The Flex and Rooms daily podcast Tay Freaks currently eating a mandarin that a woman called Cat brought into the office. It's from her family's mandarin tree. This thing is both the juiciest and the most sour thing I've ever tried, and es little sour will worm lollies FLEXI, yeah, it's like that.
But fruit, I'm such a fruit stand.
Every time I eat fruit, I have this really, I feel like it's like a spiritual moment for me where I don't experience gratitude as often as I do than when I'm eating fruit. I'm like, how number one of the colors. I'm just obsessed with the flavor and the fact that, like, I'm eating these grapes at the moment. And someone on the internet told me that these are genetically modified grapes, so they're built for purpose per ones. No, no, no, So these I don't know what they're called. I think
they're called sweeties or something. But they're more of an oval shape and they don't have seeds, and they're really really juicy and sour. But they're genetically modified because they're off seasons. Well that's why they're also so expensive, I meaning robot grapes.
Right now. But even that, I'm like.
What a gift to the world. I think you like them because they are expensive? No, because I like oranges. Did you eat fruit growing up? Yeah?
What type oranges? Apples? But I think I used to think I really liked apples.
I don't.
Actually they're too hit and miss me so oranges, apples, strawberries and passion fruit and nectarines.
Oh no, maybe they're plums. Actually, you have.
More sour profile all the ones. You're saying it got a bitter Yeah, bitter, actually just sour. My favorite is bananas that have the one every time, every single morning. Regardless of banana and blueberries, they don't really hit the spot though, very hit and miss.
They need to, they need to genetically modify those.
But yeah, I think fruit is the best, the best, best, best, best thing that the world could offer us in terms of like natural stuff. That and then dragons, because I refuse believe that dragons aren't real. How can dinosaurs be real and dragons aren't real? That doesn't make any sense.
It's just kind of like reminds me of how people are, like I believe in super supernatural things. I'm like, isn't the world crazy? Enough as is the dinosaurs crazy enough as is? Yeah, what happened at an extra layer? I just use your imagination.
Do you believe in the Locknest Monster?
Yeah? Probably, I think I'm from there. Oh your community, my big poppies. Mum was Scottish. I don't know how nice she was.
What's that gonna do it anything?
Leave her out of it. The Scottish people are quaking anyway, This is not at all at the segment.
What tonight's segment is about podcast I know to segments and breaks.
Like these people know what's happening.
Bring them in on the industry lingo as I learned on myself. I'm gonna talk about be Real as you know everyone, I'm obsessed with be Real on my story there that day, I gave her how to how to download.
Very helpful.
I hope there was a bit of an uptick I reckon there was for season conversion. But we're gonna give our personal opinions on be Real as Flexi says. We could go on and on and on about this topic, but we had to get out most things.
Anyway.
I don't know about you do a whole episode on Citrus for it. Oh yeah, facts let's do it anyway, Let's get to it. Listen to this jump Scared Flex and Froods. We were speaking about be Real yesterday on the show.
It's about to be our new TikTok. The thoughts I have about it come through abundantly and often. We both have different takes on be Real. Just for a bit of clarity, I downloaded be Real. I reckon early adopter.
I was an early adopter, not like a sixteen year old adopter like I wasn't that early, but I was definitely one of the first, I would say, in our generation to make the.
Leap person our generation.
As soon as Elon Musk could posted about it, you were on it. He posted about it.
Yeah, that's the time. I thought. That's how he found out about it.
Nah, I can't remember how I found out about it.
Elon Musk posted a screenshot of the app Store trying to plug his own app, and then it was a chart of the top apps in the same section, and be Real was.
The number two or something.
Oh, that's so it was like that residual clout. Well, so, yeah, we're talking about it the other day and your feelings about it, my feelings towards be Real majority positive. I downloaded it all that time ago and stopped using it, mainly because my friends weren't on it, and I had early on accepted a lot of randoms. So what I did I got be Real put on the story. Why
didn't I make clear that I'm an early adopter. Yeah, I wanted to brag, of course, so I put it up me being too hot, cool out doing a be Real accepted a whole bunch of people started to become a bit not very fun. Yeah, anyway, So then I came back two weeks ago, deleted everyone except for the people that I know personally and have started posting, and
I haven't missed a single day. And I think it's the antithesis of what you're saying, Like, I think it really is off the cuff and it's fun and it's exciting. The reason why I love it is quite a while ago, I was in a great chat with girls that I used to work with, and we do this thing where at a random time a day, we'd say selfie. Now we all work at different places and we'd all have to do a selfie of whatever we're doing.
