S1E28 · Alanna Deutrom: Success and Failure

Hey legends, welcome to week 28 of the Virtus Performance Podcast. Before we get stuck into today's episode, I'd like to thank all of you guys for listening. If you are enjoying the podcast, please rate, review, subscribe, do all that stuff, tell your friends, tell your mum, so we can get a few more people getting around it and listening and hopefully getting some life lessons out of the discussions we have. Today I sat down with Alana Dootram who is the founder of Coach Music Academy, she's a incredibly talented singer/songwriter and someone who has travelled the world and had a lot of crazy adventures on her journey through music.

She's finished an event management course, she's currently coordinating a tour through the school system and creating a really amazing product for a significant amount of kids to consume and help them find their voice and find adults who are in our community who they can connect with. So she's a very amazing human, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, I hope you guys do too. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests.

I think I'm a little bit nervous. Alright, so you can't say that you're nervous, you can't locally, out loud, say it because then you just believe that you're nervous and then you start freaking out. So what you've got to do is you've got to remember that what you feel when you're nervous is exactly the same sensation that you feel when you're excited. I stopped saying I was nervous and I started saying I was excited and then it just changed everything. Well, on that note I'm very excited for this podcast. Alana, welcome. It's already started, mate. I know, it's already begun.

Alright, cool. Thank you very much for coming on. I've been looking forward to this for a little while. I am very excited. I am flattered to be here. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. First question for you. Okay. What gets you out of bed in the morning? What gets me out of bed in the morning? First thing I do in the morning is I get up and I put my workout gear on and I just get in my car and I drive to the gym and I work out. Awesome. And that gets me out of bed.

Cool. Yeah. What time did you start? 5.45. Yeah. Are you a morning person? I am. I think I am. I know that I need rest because I do usually work until about 10 o'clock but I just want to always make sure that I start my day at about 8.39 and so otherwise I lose it. So I want to get up early and get out there and if I don't go for a walk or I don't exercise, I just can't start properly. So that's my day. I like that. So you train every day? Usually. Yeah. What happens if you sleep in?

I go for a walk. Awesome. So you're always doing something? Yeah. I always get up and do something. Otherwise I just feel strange but on the weekends I'm a little bit, I don't know, I'll go with a little bit more. Just have a rest when you need it. Yeah. That's cool. I like to stick to my little structure. Good. Yeah. Awesome. It helps me a lot. Awesome. From a philosophical sense, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Do you mean like from like just my mindset? Yeah. Yeah. I love what I do. What do you do?

Do you know how- Even whiten us all. What day of the week? Yeah. That's a good point. It's Wednesday today. Yeah. Wednesday. Every day is really different and I've tried so hard to go and have like a normal job. Normal. And I'm using my fingers when I say that. But I've tried to go and have like a normal job, do the same thing every day and it just doesn't work for my brain. I like that. I like to do something different. So when you asked me what I was doing today at 12.30, I said, "I'm going to come and be on your podcast because today is Wednesday and it's a different day."

Awesome. What did you do yesterday? Well, in general, what I usually do is I sit in front of my computer a lot. I do a lot of admin work. It's not as exciting as it looks on Instagram. It's just a lot of emailing, scheduling. I, at the moment, am coordinating a tour and then I'm also running a music school. So I am the one who schedules everyone's lessons in for the week and I also schedule my own. And so I basically work on that. I work on all the marketing for my business and I usually have meetings with my business partner.

We just chat and we get innovative and I'm always thinking of exciting ways to, I know, just to make people think differently about a music school. I like that. Yeah. So you're kind of going against the grain in terms of what a normal music school is. Yeah, I hope so. That's what the goal is and I want people just to feel like it's an experience. And I think that the number one thing my students always say is sometimes it's the best part of the week and that makes me, that's another thing that makes me up in the morning because I go, "This is pretty special.

I get to be a part of someone's week and they love it so much." Yeah. That's the time someone spends with you is the best part, best time of their week and you love doing it. Yeah. Life's sorted. Yeah. This is the meaning of life and that's the end for today's podcast. We are done. What's it like running a music school? What is it like running a music school? It's like, it was the first job that I had when I was 17. I used, not running a music school, but I worked for a music school

and I've worked for a few for most of my life and then I tried all these other things in the same time, but this has been my number one kind of, I guess, moneymaker. And then I got to a point and it was only last year where I thought, "You know what? I think I can do this better and I want to do it myself." And so now most of my days are really fulfilling because I guess that I, have you ever seen that TED Talk that's called Multi-Potential Eye? I don't think so. Oh my God.

Do you have it? Yeah. Send it to me. Okay. I will. I'll send it to you and everyone who's listening has to go and watch it. I'll put it in the show notes, the link at the bottom. Yes. Well, because I used to struggle a lot with feeling like I had to specialize in something. And so I grew up being a singer and everyone knew me as the singing girl and songwriter and I did all of these crazy, unreal things when I was a teenager, I was kind of like Hannah Montana. And I think that

I got to a point in my life where I was like, "Okay, I've been focusing solely on this one career opportunity that I want to have, but there's all of these other things that I want to do." And I just got to a stage where I didn't tell anyone what I was going to do and I just went and explored other opportunities that I had and all this, I know all these creative juices started flowing and the whole message behind being a Multi-Potential Eye is that you actually have all of these separate things to give and you've got to actually utilize them all.

And as a doctor, you might just specialize in one thing, but for me, I never really truly did. And I like to use all of those different talents that I have. That's really cool. And as someone that never wants to just focus on one thing, that always wants to have two or three balls in the air, that's a truly interesting way of looking at it. Yeah. You would probably be the same. Maybe. So you'd most likely really relate to it. But it blew my mind. I was like, for my whole life, everyone, I sang, so everyone told me that I should be a singer.

And it's the same as, you know, if you run, everyone tells you that you should be a runner. And then you get to a point in your life where maybe that hasn't happened, and you feel like a failure. And you have to kind of face that and work through it. And I guess that, you know, you could just sit there and say, "I'm a failure," or you could go, "You know what, I'm going to actually go and explore all these other things that I do that I didn't even realize that I did." That's an amazing mindset.

And it's cool that you can get that from a probably half an hour talk on YouTube. Such a good one, yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. What do you think it was that allowed you to, I guess, make the change and start to find or chase what you wanted to do? I think it was, well, to give you a little bit of a background, when I was 14, I won this massive competition with Girlfriend Magazine. Good for me. Yeah. And I was tired of the young girl of the year. And then from that, I guess, like all good opportunities, the ball started rolling.

And I ended up touring Australia with MTV, the Whole30 Countdown, met all these people, started recording, and then all of a sudden I was discovered by this big producer overseas in London. Discovered is an interesting word. Yeah. Discovered. It's a silly word, isn't it? It is a little bit. What's a better word? I don't know. I don't have a better word. Okay. All right. I've got broken holes in the story, but not actually giving you any insight. I'm sorry. Carry on. As you were. Yeah. No. So anyway, he asked me if I wanted to make an album with him.

