S1E46 · 15 Minute Thoughts with Tommy Tee and Simon Cooper

Hey legends, welcome to yet another week of the Virtus Performance Podcast. Before we get stuck into today's episode, I'd like you to do a quick something for me. Grab your right hand, reach it over the back of your left shoulder, and give yourself a little pat on the back for listening to the Virtus Podcast. I really appreciate all of the time and effort you guys put into listening to, replying to stuff, to talking about the issues we talk about, to sharing your experiences and sharing the podcast with the people you love, and if you don't

like the podcast with the people you hate, I really, really appreciate it and really look forward to continuing to grow our community and the amazing listeners we have. Today's episode is a little bit different, I've got a couple of the boys who, if you've listened to most of the episodes, you'll have already met. We've got Tommy T and Simon Cooper in to do a bit of a discussion, a bit of a think tank around a few topics we've all thought up. The kicker is we've got 15 minutes to talk about a topic, and as soon as the timer goes, as soon as 15 minutes is up, we move on to the next one.

We each don't know what the topics are that the others have brought in. We've put them all in a hat, we've put them all in a Virtus beanie, which are available for $19.99 if your ears are getting a little cold, because it is getting a little nippy-er. So we're going to pick those out, we're going to have a crack at discussing an issue or a question or a topic and kind of see where it leads us. So hope you guys have fun, we certainly did, enjoy. 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. - Lads, welcome back! - Thank you very much. - Thanks. - Great start. How many times have you been on CUBE? - This is my... fourth, I think? - Good, good, Tommy. - Third. - Good, well you'd think you'd be fucking better at, like, saying hello. - By now, I froze. - It happens, it happens. Alright, so obviously the format for today is a little bit different.

We're going to pull out a topic or a question out of the hat and we're all going to talk about it for 15 minutes. We have a timer sitting in the middle of the table ready to go. So the first topic we're going to talk about, boys, is... They're all stuck together because we use post-it notes, good thinking. Social media and its relevance and impact on us and society. - Go. - What a kicker I want to start with. - What a question. - So this is my topic. And I just wanted to, I guess, discuss the impact that social media has on our personal lives.

We're all quite involved in social media through business as well. So I think particularly it's relevant for us. And how it affects and how it carries over to the people that we interact with. I think the way I look at social media is it's a two-pronged fork or a double-edged sword, if you will. - A two-pronged fork, what? - It's like one of those really bad forks having two prongs. But it's something that, whether it's good, bad or indifferent, depends entirely on how we look at it, right? Like, I look at social media as an incredible tool to, one, connect with clients, people.

Like, this podcast will be shared on social media. So hopefully this conversation is something that, talking about social media, we can share on social media and talk about it over social media. My head just exploded a little bit. So if I look at it as, okay, it's a tool to connect, so tick. Or if I look at it as, well, I'm going to spend my time on social media rather than connecting, I'm just going to look at other people and use it as something to compare myself to and follow, I guess, accounts that are maybe

totally unrealistic and out of my reach and it's going to make me feel worse about myself, then I'm going to have a negative reaction to it, right? So I think your mindset, and the word we use a lot is intention. What is your intention for using social media? And are you actively following that intention or are you drifting back into the just scrolling mindset? I think you definitely hit the nail on the head with, you use social media to connect rather than connect through social media. Yeah. Here's the thing, right? Like, I think if, like,

I'm probably going to post on social media, like, four or five times a day today because I've got obviously the podcast Instagram, Facebook, my Instagram, Jet Ziggy Johnson, which is probably the best Instagram page going around, the Virtus one, like, and, you know, Tommy manages a bunch of social media accounts, right? So, yes, I'm going to be posting on social media today and I can decide, I can have the intention of posting and then leaving it or I can scroll, right? When I scroll, that's when social media becomes a bad thing and becomes a negative thing because I'm just basically wasting my time, more or less.

Like, yes, I might find one or two posts that I'll screenshot and go, yep, I'm going to, like, this is something that I guess resonates with me or that I can learn from. But if I just sit there and scroll, then, yeah, I'm wasting my time. And, like, I've put a couple of measures in place that Tommy laughs at regularly to stop me from doing that, right? Yeah. But, like, when you... What kind of things have you done? You've changed your phone to black and white. You've done a bunch of good things to try and stop yourself.

Turning off notifications, which is frustrating when you need to get contact with you, but if it's urgent enough, you can find you using it in gym. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, like, I think all of us are probably looking at it from both sides now, as users and, I don't know, the pushers of content. So, like, looking at it, I think I'm actively starting to think as a pusher of content for a few things now, what am I saying? Is it always positive? Is it always... If someone scrolls across it, is it going to be a good thing that they've done that?

Yeah. Like, I've often thought... And we, early on at Common Vogue, we were trying to sell a lot, and we found that that was wrong. It doesn't work. Selling a product, selling a thing, actually isn't what people want to see. They want to find a culture, they want to find a story, they want to, like, feel immoral. They want to change your own content. Like, I think social media now is, like, a way to be a part of something when you can't actually be there. Ooh, that's good. So, if you can think about it in that respect of, like, being inclusive and trying to get people involved in the culture or the thing.

So, if it's Virtus, if it's Common Vogue, my idea is to share that culture and what it's like to be in the building at those places with those people through Instagram. Instagram, especially for me, like, I dabble in Facebook for Common Vogue, but I think it's a different game. I think you can do more of that kind of long form. You can do more of the sell, you can do those kind of things. But I think, if we're talking about Instagram, especially, it's creating culture and a story and a vibe. Yeah, good. I like that. And identity.

Yeah, communicate your identity to people. And identity is built up of your culture, the values and beliefs that make each brand or each business what it is. And it's also a way to, I guess, communicate who is part of that brand and who is part of that identity. So, you'll see people who are regularly in Common Vogue and Virtus appear on our social media for the fact that they are there. Yeah, you're in the building, you're going to get shot. Taken photo op. - Photo op. - Yeah. - Shit. - Yeah. I look at social

media as, okay, what our role, and like, it's a role, but our responsibility for Virtus, as Virtus, is, I think, to add value to the people who follow it. So, and to tell a story, right? So, the telling a story can come in, here's the stuff we go through, here's the stuff we've been through, here's the cool stuff that's happening. The adding value can be something as simple as, like, a little post about being better or a little post about getting, like, never missing a Monday, getting up out of bed in the morning. It can be a post about sharing one of our tryouts which is going to help other people.