That's fun, and it worked so.
Well because we knew everything about each other. We knew every little dirty thing we'd ever done. So that was no, that was a bit of a that was a bit of a rug rat at work in my early days, running around farting, jumping on things, being silly anyway, So the way that I've curated my be Real means that I don't have to pretend that I'm ever doing anything fun or exciting. It's purely just like a group chat that you don't actually have to put any effort into.
You just open your phone, click something, look what everyone else is doing, and then leave that app. Like, I'm not addicted to be Real.
Not yet.
It was the year was twenty twelve. We said, what is this photo sharre? Now you know, look and for context.
I don't have a problem with be Real the app, but I have a problem with the conversation around the app and how people frame it as we should do this map, this mass exodus away from TikTok and oh I'm not sam leave that No no, But that's what I'm saying, as in, like, my issue is not with be Real the app, but the fact that the conversation around it is how like be Real is the antithesis to Instagram and TikTok.
It's the savior.
It's everything that that platform isn't in the best way possible. It's honest, and it's authentic, and it's off the cuff and it's natural, just as those platforms once were before the whole world started using them and before they got monetized.
Okay, how many people do you have on your be Real?
Let's actually check, because I did make the similar mistake to you by letting Rando's in, which is no shade.
I just don't care what I have.
I want to if I want to see what randos are doing, I want to see them living like real, exciting lives. I don't want to see the back of a Rando's iMac, I'm not interested.
While we're on this topic, my friend Louis Henson, who's a comedian and a writer and stuff, he messaged me other day sang, what is be Real? I said, get it?
I get it?
I said, but only add people that you know. Meanwhile, puts it on his story he's got like a thousand fat friends now and be real?
How do you find the friends?
You go to the arrow on the left, press the friend button up on the left. Okay, yep, and then you'll see suggestions friends or requests. Requests, so suggestions like people in your contacts, which can be quite triggering.
Rogue ones in there.
And then yeah, we've got friends and requests. It just says fifty plus friends. Doesn't say the number.
Oh damn. You might have to go and do some purging, some cleansing.
It's all good.
But so far I've been enjoying it. Like the social element to it, and I like that you do minimal effort and it's a good way to stay tuned to what my friends are doing all around the world.
Yeah, like I said, I'll be down for the ride. I want to see how it evolves. I think my main concern is I don't think people realize that what they hate about social media is them.
You are the problem. You are the problem.
So until you change and your habits change, you're gonna infect every app you go and visit.
Heavy flex and frooms. So FLEXI, I have a little bit of a dilemma for you. It's been sent in by somebody who's an Internet national student. Okay, so go off, Queen my lenard sis and this is what she says. We need to give her a little bit of advice because she's coming to us with their dilemma.
I love it.
So I've been with my boyfriend for two years, and at the end of this month, he'll be leaving the country for two months to go back to his home country and then come back here. They're hot, going on a holiday. Yeah, I believe he's the term. I depend on him a lot, and for the past six months we were staying at the sharehouse and we both have our own private rooms so we can have our privacy.
I love that more separate bedrooms for couples.
We're both international students. I don't have a family here and he's my only friend. I'm an interrept and it takes time for me to trust people. He will be staying right now with his relatives before his flight, so she's alone already. It's just hitting me now how I've been relying on him, and I don't know how to handle this loneliness I'm feeling right now. I know two months is a short time, but I'm not sure how
I'm going to handle myself being alone. Does anyone have advice for me on how to handle this emotion that's sad. It's sad because it's such a small amount of time and she's really worried about.
It even before we get to that point, Like I was, like, I thought the two months was gonna be like.
OHI are you gonna cove like keep yourself busy or whatever.
