see is lifestyle creep with income growth. And you know, we all we all start out like 18 and or coming out of uni or coming out of school or whatever, 18 into a trade, but we whatever we go into, like we start out poor and most of the time, and you know, people start earning money, and some people s start accelerating up the ladder of earning money. And generally speaking, you know, it's quite a small percentage of people that continue to earn more and more money and don't let their lifestyle keep up with that money. So you go to nicer restaurants, you buy nicer cars, and you know, I've seen um surgeons on nearly a million dollars a year uh just rolling finance on new Audis and you know maxing themselves out basically and have nothing left over.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:47

Because just bad habits they've they've accumulated since when they were probably in uni or things like that, or it's not even well it's just the world we live in, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

It's sort of like that's how that's how society works these days. But those those people could also do exceptionally well if they stacked assets and used their income in a different way.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:08

I think this point here that Mikey said is really like kind of like a bit of quite an interesting tell, right? Like even a surgeon who's earning like a crazy salary, like top salary amount of money, but because of like the all the buy now pay later options that are available at different income levels, right? Even then, like people are getting caught up in so much debt and like lifestyle inflation, you know. Like now people have to keep up with the costs of their own lifestyle and are drowning in their own debt that they've created and probably just don't have like the financial education or even realizing uh what they're doing, you know, in terms of how much they're spending. So I guess it kind of begs the question, like as well. Like if you think about the normal person in the world, like things are getting hard, uh, people with kind of you know salary-based jobs, generally speaking, it's quite tough on this. You're in like a top a top tax bracket. Um, you know, the the rise of cost of living, the rise of you know, bills, it's uh getting quite out of control. So like who is doing well, right? And it's like, you know, and people can be well, the billionaires are doing well, and like that is, you know, the billionaires have raised a shitload more wealth in the past, especially since COVID. Um, that's kind of like another whole subject to go into, right? If you think about like the whole thing that's going on in the world of like all the you know the the global wars, geopolitics, you think about like um taxes and tariffs, uh it's crazy. Um and then also like who is like who owns the majority of assets like in general, like who owns a lot of the wealth in the world? And like like not even just the wealth, but yeah, who owns like the infrastructure in that? Is it like private equity, like you know, what's um what's owning it? And then it's yeah, there's these massive investment firms like you know, BlackRock, Vanguard, who own, you know, like crazy amount of assets. Now, if you want to kind of delve into that more, I did episodes on this like a few years ago. I think some of it still holds up, but I recommend checking it out. Uh, it's pretty like wild, like how much they own and how much um power they have over a lot of the big companies and the big names out there. Yeah, I guess on that's kind of like that stuff is often on a bigger scale, but kind of in New Zealand on like a local scale, um, who's doing well in the local economy? It's probably gonna be the boomers, right? Is the older generation who managed to invest a lot when the housing market was more affordable, bought up a lot of property, owned the assets, and um and it's also driven up the price.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

Good education means good job equals good income equals good mortgage equals good life equals good ability to get a rental property equals good retirement. Yes. That's exactly what I mean. Yeah. But I think what broke along the way is that we monetized housing and we basically said to people Um, let me give you an example at the moment and then step back to help people understand. So the budget came out recently, right? And basically I want to talk about that as well, but go on. Yeah, it says that wages will increase by roughly two and a half percent uh each year for the next four years, but house prices will increase six percent each year for the next four years. Well, what would you rather do? Would you rather have a property that goes up six percent each year and you don't have to pay tax on? Or would you rather work and get less? Now, one, the income is locked in the housing, right? So you can only use that income if you can borrow against it in the future, and it does actually go up like that. But you work and you get it. But basically what we're saying is, well, we're gonna the the economy favors asset holders or householders, but what like yeah, anyway, but uh if we if we step then back, you would probably do the same thing and I probably would too if we and I even got into this path, and I was like, no, this ain't for me, it's boring, and it's like I'm too entrepreneurial, I need to be going faster and bigger and doing other shit. Uh but for the average Person, they probably think, Well, why would I work to get a two and a half percent pay increase when I can get a six percent gain on my property? And what we allow people to do is go back to the bank and say, Hey, I brought this property for $300,000, it's now worth six hundred thousand. I would like to borrow another fifty thousand dollars, and I would like to go on a trip, I would like to um you know buy things, I'd like to do my debt, and I'd like to add value to my property, and then the property ends up worth six hundred thousand a year later, or it might go back, and in that time you've been able to service that debt. Now you are effectively earning what's called economic income, or that's what some people would term it. So your assets are increasing in value, and then you do have the ability to borrow. If if the system basically said, No, you can't borrow against that, yeah, your house price is going up, but no, we're not going to give you more debt, we probably wouldn't be in the situation that we're in. So our parents and the uh the baby boomers have had a beautiful run over the last 40 years of house prices increasing. And they will say, No, but we had high interest rates. Cool, okay, yeah, we get it. But you had low levels of debt, you had low levels of debt to income compared to where we are now. So we just kept the balloon going. And when it breaks, we go, we look around and we go, Mark, it's an emergency, we better um flood money into the system. And then what are kiwi people do? Oh should I better get more houses, I better bid up houses.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:26

