I'll get a cook I'll get a Harps.
How are you going very good?
Thanks?
As the fledgling as fucking hell. Every time I open up Facebook or LinkedIn or That's or fucking Instagram, Tip's got a new a new thing, which usually lasts somewhere between three hours and three weeks. So at the moment she's taken up at the ripe young age of forty two, she's taken up piano corrections.
One is forty two yet, so settle down. May may the first when you're ready to bumb in my present. That's when I turned forty two.
And secondly, the.
Last, the last thing lasted a good decade. Boxing I stuck out for more than three hours or three weeks.
That definitely was not the last thing.
Well, you've got to be telling Harps, you've got to you've got to give things to go. You just never know what's going to grab you.
You know what, I remember when you were going to be the next rembrant. For about eight minutes, you started sketching sixteen hours a day. That's right, You're like, look at me, look at me. I'm an artist. I'm an artist. And then all this art's going up on social media. Everyone, it's like you're talented, You're talented now not doing it anymore, and.
It's hard to get It's hard to get started because you finish, if you finish a sketch, and then there's so much of the ship part of trying to draw something until it starts to take shape. And I'm really really shit at that part of the process.
Yeah. I also feel like you took up Brazilian jiu jitsu for about eight minutes.
Hey, yeah, that was about eight minutes. That was two weeks, two weeks for that. But I showed promise.
I showed real promise there.
Yeah yeah, good, yep, Yep, you owned a couple of a couple of gyms for about a month and a half. Yep, you go that that a good crack.
I learned good lessons there. I learned good lessons. You've got things to figure out what doesn't work. That's master tree.
I always say that. It's I call it anti goal setting. You know, sometimes you've got to do shit or to figure out what you don't want in your life. Sometimes when I'm talking to people, I do look like a train driver today.
Don't I You just just don't get that hat right, I'm just adjusting my hat everybody.
But I often when I'm talking to people who you know, they like, they know that they're not where they want to be, but they don't know where that actually is. Clearly you know. It's In fact, had a really big chat on Friday with somebody who's quite well known to this podcast and quite well known in general, and it's just obviously not going to mention to but yeah, just trying to figure out like a few things have happened in this person's life and just things are a bit blah.
But it's really hard when things are blah and you don't know what the thing that you want is. It's not like it's not like, oh look I've got to roll up my sleeves and do all this work. It's like, I don't even know what the fucking destination that I want is. I don't know what. I just know it's not here. So that's that place of not being where you want to be in the moment, but also not sure where you want to go. That's probably quite common.
Maybe, yeah, definitely, I reckon it is, and I think it is hard to get the answer of what we need, and it comes down to trying new things like that was a pretty spare of the moment decision to whip out and buy it.
That was like that happened in a twelve hours yeard.
Tell people what you did.
So I watched well.
When I was in Tazzy, if I wind it back when I when I was in Tazzy, I was thinking to myself, I would like I would like a hobby or an interest that is unrelated to fitness boxing. Boxing really ticks a big box for me when I'm compared and when I'm not. It doesn't have that sense of purpose. And that's what I like about the idea of a hobby or an interest that has a sense of purpose, of challenge, of getting better, of a reason to push through when things are difficult.
And I didn't know what that would look and feel like.
And what's even funnier is about a month ago I got a new client and he said to me, I could give you piano lessons if you want, randomly out of nowhere. And I was like, really interested in learning the piano. And then I watched this movie on Netflix on Saturday night. I took Saturdays off. Now it's a new thing. Watched a movie it was about a drummer and this music teacher reminded me of my boxing coach,
who was quite brutal, probably a ramped up version. I'm this guy was quite hard and abusive and rough.
But JK. Simmons, that old ball dude who's the Yeah, he's a motherfucker And that isn't it?
Yeah? Yeah? Great? I really And by the end of the movie I was just loving it.
But and I guess because I saw my boxing coach in that film, and then maybe it shifted my relationship with the idea of learning music.
