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Veronica Kirin | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #112 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Reef
• 0:03
  podcast. Today's guest is an entrepreneur
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  and author and an anthropologist all the way from the USA and
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  name is Veronica. Clearing, welcome to the show
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  Veronica. I did hello, I am well as I was
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  saying, it's gloomy outside, but we're having fun, aren't we?
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  Yeah, I mean, it's the same here in England.
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  It's kind of, I mean way. So autumn isn't it?
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  But some kind of, yeah, I'm waiting till the trees change
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  colors and then I can kind of enjoy that.
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  But yeah, I mean, it's Is this is how it's going to be for the
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  next six months. Maybe was just put me into
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  cryogenic freezing for the next seven months, and bring me out
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  when it's summer. Although, we didn't get very
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  much of a summer here in Berlin. I don't know if you did, but I
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  mean it barely hit 30. Um, it was extremely hot him
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  with the lie because okay, this is not really relevant, but
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  like, I remember many, many years were talking about 10-15
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  years ago. I remember.
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  The the pattern in the UK would always be than the joke would
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  be, you get like, you know, your two weeks of Summer and that's
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  it. It just rains the whole time.
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  Yeah. But right now it's, I don't
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  know, I think it's, it must be global warming.
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  I mean, it's now it's like, it's like unbearable.
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  Like I always could call it the group, the greenhouse effect
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  like you're, you know, inside a greenhouse and it's insulator.
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  Like, it's just really like, I mean, I used to live in London,
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  when I was growing up and I Membered summer, there was
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  unbearable because of the pollution and everything you
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  just literally just couldn't escape, it couldn't breathe here
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  in. Manchester is, obviously, in the
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  middle of England. It's a bit more.
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  You can breathe a bit more, but it's still just as boiling, I
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  mean, there were days for instance, when I had to do
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  podcasts and I'm sitting here and the way that my setup is
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  that, you know, this microphone is not the best microphone ever,
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  but is a very good microphone for what for what we do and
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  Needs to picks up everything. So if I have the window open,
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  just even just a little bit because I'm next to a main road.
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  You hear everything. So it's like, okay that's got
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  remains shut even though it's 30 plus side.
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  Yeah, yeah, it is what it is actually.
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  I was going to start with your business, but since we briefly
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  mentioned about Berlin, so you're not originally from
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  Germany. Are you from the United States?
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  Yeah, I immigrated to Berlin in January actually.
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  So wow. Okay.
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  Look brand new European citizen. Oh duh.
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  Okay. So what prompted that move and
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  like how does life compare generally?
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  Because obviously life in American Life in Europe, so
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  opposite in many different ways but what was the reason I'm
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  nervous. Yeah.
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  So actually wanted to be a European citizen since I was 15.
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  So it's been a long time coming. The pandemic just made it
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  easier. Honestly it cut ties.
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  It slowed things down and so we left.
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  We weren't seeing anybody anyway.
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  You know. So just it did make things a
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  little easier. It was a little bit bittersweet
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  because there is no going away party or you know anything like
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  that. No send-off you know my partner
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  got a job here and soon after I gained my Croatian citizen sit
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  through genealogy, my family is Croatian.
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  So we're here to stay for a long time and And, you know, they
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  there's always that feeling of like, okay, maybe this is just
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  like a grass, is greener situation.
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  Like, I'm looking across the pond thinking, like, work-life
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  balance, seems better, and Healthcare seems better.
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  And like, cultural seems better, and you think that okay, nowhere
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  is perfect. I'm going to get there.
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  I'll find the flaws. It's just, it's just been great
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  so far and maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but it's
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  just been really wonderful. I encourage anyone to do it.
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  It's possible for everyone. It was a long road.
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  It took a lot of work. It took a lot of planning
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  because I've been planning this for decades but it's possible if
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  you want to live somewhere else live somewhere else.
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  Yeah, uh-oh, just jump on that. And agree with that massively
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  myself, whose I've lived in Europe myself as well.
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  And I was a couple of things actually on that.
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  So I lived in a Entry in Europe called dystonia for three years.
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  And I kind of felt similar to yourself.
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  Like in that initial first year did not miss home at all.
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  I was pretty much like maybe like they were days when I was
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  like, maybe I'll never go back, I don't know maybe and it's a
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  bit different for me. I didn't really other than
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  family, I didn't really have much because the way you always
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  got to look at is when you move away from your home country it's
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  like okay this is big because you're everyone.
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  Whether they want to admit it or not, they do have that initial
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  tie to where you grow up, you know, unless it's like just
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  everything was terrible and you just want to get as far away
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  from them as possible, which is fair enough, you know what
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  happens? Everyone has different
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  circumstances. You never know, for me, it was
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  always just at least get out of my hometown.
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  You know, when I moved to go to university, I at least went
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  somewhere that was away from London.
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  You know, different experiences this that and the other.
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  So when the opportunity came to go abroad, you know, I'd already
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  Been to this country. As I'm sure you already visited
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  Germany before you'd sort of decided to live there.
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  It's two days. Oh and my partner had never set
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  foot on Mainland Europe. Ha ha okay let us know that's
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  fun. I mean look at least at the end
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  of the day you've got each other so it's like it's a journey is
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  is it Adventure? It's an advanced.
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  Absolutely Adventure. Yep.
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  And that's what we call it but there as I'm sure you've There's
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  days where there's immigrant fatigue like I'm not speaking
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  the language, I'm learning German, you know, I'm an
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  anthropologist so there's just no way for me to not integrate
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  into a culture but it's still not there yet.
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  It's so there's definitely been days where those trying to get
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  my SIM card activated and I had selected the wrong thing and
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  didn't know it because I don't speak the language and
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  translators are imperfect and somebody said oh go to the post
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  office because the post office is part of the validation
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  process. They'll do it in person instead.
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  Okay. So go to the post office and
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  they are like we can't help you this code isn't working because
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  I selected the wrong thing and didn't know it and I've been
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  trying for a week to get it to work and was so frustrated.
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  I just stood outside the post office and cried.
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  So like there's definitely moments where there's like
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  immigrant burnout basically, but the grand trajectory is a net
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  positive. In every single way.
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  It's just been wonderful. We knew one person.
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  I knew one person party, but, you know, being business,
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  people, I know how to network and so I know how to threw
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  myself, throw myself into the social fabric here, and I guess
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  I have an added Advantage, because I'm an anthropologist
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  and business person. So, I know how to dig in
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  culturally, and I know how to dig in network wise.
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  And so just started finding people and I've Already built so
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  many amazing relationships here. So like I said, it's possible.
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  You can do it without ever having been there.
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  Yeah. Anybody I think it depends on a
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  lot of things as well as find out a few points to this like
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  okay it depends greatly on the type of person you are as well.
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  Like I mean you gotta be resourceful, you gotta kind of
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  obviously always going to have the language barrier aspect of
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  things. I mean, for me personally, I was
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  likely I think I started feeling homesick.
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  Until? I'd say at least two years in
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  give or take. And yeah, by that point things
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  will get and if I will go into specifics 99 relevant, but it
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  fit, certain things made me feel like, hmm.
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  Maybe it would be better go back and maybe I do miss, you know,
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  but I think the biggest thing is being able to see fam.
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  Like, if you're able to see family on a fairly regular basis
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  like this say, once every 3-4 months, something like that for
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  a week or two. And I think it's generally,
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  okay, you don't feel as isolated.
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  It's time goes, quickly, you know, and the bigger point I
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  wanted to get to is like, Life Is Life, Janome, like, it
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  doesn't kind of really matter where you are in the world.
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  Like, yeah, you adjust to things certain things are very
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  different. Sometimes that can be a bit of a
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  cultural shock, but ultimately Life Is Life.
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  People are the same pretty much wherever you go.
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  Cultural differences aside, they're just trying to live
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  their everyday lives. So it's you You know, once
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  you've kind of settled into your Rhythm and stuff, it's like, how
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  different really is it, you know.
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  Yeah. Now that we're, we really have a
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  home for ourselves here. You know, like I've got the
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  plant babies, you got the books and the desk and everything's
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  really set up nicely. It's there's some days that I
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  forget that I'm in Germany, except for the windows open
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  differently than in the United States and things like that,
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  like little things. But you're right, I mean, people
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  are Ball. Most of humanity is just trying
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  to live their lives and we're all social creatures and so
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  connecting on some level, you know, everyone has different
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  ways of connecting but connections are out there and
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  available to you. It can be trying as an adult.
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  There's you're not thrust together.
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  So the thing that a lot of people don't realize like why is
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  it so much easier to make friends or connect with people
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  when were younger, it's not necessarily that we're better at
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  it. It or more open.
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  Actually, I would say that we're like way worse at making
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  friends, when we're young, because we're terrible at
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  relationships, we don't have the tools yet but we're thrust
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  together forcibly into a location where you see people
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  every single day. It's cool right.
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  There's only a few places that happens School prison,
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  retirement communities, we are thrown together with people you
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  don't know and forced to mingle and so familiarity begets
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  likeness, right? As we as we become familiar, as,
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  with folks, we tend to grow trust with them.
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  So I actually thought I would emigrate as a student to do my
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  master's because I would be thrust into a group of people
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  who were all unified by the same goal, despite being strangers.
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  And that would be how I socially integrated.
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  That's not obviously, what happened, I'm not doing my
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  Master's right now or anything like it, but yeah, so, There's
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  definitely a bit of extra effort, go out and make a
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  friend. Yo, you seen that person at the
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  same Cafe three times this week, say hello, hey, it's difficult
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  to know where you're coming from.
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  I think that's one of the things I miss about University was just
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  this ability to just. So like, for instance, for us,
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  there was this particular Library which was Tiny, but it
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  was right in the middle of the campus and there was different
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  places to study by followed. That was the main place to be,
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  even even like a sad Night where like people are out and stuff.
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  You'd still have people pop to there and speak and socialize,
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  you know, it's a library, I don't know, but it's like my
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  point being that, you know, you conversations, just happened.
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  You just meet people, it just happens.
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  But like you said, in, in everyday, kind of adult life,
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  you really have to push yourself there and I feel like it depends
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  where you are. It's because I think to some
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  extent you could you come up to people in certain scenarios that
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  come Settings. I should say like, you know,
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  coffee shops. Whatever.
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  Some people would be very nice but I are great.
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  Yeah. Or never come station other
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  times. People have been like, who are
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  you? Get the hell away from me?
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  So sad. I'm working here.
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  Well yeah, well that's a big thing that's changed.
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  I gotta stop it. I remember I was I was with a
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  couple of my flatmates recently and we just wanted to just get
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  like a meal together, but before we did that, we wanted to have a
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  coffee and in Manchester there's a lot of cool places to check
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  out you know hipster vibe. So whatever, if that's the whole
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  thing and yeah yeah. You know what I mean?
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  Like if people know exactly what I mean when I say that so that I
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  don't know I'm aged at this point like it's like the next
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  thing. Yeah it's because like there is
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  the the these new trends now that to me just look like
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  hipster or well actually but I mean that's a whole other
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  conversation nervous like yeah I feel like it's at the moment.
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  It's 2000s, Revival, that's what I see.
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  From these the teenage demographic.