Scarcity mindset.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:27

Yeah, yeah. The uh the the um the interest rates are low, I'll borrow more, I can do travel and whatnot. So anyway, now we're in a position where all the baby boomers, they they have the wealth. Now, as you said, obviously, well, they do because they're older, they've had longer to accumulate assets. And I'm not saying that they haven't worked hard or that it's you know it's unfair. It's just once you see what's happened, you sort of go like, ah, this everything starts to make a lot more sense. Okay, why don't these people say, um, no, start a business and have a go at that, you can do better. Well, why would they? They're like, Oh, I got fucking three rentals, mate, and I crushed it. Well, I'm and it was easy. I didn't have to do, I just had to, you know, make sure the tenants were paying every now and then they didn't pay. But look, my houses were worth 200 grand, now they're worth 1.2 million. I'm not starting a business, you know. So now I think we're seeing people come in and go, I can't play that game because I can't even build the deposit. So what game am I gonna play? Oh, maybe I'll play the social media game, maybe I'll leave New Zealand, maybe I'll go live in Bali and do something digital and use um currency arbitrage. Maybe I will uh do something entrepreneurial and sell to the US. Or people are looking for different paths, but most people don't even know that this is happening, so they're just going, well, this is shit. I want what they had and I want the Kiwi dream and I want the same path, and I was told that do the good, the good, the good, the good, and I'll be good. I'll be rewarded for it, yeah. But it ain't working.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:44

Yeah, I don't want to like it's saying all this stuff as well, like you know, the boomers, and it's always in the news, like, oh the boomers own this and they own that, and things were so easy for them, and they have all this wealth and yada yada, and like a part of that is true, but at the same time, it's like you know, I don't really want to make this all about you know the boomers creating the problem of like the housing market, because it's not really all their fault, uh, it's just like the way the economic times have have gone. Um, so I you know, I reckon partly it's that, but you can't pin the entire you know, fault, I believe, on the older generation. Like, and even then, if you like I think about like if you were around back then um and you think about an easy way to sort of increase your your income or your like overall portfolio, like that's gonna be investing in housing, right? So I guess like a lot of the things I've mentioned are you know kind of negative, I guess, like the debt-based economy, um, the hidden costs involved in a lot of different things, um, cost of living crisis, uh, and then just in general, there's just a lot to consider uh with like how to manage your money, how to invest it, etc. I'm not gonna talk about investing on here, but you know, like it's sort of like what are the things that uh we can do as individuals to better ourselves, and like different ways that you can like increase your income, increase your skills, different ways that you can improve your financial situation. So, yeah, increasing your income, how do we do that? We've got to increase our skills. This isn't like our some kind of hack, like oh, crypto investing, like invest in like Tesla and like make all this money back, you know, put it all on black in the casino, like whatever the fucking shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Unfortunately in this world now, the way it is, is like you can't just be skilled at like this is what Luke talks about all the time. Like you have to be you have to improve your skills so you can increase your income. Like that's one job you've got, and that kind of has always been something that you needed to do. Um whether it's moving through the hierarchy of a company or creating something else, something on your own and and earning an income that way and improving it and growing it every year. But there's this second part of that whole journey of life now that you have to do, which is really understand like the debt and the money.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:04

So yeah, improve your skills, increase your income, find ways to leverage the things you've learned to then go into your next role or create something for yourself. Like uh that's how you got to be thinking about this stuff. But yeah, I mean, you might be asking yourself, like, what skills, Scott? Like, what like what do you mean by skills I'm learning in my job? And it's like, oh, check out this way to look at it from um Saman Yuvari, who I had on my podcast. So you worked at Maccas, nice.