And so by the next day I was out.
I'd done a hard dive research into pianos and went out and bought myself a digital piano and I'm playing it. I'm playing that bad boy. I just played something like what is It Someone You Love? By Lewis Capaldi. I just learned that today, just saying.
But can you read music?
No? But I'm learning No, I cannot.
There's but you know what the great thing is, I've gone out chat GPT had gave me the ability to actually learn what I need in it in a piano because I was like, I we'll just go by keyboard for fifty bucks once I started asking questions in chat GBT, I've got heaps of clarity about what's important, what do I need, what should I look for? How much am I going to spend so I've got the right piece
of equipment. And then there's apps that teach you, you know, how to you can play along with them and they give you lessons, and so I'll learned to read music along the way. And in the interim you can kind of just google different songs that you can learn to play, just so that you can play something that you don't not just doing boring scales or trying to bang the right key at the right time. It's really fun. I
wanted to, you know. And I also and punched into chat GPT what are all the benefits, because this is the stuff I'll fall back onto. How good it is for your brain, how good it is for your mind creativity,
like your ability, So it's all those transferable skills. It's like, well, I got frustrated and I decided to put work boundaries in because I feel like my creativity is stifled because I don't have time, and I'm you know, all of that jazz and I'm well, well, now I can do a hobby that cultivates creativity and that will come in handy with what I do.
So it's all that cool stuff.
Yeah, it's amazing we're using I think it's the left chemisphere of your brain as logic right as creative, so you kind of and if you're not, I mean you're pretty creative. I'm quite creative. I reckon I'm a bit of an anomaly because I'm probably more creative than logical, but maybe even Stephen. But I'm not really cut out for academia, which is hilarious. But somebody's doing the shit
that I'm doing. But when you told me you were doing that, I was thinking apart from the the fact that you're learning music, which is I love music, I mean I learned. I've still got three guitars. I've still got a guitar that just sits at the end of my bed in my bedroom, and I still pick it up once a week and fuck around with it. But I learned band. Yeah, I could fuck everyone's going to to see you and me out of tune, just wailing
on like fucking cats. But there's something very for me anyway, very therapeutic about like I learned guitar for about ten years, and I'm still like I can play. I'm not a brilliant guitarist, but I can pick up a guitar after I cannot touch a guitar for two years and pick up and play something reasonably well. But I'm never I don't think I've ever even spoken about that on this show. But there's something that happens to your nervous system and your brain and depending on you know what kind of
music you're playing. You know, your heart rate and your blood pressure and all that great shit, when when you just get lost a little bit, and the more that you play, the less you're using your mind, so to speak, and the more it becomes just an autonomous process where you know, like you drive somewhere and you get this somewhere.
You get to somewhere and you can't remember turning on indicators or pushing in the clutch or change or depending on what kind of guy you drive, but like you just get there without thinking too much because it's something that you do naturally. And it's like that with music too. You just get into that place without having to focus on where do I put my fingers? Where do I put my fingers next? How do I strum this, how do I hold this string? Or how do I hit this?
You know this sharp key and this minor key on the piano or whatever it is. You know, so what how did you figure out what kind of So it's an electric piano, so it's a keyboard on a stand kind of right.
Yeah, So there's there's electric pianos or digital piano as they call them, and you can. Basically what I was looking for was an eighty eight key digital piano that had weighted keys, which replicate a real piano. So key A lot of keyboards will either have soft touch keys and then playing it feels like a piano.
Yeah yeah, And what I did you buy a new did you buy a second hand wedge buy? How much did it cost? I mean, these are the things everyone wants to know.
Yeah.
I did a little hunt on Marketplace. That's where I started. So I started just looking at keyboards. I was like, sweet, there's a fifty dollars keyboard up in Corfield.
I'll go grab that tomorrow. And then I started asking questions.
