S1E47 · Tristan River: Interaction and Pride

Hey Legends, welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. Another week, another episode, hope you've all had a spectacular day so far. Today I sat down with the great man Tristan River, he's 19, he's done more things than most 19 year olds have. His head's screwed on better than most 19 year olds' heads are. He's a coffee roaster and barista at Common Folk Coffee, he's had a heap of other little jobs and he's probably one of the most eccentric people that I've ever met. He's always kind of the life of the room or the area where he's in.

And he's someone who I've grown to admire over the last couple of years seeing his work ethic and passion and just love for life. So this was a really fun episode, it's a bit shorter and sharper than some of the other ones but the messages are still just as strong. Also I want to apologise for the little bit of drilling you'll hear intermittently throughout the podcast, there's not too much of it but the boys are doing a little bit of work upstairs ticking boxes so if that's a little bit annoying I apologise but it won't last for too long.

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. There's so much pressure now. Mate, pressure's started, we're ready to rock. Oh are we recording? Tristan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks man. You've been so up and about, so cocky about it all week and now you're like a little bit of red, you're a little bit embarrassed, what's up?

I'm under pressure now, I feel like this podcast could define my existence a bit and that's nerve-wracking. It could or it might not but we'll see. First question for you, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Usually it's an interaction with people, I get pumped to get out of bed because I get to go essentially talk shit with my friends. That's work and I'm at work like six days a week pretty much so yeah, I just enjoy interacting with my friends and meeting new people and that's probably the biggest thing that gets me out of bed.

I like that. What are you doing for work at the moment? So I'm currently working at Con Folk around the corner. Another one of those guys? I'm doing specifically, I'm essentially like the Con Folk bitch but in a good way. I get to do everything so I work on bar, I work in the roastery, I get to roast coffee, deliver coffee which I actually really enjoy because we get to talk to our accounts and hang out with them and stuff and pack coffee, that's fun and like do cool meetings about new things that we want to do.

So yeah, essentially I'm just the little go to boy, so do everything. Something needs to be done. Yeah, pretty much. Everyone talks to you. True, you've got five minutes, yeah done. That's my job. How long have you been at Con Folk for? Since I was 15, 14, nine months. 15. As soon as you get a job you got a job, basically. So I did a brief couple of months stint at Red Rooster and that was potentially the worst months of my life. Why? You get to interact with people all day. Oh yeah, that was fun, but especially being like a vegetarian that was a bit hard.

But yeah, so I did that and then pretty much I moved up to Queensland for a little while and then moved back down and got a job straight away at Con Folk, so it's been since 19, so 15, three years. Probably the most eccentric 19 year old I've ever met. Probably, yeah. You guys are right, I just turned 19 so I'm refreshing too, still very young. Good, good, good. So you've obviously been at Con Folk, but you've had a bunch of other little side projects and little other jobs and stuff, what else have you done in the last four years?

Does it count as paid work? No, it's made everything. Made a load up. Yeah, so I've moved around like a little bit, like when I was, I think I was 15, I moved up to Queensland for a good, probably maybe few months to live with my dad, which is a bit of fun. Just felt like a change of scenery. I was a little bit of a shit, and I probably needed to get out of my mom's way a bit. So I shit myself out to there for a few months, literally just spent that entire time just surfing and not working, which was great, living under dad's roof.

It's not the worst way to spend a little bit of time when you're 15. Yeah. And then moved back down here. Yeah, as I said earlier, started working in Con Folk, still in school, high school, and that was all right. I hated school. I'm not surprised. Yeah, it's actually, it's sort of ironic, I hated school, I love working with people, and as I said, that's what gets me out of bed every morning, but at the same time, I think I absolutely hated every single person involved in that place. Why? Was it the authority, the fact

you had to tick the boxes and just sit in class and listen because you don't strike me as the kind of person that can sit down and just listen? I'm a very like, well, firstly, I have a big problem with authority, which isn't good. I'm aware of it, so it's all right. Hey, mate, awareness is halfway there. But also, I like sort of being my own person and having a lot of control over my own life. As soon as it starts to get sort of, as soon as my life goes into someone else's hands, I get a little bit nervous, and that's sort of what school was.

And so I was doing school, and then when I, just before I started Year 12, I moved out of home to live on my own in Mornington, still working at Con Folk, and flock, which is a bit fun. Shout out. Yeah. And the coffee. And then, yeah, so where you flock, I was living out of home, trying to do Year 12. And then I think I got a few months into Year 12 and decided to bail on it. And like, I like to consider myself a sensible person. That's a great sentence, with the smile and the laugh afterwards.

I have a sense there's a but coming. I just like, so bailing school, I justified it in the fact that I am 110% set on what I'm going to do in the life, which is a really big thing for me. I grew up, like when you're at school, I grew up like fully stressed about, you know, they really drill into it. You know, you need to know what you want to do, like for Year 9, so you can pick your electives. So when you leave here, that's your life. And I spent like Year 9 and 10 freaking out, because I was like, I don't know what I want to do.

So do you feel it added unnecessary anxiety on top of what already is a fucking hard time growing up? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like it was like, I was a bit of a difficult child, and it definitely made growing up hard for myself in a lot of aspects, but also on top of just not liking school, that whole sort of vibe in general. On top of that, it was just an extra stress. And that all sort of built up, and then when I was probably a couple of years into working at Colnfolk, I like, realized that I just wanted to roast coffee for the rest of my life.