It's us being valuable, vulnerable to the things that we suck at or the things that we fall down at so that people can learn from it. Or it might be, you know, technique Tuesdays and throwing out a way to mow a certain way or I think if we can put, because I'm a big believer there's no secrets, anyway. Like, if you want to find, like, if I want to study, like, endocrinology, I can jump on Google and find out more than what's in the course, but I'm probably not going to do that. So, there's no secrets, right?

So, I'm a big believer that we should put out all the good stuff we're doing and all the things where you feel as though it can add value to people's lives because it's going to help them learn and understand what we do better, which adds value to us down the track, right? Because we've got more people listening to us and buying into our message and buying into, I guess, the importance of doing the little things every day and, you know, constant improvement. - Yeah. - Things like that. - It's true. - What do you guys think of the, I don't know, authenticity of social media?

It's probably one for me. I think it's getting easier to see the real ones, like, more and more. - You can call out who's not pushing out genuine content. - Right, yeah. And I think it's flipped now. So, I think Instagram and Facebook, mostly Instagram, though, is now the new word of mouth. Like, if you're doing something, you're going to a place, you're using a product, you're talking about something, it's because you genuinely believe it. - Yeah. - Like, there's a lot of paid endorsements and those kind of things, but I think, genuinely, if you trust the content that that person's producing and that authenticity of the person...

- Well, they've brought in rules about having to say that it's a paid endorsement, right? - Yeah, there's a lot of, like, things changing the algorithm and those kind of things. So, you're actually getting content that is organically produced. - If you could make a chronological Instagram, that would be fucking amazing. - That would be lovely. - That's one of the biggest things about social media and Instagram in particular, I guess, is building a brand, whether it's your own personal brand or whether it's a business or an organisation, that people trust. That's the thing. - It's really easy for you, right?

- Because all of us are trying to run a business through Instagram, essentially. - Yeah. - So, we've got to straddle that line of, like, do we want to just go sell and be that, like, fake, go down the dark side? Or do we want to go the hard half and be trustworthy, be the authority, be that person that people want to engage with and, therefore, want the product or the service that we're selling? - Yeah. Well, I changed my...the other day, it might have been a couple of weeks ago, who knows? I changed my little profile thingy on Instagram to, "This is my life, curated for Instagram."

Because I think...and every double tap gives me a hit of dopamine, which is true. Because I think, like, yeah, I try and be as raw and as vulnerable as I can on social media because that's me, like, as simple as that. But so many people don't put out how they're actually feeling or what they're actually doing or the photo they've done is, you know, the 30th photo they've taken or the 100th photo they've taken or whatever. And I recorded a little video yesterday of...for my website, luckywelles.com, if you haven't been on it already, for my website, that I wanted to just have, like, a 30- to 60-second me explaining what my intention for the video was.

I put a photo up the other day, which was, like, each of the different takes I'd had beforehand, and it's, like, eight seconds, six seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, when I'm fucked up, right? And I put on it, and I'm like, "This is how Instagram works. People will spend half an hour putting together a 60-second piece of content, and me included, and try and pass it off as, "This is the real world. This is real life." But I want to show the shit stuff, right? Like, everyone posts puppy photos, and this is Matt Church's words, but no one shows the dog shitting on the bed.

- Yeah, that's real world. - Yeah, that's real world stuff. - And people are, when it comes back to, like, curating what you put out there, people see all these happy, glamorous pages. But that's not what life is. - Yeah, one of the big celebrities in the U.S. got called out for taking pictures of him on a private jet when it was just a rental. And it was, like, saying, like, "Back on my jet," and stuff like that. And it's, like, you don't need to, like, just be genuine. Just be you, and let your story, and showing your journey be the thing that helps you grow, like, whatever your intention is, right?

Grow followers, or spread your message, or to make cash from selling detox drinks, and whatever. Like, whatever your intention is, do that, and don't try and pretend to be something you're not. Because if you follow that thought process, you'll always get found out. I think that goes for not just social media, but everything in life. If you don't...like, genuine, honest, truthful things always shine through. It just might take a little while. And, yeah, I think everyone is becoming a little bit more aware, like you said, of realizing, "You know what? Maybe this chick isn't in Thailand every day of the year.

Maybe she just went for seven days, and still posting about it six months later." I'm like, yeah. Like, I get, like, posting memories and stuff, by all means, but when the intention isn't, like, is to trick or deceive your followers as to what you're actually doing, that's where it can get into a bit of trouble. - Yeah. And I think, because my Instagram definitely looks like that sometimes, like, the photos I post are travel photos, but I don't post regularly, then, like, you flip it to my story, and it's just chaos. - It's just, who knows?

It's just, what is happening that day. - On the story, like, we probably don't have much time left, but do you guys use Snapchat? Because I don't use Snapchat. - I don't use Snapchat anymore. - There we go. - I have no need to not share that with everyone. Like, if it's...I don't really have a problem. Sometimes I might send you something that's inappropriate, because, yeah, yeah. It's probably not right for everyone, but usually it's, like, if I'm sharing this, it's what I used to have shared on Instagram before I kind of kept that, the just professional photography stuff, I guess.

- Yeah. - It's now the story is the place for that, to be a bit more honest, and yourself, where do you see Snapchat? You shouldn't take time working on the story. It should be just, like, this is crap. This is just, like, a quick memory. - This is my life. Deal with it. - Yeah. - Where do you think social media is going? Do you think it'll be two big players, Instagram and Facebook, driving forward for the next 10, 20 years? Or do you think, like, do you think YouTube will add some stuff to it?

Like, obviously, there's a bunch of new social medias popping up at the moment. And Joe Rogan posted that he jumped on one the other day. And Ari Shafir, like, I just, like, literally spat my water out because it was so funny. And he said, "Awesome, you've got another reason to not spend time with your wife and daughters." Savage as fuck, but, like, he raises a good point, right? - Yeah. - Like, what, like, there's more social medias popping up every day. Some of them will jump, some of them will grab, some of them won't. Like, Twitter seemingly is dying, maybe.