Then I just started doing comparisons on the types that I found in Marketplace, asking chat GPT to give me comparison. Does these great breakdowns giving me graphs and what's better and why and who should buy this particular model. And that's kind of where I landed with the research. And then I found the one that I wanted, which was a roll in FP ten. They're about five six hundred dollars for one with a stand second hand, and I just reached out to a bunch of people, basically the
first one that could say yes to me. I was about to pick that bad boy up and is in good Nick, It's in great Nick, It's in great what's funny with piano? A lot of people seem to there must be it must be a thing. I went to pick it up and this chick had a garage full of pianos, and one of the other guys I was inquiring with I could tell that he had several pianos listed as well.
So, yeah, it must be a.
Weird thing where they just don't buy and sell pianos and make a fortune.
Oh really, Yeah, I wonder how, and so what do they retail at those.
I think I've got lots of numbers in my head.
I think that you can.
Get a stand and like the package I got, which was on a stand with a stool. Then you get it for about just under a thousand, and what do you pay it? And I paid six hundred.
Oh good, it's good. Good. Yeah, Well, we will be the audience and I will be checking in in about a month just to see how the musical. Of course it'll be flourishing. You'll be cary dollars.
You might all be buying tickets to my concert by then.
No, you and Lewis Capaldi just doing a team effort, a joint effort.
To contact him. How good is he?
I love him? And people don't know him. Yeah, he's just like I'm sure a lot of our what but some of our older audience might not know. But he what's that? What's his mental issue? Like he suffers from its direct and also like real anxiety and stuff. Yeah.
In fact, they've got a Netflix documentary on him that's worth watched it.
Yeah, and sometimes like there's been a few times where he kind of freezes or loses a bit on stage and the audience sings for him and they loved him so much.
It's so good that goosebumps thinking of that.
That was the most powerful that went viral, that clip where he just kind of froze and forgot is what I couldn't couldn't sing and the whole like millions of them, well I don't know thousands of peace at least, just see.
Well thousands at that. And but how I mean, how gifted is he? How great is his music? How great it is? And how much of a natural is he? Like like it goes to show you like his and I mean with this full, I mean this with respect. He's like almost the anti hero because he doesn't give a fuck. Like there's no image, there's no makeup, there's no you know how everybody's like manicured within an inch of their life. Yeah, like just walking out t shirt pants,
just hanging out, talking shit, laughing. Yeah. So I love that. Just a musical prodigy.
Isn't it good?
Now? How with you know the way Netflix and documentaries and that have gone that we actually get access to seeing the reality behind the scenes that everyone struggles and some people didn't start on, you know, like Ed Sheeran, how not talented he was to begin with, and you.
Just say, oh wow, yeah that might be me, Harps. That's what I'm saying, Bro, I.
Could be you. You could be the latest fucking musical prodigy, the latest blooming musical. No, I think prodigy is somebody that's young. You Actually, well, no, what I mean is generally when someone talks about a prodigy, a musical or sporting prodigy, it's somebody that's very young. Now, I'm not saying that you're not going to be, you know, the next big thing. I'm fully expecting that you are good good,
I'm not holding my breath. But at the same time, ha ha, but you don't like that, I mean you. You and I have spoken about this, maybe once on air, but definitely a few times off. Fair Like, the thing that I've I've always been I've wanted to do but never been brave enough to do, is comedy, right because, by the way, everyone, I don't think I'm fucking hilarious at all, right, but I've been told many many times by people, you should do some comedy because you're a
bit amusing, Right. And when I I do my gigs, when I do workshops or keynotes, you know, you're literally in front of an audience. But the beauty of that, the beauty of that environment is nobody's there going all right, Well, it's your job to be funny because there's no expectation or pressure for me to be funny. Then it allows me to be funny and tell a funny story, or
be inappropriate or do something fucking stupid. But the few times, probably honestly more than a few times where I've been whatever, inappropriate, funny, and all of a sudden you look up and there's, however, many people, like a whole room of people laughing at some shit. You just said, Fuck, it's fun I'm like, yeah, I could understand, like where you've got a whole lot of like a whole room of people. One day at Deacon when we had about seven hundred, I remember looking up.