And so then I was like, well, fuck this, I don't need school, yeah, I'm gonna go do that. And yeah, that's what I've been doing ever since. I've done a few little side projects, like my mate Ryan Donahue started working on like a coffee cart, so that we could raise money for the cart that counts. And do it at school, but that sort of fell through because I bailed on school. So that was getting there. And then I've had like a bunch of little just stupid side hustles. I got a job roasting at Five Senses a few days a week, just as a casual dude, or just whenever they needed me, which was awesome.

So I got that through Tom too. Seems to be a bit of employee share. Yeah, a little bit. I think the big boys at Five Senses weren't so stoked about that because I thought I might, hope they don't listen to this, I thought I might steal coffee secrets or something. Are there coffee secrets though? No. Because in my industry, in the fitness industry, everyone thinks they have a secret, a lot of people think they have a secret. There's no secret. They're just doing simple things really, really well. And I shoot with coffee. It's the exact same thing.

I was actually really shocked when I first encountered this issue of roasting for two different companies. Because in my mind, if we're just talking about roasting coffee specifically, and you can even relate that to your job, I'm just trying to do something the best I can. And obviously I'm producing something consumable, but like whether it's fitness or whatever job it is, I'm trying to do something the best I can so the person receiving that enjoys it. And generally, if we're talking specifically coffee roasting, that's not hard to do. Like, yes, this is how you do it, that's it, this is the best way to do it.

You've just got to do it the best way possible. And that's it. And I think some people get very caught up in secrets and their identity and how that relates to how they do it. But really, we're all doing the same thing. And I think the more people that realize that, sort of improve our industry as well. Because, I don't know, there's like two sides to this. It's cliche and it's bullshit, but at the same time it's very true how I see it is like, if every single, and I'm relating it to my job, every

single like coffee roastery or gym was to do everything the best that they could sharing the knowledge with every single person whether they're new to the business or odd to the business, then the entire industry grows and improves as a whole. Now I understand we're businesses and we need to make money and stuff, but I don't know, in my mind that makes perfect sense. And especially because we're supporting people overseas as well, our product does not come from anywhere near us. So it's like, if we all can get more of that, then we're all fucking getting better and that's it.

Everyone wins. But anyway, so that was the first time I encountered that problem working with two roasteries, but I don't think it's... - It's really interesting, and I mean at 19 to have that mindset is fucking awesome because like it's a big, I got stuck in the, I guess, maybe early 20s that oh, this is the best method or this is the best way to go. And then you realise, well, you know, there's heaps of different ways to do the same thing. You just want to figure out for that particular item or for that particular person or coffee, for those particular beings, what's the best way of doing it.

Because then like my big focus now is transitioning into coaching coaches and coaching different practitioners to give the best service because at the end of the day, it's all about the client. For you guys, it's all about like the final product of how delicious is this coffee. And that's a really, really cool, I guess, thing to come to at 19. - Yeah, I think Sammy Keck and I have had this conversation numerous times or with slightly different angles and stuff, but I think, and we're just talking about my age in relation to what I think, I think I forced myself to grow up quite early.

And so that's sort of taken an effect on how I go about working and all that sort of shit, which is interesting. - Hey, go back to school for a second, are you completely at peace with the decision you made to bail when you did? Would you change it if you went back? - No, I wouldn't change it at all. - Good. - I've had, obviously, numerous nights sitting down going like, "Should I do this, should I not do this?" And I'm a firm believer in if you make a decision, then you're gonna have to deal with the consequences of that.

And, I mean, really the consequences of that decision was, well, initially I thought it was maybe I could never go to uni. Post that decision, I realised I never want to go to uni. But also-- - But you still could if you went to uni. - I realised that I could. I needed to go get a year 12 pass, you do six months of TAFE, blah, blah, blah, all that jazz. And I was like, "Hold on." I'm like, "If I want to go back on this decision, I can." And that made it easier, but in my mind, I'm already set, I'm done, that was it.

I was like, "Catch." - Done at 19. - Yeah. - Talk to me, what does the future hold because I can't see you staying in the one spot, roasting coffee forever. Where do you want to take it? - It's interesting because I think over the last year, I've always been like, "I want to start my own roastery, I want to start my own cafe, I want to be a reflection of me and I want to be in charge and do cool shit." - It's not always kind of tough to be sometimes. - Yeah, and I

think literally last month, I had a meeting with Hoags and Sammy and I told him I'd come to the conclusion and now this is just for now, I'll probably change my mind because I do that a lot. - But that's okay. - But I realized that I sort of wanted to stick around and help Coleman Folk grow. - Yeah. - And I was like, being in charge and having my own thing one day, that might be a possibility, might roll around to that, I don't know. But I was like, I really enjoy the community that I'm part of, the business, those boys got their heads screwed on, I don't know, aside from what Sammy wears.

- Yeah, if you could just listen to most of what he says and not actually have to look at him. - Yeah, that's it. - Then things would be switched on. - No, yeah, those boys are so switched on, I love working for them, I love what they're doing. So I think the future for me at the moment looks like essentially doing the best I can. - Helping Coleman Folk grow. - Yeah, to help Coleman Folk grow. - That's awesome. - And that links into everything I spoke about with the industry in general. Farfie Junk, I've no idea, I'm still an aspiring tattoo artist.