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  It's like they're just they're dressing how we used to dress
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  when we were like 10 years old. So it's a bit weird but that's
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  because it is not good. Fascists not early 80s which is
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  eternal. It's like no this this know
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  these these were terrible we had like these long sort of flared
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  jeans that had all these horrible awful patterns on.
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  I remember when I was like ten years old and I've had I thought
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  it was a good idea to go down the skate park with these long
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  trousers with like, total 19 Ike.
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  Astro turf shoes that you use and then like about five
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  different chains on the side of my leg.
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  That was yeah it's really one head.
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  Is it anyway? Just go back to the coffee shop
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  thing so it's like that. That's a cultural shift.
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  That's changed where you you walk into these places and
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  everyone's working. Everyone's got a laptop.
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  It's rare that you just got two people sitting there having a
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  chat. Like it does happen.
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  That seems like that's happening a lot, though.
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  That's one thing that I love about Berlin.
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  This you actually have to work to find coffee shops that have
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  internet, first of all, so then people aren't necessarily
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  working. So I see more people in coffee
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  shops reading books, or as you said, having conversations with
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  each other, and that seems like the norm here, at least in
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  Berlin. Like, I don't know about the
• 14:20
  rest of Germany per se, but you know, a lot of people tend to
• 14:24
  romanticize Paris and like the street side eating, right?
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  That's happening. Here all the time.
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  Like it is it. The thing to go out and to meet
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  with people and go to a restaurant and eat outside its
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  cold out right now and people are eating outside.
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  I see people sitting in the bahnhof stations, the the train
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  stations like just having a beer together just they're not going
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  anywhere. It's just literally a sheltered
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  place to hang out with a friend. People will sit on like benches
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  right in front of businesses that have closed or even in the
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  Windows like on the ledge of businesses that are closed just
• 15:00
  to sit and have a beer with Each other.
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  So like it's very congruent, congregational?
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  Yeah, as a as a community, it feels like, but that doesn't
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  mean you have someone to congregate with, you have to
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  still go find them. One thing I want to ask about it
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  because I've been to Berlin very long time ago because like 2007.
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  So I would have been a teenager at the time and the whole thing
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  because I've always been here. Yeah, I got.
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  Yeah, I've always been into art history and culture and my love
• 15:28
  all that stuff. So it was his brilliant me.
• 15:30
  Mum would just Yeah, great time. Like, you know, is good but the
• 15:35
  vibe was still very different. You know, it was still very much
• 15:37
  developing say that the east of Berlin was very much developing
• 15:41
  where as I understand it, it looks very different now.
• 15:44
  But one thing you touched on there is just this kind of
• 15:47
  culture of people sitting and drinking.
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  And from what I understand, I obviously drinking is a big
• 15:52
  thing in most European countries but obviously in Germany.
• 15:55
  You've got October 1st and stuff like that.
• 15:57
  Yeah. Do you ever see like binge
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  Drinking or people kind of because I kind of know what the
• 16:04
  answer is going to be. But I just want to ask anyway
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  because here in the UK it's a big thing but I haven't seen it
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  in any other place. To be honest with the exception
• 16:13
  of a little bit in the state. I've not really seen binge
• 16:17
  drinking quite like how we have it in the UK where you have an
• 16:20
  entire High Street just full with really really drunk.
• 16:23
  Can uncontrollable people, ya know, I really can't say I've
• 16:31
  observed Curved. It's like I said I've been here
• 16:33
  for nine months so what do I know right I have by basis of
• 16:37
  come comparison which is the United States and even at
• 16:42
  football games honestly. So like in Germany was playing
• 16:45
  you know we had the the Euro Cup this year and the restaurants
• 16:50
  and bars would be packed if you have a television at the bar you
• 16:54
  are doing good because everybody's coming I think so
• 17:02
  Ike, I haven't studied German culture as an anthropologist, so
• 17:07
  this is going to be a hot take as an anthropologist, but I
• 17:10
  think the history of Germany drives it away from fervor.
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  And so even like it's actually taboo here to fly the German
• 17:23
  flag unless it's a football game because you're seen as a Which
• 17:29
  nationalism, they get some big problems.
• 17:32
  So, my guess is the, like, really big emotional outbursts
• 17:39
  or displays in public, aren't the norm?
• 17:44
  And actually my friend's boyfriend, who is German?
• 17:47
  So she's American. He's German, he finds it very
• 17:51
  hard to make any sort of emotional declaration, even in
• 17:54
  private. And I've heard that from a few
• 17:56
  different people. So, This is just the evidence
• 18:00
  I've gathered over my time here. This is not an ecological
• 18:03
  assessment. It's absolutely a hot take but
• 18:06
  I'm guessing that that's why I'm not seeing a lot of binge
• 18:08
  drinking because it's Out gross behavior and that's not really
• 18:14
  culturally acceptable. Just based on, you know, your
• 18:19
  expertise as an anthropologist. What would you surmise?
• 18:22
  Is the reason why Germans are a bit more reserved because I
• 18:26
  noticed the same thing. When I was living in Estonia,
• 18:30
  certain things that I would say they're acceptable, I'll get a
• 18:34
  give a really good example. So if I'm walking to a
• 18:38
  restaurant or a par boss or bar or something like that in
• 18:41
  England, chances are it's going to be really loud.
• 18:44
  It's not like strange to hear people being Loud and you know,
• 18:47
  unruly and stuff. It's not great, no one likes
• 18:49
  that because it's obnoxious but it won't it's not something
• 18:53
  that's going to like shock you or stop everything.
• 18:56
  Whereas when you see that when you're in Estonia it would be
• 19:01
  like everyone looks and like the conversation just stops and it's
• 19:04
  very like you know read the room.
• 19:07
  So it kind of just there's no delivery to cut.
• 19:09
  Its a shunning is like cut it cuts through the calm and that's
• 19:14
  something I've noticed in quite a few different European
• 19:15
  countries. I just wanted some your
• 19:17
  expertise like what where do you think that comes from that sort
• 19:23
  of mentality or that cultural trait?
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  I mean, it could be just generally culturally, you know,
• 19:33
  like we've been around for a while.
• 19:36
  There's no need to act like that.
• 19:40
  I have an inkling, I'm sure at least to some extent, the war
• 19:46
  and the generational trauma that is here from the war plays a
• 19:50
  role into that. But for Berlin and particular,
• 19:54
  there's places for it. Sort of in the clubs and in the
• 20:00
  waves, you know. So like I said like it doesn't
• 20:04
  It's not like experiences that are heightened aren't available,
• 20:12
  it's just that they're channeled.
• 20:14
  Yeah. Okay, we coming from a night.
• 20:16
  It's always just kind of struck me as odd this this kind of
• 20:19
  binge drink and Coach that we have in the UK because it's
• 20:23
  something I really detest to be honest.
• 20:25
  Because you know, I mean, I'm personally not like that and I
• 20:29
  don't want to sound all pompous that whom above that.
• 20:31
  But in a way I kind of am I just don't see the need or want to
• 20:35
  just get that unruly. And, you know, that's them.
• 20:39
  That's not me. But what I have noticed is every
• 20:41
  time I go to anywhere in Europe, the assumption Oh, you're
• 20:45
  British. So this is the kind of behavior
• 20:48
  and then when they learned that actually no I just want to like
• 20:51
  I love European culture. Like it's that's what I
• 20:53
  gravitate towards and so it's like there's always that kind of
• 20:58
  feel-good moment but it's like, I don't know like from the
• 21:02
  studies that have done into these kind of things because I
• 21:06
  don't quite a lot about it. When I was, when I was studying
• 21:08
  my degree and it seems like it was an invented thing in that
• 21:13
  sort of the 1970s s / 1980s was a lot of advertising at the time
• 21:18
  which almost without coming out and saying it basically just
• 21:22
  said, two people go out drink drink like crazy.
• 21:25
  And look, yeah, boys drunk alcohol.
• 21:27
  That's not a new thing. But this kind of unruly nature
• 21:32
  that we have that people just hanging out in the High Street
• 21:35
  and getting trashed and neat. Requiring the police to take
• 21:39
  care of the situations and stuff.
• 21:41
  Like you just don't tend to see that anywhere.
• 21:44
  Was maybe a little bit in America.
• 21:47
  I can't really say, definitely in colleges in America.
• 21:50
  Yeah. But they can see that.
• 21:51
  It's like you said before, it's contextual like you know if
• 21:55
  you're if you're in a bar or Rave or something then you
• 21:59
  totally expect that. But when you're in a High
• 22:00
  Street, it's something that you don't expect as much like, you
• 22:04
  know. But even I remember what being
• 22:05
  in Hollywood and like 2014 and something that struck me is kind
• 22:10
  of strange was that. It's like, 11 p.m.
• 22:14
  Right. And everything's just locked
• 22:17
  down and I guess everyone's just finished their night and they're
• 22:21
  just getting food and stuff knocks.
• 22:23
  And I'm like, but this, this is like when you you're like
• 22:26
  getting ready like to go out, like, you don't go out until
• 22:29
  like, I don't know, 12 13. Yeah.
• 22:32
  And the United States closes down much earlier than most
• 22:36
  European cities states locations.
• 22:40
  There's a few exceptions like New Orleans or Las Vegas.
• 22:44
  But generally the United States, just closes by midnight or 2
• 22:49
  a.m. every sleeping, go home strange.
• 22:55
  Yeah, yeah, that's Vegas is weird.
• 22:57
  I remember being there and just being it is kind of crazy like,
• 23:01
  little things like, you know, the casinos don't have clocks or
• 23:05
  anything, you know. They put apparently they pump
• 23:09
  air into the place to keep you awake.
• 23:10
  Supposedly their lighting is very Very specific, The Sounds,
• 23:16
  the orientation, the shape of the buildings, you'll notice
• 23:19
  that it kind of wind and Curve Your supposed to be disoriented,
• 23:23
  you're not supposed to know what time it is.
• 23:24
  You're supposed to stay and spend your money.
• 23:27
  Yeah. And that's why they give you
• 23:28
  free drinks. Yeah, that's clever.
• 23:31
  That's why I mean, it doesn't make a difference.
• 23:32
  You're going to spend money anyway, but me and my friend
• 23:34
  were very clever. We had like set budgets what?
• 23:36
  I like this is the amount we prepared.
• 23:38
  Yes. And no more and we did that but
• 23:42
  you have to, you have to I've been to Las Vegas six times.
• 23:46
  I mean, I've never gambled their oh wow well done.
• 23:50
  Okay, how come just not no interest or just why what's the
• 23:56
  point? I dunno.
• 23:58
  I just feel like what else is there to do in Las Vegas.
• 24:00
  I mean maybe I'm just being nice, go see a show, go explore.
• 24:06
  There's amazing museums there because there's incredible
• 24:08
  history there. You're in the desert.
• 24:10
  Go for a hike and see Red Rocks. Go to the spa.
• 24:13
  Go to the hot springs. Things.
• 24:16
  Yeah, I didn't know any of this. We literally went to a couple of
• 24:19
  casinos. We did swimming remember that
• 24:22
  all. We went to Death Valley.
• 24:23
  Actually, that was very cool. Very cool.
• 24:25
  Very yeah. Anyone that likes road trips.
• 24:28
  Fantastic. Yeah.
• 24:30
  Go see the Hoover Dam, beautiful.