SPEAKER_16 1:11:31

Yeah, and I grinded for four years, and just after a while, I feel like I've learned I've ended up becoming a department manager, which is one underneath the restaurant manager. And I was like, I've kind of learned everything.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:41

Yeah, I mean, like he was a manager at McDonald's, right? Like, nothing to brag about, really. Um, but he learned heaps of great skills, managing people, you know, to operations of uh of the um of that franchise location. Like he would have learned so many valuable things that you can transfer into other jobs into other skills, put that in the C V as well. Um, and uh a lot of uh business owners or hiring managers really like to see that. Yeah, I mean like skills compound over time. Skills really do compound, you know, the more you you're doing it for years and years and years.

SPEAKER_22 1:12:21

I mean, my sister um opened up a Pilates studio, spending the first four still in Auckland and really developing my craft there, working with physiotherapists a lot, and also really getting into fitness because actually New Zealand, Australia and New Zealand were really at the beginning of the sort of boom of uh you know, boutique Pilates studios and it becoming a lot more mainstream. So I had so much exposure at the beginning, which then meant when I moved to Paris, I I was already an experienced instructor.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:58

Yeah, I mean, like she got a little bit lucky, I suppose, with like the the rise of Pilates in some ways, but like regardless of that, like she put in, you know, doing this now for over 10 years. So some people might look at this and be like, oh, that's just luck that you know she managed to get or whoever. That was years of compounding, um, compounding and building and going hard at the thing that you want to create. There's no greater skill than entrepreneurial skills to help you boost your income, or if you need to try to make some extra money on the side, uh, you can because you know how to.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:32

There's probably no greater skills than entrepreneurial skills. So you could have a job and then know how to make 10 grand throughout the year if you need to and if you want to. And I think that puts a lot of power back into the hands of somebody rather than going, oh no, you're fucked because you're an employee and you don't get paid enough, and you're only going to get a two and a half percent pay increase. On by the way, inflation's hearing, you didn't learn about that, so like good luck to you.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:00

And I guess that's another way of like being safe uh in the economy, right? Like, how else can I earn money on the side from my career or my job? It's not talking about trying to like everyone needs to have side hustles and everyone needs to be like making like 10 different income streams or whatever. It's like what else can you do to help yourself? Like maybe on the weekend you like go, I don't know, this sounds silly, but well, not really, but like oh mow lawns for your neighbors, or like do you go uh do you know like some tasks and help out in the community, or do you pick up like some little bit extra work on the weekend? Um there's a lot of like little things that you can do to help build like a bit of extra money that might just be able to help you like take a bit of stress off the bills and the rent.

SPEAKER_16 1:14:40

But the thing is, everyone has a skill set, right? And you can just use that skill set to make you money. I know it's very vague and it's probably not the advice that people want to hear, but there's heaps of like one-off jobs that you can do. You can jump on like student job search, trade me jobs, seek Facebook. There's so many cash jobs on Facebook as well, and like it's just whatever's suitable for you. Like if you can lift stuff, lift stuff. Like, you know, there's all these different things. And I think a big one is again, like we spoke about, not a big fan of it, but if you need quick money, UGC, there's tons of opportunities out there, and you don't need any experience, you don't need a following, you know, they just want someone who can speak on camera. But for a lot of people, they don't want to do that. But yeah, they're just basically so many options, and it's just whatever you're comfortable with and what you're good at.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:20