- Yeah. - Which I disappointed about, shout out, but also shout down, if that's a thing, Mitch. - I don't have a shout down bell, so I'm going to press the shout out bell. - Talk to us about, first of all, the Mitch Rope problem we've got going on at the moment in terms of what you want to do to him, and second of all, your tattoo game, because it's interesting. How'd you get stuck into it, actually? - All right, so, that was shout out. Luke Walton, so my boy Luke, we used to sling spros

on Saturdays together, and I think I got my first tattoo fresh 18 on the books, I was like, bam, I'm going to go ink myself, right? - As you do. - Yeah, and I was real scared, I was like, I can't remember if the mic was rolling or not, but one of my biggest problems, maybe we can come back to this later, or avoid it completely, is I don't like being defined by a certain thing. So if we did this interview, and I said that I hate cats, I'd have to redo this interview and say that I don't mind cats, I don't really have any opinions on cats, some days I hate them, some days I like them.

So anyways, getting a tattoo from me was a big deal, because it was like, this is going to be on me, and every time someone sees this, it's going to be a reflection of me. So naturally my first tattoo was a coffee-related tattoo. And then Luke and I were sitting down, and we were like, why don't we just tattoo ourselves? And I think Luke had done a stick and poke tattoo before, and I was like, cool, that seems like a lot of effort, I'm just going to buy a tattoo machine. So I bought a tattoo, and tattoo artists hate me, most tattoo artists hate me, which I understand.

Surely you've made friends with someone. Yeah, I've made friends with a few now, but some really traditional tattoo artists hate me, and I fully understand that, it's a bit of a conundrum, it's like, by doing this unprofessionally, and not so much, it is an art form, as in, tattooing is an art form, but doing it in sort of that unprofessional manner sometimes has a bit of bad karma around the joint. But how I think about it is, and I relate it back to my job, if I roast some coffee and I give it to you to brew at home, I can guarantee there's no way you're going to brew it as good as I can.

But I still give you coffee to take home, and let you brew it yourself, because that's your thing. That's like your experience, you're making yourself a coffee. Now, tattooing is a little bit more permanent, and if you fuck up the coffee thing you can always come back to me tomorrow, and I'll make you one. But yeah, I think about it in that aspect. Technology's fine, mate, you can always get it redone, or you can get it taken off, like on canvas again. So I think I've tattooed short of 40 people now. That is a great number, at 19 you've tattooed 40 people, so 12 months basically.

And I've gone to town on my thighs, so obviously there's no visuals. No, there's not, but I'll make sure at least one of the promo photos for this has Tris's tattoos on. Yeah, so essentially above the knees and below the hips have been annihilated by myself and my friends. It's just like, yeah. What's your strangest one? I don't know about strangers, like probably one of my... What's the best story behind it? Oh, no, I know what's strange. I got two. Give me strangest and best story. One just above my knee, slightly to the side, there's a game of noughts and crosses I played with Steinze.

Yep. Don't know if that was mentioned in the last one. It was mentioned on the Sankof podcast. Yeah, so I can't remember if I had a couple of beers or not. I'm going to say that I did because it makes me sound better, but Steinze kicked my ass in a game of noughts and crosses and within two moves, it already beat me. On your leg. On my leg, but I had to commit to the game, so I've got a failed game of noughts and crosses. And then my other one, which is another tragic story, is I did the one thing that you should never do, typically.

I have a tattoo related to an ex-girlfriend and then another tattoo over that tattoo from another ex-girl. Oh, okay, so you basically put one problem and then another problem on top of it being an ex. Yeah, it wasn't an ex-girlfriend, but it was an ex-housemate. So anyway, I've got a love heart on my leg, very high up, close to my groinal area, and then that love heart has been turned into a name of another woman. And so yeah, that one's bad. When you look at your tattoos, what do you think? What's your thought process? I actually see them all as, and not specifically to the incident or what the image is, but as my relationships with people.

So if you look at any one of my tattoos, I can tell you who I was with, the story behind it, what we did that day, and for me that's really sort of heartwarming. That's awesome. I mean, there's some really bad, so there's one, and excuse my French, but an acronym on my leg that stands for Suck My Dick, White America, and that was tattooed, that's my favorite title of the creator quote, and that was tattooed on me by Tommy T at my house in Moreington one night when we were just hanging out with the boys, super fun.

And so anyway, yeah, I don't look at anything on my body and go, oh shit, oh, maybe, nah, you know, maybe that last one, but maybe, yeah, but yeah, I, I, it's a story, it's a story around it, right? Yeah, stories, and I'm not too phased about how I come across to people visually. You know they're permanent, right? Oh really? Yeah, apparently. Shit. Apparently. What would happen when you're old? What would you look like? Yeah, and I was like, well, I'm not going to stupidly tattoo myself when I'm old, so I've got to do it now.

Anyway, raffle that up, Mitch, we were going to tattoo Mitch mid-podcast, I'm disappointed that that didn't happen. He had to work instead, which I feel as though I could have pulled some strings, but it's been a busy week, so it never happened, but we might have to, we might have to get Mitch in soon, because he, he may have lost, may have lost a bet. Yeah, oh yeah, so the reason we're tattooing him is he needs a Virtus V. Virtus V, that's, yeah, that was the, the wager. The wager was that I get to pick a tattoo on him if he lost, and I figured ranting is forever, right?