• 24:32
  It's such a cool. Like, it's a mind-blowing piece
• 24:36
  of construction, you know, if you can extract yourself from
• 24:39
  the terrible things that the dam has done to the ecological
• 24:41
  system. It's a beautiful, incredible
• 24:43
  piece of construction. Human engineering and it was
• 24:46
  completed in the early 1900s and so it's all Art Deco, which is
• 24:52
  really neat. So there's a lot to do in Las
• 24:56
  Vegas and the surrounding areas if you don't want to gamble
• 25:00
  fair, enough fertile. One thing I just want to quickly
• 25:03
  ask you before we move on. Yeah, so obviously, yeah.
• 25:06
  I know that you've only been some in Germany for about nine
• 25:08
  months or so, so it's you still adjusting and everything.
• 25:11
  But is there any sort of major differences?
• 25:14
  Has culturally that, you're sort of getting used to or you've
• 25:18
  observed or things that are just very extremely different.
• 25:22
  That are hard to get used to where we just different ways of
• 25:24
  life or something like that. I know what they're like hard to
• 25:28
  get you. There's definitely huge
• 25:29
  differences, but I feel like Berlin is a really good cultural
• 25:34
  fit, so it almost it feels like more of a breath of fresh air
• 25:41
  than being thrust into something that I have to really like
• 25:44
  worked. Use to I'm trying to think.
• 25:50
  I think maybe you know, people who aren't used to formal
• 25:54
  versions of language, that's much more structured here.
• 25:57
  So if you're in Spain or in Latin America, if you're not
• 26:01
  using those dead form, you were your kind of forgiving like it's
• 26:06
  not polite but like it's you you can get to the the to form the
• 26:11
  in familiar faster, I would say. And that's very so, anyone who
• 26:19
  is Our Superior either because they're your professor, they're
• 26:23
  your doctor there. An official government official,
• 26:31
  you need to use the Z form and you don't stop using the Z form
• 26:35
  until they have. Told you explicitly.
• 26:39
  Oh, you can just use do with me and same with last name first
• 26:43
  name. So you don't everyone is like
• 26:47
  how a foul Snyder or whatever. Like there's no, you don't
• 26:53
  transition to using someone's first name until they've told
• 26:57
  you. To, now, that's traditional
• 26:59
  German in Berlin. It's way more, casual, but
• 27:04
  that's still kind of exists. It exists in the professional
• 27:07
  regions, so I think that's been something a hard adjustment.
• 27:10
  But, you know, it's something to bear in mind.
• 27:13
  I think also, I'm like, much more primed to accept cultural
• 27:17
  differences and to, like, jump in and adapt to them because
• 27:21
  that's my training. So, like, when I was in Samoa
• 27:25
  right after the tsunami and like you're not, Opposed to point
• 27:27
  your feet at an elder, you have to sit below your elders.
• 27:31
  So like the chief of the community, like, if your heads
• 27:32
  not below them, you're being rude.
• 27:34
  If you don't sit down with your food, you're being disrespectful
• 27:37
  to the lives that were given to nourish you and so I I just you
• 27:45
  do it. I don't know.
• 27:46
  You just do it. But for some people who are used
• 27:50
  to thinking top of mind about their own cultural sensitivities
• 27:55
  it can I suppose it would be To transition and adapt quickly.
• 28:01
  That's an interesting point because I think a lot of the
• 28:03
  time I do it for myself. I always just kind of adapt to
• 28:07
  whatever situation I'm in. So it's like okay well this is
• 28:10
  how it is here and just go with it.
• 28:12
  But I yeah, like you said that some people do have an issue
• 28:14
  with that. That I will know.
• 28:15
  This is this is how I operate. I can't do that.
• 28:18
  That's not acceptable, but anyone even not not necessarily
• 28:21
  in resistance but just forgetfulness.
• 28:24
  That's it. Like, people get so ingrained
• 28:26
  into their own culture. Hers.
• 28:27
  And then don't ever think about what's cultural.
• 28:31
  Like there's a cultural Clash that I had recently with
• 28:33
  somebody who's going to come visit and she intentionally
• 28:35
  chose not to because we still wear masks in public places that
• 28:38
  are unregulated, so like grocery stores on the trains, we're
• 28:41
  still wearing masks. That's why our numbers are so
• 28:44
  good here and she didn't want to come just because she didn't
• 28:47
  want to wear masks, but she's she was repulsed by the idea.
• 28:52
  And to me this is just normal, it's fine.
• 28:56
  But that's a Cultural issue even just mask wearing is a cultural
• 29:00
  issue because they're so used to it, we've just accepted it.
• 29:04
  The United States has not. I know, outside in the cold,
• 29:08
  like the restaurant sidewalk eating is all still open and
• 29:11
  it's like, what's the high today, 12?
• 29:14
  Like it's cold and, and again, I know a lot of people who say,
• 29:20
  well, I'm not going to visit Germany, it's cold.
• 29:22
  Why would I eat outside wave impacted and yet, I don't know
• 29:26
  if you've packed it in yet. Yet they have you all gone
• 29:29
  inside yet the probably. Yeah.
• 29:32
  If there's even a bit of rain will likely go indoors.
• 29:39
  I've seen people just sitting outside its kind of semi.
• 29:46
  Yeah. Like cut it because 12 degrees
• 29:48
  that's fairly warm stays the wind that change.
• 29:51
  Don't know what you're talking about but sure me like, 2830
• 29:56
  that's where I'm at. So, if it's below 18, I'm not
• 30:00
  happy. But again, Croatian, blood.
• 30:03
  This is the thing I get where you're coming from.
• 30:04
  When I lived in Estonia, it was legit like sometimes - 20 in
• 30:08
  places so to me I'm just like 12 degrees at summer.
• 30:15
  Yeah. See I never got used to it even
• 30:19
  you know in the United States I lived in the icy North for a
• 30:21
  long time and I never got used to it.
• 30:24
  It's just not in my Constitution.
• 30:27
  I mean, I think it does have a an impact based on your just
• 30:30
  your own body's physiology. You know, biology I should say
• 30:33
  like it's you know, how you're geared to a certain place but
• 30:36
  yeah. Anyway, moving it on obviously
• 30:39
  we've touched a lot on your, you know, your knowledge and
• 30:43
  expertise is an anthropologist so please what can you tell us
• 30:45
  about your work as an anthropologist?
• 30:47
  And what would you say are your biggest Discovery so far?
• 30:51
  Mmm, oh gosh. So my work as an anthropologist
• 30:56
  is to study. Every time shifts.
• 30:58
  So basically I operate by the philosophy that books out live
• 31:02
  humans and so the best way to preserve a paradigm shift,
• 31:07
  cultural shift changing the Zeitgeist is to record it
• 31:12
  through story and print it. So behind me, there's three
• 31:16
  maroon books, those are that's copies of my first book that
• 31:20
  came out in 2018. These smallest notebooks here
• 31:23
  are the three notes It's that I've been taking of my current
• 31:31
  study, which is to document covid-19 and the radical
• 31:36
  paradigm shift that we're living through right now.
• 31:38
  So I've been interviewing people since March, 20, 2003, and the
• 31:42
  world. I think 50 countries at this
• 31:45
  point. So That's what my work is.
• 31:53
  Radical discoveries that I've made my first, my first book was
• 31:58
  about the high-tech Revolution, and it was from an American
• 32:02
  perspective, but specifically to the eyes of the greatest
• 32:05
  Generation. So people born before 1945, who
• 32:08
  grew up with crank cars, and the first radio in the community,
• 32:10
  they remember when the houses were electrified and how
• 32:12
  terrified people were. And so that has this, this
• 32:16
  incredible foundation for understanding like, And I'm
• 32:18
  using an iPhone, and I've lived through that whole shift, what
• 32:22
  is it like? What does it mean, how have
• 32:24
  things changed? And I think what gets Lost in
• 32:30
  Translation is how human we all are and how much we want the
• 32:34
  best for each other. And so, even when I'm talking
• 32:38
  to, I mean, there were some crumb Bhajan, Lee older people
• 32:43
  that I was interviewing, you know, the grumpiest of the
• 32:46
  Grumps, but they prided themselves.
• 32:48
  And being grumpy and even still when they're saying that they're
• 32:52
  concerned about young. People coming up with technology
• 32:55
  and how are we managing it? There are talking from a place
• 33:00
  of caring for communities and caring for the young people and
• 33:06
  caring for what is being passed on.
• 33:08
  They're not demonizing, they're not criticizing.
• 33:12
  They're not saying, young people are stupid that never came up.
• 33:16
  It was always about Out. How are they managing it?
• 33:20
  Because it's a tool but it's a tool designed to steal your
• 33:24
  attention. So how are we managing it?
• 33:27
  Or at least a lot of the tools on the tool are designed to
• 33:30
  steal your attention? So what I'm discovering with
• 33:34
  stories of covid, which is the name of the work I'm doing now,
• 33:38
  the first book was called stories of Elders.
• 33:42
  But stories of covid again just really clear on the humanity
• 33:48
  that everyone shares. The work that everyone is doing
• 33:52
  collectively or individually to just get through it and to
• 33:56
  adapt. And what I've seen the most of
• 34:00
  is that people who do the best, even in the worst circumstances
• 34:02
  are people who are making conscious choices so either you
• 34:07
  can approach the situation as it's happening to you.
• 34:09
  Or Or you can approach it as it's happening and I'm going to
• 34:14
  choose how I react to it. The people who are making
• 34:18
  conscious choices are getting through it in, at least a
• 34:22
  healthier way mentally and through lifestyle, even those
• 34:27
  who have been in the worst of conditions because of the
• 34:32
  pandemic, you know, lost their jobs or some lost their homes.
• 34:35
  I mean, I've interviewed some people have really, really had a
• 34:38
  hard time But when they're making conscious choices to find
• 34:47
  the way through rather than just waking up every day and take a
• 34:52
  hit things, seem to be going better.
• 34:57
  It really does seem like people who I know.
• 35:01
  This is really obvious thing to say about their word.
• 35:03
  They like those who generally don't resist as much and just
• 35:09
  learn to kind of adapt to all situations.
• 35:12
  They're generally the ones who've kind of hit the ground
• 35:15
  running through this covid situation because it's kind of a
• 35:18
  thing where it just hits you and it's that well how you gonna do
• 35:22
  it? Like you said, it's all about
• 35:23
  Choice. It's like, well, do you just sit
• 35:27
  Add worried. Like, you don't know what to do,
• 35:30
  keep trying to do the same thing and it's not working, or do you
• 35:33
  just change up, try different things.
• 35:35
  You know, for instance, for me, unfortunately, I've been
• 35:39
  unemployed this whole this whole time because it was a bit of a
• 35:42
  weird situation for me because I sort of came back to England in
• 35:48
  February, 20, 20 moves up timing, right?
• 35:52
  Yeah, moved up to Manchester. It's weird thinking about that
• 35:56
  weird. It seems like Ian's ago does it
• 36:00
  does it feels like a lifetime ago this point but and we're
• 36:03
  still very much in it. That's the thing.
• 36:05
  I will say, just an aside that like people think, oh, it's gone
• 36:08
  away. Like I walked down the High
• 36:09
  Street and and no one's wearing masks and stuff.