Maybe it's just my circle that is dying, but... - Yeah. - Yeah, where do you think it's going? - I don't think it's going anywhere. I think it's going to morph and change. Yeah. - I think YouTube will do something to compete with Instagram and Facebook. - Yeah. - To post more, or should I say less curated work. So rather than spending a couple of hours on posting a video, they'll push out something that is more day-to-day. - More instantaneous. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's interesting. I honestly don't know where it's going. I don't think it's going to disappear, though.

I think it's here to stay. - Yeah, I don't, yeah, definitely. - I think it's up to us to manage how we use it and how we, like, let it control us. - Yeah. - To some degree. - Yeah. - Like, you can complain about what you want about social media, but, like, you literally have your phone in your hand, you can put it down. - Nothing. Nothing better than people complaining about social media on social media. It's like, well, how about we celebrate the good parts of it and then be aware of the bad parts.

- There's so many good things in social media you can do. - Yeah. - There's so many great things. - Yeah, like, I'll be away for six weeks. - Oh. - Like, I'll be well and truly into my trip when this comes out. Like, I'll be able to communicate with all you guys along the way, which is good and bad. Good and bad. But there'll be days where I, like, don't take my phone on a hike or whatever. - Always being mindful of your use. Like, you know that you're away, so time and place to be on your phone.

- Yeah. And I know that I get sucked into being on there and scrolling. So, like Tommy said before, like, gray-scaled my phone for a week because then the pretty pictures don't look like pretty pictures anymore. I have my notifications off 24 hours a day. - Yeah. - So, you know, all those ones and threes and sixes and all the numbers in that little red bubble on your iPhone. Oh, we're done. Topic one, done. See you later. - It's been fun. - How good's the duck? - It's been nice. - All right, next topic. Good. It's ready to go.

Ooh, good. All right. How would you rate your time management out of 10? And what are you doing or what can you do to improve? - That was me because I'm horrible at time management. I know this and I keep trying to do things, so it's more like... - You're aware of it, right? - I'm trying to get you guys to help me. - Yeah, good. - I just... I know if I've got tasks to do and I can tick a box, I really like that. But the process of getting that down onto paper or onto an app or something or those kind of things, I find myself just floating and doing 60% of something and 70% of something.

And then, can you just finish one thing and then move to the next thing? And it's frustrating yourself because you feel like you're being inefficient. - Yeah, and then you get anxious about being inefficient and then you don't do as much work because you're anxious about being inefficient. - This brain space is full of like, "I still need to finish that and I still need to finish that and finish this." There's all these little things just floating in your head, which you could have just removed by being better at time management, I think. - It's a really, really good question and I think it's probably a lot.

- What would you rate yours out of 10? - Mine is like, I'm generously a six. - Okay. You can't say seven. - Who? - Uh, I reckon I'm an eight. I don't think my, for me, it's not the time management that's the issue. I think it's more, I'll put it down to discipline and actually having the discipline to, if I've got, if I've blocked out some time in my day to do something, I need to have the discipline to actually sit down and do it rather than procrastinating by either doing something else or wasting time.

- Procrastination is just poor time management though because you're not actually, but then it's discipline around time management. So yeah, it's fun. - Discipline and putting it as a priority. So if it's not a priority to you, you're not going to put an emphasis on actually completing it. - Yeah. - So for example, if my, I'm studying at the moment and if I don't put that as a priority and I put cleaning my car as more a priority over my study, which obviously it isn't, then what am I going to do? I'm going to clean my car and I can get the study done.

So for me, it's just, for me, I've set up a framework or a timetable for my week. I've blacked out times to do certain tasks and then, or blacked out time to sit down and say, do some marketing for this and then I'll take off tasks that I want to do within that sort of category. And for me, it's just having the discipline to sit down and stop chatting with other people and get off my phone and just do it. - Yeah. I like that. So I'm like a four, I think. I reckon I'm a four for time management.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but I have, and maybe I need to reassess my expectations around what I'm actually going to be able to get done in the time because Ray Dalio said, quoting one of his books was, in his book Principles was, everything will always cost more money and take longer than you expect. And I really struggle with that because I have a thousand things going on in my head at once and I want to execute all of them all at once. And I think that's when my time management drops down because I don't properly grasp how long or how many resources something will take.

So a new project that I present to the team today, I expect it to be done next week. Like part of me knows that it's not going to be done, but part of me is like, why the fuck not? Let's get to it. Let's get to work. But obviously the importance of that project doesn't stop the rest of life from happening. Just because you want to get one thing done doesn't mean I don't have to put out of bins and have dinner with KP and do all those other things and do a podcast and do all those other things.

Life doesn't stop when you want to do stuff. And yeah, so I think lately as my role is kind of changing a bit, I'm spending more time on the business, I need to be more aware of my time management, but I'm less aware of it because I don't have the hours booked out in my timetable with clients like I normally would. Yeah. So it's very easy to schedule an hour to run a session. Yeah, exactly. So I've been trying to identify, okay, what are my key tasks this week? Okay, so this is strategy or this is culture or whatever that I actually put in office time strategy in my calendar.

And I'm the worst for bouncing around between apps, like productivity apps and list apps and time management apps. I suck because I try and go all in at once and go, yes, this is going to change my life. And I realized two weeks later that I probably went too hard with that and it fell down because I tried to put everything in at once. Yeah. We've talked about this at Common Vogue. It's similar to different, so talking about find the process first organically and analog and then find something that fits that as opposed to trying to fit your process into an app that already exists that doesn't quite fit.

Yeah. Because all you're going to do is just get sick of it and just throw it in. And that's what I've done. The amount of apps I would have been through in the last 18 months would be ridiculous. And now I'm just like, all right, so these are the three things I'm going to work on, moving everything across one thing at a time. So for example, my diary is currently through MindBody, which is our booking software. But I want to start moving that diary to Google Calendar so that it's there and available for everyone to see all the time.

Trello for our project management, that's something that we've tried like three times to get moving. But then I realized, well, maybe we don't need the whole team on it. We just start with a little, a couple of team members on it. And if I can get across both of those, then I'll keep adding all of our meetings and things like that to Google Docs so that everyone can check it. So then those three things are ticked off and covered, but I'm not going to be trying to do 18 different things at once and trying to do it all at once.