Oh, coffees have arrived. Thanks, Mitch. Yay. Thanks. Get me a room. Yeah. Awesome. Look at that. I got a tall one as well. It's so generous. The old mid podcast coffee delivery. Have fun podcasting. If everyone wants to know, I have a soy cappuccino. It was like, Oh yeah, being discovered. Um, anyway, so I'm just going to cut my long story short because it's not really a long story. That's the whole point of a podcast, mate. Okay, cool. So all right. Well, you might regret that. I'm just kidding. Um, anyway, so I got discovered by

this big producer overseas in London and we were in a studio in Melbourne and he asked me if I wanted to record an album with him back in the day when you used to record an album. Um, and it was a really big decision and it was an amazing opportunity. And at the time I would have been like 15. That's a huge decision to make when you're 15. Like massive. And at the same time I was like, how can I say no, this is so exciting. And the thought of even going to London, I would feel like a pop star.

I'm ready. Like every 15 year old wants to be famous. So yeah, I was put on a flight and I went to London and I started recording and working on an album. And that was when I started year 11, which maybe was bad decision. Yeah. So you decided to do both. Yeah, I decided to do both. So that whole year I did school and I did my career and every three months I would go back to London and I would go there for maybe four weeks at a time and we would work on something different. So we'd write, we would record and then, um, I'll never forget one time I actually went to come back.

I left to go to my trip to go back and he said, next time you come back, we're gonna record a video clip. It's like, oh my God, this is so exciting. So anyway, that whole journey happened and we made this album and before I knew it, like I was singing in front of every single record label in Australia. I was doing showcases in London. I was, um, yeah, I started touring around the UK. We'd like, they'd made a band for me over there and you know, I, I really loved it. It was so exciting and it built my, I think my confidence a lot.

Um, I spent a lot more time with adults and I think that I would kind of come back and maybe my interest in school started to go down a bit. I don't understand why at all. Yeah. And then I did, started year 12 and I dropped out. So I didn't finish year 12 and my mom was pretty upset about that, but it was a really good decision and at the time I didn't regret it at all. It just taught me everything that I think I needed to learn at that time. And I just built myself and I ended up, um, I finished that whole, uh, that whole contract and I was 19 because they just didn't really get me.

They found me when I was 15 and then I was 19. And such a developing age, like a different person when you finish that 19. Yeah. And because the music we'd recorded, we hadn't released it, but we'd been working on it, performing it and it was kind of getting old now. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this myself. I'm sick of this standard, my like Alana attitude. And so I did an independent release of music here in Melbourne and I found some producers and we wrote them and, um, I was really excited and I was like, this is like an expression of who I am right now.

And that's what music is anyway. Yeah. Um, but then I had this product in front of me and I think that's the moment that my entrepreneurship kind of began because, and I didn't even realize it at the time because I thought I have to sell this to people. What's the point of having this in front of me and nobody knows about it. A lot of people don't get to hear it. Yeah. Um, and, uh, I came up with an idea to tour my EP around Victorian high schools and I organized a, I did 10 schools

and I organized the whole thing myself and it was to raise money for the Reach foundation, which we went, yeah, you would have remembered the Reach foundation from high school. Definitely. Definitely. I had one of their, um, facilitators on a couple of weeks ago. Really? Oh, cool. Oh, amazing. Amazing organization. Such an amazing organization. Beautiful people. And they made an impact on me in high school and I wanted to support them. So yeah, I did this tour, I like, I was literally the sound guy. Every day before the show, I would drive to Brunswick, borrow all the gear from a friend, drive it to the school, set the whole thing up, mics, leads, like everything.

And then my band would come, we set up the drum kit, like it was full on show and I'd always get like a few students from the school to support me beforehand. It was like, it was like a geek. It was really cool. And then I guess for that split second, I felt pretty famous cause all the kids were like, whoa, yay, Alana! Um, yeah, it was really fun and I did that, but it was just, I think the main lesson I learned from that is that you can't just, you can't do everything. Yeah. Um, well you can.

You sure? Yeah. Well you can if you want, like it's almost, you've had two contrasts with like, I'm sure you would never had to set up any of the sound stuff for the first four years and then going to doing it all yourself, it'd teach you a little bit. Yeah, it did. It taught me so much and I, yeah, I just, I think that the whole concept was amazing and what we were gaining from it was insane, but it was me and my mum, my mum would come and make sandwiches for the band and we would just drive to each school.

Um, but I just couldn't keep going because I was exhausted and I needed a team. It's really important to have a team. You can't do that by yourself. Yeah. I needed to delegate the work. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I didn't have the chance to do that. So, um, so I ended up finishing that and then I, what else did I do? Then I, I was songwriting for a long time, like, um, I had like landed tracks for different people and kind of went on that path and then I thought, well maybe, maybe I'll try country music because everyone's told me that, you know, my music's got some country elements to it and I like country music.

So I like, I started doing that. I went to Nashville, I rode over there, I toured around and then I came back and I thought, Oh, you know what? I'm going to release a country song. Why not? So I released like my debut country single and we got it to number three on the Australian country music charts, which was pretty fun. It was really cool. And I got, um, I actually loved the whole process of creating that again. It was creating another product for me and marketing it. And I had, you know, I don't, do you remember it was called 103, I don't know if you recall.

Mate, I've been listening to your music on YouTube all morning. It's been awesome. So I got all my friends to dress up as old people and it's just a song about, you know, all the things you want to do before you die. Um, and it was really fun. And so we did a big single launch and I had all my friends there just welcoming everyone in and they'll dress as old people that were just going nuts, looking in wheelchairs and giving people cupcakes and everyone's getting drunk and it was hilarious. It was a really fun night.

And then, yeah, and then all of a sudden I was presenting Casey Chambers with the golden guitar award at the golden guitars in Tamworth and I think that I like, I had pause for a moment. I was like, you know what, if you put your mind to something, you can do it because I got asked to be one of the trophy presenters at the golden guitar awards and I had just entered into that scene and all of a sudden I was in a room with everyone who is anyone in the country. Yeah. And I'll never forget this one girl was like, who are you?

I was like, I don't even know. Um, but I think that I felt like I was going around in circles. I was just continuously like chasing my tail and then I would get to a point where I'd get really close, like that door had been a jar and then it would close. And then I just kept knocking at the same door and I didn't see all the other doors around. Um, and so that's when I, um, I decided that, yeah, I'd, I'd kind of take a little bit of a spin and I did an event management course and I put my music on hold and that was last year.

Yeah. I'm 25. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty nuts. I'd done lots of things the other day. I was trying to think of like all the roles that I've actually had and I was trying to say it in one breath. I was doing a talk the other day. Oh, it was just so many things, but it's fun. Like I really like exploring everything, but that whole time that I did all of that, I was teaching like from when I was 18 I started, I started teaching and I really always loved it. I would do my event management course, did that for six months and it was nine to five every day.

And then I would drive back from the city. I would teach until about nine or 10 and then I'd get up in the morning, go back and do it again. And I never really questioned doing it. And when I had a moment to pause, when I started, you know, doing internships with event companies and working on, I've worked on a fashion shows and did these really fun things. And I remember just going, oh, but I got to make sure that I keep teaching because I don't want to let those students down. I love being a part of their week.

I never realized how important it was to me. Do you think you've had many chances to properly like sit down, take a breath and look back at all the stuff you've done? You're probably able to do it now, I guess during, um, no, not really. It kind of felt like a roller coaster because it was music is such an emotional part of you. Um, I guess, do you sing? Do you do it? No, no. I'm like the worst singer ever. Challenge accepted. Um, no, but it's such like, it's just like an extra part of you and I guess like any passion is.

And every time it didn't work, I just felt like it was this massive failure for me. And everyone in my life, like my, no one even asked me how I was. They always said, they just assumed that casual singing guy. And so that was my identity and it was really hard to separate myself from that. And it took a long time and I feel like now I was like slowly being recognized for different things. Yeah. I can relate to that a little bit. Like, and most of the people close to me will, will understand how this kind of affected me and stuff.