But it seems that this person has set their life up around this idea of having this one person be your support system, your friend, your partner, your entertainment, your safe space. And now they're leaving period not just for one week's two weeks, one week's one weeks, one week, two weeks, three weeks, eight weeks might already gone now, and then you're gonna have to figure out how you do life. It's too many things to unravel at once. I want to know what your answer is for this one,
because I feel like I'm not equipped for this. I'm a big like I like my own space. I don't want to be hanging out too much, and like I would love to do long distance that can kind of girl.
I believe the term is avoidant.
Yeah.
I think she's doing the right thing by reaching out and asking people what to do. Yeah, I this is my mo for when I'm struggling. I ask questions. I think it's the only way to I think if you're asking questions, it's an enormous step in the right direction of making yourself happier for the worst things. Denying it. She could deny that she's lonely, play ruinescape, perhaps some sims on origin depends what your poison is. Yeah, yeah, but she's actively taking steps. I think she should use
this time like, be kind in yourself. Don't tell yourself sure, oh, I've got to go out and make a million friends. Just sit and think, Yeah, damn, I don't really like this feeling. So maybe when my boyfriend comes back, we can go and do things as a couple and meet new people. That's probably a nice step to give yourself the comfort blanket. Obviously he's been a comfort blanket in and of himself. So use him now to leverage off and meet some new friends.
Use as a jump off for use him, be opportunistic. Yeah, I mean that's a good point. But what about you know two months that we're creeping into the holidays, So what do you think if there was one thing she could do to make him feel better about her circumstance right now?
What could be helpful.
Eat ice cream. Yeah, that's what I do.
Yeah, I would say get active in the comments. Oh, just in the comments of social media posts. I feel like that can give the illusion of some kind of friendship or relationship, getting notifications, you know, being active in some kind of environment with other people. I think that's like a little microdose of connection and community.
Well you certainly on the right track on Reddit. Yeah, asking questions and whatnot.
I feel like that'll work out really really well, and especially do it in an environment where you're really entertained. So if I was feeling similarly, I would definitely join like a podcast, Facebook group or a discord server or a twitch stream. Get the human connection of the content creator, but also all the people who are there for a like minded reason and just get involved.
I've definitely done that before and it's been helpful. Yeah, be very educational at times. Two Birds on Stone used to just like, pretend like you're in life university for two weeks.
Two Yeah, be a student, do a social experiment. See what like, Yeah, try something new.
I personally wouldn't do it.
But she could enjoy this is flex and frooms on a couple of weeks ago. I was interviewed by Mark Boris, who, for those of you who don't know, the host of Celebrity Apprentice Australia and The Apprentice Australia and like this huge businessman person. And the consensus of the interview overwhelmingly positive.
Everyone loves it. But there have been a few rogue comments.
People saying, oh, this is so odd, what a weird crossover, Like.
He's a businessman, and like you do this?
Mescuse miss Scussie, me scusie, who is saying this?
I've had this conversation today.
What I find to be really odd is that, like I feel like young people, especially we do a lot of work around changing the perceptions of what things should look like, you know, like this is like not all women look like this, not all workplaces should look like this, not all professional people should look like this. But in practice and like, you're telling on yourself, babe, you're telling
on yourself. Because to some people who had this kind of perception, it was phrases almost like a it is so cool that you could be in a space like.
That, like why would he want to talk to you?
Interesting?
Mabe, who do you think? Like what do you think the business landscape looks like once the old people die me, people just like me.
I'm your boss, babe, IM figning your check.
Yeah. Fully, people do not realize what you do. It comes to a shock to many people that you run businesses, that you do all this stuff outside of big on the internet, which is so.
Odd because when how where am I meant to start flexing that? Clearly there's like a it's like if it's communication, if I am too blame the fact that people don't know that I'm poppin' on the entrepreneurship side. What is a solution? Obviously, I've taken a step a page of your book. I joined LinkedIn. Yep, congrat very excited, change the game. I actually did have a LinkedIn once deleted it. I said, I'm an entrepreneur. I don't need this. Turns
out I do. I'm still curating my feed accepting connections. But I think that's step one. It needs to be clear. Do you know what is the most embarrassing thing to have to say, check my credentials?
Yeah?
I want of having credentials, so I don't need to remind you to check them.
How is it like meeting him? What's his vibe?
Like, it's fantastic, so charming, so engaging. A few people are under the impression that, you know, maybe like is he like some boomer who was like talking at you? Not too And I was like, no, not even a little bit.
