Welcome to the Seize the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives they adore, the good, bad and ugly, the best and worst day
will bear all the facets of Seizing your Yea. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned unentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk. Bark Sees the Ya is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along
the way. Lovely yighborhood as promised, here is part two of what could easily have snowballed into an eight hundred and seventy five part series with my dear friend, doctor Matt Agnew. I'm sure you guys can hear now why we get along so well. He's just such an easy conversationalist and we always go off on the most random
but enjoyable tangents. Even still with two parts, there is so much we didn't get to about this fascinating human being, and that's all without really touching on The Bachelor at all. So I do hope that you have enjoyed getting to know a different side of him for his proper intro and bio. Go back to the first part. We pick up in this episode right where we left off, which, as it turns out, wasn't very far into his story
at all or his WATA. I think we made it to the tender age of twelve in the timeline, and there's still so much more ahead, so who knows. Part three could still come at you in the future, But in the meantime, I do hope you guys enjoy this part two. Matthew Terrence agnew and because I'm just distinguishing it from matt from The Bachelor, I feel like there's to be a distinguisher, and that's Matthew Terrence, and that's Matthew Terrence because I feel like that's a little lesser known fact.
Anyway, my middle name or name, yeah, it is Lesson and it's also spelt I think no, you're a singlar and an E because I think the standard spelling of Terrence I think is T A n C. Mine is T E R E n C.
Yes, okay, which is yeah.
I'm not sure why my folks opted for that, but they just fun yeah, And I feel my parents told me this, and they deny this story to me now, but they said that they gave me and my older brother. So my eldest brother and my eldest I've only got one sister, but they got the standard kind of like grandparents' names. My oldest brother got Alan Thomas, and my sister got
Flora Charlotte's beautiful. Yeah. So me and then me and my other brother was like, okay, well, what are we giving them for their middle names?
You're just chucking to misspelled Terrence were miss spelled Terrence.
Yeah. So basically we got variations of my dad's name, which is Terry. So I got Terrence and my brother got Edward because there was at the time some of the rallies called him.
Ted Oh my god, I know that was born. I don't know. He's long yes on his passport.
Why did I think it was just I.
Think because we've always said Teddy, yeah, but Edwards his passport names. Okay, there you go.
So we got Yeah, so Mark Edward and Matthew Terrence and my parents I swear they told me this was They wanted to give us the sort of regal sounding name for when we eventually get knighted.
Nice. I love that. That is why.
Sir Matthew hasn't got the same ring as Sir Matthew Terrence, just like Sir Mark or Sir Mark Edward's true. They deny this story, and so now I'm second guessing I've just made this. I don't know now because I'm like, hey, on, have my parents they've told me this completely made up, fabricated story and now are denying it, or have I made this up in my head? I'm like, yeah, they thought we're going to get knighted one day.
Are you gaslighting yourself? Gaslighting?
You don't know? The former?
Probably basically story though.
Yeah. So that's yeah, that's the origin of Terrence.
I mean, when you do go to space and get knighted, inevitable, you'll laugh when you're like, I am Sir Matthew Terrence, agne the astronaut, the astronaut direct, Yeah, and then you can be so doctor actually, oh my God, what comes first the hierarchy of titles? Is it doctor, sir? Or would you just drop doctor drop.
Because you can do doctor or you can book PhD. At the end new PhD. I slapped that out of the end, slap sir at the start.
So you've got it's like bookmarks. Yeah, that is a good bookmark your booking.
Yeah, you know what, Matthew Terrence agnew PhD.
That's nice. That's nice. And then you'd add like an O I m at the end when you get your Order of Australian Medal.
Correct. Yeah, So I've got a few things I need to achieve from here, yeah, and not a ton of time to do it.
Well. I'm like I started so strong on the first ever, so on part one, being like I want to introduce that not from a bachelora and blaha, warn't show who you are, and then I made it to like, you know, the age of twelve. I think that's as far as I got.
So, yeah, I can't remember how deep we got because you've had a number of these conversations offline.
I think maybe that's why. Because I was like, where are we up to? And I just and then tangents and it really is when you want to showcase every guest, I want to showcase the best side of them that I can. But when it's your friend, you know so many more sides than you do about the average person that then every tangent, Like normally I would like go of a tangent and go that's not the best one. Let's like focus on the one. Whereas with a friend you're like, well, I need to pick up on that
because I know something about it. It's like you've done too much research, Like I'm too well researched on Sir Matthew, transact me pha I am. It's like a really different composition.
But you're saying it's like you find doing interviewing friends harder. It's a challenge for you.
It's more because you put more pressure on yourself because you know them better. So it's like your passion to convey something is greater than like you always want to convey someone in the best way you can, but when you're invested in the person as well, you're like, I want to show everything about this person that other people
might not know. And then yeah, halfway through you're like, wow, I made it to like dot point one of four hundred and twenty seven and like we're not even all the way through your life yet, you know what I mean, Like Jesus, we haven't even made it to the knighthood yet. No, that was really sweat.
It was really sweet, because sweet and misplaced when you were apologizing after our last recording because you felt you didn't get deeper and it was Yeah, as I said, it was a misplaced apology. It was no apology necessarily. Yeah, it was really sweet to see this such a high level of quality you hold yourself too, That's what it was flattered that you wanted to have a second art as well because it was so much fun last time. Yeah, so yes, no, thank you bring back.
I really listened and I did enjoy that. I think maybe like decide I wanted of you maybe did come out more or because we weren't so structured, like maybe it was more like this is who matters when he's just chatting with a friend.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that's because you don't necessarily always see that. Certainly with social media, I've been able to allow a lot of my personality to MOI a lot.
More of my personality.
Fun. Yeah, yeah, I've been able to allow more of my personality out in social media and just in general, just people seeing me more naturally and less curated as they were first introduced to me. But you still don't necessarily see these the tangents. Yeah, how does his friendship opera? Yeah, I think it's It's like you said that, the unstructuredness of it was actually quite nice. Yeah, well, I.
Really enjoyed it. But then when I was actually going back to the questions afterwards, I was like, I literally started your way toa around like taking time off school and I think it was primary school. I don't even know if I got to high school. But then didn't even cover like any of your jobs, both of your books AI, which is like the biggest topic. You've literally gone and restudied it your business crash. Like, I was like, what did I cover anything? So let's go back, let's
pick up where we left off. There are so many things that I wanted to talk to you about, but I think I need to start with dating purely because the DM I mean, I can't even imagine what your dms are, Like my dms before the episode even came out, just saying I recorded with you were bananas, But one thing that we did kind of give a like allude to a little bit last time was the fact that we had both had a big period and you would continue to be in this big period of quitting alcohol,
and that certainly we bonded over something over and past. Your business has been sort of one of the beautiful developments out of that. But to bring it back to dating, firstly, a lot of people were like easy single, such an eligible guy, blah blah blah. Like I was like, I know this, Like what what do you want me to do with this information? But we didn't talk about it, not yesterday but in the last episode. So I have a couple of questions about it. Is dating post bachelor
easier or harder? Post alcohol easier or harder? Because I think that's a really interesting question and post mental health diagnoses easier or harder? Big questions they are?
They are big, They're meaty.
They're meaty. Why did I start with this? We're still not going to get to astrophys exactly are dating episode?