But footy was always the one thing I was asked about. I could write the three questions and you would probably be exactly the same, the three questions everyone would ask, everyone that wasn't in that close circle. And you get so sick of asking the same questions and it's like, there's so much more going on up here, but that's cool that you're able to, you're now able to express that and talk about all those different things you did. How important for you or do you think it was important that you maintain that teaching throughout the whole thing?

Did that allow you to stay grounded? Well, it was the perfect job because it gave me freedom during the day to, you know, explore all these other things that I could do and then at nighttime I could work and enjoy what I was doing. Yeah. But it was really important because I think that teaching and you would relate to this too. It keeps you really grounded because it makes you just, I know you empathize with your students and who you're helping and you get to give back. And I think, I think that like the main, I don't know, one of the main things that gives me fulfillment is actually like helping other people.

And I feel like I'm pretty good at it, so yeah, I think it was really, really important and it makes sense now that I look back. Yeah. Well, you allow, yeah, you looking back kind of allows you to use your hindsight as all the kids that you're teaching and all the students, it's their foresight because you've got all these experiences that you're able to, I guess, put together and help them to move forward. Yeah, definitely. I don't know, sometimes like I've had some students for like a long time, like the whole period that I've even been teaching and I feel like a part of their life.

Yeah. Cool you up. Yeah, I know. And it's really, it's really special. And I think that it's extra special because sometimes I'm really disconnected from their life as well. So it's this kind of separate thing that they get to do for themselves. And we like, they can just tell me about everything that's going on in their world and then they can write songs about it and they can sing about it and yeah, it's really therapeutic for them. So it's cool. That's awesome. What, like apart from, I guess, seeing what you wanted to change the industry, what made you actually pull the trigger and start coach music?

I was frustrated because I was working for another music school and it just wasn't growing. I saw all the potential in it, I had so many ideas and they just were, they were being heard, but they weren't actually being responded to. And I just, actually because I have a business partner, his name is Josh and he's amazing. And I worked with him at his house last year and both of our businesses weren't growing and his wife is singing teacher too and I turned to him and I said, I'm going to leave this unnamed singing school and I'm going to, I'm going to start something and I really believe in it and I want you guys to come with me.

That's awesome. And he was in a point in his life where he was feeling frustrated and we were both, I think just in the right time for change and we are both really innovative and whenever we would sit down, we would just have all these like huge big business ideas and I said, you know what, I'm going to, I'm doing it and basically like you better come. And so yeah, we like joined forces and it was really awesome because we've got such a great team and like we really respect each other and yeah, it's great. That's awesome.

Do you both have the same, are you coming from the same, I guess angle? Do you have the same, no, but heads a little bit, no, we're different, like we have different strengths and we understand them, like I'm the, like Josh is still really creative, but I think that I'm like the marketing creative, like day to day kind of stuff and he's, you know, had his own marketing business before and he knows how to run, like he's, oh my God, like using him to a spreadsheet, just lose your mind. And it's really good because it's

helped me to kind of systemize what I do a little bit more and yeah, I think that those two traits together, like I was, that was never really a strength of mine and I'm learning because you always learn, but I have to, it's so important and for so long with everything I did, I never actually thought about like the financial side of things or you know, it wasn't about a profit, it's more about just like doing it for fun. And then you get to a point where everyone starts going, when are you going to buy a house?

And you get married and you're like, oh man, I have to like have money to do that, so it's actually a really good combination. Awesome. Yeah. What's been the biggest challenge in the last 12 months, 12, 18 months? The biggest challenge in the last 18 months, I think for me it's been maybe like juggling my personal life and my work life because I'm in, you know, starting a business is like a relationship and it's like that first year it's like, oh my God, I'm so in love and then everything else just like blurs away and

then you start to just forget about just little things and you get just really engrossed in it and so I think that I've just fully been so in love with what I've done over the last year that I guess maybe one of the challenges is making sure I make time for everything else in my life because in the end, like that's going to give me a really fulfilled life. I like that. How do you go with the work-life balance because like running a business, you've got all these things you've got to think about and then you try and disconnect and hang out with friends or family or whatever and then you're still kind of half thinking about it.

How do you go with it? I think I do well although my mobile, it is the connection for everyone so like for me personally I have about 35 students and so 35 people are texting me every week and then my friends are texting me and I've started this new thing now where I don't open the message until I know I can sit down and read them and then I can reply. Yeah, except I have to do that with my friends as well because otherwise you're kind of not really paying attention to the response and then you're like, "Oh, what did I actually say?"

Yeah, I know. I'm not in it. Then I'll think of someone in my mind and go, "Oh, I better shoot them a text message," and then realize that they've sent me a text message and I haven't replied and I just feel so bad. At least if it's unopened, you know it's there and you can get back to them and actually put your full attention to that. Yeah. I struggle with the same stuff. Meeting all the different clients and all the staff and then friends and family and stuff like that. Yeah. The biggest thing that I've changed over the last maybe two months is I turn all my notifications off.

Nice. For me to read an email, read a message, check the Facebook update, whatever, I need to go find it. I need to go searching for it. I'll only really do it if I've got the time. If I don't have the time or I haven't allocated the time to do that, it just stays there. That's good. Yeah, but then we live in this world where people want that message back straight away. I know. I'll manage all of the inquiries too. I want to make sure that I'm checking my emails all the time because I don't want one to go unseen and then someone doesn't get to have that lesson for that week.

We started using, I'm not sure if you do this with Virtus, but we started using Slack at the start of the year. We've tried to implement it a couple of times. Doesn't work. No, not yet. See, we love Slack. Slack is life. And I've heard that from so many people, so I keep going, I think we've twice, we've tried properly to do it, but we've got a decent sized team now and I feel as though it gets lost a little bit because everyone's got their own stuff. I don't think it would be too many if everyone was committed to using it, but yeah, that's a big room for improvement for us is finding that one way to communicate.

Yeah, definitely. It's pretty hard. You've got 15. 14 of us. Yeah, it's way too many. Yeah. See, we've got, no, I think for, especially for Josh and I, we would send a Facebook message to each other, a text message to each other, an email. And so now, everything is through Slack. And we will hashtag marketing ideas and just every topic that we want to talk about and put it in there. And especially for Jackson's schedule, Alicia's schedule, like all of our different schedules will have a conversation about it, but it is hard to get the whole team always on board chatting all the time because they're not as passionate about the business side as us, but they are.

Everyone loves it. How many of you guys are there? There is six. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. What are the different roles and responsibilities for everyone? Well, we've got, don't forget anyone. I know. I'm thinking right now. I'm thinking of their roles. Like everyone kind of has their own individual role in looking after their students. So we have right now, Santana, Kylie and Alicia, myself, Josh and Jackson, but Kylie's subbing in for Jackson for teaching at the moment. So I guess that every teacher's responsibility for themselves is just to make sure that they have made all their students happy, they're communicating with them, but I do, like they're schooling for them and I run like all their payments and everything like that.

So they kind of, my ideal situation for any teacher that we have is for them to just rock up and they teach and they just get to be, they don't have to think about all that stuff because for a long time I would be as the teacher, like taking someone's money and I hated it. Sometimes they get the door like, no, I don't want to take your money. Yeah. That is a hard one. And I think like our business is probably fairly similar to yours in that aspect. We've got coaches that coach, but then have to do all the admin stuff behind.