I listened to it. You spoke three quarters of the time. Yeah, because you were a guest, and I heard you even discuss that.
Yeah, we were talking about this, this idea of because he was saying off air that he had had experiences where people like, oh, you know, let the guests speak type of thing, you know, like we're here to hear the guests.
So I think it goes either way.
I was very impressed by how understood I felt, Yeah, by someone who would be perceived to be like the complete contrast to who I am and what I do.
It's fantastic.
I wonder if the kind of stuff you do requires kind of some research and some googling because it's so far away from like a usual business model or a usual like way up into business. Whereas if someone was doing like a clothing label, maybe then they would kind of make them they would misconstrue what you're doing. I'm
talking in terms of Mark Boris. Yeah, it's because it's so far out, he would have either had to look at you from a long you know, watch you for a long time, or do proper googling Google's word done.
You could tell really Google were hat that's okay, you get it? Like this wasn't like a so tell me what you do? And then I'm like, okay, so which bit did you research? I fill in the blank? You know he got it. I listened really validating.
I listened to it on the way here, and I thought it was really cool how you actually explained your way up. I think often we're asked these questions of how did you start? And I've heard your story before, but I hadn't heard it in that amount of detail. And I feel like he facilitated a space where that amount of detail was appreciated. And as a listener, I
definitely did. I got a better understanding of how your brain works, where you came from, how the skills that you have now were informed by decisions that you made when you were younger.
Hotty behavior.
Yeah, it was a really great and I'm really halfway in spoiler alert.
I mean, you know me now, so you've got the spoiler alert. But it's amazing that you're on Banshee. Yeah yeah, that comes through. Yeah facts, I hope does anyway, So shout out to that interview. You really enjoyed it. This begins phase one of me creating a whole brand transition. I need no one to know that I was once a DJ award winning influencer, TV presenter. Just know that the income streams are diversified and I am, above all things, a great business woman.
We're pivoting, pivoting always.
This is flex and frooms on Kita. Here's the thing.
I try to take a lot of success advice too, seriously, considering a lot of what we do has not been done before, you know, making money off being yourself, exploiting your vessel for commercial gain, rare, rare, unique or whatever. But I did come across this video that struck a chord with me because I think it's broad enough that it can actually be appealing to the average person.
It's not just this hyper specific.
Let's just play the tape.
If it doesn't ship, it doesn't count. Tomorrow morning, we're thirty. There's going to be a post on my blog. Not because it's the best post I ever wrote, but because it's tomorrow morning. Because I decided twenty years ago to write a post every day, and I haven't revisited that decision. I made that decision once, and seven thousand blog posts later, I don't have to have a meeting with myself about
whether this is good enough to publish. I just have to say, is this the best available post I've got. If it is, I publish it. And it turns out the ones that I slave over the hardest, that I am sure are perfect, don't resonate, and the ones I write in five minutes because I've had a busy go like crazy. I have no idea, I'm wrong all the time, but I ship the work.
Obviously, not all of us are trying to be writers or publishers. But what I did resonate with is that this guy made one decision twenty years ago and he's stuck with it. And I think a lot of us looking for that shortcut to you know, the big success moment.
You know, we'll switch it around, we'll change the strategy, will peeve that it will be agile, will be open to changing things, and we forget that consistency usually is the reason why people get to where they're trying to go, because they decided to do it once, and they kept doing it until they until it made sense, until it resonant, until it worked totally.
It's quite upsetting if you're somebody who doesn't like doing things over and over again, because it's very true, and it's particularly true in the social media Internet age, where consistency is not only rewarded with your ability to create constantly, but it's actually helps you to with the algorithm.
Oh yeah, think of anything.
If I was going to be a trade like you do your apprenticeship, that's just you know, three years of doing the same thing again and again and again and again again ntil.
You get it.
And it's gonna take that long because you need to practice. You know, the idea of ten thousand hours. How this idea that if you want to be proficient at something, invest ten thousand hours and you'll be really great at it. And I think we're all looking for our one hundred hour, our one thousand hour, not recognizing that it probably will take you that long to be great. I always say, when I started DJing almost ten years ago, I don't think I was good till three years in.