Let's see if I can do this without so many tangents. Is it harder or easier post batch? It's hard to kind of go one way or the other. There is a huge change in it. I would say I probably get more matches on dating apps, and I imagine in large part that is due to the fact that I was on a TV show and I'm a known person. I don't think anything materially has changed other than that
in regards to the change in number of matches. There's a challenge in that it's harder to discern is someone swiping on me because they're interested to get to know me, or the kind of keener date the year, or if it's a novelty, or trying to understand what's their motivation, and that's a little harder to figure out. Sometimes I think I'm much better at it. That's kind of been
a bit of a challenge. Another challenge related to it is there's a lot of articles out there of which I have no control over, that are typically completely inaccurate, not amazing and no amazing, and that sometimes has impacted dating. So as an example, I went on four or five dates with this woman. We're getting on really well, it was all really going great, and we'll teeing up date six, and then she basically canceled. It's out. I don't think
we should meet up. You have a very public dating life.
Yeah, Okay.
The reality is if you look at my Instagram, if you look at any of the articles, I've never shared details about who I've dated. There's no one on my Instagram. There's daily mail articles where there's been these made up stories about who I'm dating. And I think we've joked about this basically whenever I get a photo with someone with compatible genitals, obviously, yeah, obviously it's like they're dating. Yeah.
So those articles, if someone's read them and thinks, oh, he's look at all these people he's dating, it's always in the news. I mean, none of them are true. And I've always been very private with my dating life and with basically anyone in my life, really my friends and family as well. I made a very significant decision when I went on TV to concede a lot of my privacy. No one else in my life made that decision, and so I really am deeply respectful of the fact
that they are entitled to that privacy. And so if you look through my Instagram, there's not loads of my family there, and that's not because I'm ashamed of them or they're ashamed of me, but they value their privacy my friends, they're there in bits and pieces. Again, whenever I post something, they always make sure they're comfortable with that, and there's no nothing, there's no shreds of the people I've dated on there, because I've always been very private
about my dating life. So that was a frustration because it was, you know, she said I had a very public dating life, whereas I have quite the opposite. No one could tell team. You couldn't say who have I dated other than the person I dated on The Bachelor? Tell me who I've dated in the last five years, and none would be able to say that other than my friends that I know in person. So that was a frustration that's kind of come about. So is it
harder or easier post Bachelor? It's a different challenge. It's a different challenge, I think I certainly, and I know for a lot of men on dating apps, the biggest challenge is just getting a match. So I'm in a luxurious position where I don't have that as the challenging aspect, because that's really hard to adjust. If you're just not
getting matches, it's really hard to figure out. It's not a case of I need to do something different in how I'm engaging or whatever's what's wrong with my profile that's not resonating with people. So I don't have that challenge as much.
That's because you're a data scientist and you crunch the data.
Well, finally enough some of the as now have insight for it. Child you which photos people are slid to go on more. So I'm like, okay, so this is the good one. So there are data analytics behind the scenes as well. So yeah, the game, I'm like, what I know about this because I have periods where I'm like.
I'm not dating. It's too hard, you know, it takes an emotional toll. And then I'll have periods I'm jumping back in and usually after that period of something news happened.
Dates.
Yeah, analytics, now I can see the data, but it's really I'll use it as an example. So the last kind of this year, the last five people I've dated, to give you an example of of I guess the frustration I'm facing. One of them we probably dated for a period of about three months. You know, a dozen or so dates just ghosted me after three months. I
thought that's pretty brutal. Another one we on a few dates, ghosted me a week and a half l artext and I was like, hey, just just seeing what happened to you. Found out she had someone else, it wasn't going anywhere, so then started dating me, and then the other one
changed their mind. So I was kind of just like, I don't know the standby anyway, the third was the one who changed their mind because the dating the fourth where it went on some dates and then kind of just suddenly goes, oh, I want an open relationship, and I'm like, that's fine, that's just not a compatibility for me. Everyone's got preferences. And then the fifth one, and this happens all the time. We get like foal six dates
in and suddenly it's you're perfect, You're amazing. But I'm just not ready to date code for because I've had probably in the last like two or three years, I would have had a dozen women say this to me, the same thing, the same thing, like, you know, significantly into dating. It's not like half the first couple of dates.
It's date six, seven, eight, and it's always the same thing, You're perfect, You're amazing, like Sharer with connglents, and I even some of them are like, Okay, yeah, that's cool, thanks letting me know. Probably half of them like, hey, just checking, like you don't need a sugarcoat.
Like yeah, I want to exit into in the.
Most normal, casual ways, like hey, just let me know, like you know, and they just double down on what they're saying yea. And so people are like, you know, why are you still single? What's what's wrong with you? And I'm like, well, I don't think anything. I mean, if there was something wrong, hopefully I would have figured it out by now all my friends would have told me. And I don't know if I'm just tremendously unlucky that I keep going on these dates to people and ending
up in that situation. But it's yeah, I just I'm confused about why that seems to be the case.
That's so interesting. As a data guy, that would be really hard.
Yeah, And that's why half the time I'll be like, hey, just checking, like like let me know, you know, was there anything in particular that and they're like, no, no, genuinely, you are exactly who I'm looking for. I just yeah, it's time date.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
And I just apparently I'm just You're just a timing in the world. So I mean it gets Yeah, like I said, it does take an emotional toll because obviously after six seven eight dates, you're starting to get some feels. Yeah, And so it's not just like a one or two day and you're like yep, sweet, all right, move on. It's you're starting to kind of make it a deeper connection.
And certainly, I think in your thirties day six, seven eight, you're starting to kind of be like, yeah, it's not like dating year twenties.
You know, it's so different. It's like whatever, man having a good time time.
Yeah, I think in your thirties you're kind of thinking a bit more, Okay, what's how do I really feel here? You know more about yourself and who you are, you know what you're looking for. They also have the same kind of idea about who they are and who they're looking for, so you can kind of figure out compatibilities much quicker. So yeah, I've kind of just that wasn't even your question.
I've just kind of but that was a really interesting That was a really interesting insight because I do think things like The Bachelor, and I don't I don't mean to keep coming back to that because I'm trying to show the side of you that isn't that, which is part of this conversation. I think it sometimes trivializes. I mean, some people have come out and had particularly in the
early seasons. I've interviewed a lot of people on the show and have good friends who have gotten married have kids out of the relationship that they had on the show. I think sometimes it can trivialize the concept of day to be, like to forget that, like by date eight you have court feels. In your thirties, it is like you are trying to find a partner for life and that it is like timing is a really big thing. Yeah,
and it's cosmic, like funny talking to an astrophysicist. It is cosmic that anyone actually ends up finding the right timing with the person they're compatible with, Like that's actually the stats are actually quite like unlikely. Yeah, yeah, you know, so it's magic that it does happen.
For sure. And I think that timing piece in your thirties becomes even harder because you have so much more going on and rightfully, you're starting to craft a life for yourself that you're really happy with and content with, and the partner is to enrich that further not to complete it, so to spay, and so you've got inherently a more busier lifestyle, and the timing element is sometimes
even more challenging than so. Yeah, to your point that timing is already hard, and then I think in your thirties it can sometimes be a little harder again, but yeah, I think it does trivialize. You're right. The dating, I think a little bit. It's still it's still quite challenging. I think for everyone. And I think, yeah, it's it's like just everyone, like, don't.
Ghost, like the common courtesy.
You're mature enough, if you're old enough to date, you're old enough to give someone you know, be respectful and say thanks, but no thanks. You don't need to go into detail.
You just call it.
Or whatever. Like ghosting is like, you know, gutter behavior, really low and men and women do it. It's indifferent whether you're a guy, a gal, non binary, power whatever.
You know.
Ship people ghosts. Yeah, that's the line.
Mates, don't let mates ghost. Also your friends accountable. There's anything you.
Take out of let's let's you know, rather than getting angry and dating, let's be respectful, let's improve. I actually saw this view again being the data nerd I am. It was a data visualization. It was one of those ones you know where it starts like a year and it's got the graph.