• 36:11
  And, you know, I've had my jobs now at this point and I wouldn't
• 36:15
  say I feel safe necessarily but I kind of feel like well I've
• 36:19
  done everything that I can do, you know?
• 36:23
  For instance, I wear it when I need to like when I do my
• 36:25
  volunteer work like they're like hey Can you wear a mask?
• 36:28
  And I'm like, yeah, like the, what's the issue, you know, but
• 36:33
  it's still kind of we're not out of the woods yet, you know,
• 36:35
  we're still the, you know, like some of my doctor friends always
• 36:38
  tell me that, you know, the realistically we got a couple
• 36:43
  more years of this yet were, you know, potentially.
• 36:45
  It will get out of cool, The Source fear of public
• 36:49
  Consciousness, to a point where, you know, it becomes just like a
• 36:53
  seasonal thing, maybe like it will never go away.
• 36:55
  Think it'll always be there. It's like the asteroid that hit
• 36:59
  the earth. Yeah, yeah the impact is its
• 37:06
  quieting down. So the last few rocks are
• 37:08
  falling out of the sky, you know, impact hits and then spray
• 37:12
  and stuff. So Earth is starting to settle
• 37:15
  back down with the asteroid is still here.
• 37:20
  The crater is still here, like we've taken a hit, this has
• 37:24
  changed things and there's no going back and they I Urge
• 37:29
  anybody who thinks that there is a end to this, to re-examine the
• 37:36
  evidence around them because yeah, it's probably going to be
• 37:39
  like a seasonal, flu, you need to get a job.
• 37:43
  That's the best-case scenario. I think, at this point, it may
• 37:47
  be, we were foolish to think it ever was any different,
• 37:50
  honestly? Hmm.
• 37:52
  I mean, we've been warned about this many many times.
• 37:56
  Obviously those that famous Bill Gates.
• 37:59
  Took what you wanted us many many, many years ago.
• 38:03
  And it's inevitable. You know what I mean?
• 38:04
  It's like, I always find it funny.
• 38:07
  It's not funny, it's really scary.
• 38:08
  But, you know, like, every single apocalypse kind of
• 38:11
  situation movie that you've seen in your life and it's always the
• 38:14
  beginning Panic that you see and I was like, oh that's
• 38:17
  ridiculous. I wouldn't that like that.
• 38:19
  But that's exactly how everyone acts.
• 38:21
  I mean, right now in the UK we've got a fuel shortage and I
• 38:24
  don't know, I think it's quite a down a little bit now, but for
• 38:27
  the past couple of weeks, it's just When people queuing up to
• 38:31
  petrol stations and just fitting loads and loads of gas canisters
• 38:35
  unnecessarily, you know, they don't need it and it's like to
• 38:40
  these are going to be a shortage.
• 38:42
  Yeah, it's like people don't think like the, the average
• 38:45
  person or the majority of people, don't think in this
• 38:48
  logical. Way.
• 38:49
  Like, here's our sitting here going that doesn't make sense.
• 38:51
  That's not logical, just think. But it's like, people don't they
• 38:55
  just like ah, oh my God product. Uh, just get I'll get as much as
• 38:59
  you can and it's like room like and and it is concerning because
• 39:05
  you know, if we had worse scenarios like okay zombie
• 39:09
  apocalypse or something like that.
• 39:11
  I mean these movies pretty much tell you exactly how that's
• 39:13
  going to play out. It's like it's not even really
• 39:16
  fiction anymore. It's like that's pretty much how
• 39:18
  it's gonna go down. People will just lose their
• 39:20
  minds and the only people that all survive will be those.
• 39:24
  You can just rationally and logically think their way out of
• 39:28
  that scenario. No.
• 39:29
  Yeah, and yet their fight flight or freeze has very real for
• 39:34
  humans. This is our default mode, right?
• 39:36
  So, whatever one, you default to, I default to freeze, its
• 39:40
  really annoying, but that's that's just the state that your
• 39:46
  body is going to go into. And when you're in that state is
• 39:49
  hard to think. And so how do you get ahead of
• 39:53
  yourself? How do you prepare yourself?
• 39:54
  So that if something is happening you can throttle Fez
• 39:59
  needed until you are back in the clear.
• 40:02
  I heard an analogy not too long ago, maybe a week or two ago and
• 40:09
  saying we've had the real life example of how this was all
• 40:14
  going to go down help pandemic would all go down already for
• 40:19
  the past several decades with climate change and we've seen
• 40:23
  how Humanity has reacted to that as far as panic and action and
• 40:27
  doing what needs to be done. And I was like, huh?
• 40:32
  So not even just in the movies, but real life scenario.
• 40:36
  This is an interesting analogy that's person is drawing.
• 40:41
  And it really made me think a lot.
• 40:43
  So yeah. If it's possible the throttle or
• 40:47
  it's hard, it's so hard when you're freaked out.
• 40:50
  You don't know what's happening. I have post-traumatic stress
• 40:52
  disorder from a past life and in disaster relief.
• 40:55
  Work Panic does not do well for my brain stressed.
• 40:59
  Not do well for my brain, but if you know, yourself well enough
• 41:03
  to be able to at least throttle yourself, pull up.
• 41:07
  More information is needed more data.
• 41:09
  Feed feed to The Logical system, pull yourself out.
• 41:12
  Separate yourself somehow from the emotional panic.
• 41:17
  It takes a lot. Yeah, it's just me not based on
• 41:21
  what you're saying like that is that changes, everything that
• 41:26
  kind of as you put it that freeze paralysis situation
• 41:31
  because while I did say you know you should logically think your
• 41:35
  way through this situation you should.
• 41:36
  Yeah. If your body doesn't let you,
• 41:39
  your body doesn't let you like. I suffer really badly for my
• 41:42
  anxiety and I can tell you that It's not bad enough that I need
• 41:46
  to be medicated, but it's bad enough that on those days when
• 41:49
  it happens. I really struggle to get
• 41:54
  anything practical done productive.
• 41:57
  I almost lose a day and it's debilitating.
• 42:00
  It takes away all your energy, it takes over your mind.
• 42:03
  It's just AA. And yeah, then asking someone in
• 42:07
  that sort of scenario to be up 12, think logically, you know,
• 42:11
  do this do that. Use an external threats to my
• 42:16
  livelihood, to my family like whatever I need to go and hedge
• 42:20
  that by getting extra gas. That's like, you know that's the
• 42:24
  limit of the thinking. And when it feels like it's very
• 42:27
  real and present and attacking your livelihood, your family,
• 42:34
  you take action. I actually Wonder, this is
• 42:36
  bringing up a really interesting question.
• 42:40
  Are the people who take action Fight mode people because flight
• 42:48
  people would hide freeze. People like me, I don't take
• 42:54
  action until I feel like I, you know, have a sense of what's
• 42:58
  going on, I wander. I don't think I studied this, I
• 43:04
  don't know what, maybe you should study.
• 43:05
  I mean, who better, but why were so nice?
• 43:11
  I reckon I do. Know about that but I think that
• 43:14
  it's short-term missed versus long-term, Its Behavior.
• 43:17
  Hmm that's a short-term response that's in in their minds it's
• 43:21
  like if I buy some gas then it will be okay for like a week or
• 43:26
  two. It's like shorter.
• 43:27
  It's not thinking they don't think ahead.
• 43:31
  Yeah, or not at least not long enough ahead and like I've
• 43:33
  worked as think I've worked in so many businesses over the
• 43:36
  years where I've calmly tried to explain to a manager or head of
• 43:41
  Department, if you do This it's going to be an issue in six
• 43:46
  months from now, a year from now.
• 43:48
  And they're like, oh no. But you know, we need to do this
• 43:51
  and that they're worried about that the budgets and I'm like,
• 43:54
  oh no, we're going to lose because we sales drop this
• 43:56
  month. And it's like, that's okay.
• 43:58
  These things happen. Look, look at the trend,
• 44:01
  overall. Look at where we're heading.
• 44:03
  Look at your, look at these things.
• 44:05
  And if that's the problem, it's short term assets versus
• 44:07
  long-term lists and I think the greater majority of people are
• 44:11
  short-term lists. They kind of just look.
• 44:13
  At things. And they go, oh, I need to react
• 44:15
  now. And sometimes the best reaction
• 44:18
  is no action. Sometimes depends on what it is.
• 44:21
  But it's yeah, and that's where I start coming back to culture.
• 44:25
  Is it that we are culturally trained to be short-term
• 44:29
  thinkers or what I call nearsighted versus farsighted.
• 44:31
  So, like, are we just not taught to think farsighted?
• 44:36
  And again, that would be a fun study to I think it's a really
• 44:41
  good area of study. I mean.
• 44:43
  Certainly that's the reason I don't watch the news because I'm
• 44:46
  I realized it like the age of 10 years old that the whole thing
• 44:49
  is set up to propagate negative feelings.
• 44:54
  It's supposed to make you terrified that.
• 44:56
  I noticed a real simple pattern and I don't know if this is the
• 45:00
  same in every country, but what I noticed is in the UK, If you
• 45:03
  look at typical news program, let's say News at 10, just for
• 45:06
  argument's sake, the way it's structured is you get like half
• 45:09
  an hour or 45 minutes of news, right?
• 45:11
  And it's all - and it's shifts from thing to thing.
• 45:14
  So maybe it starts with there, were these terrorist attacks in
• 45:17
  this place and this is the terrible thing that's happening
• 45:20
  in the economy. And if they don't have a
• 45:22
  specific thing that's happening, that's - then they put
• 45:27
  speculative story on something. They go to all.
• 45:30
  Well, the government said this, so maybe that means that this is
• 45:33
  going to happen, you know, it's all negative.
• 45:36
  And then what they do is, they shift to the local news, they
• 45:38
  follow the same pattern and then right at the end, just As your
• 45:44
  kind of like wondering whether you should just yeah yeah, just
• 45:49
  seems like everything's terrible.
• 45:50
  They give you like one insignificant happy story.
• 45:54
  Like oh and you know this person saved a bunch of kittens from a
• 45:57
  tree today so everything's okay. Well, so yeah, that's it.
• 46:02
  Seriously, I challenge you. Imagine if the news is changed
• 46:05
  now but I noticed it like for a watch the news for like a week
• 46:08
  when I was a kid and I noticed that that was the pattern that's
• 46:11
  like this is awful. This Is why would you ever watch
• 46:14
  this? This is so depressing and it's
• 46:16
  done on purpose as well because that's the big lucky.
• 46:20
  They'll have. You believe that there's nothing
• 46:22
  good ever happens, that everything is terrible and
• 46:24
  that's not true. There are no, no, it's a good
• 46:27
  things happening in the world. As many as as the bad things.
• 46:30
  It's just that, right? Oh, we always focus on the bad
• 46:33
  things or the media shifts that on to us, I think that's right.
• 46:38
  I mean I work every single day with impact driven
• 46:40
  entrepreneurs. So I've steeped my Then what's
• 46:44
  good that's happening and how do we accelerate it and and
• 46:50
  replicate it to make it even more impactful.
• 46:54
  So there's tons of awesome stuff happening but yeah, fear cells
• 47:01
  and fear controls. So, it's interesting.
• 47:06
  You mention that you're sort of working on a book on covid.