I can't even what I've done, told one of my stupid stories, but I just remember looking and seeing essentially seven hundred people laughing their asses off and just an auditorium full of happy faces and smiles, And I thought, fuck, this is this is like a social narcotic, Like this could be very addictive, no wonder, no wonder, comedians love get that, Like, I could see how that would be somewhat mentally and emotionally intoxicating, But I just and it's funny.
All the shit that I've done, you know, like Tali Radio podcast standing in front of Like, I've done a live gig in front of four thousand people. I would rather do a live gig in front of ten thousand people speaking gig than Hey, Craig, here's seven strangers. You've got to walk out and be funny for five minutes. That terrifies me.
It is the most would be the most resilient type of art performing artist. I remember, I feel pretty recently. I think it was Geraldine Hickey. I think she's quite funny.
She's a really good comedian. I've seen her a couple of times live, and I must have seen a real of hers that was from way back, and it was quite clunky and kind of reminds you that, Yeah, even the best comedians, they start out because it's all in the delivery, and like sometimes you pick apart what they say and it's just in their mannerisms and their delivery, which is what they have to perfect. And you can't perfect that at home writing it down and practicing in
the mirror. You have to do that in front of people. It's really just a test of resilience.
Ah, yeah, I don't have it. I'm too scared. It's like I like to sometimes think I'm a fucking alpha male warry. I'm definitely not a big I'm a big baby. But you know who's brilliant at what you're talking about? And there are many but Carl Baron. Oh and because like some of the shitty says, it's just like it's four out of ten funny, but his face and he's timing and his body language and the bullshit he does all that physical comedy with his body, it's a fifteen
out of ten. But then the combination of the reasonably good kind of content or jokes, but then his delivery and the way that he does it, Like you couldn't teach someone to do his act, Like if another comedian did his act, wouldn't be funny.
Yeah, Yeah, he is so funny. I love him.
It's something about also a lot of really funny comedians like that they really play on almost like making dumbing themselves down. So they're really smart people, but often they're you know, they're playing stupid in a lot of things.
Well, think about all the moving parts in that one. You've got to have pre prepared content material of course, but also there's going to be there's going to be an element in every show, well, with good comedians anyway,
where there's a live there's interaction. There's some pissed bloke in the fourth row giving your shit, and then you've got to navigate him or her, and then you've got to like not get pissed off, because imagine if you got angry, like that's going to make everything very unfunny, and then you've got to deal with that. You've got
to stay on track. You've got to not get derailed for the you know, if you're at say I don't know the palais and you're a comedian, there's two thousand people there and one bloke's being a fucking idiot, you've got another nineteen hundred and ninety nine that are not being an idiot. It'd be easy to get derailed depending on what's going on and trying to navigate all of that and just be like tell shit like you've never
told it before. It as well, yeah, like imagine how many times some of them have told those same jokes, and to bring the right energy where it's like I've never told this before, but no, you've told that the last three hundred nights in a row.
Should you give it a crack?
No, definitely not, but thank you. But what I do like is I like, I like the idea, and I guess maybe this could. We don't need a theme for shows. We're just having to talk. But what I love is that at forty one, let's be honest, forty twoish, at forty woish, you are doing something that's brand new. It's not like, oh, yeah, you used to play piano and you've had a couple of decades off, right, it's very I like that you do seem to get pretty good
at things pretty quick. I mean, you took up boxing at twenty nine and ended up winning a whole bunch of professional, well sanctioned fights. Right, It's not like, you know, and you'd never thrown a punch in anger, well not in that kind of sense anyway, until you're almost thirty, which is very late to start a very high demand
physical contact sport. And then I don't know when you started drawing, but the first time I've known you for a long time before I saw it draw anything, then I'm like, and it was fucking brilliant, which is very annoying. So I'm genuinely interested to see how good you can get playing keyboards before the end of the year.