And did you just say graph graph?
Yeah, jo graph South Australia.
Oh my god, you're only born there.
Twelve but like plant and oh my god, you.
Do it is such as Australian things. Data scientist that says graph.
I also say data, which I think most will say data.
Good Americans say data, Yeah all right, yeah, let's spent. Normal people say graphs.
Graph, graphing, calculator graph, there's a bar graph, bar graph, yeah, barograph, and you know it's I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get this out, sorry, but you know they it's like the years ticking over and they grow and like change in order about you know, it will be something the most common name, for example, and so it's like jack and then as the things go that's small gets smaller and another one grows and then it
takes Have you seen that visualization? It was one of those, but for how people met their partner from ninety twenty four to twenty twenty four, which I will send you the link as well it's really cool, but it has it changing. And obviously at the start it's like family and friends and work or something like that, and then bars kind of come in there and stuff. Anyway, it gets to twenty twenty four. By twenty twenty four, sixty percent is dating apps. Bars had dropped eight percent.
Oh my god.
And then I can't remember the other the other data in there, but yeah, it was it was run close exactly, but yeah, it was startingpiation. Club groups poor groups for South Australians said I'm shocked. I think people like I don't notice that. So I was saying once I need to go buy some more plants.
Well plant, it's definitely is how Australian. That's really interesting. So fancy, I don't say really transport okay in a club do you say trance music?
Trance? Yeah? What do you say trance?
I've always said trance is let's dance to some I can.
See dance because dances formal, but trance is so casual transfer doing a pole about this, it's definitely not trust.
Yeah. Well, if I did this pole on my Instagram, I imagine the ratio of people saying trance would match my Adelaide too smart. I've got no tiny UK audience, so you know that I'm always in the insights speaking of.
So one thing I did not do was continue to go through the fact that one thing I think is amazing about you and I kind of started to hammer home the point and then I don't even know where
my brain went. But you went from very vulnerably and generously sharing how much your schooling was interrupted by mental health breaks, and yet you went on to do five degrees, which I've been at pains to remind everyone about, and incredibly intellectually rigorous degrees, and then have had a very successful time across various roles in the workforce at big
companies like Chevron at Lassian. So again intellectual rigor which seems incompatible and having a dating life as well and a social life which seems often incompatible with a mental illness to the point that it interrupted your schooling. So one thing that was really reassuring was hearing that you can still go on to have a really high functioning career and life. What was the change from the big breaks from school to then being able to do UNI
and then being able to hold down really high performing jobs. Sorry, that was such a pivot, the fact you can hold the data in your head.
Yeah, it's I bring up in a similar vein to this. When I was in primary school, I couldn't read very well, and so I had to Yeah, I had to go into this kind of intensive assistive extracurricular reading thing that the school held called reading recovery, and so I used to go to these additional reading classes to learn to read, which is I guess I'd bring that up often with
in particular students in that. Eventually I went on and wrote a book which going from someone two books, so for going from someone who was so poor at reading he needed to utilize the assistive facilities that the primary school provided for reading to being able to do that. I used that to kind of just remind, yeah, children and students in particular, that if you're finding things hard, that's okay. We all face different challenges and it doesn't
define you. And it's also not something that you can still work at and get to a point where you're comfortable and feeling more confident about whatever it is you're finding challenging. And so I think it's not quite what you're saying. By in a similar fashion, I think it just helps people contextualize that the battles you face, whether that's academically or psychologically, you can overcome and still lead a very fulfilling life and achieve things that you can
be proud of, whatever that happens to be. So to your question about how, was that it.
Was the how or that it was just really making the point generally, I think that exactly what you said. I think silo ourselves very heavily into I'm academic, I'm creative, I'm sporty, I'm artie, and then you kind of think you're in that silo forever. And I think people really limit their dreams or the things that they will their goals because they think, well, I couldn't do business because I'm an academic person, or I couldn't do academia because
I'm not smart. And if you look at your school life, you wouldn't think astrophysicist. And I think the jump. What I love to do with this show is connect jumps that you wouldn't expect and remind people listening, either for themselves or their children or friends or whatever, that there are so many people who have made jumps that you
wouldn't think. A child in read and recovery, would go on to do five not just five normal degrees, but five scientific degrees and then work in like heavily academic intellectual industry. And that in itself is just really reassuring. But also from your perspective, were you ever dissuaded from thinking you could go into like did you not think of yourself as the smart guy? But now you're branded a nerd? That's so interesting to me.
I'd always been very academically focused. My parents are both very analytical and scientific. My mum's got a degree in pure mathematic which is the worst thing, and my dad, yeah, maths and engineering and computer science, a double degree. And so you know, I've inherited already a little bit of natural ability, I think, or natural kind of propensity to mathematics and science. So I've got, I guess, a privilege
there that not everyone has. But my parents, I think they really emphasized the importance of education, and so they weren't you know, cracking the whip or anything or like locking me in rooms and stuff, But they were always really encouraging to focus and apply, and if something was hard, they would sit down and try and work through, and they fostered a really really positive learning situation for me and my siblings, such that we always wanted to do
really well academically because they had encouraged us, supported us, and said, why it's really important to just kind of setting yourself up. And I think that's still true now. I think it's probably the way they did, I think is the right way compared to the current I guess education system where the pressure placed on year twelves. This is like door die, you know, like if you if you don't do well in your exams, that's you're done,
which is completely bullshed. And I try to kind of do a bit of a post each year around this time of year when the exams are in full flight, just to help try and remind students that this isn't you know. You do your best, but don't grind yourself into the ground doing it or beat yourself up. I remember I was. I threw up before most of my exams in a year to a half because I was so stressed about performing.
Yeah, and again throwing up in your school life.
Yeah yeah, unfortunately and that, yeah, that pressure never came from my parents. It was putting on myself, and largely because of that external pressure from this system that you know, if you don't do well, you won't get into the degree you want, and then you know you've ruined your life.
And we know that is not true at all, it's never been true, but that I think is still pervasive among students, and so I think it's really important to kind of, yeah, just help people students and kids realize that, Yeah, definitely try your best, and if there's a particular degree you really want to get into, try and do that.
But if you don't, there's so many other ways to still get into that degree you want, or maybe you end up getting gaining an interest in a different thing altogether, or I mean us in particular have had such random, random career paths that you never have picked. So I think it's yeah, I think it's really important for yeah, I think I think for students to be aware of that,
just to take a bit of that pressure off. And that's not to say like be lazy and don't try, but it's to the point of, yeah, apply yourself, work hard, but certainly don't beat yourself up. Whatever the results are, you will have a fulfilling life and career and it's going to be a windy part that Avyn is going to be on a windy path. You never know that. I think when you're going through year twelve, no.
One hundred percent or most of the dog points. Like I was even looking at your LinkedIn, it's sort of like mechanical engineer at Chevron, which is not necessarily where you expect. Now it's like you know two times author on AI that doesn't necessarily match up with like a facilities engineer in like a mining company you know in Perth in Wa. It's like such a big I think the dots often make sense looking backwards, but going forwards you just got to put one foot in front of
the other. And so another thing that I think is really difficult is when you are going forward and trying to find putting this either society or yourself putting pressure on you to find your ya or like seize your ya and find your joy. Is if you can't see that pathway that someone else has done, you don't know to aim for it because you don't know that that's
a job. So can you talk to us about now having written two books, we did touch briefly on astrophysics, but I want to know, like what, how does that translate into a for you, like you wrote your first book on Doctor Matt's Guide to Space, Like how did you even learn all that stuff? And if you wanted to get someone excited about astrophysics, I'll take one thing out of the first book. What would it be?