• 47:09
  I kind of figured you would be given your background.
• 47:11
  It's like, how could you not you'd be looking at this go?
• 47:14
  Well, this is an interesting area to study like this is even
• 47:17
  if you're not going to choose to study in it, you'd at least be
• 47:19
  interested in it. I know that for a fact and I'm
• 47:22
  going to change this question a little bit, but sort of over the
• 47:27
  past. As you've been doing the study
• 47:29
  that you're working on this book deal working on, what would you
• 47:32
  say are some of the sort of the key takeaways, From the pandemic
• 47:37
  as far as like, how it's affected our behavior and our
• 47:41
  culture's. That what would you say?
• 47:42
  Are some of the biggest things that have changed maybe forever?
• 47:47
  You know, I definitely, I can say that the polarizing that was
• 47:57
  happening at least in the United States was Amplified because of
• 48:01
  it was taken advantage of by So called leaders, but there's been
• 48:09
  a real shift towards the social economy.
• 48:13
  So supporting local supporting good, movements, supporting
• 48:21
  community and divers and initiatives, there's been a huge
• 48:26
  shift towards technology but unfortunately it's actually
• 48:30
  created more disparities because there's a lot of Have Nots.
• 48:35
  When it comes to technology. So my hope is that that's
• 48:41
  drawing attention to some of the issues that we have and
• 48:46
  expanding them. I think a lot of people have
• 48:51
  also, what we're actually quite seeing it in the United States a
• 48:55
  little bit here in Europe. Definitely the UK that Some
• 49:01
  people some jobs, some, you know, levels of Industry we're
• 49:07
  not supported and given the giving even sort of value, let
• 49:16
  alone, equal pay, or living wage and people have left those jobs
• 49:25
  at the start because there is a stipend.
• 49:27
  So they could and Gwen found something else.
• 49:30
  That is safer because now I can work from home because
• 49:33
  technology has become even more than Norm in work.
• 49:38
  And so now we have issues with hiring because nobody wants to
• 49:42
  go back to a job where you're not valued where you don't get
• 49:45
  health care. Where you were, you make below
• 49:50
  what is a living wage. Like them.
• 49:52
  Talking minimum wage like talking a living wage and so I
• 49:56
  think we're kind of seeing Yeah, another wave to the pandemic but
• 50:03
  not because of the like, not a viral wave, but a social wave of
• 50:09
  there's yet another Domino that is falling right now and the
• 50:16
  empty shelves and the supply chain issues are the harbinger
• 50:20
  of that. So you sort of touched on a few
• 50:23
  things there that might happen or are happening now, but do you
• 50:26
  have any kind of predictions based on?
• 50:29
  It's happening. Now for what might change in the
• 50:32
  future based on what's Happening Now specifically regarding like
• 50:36
  attitudes behaviors culture in general, You know, what's funny?
• 50:50
  See, I have, I have two perspectives, I have the
• 50:52
  perspective, like of the u.s. European Western perspectives
• 51:00
  and then there's the global perspective.
• 51:02
  I think. Really everything is about to
• 51:06
  come to a head, it's socially the the polarizing and the, and
• 51:12
  the infighting within certain countries needs a hard stop and
• 51:19
  sometimes. Yeah, that is, there's no way to
• 51:23
  stop it until something. There's something big that
• 51:26
  happens, but there's other things happening for other
• 51:30
  countries that are also evolving the narrative.
• 51:34
  Evolving ways of life because of the pandemic and my my opinion
• 51:42
  is that world governments have their work.
• 51:45
  Seriously, cut out for them because of the social shifts
• 51:49
  that have happened. Usually these types of shifts
• 51:52
  Paradigm shifts. These, these tend to happen over
• 51:54
  decades and we just accelerated the changes that were happening.
• 52:01
  In always very fast. And so if I were in government
• 52:07
  right now, I would feel like I was running a marathon.
• 52:13
  I trying to keep up. Just trying to keep up with
• 52:15
  everything. That was shifting from housing
• 52:19
  to work requirements and safety. And you know, what do you what
• 52:23
  do you need for work? Safety from working from home.
• 52:25
  Like what are those regulations look like and what do we do?
• 52:30
  Out supply chain but we do about industries that don't want to
• 52:36
  come back because it's not an industry is humans.
• 52:38
  Again, an economy is humans. We talk about these things like
• 52:43
  stimulate the economy. What you're asking us to do is
• 52:47
  to make a cultural shift. There's just a lot that has come
• 52:53
  to a head because of all of this and if I were a government
• 52:56
  official, I would be, I would feel like, oh, I've Got a, I've
• 53:00
  got some kind of work ahead of me.
• 53:05
  I speak my other countries but I have to say that this government
• 53:08
  that we have in right now. Puzzles me with regards to that
• 53:11
  because they I've heard them say that before or we're doing our
• 53:14
  best to to stimulate the economy.
• 53:16
  We're doing this because you know, covid is affected us in a
• 53:18
  bad way and you know, it's meant and look, they're not lying in
• 53:22
  the sense that, you know, covid did hit us badly.
• 53:24
  We made the decision just like America to shut down everything
• 53:28
  and that hit us in a big way. So it's understandable that
• 53:32
  they're going to make certain changes and stuff.
• 53:35
  They've opted to raise taxes and cut benefits at a time when it's
• 53:41
  like, maybe that's not the best time to do that.
• 53:46
  Yeah, right away. When we still in the figure, I
• 53:48
  get I'll give you one. Then you have to do something in
• 53:52
  order to kind of get to where you need to go.
• 53:54
  Okay, if the goal is I need to stimulate the economy, get us in
• 53:57
  a position, a better position, then it's going to mean, there's
• 54:01
  certain things you have to do certain sacrifices, you have to
• 54:03
  make but like Like that, to me. If your goal is to stimulate,
• 54:08
  what does that mean? Stimulate the economy means
• 54:10
  people, buying and selling more. Essentially, I got a very
• 54:13
  behavioral change. Yes.
• 54:15
  And you want to also put in at that point what economy?
• 54:20
  What economy is the government trying to stimulate?
• 54:24
  But because there are many, many economies that Humanity that
• 54:29
  humans participate in many. Sure.
• 54:31
  Yeah. But the government has a very
• 54:33
  particular In one or two of those economies.
• 54:37
  And so the government panics while, while he minute, he's
• 54:41
  making a shift because It's not controlled and regulated
• 54:47
  changes. So the thing that I don't get
• 54:49
  is, if you want people to buy and sell more then how are they
• 54:53
  going to do that? If you're taking away their
• 54:54
  money, it's like well I have less so if I have less and costs
• 55:00
  are going up because inflation is going on.
• 55:02
  So it's like things are more expensive.
• 55:05
  I have less money. Well, I'm less likely to spend,
• 55:07
  which means the economy suffers even more.
• 55:10
  So it's like, It's so in logical.
• 55:13
  Like, I guess it's interesting from the government standpoint
• 55:16
  though, because if you you know, in the United States at least
• 55:19
  they printed money basically in order to stimulate the economy
• 55:22
  and basically like save people whether or not was enough so
• 55:27
  okay. But then how do you how do you
• 55:31
  balance that? You know so like again like
• 55:34
  Financial business plan think the government works on a very
• 55:38
  good business plan but okay so if you have a business This
• 55:41
  plan, and you need to balance your profits and loss, you've
• 55:46
  just spent a lot your home hoping to recoup that in some
• 55:50
  way. So raising taxes would actually
• 55:52
  be the logical step for balancing.
• 55:56
  I'm not saying this is good for people and the government Serve
• 55:59
  the People, but it is an interesting.
• 56:01
  I'm just going all the way around the block, you know, like
• 56:04
  why take one angle? Yeah, no, no I agree.
• 56:06
  Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Because I've
• 56:10
  always said that the when he stood in the UK, the
• 56:13
  conservative government, always runs the country, like a
• 56:16
  business for better or worse. And there are positives to it,
• 56:20
  but ultimately it's about timing of things.
• 56:23
  I don't think right now is the right time to because here's the
• 56:27
  thing on a tax rates as well as that they don't tax.
• 56:31
  The people in sight decided that have the most money, they tax
• 56:34
  like your average worker. So like people who are running
• 56:37
  the say 25 year old and yeah, basically like establishes
• 56:42
  because we still have a class system here as far as that wage
• 56:44
  earners and stuff like that, it still it still exists and it
• 56:47
  means that the gap between the elite and the poorest is even
• 56:53
  widened even further. Yes, I like this middle class
• 56:55
  that we have is disappearing more and more, and more and more
• 56:58
  because the government is doing that.
• 57:00
  They're actually their moves, kind of force people to make
• 57:04
  changes like, for example, let's say you're very rudimentary
• 57:08
  example but let's say you're living in a house and you've got
• 57:11
  two kids and cars and stuff, you know, it will be things like
• 57:16
  hmm. Well I guess we have to sell our
• 57:17
  cars. I guess we have to remortgage
• 57:20
  the house or I guess we're going to have to tighten our belts and
• 57:23
  have less you know. Yeah I did it when I was growing
• 57:26
  up me and my mother were very poor just us and You know,
• 57:31
  sometimes it would be that, you know, my mom will come in be
• 57:34
  like, well, this month, we're going to need to do this and
• 57:36
  this. So we can't have this this, this
• 57:38
  this this and I was like, yeah, okay, fine.
• 57:40
  Like, that's if that's what we got to do to survive.
• 57:42
  That's what we're going to do, but it's much harder when you're
• 57:47
  making that decision for like a bunch of people, because I was
• 57:49
  just a kid, you know, I was easy to please.
• 57:52
  It was just my mom, we got by it was fine.
• 57:54
  But when you got a whole group of people, it's so much harder
• 57:58
  than just numbers. And I think that's, You know,
• 58:01
  like so so it's easy to stay, I'll just run the government
• 58:03
  like a business but the business is that the numbers are human
• 58:06
  beings. Yeah.
• 58:08
  Who have very diverse wants and needs and yeah, I think just
• 58:16
  like you're saying like, you can't just pull the rug out, but
• 58:23
  Yeah, we have quite tangent, it haven't we?
• 58:26
  Yes, I apologize. It's just very easy to talk to
• 58:30
  you about this. And you know, this is a topic
• 58:32
  that I'm fascinated by as well. I do have one question before we
• 58:36
  get onto your business Endeavors.
• 58:39
  I do have a fan. Question says listeners of the
• 58:42
  show. So thank you for this question
• 58:43
  that sent in. This is kind of a generic kind
• 58:46
  of question about anthropology, but what would you say are the
• 58:51
  most common things You observe? Everyday life, that have a
• 58:54
  direct link to Eeveelution. Wow.
• 59:03
  I mean social interaction sure aren't we talking about making
• 59:08
  friends? We're talking about building
• 59:09
  relationships and that innate drive.
• 59:13
  We know that humans die. Emotionally spiritually
• 59:19
  physically without human connection.
• 59:22
  We know this from some pretty radical experiments that have
• 59:25
  been done with babies and children way back in the day.
• 59:30
  We know that from other Our cities.
• 59:32
  We know that from watching statistics and isolation that
• 59:35
  happened during the pandemic and the suicide rate, right?
• 59:38
  So so the very fabric of our society is based on our
• 59:45
  evolutionary need for human connection.