One of the things that I've found has helped is just blocking time. So rather than checking my emails 46 times a day, I'm blocking out half an hour in the morning to go, "This is email time." If I get an email later in the day and it's not important or it's not a priority, then I don't run back to it. Like if it pops up, which it doesn't happen on my phone because I don't have my notifications on, right? But it pops up on my laptop, and like Coop said, prioritize all the things you've got to do.

One of the things I used to do when I had a heap of stuff that was kind of important, but not really. I'd prioritize everything out of 10, so 10 being top priority, and then I'd prioritize its urgency as well. So it might be a 10 and a six or a 10 and a two, whatever. "Yeah, this is really important, but I've got three months to do it." Or, "Yeah, this is really important. Shit, it's going to be done tonight. Let's get it done." Yeah, I found that was the best thing for me to do, and it stopped me from floating.

And then if I was putting in half an hour to read, or half an hour to watch Netflix or whatever, then I'd block that time out, and that's what it's been my time doing. So that's the other thing as well. So you're booking time to actually complete tasks, but you're also booking that time to have a break. Yeah. Like you can't always beat without this because naturally you're going to crave some downtime. Yeah. What's downtime? Lucky potatoes. Lucky potatoes. Look, I sat down in the chair in the office yesterday, and Bec goes, "I've never seen you sit."

And like, that burned a little bit, because I needed... You're getting better. Definitely getting better. Appreciate it. But downtime can be whatever you want it to be. Downtime can be training the gym, or downtime can be like going out for a lunch meeting with someone. You can still be getting stuff done without being sitting at your desk, so to speak, just banging out work. Yeah, I like that. But then you need to have the awareness and discipline to say, "This email can wait. I need to give myself half an hour off because I've blocked it."

I'm sure you guys have been through the same thing, but I had a two-hour period last week where I was feeling tired, and I had two hours blocked out later in the day, I said, "Just make sure I take this time off to not worry about all the stuff we've been talking about for the last 24 hours." And I got to that time, I said, "I know I said this. I know I said this, but I'm going to spend another hour working, then I'm going to spend the next hour not working." And I got to the hour, and I said, "I know I said this, but I'm going to go train because I feel like I need to train."

And I decided to move that downtime from Netflix or nap time to going to train, and realized later that night that, "Yeah, I probably should have just chilled the fuck out because I was properly cactus." But then it's, "Okay, now that I know better, next time I'll hopefully I'll do better." So you find yourself floating, is it because you've got so many things pulling you in different directions to do it? Yeah. So I work across a bunch of different departments, so it's lots of different types of work. Sometimes it's creative design stuff, sometimes it's business stuff, sometimes it's just communication and admin stuff, so they all have their own deadlines, their own kind of urgencies like you were saying.

So for me, the best thing so far has been giving realistic deadlines as opposed to, "I can do that tomorrow because I could," if there was nothing else on my plate. Which is why I would say tomorrow. Whereas now it's like, "I could do it tomorrow, I could do it by the end of the week, but I'm going to say two weeks." And being way more realistic. So Hobs is really good at this, he was saying, "Why are you going to set a deadline that you know you're not going to achieve, or it's going to kill you to achieve it?

What's the point?" Because you're setting yourself up for failure, and you're going to continually fail, and it's going to have a negative impact on you. So set a realistic, even if it's longer than you need, set that, work to it actively and make sure that you achieve it by that. So that's been really helpful. But does that give you like uni syndrome, where you've got something due in 12 weeks and you wait 12 weeks to do it and do it the night before? No, because you can't really not do any work. So you just move something else into that spot?

Yeah, totally. And things pop up all the time, and you've got to be realistic. So I had a B label needed to be designed that day, so I pushed everything, I said to Sam, I'm like, "Alright, you've got my list here, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, this is the priority list, re-organise it, tell me what's more important." Because that's what I've got to work on. I can only do so much, I can't do it all because I'm doing overtime. Tell me what's most important. Exactly. Tell me what you need now, and I'll work on that first.

And sometimes it's that simple, like, I very much need to have it down somewhere. Do you have one place where you write everything, because that's where I get stuck. And that's fair. And I've noticed that you've been very good at setting your intention at the start of the day. You have five things, and that's something I'm starting to implement. Because I just see, first, how valuable that can be, being able to just go massive cross through it. Feels good! How much does that feel? Better than a like on Instagram, that feeling. Great. So you're giving yourself that little bit of accomplishment, and, yeah, I did something today.

Even if they're just little wins. Yeah. But the thousand little wins will be better than one big win. How good is a day of three little wins where you complete something to 100%, as opposed to a day where you don't actually complete anything, you're like, "Oh, I did so much today with nothing." You're doing 20% of 30 things, yeah. And for those that aren't aware, the five things is basically at the start of your days, when you wake up, or when you're having your coffee, or when you're on the shitter, it doesn't really matter, write down the five things that you most need to get done that day.

For example, it might be really simple, like, "Okay, I want to connect with everyone in my meetings. I need to finish this project I was doing. I need to finish this beer label. I need to make sure I finish work by six o'clock so I can get home on time." And whatever those five things are, they're the five most important things, because you'll write down the five things that are front of mind and that you're ready to do. And one thing I've found is, if you don't get it done that day, it doesn't matter, you write it down the next day, but then you might have something that lingers for three days.

Is that actually... And then you go, "Maybe that's not that important. Can I delegate it? If yes, delegate it. If no, then okay, I'll put it on the back burner, and I'll do it when it needs to be done." Or am I neglecting something that is important, and often it would be something like you might put on there downtime, and then you'll skip it. So if you're continually skipping that, you need to probably give yourself down. But then I look back at the end of the day, and I'm like, "Oh, sorry, I now picked five."

I look back at the end of the day and it was 23rd of the second was train well, was plan for a capacity for our group and one-on-one stuff, sort out my car, clean it, plan our induction process, email for the small business awards, and finish a podcast, and my design stuff for the podcast. And I ticked off three of them, ticked off three of them, felt good, did one of the easy ones first, because I wasn't up and about that day. And then the next day, ticked off the ones that I missed the day before.