One thing out of the first book or something?
You're like, you know because you didn't work in astrophysics first.
No, No, it started in engineering.
Yeah, so that's interesting to me as well because it wasn't space focused at all.
No, No, And I always liked space. I did as part of the degree, my bachelor degree, I had to do physics one on one on one O two, which had a portion of the physics component was astronomy, and I loved it. But I think I had no idea what I wanted to do. I remember talking to my folks a lot, being like what do I pick? I don't know anything, and Dad suggests engineering, largely because it's such a strong degree. There's always demand for engineers and I only see that changing for the next fifty one
hundred years, and so I kind of picked out. I thought an engineer was like a mechanic. I thought you were on the tools and stuff That's what I.
Thought of when I saw Chevron. I was like, were you like building like I.
Did, actually not building, but I did get to go out there, and like I was changing some spools on this stuff. So spools are like, you know, it's like a pipe with flanges.
Each, Like what's a spool even a flange.
I'm like, oh my god, imagine a pipe that kind of like flares out and so to you attached to them together that flare you kind of bolt between. So spool is the pipe with the flange dams. So I was changing spools. So I got to go out there, you know, in the hard hat, the high veers, the steel caps, got this giant talk ranch unt screwing things taking them out. Yeah, it was really fun. So a
lot of the stuff I wasn't on the tools. I'd been going out and it had been doing a lot of inspections and yeah, kind of going through data sheets, always data, yeah.
But dating data, data, spool data the ground.
Yeah. But yeah, I got to do a little bit on the tools, which was really fun. And yeah, so how did I how did I end up in astrophysics?
Make the dots connect?
So yeah, exactly, let me extrapolate interpolate in this case. Sorry, I was.
Sorry, guys. Extravolate and interpolate are different words. Most people don't use both in their vernacular.
Continue all right, So yeah, kind of after it about three or four years of engineering, and i'd done a couple of different engineering companies, both a client and a EPCM, which is engineering procurement construction management.
I think so much of your LinkedIn does not make sense anyway.
Yeah, I mean that's part of writing a CV, right, make it sound really impressive, and it's like, what did you do change a light bulb? You know that?
But it's actually a spool.
Yeah, it's a spool, it's got flangers. So I'd work for a couple of engineering companies. I'd done office based, I'd done site based, so I'd try a real kind of mix of engineering, and it just wasn't gelling for me. And one of the advantages I had from working site based in oil and gas was it's well paid, and so I had a nice kind of pool of savings that I could think, all right, well, a lot of people that's the time where you know, putting money into their homes. And I was like, I don't know if
I'm ready for that. I kind of don't know what I want to do. I might just you know, do a bit of travel, live abroad, you know, that whole kind of discovery yourself.
Yeah, yeah, just going to take a Yeah.
And I was in a luxurious position because I had worked in quite a lucrative profession and so I was trying to you know, I was traveling at beer, I was living, you know, I visited my brother in Europe. I was I lived in Buenos Aires for four months. Really yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. I loved it. And then I was like, what do I want to do? And I remember my parents saying, well, think about what what did you used to really like as a kid, And I said, I like space, Yeah, the Mars Rover and
so you know, astrophysics is just space for adults. And so I applied for a mass is in astro at lund University in Sweden and it ended up getting accepted and went there and at the time, so so you
like this story. So I initially got rejected for the application because they were, oh, you don't have the physics background, because I've only done physics one at one and one two as part of the engineering degree, so despite the fact they had a Bachelor of Science and applied maths a Bachelor of Engineering at MECH and they were.
Like, no, it's insufficient, as in you would have needed a pure physics story.
Yeah, like third year physics, okay, And so I got there resilt. I was like, ah, that sucks, and I thought I'll submit an appeal. There's an appeal process. I submitted it and I was like, oh, look, it's based on what's written on the application. I need all the requirements. I got this email months later and they go, and this is so Swedish. They go, oh, so we've looked at your application and the requirements and what was written
on the requirements that was listed on the website. You did fulfill them incorrect but you did fulfill them.
So we need.
On the website. Yeah, and it's after living in sweet I'm like, this is very sweet to my advantage. Yes, So I ended up getting in not necessarily the requirements they whoever had put them up mustn't have, you know, quite written them correctly. And so what was written now I did fulfill and so I got accepted. And so when I did the Masters, they I remember talking to the astro coordinator and I was like, look, you know
I haven't done I've only done first year physics. And they're like, all right, what we can do is get you to fill in. Because you had like four electives that you could specialize in astro units, we'll use a couple of them to basically like so you can do like yeah, because it was the physics. So I was like, oh, it was atomic and molecular physics and nuclear physics I had to do. So I jumped straight from first year
to third year physics was like eight years earlier. Essentially, I was going straight into thirty year physics in the class and everything above the bachelor level at Swedish unions is done in English.
There's so much bachelor in your life. I'm like, what bachelor? Oh? Sorry, funny everything above the bachelor undergraduate level undergrad.
Level is taught in English. But I remember when they're like, all right, yeah, so you remember this from second year physics. And I was like, if we don't remember physics.
And put it in English, remind me just second year physics.
I've just I can't quite place.
I've got a blanket, can quite place.
Remind me again? I think actually a couple of people. Yeah, just remind us. So they were the two of the hardest units. Was basically getting dropped in third year physics and trying to, you know, fumble my way through and learning from scratch and yeah, it's but yeah, it is all in English. And it was funny because I remember talking to some of the sweet and they're like, I
don't know how to say this word in Swedish. I only know this physics technical physics term in English because we learned it in England.
Yeah.
So it's a really interesting, yeah, kind of culture in terms of the education system because it is this in particular, lunit is a very international university, and so you've got this melting pot of cultures. And I remember the way a couple of my Swedish friends explained it. They're like, yeah, we basically we speak English and Sweden, but we then also get this secret language that no one else really knows.
Yeah. Nice, so we can talk about it.
Yeah you guys, Yeah, that's kind of true. Like you speak to Swedes and you wouldn't even know, like because they imitate perfect English or American accents, so you can't even tell half the time. And then they also get this secret language that nine million people know in the world else no one else. I was like, Okay, that's an interesting that I put it. So I did. Yeah, I did the masters there. It was fifty percent courts work, fift percent research, and just fell in with the research
aspect of it. Just really loved it. I was modeling exoplanet atmospheres, so I was basically modeling, yeah, and I was trying to understand if there were there's these types of planets. Do you want me to get in the weeds to weak? I love this. So there's these types of planets, exoplanets called hot Jupiter's good name, and they're basically giant gas planets like Jupiter, but they're they're hot, and they're hot because they are so close to the
star we're talking instead of orbiting. You know, the Earth takes three sixty five days, Jupiter's like eleven years or something like that. They take three days. Whoa, so three days to all but they're that close, which means they're super hot several thousand degrees. And what that does is it puffs up the atmosphere because it's so hot and energetic, and the starlight can shine through the atmosphere, and we can observe that starlight and what's interacting with the atmosphere.
We can understand kind of things about the chemical composition of the atmosphere, temperature of the atmosphere.
How excited, He's got a totally different look on your face.
Excited.
This is the definition of yay when someone's face does that.
Okay, Yeah, So this really really cool project. I had this really cool research element, had this computational element modeling these atmospheres, and just really liked it. And that's what sent me down the academic route for for the next four years going into research to my PhD and had applied. I had a couple of PhD interviews in Europe. I had one in Munich, one in Amstam, and one in Leiden, which is a smaller international UNI about forty minute train
from Amsterdam. Did really strongly in interviews, but I was the second choice for all three and only had one spot. And all of them came back and they said you were amazing. There was just some slightly more aligned. If they turn it down though, you're you're in none to town. So I was like, Okay, that sucks. So then I started looking Australian unis and for a few in New South Wales and Melbourne, and I ended up the project
at Swinburn just I really liked it. It was searching for Earth two point zero basically planets like Earth Solar system analogus cool and again largely it was a computational and modeling project, which is you've kind of got two streams in astrophysics. You've got the observational astronomers who they're using the telescopes to get data and then trying to identify what they're.