• 59:48
  We partner because not because so very interesting to talk
• 59:54
  about domestic setup and management because we like to
• 59:59
  argue that certain ways are of Evolutionary, which is not
• 1:00:05
  entirely true sexy cultural. But we still there is still an
• 1:00:10
  innate drive to, generally, cohabitate or partner, or have
• 1:00:16
  have one or two or three people who are your people right to
• 1:00:21
  create family to create closeness.
• 1:00:25
  And again, that's that's back to our are very critical need for
• 1:00:32
  society and society means to survival one human out alone by
• 1:00:36
  themselves without some very specialized tools and I don't
• 1:00:44
  know, I don't know that knowledge that the specialized
• 1:00:48
  knowledge matters. I think you need some very
• 1:00:49
  specialized tools for one. Human to survive on their own.
• 1:00:54
  We survive in numbers. We've always survived a numbers.
• 1:00:58
  You know, I always wonder about those as human beings that you
• 1:01:00
  hear about the there's this one guy I read about years ago, who
• 1:01:04
  lives in the wilderness really Old Gentleman and he has that
• 1:01:08
  could Link in the so much as like, he'll Venture back into
• 1:01:11
  town once every Month or two for some supplies that he needs.
• 1:01:17
  But ultimately it's been all of his time alone and I just wonder
• 1:01:21
  like as you say like this need for human interaction.
• 1:01:26
  Like if throughout the pandemic, I've spent all my time alone
• 1:01:28
  save for the volunteering. I do or seek speed and a house
• 1:01:32
  makes but there's days weeks where I have not spoke to anyone
• 1:01:35
  part from online. And I wonder if we didn't have
• 1:01:38
  the internet, that's the big one.
• 1:01:39
  If we didn't have the internet, what's this?
• 1:01:42
  Yes. That what if I mean, okay, you
• 1:01:46
  could cool but I was gonna say like the 90s but you could call
• 1:01:48
  people, but they say this happened in like, I don't know.
• 1:01:52
  17 1918. Wow.
• 1:01:57
  Yeah, what you're referring to is the man, who's a Hermit, he
• 1:02:04
  still tied into society. He still supported by Society,
• 1:02:07
  because he's going in for supplies.
• 1:02:09
  He's not surviving in an isolated man or not completely.
• 1:02:14
  And if he is, it's taking a whole lot of specialized
• 1:02:18
  technology to to create the subsistence to create.
• 1:02:24
  Yeah, the possibilities for that to happen.
• 1:02:28
  Those supplies came from somewhere, so again, he's not
• 1:02:31
  isolated from society. Not completely To really, really
• 1:02:36
  interested. He, maybe I'm and I hope he's
• 1:02:40
  happy. I hope he's happy because
• 1:02:42
  that's, that's the ultimate thing.
• 1:02:44
  And that's where there's the conflict I think, is when we
• 1:02:49
  tried, we tend to think that everybody is like us and
• 1:02:53
  nobody's like you, nobody's like you nobody's like me and that's
• 1:02:58
  beautiful and fun, and exciting. But then, that also means it's
• 1:03:01
  really important to remember that.
• 1:03:02
  So when somebody says, I need space Because I'm overwhelmed or
• 1:03:07
  I haven't been around human contact and seven months and I'm
• 1:03:11
  freaking out, man. Like let them be and respect
• 1:03:16
  that and allow that because what they need doesn't affect your
• 1:03:22
  your standing as a valid human interested in preaching moment.
• 1:03:26
  No no, I agree. No, please please.
• 1:03:29
  I totally agree. I sit in the middle.
• 1:03:32
  I'm like a I mean more Lee. I've kind of refer to myself as
• 1:03:36
  an introvert, but I'm somewhere in the middle of the river and
• 1:03:39
  beaver, whatever you call it, where I can, yeah, I can be if I
• 1:03:44
  need to, you know, if I meet someone in public, I can be,
• 1:03:46
  that guy could be extrovert, wherever I can do all that
• 1:03:50
  stuff, but it's mostly like, and we'll get on to business in a
• 1:03:52
  sec but, like, you know, the need to kind of like socialize
• 1:03:57
  Network all of that stuff. You know, I learned that from a
• 1:03:59
  young age, I actually realized when I was a sort of teenagers,
• 1:04:02
  like, life needs To do this, it's not whether or not you want
• 1:04:06
  to, you need to even if you are the quietest person ever, right?
• 1:04:10
  You can still be that quiet person and enjoy your space and
• 1:04:13
  everything but life requires you to occasionally switch on and
• 1:04:18
  just talk. And that's a really hard thing
• 1:04:22
  to do because And I didn't realize this until much later in
• 1:04:26
  life, but it's it's a skill learning to talk to people to
• 1:04:32
  socialize, you think like, oh it's easy.
• 1:04:34
  You just talk but it's not and it's like to be honest I think
• 1:04:37
  I've become a better social person through I socialist for a
• 1:04:42
  second learning social life socializing yes through
• 1:04:48
  podcasting funnily enough. You know I started doing this
• 1:04:52
  about a year ago I've spoken to many, many people in the show
• 1:04:55
  and I do live streaming every day as well.
• 1:04:59
  And obviously I'm speaking to people every single day,
• 1:05:02
  different types of people, you know, shy people, Lao people
• 1:05:07
  people, somewhere in the middle. You know, all sorts of people
• 1:05:10
  and it's constantly adapting to people, that's what I've
• 1:05:13
  learned. And yeah, I think another thing
• 1:05:17
  is establishing whether or not people want to listen to you,
• 1:05:22
  that's a big thing because I feel like There's a lot of
• 1:05:24
  people out there right now, may, who, may even be listen to this
• 1:05:27
  right now who feel unheard, who feel like, you know, no one ever
• 1:05:31
  listens to them. It's not because you're boring
• 1:05:34
  or because you're not interesting.
• 1:05:36
  It's because a lot of people are not listening.
• 1:05:40
  They're just wanting to get their thing out, you know,
• 1:05:45
  right? We're going to get themselves
• 1:05:47
  kind of Let me put it this way. My favorite conversations ever
• 1:05:53
  is like when it's, you know, you just sit and you listen and you
• 1:05:57
  absorb like, I prefer to listen as opposed to talk to be honest.
• 1:06:00
  Like that's, that's my vibe. I like that.
• 1:06:03
  But yeah, if I'm talking like, if you ask me a quite like this,
• 1:06:08
  infuriates me, just sorry on the side there.
• 1:06:10
  But you know that when you ask someone a question or you say,
• 1:06:13
  I'll tell me about this or whatever, right?
• 1:06:15
  And then you start talking and sharing that story.
• 1:06:18
  And then they just even interrupt you or want to change
• 1:06:22
  the subject or I just not interested on their phone or
• 1:06:25
  something. Uh that and why did you ask
• 1:06:30
  what? Because it annoys me.
• 1:06:31
  But it also breaks my heart because now I just don't want to
• 1:06:34
  ever talk again ever like you know, there's there's a
• 1:06:39
  fantastic social sociologists I think I think he's a sociologist
• 1:06:48
  him. Psychologist called John
• 1:06:49
  gottman. And he studies relationships and
• 1:06:54
  he talks about a bidding. So we make a bid, like I ask you
• 1:06:59
  a question and then I go start dabbling on my phone while
• 1:07:03
  you're trying to answer. What happens is they turned away
• 1:07:08
  from you. They turned away from your
• 1:07:11
  response and your bid to communicate.
• 1:07:14
  And when you are turned away from and turned, Down after a
• 1:07:19
  few times of bidding. It is human nature from what he
• 1:07:24
  has observed in Western culture to give up.
• 1:07:27
  So that feeling that you're experiencing that you just want
• 1:07:31
  to stop after once or twice of that happening is in line with
• 1:07:38
  the observations of somebody who's been studying
• 1:07:40
  relationships for decades. Hey, you're normal.
• 1:07:47
  Yeah. It's, it's a, it's one of those
• 1:07:49
  painful things I've realized. I mean, I remember, I always
• 1:07:54
  this always makes me chuckle when I was growing up.
• 1:07:57
  I was really extroverted and, you know, out there and you
• 1:08:02
  know, I was shy. But, you know, I just put myself
• 1:08:06
  out there, you know, I was I think from the age of 11
• 1:08:09
  onwards, I was always quite a Introvert or extrovert kid.
• 1:08:14
  You know always go into a situation.
• 1:08:16
  Go that new school. Don't know anybody, you know
• 1:08:20
  that was like high school for me.
• 1:08:21
  I didn't know anyone. Everyone else had that look
• 1:08:23
  Roots because they'd been to primary school together.
• 1:08:26
  I do nobody but it was fine. You know I always did well and I
• 1:08:30
  remember having a conversation with my mom when I was like 14
• 1:08:33
  or something. And she's very much a just you
• 1:08:36
  know, Bookworm require you know, like that's the thing.
• 1:08:40
  She likes that and You know, we used to make each other and
• 1:08:44
  stuff, and I just feel out. Well, it's so boring, you don't
• 1:08:48
  go and do anything, like, how can you just sit there and like
• 1:08:50
  this? And she literally turned out to
• 1:08:52
  be. She's that one day.
• 1:08:54
  You'll be exactly like me, you enjoy your space.
• 1:08:59
  You want to be on your own and you won't want to go out or do
• 1:09:02
  anything or any of this stuff and I was like, that'll never
• 1:09:04
  happen and here I am 28 years old and some days, you know I
• 1:09:11
  genuinely You only get office to go out or, you know, there's
• 1:09:14
  something planned. And you get that anxiety.
• 1:09:16
  You're like just staying. I'll stay home.
• 1:09:19
  Yeah, that's better. Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  You got to recharge the batteries?
• 1:09:24
  Yeah, it's funny. Like, even something like this,
• 1:09:26
  like a podcast. You know, you're talking for an
• 1:09:28
  hour, two hours, whatever? It's like afterwards, you feel
• 1:09:31
  drained? I mean, I suppose it does depend
• 1:09:34
  on who you're talking to and stuff, you know, but I feel like
• 1:09:37
  the worst time for me in a conversation is when you're
• 1:09:40
  talking to someone You. Is even debating you or but
• 1:09:49
  like, like kind of unsolicited style.
• 1:09:51
  So like, like you did your toes. Yeah.
• 1:09:53
  Like, you didn't ask for this, your didn't know.
• 1:09:55
  They're just, they're just at you with something and they just
• 1:09:59
  won't let it go and you're like, please stop.
• 1:10:01
  I'm not interested. Please do you know?
• 1:10:03
  Just, you know, because that is very intrusive like that that's
• 1:10:08
  almost as bad as when people expect you to talk in any
• 1:10:12
  situation at all. You can't be Socially copy this
• 1:10:15
  copy that and it's like this expectation placed upon you.
• 1:10:18
  Like you just have to sit and listen and because if you don't
• 1:10:21
  or you're rude and it's like a bit of advice for everyone out
• 1:10:26
  there listening it's not rude to just be like, I'm sorry, I'm not
• 1:10:30
  interested. Like yeah, yeah, we did get a
• 1:10:33
  lot of time on this planet. You know, you want to spend it
• 1:10:36
  the way you want to spend it. People are just like announcing
• 1:10:39
  themselves talking about you when you didn't ask for it and
• 1:10:41
  you didn't consent to that. You can just take yourself out
• 1:10:45
  of that situation. That's fair.