Yeah, it's once.
Once there's an interest, I am straight down the rabbit hole. Like once I've got an interest in something, and I can and like I said before, I can, there's there's a mechanism to understand the value beyond so that when I get annoyed at this or you know, I've got to practice a certain part of it, I know there are other reasons I'm doing it like it was shit
turning up to boxing. Are plenty of the time getting punched in the face and punched in the face, and punching the face and always feeling the shittest and never thinking you're good enough and never being fit enough and getting punched in the face and getting punched in the face because you're always put in with people better than you, because that's the point. And so you have to understand your reasons behind it in order to keep doing it.
And so I feel like I highlighted enough of those to myself in learning the piano to warrant going out with this bright idea twelve hours after thinking of it to invest in a piano.
But you know what's a real contradiction with you, and I'm going to throw you under the bus. But you know what I'm about to say is true, So you know you can do this. You can go Fuck, I just watched a movie about this brilliant musician and this beautiful kind of this amazing coach who I'm going to
become a musician. So within twenty four hours, you go out and buy a new instrument that you've never played, do the research, get the instrument, start playing it, and within twenty four hours you're posting shit on social media view playing the p which is fucking hilarious. And, by
the way, if someone who's never played reasonably impressive. But if you've got to do a speaking gig in three weeks, you won't give it any fucking thought until you're driving there, and then you'll ring me up in a panic, going, I was thinking of doing this. What do you think about that? I'm like, here's an idea. You've known, you've had it for fucking six months. Why don't you channel
some of that piano energy on this speaking gig. You've got like you can be so focused or so completely a dog with three dicks who's just like out.
Of control, and you're like, I have learned that there's so much of that erraticness that I just need to accept and find my own way of wrangling, like, because I've hated parts of that for a long time and gotten mad about it and been like I'm just shit, I'll never I'll never be this or that, And it's like, Okay, this is a hardwired part of me, there's part of
this is a blessing. I just need to understand for me, what's the best way to for me to work around this, what's the best way for me to and how to plan or prepare for something? Because I think I need I think it's that level of enthusiasm and excitement that actually makes things work when I do do them.
But what happened? What happens when it Like for our listeners, I think, by the way, forget the musical destiny who of course you're with biggest things and sliced bread, as Mary harpists, whatever the fuck that means? Oh, bigger than slice bread because slice bread is huge? What was in the forties when Mary was grown up? What a revelation that was? What an innovation that was in the kitchen? Put away your knife, it's already sliced. Fucking who knew?
Call the Herald's son, call the cops. Look at what we've got slice bread. Well, you know, and in twenty years there's going to be a thing called television, Mary, so batten down the fucking hatches. I don't know what I've no, just the fact that doing new things and like my version like very different. But my version of you know, like diving in this process was or part of it was my PhD where I'm like, everyone's like, what are you doing that for? You don't need to
do that. I go, yeah, I know, oh no, but I want to and we'll see how we go. And you know, and how many people said to me, but by the time you finish, should be sixty one And I said, yeah, well I'll be sixty one anyway in five years, so I'll be sixty one with a PhD or sixty one without. So it's like it's a silly reason to not learn.
Yeah.
And the thing the thing is that you like you. I don't know. I know it sounds nath and I know we say it too much, but like the rate at which you age or don't age, you know, cognitively, emotionally, physiological, like we can mitigate it. We can even turn it around to a degree depending on our starting point. So I love the fact that you're doing different shit. I love the fact. I love it when people message me and I reckon, not because of me, but because they've
taken the initiative. I reckon. At least one hundred people who listen to the You Project at least have begun or even finished a degree. They've started a degree, anything from undergraduates PhD. I remember Nicole that we had on the show that you that you met up with. Remember
Nicole Qinsland. Yep, you know, she started, she did her undergrad degree and then she did honors and now she's doing a doctorate and that you know, part of that was through the support and encouragement, And she did all the work, she made the decisions, she did the hard stuff. But you know, now she's a woman heading towards her fifties who's literally better than she's ever been, happier, aw fulfilled, more confident, more knowledgeable, like and growing like a metaphoric weed.