Looking at, looking and discovering it.
And then you've got the kind of the theory and computational astrophysicists, and so they're the ones who are kind of they're coming up with theoretical predictions in my case, modeling and computationally predicting things, and then that kind of gets fed to the observational astronomers and then they'll be looking to say, okay, this is what's being predicted. Can we find something that kind of can verify this or not?
And so you've got this kind of synergy between those two streams of astrophysicists that is so cool.
I mean, like the average lay person probably has not ever heard that description before of like what astrophysicists are actually doing, and then like how that could impact our daily life, ie, we run out of space on Earth, there may be is Earth two point zero, like someone out there. And part of CZA that I get so excited about is showing people that, Like one day, you're like sitting in the shower and you're probably thinking, who is the person who's going to find the other planet
that we're going to? You know, like that there are people whose job is to answer the equations and make the theories that figure out where we could live like that kind of stuff. I don't think you think about that on a day to day basis, but there's some kid who might be listening who goes, I'm going to be the person who answered that question. But I do think a lot of people do do PhDs on extremely specific theoretical questions and then don't really know what to
do with it afterwards in the workforce. And you have not only then gone on to like write a book and educate people about space, but then have also requalified in like something completely different back on Earth.
AI.
So you've done a PhD in astrophysics you've moved away from like the nuts and bolts and spools and flannels of engineering and then written this book on space are you working? Like, do you consider that as work as an astrophysicist? And then why AI and going back to do an entire master's on that and then a whole new book.
Yes, yes, all right, this is another big question.
We haven't got it.
They're all kind of multi.
Part yeah, because I'm like, oh my god, how do I get all it? Like?
And I still like Jesus Okay, So do I consider it's I think in the purest sense, a scientist is someone who's publishing with some level of frequency. You're writing papers, you're writing papers, you're publishing in scientific journals. So during my PhD, I was working as an astrophysicist. I was publishing papers. I think by the end of my degree, I think there was a bit of an overhang. I had some papers in the work. So the last paper I published was in twenty twenty and it wasn't a
first author. I was like fourth or fifth author or something like that. So I ended up I think over the whole court, I had about eight papers for first author. That's quite Yeah, that's that's good. Typically for a PhD, you need to have at least one first author. The idea of PhD is you're adding new ideas to the body of knowledge, and a paper's sort of evidence of that. Yeah, you typically need at least one, but you know, three or four is really great result. I was thrilled to
get four out of the door for that. So in the purest sense, I'm not actively working as an astrophysicist because I'm not actively researching and I'm not actively publishing. Okay, I would say in the same way, though, I am an astrophysicist in the same art. So I'm an engineer. I've got the qualification, I've worked in the field. I just would say I'm not actively working as an engineer an astrophysicist.
Yeah, okay, that was my question, Like what is working as an astrophysicist? Is it a research role or are you working for NASA? Like I think people don't actually understand what you're doing, and I mean I imagine.
It the same as you you're still a lawyer.
Yeah, I'm just lawyer. In Yeah, you're not actively.
Working and so I think, yeah, if if you've got the credentials and you've worked in that space, and I think you just lose that because you're no longer practicing. Yeah, totally, it's just you're not practicing. So I think that's one definition, probably the one I use or lean on the most in terms of the book. So I think you've got a few And I'm going to answer this because it
kind of ties in with what you're saying. Maybe people aren't sure where you can go with a with a PhD. You've got a few options, and there's three options and I did two of them. One is going down the full academic route, just becoming doing a post university continuing down the research path. That's really really great. I love
the research. If I didn't end up doing what I did in terms of, you know, moving into I guess the public space a bit more and become a more active science communicator, I think I probably would have pursued at least a few more years of research going down the post dot path because it is really research is really fun because you're doing something you're really excited about. Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
Research is fun. And I think you definitely don't even know that is a career path when you're selecting your degrees or when you're finishing high school, you don't even know that's a thing you can do. So that's one of the passing it down. The second one is going into industry, which is what I did first. At the time, data science was still I wouldn't say that was new,
but it was becoming more trendy and more common. The degrees in data science were still quite new, so most firms, data science consultancies or just places looking for data scientists. We're looking for typically PhDs, like highly analytical PhDs that they could then fill the gaps and unskill them as a data scientist because the Bachelor of Data Science or the Masters of Data Sciences weren't quite a mature degree yet. That were still it was still gaining a bit of momentum.
So that was good for me because it meant, you know, if I had have been competing with this cohort of new data scientists coming out, I probably would have had a real hard time getting a data science position. Fortunately for me, timing wise, they were still quite new, so they're like, yeah, we'll take the PhD, you know, the nerd.
The nerdy will take the nerd.
Who knows how to program and it's worked, you know, with spools and flangs. Yeah, so that's the other one industry. The third one is and that's kind of where I've ended up now, which is going into science communication. And so that's what I do now very actively through social media but also through my books speaking all of that fun stuff. And I love that and a lot of my friends also have science communicators and they love it
as well. And it's definitely a different skill set, and it's one like any skill or any muscle, you need to train it. And I'm sure it's the same as a MC and keynote speaker that you are. It's a muscle that you've had to train over time. It's not something you just suddenly can do. And I think a lot of people see someone like yourself is really polished at doing that, and they're like, oh, she's just really talented, and it's like she's talented, but there's thousands of hours high as well.
Yeah look at the graph, Yeah, look at the graph.
Right, she didn't just wake up and suddenly became this dominant kenot speaker an MC. Right, it's like anything, and science communication is the same. To become quite effective at it, you need to yeah, sing hundreds thousands of ours into it. And I was doing that before The Bachelor. The Bachelor, certainly it was an accelerant, and it's a bit of the peanut butter as well for the dog medicine. But I was before that. I was already starting to do more of it. I was doing some radio interviews here
and there. I've done some public lectures. I've done a fringe show.
Yeah.
So, and I did some fringe shows after Bachelor as well, but I'd done one before. So I was starting to push into the science communication space and this accelerated tremendously.
Okay, that makes more sense now because in the dots connecting thing, I was like, why be so passionate about astrophysics, write a book about space, but then go back and do another master's in AI to then have data scientists roles, which seemed like this like unrelated pivot. But now I can kind of see how connecting Yes, Yeah, like, oh, it's like a transferable skill. That's like the logical logical jump. Even though you've come like it's not necessarily space focused.
Now it's like and talking about science communication doing it for children as well. So your latest book is a children's book, which sounds easier, but I actually think distilling complicated things into child friendly explanations is harder.
Yeah, it was actually just before we churned it out, I thought, because it'd be remiss with me. Not so at least because the biggest scandal I had was that I worked at NAB. I don't know if you recall this story. So I've never worked at NAB. I worked at a data science consultancy called Quantium, and they have a number of different departments. They've got like a health department, They've got like an FMCG so fast moving consumer goods were worse goals all that, and they had a banking
and finance department which I was in at. One of their clients was NAB. And so as a consultant, you often will they'll have to create a NAB account for you because you need to access their systems. Oh my god, someone I don't even know how it. I don't know if Science saw that I had a NAB email and
they're like, oh, he's a banker. What And I remember this thing coming up and I got an email from someone at NAB and they're like, hey, someone, a media person just called us and asked if you worked at NAB and I'm like, well, I mean I work, you know, I don't worry. What what do you mean? I'm like, what do you want us to say? I'm like, well, I don't care. Like I was like, this is just a weird question. Are you a banker? Well? No, Anyway, it became this big thing that like, oh, he's not
an astrophysically, he's a banker. And I was like, oh, well, I mean as far as scandals go, this is pretty tame, but also like my biggest I'm not until apparently I didn't know this because I'm like working at the Quantum office and I had, you know, some of the more senior guys would have to go to the NAB building regularly to talk to some of the senior execs there, and I remember one of them came in and they said that there's like several paps waiting there. I'm parently
hoping they could get a far off me. Yeah, trying to They I guess wanted a photo me walking into the NAB building or something.
