Australia offers safety, security, education, and healthcare that many other countries lack, but this security comes with costs including high taxes on successful individuals and reduced opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation. The country's small size creates tight-knit communities that provide belonging but also pressure, including 'tall poppy syndrome' where successful people are criticized. For those seeking to grow their businesses, build global brands, or pursue ambitious dreams, Australia's limited market and cultural emphasis on modesty can be constraining. The solution is not to abandon Australia but to recognize that different life stages and goals require different environments—sometimes you need to leave to gain inspiration, exposure to global perspectives, and the freedom to operate at scale, then return with new perspectives to contribute to your home country.
The collapse of ambition in AustraliaAdded:
Alfie, why haven't you left Australia yet?
>> It's a great question. Everyone's speaking about it right now, like how Australia not only taxes successful people, but also just like entrepreneurship in general and moves innovation out of the country and we keep seeing that. I feel like all the top entrepreneurs are looking elsewhere, elsewhere to live, elsewhere to like grow, build businesses.
And for me, I think Australia will always be saved by being just an amazing country. And I think at the end of the day, you have to pay a price for safety, for security, education, healthcare, all the things that we take for granted because we've grown up there. That's what a lot of other parts of the world don't have. And as much as we're seeing an influx of amazing talent leave Australia, think about how valuable an Australian or New Zealand by proxy passport becomes. and how badly people want residency there. So, I think the the good comes with the bad in a way.
And when I look down and I just got a text two days ago from the ATO saying my uh 25 to 26 tax bill is due, it's a it's a decent decent amount of number. You know, when you're putting like half a million back into the Australian government in one year, you've got to ask yourself what what could half a million get you elsewhere in the world.
But Australia will always be saved by like safety, education, healthcare. And I think for me when I think of raising a family, could think of no better place to raise a family.
>> I feel that as well. It's so easy to look at all of the the bad things and then forget about all the good. I feel like we do that with a lot of things in life. And just to check back in and go, "Hang on, there's no better beaches."
Like if you think any beach around the world is anywhere near close to what they are down there in Australia, you're kidding yourself. You know, the walk you can walk barefoot. You everything that you kind of take for granted gets because all all of media and everything gets swept up into your mind and then it gets amplified. And I think for me I I I'm reminded of that. Obviously there's so much amazing stuff outside of Australia uh depending on what the goal is as well. Hence why obviously, you know, we're sitting here in Malibu right now and even just looking at this feels abundant and and expansive. Do you feel like there's an aspect of that that's missing by staying in Australia?
>> I think you have to leave for inspiration for sure. I don't feel inspired by Australia, but in the same way, I don't feel inspired by Europe.
For me, when I go to Europe, it's so leisure dominant. And I look around and think, "Wow, this place was inspiring a thousand years ago when the Romans were crusading or the Spanish were, you know, expanding their colony throughout the world, but now it's less inspiring."
Like Europe's not an inspiring place.
Australia, I don't think, is either. I think the lifestyle there is awesome.
And I think the lifestyle of once you made it is amazing. But you've got to come to the US. And I draw so much inspiration from the US seeing the rate at which things move here and just the scale at which people are willing to operate. And I think if you stand it for too long, you get caught the other way.
You know, the good comes with the bad. I think you can get caught in a bubble in the US as well. It's like anywhere. I think you need the contrast of being able to leave is what makes that place so great.
>> Yeah. And I guess even a place like Malibu for me, I feel that pool that's very similar to Australia in terms of its nature when you're down by the beach and the locals and everything. But then when you go to the thick of LA, it's a completely different life. And you know, there's there's a lot of inspiration that I gained from going there and meeting the people and seeing all the action and being busy. But I think a thing that pulled me further away from it while still being in proximity like a place like here was I met so many people that had made it and it felt like they had lost it as well. Like they were like paranoid. I was meeting people that were, you know, just literally looking at every human as a transaction and a dollar sign and and it gave this really negative energy. And so it's it's interesting because people that haven't left Australia, I feel like the US just gets mapped into one big bubble, but literally streets next to each other can be completely different vibes and and completely different lives. Would you agree?
>> Yeah. And I think there's also like a new wave of success which is trying to find that like slow life again. And it's almost come full circle where it's been like fast-paced life for a lot of people and that's being glorified like the grind and the hustle. And I think there just becomes a point where people get out the other side and normally it takes some canon life event you know it could be having a child that could be a bad divorce. It could be a marriage. Could go both ways. Could be the death of a relative or someone close to you. And normally it takes some canon event for people to realize like what's really important. And I think that's what pulls you out of that hustle and bustle of a place like LA where you're like, "Wow, you could really get swept up and and yeah, eaten up and chewed up and spent back out if you're not careful."