So it doesn't have to be, you don't have to, consistency always beats intensity. So you don't have to destroy one thing one day and then go, "Oh, I'll cook for the next three days." Tick off one thing every two days, or three things every two days, and then you're gonna get further forward than you want to be. "How do you climb a mountain? One step at a time. Put that on the wall. That's good." So true though. You see the big project, you see the big goal, and that's you because you're very, very goal-driven. You've

got big dreams for Virtus, so it must be hard to stop and find a bite-sized task that you can just do now, easily, and you just let that- Leaning on the people around me is a big one. Understanding, okay, our vision's our vision, which is just to make the world a better place. What's the strategy to do that? How are we gonna do that? Then for the strategy, what are the goals that are gonna get us to that strategy? What are the projects we need to do to get to those goals? What's the data we

need to look at to check that the projects that we're ticking the boxes for the projects, and then what are the daily tasks we need to do to keep moving forward? It is hard to break that down. That's hard. It's taken me two and a half years to kind of be aware of that. It's so simple because they feed into each other. You complete three little daily tasks, and then that feeds into the weekly goal, which feeds into the monthly strategy, and it just somehow happens. Yeah, I hate more than people saying, "I could never run a marathon," or, "I could never do that."

Okay, well, cool. Get off the couch. Go for a walk. Step one. Yeah. Tomorrow, go for a longer walk. Day after, go for a longer walk. Day after, have a rest, 'cause you probably need some chill-out time. Day after that, go for a little run, run walk. Next thing you know, you're running 2Ks, 5Ks, 8Ks, 10Ks. Then next thing you know, you're running 20Ks a week, 30Ks a week, 40Ks a week. I was going to ask a really good question there as well. It's alright. It's over. Let's watch it. The duck has spoken. It's no accident that I keep talking at the end of each one, so I apologize for that, because I think I'm talking too much.

That's good. It's you. All right. Next one. I hope we get one of mine. No, I don't. Ah, good. Damn it. This is the one I was hoping for next. All right. This one's about how do we figure out our purpose, how do we figure out what we should be doing and what we want and what our 'why' is, because I see the reason I wrote this question now is because I see a lot of indecision around me. I see a lot of people, KP, being able to decide what's for dinner is a really, really important one.

Just tell me what you want to eat, all right? Tacos every night, KP. Come on. Basically. So I see a lot of people got that idea about what they want and they mention, "Oh, I might want to do this," but they never take action because they're so indecisive around executing on it. How do we figure out what our purpose is? So that indecision one is really interesting because it was Coach Cam who said to me the other day that one of his goals moving forward is to be more decisive. So I think what Greg gave

me was Greg offered him half of his chocolate bar leave and then a finish and Cam's like, "Well, yeah, if you don't want it," but Greg's like, "I'm offering it to you. Do you want it or not?" And Greg's like, "Well, yeah, I suppose I do." And Greg's like, "Say yes or no right now, I mean, okay, yeah." That's good. That's perfect. But yeah. That happens daily. Daily, daily, daily. So just be decisive, choose something and then just do it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm big on having a crack, making a decision and dealing with the consequences later.

It might not be the right decision, okay, but fix it. Learn from it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Sometimes the biggest, the worst thing you can do is inaction, the biggest cost of anything is inaction because you actually don't move forward and you stay in the same spot. What's your purpose, Tommy? Mine is making others better, but I think, well, that's a bit you're aware of that, right? Yeah. And so... How did you get to that point of going, "This is... This is..." It was a struggle. It's not easy. And we talked about this in my podcast as well.

Just, I'm in coffee at the moment, but I don't like, that's not what I love. I love working with people and helping them be better and helping make a product better or constant improvement. Yeah. That's kind of where nothing can't be improved comes from. That's where continuous improvement, all those kind of things, that's a little bit better every day. Yeah. There's a thing here. Yeah. Be consistent. Yeah. But I'll tell you what mine is first, and then my observation. So mine is to foster positive change through the people I interact with and society and the world.

Good. My observation is, it's funny that our visions or our whys are fairly similar. Same stuff. It's the same stuff, right? So, but we surround ourselves with each other every day. Yeah. The people you surround yourself with. And my why has come out of, these are my words, my why has resulted from spending my time at verse with like-minded people, with people who have drive and ambition and pure hearts. Before that, I knew what direction I wanted to move in, but not why. But now it gets clearer the more that you surround yourself with people, the more you do things that you enjoy.

And you seek out those people, spend time with them, which makes more people who have that same mindset of, "Okay, I want to make the world a better place. I want to work hard to do it." That draws in more people. Yeah. It's like compounding interest. More people get together, bigger change you can make in the world. Yeah. And the people I'm spending my days with and spending time talking to are people who are better than me and people that I look up to. You two included. So- Stop it. Take a fucking compliment, guys. So like, that's action that I'm taking to put myself in those environments, right?

Like at a meeting with someone who I've only known for a little while today, who I see as a mentor, I just said, "Hey, can we catch up and can I ask you some questions?" And I think we both got a lot out of it. So everyone, I'm a big believer that everyone wants to help. Most people want to help. So all you want to do is ask. So if you don't know what you want to do, have a crack and try something. Talk to people. Talk to people in the position or who are killing it in that position and go, "What have you done?

What do you do?" Try new things. Yeah. You don't have to do it alone. Yeah. Like I say this to people who come up to me, not that many people do, but we're pretty grumpy here. I know. I ask you for help every day, mate. But people who come up to me and say, "Well, I don't know what I'm going to do," try something. If you don't know what you're going to do, there's no wrong answer. So if you try something, you learn that you don't want to do that. And then you move on to the next thing and you might find that you love it.

And then that morphs into something else, which morphs into something else. And eventually you've found your purpose and how you're going to make a difference. It might be from a Casey Neistat video. I think he said his grandma, her version of success was not doing things you don't want to do. So rather than chasing things you love, if you don't know what that is, cool. Try shit and then you've crossed something off the list, right? But my big thing for purpose, finding your purpose, is put yourself in like-minded people, right? And again, one of my favorite quotes is one of my favorite quotes.