Interest.
I was like, all right, this is the weird and I was like, what is going on? And then I had people like, oh, you work at NAB doing and I'm like, I've never worked at a bank in my life, so it's such a big thing. I'm modeling. I'm doing like predictive models on transaction data to try and build out like approval processes for certain things. And it was just anyway, it was really amusing to me because I was like, this is the weirdest scandal.
Yeah, I can't believe this is even a story.
Yeah, but I was like whatever, Anyway, I thought that would be an amusing anecdote because it was something at the time that was just like whole Matt, He's just deceived everyone, and I'm like, well, I haven't. And also and also why.
Would being a banker be like such a secret a secret bag.
It's like why would that be seen? It's like is that a bad thing?
I mean in some schools of.
Thought anyway, So I was quite using. Anyway, What was your actual.
Question was this is problem the children? So why do you go from I am talking about space in these huge like science education black holes like big questions to is my phone reading my mind? Yes? So for children?
Yes, big pivot, big pivot. So data science is essentially applied artificial intelligence. So you're going through data and you're using typically machine learning algorithms, which are the lifeblood of artificial intelligence. Everything AI is powered by machine learning algorithms, and you're applying them to different problems, usually with a ton of data to off. And it can be to
make decisioning decisions or to inform decisions. Sometimes it can be predictive modeling to try and predict certain things about what's happening within certain spaces. Sometimes it can be really clever. Idea, I was working on an algorithm that was trying to discern how people were using a piece of software, what they were actually doing with it, based on the actions and behaviors they were doing, what is their use case? So that was really cool. So data science is applied AI.
So I was already doing AI. But the more exotic and exciting algorithms aren't really commonplace in enterprise. They're more in research and big tech companies like your facebooks and your Googles and stuff like that. And I really wanted to learn more about the exotic algorithms.
Of course you did, so you were like, fuck it, I'll do a fifth degree.
So I did. Yeah, So I went back and did the AI degree and that was fantastic. Got to do all the really cool stuff the neural networks, which are the things they power a lot of, like image recognition and computer vision generative or transformers, which are the.
Stop laughing, the transformers. I'm just translating for everyone in other states of Australia.
Yeah, the transformers which power that's what the T and GBT stands for, is based on neural networks. So I got to do some of them. Reinforcement learning, which is again a training mechanism. If you remember Alpha Go. Alpha Go was a AI they built to play the game Go, which is I don't even know. I feel like it's a Chinese game originally, and it's like something like you're putting balls down and you like jump them, and I can't remember how it works. It's a sort of like
chess kind of stuff. But they build an algorithm called Alpha Go and they basically trained it using reinforcement learning, and so they didn't teach it the rules of it. They just had an algorithm that sort of rewarded what it did based on like a few different kind of mechanisms, and then got it to learn from existing games, but also just playing like a billion games, and based on what it did, it kind of got rewards to incentivize it to do certain things. And so they trained this
algorithm from scratch without teaching it the game. It learnt it itself, and it ended up and it now beats
humans the time. It just dominates. So that was a really cool application because I think with sort of the chess algorithms, they were trained on existing chess games, so it was like, you know, he's a million games of chess to try and teach it, whereas Alpha go was we're not going to tell you the games, which is going to get you to play it a trillion figure now, and we're going to reward you when you do good
stuff and punish you when you do bad stuff. And it just figured out and it started doing strategies that humans hadn't done before because it could because that's the humans over all the Alpha games ever might have played. You know, I don't know a billion games. You know, they made this algorithm play ten billion. Of course, if you played ten times and many games might come up with a strategy that you wouldn't have come up with in the first billion games. So I had these strategies
that developed. They were like, no humans figured out that strategy yet, and so it was just a really cool demonstration of reinforcement learning. So that's why I went back to do the Masters, because I liked doing applied AI in industry, but I wanted to know more about the really exotic, powerful, interesting algorithms that aren't commonplace in industry yet. Yeah, so that was the motivation. In terms of the book. Yeah, I agree with you. Writing for a younger age group
is more challenging. You're limited by number of words as well. I think the upper limit at the time when I first started that children's book, I think it was only like twelve thousand words.
Oh my god to even discuss AI at all.
But I went well over that. I think I landed on about seventeen or eighteen thousand.
I remember episodes. Amount of words, yeah.
And I remember telling the past. Look, I can trim it down, but I think I'm going to and I tried done a really hard acts cunt. I'm like, this one's like fourteen thousand, and I'm like it's missing, it's losing a lot of stuff, and they're like, nah, if you reckon the seventeen k is the one. Let's do that.
Then they've been a wonderful publisher, Alan and ant One, And yeah, it was really challenging keeping the word limit down and then also to your point, using easily accessible words and explaining complex concepts and often abstract concepts in a way that's engaging and accessible for a younger age group,
but also not so childlike that adults won't enjoy it. Yeah, because I'd still wanted it's targeted for eight to twelve year olds, but I wanted people, you know, high schoolers or adults to also be able to pick it up and enjoy reading it.
And my dad loves it, and he's's so sweet and.
He used to work as a CEO in WA and he obviously through his work there met a lot of other C suite execs and he buys loads of my book and gives them copies. Say, you know this is it's a short book because you can it's a target a young age. You can build out a couple of hours. I have some fundamental understanding artificial intelligence.
Oh my god.
So it was a challenge, but I really loved it because it's ended up as a book that children can enjoy, but the amount of adults and in particular parents who have told me that they've really enjoyed it and found it really handy because yeah, they can read it quickly and now they feel more empowered around AI. I'm really happy with it.
I'm so glad with that we had a chance to talk more about it, because I feel like we didn't have time last time, and it is like I think. One of the things I love on this show is how random people's careers can end up being, and how you can we're all multi passionate. Not many people wake up and go, I want to be a doctor. I'm going to just do medicine. Even doctors are like, which kind of medicine? What kind of direction do you want to go? Do you want to go private practice hospitals?
Like what part of the body? I think we yeah, again, go back to that like siloing of the simplicity of categorization, but and think our scientist has to look like this. But you've done books, You've done adult books, children's books, space AI And then on top of that, like to full circle back to the beginning. The question about dating post quitting alcohol and whether that was easy or hard or socializing post alcohol solved the problem of the non
OLC landscape being like pretty poor. When we both first stopped drinking alcohol, you decided, look, I've done five degrees, I've got two books, I understand a business. Yeah, so you are now a founder and ceosh.
I still feel like a wanker putting founder.
In my type, but like talk about multi passionate and like multifaceted careers that all have they all it's like cohesive in its own weird way.
Yeah, no, thank you. So, yeah, it was I stopped drinking at start at twenty twenty, which, yeah, obviously we met after that period, so we were both obviously teattlers, and yeah, we touched on it before we started recording this, But obviously during the era when you stopp drink it was even harder twenty like mid twenty tens is zero. Yeah, Beryl was your option.
I think I was just like lemonon bitters, lemon age.