You know, in the middle of this process that most people would avoid because they're too old, you.
Know, to use a cliche term, the journey, not the destination, Like why not do something just because you might be old, Like what, Like I thought to myself, no one, I'll walk around day to day and no one knows. Well, they will know because I'll tell them. But if I didn't, no one would know that I had the skill of playing the piano one day. But it's like to have something that relaxes me, like I've never had an interest
that isn't full tilt. Like that feels so good. I'm struggling with recovery and this is the first thing where I'm fully engaged and relaxed at the same time.
Yeah, yeah, how do you go? How do you and your ADHD go with something that requires sitting still and being focused and being because it's a very different type of demand on your body.
It is so cognitively overwhelming, and like my hands were aching within two minutes, I was like, oh my god, this it aches. It aches to press the buttons. And then five minutes into a little lesson on the app that I downloaded, I'm learning. I'm looking at music that I can't read, but I'm getting cuesed for it that
occasionally has finger numbers. So there's finger numbers, there's notes, there's two lines, there's fucking a line of music for your right hand and a line of music for your left hand, and your fingers are numbered one to five, but then five to one on the other hand. So all of these calculations as this little thing is playing through when you're trying to press the right buttons at the right times, because that hears it when you play it and gives you a reading that you're getting it right.
I was just like, oh my god, there is a lot happening here and I don't understand it. But I also I'm aware because it was the same with boxing that as I do it, it's all falling into my subconscious and one day it'll just make sense. One day I'll know exactly what that note is that I'm pressing and which finger presses it, and I'll be like, oh, I know that now.
Well, think about I don't know whenever. It was about a year ago when you got your motorbike, right, yeah, right now. I remember what I remember riding down South Road with you after you'd just got it and you could ride, but it wasn't your natural habitat you were
like twelve out of ten concentrating. Yeah, I've literally been riding on the road for forty three years and I ride seven days a week, and you know, for me, it's like scratching my nose and I'm riding next ume looking and then you know I rode with you not
that long ago. Yeah, completely different. I mean, you know you still like time on on the bike, but yeah, so like so much less effort for such better performance because it's just it's just doing reps, like doing reps in the gym, doing reps on the bike, doing reps on the piano, like doing reps with research and study. It's like, you can't get good at the thing you're not doing, So what's the thing that you need to be doing? And you know so many people are reluctant
to start because they're bad at it. Well, of course you're fucking bad at it. You've never done it. Like embrace being bad because you know, and it's like how much have I improved as a rider in the last year? Zero? How much have you improved? Eighty percent? You know what I mean? And that's the thing is, you know, wherever you start, especially if you're coming from a lower base like with piano or you know whatever, like if you and I got in a boxing ring, I'm bigger and
stronger than you. But you, well, you're definitely put in the head at least five times. If I got a hold of you, you'd be fucked. But do you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's like it's just different. You're starting from a different spot and that's okay. And whether or not it's building a business or doing that undergrad degree that we spoke about, or like creating some kind of online service or whatever it is, well, of course you're going to be no good at the start.
That's literally how it works.
The best thing about being shit at something is the percentage of improvement is massive. I'm like, I'm smashing putting videos up the first two days because to be an absolute beginner that's had a piano for twelve hours and has just learned a bit of one song and could get it right, I was like, I'll never have that level of improvement again because once I learn a little bit, it'll be a long time before people will go, oh, that's noticeable improvement because you get better and then the
margins of improvement are a lot smaller. It's like it's like doing chin ups. If you can do four, you've got to get twenty five percent better to do one more.
Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. Yeah, yeah, But even like using that as an example, how many people have I taught over the years to do chins who when they started, like the majority, couldn't do a chin. Yeah, so we just start with hanging, just body weight hold, and some
people couldn't hot. I mean some people literally couldn't hold their weight for two or three seconds, so we had to use a band, you know, or they had to hold for one second and then step on a bench, and then eventually three step seconds, then step on a bench, and then eventually, over time they'd build up to a minute and then we'd step off a bench and they'd do an eccentric kind of chin where they're lower their you know. But over time, the person who couldn't hold
their body weight ends up doing chins. And it's the same person with the same genetic potential, but now they've got they've done the reps, and their body is not the same anymore. You know, They've got the same potential, but they're using more of what they had, you know, So that it's funny speaking of I'm jumping around a
little bit, but like about learning in general. Right, So there was a guy that comes in the morning to the cafe often brings in his kids, and he bought his little three year old this morning, who was fucking doing laps of the Hampton's like a maniac. I'm like, yeah, good luck with him, Champ, and he laughs like great kid, Yeah, yeah, they're not loving him at kinder. I'm like, why is that?
And he goes, oh, you know, like they wanted to talk to us about Well, He's like when when they're all sitting, they're meant to be sitting on the floor like quiet and paying attention, Like he's not very good at it. I'm like, well, one, he's a boy too, he's fucking three. Of course, It's like, of course is
bad at that? What do you think? You know? I think the thing is expecting some people to you know, I'm probably being I don't know, fucking sexist when I say this, but I think girls are typically better than three year old boys at being still and not always. Of course you probably were a maniac. But I mean my point is that we all learn differently, and we're all you know, like we all are suited to different things.
But being able to go oh, well, you know, Tiff needs to learn to be calm, and maybe she doesn't. Maybe Tiff doesn't need to fucking sit still or maybe maybe you know it's like maybe you do, maybe you don't. But I think the thing is finding, you know, finding the thing that for you, you know, where there's joy and there's growth and there's hopefully there's some fun. But you know, it could be learning piano, or it could be bloody
figuring out. I don't know how to join the Space program doesn't matter, you know, an you.
Know, yeah, I want. I'm a really motivated self learner. I know that I love. Like when I did the sketching, I didn't want to do courses because I uncovered this I don't know disability to just see things and replicate them, And I was like, well, I just want to develop whatever that like. I don't understand what makes that achievable. I don't understand what that is as a talent or a skill. But I don't want to do what someone
else says and gloss over it, you know what I mean? Like, and I feel like I want to play with the piano first before I want to get some lessons at some point, But first I just want to play with it and see what I can figure out myself with. Obviously, online courses jumping around these YouTube ones do a bit of an app well.
I think also like people are naturally gifted at things that you know, like how many how many actors famous actors have never had an acting lesson? Like more than people would think, right, Like how many times have I spoken to an audience and been paid thousands? How many speaking workshops did I do? Zero? Did I? You know? Like which I've written a bunch of books I've never done. I've never done a one hour writing course. I've never done any speaking training. I've never done any media training.
I worked in radio for twenty years, and I'm not saying, ah, I brilliant, I'm not. But you know, I don't know that that some training is always is necessarily going to get the best out of you. Like for me, I'm very intuitive, instinctive. I think communication is one of my few gifts. And the way that I speak and interview and interact and present ideas and information and stories and do what I'm doing right now, Nobody's taught me to
do that. But also I don't necessarily think the way that I do it would be the best way for another person, you know, So it's trying to figure out. Yeah, I don't know, Like I definitely think like I went to one of those things, Toastmasters, is that what it's called, where people go and they basically it's like a group of people who get together, correct me if I'm wrongtive, And it's like people who want to do public speaking not necessarily become professional speakers, but a few of them do.