If you want to go far, go alone. If you want to go far, go alone. If you want to go far, go together, right? I'm going to be able to help the world in a big, broader, more grand way with the team at Virtus and spending time with you guys. And if I had a one-on-one personal training studio, it's as simple as that. I want to bring people on the journey with me, but at the same time, I want people on the journey that are going to help me be better and improve along the way because then it's just a symbiotic relationship wherever I went.

Always be the dumbest person in the room. That's why I'm sitting right here. Go first. I'm dumber. You had a really good quote the other day. Sounds like me. It wasn't your quote, mate. Yeah, I know. You stole it. That's the whole point, mate. I'm listing the support of my allies, right? It was something like, there's nothing wrong with making a mistake, there's not learning from them or whatever it was. Give me the real one. Yeah, so that's my boy, Ray Dalio, who's genuinely the greatest. If I could be more like one person, I'd probably recommend a book, Principles, if you haven't read it.

I've actually got four copies, funnily enough, and none of them are in my office because I've lent them all out. If you claim the Virtus training game, that's a skull. Yeah, okay, fair enough. If I mention Principles or a book? A book. Ah, damn it. Or a quote. There's many rules. There's many rules. Shit. All right, the quote is, "It's okay to make mistakes, it's unacceptable not to learn from them." Which is like, we all know that. That's exactly what we're talking about right now. But if you never make the mistake, you'll never be able to improve because you'll never want to learn from it.

I'm a big fan of celebrating wins, but at the same time, all my fuck-ups, failures, all the times I haven't spoken to staff in the right way, all the times I haven't done something correctly, they're the ways I learned. It's like, "Okay, this didn't work, how can we fix it for next time?" And then it improves, right? If I bury my head in the sand and go, "You know what, I just had a bad day," or if I'm too stubborn to understand that, "Okay, this was insensitive," then nothing changes. Nothing gets better. Yeah. I think

looking critically at those things, from a point of view of wanting to be better and not so much, "I failed, I suck, I'm the worst." If you're having that mindset, it's going to be really hard to find your purpose. Be willing to fail, be willing to critically look at what happened and why. Was it just not the right thing? Was it because you didn't put enough effort in? Was it those kind of things? Why was the failure there? Why didn't it work? Yeah. And then that why becomes, "Okay, here's a learning point for next time." You learn your patterns, you learn things that you're good at, you learn those areas you can improve.

Because we've all got areas we can improve on, and 100% of them turn it on at the moment. Time management is one of them. Where do you guys feel ... Where do you guys sit on negative feedback? Is it something that you seek out? Is it something that you look forward to? I would say having figured out your purpose to some degree, I haven't figured it out, it's never going to change, but having some kind of knowledge of your purpose and that kind of thing and being grounded in that is way easier to receive negative feedback.

If you don't have that, everything seems like an attack on your person as opposed to ... Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Right? Because you're unsure. The attack seems like, "Well, I'm unsure, so maybe they're right, maybe I suck, maybe I'm not." Yeah. Yeah. Whereas if you're really solid in what you're doing and why you're doing it, you see it for what it is, which is trying to help you get better. Most of the time, I know what I want, I know where I'm working towards, I know my why. I know why I started

Virtus and I know why I want to keep growing it and building it into a better place, so I'm in a very interesting head space now where I want negative feedback. If I suck, tell me so that I can fix it and improve, because if you don't tell me, then nothing changes and you're still pissed off or someone's pissed off about something and there's no communication around it, but yeah, you're right. That comes from actually understanding what your why is and being able to articulate it to people as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think if you ...

The attack thing, if you take, and this was another one of my ones, so it might come up, but if you take something as an attack, that's more reflection on you than on them, right? If I tell Coop that something he was doing wasn't up to our standards, then that's me telling it from a place of love so that he doesn't do it the same the next time and he actually changes behaviour, which is- If I wasn't doing something at that standard, then I would want to know, because everything I do is a reflection of me and my purpose, but it's also a reflection of if it's something in verse, it's a reflection of Virtus.

Oh, 100%. Yeah, exactly. I'm a representative of that. It's just fixed verse growth mindset, like if you're in the growth mindset, and which we can be in both at the same time, like I can be in a fixed mindset with stuff at home and a growth mindset at work, but I need to be aware enough to go, "That fixed mindset at home isn't good enough and I need to change that." When do you think he got into the mindset of that growth? Was there a light bulb moment where you were like, "This is my purpose. Something happened that made you click?"

I think it's simply just awareness of where you're at. There wasn't necessarily a light bulb moment, but it was probably over a couple of weeks early last year where I spent so much time at work that I think I didn't come home a couple of nights. I slept on the couch at work and I hadn't seen KP all week and I was just like, "I love this." I love the working hard side of things and the putting in because inputs equals outputs. I think that kind of made me realize upon self-reflection now, and I think I've become more self-reflective.

I reckon as soon as you hit 25, 26, recently 26, so happy birthday to me. Who's this guy? Get around me. That's going to be a scuff. Finish your drink. I feel old now, but I'm in 26 for like a month. I seriously have nothing to say about you. Thanks, mate. I appreciate it. That self-reflection comes when you start hitting mid-20s, I think, because you start realizing, it's the moment when you realize your parents were right about most things. Then you can be self-reflective. When you're stubborn enough to go, "My parents weren't right," that's when you're in trouble.

I think it's also the stage where you have to start working for yourself and a partner, where you can't rely on your parents anymore, you can't rely on family just to be there when you're cruising along. You've got to actually be working for something, and if you're not working for something that you enjoy or that you love doing, then you find out pretty quickly. You find out pretty quickly, right? Yeah. I'm still relying on Dad to help me with all construction things. That's fair. "Dad, I need a jigsaw. I need you to be operating the jigsaw.

I'll watch." "I'll provide the beer." "Want a beer?" I've supported my allies, right? Yeah. It's true. Yeah, that's it. My responsibilities have changed over that time, and I've gone from living at home to running a business, but running a business isn't just coaching. I used to say I was running a business when I was just a coach. I don't feel as though that's running a business now that I'm actually running a business. "Oh." Yeah, it's like, "Oh, this is what it's like." I thought it was so easy. If you can't leave your business for six

weeks and know that it's going to be okay, then you're not running a business, or if it's not making money while you're gone, and it's not supporting the staff and the clients and things like that when you're gone, then you're probably not running a business. Like Sammy, if he couldn't go away last year for a couple of months, then I think it ran smoother. Yeah. It was probably better with Tommy T and Chudge, 10 minutes. So, yeah, adding the responsibility of the business, having a house, having a mortgage to pay for. That's the third one in a row I've been talking about.