• 1:10:47
  That was the word that was coming up for me.
• 1:10:48
  Was consent. Really didn't consent to have
• 1:10:51
  the debate or the conversation? And often times as you're
• 1:10:56
  saying, like people are just looking for Someone to vent on
• 1:11:00
  to attack to to push out their energy for whatever reason, and
• 1:11:06
  you're not the thing that they're upset about.
• 1:11:09
  You're not the person that is creating their anger, but you're
• 1:11:13
  the one receiving it, that's not fair.
• 1:11:15
  What's that sometimes people are trying to push like a belief on
• 1:11:19
  you, and it's like, I remember years ago, seeing a friend and I
• 1:11:24
  hadn't seen him in years and he brought another friend with him
• 1:11:27
  and this friend, Was a really, really religious.
• 1:11:30
  And I've got nothing against religion.
• 1:11:32
  I'm personally not religious, but I respect it, you know.
• 1:11:35
  But I do think it's a very personal thing.
• 1:11:37
  You know that you should push that unnecessarily upon other
• 1:11:40
  people. It's like, that's your thing.
• 1:11:41
  I respect that I have my thing. You know, we, you know, because
• 1:11:45
  I've got many friends who are religious and no problem.
• 1:11:48
  So, I know for a fact that it's about, you know, respecting
• 1:11:52
  people's lives and stuff. Anyway, I'm just such trying to
• 1:11:56
  see my friends and talk to him. But every five minutes is this
• 1:12:00
  guy just going oh Ben you know in the book it says this and it
• 1:12:04
  says that and how could you possibly refute this?
• 1:12:06
  And I was like I remember just debating this guy for like an
• 1:12:10
  hour and then just it just got to the point where I just said,
• 1:12:13
  I don't care, I don't care. I was like say whatever you
• 1:12:16
  want. I just don't believe it.
• 1:12:17
  You've got no proof like just just leave me alone and I
• 1:12:20
  remember getting out of this car and going home and seeing my
• 1:12:24
  then girlfriend and talking to her about it.
• 1:12:26
  And she said you Invited this. It, you allowed it to happen,
• 1:12:32
  like just didn't mean it in a mean way.
• 1:12:33
  But like, in the sense that like I chose to engage in that and
• 1:12:38
  allow him to do that when I shouldn't have, I should have
• 1:12:40
  just been like Disagree not interested.
• 1:12:45
  I just, I just kept repeating until he stopped, mmm.
• 1:12:48
  But that doing that is difficult to being able to have the
• 1:12:52
  strength to just keep saying, no is really hard.
• 1:12:57
  Like yeah, we're not really given those tools.
• 1:13:01
  No Boundaries are for some reason, not not really taught we
• 1:13:09
  get in there slowly sort of. Yeah, I think that were ended.
• 1:13:15
  Again a transitional period because technology allows us to
• 1:13:18
  have conversations where we might not otherwise be exposed
• 1:13:21
  to the information. I think my childhood and younger
• 1:13:24
  years we've been a lot better. Had I had the access that I have
• 1:13:27
  today but Yeah, it's as you said it's changing things.
• 1:13:36
  Speaking of changing things, that's change up the
• 1:13:38
  conversation and talk about your work as an entrepreneur.
• 1:13:42
  So you teach Small Business Leaders, how to scale their work
• 1:13:45
  and improve their business processes.
• 1:13:47
  Tell us how you got started in this area and what would you say
• 1:13:50
  your bigness sort of successes with this particular business?
• 1:13:57
  So I got started as an entrepreneur sort of By force.
• 1:14:04
  Yes, I was working for a marketing firm that did SEO and
• 1:14:12
  content development and saw the writing on the wall.
• 1:14:16
  We've been bought out by somebody who didn't really know
• 1:14:18
  what they were doing. I was the director and had been
• 1:14:23
  paid. Only 32 thousand per year for
• 1:14:30
  two years of being director and having grown The Client List ten
• 1:14:34
  times and grow in The Departed. Just it was just not a good
• 1:14:38
  situation but I was young and I didn't know better.
• 1:14:39
  You know, is if the devil, you know, Lessons Learned never
• 1:14:45
  going back to corporate. So I knew it was coming and I
• 1:14:50
  knew I had skills from that job. So I It exercising those skills
• 1:14:57
  to build websites because I'd been in so many websites in
• 1:15:01
  order to manage my clients, manage their clients I guess.
• 1:15:06
  And so I started doing that for a couple months and just started
• 1:15:11
  bartering basically I was like, okay first thing I need is a
• 1:15:14
  portfolio. I don't have a portfolio and I'm
• 1:15:16
  not going to ask somebody to pay me when I do have a portfolio.
• 1:15:19
  So I'm going to build a portfolio.
• 1:15:20
  So I made a few just like dummy sites and then Bartered a little
• 1:15:23
  bit. I actually got some like we
• 1:15:26
  amazing things from people who, you know, gave me the works of
• 1:15:31
  their own creation and exchange for a website.
• 1:15:35
  And so I got laid off in December of 2012.
• 1:15:39
  So did my dad and brother, it was a great Christmas and damn,
• 1:15:46
  I lost their jobs. My mom was only Breadwinner and
• 1:15:50
  so it was just kind of like okay this is it.
• 1:15:57
  I can't say. No, I don't want to start
• 1:16:00
  applying for other jobs. I don't want this anymore.
• 1:16:03
  This was awful. I don't like somebody who I
• 1:16:08
  don't respect. Owning my livelihood, right?
• 1:16:14
  It's such an abysmal. I really thought it was even and
• 1:16:17
  I wish I was just as nagas situation.
• 1:16:19
  So that was the start of my tech company and I ran that for five
• 1:16:24
  and a half years before I sold. Old it in 2018, right before I
• 1:16:29
  published my first book, so kind of clear in the plate getting
• 1:16:31
  ready and I scaled that company. So what I discovered and why I'm
• 1:16:36
  so passionate about small business scaling is that small
• 1:16:41
  businesses just aren't given the tools.
• 1:16:43
  They like there's there's there's some kind of community
• 1:16:47
  initiatives in every city that helps small businesses get
• 1:16:50
  started. There's nothing about scaling
• 1:16:54
  contrast that to startups to Incubators and accelerators and
• 1:16:57
  angels and Venture capitalists and just just piles and piles
• 1:17:02
  and piles of support. And from day one, it's all about
• 1:17:06
  scaling. And so what happened was I was
• 1:17:11
  Burnt out, I was working my bum off because everyone says, you
• 1:17:15
  got to do the hustle. You just gotta work it.
• 1:17:17
  Work it off. That's what interject.
• 1:17:19
  So you worked 70 hours a week is that?
• 1:17:22
  All right? Cheez Whiz.
• 1:17:25
  I was not okay. I was not okay, did you?
• 1:17:30
  It was it like you, sort of realize I've been there.
• 1:17:32
  I've worked seven yell weeks as well and it's it's it was
• 1:17:37
  afterwards, there's there so The concept in the rhetoric in the
• 1:17:44
  business Community is you have to hustle.
• 1:17:49
  And that's true for a Sprint. A hustle is a Sprint, a hustle,
• 1:17:56
  isn't a three-year Marathon. You can't do that to yourself.
• 1:18:00
  Nobody wants that your parents don't want that.
• 1:18:03
  Your friends don't want that. Your clients don't want that,
• 1:18:06
  you don't want that. It become an entrepreneur to
• 1:18:09
  become more free, but what I done because I didn't know how
• 1:18:12
  to scale was create another job for myself where I was making
• 1:18:18
  not enough money. Again and doing enormous amount
• 1:18:22
  of work. I had shaped my life into the
• 1:18:25
  shape that my former employer had given me because that's what
• 1:18:29
  I have known. Okay, so it was that moment
• 1:18:34
  where I had to decide do I give it all up or do I you know hell
• 1:18:40
  or high water figure out what to do?
• 1:18:43
  Because I know that there are companies that are out there
• 1:18:48
  that are successful without this level of pain.
• 1:18:52
  So what was the thing that kind of decided about that?
• 1:18:55
  And I always the lightbulb moment where you sort of make
• 1:18:57
  the switch and try to do things differently.
• 1:19:01
  I knew I couldn't go back to corporate life.
• 1:19:06
  I just it wasn't in me, I would make up awful employee having
• 1:19:11
  Taste of the freedom of Entrepreneurship, even though it
• 1:19:13
  wasn't very sweet at that point, I could not go back.
• 1:19:18
  So, I had a sort of a mentor at the time, and I met with him and
• 1:19:25
  I just got on, the stand was like, this isn't working.
• 1:19:29
  I'm miserable. I don't know what to do.
• 1:19:31
  And explained the situation and he introduced the concept of
• 1:19:35
  scaling to me. It was like just like no one had
• 1:19:39
  said that to me, I don't know. So once you know word, you know,
• 1:19:43
  concept you can look for you can search for the toolkit in order
• 1:19:46
  to do it. And that's what got me to as you
• 1:19:50
  know, 10 hours a week when I sold the company.
• 1:19:54
  So this current project is called the Empire Builders
• 1:19:58
  Academy. Is that correct?
• 1:20:01
  Yeah, so Empire Builder coaching.
• 1:20:03
  I am richer currently a coach and consultant to what?
• 1:20:06
  I call Empire Builders. So people who have massive
• 1:20:10
  Visions for the world are impactor of in have multiple
• 1:20:13
  offerings, so it might be that, they have a product.
• 1:20:18
  We also have a book, they also have a podcast, they have all
• 1:20:20
  these things that they're trying to put out there and I use the
• 1:20:23
  principles of scaling to help them do it, so that they don't
• 1:20:26
  burn themselves out on their lives.
• 1:20:27
  Miss mission. But also can have all of the
• 1:20:31
  things because you can have all the things you just can't have
• 1:20:34
  them all at once. You'll burn yourself out.
• 1:20:37
  So if to build one thing and then you can move on to the next
• 1:20:39
  thing. Yeah, of course you're gonna
• 1:20:42
  project by project of course but a lot of people I'm Gillian I'm
• 1:20:47
  going. I'm a workaholic as well and
• 1:20:50
  it's like it's hard to hard to just take a break because you
• 1:20:53
  feel guilty, like I shouldn't be doing this but it's like the old
• 1:20:56
  saying, you know, you need to choose a day off to rest.
• 1:20:59
  Restore your body or choose it for you.
• 1:21:01
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:21:05
  One interesting thing, I found during my research is that you
• 1:21:07
  use Discord, the app as you kind of the service that you offer.
• 1:21:13
  Now, this is kind of unique because generally Discord is for
• 1:21:16
  those who don't know, Discord is a, an app that's typically used,
• 1:21:21
  or originally, was, just used as a gamer chat, for people playing
• 1:21:24
  on Xbox PlayStation, whatever. And then it's kind of evolved
• 1:21:28
  over the years, you know, I haven't Gold as well.
• 1:21:30
  For example where you can just have like mini communities.
• 1:21:33
  You know, you can talk to people.
• 1:21:38
  What had a watch movies together.
• 1:21:40
  Play movies, go all sorts of stuff.