Nobody told me, nobody said I had to figure it out, which is good that they didn't.
It's good they probably wouldn't have kept doing it. That wasn't bad. It just wasn't good.
And it actually took that much djaying full time for years, So you're like, no, I'm amazing at this.
I think that's the biggest thing that holds people back from starting and trying. I think it's the thing that cuts the wheat from the chaff.
Is that the expression I don't know, but I like the way that sounds.
Yeah, I think it's right.
Is yeah.
Consistency and the ability to put things out there that you're not one hundred percent proud of. So I've got a friend called Michael Bev Mickey B seven two three who he's a writer. He used to be on a Big Brother. Yes, that's how he came to my mind. He was the redheaded guy that came in first in the twenty thirteen series. Very funny, very smart, very clever, genius behavior.
We love him.
He's a bit of a genius, isn't he. Yeah, he's just really good at writing and being very He writes how he speaks, which is such an incredible skill on the cultural nose. And actually, the day after I got my redundant in twenty twenty. I called him and I said to him, I'm freaking out what do I do? And I told him this idea that I had that I really wanted to make, and it was like, I want to do a show. My goal I'm gonna do like a variety show. I want flex Mummy to be
in it. That was one of the people, and that's what I Reckon likes truthless. I had all these people written down that I ended up going on to work with, which is kind of like, you know, one of the goals. Yeah, serendipitous. But what he told me was a thing called minimum viable product. Try and if you're listening to this, try and say minimum viable product.
I won't do it again without thinking.
It's quite difficult for minimum will problem no, So you see it's on. So that refers to just making something, making the something with whatever you've got, making it like it doesn't matter if it's the shittest thing you've ever made, as long as you've made something and doing what you need to do with it, whether that's put it out there or write it down or send it to somebody
or give it to somebody. And what it helps you do is it just helps you get into the rhythm of actually making things, and it takes away the self criticism because I think, especially with creative things, no matter where you are on your creative journey, you could be first starting, you could be a Uni sudent, you could be where we are right now.
I think that.
Talum, Well, we're both here on CAT so I'll take that. Well, where I am right now is like I definitely still have moments where I freak out about posting things or writing things because I need a lot of validation I always have, and it kind of goes to show that never goes away. So never create with the idea in mind that one day it's going to be easy, because
it never is, but instead brutal. Yeah, but that's rud I think that's a really that you're seeing you enjoy No, I mean, you can enjoy yourself when you live by the minimum viable product mindset and just know that take pleasure and take comfort in knowing that you're always going to feel like something's not perfect and only doing things because they're perfect, and like not wanting to be cringe. That comes into it as well, like needing it to
be the best thing you've ever you've ever made. Meeting it, needing it to be better than other people's thing is such a trap. And yeah, if you do, if you try to do something every day. I also the thing that I don't like about that advice though, is it the advice you just gave, no, the advice of the other guy MVP or this one this one? Just keep doing it one bit of day, one bit of day. Yeah.
Because also I think if you're someone that wants to try really hard and like take these kind of things as gospel, like you said, you don't take stuff as gospel, you could feel bad about not doing things every day. For example, I'm going to Europe for three weeks in September. Yeah see, I've mentioned every single podcast with done, but my plan to you exact date too freaking me out every time I'm taking a private jet, so you're not
going to see it. Something that I want to do is take three weeks off hot, which is actually like harder than you think because I've got all these jobs on the go, like ongoing jobs and deadlines and things that I need to post. But I'm making a conscious decision to let everybody know that I'm going to be completely off the grid. I'm getting a digital camera. Yeah, I'm not going to reply to emails because I want to prove to myself that it's possible to completely stop
what you're doing. And just because you stop it doesn't mean you're the You're not that person. For example, you know there's actors who act in one thing and then feel like, oh, I can't call myself an actor. It's like, yes, you can. You can call yourself whatever you want, even if you've just done it once. You don't have to be like a Politzer Prize winning journalist to be a journalist. You don't need to be doing something that we do.
You know you can do it even if you take a six month break a sabbatical I think might make you a bit behind chill. If you enjoy what doing what you're doing, then the journey's fun.
One hundred percent. I feel for you.
It's all a bit tricky, I will say though.