How do you feel, do you feel as though that system works with you kind of overseeing everything? It is because I started doing direct debits instead of taking the box and then I can just, you know, control it all in one area, see what's happening with everyone. Otherwise it's really messy and you know, teachers, they're not like for us, they're not hired to, you know, own a little franchise or own a little business, they're actually just hired to teach because they're great teachers and so we want to make it as easy and stress free for

them and we just want them to feel like they enjoy every aspect of their job and that way, you know, they'll want to keep doing it. So yeah, sometimes like people don't know how to deal with the money thing, so you just have a system. This is how it works. This is what you do when you sign up if you want to be a part of it. That's cool. And has Josh helped with a lot of those systems and processes and things that you need to take the boxes? Yeah, absolutely. We've sat down and worked on it together and he's done some epic spreadsheets.

So every teacher helped with all of our spreadsheets. Spreadsheets scare me. Oh man, I'm starting to actually like spreadsheets now, I was like ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, if I put that there, that shows up? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well for, because I've been doing the tour as well, for that I've had to get on board spreadsheets and be really on top of it because I did my event management course and yeah, for something like that, just remembering all the details for all the shows that we do, it's a lot. That's an amazing segue. Talk to me about the tour.

Yeah, enlighten me. Okay, so we started this, oh, I haven't even turned my phone down. You're the worst. Oh my God. Sorry guys, technical difficulties. What? Sydenham, Sydenham, what? Sorry guys. I'm going to, um, to turn that off. You can delete that bit, right? No. I'm keeping it. Hang on, so, I would love to talk to you about our tour. I really love it. Good. It's amazing. Um, so in June this year, it was probably a little bit earlier than that. I wanted to bring back my school tour that I guess I had done when

I was 19, but in a different way, so this was inspired because most weeks I have at least one person come into their singing lesson and they cry and not in a bad way, but they're just, music just allows them to just let out everything they're feeling, everything they're expressing. That's pretty powerful. Yeah, and so they have these moments in class where, you know, they'll go sing a song and they'll just break down and it's emotional for me because, you know, I've got a connection with them and I see it, but I just kind of sit there and I just let them just let it go.

Um, so it's a little bit like, sometimes I ask myself, am I a counsellor or a singing teacher? I think that's a regular coach question. If you coach, doesn't matter what you coach, that's something that you've got to be okay with. Yeah, I think so. And I think that, I don't know, maybe because you're in a one on one situation, people allow themselves to do that and to feel like that, which I think is awesome, but I started just seeing it reoccurring and at the end of last year, one of my students' mums came up

to me and she said, I want to thank you so much because my daughter has been going through, you know, depression and anxiety for a really long time and I've been sending her to a lot of specialists and people and she hasn't really been able to connect with it and ever since she started singing, she, yeah, it's changed her and she's so much happier and obviously it's really important to see someone when you're feeling like that, but you know, for certain situations, maybe you need to have purpose or maybe you need to just have to let out how you're feeling, you don't know how to do that and sometimes you just can't say it.

If you can find that one thing that you can express what you love, whether it is exercise or whether it's singing or dancing or whatever, it doesn't really matter if you find that one thing. Like exercise is definitely something for me that allows me just to, just to like get out of my head and just like, just do my thing, but yeah, and so at the start of last year, I guess it was like a little idea that we were just kind of going, maybe this could happen, maybe not. And I went to my old high school, Frankston High, and for their mental health week for the year nines.

And Josh... I bubbled into it two years there, didn't I? I did. Yeah. You were there too. See, the importance of music and fitness. Yeah. Definitely. So that's when it all kind of started. And so we were there, similar to you, we were taking all the same classes and we were doing a music program with them and talking about how music impacts your mental health and how you can actually use music. And yeah, it was really cool. And by the end of our little class, we got them all to write a song and sing together. That's awesome.

Because whenever I have group classes, when you sing in a group, it like regulates your heart rate, it helps you connect with people, and obviously it allows you to express how you're feeling. And after that week, I was like, this is so cool. What we did was really fun. Yeah. And also that I don't think I want to be a school teacher. Did you feel like that? Yeah. My partner is a school teacher and she was like, I came home and I was like, I'm cooked. And she's like, Oh, see what I do with everything. We had the whole year, like nine to 10 cohort, or not year nine cohort in two days.

So settle down. Yeah. But it is incredibly difficult. Oh, the respect. The respect I have. Teachers are amazing people. Absolutely. The patience is good and the control over the class, lots of things like just... We can't pump them up too much. So you get like 50 weeks a year holiday anyways. I hope she's listening. I don't think you're in trouble for that. And anyway, so from there we had over, I think it was like a two week holiday for school holidays. Yep. So let's actually take this around high schools, but let's do it differently. So basically we started a mental health youth program wrapped into a music show.

Cool. So when students leave, it's like they've left a concert and they feel so excited, so amped up. And you know how, if you go see a big band playing a stadium, you just feel so inspired. Amped up's a good way of describing it because you just leave and you're just like, Oh, it's so good. Yeah, absolutely. And so that's kind of the feeling that we wanted people to have. And so we've put together a team of amazing singers who are all pursuing their careers. Some who've been like the X Factor and the boys and others who are doing more of an indie path with their music.

And we asked them if they want to be a part of it. Yeah. We started rehearsing and yeah, then by September we had a show all booked in. We had kind of organized how the whole presentation was going to go. And so each performer gets up and well, they all sing together and then they get up and they talk about how music has impacted their mental health and they all share a really personal story about something that's happened in their life. And then we have myself or Josh and we get up and we educate the kids on how music can help us.

And we talk about that. And we kind of have a moment where we allow them to kind of like maybe let out how they're feeling. And then we get everyone to sing together. That's cool. And at the end, this last tour, I'm not sure what we'll do next year, but we've been getting everyone to sing Lean on Me. And it's so amazing. Like all these kids, like sometimes we'll have 200 or 400 students in a hall and that they'll be like hand in hand, like arm with each other, like with their friends and they'll be all just singing as loud as they can, like Lean on Me and the energy in the room is just amazing.

Very huge. So yeah, we've been, um, how many schools? I think we've seen about 20 schools and we've actually performed in 5,131 students. I counted it. That's very specific. I know. That's cool. 5,131. Um, I counted each time, of course. Like who wouldn't, but so in that three months, yeah, we've, we've toured like crazy. And so I've been behind the scenes just planning that the whole show, all the tour, like we've been doing regional shows as well, which we found have been huge impact on the communities. And we've also, it's also opened all of our eyes to just how lucky you are sometimes to be a bigger community because a lot of these students will come up.

We get stuck in that like bubble, especially us down here on the Peninsula, like everyone knows everyone on the Peninsula, but it's almost like that big, like community is the perfect word, that tribe of people that all support each other in one way or another. So to see how the smaller areas deal with being in a small area is pretty interesting. It's really interesting because I guess, imagine if you're at school and someone's bullying you and you, honestly, there's like 20 people and you don't have anyone else to turn to. So we've learned a lot

about that, but I think that, um, the number one thing that I've learned from the show, even for myself, my own mental health, is that everyone's, um, everyone's, everyone's journey in mental health is really different. And I've had a lot of students come up afterwards and tell us certain stories. We had one boy come up to us, it was in one thaggy after the show, and he was like this big burly guy and he just, he said, thank you so much for coming today. Like I really enjoyed what you did and you know, we obviously said thank you.