Yeah, I mean, Samaran's just talking about really basic stuff here, right? Like I, you know, I just kind of basically said that stuff. But yeah, if you can lift stuff, like go lift stuff on the weekend a bit extra, you know, earn a bit of extra cash or do a bit of overtime. Um, I'm not saying work yourself to death. Uh like be practical and strategic about it, you know. Like if I have these goals to reach for like my own financial goals or I need to secure myself, um, you know, how do I go about it? Um, is there a way where I can yeah, leave this company, another company has a better salary package? Um, is there a way that I can grow my money on the side? Think about what Luke said. Um like what like what can I do to you know secure myself in the in these hard, difficult times where things are very uncertain in the economy? I mean, you can say that things are always uncertain, but I'd say right now, specifically in the past since COVID, in my opinion, things have become very unsettling and very like you just don't know. So if you can just find a way to alleviate some of the pressure for yourself, and maybe it does require a bit of hard work for maybe half a year or a year, depending on what you're trying to do. But let's say if you just want to build the emergency fund, maybe pick up some extra work for a little while, and then you've built that emergency fund, you feel a bit more secure, so then you can make some better decisions for yourself for what you actually want rather than being on survival mode 24-7. So I hope that provided some value for you with like, you know, different ways that you can, you know, secure yourself a little bit more financially. Like this isn't about getting rich and all that shit, but just a way to just, you know, hopefully, you know, take a little bit of a weight off your shoulders. We're talking about developing skills, you know, trying to answer ways to wrestle with um, you know, like a very you know up and down, unpredictable economy. Uh, what is something else that I could do as well? You know, building skills on the side or you know, putting myself out there. Um, and that also comes down to personal brand, which I believe is really important. Personal brand. Some of you might cringe at this shit, but like honestly, it is so important. I did like a solo podcast episode talking about personal brand a little bit. And um, I think like what's important and how I'd even like define it is like basically building yourself up and having a presence in a in like the space that you want to be known for, um, which then helps with getting hired and creating opportunities. Um, and that's the thing as well, is if you can build up your own personal brand, then you will be seen more, heard more, um, and be front of mind for potential opportunities. And I think it's important to think about this is a little bit more, I guess, business minded, I suppose, but if you're learning all these skills in these jobs that you're doing, wouldn't it be good to be able to use them yourself for your own thing?

SPEAKER_16 1:18:12

Yeah, I think the thing is like once you have a personal brand, people follow you for you, right? So you can technically sell whatever you want, and then people will buy it because it's you.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:19

Like, wouldn't it be good to have something that compounds and then becomes something for you? I mean, nothing wrong with wanting to work in salary jobs, nothing wrong with that at all. I just think it's something to consider, like, regardless of being in those salary jobs, you can still be building a personal brand and um documenting your experience and like different things that you're learning or skills that you're you're developing, and then put them out um online and people can read about. Um you can also be seen as like a I guess like a knowledgeable uh individual in that space, and again, helps you with just building your career. Something that's important to remember about personal brand is like it can't be taken off you. That's something that can't be taken from you.

SPEAKER_22 1:18:59

Everyone has that ability as well. You can offer whatever it is, but it's with you that can make it completely unique and completely special and um and something that is no one else can can can copy really.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:16

No one can copy your personal brand. Like obviously there can be some uh interpretations or imitations of your person of your brand, but like what AI is gonna try and rip it off? Like, fucking okay. Like, it's not really gonna be able to rip it off properly. Like it's not, it's not like that's you. You are the the face, you are the voice. Like, you know, it's like AI can't replicate that. Like, yeah, all right, you can argue maybe the technology will get better, this, that, the other, and whatever, but at the end of the day, it's authentically, AI is not you. There isn't a way to copy you. So having that personal brand means a lot more.

SPEAKER_14 1:19:54

If you guys, um, if you guys are like wondering, oh why do I do New Zealand content? It's because that's the only thing I I know. I I've never traveled, and like um I I just wanted to like make something that happened in my life. So um I made a skit based off what I experienced in my life, and apparently a lot of people related to that video, so I just kept making more that you know um that I've experienced in my life while being in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:24