So maybe the V. Well, talk to Sammy Kate, the common folk, see, he's got tattooed on him. He does, he does. It's made me think about it, maybe, that'd be cool, but I wanted, in that Virtus V, to have WWWD. I know what the, I got this one, What Would Wallace Do? Correct. Correct. Which, and Mitch is like, mate, I'll get the Virtus V anywhere you want, but I'm not getting What Would Wallace Do? And I'm like, well, fair enough, play on. Yeah, very, very good. So refresh my memory on how, was it, was it an again, no, it was a really simple What Are The Odds game.

Yeah, What Are The Odds. It was like the simplest game. What Are The Odds. What Are The Odds, you'll get a tattoo from Tristan, and he said 1 in 10, and we got the right one, so. His fault for going 1 in 10, I guess, not gonna make him do it, but if he respects the sanctity of the What Are The Odds game, then he'll still do it at some point. Sacred game. Mate, it's important. Very important, yeah. So, well, you know, maybe I hear you guys do like, gin and yoga, maybe we can do like, gin, yoga, and watching Mitch get tattooed, or something like that, that could be.

I'm sure we can make it happen. Yeah. You'll have to talk to our director of cool shit, which is Tommy T, he's self-titled, but I'm not good with it. I can pull some strings on that one, I know the man. Tommy T. Shoutout. Sick. Apart from tattooing people, what do you do for fun? I work a lot. I know. I'm a boy. But what do I do for fun? Where do you think that work ethic comes from? Is it just something you've always had? Yeah, I mean like, I couldn't tell you specifically, I think my

mum probably input a lot of work ethic in me, she's very motivating, in that sense, like, go on, get your shit done, which is good. I mean, aside from that, yeah, I don't know, I just, I don't know, I take pride in everything I do. I like that. Yeah, if I, yeah, if I do something, I want to do it well, and I think that's just a thing that I just naturally have an opinion of myself, and so that obviously reflects on, like, yeah, my work, I guess, but yeah, what I do for fun, I

skate, pretty trash at it, I surf, also pretty trash at it, not shy of a little party, I don't mind a little bit of a boogie, shout out to Fergus and Ollie for the weekend, party time boys. The weekend coming up. Yeah, I think we're gonna go on planes, well we are, treat yourself, that'd be good. I clocked in some manual leave, and I was like, I'm out, what else do I do for fun? Music, big music fan, so I used to play in a band with a bunch of mates from school, we haven't played in a while, but we've started up again, which is a little bit fun.

I love gigging, I get a mad thrill out of it, I used to play with my dad's bands like growing up and stuff, and used to just be, like, everyone in my immediate family is very musical, so like mum's a great woodwind instrument player, dad's an amazing guitarist, like, dude's a freak. So yeah, music, big thing in my life, very important, I like sleep. Well you like sleep because you work so much, right? And I like a little bit of reading, but I think all of my content reading-wise at the moment is all coffee related, so very, like, in-depth science-y crap.

Having pride in everything you do, you take that everywhere, you take that to work, you take that to surfing, not to booze obviously. I think, yeah, if we're talking my hobbies specifically, I do take pride in my hobbies, but at the same time, I don't know, the hobbies I find myself doing specifically, excluding reading but like surfing, skating, music, and all that sort of stuff, I actually just use them as ways to not vent, but just sort of like, bleh. So like I take, especially my music, I do take pride in it, but I'm a little bit of a, as I said, I don't like authority, so if I can screw the system in any way, I'll do it.

So like if I can, I don't know, muck around with music and just do real loud, stupid shit, I will, just to piss people off. So like, that's sort of a pride in annoying people. So yeah. Play on. And I take that a little bit into work as well, I like to rock the boat. How does that go with the powers that be? At work, especially. If we're talking like the big boys. Sammy and Benny and Tommy. Sammy loves it. Tommy likes it too. Benny's only been on board a little bit, but I think I'm getting through winning him over.

I think like, I think I, I'm speaking the devil, I think I back up the amount of shit I talk with hard work, and I think it may get frustrating having to listen to me sometimes, but I sort of like even it out both ways. I get that. From what I see as a customer, from what I see as a customer, you're right, you're always like football or whatever you're doing, whether it's annoying the shit out of people or whether it's working hard, like, could never question your work ethic and like it's always, it seems

like even if you're, if you've had half an hour sleep and you've had a quick nap on the coffee bag or whatever, regular occurrence, it always seems like it's never a chore for you to be there, which, you know, for anyone that works, for anyone's job, like that's a dream, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah. The love and the passion to be there all the time, regardless of what's going on. That's spot on. Yeah. I think no matter what state I'm in, when I rock out to work. Big choice of words. Yeah. Whenever I rock up, I rock up to work, I always do my best and I'm happy to be there.

So which is good. But yeah, I think that's, I think that's a reflection on it. So I, yeah, I tend to rock the boat, but I try to work as hard as I can as well. So yeah, it's, it's entertaining. I sort of want to like, I don't know, see if I can snap in a little bit, but I'd be careful with that. That'd be very, very dangerous and he's probably going to listen to this. So I love you Benny boy. Cool. Who, who have been your, like growing up and especially the last couple of years in coffee and work and stuff, who have been your biggest mentors?