• 1:21:41
  It's kind of like a safe space for you and you can have it
• 1:21:44
  private or public and there's a lot of companies out there as
• 1:21:48
  well that have them as well as quite surprisingly amount of
• 1:21:51
  brands that have these discords in the purposes that used for.
• 1:21:54
  But I've never really seen like businesses use them.
• 1:21:58
  So I wanted to ask you, It more about that like how how you use
• 1:22:02
  it and what exactly are the benefits of using Discord for
• 1:22:05
  business? Oh, I was doing what a lot of
• 1:22:12
  business owners do in my field, and that was just have a
• 1:22:16
  Facebook group and it felt incredibly limiting.
• 1:22:21
  And I was feeding the Facebook monster.
• 1:22:26
  If I'm a leader for impact driven entrepreneurs, Facebook
• 1:22:31
  is the antithesis of those values in my opinion.
• 1:22:35
  And so, why am I inviting my community to be here?
• 1:22:42
  And so I just I I was uncomfortable for a long time.
• 1:22:49
  It was about a year and a half of thinking, when I was like, I
• 1:22:51
  think I need to leave Facebook. I don't want this.
• 1:22:56
  As as the Nexus for my work, I'm still on Facebook because I am a
• 1:23:00
  broad is a way to stay in touch with people, but I rarely post.
• 1:23:07
  And I liked Discord because it was created with community.
• 1:23:13
  In mind, it was created for connection and for ease of
• 1:23:18
  communication. And it's not a monster, at
• 1:23:23
  least, not yet. It was.
• 1:23:25
  I mean, the gamer Community, the people who use Discord and for
• 1:23:30
  who it was built are not the evil corporations and That
• 1:23:38
  phrase evil Corporation. Has it?
• 1:23:42
  Bothers me a little bit? Because I don't know
• 1:23:43
  Corporation. I'm just by being a business
• 1:23:48
  owner. Yeah, either own a limited
• 1:23:50
  liability Corporation. You own, a c-corporation, you
• 1:23:53
  own a benefit Corporation and you own.
• 1:23:54
  A nonprofit corporation is a corporation.
• 1:23:56
  So there's like this awful bleed over of like, what a business
• 1:24:00
  can and cannot be in order to be not evil, and it's about what It
• 1:24:07
  bothers me and blurs the lines a little bit but this court is not
• 1:24:12
  that. So, yeah, I love it.
• 1:24:17
  We actually have a workshop happening in Discord in Empire.
• 1:24:21
  Builders Lounge today, about automating your business.
• 1:24:24
  So you can make money while you sleep and the AV as you know
• 1:24:28
  it's a v in Discord is fantastic.
• 1:24:31
  So I don't do you zoom either. One thing I found interesting on
• 1:24:38
  your website as you describe yourself as a queer author and
• 1:24:42
  entrepreneur. So I just wanted to talk to you
• 1:24:44
  a little bit about your role and influence in the lgbtq+
• 1:24:48
  community and how that sort of impacts on your business.
• 1:24:51
  Does it change anything in any way as far as like how you do
• 1:24:54
  things or anything like that? I taught us a little bit about
• 1:24:56
  that so I do algae BT Q, conclusion for entrepreneurs,
• 1:25:02
  just kind of as a side Hustle. Saul.
• 1:25:04
  So I don't promote a heavily but it's important and it's needed.
• 1:25:11
  It's in this day and age. If you're going to be an
• 1:25:13
  entrepreneur and you're going to be an influential person in
• 1:25:16
  other people's lives, which is what you are as an entrepreneur
• 1:25:20
  whether or not you realize it, that's the truth acceptance.
• 1:25:25
  You know, has to be at the Forefront of that and a lot of
• 1:25:27
  entrepreneurs don't realize that while they may be an ally, they
• 1:25:33
  we You, we live almost on quicksand, so the world is
• 1:25:36
  changing our cultural ability understanding and language is
• 1:25:42
  changing. We've always been here where
• 1:25:45
  people have always been around. I mean, you go back to ancient
• 1:25:48
  civilizations. I mean, right?
• 1:25:51
  But it's coming into Consciousness, culturally and
• 1:25:55
  that means that language is changing in understanding this
• 1:25:57
  changing. And so, when you're working with
• 1:26:01
  a colleague and they're using the them Pro, Pronouns or like,
• 1:26:05
  for example, here on my on my zoom I'm using she/her pronouns
• 1:26:09
  and you don't understand why pronouns are even important.
• 1:26:14
  You're at a disadvantage as a business owner and as a leader,
• 1:26:18
  if you're going to be making connections and engendering
• 1:26:21
  trust and others in order to buy from you and you don't know how
• 1:26:25
  to communicate effectively or be as good of an ally or be part of
• 1:26:31
  the community in the way that You know, builds people up,
• 1:26:38
  right? You're out of you're at a
• 1:26:40
  disadvantage, let alone then you know, it will people buy from
• 1:26:43
  you and things like that. So you know, there's kind of
• 1:26:45
  like a two-prong reason like just I find that people are
• 1:26:50
  afraid to ask the questions and I don't mind answering them, I
• 1:26:55
  don't know, all the answers, but I don't mind answering what I
• 1:26:58
  know. And so I've had a lot of fun,
• 1:27:01
  doing lgbtq inclusion with Doors and just help them.
• 1:27:06
  See down the path. A little bit.
• 1:27:10
  What advice could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
• 1:27:14
  Just do it. Hey, that's copyright
• 1:27:18
  infringement. You caught using.
• 1:27:19
  Yeah. So if you have the idea and if
• 1:27:26
  you want to go deeper into this, I have a keynote on my home page
• 1:27:29
  that you can watch, but if you have the idea, you already have
• 1:27:33
  the tools. Jules you already have what it
• 1:27:35
  takes in order to make it happen.
• 1:27:37
  You may not think so, but you've already got it and it's not
• 1:27:41
  going to rest. This thing is going to eat at
• 1:27:43
  you until you take action because that's just the way
• 1:27:45
  human psyche works. So you've you've got the
• 1:27:49
  gumption, you've got the gift. If you didn't have what it took,
• 1:27:55
  you wouldn't even be capable of having the idea, its your
• 1:28:00
  knowledge and your skills and your history that made this
• 1:28:03
  point connect with this. Point and perhaps all these
• 1:28:05
  points to and you're in the middle of it, so go start.
• 1:28:13
  And if you, you know, you're missing the business tool kit,
• 1:28:16
  I'll help you with that. If you need connections or
• 1:28:20
  publicity Christian will help you with that.
• 1:28:22
  There are people out there who will give you what you need.
• 1:28:26
  We're all here rooting for you, but you can't find US unless you
• 1:28:31
  start What's the biggest life lesson that you've learned so
• 1:28:38
  far? My biggest life lesson that I've
• 1:28:44
  learned so far. Mmm, Geez, I love this question.
• 1:29:01
  This is a great question and there's a lot of lessons I've
• 1:29:04
  learned so many of them. I think.
• 1:29:12
  I think that I'm still learning this actually but everything
• 1:29:18
  smaller than it seems moving across the Atlantic.
• 1:29:23
  Ocean was actually a lot smaller and a lot easier than I ever
• 1:29:26
  dreamed. It would be and it took me two
• 1:29:28
  decades to figure that out. Starting a business was it felt
• 1:29:32
  huge it. These Concepts at least to me
• 1:29:39
  when I'm in my head and I'm trying to predict the future.
• 1:29:42
  Even though I don't have that ability and so then that's the
• 1:29:45
  anxiety wheel turning, right? How egotistical of me to think
• 1:29:50
  that I know it's going to happen and it's all going to be bad.
• 1:29:55
  So it all feels like this when your hand is in front of your
• 1:29:58
  face and it's so close. Hand is huge, Saul, I can see.
• 1:30:03
  But turns out, the hand is actually rather small and well
• 1:30:08
  especially on my hand. So When you're actually in it
• 1:30:14
  and taking the steps, all it is is one step in front of the
• 1:30:17
  other. But for for me, I have a
• 1:30:19
  tendency to try to eat the whole pie instead of just one slice at
• 1:30:25
  a time and things start to feel really overwhelming and
• 1:30:27
  sometimes then I go into freeze mode paralysis and don't take
• 1:30:31
  action. And so I think that you know,
• 1:30:36
  the message for others is the same that whatever it feels like
• 1:30:41
  is super huge. You're going to live for 70 to
• 1:30:44
  100 years? How big can it be?
• 1:30:47
  Just take action. Do it.
• 1:30:50
  It's going to be okay. And there's tons of people
• 1:30:52
  remember where societal oriented being tons of people who are
• 1:30:57
  willing and excited to help you along the way, man.
• 1:31:00
  Thanks for sharing. As we draw things to a close
• 1:31:03
  it's day. Do you have any upcoming
• 1:31:04
  projects or some final thoughts about to leave all this this
• 1:31:07
  with? Hmm.
• 1:31:09
  So if you're an entrepreneur, And you are wondering what at
• 1:31:16
  what if you're just like I'm going to answer you on, you
• 1:31:19
  don't? Yeah, I been there.
• 1:31:24
  I created a guide to demystify, the three pillars of business
• 1:31:27
  scaling that I created when I was killing my last company and
• 1:31:30
  this is what I use with my clients to great success today.
• 1:31:34
  Nobody's giving you the tools as a small business owner, since
• 1:31:37
  his from a small business perspective, as free guide on my
• 1:31:40
  website, just go to my homepage. Download it and it'll start
• 1:31:44
  giving you a sense of orientation for what to do next
• 1:31:47
  because that's again, action paralysis, right?
• 1:31:50
  So we want to get people out of paralysis and into action.
• 1:31:53
  That's the only way that life moves forward but the big
• 1:31:58
  project that I have coming up is, I've launched a retreat
• 1:32:05
  Series in Croatia in Split, which is We're emperor,
• 1:32:13
  Diocletian of Rome, retired and build his Palace.
• 1:32:17
  And so we're going to an Emperor's Palace to learn to
• 1:32:20
  build our Empires and scale up. And so if that sounds like fun
• 1:32:27
  which it is and it will be and you want to transform your
• 1:32:29
  business because you're sick of being on the hamster wheel.
• 1:32:31
  And 2022 is not going to be the way that the rest of the past
• 1:32:35
  years have been then. Yeah, come on, over my website.
• 1:32:37
  It's all there. Just come into the Empire.
• 1:32:40
  Builders Lounge. Just come over to Discord.
• 1:32:42
  Just come on. There's people, we've all got.
• 1:32:44
  You just already to support you. It's a great place.
• 1:32:49
  I've got you in whatever form you need.
• 1:32:52
  Yes that's what's going on and maybe hopefully a book next year
• 1:32:55
  but we'll see you know man. Well I just want to say I'm
• 1:32:59
  actually thank you for being on the show.
• 1:33:01
  It's been bullying. And yeah I wish you the best of
• 1:33:04
  luck in your endeavors. Thank you.
• 1:33:07
  We went, we went like all over was, it was a very fun time.
• 1:33:12
  Thanks for having me and thanks for doing what you do.
• 1:33:14
  Thank you so much. And to the listings of the
• 1:33:17
  question, we podcast be safe. Be well and I'll see you in the
• 1:33:21
  next one.