And he said, I, I've been to 56 foster homes and he said that I'd never really felt, he just felt so open with how he was feeling and just kind of let it all out and he was like, never really, you know, it felt like I connected with anyone or, um, you know, haven't really truly had a family and wow, like that hit me really hard. And then he just cried, he just like let it all out, he sat there, he just, he's cried and it was really, really powerful for us to see that because

I think that because we were all openly talking about these little things or these big things that have happened in our life, it allows everyone else to start those conversations. Um, and you know, some, like one of our performers gets up and talks about her anxiety, but she says, you know, she doesn't actually know why she gets it. Like she feels like she has a great life, but sometimes she just gets anxious and people just do. That's so powerful because it's, there's like all the, like the third of the kids that have felt anxious and

have that anxiety will immediately like respond to it and they'll, they'll feel connected and then each person that comes up will give a different story and connect another group of kids and mixing, you know, everyone's ready to go. And that's probably why you get such a good response at the end when you sing. I think so. Yeah. Everyone starts to really just kind of understand what the whole message is, but I guess we just want to let them know that if they're having a bad day, like go turn on a song that's going to make them feel better or turn to a passion that you have in life.

We always talk about how important it is to have a little bit of an outlet and that can be sport and exercise too. And it's just a way for you to feel like you can express yourself. But yeah, after that, that day in motherfaggie, we were all so inspired and we just felt like this is like what we're doing is really great. And so I guess since September, my brain has just been like fuzzy. What next? I don't know. No, you know what? I've just been, I've actually surprised myself and being really focused, which is really good because I just, I feel really fulfilled.

I feel like, yes, this is amazing and we're giving back and we're doing something that we all really enjoy and we've created a really great team around what we're doing too, which is really important for us. It's huge. Yeah. So, and all the artists, they love being like, they love touring around the schools and all the kids get so excited to meet them. But it almost like, it justifies and validates like all of your whys, like why you're actually doing it because you get that, yes, you're doing something you love, but you're helping other people at the same time.

So it's kind of that perfect, perfect system where everyone wins. Yeah, it really is. It absolutely is. And that's, that's really cool because the schools, they often say, like especially some of the last ones we entered, they're like, this is the, this is one of the best things that's come to our school for a really long time. Which is an amazing, amazing thing. It's amazing. And we're constantly going, we just want to make it better. What can we do next? Like how can we grow it? And I would love it to be an organization. I would love to change the way that music is delivered sometimes in education.

I found that I wasn't actually involved in the music program in my high school. Yeah. And I just kind of felt like it didn't really encourage expression and kind of encouraged, you know, other aspects of music, which are just as important, but we need to all understand that we don't even realize that we use music every single day to, and we watch a movie and the reason we cry is because it's a song. And the reason that that ad makes us happy or we remember it is because of the music behind it. So I'm just

trying to find ways to actually educate ourselves and to know, you know what, if I'm maybe not feeling so good, there are things that I can do to calm myself down, to help myself relax, to focus, like all these students, I always tell them, like when I'm sitting there doing my work during the day, sometimes there's no one there. I just put, I just go into Spotify and I'm like, study music, focus music, and it sits there. Exactly the same. Like I've got to, like YouTube plays open pretty much all the time, press play, like

when I'm in my office and I think like from my own personal experience, my, I never really, I connected with music in, like with my mum and dad when I was growing up, but never really loved music until I started connecting with a few friends about music we loved and then fell in love with Triple J and all the festivals and all that kind of stuff. And now, like, I know that if I am feeling a certain way or I want to feel a certain way that I just pick a certain song or a certain album or a certain artist.

You would select certain playlists when you're doing workouts with your clients. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Do you think that it helps? Yeah, it helps with mood because, you know, and like, I like sometimes having chilled out music when we're training, sometimes having, you know, something really quick, but having, it's really easy way to change the vibe of a room. If I need everyone to chill out and put something chill out on, um, if I need everyone to get up and about and they're not, and everyone's had a big day and we're doing, we've got a big group at six and everyone's just not up and about, band music is what's going to change that.

Yeah. And it just helps to, I don't know, almost, almost self regulate how everyone's feeling, which is cool. Like, yeah, like you put the Fresh Prince of Bel Air soundtrack on and everyone's jumping up and down. Like, you know, you put the Titanic theme song on while everyone's laying down and everyone's laughing and smiling. Like it's, yeah, it's a really easy way to connect and it's something that it's probably not taught as well as enough in schools in terms of how important it can be. Yeah. I asked this, I did a podcast this morning, I asked this question, what are the five things if you were to go through school again, that you wish they taught you?

Ooh, I wish they taught me taxes, taxes. That's one more, that's one of my answers. Yeah. I wish they taught me that. I wish they taught me, um, I wish they taught me how to save. I can't work out why no one taught me how to save and I've just worked it out. I wish that someone had taught me, I wish that they taught me like how to fix a tire on a car, you know, or just like, just to be classical life skills, like life skills and fix a tire, hang a pitcher, like how to cook from a fridge that you don't even like know what all the ingredients are in there.

And just, I don't know, I think that there are like, even how to, how to dream, like I don't actually feel like that's where my inspiration came from. Like I loved, I actually, I loved the school that I went to. It was awesome. But, um, you know, we're always just taught that this is the sequence of your life and this is what your next step is and I've always liked to feel a bit uncomfortable and kind of breach that a bit. So that's something I've always struggled with. I guess, I don't know, I don't necessarily

know why, but I've always seen, you know, go to school, go to uni, get a job, get a house, like have a family, retire, die, like that just scares the shit out of me. In terms of, if you asked me what my biggest fear would be, like that really simple sequence would probably be my answer. That's the first time I've actually thought about it like that. But we're never taught and like, like going to the school we went to, we're able to, you know, I guess we're taught how to do all the basic stuff really

well, but we're not taught to, hey, why don't you give that a crack, why don't you give that a crack, or why don't you chase that crazy dream you've got. I think that the thing is, those don't teach you to take risks. And I think the best things we've ever done in life were risks. One of my favourite, one of the ways that we set goals is, well we've got a couple different ways, but your kind of big crazy dream is what scares and excites you at the same time. Find something that scares and excites you at the same time and go and do it.

And magic always happens. And that's been something that's resonated with so many people since we started using it that if they chase that, everything else follows. All the material stuff, all of the things that you feel as though you need, that stuff becomes insignificant because it's just secondary to actually why you're actually doing it. So true. Which is so important. I always used to think that I wanted to be famous. And what an empty, awful dream, like seriously, why didn't no one say that to me? It took me a long time, but now what I want out of life is I just want to feel, I've said it so many times, my number one word is fulfilled.

I just want to feel happiness in all these different parts of my life and try and put equal effort into each of them. But I don't, yeah, I don't have this craving to be like amazingly recognized or to be famous. I just want to, I want to be that person that people go, oh, like, oh, help me with that. Or, you know, I'm going to call on you to be able to make a difference, whether it's past or present. Absolutely. That's huge. Yeah. I think so. You've used it a couple of times. What does the word failure mean to you?

I think that that was one of my main struggles was failure because everyone told me that I was a product and that I had to be perfect. And then when I wasn't, it was really dramatic, but I felt like failure was this just, like, no, you don't have any other options you've done, like you've done, what have you done? But I think now failure is exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Like, all the times I've actually failed, I'm doing the finger thing again, they're the times when I've actually made a change. And it's usually the time when you're supposed to make a change.