Who are the people you look up to and you aspire to be like? All right. So super minor shout out and I doubt who, I doubt who hears this and we don't need to ding the bell because obviously I've got a list, a list of mentors. So we're dinging that every two seconds. I'll ding it once for the list. Bam. The list. Uh, so my very, very first, um, person that ever got me involved with coffee was actually Jack O'Keefe, who was a head barista at the time when I first started working. And I actually was shit scared of him.

Um, I don't know what, that's how all the best mental stories start. Yeah. Yeah. Like I have no idea what it was about him. It was very, I mean, honestly, I don't even have a very good gauge of his character because I only knew him for about two months and then he left to live in somewhere in Europe. So yeah. But anyway, I used to walk out of the kitchen, we traded dishes and put them down and I didn't even like lattes at the time. Like you couldn't even get me to put down a mocha. Um, and he'd come up to me with an espresso and he'd be like, Hey, tell me what you think of this.

Do you like this? And I'd sip it. And he's like, no, no, no, no, drink it all, drink it all. And um, and it, it tasted disgusting. Like I had barely any interaction with coffee and I sat it in my mouth and I was like, yeah, everything's good. Yep. Walked back in, spat into the sink, um, but told him I enjoyed it and he did that to me on a regular occurrence and I never questioned him. Surely he would have known you were just feeling it. Oh, a hundred percent. I think, I think after maybe like the 20th time I could stomach it.

Yeah. But um, yeah. So he and, and that sort of like sparked a curiosity, um, just like how he made coffee behind the machine and all this sort of stuff. I was like, well, what are you doing? Like he handed me this thing all the time and I was like, I want to know like what's going on. Cause I've never had any interaction with this before. And then I think post that, so he left and I used to get up. So we opened at 6.30 at Cone Folk, um, first barista gets in at six, you know, dials in the coffee.

Just makes it taste good. Um, I used to get up at six, well get up 5.30, roll in at six before school, um, and do work in essentially until, and this is where it got, it got a bit shady, but used to work until about 8, 8.30 and then leg it to school. Um, and that was just me making coffees behind the machine, dialing in. I did that for a solid year and that's my next person, Courtney Harrison, shout out to her. She taught me how to make coffee initially, gangster as, um, but yeah, so

I used to do that before school and then towards the ending of my school career, I used to just do that until 8.30 and then go do something else for the day, because it was time that I was meant to go to school. So you knew you couldn't stay there. Yeah. Everyone would be like, "Are you going to school?" Yeah. And then also numerous amounts of my teachers came in, so I had to sort of, I used to go do stuff. Um, anyway, and then following on from that, um, Sammy Keck, he really like pushed,

um, pushed me with like my knowledge and skill set making coffee, um, and then Tommy T came on board from Fives and Tommy's been like probably one of my best friends in the world since then and also one of like my biggest mentors. He's just taught me so much shit. He's a beautiful man. He's a very beautiful man. He's like such a kind soul. Yeah. Um, always willing to help people out and he, yeah, he taught me so much stuff, um, just about coffee related, life related and was just a general dude, um, which was awesome.

So good. Tommy T, he's a big shout out and he's still always teaching me things and doing stupid shit with me, actually putting up with the stupid stuff I do. Yeah. Um, and yeah, and then post that, um, I started working at Fives and, um, Damo, the head roaster at Fives, um, taught me a lot of stuff. Like I used to like obviously work for him, but I go in and ask him questions and he just elaborate on everything and, um, he chucked me on the roaster as soon as like, as soon as I knew

what was going on, um, and just gave me tons of experience and really opened, opened up my eyes to, uh, the complexity of roasting coffee was awesome. And final one for the moment, and literally all my mentors have been coffee related, but I think in between all of that, they've all been life related as well. So at these different stages of learning things about my job, I've been struggling with different things in my life and they've been there for that as well. But the final one, and this is the best one, cause we've got to see him this weekend, um, Shorty G, Mr Gionis Enterprises, roaster at, uh, roaster at Fives, um, he's, he's the biggest legend in the world.

Like, um, like he, uh, yeah, taught me a lot about like coffee, um, was helping me with Damo and stuff. But he's also like just low key, he's, he's just a rad dude and he's one of those guys that you hang out with and they, they just make you want to be a better person. That's awesome. Um, and so Shorty's the man, he's like the nicest guy in the entire world. There's people you want to spend time with. Yeah, exactly. And I think he's just a big sort of life mentor for me, but don't tell him I said that cause, you know.

Mate, just tell him to listen to it. Don't listen to the podcast. I'm just going to skip from 30 to 32 minutes, it'll be sweet. Yeah. So yeah, biggest legend. So then my mentors, they've all been very work related, but also intertwined with the different sort of stages of my life. So you've kind of had like a crash course over the last couple of years on roasting coffee, right? Like you've just gone bang, bang, bang, full coffee and now you're at the point where you're teaching others. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, um, so I, I do

trainings, um, like barista trainings for accounts, our baristas, um, and um, I haven't done a lot of like roasting training in that sort of sense, but it's more so like thinking the roastery, we sort of all work as a team to educate each other on things that someone else might not know. So like, I, I would like to say only a little bit because we're all, we're all a team, but like I pushed to get, uh, Mr. Ollie Hill into the roastery because he was really, really interested and was willing to just put in some work to get in there.