Yeah, that was it. Sparkling Water twenty twenty. It was getting better. I think there was starting to have some more. I think Kalan zero and Heineken zero was starting to ramp up in quantity, and you started seeing some of the craft beers were coming through. So your heaps normal you're sober, not things like that. So they suddenly was some some more options and socializing and dating post giving up alcohol. Socializing was very hard initially.
It's such a crutch.
For such a crutch, you go through this period of without alcohol, Am I boring?
What is my personality? It's fun?
So yeah, exactly, And you've got this idea that yeah you've if you've used it so frequently when you're socializing, you're how people actually want to talk to me if I'm not not drinking. I mean, it doesn't take you long to realize, well, yeah, actually they're talking to you, They're not like talking to the alcohol.
Well sometimes, but that's fine.
Yeah, yeah, I love you mate, Yes, but yeah, I think initially, and I imagine it was probably similar for yourself. You kind of for the first six months, I reckon I needed an excuse. I need I'm doing fair Fast and doing drudge. Youly, oh really enjoyed drudge a life. I'm doing dry August, so training for something, just having
an excuse. And I tell people all the time that you know, that's initially, that's that's that's fine if that's what you need initially, because it is really hard when you first stop drinking to have the commonness to tell people you're not drinking. And so initially, if you need to just roll out an excuse, then then do that until you feel comfortable and confident in saying it. I also joke a lot. It's the only substance you need
to justify why you're not doing it. Isn't so interesting no one else you know, you don't rock up to a party and nine's going, oh, not doing heroin? To do you have to You've got to get up and tomorrow right, yeah, no ketamine?
Oh you're driving okay, fair, fair fad.
Otherwise like yeah, it's like otherwise people are like, they're like, why are you not drinking this poison? What is it?
Yeah, you could to get up here tomorrow.
Yeah, it's not heroin day to day maybe later. Yeah.
So it's this bizarre substance that for some reason you need to justify while you're not doing it. And so yeah, initially it took me a while to get there. Eventually I got to the place where I was very confident and also much more comfortable about my own mental illness as well, so I could tell people, yeah, I don't drink, and if they pride. I could say I don't drink because I have mental illness and it shouldn't take a sign as to you know, add a depressant to depression and go.
No, that graph is is. Yeah, it's I'm really laboring the graft and get off your case. Really really just laying it on you. I'm sorry, it's just too funny.
Have a part.
Why is it not called park?
Don't it?
Why is it not called park?
The rest of this episode?
Please do consistent.
But yeah, so I'm very comfortable being able to say, look, I've got mental illness, and it just ruins that. Even further, it shouldn't have taken me that long to figure out how bad this was to my existing mental illness illnesses. So yeah, it took me a while initially to get to that place of being comfortable saying that socializing. Now it's it's easy, especially because I guess I've been quite public about the fact I don't drink and I've got
mental illness. It's you know, everyone kind of already is aware of that. I have been at times where people buy like around the kill, and I go, I don't drink. I just saw you're drinking a beer I'm like, it's a calm zero. Yeah.
Yeah, get with the program. It's twenty twenty four.
They think like I'm trying to get out of a shot. I'm like, mate, I have done a shot for you know, five.
Years, maybe when I was having mob child. When I was pregnant, people would you med a side I I'm like, okay, it's pre juice, calm down.
I had a friend who when she was pregnant, I would rock up to a picnic and I'm but I've got some heidaken zeros if you want one. This is before parsh obviously, it's past now obviously, but that some heindn zeros goes No, I can't because like people just look, they can't see that it's a zero. Can You're just like smashing a bu well pregnant And I was like okay, yeah, fair enough.
I mean, well if you want to, they're there to the party, I understand.
So yeah, it's funny. There's that kind of extra level or extra thing that women have to face when not drinking as well. But yeah, so and and dating again, the same thing I had with am I interesting. I was like, what if I rock up and it's like, gee, this guy's a dud.
This yes, boring on the flipping. So, oh my god. He ordered a green tea with his spaghetti.
Yeah, man, this guy he was all right. And then he just like had a pub whole spaghetti and the green tea. He poured the green tea in the spaghetti like he.
Just got really weird, freaking psycho.
I didn't have a date. One's actually with a woman who she picked the venue. It was like a rooftop bar. We got there. I was like, I'm going to grab a beer and you can I get you a drink, which is back when I was still drinking. He goes, oh, yeah, you're just a glass of warm water like a tea and just no, just warm water.
Which is actually do you know better for your inside?
Yes, yes, I do not know that. So I went to the bar and I was like, oh, yeah, just a pint of can't remember. And I go, look, this is gonna be a bit of an odd order. But and he goes, now I've heard them all before. I go, oh, just a glass of warm water. He goes. He goes like, like tap water. I think, so, I don't know.
So and he never went back to the team again.
Yeah, it was a nice date, but yeah, it was just that was a yeah, so that was not green tea but close spaghetty. But yeah, I think initially the same thing the dates, and especially I think it's very commonplace for people you're a bit nervous for a day,
maybe you have a settler. Yeah, and so not having that as well, now I'm so comfortable with who I am and with might not drink that I rock up and it's completely fine, and it's you know, you remember, and everyone I know who stops drinking goes through a similar phase and then they're like, oh yeah, no, you kind of rediscover yourself a bit in that. Oh yeah that the alcohol wasn't my personality, Like my personality was
my personality? Yeah yeah, yeah, kind of had started relying on this thing to draw that out, where ITAs reality, you can draw it out whenever you like.
That's so true.
You just kind of forget a little bit if you've, if you've relied on alcohol a bit for it. So yeah, dating now is fine. I get some really sweet things that whether you know, we'll be able to at a bar and the lady will ask is okay if I have a dream? Yeah, of course, I'm like, it's like, I'm not a gremlin, la. I mean, but it's sweet because that is a thing for some people where it can be a triggering thing. Typically they will avoid a
bar altogether. So by virtue of the fact that I'm organizing dates at bars, they can feel relaxed, you know.
But it's a really sweet thing to.
Ask, because depending on someone's relationship, that can be just by having a drink in front of someone can be really challenging. So I'm lucky that that's not the case for me. So yeah, I always say, you know, I don't drink, but if you want to go for it, there's yeah, just drink whatever you want. Like, I literally don't care. I love they've got stunkered on the day. Yeah, we're probably not compatible.
Social calendar activity, isn't it.
Yeah, So yeah, I was getting up tomorrow morning for.
A run, but they're on the way then.
Yeah, so I think I think, you know, no one's doing that really, So sorry. As dating goes, I'm so comfortable with myself and yeah, with whoever I want to date with, I'm like, yeah, if you want to drink, drink. If you don't want to drink, don't drink like whatever you feel comfortable doing.
She's your an adventure.
Choose your own adventure.
Well, I love that your adventure that you choose is always like one hundred and fifty million out of ten. Like I'm going to quit drinking, so I'm going to start a business. And it's like I'm going to be interested in AI. I'm going to do another masters. It's like you just don't do anything like in a chill, lazy way. You're just like, I'm going to take it like to the max that I can. It's a very high achiever trade, which I like is like full dedication.
So you've started your own alcoholic this is very pot kettle.
Well make my own brand though, but you didn't, Well, hang on, but your green tea brand. Yeah, you're the one. This is true. You know it was he called me like, mate, she just got the pastor and green tea out and started the business.
That's so true. Oh my god, take a long, hard look in the mirror.