>> Yeah. And then do you feel like it's important to be exposed to those things for context and for understanding of work ethic from people, understanding of like the way people think bigger in cities like that as well? Do you think it's important to be exposed especially for entrepreneurs?
>> Yeah, I think it's amazing to be entrepreneur. It's a I think it's amazing to be exposed. I the hardest part I think if you are in a place like Australia is you see it from the outside. So you see the big numbers, you see the hundreds of millions or the billion dollar, you know, cap raises and you see all the people, you know, raising money like pursuing whatever it is, whether that's in San Fran, LA, New York, Austin, and you see it from the outside, but you don't see all of the color of the picture. I think sometimes you just see the best parts of it. And when you're actually behind the scenes and you see the sacrifice, you see the work that goes into it, makes you appreciate it and at least rationalize in your mind whether you're willing to sacrifice as much as they are to have it.
>> Yeah. You see the best and the worst, but not really much of like all the meat in the middle.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I like the anonymous nature of a lot of these cities though to be able to come in and sort of be a no one and just walk through the streets and there's so many people living their own life their own chapter and I think sometimes in Australia because of the nature of it being quite small quite tight found and that's beautiful in a way because it creates a really tight community where people are known and do feel a sense of belonging a lot faster unlike in New York where a lot of people probably feel no sense of belonging because it's so anonymous in a way. I think the risk of that is people suddenly believe that the whole world is watching them all the time. The whole world really really cares what next step they're going to make, what post they're going to put out or whatever it is. And I can fall prey to that as well. When I go home, I feel more I guess judged in a way or at least watched even though nothing changes.
>> Yeah. I guess that's that that pressure and tall poppy syndrome nature that like our default in Australia a lot of the time is to tear someone down. Uh there's even the uh an old Chinese saying it says the nail that stands up is the one that gets hammered down. And so maybe when you're in America, you stand up taller and you maybe try and extend yourself to the best of what it is because you feel a bit more free and then because the culture maybe supports that a bit more and then going back there it feels like oh if I stand up too tall people are just going to hammer me down.
>> I think what's interesting though is it's a Chinese prophet not an Australian one. So like it's clear that that's happened throughout time and it's prevalent in any society. I think maybe Australia we just feel it more because we're from there. Yeah.
>> And I do feel in the US I would say there is an attitude here. All the things that we as Australians or Kiwis look to the US and think is maybe the parts of the US that were like oh it's so like outlandish and a bit cringe and embarrassing. It's like those are the parts of the US that make it so great because people are so willing to have a go. People are willing to take a risk. the US are like the most amazing consumers in the world because they just are so willing to buy but so willing to like try and I think that appetite for experience that appetite for risk is what sets probably the US apart from a lot of other countries as well I I've had this interesting thought around due to social media people are comparing their life on a global scale so so whatever someone's doing in a global scale scale, they compare their life to that as opposed to just their life compared to everyone else in their village. Like back in the day, you didn't have access to people on the other side of the world. So, you didn't really know what they were doing, so you didn't compare. And so, we kind of compare what Americans achieve in our little town in Australia and then think we're think we're inadequate maybe or think we're we're not there yet.
>> Yeah. I think comparison can be an amazing tool or it can be, you know, the thief of joy as it's described. I think comparison like two people could see the same thing and one could be completely envious. It could drive them into misery and decay of how [ __ ] their life is compared to what they're comparing it to. And the other person could say, "Oh, if they have it, it's realistic for me to have it one day as well." And inspire them to start their business or whatever it is. So it's difficult because comparison and being compared on a global scale is super powerful for me. I love that and I like really really enjoy to see what is possible and a big part of coming to the US is seeing it in the flesh cuz I see it on social media but I can't contextualize it with anything.
But then when I'm driving to Newport, meeting with people like Ryan Fish and like seeing what he's achieved, knowing he's really good friends with Hermosi and knowing what he's achieved and hearing it firsthand, it inspires me to be like there's work to be done. But I think if you constantly live in a world of comparison and you're not doing anything to action or move yourself closer towards it, then that's when you're just like in this ever grading pit. You know they said um that the discrepancy between where you would like to be and where you are or your actions towards moving towards where you want to be. The bigger that gap is, the more uncomfortable it is for the individual.
And that level of uncomfortability normally gets thrashed out and you know envy and anger and whatever it comes out in. So, I think for most people it's like if you're not acting towards it and then you keep seeing this comparison that's ever getting greater, that's a horrible feeling to be in. That's more down to a lack of action than the comparison.
>> And part of that action piece would actually be getting here and seeing it in the flesh. Because if you're going to compare your life to someone else's, you better understand the full piece of that life.
>> Cuz if you just compare the highlight, then you're never going to feel fulfilled because you're actually not going to know what it took to get there.