Yeah, you talk a lot. It's fine. It's all right. We like to live. It's all good. The darkest. Next! Beanie. Last one. Hit us. Third one each. It's good. Yeah. Lucky. What does it finish on? Ooh, this is a great one. What are the three biggest, most exciting things we are working on at the moment? That's good. Is it? Three is a big number. Yeah. So let's say. All right. Let's go around the circle and knock over one each. Yeah. And then we'll talk about this. So this can be either business related, personal development related, travel, whatever it is.

So CommaWork's going through a very transitional phase at the moment. We've just got Ben Hogan on, who's shout out. His podcast was up a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, last week I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Biggest legend. One of my mentors. I think one of your mentors. He's quickly become one of my mentors. So he's got a wealth of experience and he's coming in, we're restructuring a lot of things at CommaWork. He's kind of surveying the landscape. Coming in, he's going to really position us for our next period of growth, which is really exciting. So coming from a bigger place before CommaWork, I was very used to structure and kind of corporate kind of mindsets.

And then you come back to CommaWork, which is very much probably like a year ago, and trying to figure out how do we be efficient, how do we get the most out of everything. So it's really exciting to see that process happening and I'm enjoying being involved in that kind of transitional phase to set up the next kind of, I don't know, future of CommaWork really. Like you do it right for the next 10 years, it's not something you want to be doing all the time. Yeah, it's hard to be in a stage of growth all the time.

Totally. So this is a really pivotal kind of point for CommaWork's growth, which is exciting. Nice. Good. For me, I didn't even thought I would answer this. It's your question mate. I know. Inefficient. You said three, dude. Yeah. What am I thinking? Okay, for me, it's one of the biggest things I'm working on, I suppose, is Zon Virtus and helping you, Locky, and giving support to everyone else in the business to move in the direction we want to be moving in. So we're going through a stage, I guess, where we're trying to create processes and

systems around the business to make it more efficient, to build a better experience for those who come into us, and also to make myself and all the other staff feel like they are providing value and moving forward in their careers. So the hard thing is to manage trouble. Yeah. And my role in that is small, but from a marketing perspective, like we were talking about earlier with the social media, creating value for people to help our staff, our coaches, and our health professionals communicate their own value will go massively towards us moving in the right direction.

Yeah. It's really cool. Mine's pretty similar. I think I've had the last maybe six months, which has been a rapid transition or transition, rapid change for me in terms of mindset, in terms of actually thinking about where I won Virtus in three and five years, just reminding myself of why we started in the first place, what our vision is, which, like I said before, is just to make the world a better place. I think the most exciting thing that's coming up is similar to what Coop said, but on a bigger scale. For those that listen

to the ABC goals, one of my C goals is to be able to help more people on a daily basis and to be able to do that from a place of not having to coach one-on-one for 60 hours a week, which 12 months ago is where I was at. And to see the change has been kind of cool to reflect on that. So I think the biggest, most exciting thing is just the growth of Virtus. Yeah. And I'm happy putting this out there, like I want to be in a bigger space in 12 months because I want our capacity for helping people to grow.

And now it's being mindful of all the little things that we need to do to get there. And number one priority, like you said, is creating an incredible fucking experience for every single person that comes through the doors. And that for me is like the CEO kind of driving the thing. It's really, really hard because it's, okay, well, what's best for the client? And I was like, well, what's best for the staff? And then what's best for the business rolling forward? And do all those things match up? If yes, awesome. Ticking that box. If not, okay, well, what needs to change so that they do?

And yeah, and I think our ability to band together as a team, to keep understanding that bigger purpose, and then to make sure that every minute we're on the floor coaching, talking, communicating, that we're going, okay, how can I give the most value possible to my client? I kind of have this little thing in the back of my head at the moment after someone mentioned it to me a couple of months ago was, what would your client think if they were in every, what would your clients think if they were able to hear every meeting that you have?

And are you sitting there and trying to get the best result for them possible? Or are you reverting back to some more selfish reasons for doing it? Yeah. Yeah. So that's probably the most exciting thing from a bigger scale point of view. My most exciting thing at the moment is that I go away for 44 days on Tuesday, which will be out. Yeah, this will be out while I'm away, so maybe just before I get back. So yeah, when I get back, maybe we'll do another one of these and yeah, I can throw in a throw in.

See what we've learned over the last 44 days. Yeah. I'm trying to think of other things. Because we all kind of, yeah. How many days and you've been thinking, how good is life? When life's at a consistent nine, I'm so happy at the moment, like genuinely, I'm going through some of the hardest days for work wise and stuff like that, that I've had. But I feel so happy because there's that underwhelming sense of growth and improvement as I go. Yeah. And yeah, like I wrote a little thing about it, which will be on the website, luckywells.com if you haven't checked out.

Just about happy. Ding. Plug. Ding. Proudly sponsored by luckywells.com. Jenny Road Brewery. It's a little wickety page. Oh yeah, maybe. Jenny Road Brewery and Comme Feu Coffee. Yeah, get around it. Get around Jenny Road Brewery too. Delicious beers. Yeah. Comme Feu Coffee. Delicious coffee. Ding. Ding. Oh my God. It just turns to a plug. We've sold out, ladies and gentlemen. We've sold out. But I wrote this little thing about happiness. And I think happiness isn't the absence of struggling or the absence of suffering. It's the understanding that what you're doing is for the right reasons and what you're doing is for like a long term growth.

Often the most happiness that we feel is after we go through a struggle. Yeah. Yeah. After we tick that box. Yeah. And when you're aware of the sun being up on the other side and the sun's always gonna rise the next morning. You understand that, yeah, this might be really a big struggle, but I'm completely and utterly aware of it. Yeah. Which is cool. I think the thing I'm most excited for from a personal level is for KP and I to keep pumping away at our renos at home, which is something that I never thought I'd say because I hate renos.