This uh the young fella O'Shea, he's a social media influencer from New Zealand, like he makes just like you said, like New Zealand-based content because that's all he knew. Um, but he did it because that's what he knows, and that's what he enjoys, and he does it very well, and has created you know quite a successful, you know, social media following and um got some opportunities with acting and doing some uh I think some bigger things that he wants to do, and he sort of set himself up really well for the future um in in that sense, probably just from having a bit of fun on TikTok or whatever. And uh, you know, full respect to him. He's I think he's done really well for himself. And draw on like actual like things from your life, like being authentic and transparent may not sound like you know, you're a bit scared about it, judgment, this, that, and the other. Like I've been getting shit from people, even like my mates or whoever, I don't really give a fuck. Like life is short, like I'm getting out there trying to do my trying to do my thing. The power of personal brand and content and doing your own thing, which gives you opportunities. And that clipped us from me, like yeah, I'll clip myself here, but like you know, like I'm no one special. I'm not. And I managed to get some little opportunities that I've I've managed to get from posting on socials or on LinkedIn and stuff, and you know, you just don't know. You don't know who's watching, you don't know who's looking at your content, you don't know who's uh looking at your profile, and you just don't know that it might land you something that you've always wanted or something that's an excit it's an exciting opportunity for you. Like, look, I'm no one special, I'm not here with like thousands, millions of followers and things like that. And already, like, I've had opportunities, um, not just with on the podcast, but with things outside of it, um, especially when it's come to like work-wise. Um, you know, I work in like the marketing industry and I've been posting on LinkedIn as well. You don't need to be famous, you just need to be findable. That's what I'd say is really important. Yeah, so I I guess to kind of close a bit of like the the sections that I've just spoken about, you know, like with the how the economy's going and like with AI, with social media algorithms and like impacts on creativity, um, to like, you know, how trying to find ways to build skills for yourself, build a personal brand. Like, there's a lot of things that you can be doing to help yourself. And it also depends on what noise you you're listening to or taking in, right? Like what content you're consuming, right? If you're just looking at the news every day and doom and gloom and everything's awful, then yeah, every day is gonna feel awful. Sounds like common sense, but a lot of people do this. Uh, or you're just brain rotting yourself every day looking at stupid shit, then that's gonna affect you as well. Um, or if you're always just like uh getting obsessed over people doing better than you all the time and feeling crap about yourself because they're working or trying hard online. But the other thing as well, like how much of that is real and whatever. And um, I think it's important to, you know, you gotta focus on yourself. You gotta focus on yourself and uh try and figure out what it is that you really want. And uh, you know, there's a lot of avenues for you to take, and there's so much there is a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of technology to help you achieve uh your goals, and then as all these people I've just spoken to on the podcast, like heaps of other dream chasers and educators, a lot of that is free. Um that didn't used to be a thing, like you know, obviously before the internet or whatever. So, in a sense, if you want to look at how hard things are or how difficult things are, then you know, it's kind of important to have a glass half full mentality as well. Well, there's easier access to information, there's easier access to even like getting in touch with a lot of incredible people. And in New Zealand anyway, like most people are pretty cool. Like you can just message them, DM them, email them, try to get in touch. Um, I wouldn't say everybody replies, but I'd say that uh, you know, if you if you if you push for it, I think people will come and meet up for a coffee or a beer with you or something, and um, you know, develop your network, and um I think you'd be surprised at what you'd be able to achieve if you if you really go after it. Those are some of the biggest lessons I've learned whilst been doing a hundred episodes of the podcast. And I reckon it's been fucking crazy that I've managed to get to this point to even have that much to report on. Um it's been pretty crazy looking back at all the different things that like uh the different people I've interviewed, all the different people I've spoken to, the kind of stories or sort of takes and insights on life. Like it's been really amazing. Um yeah, I've been I've I've um I'm really stoked about it. So thank you all so much for listening up to this point, and I appreciate um everyone who's come on. It's been incredible. Um but I think before I wrap everything up like completely, I really want to show you uh how far this podcast has come from since I started, man. Like it has come a long fucking way. I tell you that. Production-wise, content-wise, fucking talking to the camera to having people on. Like I've um there's it's been a whole journey for myself. And something else, I guess. Um some people know this, some people don't, but the only Scott used to be called the Only Scots podcast. There used to be two Scots on this podcast for when we very first started. You might have heard that in some of the clips um earlier that that was two of us. Um yeah, it started out with uh my buddy um Scotty Squire. Um we used to be in a band together. Um we've done a we did a number of musical projects together, and we decided to start a podcast together for a bit of fun and to just see if we could do it. We didn't really have a plan at all. We just kind of met up and talked shit, and yeah, some of the early episodes were pretty uh yeah, they were something. Who cares what we have to say? It was a bunch of fucking dorks.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:14

Fuck, we sound like a couple of crazies. I don't care.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:16