And so I think the thing that I realized about coming over here and traveling around the world is you actually see what it takes to achieve the thing. So then you can actually go out and achieve the thing. Because even if we think about even in like a in a context of say dating and relationships as an example, right?
Like women are probably and men are probably comparing their standards of what they want on a global scale, but then they're looking for maybe men or women that haven't actually experienced the global scale. And so it's hard to level up. Like if you go if you go back to Australia after spending so much time here, the way that you think is for most people is a lot less expansive and it's a lot less uh like it's a just a lot less bigger thinking. uh at least from my experience and what I found. And so, but if we're watching American TV and we're and we're getting influenced by a global population, but then the people we're hanging around haven't been exposed to that in its entirety.
It's probably like a it could be a slippery slope, at least from my thought around like what they're striving towards and is if it's even realistic as well.
>> Yeah, I think it's just perspective.
Like even here, you know, Hunter lives and trains here. Literally in his house is like pretty much a full Hier rock setup for him to be able to train. He's currently on like Harros camp up in the mountains at altitude. If you're now comparing that as someone who's like, I want to go like sub 60 in a hierox and it's like, oh yeah, no, I don't really have like the proper Hierox equipment at my gym, but you know, I'd like to send Hunter on TV. He's doing like 55 minutes or whatever his time is. And it's like your baseline of where you're starting from or all the training that's gone into it, the environment that you're putting yourself to actually achieve that goal is like so incredibly different. And I think until you see it in person, it's like they talk about, you know, endurance runners and like until you go to like Kenya and see them train and see the tracks and the effort and the sacrifice that goes into it, it's like how can you possibly even think you're going to be able to compete? I think that's what hard that I think that's what's really difficult is like everyone's in a completely different environment completely different bubble and that perspective sometimes you have to pop your own bubble and just be like oh I am looking at this in a very narrow viewed way and I think travel is like the best way to do that not just travel to the US just travel anywhere to be able to leave and go and see how the rest of humanity lives and go enter someone else's bubble particularly another culture's bubble is like the greatest That's like pretty much all I spend my money on is experience and travel because it gives you such a good perspective and a change of perspective as well.
I think that example of hierox is the perfect one because I experienced it as well training in doing hierox in Australia in a tour in Berley and seeing them and and me like looking at to the people that are the best there and then you have come to come in to Australia when I first met him and be in a tour in the class doing a workout and pulling the sled the way he was pulling it and I remember just asking him like is my form okay? This is when I first met him like 2 days after I met him. I was like, "Is my form okay?"
And he's like, he's like, "Dude, I I would probably like I wouldn't do it that way." But I was literally just copying exactly what all the best people were doing.
>> And then all of a sudden, you come over here and you see like how dedicated he is. And then you see the you see people maybe in Australia and there's still excellent athletes in Australia, but you see how they're showing up in their life when their main thing that they're focused on is that thing. And it's like a fraction of what the world champs are actually doing. And then you just go, okay, there really is levels to this.
And once you get exposed to it, everything starts to make sense. Like I just I see Hunter training and that's just it's a perfect reference because we're at his house right now. I see Hunter training and and you experienced it, right? And you just go like that's a different level of beast.
Um and so being able to be exposed to it then allows you to show up in a different way when you go back into the life. I wonder if there's a a powerful piece in and a and a cool motivator when staying based in Australia to be exposed to cool things and then play your part in like rising the standard when you bring back and putting Australia on the map of like we can level up, we can crush this, like let's make Australia proud. Is there any element of that when you get back to try and like just like raise the standard of you and the team and the culture and the people that you have around you?
Yeah, I think that but like there is but I also think not everyone's on that same like mission as well. And I think just understanding where people are at in life is really important. And that it could just be that hey look yeah you got to leave Australia for a period of time to go get inspired, go chase if you do want to be at like the top top of your game like for you if you wanted to if you want to build the biggest podcast in the world and the majority of guests are not in Australia. It's just very inconvenient for you to build it there. Could you do it? Potentially. It's just going to be a lot harder. So, it's like if you want to play on extreme hard mode, stay in Australia. If not, move to the US, push yourself to rise and chase that goal.
And then eventually, I have no doubt you'll come back to Australia when you feel like you've, you know, achieved what you wanted to achieve. And I think it's just like a I I I don't think it's about coming back and being like, you know, if you expand the pond and you're now the small fish in a big pond. I don't think it's about coming back and trying to make the pond bigger. It's like it's a small pond for a reason. And I think you can transition out of that.
Allow yourself to grow in that bigger pond, but don't come back and try to like expand the pond that you're in. I think you could, but it's just uh I think it's very hard to have an impact at that level. I think it's better to have a few big fish in a small pond and then go to another pond.