So I love failing. I tell them when, you know, I had students come in, I've actually had a lot lately who are in their twenties and they've never pursued music. And I've always asked them, like, why? What's the reason? I've always been too nervous, like, I'm not confident enough, all this stuff. And they hit a bung note and they look at me and they do this face and I call it the face. I'm like, I'm not allowed to make the face. Like, no, the face is in here. And I just say, in this space here, you're allowed to fail because it means that you try, try something different and otherwise you're never going to grow if you don't.

So I think failure has changed a lot for me, but it was something that, yeah, I definitely struggled with. And now I'm like, it's all sweet. I'm allowed to fail. Yeah. That's awesome. And the ability to actually go, you know what? If I fail, if I fuck up, then I'm able to go, ah, it didn't work, I can try something else. Yeah. I think when we're like, it's probably comes from school and parents and not wanting to, not wanting to fail and not wanting to struggle with something. And like you said, the way your mum

reacted to you not finishing year 12 and I dropped out of a master's degree because I was just like, I don't want to do this, this isn't for me. I failed, but I made it and you would have made the same decision. I made a decision that my life would be better off without that and that success wasn't necessarily me finishing that and yours wasn't necessarily finishing year 12. And now look at you, you're keeping girls, which is awesome. What does success mean to you? Oh, great question. We actually talked about this this morning as well.

I'm going to give you a short answer. It's waking up in the morning and going to bed at night and doing whatever I want in between. Oh, I like that. And I've kind of used that over the last 12 months or so because it's really simple. And like for me, what I want would vary from day to day at the moment, I guess it's all based around our why and our why is I want to make the world a better place through health and fitness. Like really, really simple. And you're doing that. Yeah. And we're slowly doing that, which is cool.

And, and the thing I've got to keep going back to is that it takes time and I need to be patient. But I think the cool thing like success is for me, it's, it's achievement and achievement can be something as simple as, you know, recording a cool podcast that three people listen to it really get a lot out of it. Like it doesn't have to be on a massive scale. And I think that's where like you want it to be famous. You kind of, it probably lost your way a little bit because if I can

have a really cool session in the morning with one person and I've made their day better and you can do the same tonight with your teaching, like life's good and it's being able to, this is something our physio Greg's been able to teach me or force me to understand is that you'll never necessarily, if you always focus on what you're chasing, you'll never necessarily be happy. If you allow yourself to stop, take a breath and like look back at how far you've come, then you can keep moving forward knowing that you're content and fulfilled. Exactly. That's a really important word.

Yeah. It's, I agree a hundred percent, I really liked what you said. What's your definition of success now? Can I just copy your answer? Right now, do you know, actually, it's interesting you say this and when I was pursuing, you know, my career and all that stuff, I remember when I had the turning point, I was like, I said to my friend and I was like, all I want to be is a successful singer. She turned to me and she's like, you are? And I had this moment where I was like, oh, maybe I am. And I think that like, exactly, success is whatever you want it to be and you're successful right now.

Like look at where you are. Look at what you've created. It's success. Yeah. And I think that I can say that I feel successful in my career right now. And I feel successful in, you know, my personal life too. There's always ups and downs and all these things that come in the way, but I think, yeah, what you said, you got to pause and reflect and just remember that you don't need all that other stuff that, you know, you're dreaming about. That's not when you reach success because when you get there, you want more. There's always going to be another mountain.

I think Miley Cyrus said that. Yeah. I think she did too. So it's, yeah, I think that we're already successful, but we have to pause and recognize it. Yeah. And it's like for me, and I think for a lot of people, it's just checking your ego and if you can check your ego and say, you know, I don't need to be chasing all that stuff and I be happy with where I am, then like life's going to be okay. Like even when bad stuff happens and it always does, it allows you to kind of come

back to it and enjoy the little things like, and it's a conversation I have with all of my clients a lot and I'm sure you probably have the same conversation. It's allowing yourself to enjoy the little wins. It's something that I probably learned by trying to tell all my clients that, that if you come to three sessions one week and you're used to coming to one, like that's a win. Enjoy it. If you decide to eat something healthy rather than drinking a hundred beers on a Saturday, like that's a win. Like you've got to enjoy

those little wins and all those little wins add up and eventually you'll get to where you want to get to, but rather than just focusing on where you want to get to, you're going to enjoy the process a thousand times more. Yeah. Like everyone who's achieved all these insane, amazing things, it's never just one thing that they did. It's all the little tiny decisions that they made along the way. And that would be, it's like fitness is the best example. I actually use fitness a lot when I'm trying to tell my students about practicing, like it's like going to the gym, you know, we'll isolate one part of their voice and just work on that little area.

It's the same as, you know, just working your arm one day and then they all go, Oh yeah, I get it. It makes sense. It's a good analogy. It's really simple. Yeah. And because you know, you've got little muscles, you got to build them up every day. Um, but I've got sidetracked now. What were you saying? I can't remember. Oh yeah. I can't remember. It must have been very good. No, it was. Oh yeah. The little decisions. Yeah. Process. It's the little things. Like that's what, like if you want to eat better, you have to make all the little decisions.

It's not just having one thing. If you want to eat better in this, you know, seven days in a week and you eat three meals a day, there's 21 meals. If you fuck up three of them, who cares? Like you're 18 out of 23 out of 21, you're doing, you're doing pretty well. Like it's, I think if we, I think a lot of people fall down because they one, try and make everything happen super quick, but two, they block everything out as to one giant goal. Whereas, you know, if you like use the eating one, if you want to get better at eating and you're eating six good meals and 15 shitty ones a week, cool.

This week let's do seven, next week let's do eight. And then, you know, in three months time, you're probably hitting 18 or 19 good meals and it's like you're fueling your body and exactly that becomes the norm. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. I am. Good. Alright. I was so excited then I was like, ooh, what's going to happen? I was thinking something and then I just lost it. So that's the first time I've had like a proper mind blank doing this for a while. Oh, were you just thinking back to it, is that why? Yeah, I think so.

I haven't had lunch, so that could be it. So what's the plan now? What's the future look like for coach music and your touring? Do you know? Oh my god, I have so many plans, my mind is just bonkers. That's cool. But I see like coach music being a bit of a spider web for a lot of different things that I want to start. I think that Singing Out is maybe just another leg for that. So Singing Out is what the name of the tour was? Singing Out, yeah. Cool. So Singing Out, I always tell my students, just let it go and just sing it out.

You should do team PDs for like businesses. Oh yeah. I get our crew around that. That's a really cool idea. That would be fun. We'll see, there's another leg. Yeah. But I've just got a lot of things that I want to build next year and I think that I've spent some time doing a lot of the admin work and scheduling our tour and I would love my next stage to get is someone to actually help me with just making sure that they can handle all the admin stuff. Especially just the scheduling for all the teachers and making sure the processes are really good.