Let's do it. Yeah, I mean that's us talking about conspiracy theories and just being a bunch of idiots, like just talking shit and having fun. Like that's all this was. Still having fun now, but obviously we've we've kind of gr I've you know graduated the content and it's been myself doing this now for about three years, um, as Scotty unfortunately couldn't continue with it, um, as he moved overseas. Um so it's been like kind of crazy for me to figure out what was I was gonna do of the podcast, but by the time that I took it out on my own, the podcast had been around for like you know probably six to eight months, and I was like, Well, seems pretty stupid just to stop it now, so kept cranking along. But yeah, that's it, right? Like, what a bunch of idiots. Like, what a bunch of muffins. Like, like obviously, we in the beginning we definitely got a bit of flack for a lot of shit. Um, some of it was valid, some of it was just people being not nice online, but I don't give a fuck. We used to had fun with it, and um, that was the whole premise. Like, let's just do it, see what happens. All right, bro. Let's go. Only Scots. I reckon we should do that. Hey! Yeah, like on the first episode, we didn't even have a name, I don't think. I think Only Scots came up with in that moment when I said it. Like, we had no structure and no format, no nothing. We were just rolling with it. We had no idea what we're doing. Uh, you know what I found the other day? I'm hoping um if he was those watching, uh bring it up to the camera. I hope that you can actually see it all. If not, I'll put a I'll put an image on the side. But these are all the different names we had uh for the podcast. Um I might have to put um an image on the side for this, but yeah, we got 1% Scott, Echo Scott, Echo Scotty, Scotty's Beneath the Bed, my box of Scotties, a spoonful of Scott, and then we tried to do that. Stupid thing where it's like, oh, Scott, and then it's like sexy. What is this? Cowbell. What's that? Off. I don't know what it says. Offers? I don't know what the fuck that is. I don't know. Just dumb shit, really. But how good? How much fun is that? I love that. I love that that we we created it out of just like sheer organic fun and silliness, and then it's kind of developed into something bigger than probably either of us could have thought of at the time. And um, I'm not saying it's like a big thing, um, but it's just developed way more than probably what we imagined. Uh and yeah, I think I'm just really proud that I kept it going. You know, there's been a lot of technical problems with this podcast. Like it's amazing what two cameras and two microphones can cause. There's a lot of problems that can happen. Um, but you know, we get through it and we work on it and we get better. Yay! Any technical issues of one hour. We're here. 100 episodes later, like I enjoy the I enjoy the doing, right? Like being a dream chaser. It's like everyone I've spoken to on this podcast has come on and talked about, you know, what they're pursuing and you know, with their projects or their goals and aspirations. Like they fall in love with the doing, you know. You fall in love with doing the thing. And that's like the biggest takeaway, I reckon, of from this whole podcast of chatting to all these people. It's like find the thing that you can fall in love with the doing. And yeah, you'll never work a day in your life, and I think things will just feel more positive and a bit brighter. And as a there's a quote by um Gary V, who um he's got one I I really like, um, saying that dreams are taken, not given, you know. And there's that's a lot of truth in that. If you want your dreams, you have to go out and grab them. No one's gonna give them to you. No one's gonna hand you a platter of like, hey you go, here's what you want. Like, that's not how this fucking works. That's not how the world works. So you gotta go out there, you gotta go get it. And you can do it. I if I can do it, you can do it. Like, I 100% believe that. So anyway, uh, if you made it the whole way uh to the end of this podcast, thank you so much. I really appreciate you spending time to go on this journey with me and to everyone who's been there since the early days, um, back when there was just an audio podcast. I appreciate you so much. Um and looking forward to doing more in the future. Um, this has been a long time coming to get this episode ready. It took a lot of work, but um I really wanted to do this kind of for me and to pay homage to a lot of people who I've had on so far. So thank you all so much, and that'll be it. All right, thanks everyone for listening.

SPEAKER_18 1:30:49

Bye. What do you reckon the conspiracies are with New Zealand?

SPEAKER_07 1:30:57

Oh, that wheel fuck shape, but that's not that's that's true though that's just true though. We all wheeled Have you had a go, bro?

SPEAKER_18 1:31:07

It's all good. And I love doing it, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:42

I love talking share it's the best. We were originally meant to kick this this Bigfoot baby into the crowd and have like a baby crowd surfing as well. That sounds horrific out loud.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:53

Um, what are our roles in this orju?

SPEAKER_27 1:35:56

Um I do actually know a girl who makes a very decent amount of money off pictures of her feet. Now, before we continue, bro, I just gotta check a few things. Right. How many things am I holding up?

SPEAKER_12 1:36:08

Uh five We used to play shows with this band that used to bring pink blood onto stage and drench themselves in it.

SPEAKER_13 1:36:20

Like like just putting putting raw dogging in your religion. Oh, sorry, babe. I yeah, I can't use condom. God forbids it. Like fucking that's that's top kick ass lightning.

SPEAKER_14 1:36:31

Can we talk about soaking?

SPEAKER_25 1:36:33

Yeah, more than soaking. Yeah.