And so like, um, uh, everyone like including Tommy, Ryan, um, Josh, everyone's helped Ollie. Um, I like to think I played a little bit of part in that and yeah, just educating on how roastery works. But yeah, I think, I think more so like, um, less roasting, coursey type stuff, which is sort of what Ryan does, but more so like working as a team to educate everyone in the team. I think that's a lot of the stuff I do. You seem like the kind of person that doesn't necessarily want personal success. You want to share your success with everyone else and help bring them up with you.

Yeah. And I think, yeah, I like, um, I mean if everyone's good at something, it's better than one person being good at something. Like, not going to lie, I like being a little bit, like I like attention. We haven't noticed. Yeah. I do a lot of stupid stuff to, not for attention, but I do a lot of stupid stuff because I like doing stupid stuff that results in tension, which is fun, but no, I'm, I'm a big believer in, um, why can't everyone be good at something, sort of thing, like why can't, you know, the more people that are good at something, the better the team is.

Yeah. And all that sort of jazz. Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah. I'll ask you, I'll ask you some questions about your attention seeking nature later. Okay, done. But you've obviously gotten really close to the snake old boys over the last couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And become somewhat of a part time model. Uh, yeah. I've never seen someone so comfortable getting photos taken of themselves. So this has got some backstory with, with leech dinner. Um, so I was, I was a drama kid in primary school. Um, so I did like all the productions and all that stuff.

And I was, um, as I was like Peter Pan in the year six production. Good. Um, and then as I said earlier, I've always like played live music with dad and stuff. So I'm a little bit of a stage boy extrovert. Yeah. Mad extrovert. Um, I like, I enjoy rocking out and I enjoy like, not so much theater anymore, but like, you know, that sort of stuff. I really enjoy it. So I'm very comfortable performing in front of people. So, so when this, uh, and that's another big one face and told me to sort of sleep me in there.

Yeah. But I was, I was, I was flicking through the photos that you took the other day. Yeah. With Tommy. And so cool. Yeah. So amazing. No one hasn't seen him jump, jump on the snake hole website. Yeah. Cause there's a few up there at the moment. There'll be a few more soon. Yep. I think when this comes out, there'll be winter when the winter range drops, watch out. There'll be some dirty, dirty photos. Dirty is an excellent way to describe. Yeah. I just, yeah, I'm very comfortable in front of the camera. That's all. That's all you need to know.

Yeah. Good. Let's go to questions and I want, let's drop the pen and I want to know the, you can go long winded answer if you want, but try and answer it as well as you can. First question. Have you had a defining moment? Um, Oh, see, I think, um, this sort of questions always stump me because I can't think of a singular, there's never been, I have a lot of defining moments, like a lot, like I have, um, there's, there has not been one moment in my life that is defined me. Yeah. There's not been, I've never sat down or been in one situation where I've just been like, bam.

That's it. Yep. But I think, I think every day I have a thought that sort of adds to the construction of me. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. A hundred percent. Like, uh, like the other day, um, uh, I was in the car with Sammy and we were driving and we were just talking about work and our relationships with people. And there was literally one sentence in there that he said that I agreed with. No, not that I disagree with every other sentence, but that was one sentence in there. I was like, yeah, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.

And that sort of just added to the building block. That is me. So I think, I think I always have many defining moments. Not that a defining moment is small, but yeah, I like that a lot because then it's just an, it's an accumulation and like you, the person you are today is a son with all the experiences you've had. Exactly. In six months, it'll be slightly different person because you've got six months worth of extra experiences. Exactly. I like to think my defining moments are daily, but they're just little and it's like building blocks. It's good.

I like that. What's your best story? Like, oh shit. I've had some horrible stories, but horribly good. Yeah. Um, my best story, I've obviously heard it from you, but I want your best story. My best story. All right. Um, and you can say whatever you want. Let me just think, I just need to go. Oh man. This is hard. Feel free to narrow it down to two if you'd like. Um, narrow it down to two, alright, you're around next time, enjoy your trip. That was Christian Ongrello everybody. That's what I meant. Ding. Ding. Um, uh, okay.

My, oh man. I'm terrible under pressure. Like it'd be one of those things where you're just walking into the cafe next week and I'll just be like, oh hey, it's my best story. Um, oh, can we come back? We'll come back to best story. I'll give you some short, sharp, easy ones. Yeah. Give me your favorite fun fact. Favorite fun fact. Yeah. Shit. Oh no. I told you I'm bad at these. I'm really, really bad at these. Um, I think polar bears are left-handed. That's cool. I hope you just made that up. Because it sounds like you did.

I figured. It doesn't matter if you did it, I just made that up. But I remember hearing that, but. Good. I like it. Yeah, done. First thing you can do. Nice fun fact. I started wrong. Yeah. What advice would you give a 15-year-old you? Oh, man, um, actually, yeah, um, it'd be as simple as who cares what other people think of you. Good. That was probably my, um, and I feel like this is a big thing for teenagers, um, being aware of how people perceive you and taking that into account and letting that dictate what you do.

So, um, I think it's a big thing for a lot of teenagers, especially growing up with stereotypical, the whole, like, social media thing and all that jazz being completely different. Yeah. But, um, yeah, I think if I could go back, I'd be like, you just do whatever you want and who cares what anyone thinks? Good advice. That's, and it's, it's very like, it's sort of cliche and it's very, it's, you know. Here's what I realise about cliches, that cliche is because it's a thing and people keep realising it's a thing, but then people stop saying it because it's a thing.