I really want to get a space where we can teach from and grow and yeah, the ultimate things that I want, I don't even want to say them out loud because you know. Say them out loud, mate. This is a safe place. I really want to support, like the whole reason I started Coach Music is to support up and coming musicians and with everything that I'd been through, I felt like a team was really important for me and so even with our Sing It Out tour that we're doing, like all of those artists, I believe

in them and I want to support them and I want, I would love to have some sort of record label or something that I can just support up and coming Australian music and kind of bring it back to the roots of what it truly should be and actually helping them to find themselves and yeah, developing them so that's an ultimate goal for me. That's cool. But yeah, for the meantime, I want to just keep growing Coach Music and I want our culture to remain how it has been this year. It's really important to me just

how supportive everyone is of each other and just the amazing environment that I felt we're creating and yeah, I would love, I would put Sing It Out back on the road next year and we really want to do the East Coast. Cool. Yeah, that's the goal. Yeah. That's cool. Tour bus. Tour bus. We need one of those Venice buses. I ain't that off too. I was like, hmm. Yeah, you just load everyone into the back and you're sweet. That's it. It's a bit of a fun time so. That's exciting. Yeah, that's the goal. See as many students as we can and change lives.

Awesome. That's an amazing purpose. Here's the word culture, how did you create your culture? I created it from knowing what I didn't want it to be. I've experienced cultures which are toxic before and that can easily happen especially as a company grows so that's why I say culture because I'm really mindful of it and I know that our goal is to grow and it's also to give and I think that if we grow and we lose our sense of who we are then what's the point? Yeah. So I'm always telling my students, just little reminders

constantly because in something like this, girls can be girls, things can happen and it just becomes like, I want to be famous and I want to do this and so I always just remind them of the whys, why they do it. Music should make them happy. It's not about, everyone's goal, same with fitness, is different. It might not be that they want to be a supermodel, it might be that they just want to feel good on the inside. Well done. So I'm constantly just reminding them that they don't have to feel pressure, they don't have

to feel like they have to achieve a certain thing, it might be that they just want to come to that lesson every week and they just want to sing around a campfire to their friends. I like that. Yeah. So I just, I really want our culture to remain really strong and I think that it will because we know what it is and we just keep projecting it out. Yeah. Yeah. So as I dive into culture and leadership and all these kind of things, if it's driven from the top down and then everyone else in the

organisation buys into it, life's good and you'll keep moving forward and it's all going to keep coming back to that why, as to why you're all doing it so that if you start to stray away from the culture, you can pull yourself, check yourself and pull yourself back into it. Have you read any of the Simon Sinek books? Yeah. Oh yeah. That's kind of been a big area of my personal realm in the last 8, 12 months, is just reading his books, listening to his books multiple times like the golden circle is up on the

wall behind you and it's just, just being able to listen to, I'm big on, if there's someone, there's always going to be someone that's done something that you want to do. So you, especially within the age of information with podcasts and books and audio books and all that kind of stuff and other business owners, things like that. Just have, have the conversation and start talking and listening to people. Yeah. Yeah. I can, you're a really good leader. I started reading his book on leadership. The Leader's Eat Last. Leader's Eat Last. I finished that for the third time like a week ago.

Really? It's so good. Oh, so I love it. Like I'm just the start of it and I've already learned something. Yeah. That's so true. And I've worked for people before and it has felt the complete opposite and that respect and that loyalty doesn't really remain there and it is just because maybe they don't care as much. And yeah, so I, yeah, I just, I don't care as much, but then they like, they move away from what they, why they're doing what they're doing and they forget it, which is easy. Like it's an easy thing to do.

So it's, it's important that you check yourself. I love that, that premise that like in the Marines, the, they always let the younger guys eat first, which is just, yeah, that's counterintuitive. But then when you think about it, well, if all of those guys are fed first, then yeah, the whole organization is going to move together as a team. Well, that's it because everyone is equal. Like you're all there for that same reason. And just because you might be at the top of it doesn't mean that, you know, it shouldn't be just as important to everyone else.

Um, yeah, I think he's great. I've picked up on your, your whys. Amazing. Yeah. That like, that's a word that I'll continue to use like daily. What is our why? Why? Why are we doing this? And then everything moves forward. Yeah. I got a bunch of questions for you. You can be as succinct or as rambly as you would like. What advice would you give a 15 year old version of yourself? To find a why. Awesome. I never had a why. I just thought, okay, this is what I'm doing. So I would say, ask yourself why.

Did you, do you think you thought you knew why you were doing it back then? Um, I don't think I actually stopped and reflected why. I think I just, just did it because everyone said that that's what I was going to do. Yep. Um, and then when I started asking why, I started changing. That's cool. Yeah. That's awesome. If money wasn't an issue or if you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do with, with your life? Oh, exactly what I'm doing right now. Best answer ever. That's so cool because then there's no regrets because you're just chasing the stuff you want to do.

I like, I don't think that money is ever a limitation of anything. Actually, I need to tell you one story. So I kind of blanked this off, but after I finished my event course and through all these things I was like, Oh, I want to do my own event. I did the coach couch and so I started kind of similar to this, but in a live event space. So I would interview an inspiring person and they would tell me their story and to a live audience was really fun and I liked the whole, like everything, like organizing all the little things.

I just liked it. Um, anyway, and so for the last one we did, I interviewed Molly Meldrum and I had to put, he was going to cost me for one hour, $6,000 plus GSD, so $6,600 and I was, I was renting, had no money. And I was like, Oh man, I really want him. And originally he'd said he was $12,000 and I emailed back $6,000 and he said yes. I was like, Oh no, she said four, three, she said two. Anyway, so I had to put a deposit down on him and I had $3,000 like I think it was maybe like $800 in the bank.

And the only reason that I had this extra thousand dollars is someone had kicked my side mirror in and my insurance money had come through. So I had this extra money in my account and I was like, you know what, I'm going to do it. So I transferred $3,300 to Molly Meldrum, probably didn't even need my money. And I, uh, I lived on the rest of my money for the next few weeks. Um, and then I had to sell tickets cause I had to make the money back because otherwise I was screwed. So I did

everything in my power and the thing is that I've always found, I love taking risks because every time I do it, I make it happen. There's no option. I have to do it. You realize how, when you have to do it, you realize how hard you can actually work, how focused you can actually be. Oh, I was like constantly tireless. Anyway, on the night at the end, we counted the tickets, all the ticket sales came in. We made $6,612. That's the best. That is an amazing story. I made $12. Yeah, but what'd you use that $12 on?

Probably like some of the decorations. That's really cool. Bravo. Yeah. That's a rad story. If you could be remembered in one sentence, what would it be? Um, oh no, that's not a bad one. Remembering in one sentence. Um, ah, I'm trying to think of something really creative and awesome, but I think that, I think I just want to be remembered as a good person. Perfect. I think that's it. Nothing wrong with that. I just, I want people just to go, "Oh, Alana was so kind," and then just tell great stories about my life. Perfect. Who do you look up to and why?

Oh, who do I look up to and why? Um, hmm, who do I look up to? God, I actually don't know right now. What have I been like, like at the moment I'm going through a sinus enoch phase, so I am definitely looking up to him, but I think that for a long time I had a lot of idols and people that I was like, yeah, I want to be you, but I don't think that I have one at the moment. Cool. Then you realize they're just people too. Yeah. I think so. Like there's definitely

people who inspire me and that I'd like, I'll sit in my car and listen to them talk and I really love it and I learn a lot from it and I feel like they give me lots of insight, but I don't think there's one person in particular that I admire right now. Cool. I've stolen this question from one of the guys I've interviewed a couple of times, Ed, from the Human Happiness Project. Ooh. What is happiness to you? Oh, what is happiness to me? Happiness is, um, do you mean as in like, how would I describe happiness?