One of the trickiest things about knowing your capacity is knowing your skills. And so whether you are the one post to day, the one you know, shipping away a little project or doing the biggest thing ever, know what you can actually achieve with your own capability because some of you big idea bitches don't have big idea skills.
And that's a big idea infrastructure of people get big idea resources, big idea networks.
You just don't have it like that, And that's all good, but know that Another big thing too, I find is when people are on the beginning of their journey, stop trying to get everyone to drown with you.
Okay, everyone's got this big idea I'm.
Gonna get this is involving this person involved, and we can do this, we can do that, and it's all great hypothetically, but test with your own labor, your own skills, your own time, and then when you feel confident that you can add value to someone else, bring them in. Unless you're a group of people who are like, we're always going to like mess around a bit, we have
nothing to lose. But I do see that a lot where someone's like, I don't have anything, but you have something, and you could help me with this, so can I can you give me help?
And it's like, well, you giving back totally make the thing and then made me come Yeah, that's it. That's fucked up. Mutual pleasure mutual benefit. So I love that you're listening to flex and Frooms on CATA. I was looking at newsletters the other day. I should be Subtex should be paying me just some kind of kickback for the amount, like at least they should give me money for doing my everybody not aggressively like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we need all something for this.
I'm feeling the vibes.
And I was looking at this newsletter from new Weeek Same Humans. It's the technology newsletter that we often speak about on the show, and it wrote this. This viral Twitter thread asked if an AI image generator is trained
on work by living artists, should those artists be compensated? Ooh, so, as you know, AI generators, they've become quite popular even amongst us regular people lately, where, for example, you write into this chatbot Jennifer Anison writing an elephant, and then it will collate images from the Internet and create these like conceptual, weird images of her writing a elephant. But the elephant like has one eye and she's got like three mouths.
And it minds all these images from what's available on the world Wide Web.
Yes, I'm not sure where they get the images from. Like is it what where's the search engine? Do they have to have rights over what photos they use?
Well, I guess it's what they're saying.
If they're just gathering all this data of you know, art, they don't have the commercial license for to make new art. I guess they would get away with it because they're not selling the art that's being made, so like the copyright is still allowing them to use it in a non commercial way.
But I get what they're saying.
Kind of reminds me when I bought my Samsung from and I assumed the pictures were in the TV ready to go, Like, you just buy the frame, the art is in there, because for almost three K there's a bit art in there. But no, you gotta get a subscription what to access the art. Or you can buy the art a one time fee. But you don't own the art, you're just licensing to use it in your frame.
So wait a second, you can't like put a us B in and put a random picture on there.
Well, you can use your phone app to air drop a picture to your frame and use your own images, but you could do that with any TV really, like I used with my old TV. I used to go to YouTube type ingradient, let that play, you know, and that was little you know five.
And jo old TV for this. I was like, okay, this is a process.
I gotta become a subscriber, loan this art and if you want a one time purchase, it's twenty five bucks. I don't want any art that badly, especially when it's not like contemporary art.
It's the classics. Oh, like you're buying like a Monet.
Yeah, you know it's been rinsed.
Interesting. Yeah, this is a broader conversation around artists and compensation, particularly in the digital age. I was looking recently at an artist on Instagram. I have to remember his name.
The clown guy.
No, no, they always forget him, the clown guy. His name is Oliver Watts. So there's a guy called doctor Oliver Watts. He's a painter in Australia. We follow each other and I remember looking at his artwork and he is also I think a lecture at university and he wrote this really really interesting article about rights clearances with artworks and how when you're watching a reality TV like the Kardashians, you don't see what art is on their walls. Because I don't get the clearances in time, so what
they do is they just blow them out. And the issue with that is the artists don't get paid and they don't get the get to be seen because getting rights clearances take so much time. It's like when we do work and we have to ask for permissions for certain things, or you get usage periods when your branded work. It's a whole other level that kind of you're damned if you do and you're damned.
If you don't.
Yeah, articed, because then it's an extra cost too.
Like if I buy some art and I want to show the art, but I can't show the art, and I got to pay someone else to get to show the art already bought with my own money.
I get why it's not happening. You've been listening to the Flex and Frooms Daily podcast. For more, tune in Decter on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.