But I'm like seeing how excited KP gets about it excites me. It's cool. And it's my ... Back to time management, I'm gonna have to figure out how I find a couple of hours a week to chip into that and to contribute to that. What are the things ... You both went to work. What are the things ... Personal life. Work-life balance was one of the things I wanted to talk about, which didn't come up. Yeah. But we're talking about it now because I just enjoy ... It all merges together, to be honest. That's what I think.

Yeah. I'm having Saturday off this week, but- You'll probably get a cup of coffee. Yeah. I'll get breakfast coffee. We'll get breakfast coffee and then we'll take photos for the snake hole boys, so that's kind of work as well. Good. Yeah. So very quickly this week, I haven't had a day off, but it's great. Yeah. That's it. You're doing what you love. I went from the day ... I was talking to Grant Rogers from Jetty Row Brewery today and- You're getting out of control. Yeah. He's a great guy. I'm a big, big fan. We've been tearing shreds off him at the moment, but- He's a great man.

He's a great human, but he said, "If you don't look for more time in the day, then you're doing the wrong thing." Yeah. I was like, "That's really profound. That's really, really cool." I don't want to be going to bed on a Thursday looking forward to the weekend. Yeah. No. I want to be looking forward to tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be able to sleep because being awake is too much fun because I asked Ben Hogan about that work-life balance because I'm like, "How do you best manage everything?" Because he's got family, kids, and he's been- That's going to change the world.

Yeah. We're all kids at the moment, so I think responsibilities are a lot less. Yeah. I think, yeah, definitely juggling relationships, juggling work, juggling spending time with family. Yeah. It is hard. It's really hard, but- And he said, "Okay, where do you get your most joy from at the moment?" And I was like, "Fuck, that's a really simple way to put it." Yeah. And he's like, "Like you spoke about in your podcast, understand that you get your joy from that now and that you're in a season of that's where you get your joy, and then you work on that and pump away at that, and then that'll change.

The goalposts will move and you'll want to work towards something else, but the awareness of where you get your joy is probably the big thing." Is that a Bible thing? Seasons? Seasons, yeah. Yes, kind of. Yeah? Yeah. Think about that. No, I'm okay with it. We'll take the good bits, like just being a good person, and just move all the other stuff away. Talking snakes and stuff. Yeah. Talking snakes. But yeah. I think it goes back to that purpose as well. It's all the same kind of stuff. Just trying to be aware of what makes you happy and what you enjoy doing.

It's pretty simple, but that's how I found my purpose, was trying to find when am I most happy, when am I feeling fulfilled? It's probably that. Okay. Let's do that. Yeah. Let's figure out how I can do that all the time. Yeah. And if you're not currently happy at the moment, write down the 30 things you love doing and do them. Yeah. Simple as that. Yeah. I don't think, and it's hard when people get stuck in, we won't talk about mental health too much now, but when people get stuck in depression cycles and stuff like that, they genuinely can't remember a time they were happy.

And that's the hardest thing. It's like, "Okay, you can't remember a time when you're happy. What are the things that you feel as though might make you happy?" Write it down and execute on them. Take action on them. And then you start, this is a great thing, but you start building up a bank of memories, a bank of positive memories that you can rely on. Yeah. You can draw on them when you're feeling down, when you need a bit of pick-me-up. Definitely. What are you most excited for, personal life? Personally, so I'm currently studying, back in study.

And so Sallyanne, so we're both ... You're wonderful, better half. Better half. So we're both doing our masters, which is really exciting. We're both loving it. We're sort of planning a couple of holidays, maybe one in the middle of the year, so that'd be really exciting. Awesome. But I don't know, again, every day I'm excited to get up and get stuff done, whether it's going to uni and learning things that I want to be learning that I'll be able to implement at Virtus, and that I'll be able to build up a bank of, of these skills and knowledge.

Or whether it's at Virtus interacting with people. I think, I was going to say before, building up ... Doing things that you love, for me, it's one of the biggest things that contribute towards doing what I love, is the people that you do it with. Yeah. Really good. I love doing things with Sallyanne, and doing this with you guys, and I'm like, "Man, I've hated this, but keep on." Well, I'm just remembering that the sun's going to come up tomorrow, even though it's been a rubbish day today. I'm going to draw my bank of happy memories.

Yeah, all good. No, I mean, this is awesome, man. I love doing this sort of stuff. It's really good. Exactly. Have a good conversation. Yeah. Spending time with people that lift you up is what I get up for. Yeah. If people in your circle aren't just as excited as you are when you succeed, get a new circle. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, breaking down that doing things you love, don't think about it as like, "Oh, I love sitting on a beach doing something." That's stupid. I don't know. Think of it like that. Or that could be a half an hour thing, but yeah.

Yeah. But think about things where you are doing something actively, and you've got to make the effort to actually make something happen. Yeah. Something that not everyone loves, but you love it. They're the kind of ones. They're like, "Oh, I just want to travel forever." Like, "Cool." Everyone wants to travel forever. That's awesome. Jordan Peterson is like, someone says, "Okay, what's your plan when you retire?" "Oh, I want to go live on a beach and drink margaritas." "Oh, shut up, duck." I'm going to finish this because this is really, really good. I want to sit on the beach and drink margaritas, and he goes, "Well, that's not a plan, that's not a dream, that's not an action.

That's a margarita commercial." That's a resort commercial, like, "Okay, so after three days, you're probably going to be feeling a little bit sorry for yourself, and then after a month you're probably going to be struggling to remember why you're there in the first place." I think it's got to be, happiness for me is progress, and simple as that. Something you love even when it's tough and even when it's good, all those kind of things, they're the ones. Yeah. It's not always a sunny day drinking margaritas on the beach. What happens when it's raining? Yeah. You've got to learn dance and rain.

Any more for any more? Mate, we can go forever, but... Lads, this was fun. Really good. Very good from you. Awesome. If you enjoyed this, I guess, format of the podcast, where of us picking out topics and stuff like that, then send us an email, send us a message, even send us through some topics and we'll talk about them. I like it. Yeah, that could be cool. All right, guys, that's it for this week's show. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye. Bye.