And there's a group and you have some kind of mentors who teach you how to speak in front of a group of humans. Well, I'm going to tread lightly when I say I don't know that all of the advice is amazing. I went to one of these to speak to the group about me going as a professional
speaker to speak to the group. And so what I did was I just got up and spoke for maybe twenty minutes on just general you know, the stuff I talk about, and then spoke a bit about you know, what I do and how I do it and why I do the things the way that I do, which is again not to say this is how I do it, therefore you all should be doing what I do at all, And then just interacted with them and answered questions and so it was probably forty minutes all up, and they
were like, how do you just get up there and do that? That's like saying to me, how do you just eat your breakfast? How do you do that? I'm like, this is so not hard. There's so many things that are hard for me. So, you know, I think it's a mix of For some people, really having that training and that coaching and that kind of education is going to be a real asset. But I don't think everyone all the time. Like one of my best friends in the world, Greg who you remember, Greg used to do
a bit of editing with us. He plays about twenty instruments. He's had zero musical lessons, you know, he's produced albums, singer, songwriter, master musician. Give him any instrument, he'll play it by tomorrow. But he plays, you know, keyboards, he plays drums, he plays guitar, he plays bass, he plays lead, he plays rhythm, he plays like everything, and nobody taught him, and he's awesome at all of it. Again, there's not you know, there's not one way. But I think sometimes there's that
creative genius that if you just lean into that. You might you might pick up bad habits, but also you might not.
But there's things if you just get you just get it and you don't necessarily understand it. Like I didn't just get boxing. So I find I believe that I am a really good teacher for beginners because I had to break that down and really understand it, because I wasn't coordinated. I had to really work at it and get the understanding of what it feels like and what do you mean by that? And how do I move my body like that? How do I make this? How do I punch from the shoulder, or how do I
you know? And I think, like when I was doing that little app and reading the music, it's like when you have to focus on something new, you can't focus on the rest. So when you're walking up onto a stage at toast Masters as a beginner with a task, they're telling it, they're teaching you about. Your head's filled with the task. You're thinking about that you can't connect
with an audience. But if people just get it, like you just get it, so you don't need to be taught how to interact and meet the room where it's at.
And that's the challenge, you're right with something like toast Masters. By the way, I don't think it's bad. I actually think for the most part, it's a good idea and it gives people a platform and there's a lot of good to come out of it. But you're right. One of the challenges is if you want to do a presentation, we've got to pre prepare obviously, then you've got content. And then with for a lot of people, they've got slides, you know, or they've got a set presentation. There's this bit,
then this bit. There's ten bits, and bit four comes after bit three, and bit three comes after bit two, and you know, and then at the end there's a conclusion and then there's Q and A. And the problem is that if you're on you know, part two of your ten part presentation, and the audience are lost, and now you're in the middle of like a fucking interpersonal catastrophe because people are looking at their phone and checking their fucking social media and you don't have the capacity
to figure that out in real time and go, fucking hell, I've lost the group, but I don't know what to do because I've halfway through point two and point three is next on my slide show. Then not only is that going to be a disaster for the group and for you, it's probably going to fuck your confidence forever. That organization is never going to get you back to speak to them because it was terrible. So it's this synergy and this synthesis of yes, you need content and preparation.
But and it's tough because the only way you can get that confidence as you the only way you can get confident in the ring is by being in the ring. You can fucking shadow box around the lounge room until you're ninety two, but until some motherfucker hits you on the gob in the ring, right you like, you know, it's like, dude, you can't There are certain skills you cannot acquire until you're at the cold face, and so you just got to go there be as well prepped
as you can. But also, you know, try to be mindful of what's happening in front of you, because if you're creating disconnection not connection and you don't know it, you're opening up a world of hurt. Yeah, all right, Well, I feel like we've banged on. I'm going to go and do some work.
I'm going to go and bang some keys?
Are you going to bang some keys? Okay? Now, I'm could you Rather than posting every eight minutes, could you just could you and go, oh, look I've got three new chords. Hey do you reckon? You could just like once a week put up something and go, okay, week five, this is what I'm looking like.
I could probably work with that.
I don't think we need hourly updates on your musical prowess.
I don't want to miss out.
Yeah no, we're okay. Okay, we're okay? Where okay? And then how excited? Will you be? All right? Have a good day, TIV. Thanks everyone, Thanks