And it's like, oh, because this is actually legit, but it's you so much, you don't want to say that. Yeah. So just say it, mate. That's literally it. That's just who cares what anyone thinks. Good. If you could be remembered in one sentence, what would it be? Oh, shit. Yeah, let's go with that. Nah. So this is bad, because this guy's like, I don't like being defined by a specific thing. That's why I was really excited about this question, because it's going to challenge you to think of, okay, you don't want to be defined. Okay, okay.

One sentence. I don't know if I can like, I'm not that complex a person, like I'm very, I'm quite simple, but at the same time, I disagree. I think you're very self-aware and you're more complex than most, or you understand how complex you are more than most 19 year olds do. Well, as I was talking about with Samuel a while ago, the whole dumb smart, smart, dumb thing. I think I'm definitely a dumb smart, but I think I'd do that on purpose, in the sense of like, I act like an idiot, talk a lot of

smack, people think I'm an idiot, but then they get to know me and I know that I'm just a little bit less of an idiot. And I enjoy that. So on your head standard, it could say slightly less of an idiot than what I first thought, or I had a slightly smarter, so we go Tristan River, slightly less of an idiot than you initially thought. I'm happy with that. You know what, that's done. That's good. Right there. Great. That's good. Good. If money wasn't an issue and you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do with your life?

Open a roastery. Yeah, like that would be one of the things, I mean, if money wasn't an issue, I'd do everything that needed to be done that involved... Still quicker, because you wouldn't have to work and save money for it. Yeah, like in the sense of like, well, all I need is time to do things. So if money wasn't an issue, I'd just like fix the world's problems. Good. Because I'm literally working off time. That's all I need. I don't need money. So there's so many problems that involve money in the world that need to be fixed.

But the complicated part of that is that they involve money that people don't have. So there we go. That's one thing I can fix every problem that involves having money. All I need is a certain amount of time, if we're talking about poverty or anything from there up, I just need time if money is an issue. And then I do some selfish things, like buy a boathouse, treat myself, start a roastery, buy really, really expensive coffees. On the making the world a better place bit, talk about the coffee counts and what does it mean to you to be able to contribute to something like that?

Yeah, awesome. So this is really good because I think there's a lot of wank in the coffee industry. There's a lot of dudes just, I don't know, well not dudes, a lot of people that just, I don't know, I don't know if they take it too seriously or they're just too intense about it. I don't know, but I think really like one of the key things is we're getting this product from a country that is less fortunate than us, that is farmed by people that are less fortunate than us, and obviously money is a big thing, they are earning a lot less money than us.

If all we have to do is, I think it's, I hope I'm not wrong, 20 cents, 10 or 20 cents for every single coffee. I've contributed a bit to that. Yeah, I just think of it simply in the sense of like if all we have to do is contribute 20 cents from every coffee out of our pocket to some people that are less fortunate than us to help them, well then why not? That's what the coffee counts to me, it's like well we can do something, why don't we do it? It's not like that 20

cents is going to send us into poverty, and you know what, if I have to live out of my car for five years for that 20 cents to be contributed to them, well then I'll bloody do it. And obviously that's not the extent of it, but it's like me living in a car for that long is still better than some living conditions where coffee comes from. So I don't know, it's as simple as like if you can do something, why don't you do it? And that's what the coffee counts to me, and I'm really stoked that all the boys have started Common Folk, and everyone involved along with me has helped contribute.

So yeah, that's literally it for me. And everyone wins because you guys get amazing coffee, and you teach the farmers how to farm properly. Yeah, we get awesome coffee, yeah exactly, we're just teaching them how. Like literally no one loses, like the consumer loses nothing, the Common Folk lose but it's basically like re-injecting it back into the industry, so they lose 20 cents per day. Per coffee, but at the same time we get another country to get coffee off, we're helping people. And you create relationships. And we create relationships, and like for me, as I said before, I enjoy people, and a relationship is worthless.

I don't know, what's the other word? Priceless. Priceless. The word you're looking for. Shit. Okay, so it's been a long hot day, we've started, yeah it's very warm in here, we've started with interaction with people and we've finished with relationships are worthless. Yeah. Good. Relationships are priceless, and so 20 cents for a coffee is all it takes to have a good relationship with someone. This next question, I'm really interested to hear your answer, because of the last couple of years. If you had to go back to school, what are the three subjects you put into the curriculum that they didn't teach you?

Oh, awesome. How to do taxes. Good. I still haven't done my taxes. Probably should get on that. Yeah, I should get on that, I have no idea how. So it's as simple as asking someone, but like, imagine if you taught me how to do my taxes instead of like, you know, a part of psychology or something, actually that was really interesting. But anyway, yeah. Imagine if you taught me how to do my taxes at school, that'd be sick. Also how to maintain your car, shout out to Hoags for helping me maintain my car. I now know how to change my oil, and Peter Keck did my fan drive belt, and that was interesting.