So yeah, he started started pash with a mate or a couple of mates and the friend that I did it with. We'd bounced around startup ideas for years. I had one that I actually got to an m v P minimum viable product. For those who aren't familiar with the term, it was an app called Socrates Way. It was built the website and the web app and the iPhone app, and it was basically it was like a marketplace for high school tutors. So your your parent, your
child needs help for maths. You pull up this app, you type in your postcode, Maths comes up with a bunch of people. There's a review system, there's a booking system, all of that. Jazz got it to an MVP stage and then got really busy with my PhD, dropped it and never picked it up again. So we'd bounced around that,
We bounced around a ton over the same person. And then eventually he it was about two years, I think, all a year and a half into my sobriety that he goes, would you, you know, would your fancy doing a bit of a we try a non olk startup. And I was like, well, yeah, you know, I've wanted to try a start up for a long time, and this is something that I'm authentically involved in and really
passionate about. And so away we went and built it for probably twelve or eighteen months till we finally got to launch, and then now we've been trading for kind of coming up eighteen months at the end of the job. So it's yeah, it's been a it's been a really steep learning curve and having learning curve, and it's it's
been really it was. It was a hard decision when I finally quit the nine to five, and one of the things I think that helped me make the decision was, even if this doesn't work out, the skills and professional development I'll have over the period of running a business will probably outweigh the professional development from just doing data
science for the same period of time. I can kind of always jump back into data science the skill set that I've developed from running a business and not having kind of really you know, been involved in the bus. I didn't do economics or commerce at UNI. I was missing a lot of that skill set and so this was a way for me to kind of fill those gaps.
I love you're trying to just be the ultimate human with skills in like every single.
Because I want to, like, you know, they're like it's like one are your Degrees're like, well, I'm a doctor, like a physician doctor, but then also a PhD. Yeah, I also did an expedition in Antarctica for eight eight months and oh yeah what Else're like, Oh, I got ten thousand hours flying a chop and I'm like, yeah, okay, so yeah, cheers. I made a non aarcoholic beer, which is pretty good.
Well, that's pretty great.
It's just unfortunately it's not like in the application process to like, how many beverages have you invented?
Well, you don't know, look on the website and see if the criteria that's listed on the website is not the criteria that you need.
Put the pressure on the Swedes, get them.
To write the website.
So no, and look, I marginally joke there, but I do genuinely want to have an I applied to be an astronaut a couple of years back when European Space Agency opened its application.
Really so you and Catherine you did mention this, were in the same ination application, coh.
So, between the two of us we passed six out of seven rounds. Yes, six out of six were hers. But let's not get into that. Let's get into the data there average.
As a cohort.
Yeah, so I applied. There was I think it was about twenty seven thousand applicants in the process, and the first cut is ninety percent get cut. So I got cut then. But they usually open their doors every ten or eleven years, but I think they're trying to ramp it back up, so it might be as short as six to eight.
So you do want to get to spac I want to have another crack.
And so I've got you know, between that, I've got another kind of six years. So what are the skills I need to try and develop from here until then to make for a more compelling applicant.
I love how logical you are about, like I want to get from A to B? What in my part chart? Am I missing from A to B? And you're the same. With dating, You're the same with upskilling, you're the same. But it's really interesting. It's like such a logical way to look at it, because most people go, I want to go from A to B and instra gratuity and like, I just what's the quickest way I can get there? And you're like, no, what am I missing? It's such
a d driven way to look at it. But it's also like I just had an interview this morning where the question that you said is like, what was the worst case scenario? You go back to what you're doing before. And the thing I always try and like remind people when they have a big goal, especially one that seems impossible, like space A. Someone has to go. So someone is going to go the data is someone will why not you?
And b the time is going to pass anyway. So when you said I'm going to be a data scientist and I'll learn X, or I'm going to get you know, do a business and I'll learn why, which is a million times X, It's like you're going to spend eighteen months either way, you might as well spend eighteen months learning the stuff.
I say this exact thing. Oh my god, people are like, ah, should I You know, I'm thinking of going back to do medicine. But you know, by the time I finished, I'll be thirty six. I'm like, you can six anyway, Oh my god. Right, Like you turn thirty six and you've got a degree or you don't.
Like, yeah, either you turn thirty six with the medical degree or you turn thirty six without it, doing exactly the same thing as you're doing a twenty.
Six Yeah, Oh my god, it's like you did an agree and it's like, oh, well, you just delete it four years.
You're forty now wake you skipped on. That's not how it works. The time is the time goes right, it's going to You're gonna eventually get there. So there's something you want to do, just just do it, like why not? And even if you start it and you decide actually it wasn't for me, Like, that's still the like the period when you stop, you're still going to get there.
Yeah, I know, the time keeps going correct, just continuous to continuum science. We've solved We've solved the universe.
We've solved life, which I thought we were based on our tangents. I thought we would solve life.
I thought we had solved life. Turns out we hadn't there And I also have realized it is you are so multifaceted. It is impossible even as a two parter, Like I feel like we need a ten part for all the changes that we need. But I've already run us over time and solving life is a really great
place y place. But I'm so glad that we got to visit some of the other facets of what you're doing and the fact that you do want to get to space because in six to eight years we'll do the anniversary episode, and I think the time will have passed anyway, so we'll be fascinating to hear what you have done in that pie chart. And like you said, worst case scenario is you've tried to position yourself for the next astronaut intake, you don't make it. You've got
all these extra skills. It's not a waste, that's it.
You know.
And one of the ones I want to start doing is getting some pilot time chopper or plane. But that's like, you know, I don't get into the national programs. I got to learn how to fly a plane creationally.
You know, I can drink and drive because pash not exactly exactly.
Yeah, so you know, get up in the plane, crack at tinny like you can't do it. Actually on the way I can. On the way here. I was walking in with this and a guy goes a bit early for that.
Actually, no, it's never too early for a part, never too.
Early for a past, never too early for a past. So yeah, it's a great. It's Actually we we won as you did. We were in the World Beer Awards and we won Best Non Alcoholic beer in Australia that is insane. That some of the some of the big incumbents, that is amazing. So if you want to taste the best non alcoholic beer in Australia as determined by the World Beer.
Awards, drink and also look out for Pash on Short Tank. Yes, I don't know if the episode will have come out by the time this does. Maybe not.
Oh yeah, actually it sure depends. Yeah, you may have already seen me. You may you may not have.
If you have not tune in.
Shark Tank next chapter, the next chapter. Yes, you're going to Marthew Argue.
Your name is spelled correctly to be Terrances, but unfortunately it's not.
That's why they the folks wrote it down the light Terrans.
Well, thanks for an amata, Thank you for joining me, Thank you, thank you well. As I said again, we could have gone so much further into all of these topics and many others, but I'm so glad that we at least came back for part two, and I hope
that you guys enjoyed listening. All the links are in the show notes to his books to Pash to the other episodes that we mentioned in part one, where you can hear more about the behind the scenes from The Bachelor if that's what you're interested in, or much more detail about his mental health journey on Jess Rose podcast.
And please, as always, do share the episode on socials do it now and take a screenshot and share it, tagging and doctor Matt Agnew to thank him for his time, generous vulnerability, and also just to let him know what you thought if there was anything that really resonated. I cannot believe we are in November already. Gosh, time is flying. Yes, I am back to saying that every single episode, but truly, I mean, it's just speeding up at such a rapid rate.
In fact, I should have asked the astrophysicists about that the whole time space continuum thing, but it really does seem to just be escalating. I hope that you guys are enjoying having some yeay a little bit more regularly in your ears, and as always, please do let me
know if you have any feedback, suggestions, or requests. We will take a short break over Christmas, but then we'll be back at this much more regular cadence next year and have some incredible other guests either already recorded or in the pipeline. It's going to be such a big twenty twenty five. It just is so lovely to be back. But in the meantime, I hope you guys are having a wonderful week and are seizing your yay assass