To you. To me, um, happiness is walks with my dog and, um, just talking about innovative ideas with my boyfriend. That makes me really happy. We love those conversations, but I think the number one thing for me is like, is just feeling really excited about what I do. That makes me really happy. But that's, yeah, it's an interesting question. What is happiness to me? Yeah. There's so many things that made me happy and like have all these like little pictures going on in my mind. Hmm. I like it. What are you most proud of? Um, I think that, I think that I'm proud of how resourceful I can be sometimes.

I think that makes me proud. Yeah. I think, um, do you mean like proud about my, of myself? Yeah. What makes me proud of myself? Yeah. Oh, that's a really nice question. I always, I always tell my students, Mike, you have to like write down three things that you like about yourself because they always talk about things that they don't like. Yeah. I think that I like that somehow I, I feel like I have, um, I think someone, someone told me that's that I had a really high emotional quota and I liked that. That's cool. Um, and so I think that's maybe one of the things that I'm proud about myself.

Perfect. Because yeah, a lot of, a lot of people that I connect with seem to just open up and tell me about their life and um, I'm always there to listen. It's a very powerful thing to have. Yeah. That's cool. Flip side. What are you most ashamed of? Um, I, my God, what am I ashamed of? It's an interesting question. It is an interesting one. It makes you think, um, I'm ashamed that, well, I've recently turned vegan and I'm ashamed sometimes that I still have a little bit of the wallet. One of my mates calls himself 99% vegan because he has a leather belt.

Play on. There you go. There you go. I like that. Are you like, I'm going to delete this whole podcast? Yeah. Maybe. No, not at all. Everyone can do what they want. As long as they don't hurt other people. I agree. I agree. If you could give everyone in the world one personality trait, what would it be? Hm, if I could give them all one personality trait, kindness. Kindness is magic. Yeah. Kindness is magic. What are the first three things that come into your head, what are you grateful for? I am grateful for, I'm grateful for my boyfriend.

I love him. Shout out. Yeah. Shout out. He's the best. Um, I'm grateful for my family. So grateful for my family, like my extended family, all of them. And I am, I'm grateful that I am able to say that I love my job. That's huge. And I'm grateful, sorry for the same thing, but I'm grateful that when, you know, when you're at a dinner party and everyone's talking about their life, I'm grateful that I actually want to talk about what I do. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes when people don't, I go, what do you mean? Yeah. Tell me.

Yeah. It's something that like I struggle with people that don't have something they're passionate about or, or at least don't want to chase and find it because like, by all means you don't have to know what you want to be doing or what your why is to borrow from old mate. But if you're not throwing yourself out there and trying much different stuff, you're probably never going to know. Yeah. And that would scare the shit out of me. It's so true. It's like when people say I'm not creative. I think everyone's creative in their own way and yeah, you've got to find those things because usually they make you excited and how sad if you don't get excited every day.

Yeah. Creativity comes out when you find something you're passionate about. Yeah. Cool. Absolutely. If you could invite three people to dinner, dead or alive, who would they be? Hmm. Okay. So I think that I have to invite Taylor Swift because I just want to know what the hell's going on. Like what is she doing with her life? Um, okay. I have to invite Elon Musk because I just want to sit inside his brain for a while. Um, I haven't, but it's sitting there ready for me to read. I'm ready. Game changer. Yeah. I've heard it's really good.

Um, and you know what? I think that I would invite Richard Branson because I just think he's a legend. Have you read his books? Yeah. And I, you know what? I want to be, I actually want him to return the favorite and I want him to, oh nice. I want him to invite me to the, the Island. Oh, that'd be amazing. Yeah. So yeah, it's basically just for a return invitation. Two of those three, I would love to have it at a dinner party. Yeah. So like Taylor Swift's obviously like 15 year old Alana still sitting inside me.

Yeah. But yeah, I'm just confused. That'd be interesting. Yeah. And you know what? I'm really intrigued because I think that Taylor Swift is a really amazing marketer and I just want to know like what she thinks. I think it's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be really interesting. Everything she does, it's so well thought out and yeah, it's very strategic and I just would love to know what it was like, how it would feel to actually have to live your life like that because maybe that's her. Yeah. No, I don't think so. No, I'm not. I'm not sold.

I don't think I'm up to date with what's going on in Tay Tay's life as much as I should. Man, I'm up to date with so much stuff I shouldn't do because I like work with teenagers every day. So you're just hearing from them. Yeah. So what's Taylor down there? Oh my God. Yeah. So I'm, I'm up to date with all the things. All right. A couple of favorites to finish off. Okay. Favorite book. My favorite book. Do you know that? My favorite. I actually loved Girlboss by Sofia Amoroso and I think it was more just the girl power in me.

That's cool. Yeah. But that was, that was an inspiring book for me cause she built something so huge from nothing. I love stories like that, but I do have a lot of favorite books. Yeah. Cool. One will do. Yeah. Favorite podcast. Okay. So obviously Virtus. Stop it. And how I built this. Awesome. Yeah. I remember you telling me about what I would say to Guy Raz every time I said that before, but it's in my podcast. It's in my like subscribe podcast, but I've never listened to it. It's been there for probably 18 months. Yeah. I love it.

I think that the interview is some really interesting people and I'll learn a lot from it. Just the stories. They're cool. That's awesome. Favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon at the beach. Yeah. Just, I don't know, just being outside, being with nature, like turning everything off and just completely being relaxed. I think it's good. Perfect segue. Favorite way to disconnect. Yeah. Yeah. Probably that. Awesome. Yeah. I think that I try hard to disconnect as much as I can on the weekend, but Sunday's a good day. Yeah. Yeah. Favorite TV show. Oh, favorite TV show. I don't really watch TV.

Cool. Yeah. Like I sometimes watch Netflix. They're series. Throw one at me. Well recently I just watched The Sinners. Have you watched it? Have you watched it? Oh my God. It's just epic. My head. But yeah, I don't, the only time I really watch stuff is just to tune out for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really that big on TV. Cool. Favorite advice you've ever been given. That whenever anyone is angry, they're just sad. Oh. Yeah. I love that advice because I think that sometimes we are really emotional. Yeah. Yeah. I think you just got to go, you know what?

They're upset about something. Let's work out what it is. That's cool. Favorite advice you've ever given or favorite piece of advice that you give to your students? I guess it depends, but I'm constantly giving them advice on like, on setting goals. I really believe in goal setting. Awesome. Like it's, you know, if you, you know, if you, I don't know, you say I drive a Jeep, right? I bought my Jeep, I realized how everyone else, there's so many Jeeps on the road. I was like, I've never seen this before. And I think it's the same

thing with setting your goals that once you actually write it down and you envision it, then you start seeing all the little ways that you can get it. So I'm, yeah, I'm all about telling them to set goals. Perfect. Last one. Favorite quote? I don't know. Favorite quote that I remember. Hmm. I don't know. It's my favorite quote. I love quotes as well. Come on. You're like putting on the spot. I'm trying to think of an epic one. That one by Richard Branson, how he says that businesses are like buses and there's a new one around every corner.

Good. I like that one. That's cool. That's a cool one. There's always opportunities everywhere. Definitely. That's huge. So if people want to get around Coach Music and sing it out, how can they do that? They can check us out online. Yeah. Well, my websites are coachmusicacademy.com.au, follow us on Instagram. And if you know, you work at a school, you know someone who does, we really want to bring the Sing It Out tour around Australia next year. So yeah. Hit us up. You'll have to bring us 10 betas at some point. We will. We'll have a big concert in the factory.

Yes. That'd be awesome. Very amazing. Thank you very much. Thank you.