So I can give it a little service if I need to. Yep. So, taxes. Car. Cars. Or something else. I don't know, I feel like they should just have like, a study block where they just teach you how to be a legend. Just life skills. Yeah, it's like a life coaching study block. How to be a fully functional adult. Not name it that. So what you need to do is, if you go into high school and say, "Oh, sweet, so period three every Friday, we're going to be essentially doing life coaching and teach you how

to talk to people," you're going to have a whole group of teenagers that will be like, "Get off it, we don't want to do that. That's as lame as..." So what you're going to do is, you have to tell every student that they're enrolled in specialist maths third period every Friday, they rock up for specialist maths, hating it, and then you don't even talk about math, you just say, "Oh, you turned it into a class about that." But don't tell them it's about that. Just start working on your skills with people and developing all that. So just manipulate teenagers, basically.

Yeah, but I mean, how else are you going to get them to do anything? Correct. So yeah, that's what you need, they're the three classes. I don't know what we can call that third one, but it makes sense. Good. If you could invite three people to dinner, who would they be and why? Ooh, I like this one. Look, I'm going to say Jimi Hendrix, because he was my idol growing up. Yeah. Actually, no, no, no way. Sorry, Hendrix. Hendrix is out, yeah, good. Outstanding tweet there, good jump, very, very happy with that. Hendrix is cool, but I feel like the whole conversation will just be like, "Yeah, man."

At least I could chat to Freddie a bit. Good. So yeah, done. That looks a little like my Instagram feed. Of course you can, mate. Of course you can. All right. Something will pop up and I'll work out. That's outstanding. I'd have dinner to you. No, I like it. It's a good way to check on who you are, you're just making a difference in your life. I should ask someone out for dinner over the podcast, that'd be funny. Yeah. No, I got no one though. All right. This didn't really help. Just think amongst yourselves at home there, guys.

Yeah, if you've got any spare time, you need to preheat the oven for dinner, it's 4.55, you can do that. And sorry for the little bit of drilling that's going on upstairs, I apologize wholeheartedly for that. Definitely sounded like farting at one point, so. And one of the two. All right, first you'd be able to come into mind, who else? Freddie? I'm going to say Milu, because we meant to get coffee last week, but I was way too busy. And she's a dead set legend. Let's do that. There you go. Done. And actually, I'm going to say Sam Keck.

He will be so happy with that. Because I sometimes run out of conversation and he's really good at conversation, never stops talking. So, like, when I'm having dinner with these people. Want to make sure it doesn't stop. Yeah, as soon as I, because sometimes I just clock off, and as soon as I do that, he'll just be like, oh, so anyway, you know, how sick are my camera shorts? And then we've got like half an hour of conversation. Good. Yep. All right, last question. What's your best story? Okay, I'm not going to tell this one, but I'm just going to give it a title, and the person at home listening to this podcast can punch me in the face.

But Fergie's Pilgrim, Geelong, that's all I'm going to say, the people that know about it know about it. Carry on. And I'm never allowed to tell this story again. And there was one time where I made it from, let's do a comparison. I was living in Noosa, and I walked about four or five suburbs to get Maccas. How is that your best story? Maccas, a lot of stuff happened in between. Okay. So it was my going away party, so when you're moving back down to Mornington, it's my going away party, the girl of my dreams broke my heart.

Oh, I know. So me and the lads decided to go get Maccas, and this isn't even my best story, but I'm just going to tell it anyway. Keep going. This is the story. And so we decided to walk, there was only one Maccas in the area, and it was like four or five towns away, took us about four hours. Commitment. Yeah. And that was four hours with a lot of pace too, so like we did a whole bunch of the hills in through Tawantin on shopping trolleys. So my dad used to tell me stories about he'd get a sheet, you know, a shopping cart sailing, sit in a shopping cart with a sheet, let the wind blow out.

So we did that and covered, I reckon, a few K doing that, which was sick. I almost got bitten by a snake going through this forest part. Sounds like an adventure. It was the scariest moment of my life because everyone had left, and I was walking through this forest, there was a snake in the middle, and I had to jump over it and get rid of it, and it was scary. I went for a swim with a complete stranger who bet me, this event happened twice in my life living in Queensland, once it was my dad and then the second time it was a stranger who bet me five bucks to swim into the middle of the river and back.

I had no idea that there were tiger sharks in that river, or, yeah, tiger sharks, yeah, they're the ones who are in the middle. That's nice of them. Yeah. So I got back and they were like, dude, I don't have five bucks, and I didn't think you'd actually do that, and told me why, and then later to find out that my dad had previously done that to me as well, with the same knowledge that this guy had. Did that. Thanks dad. This is in the one trip, so I had a bit of an eventful night,

got Maccas, and I hate Maccas, and my mates met back up with me at Maccas, so I went off on my own for a while. That's cool. This is great. I was like 15. I'd gone out at home and I was just like, fuck this, I'm out. Anyway, and Maccas wouldn't let us get through, which was a classic drive-through thing, and this taxi driver came out of the gym opposite Maccas, how funny is that, gym Maccas, walked over to Maccas, and we were like, hey man, can you drive us in your taxi through the drive-through? And he did that, and then we did the four hour trip home.

And that wasn't really my best story, but it was the longest one I got. That's good, very good from you. Finish off, any wisdom you would like to impart on all the listeners? No. Any wisdom? No, not really. Like, if you're 15, who cares what people think? Good. If you're an adult, who cares what people think, come in for a coffee if I don't know you, because I like meeting people. And yeah, that's it, cheers, lucky. Mate, thanks for coming on.