>> Yeah. And then maybe there's an aspect of the small pond being a piece about it that actually is so special. Like, you know, everything is a double-ended sword where the striving capitalistic hungry nature of America also has its bad points as well. Well, good and bad is interesting even in itself, but like it has its other end of the sword where you know a lot of things are a lot more transactional. Um there they are a lot more cutthroat, right? Like >> if you are in Australia and you're at the Virgin Australia airport lounge and your bag is a few kilos over in Australia, they'll probably just be like, "That's okay. Like maybe just try and make sure on your way back it's a bit empty." in there is no way ever. And I took 49 flights last year. There's no way ever that if your bag is the slightest over, they will not just look at you like a [ __ ] until you fix it and empty your bag or you pay $200 to to have it back on. And so there's like a a a double-edged sword with every area that we're living in. And accepting the good and the bad in its entirety is probably quite important, too.
>> Yeah, I think there's a beauty in it.
But it's the same of like going back home for me to Wyaki which is like small little island off the coast of Aland 10,000 people. There's so many inefficiencies there. We have no traffic lights island which is unique and there's so many things even what's available from like maybe a produce perspective although it's got a lot better over the years or restaurants or going out like there's so many like little sacrifices that you make but it's an incredibly beautiful place. It's peaceful. It's quiet and it's almost all the things that make that place so amazing are the shortcomings as well.
And I think that's super common in many places. And as long as you're willing to accept the trade-off and just where you're at in life, you can decide. And that's the beautiful thing. I think we are incredibly incredibly lucky to be living in a time where nearly anyone and I'm going to say this broadly to most of the people who are listening to this, I would say nearly everyone who is listening to this has the ability if they wanted to to pack up their life and travel to the other side of the world.
Yes, it's going to cost a couple thousand dollars for a flight, but considering it used to take months to make that voyage and it would be a lot more than a couple thousand dollars even in relative terms is like incredible and I would encourage more people to do it. Particularly those people that are in a rut, don't enjoy their environment, feel stuck, don't feel inspired, are on this flat trajectory. It's like just move. You have the ability to move. It is scary.
It is uncertain. It is uncomfortable but that is what is going to allow you to grow.
>> Last time we spoke in Bondi, we had a sat on the beach in Bondi. You had just settled down in Bondi. You had got an office, a nice big apartment. And I believe on the show you said that you were looking at knuckling down there for a while and building this business. Now you've recently packed up a lot of that and now you're on the move again. You go to Europe after this. You go back home for a little bit, Bali, then then Europe.
what changed in the last four or five months and what's changed your perspective on that? the inevitable grass is always greener on the other side I think is an element I would also say yeah came back to came back to Australia had been traveling for like 5 months non-stop was excited to have a home base was there for summer which is like always a great time to be in Australia as well so I think seasons have changed which uh influences my mood a little bit and also just a realization that like the time is now at the start of the year I think we did the podcast in December Mhm.
>> Like just around Christmas, uh my dad had to have some pretty serious like open heart surgery uh to replace a aotic valve and I think just seeing that you know surgery went really well and he's recovering but was unable to travel or has been unable to travel since that and he just said to me he's like the time is now like there's no better time to be traveling you know we don't have kids we have no responsibilities no mortgage like why not now? like there's always going to be a reason not to go on trips in the next 5 years. So I think that and seeing that happen very quickly in real time, how you can go from being able to travel a lot like he was to not at all and also just a lack of inspiration. And I think being in one spot all the time just consistently, it almost yeah dulled the spark a little bit of what I was doing. And I was like, I didn't build and leave corporate to then become a victim of my own success and build the corporate that's now trapping other people in an office and saying, "Oh, you're not here at 8:30." So yeah, it was almost just like a full circle moment. I think you have to sometimes go through these things to realize it. And I'm happy I did it. I never have any regrets with anything I do. like they're all just lessons at the end of the day.
So, I'm grateful that I got the office, had that experience of what it was like to see that it wasn't what I wanted. And I think that's really important in life to go through and not necessarily work out what you want cuz our wants always change, but definitely find out what you don't want and what you don't like. So it's just a step closer to working out yeah what that like ideal dream life looks like which I think chasing that is actually not a dangerous thing but the dream always changes and like the vision of what you want in the moment is always going to change. So I think when you have the opportunity to change your life very quickly and have complete autonomy can be a dangerous game because you change a lot and change your mind a lot of the time. But overall, I'm excited.
It's new chapter.
>> Yeah. Would you say that figuring out what you don't want comes from trying and just literally trying, but the reason you're trying is because you have desires. And a lot of the time the desires are things you actually don't want. But you need to try and pursue those things to then realize it.
It's kind of like you you need to exhaust the desires and you need to figure out what you don't want. And the way to do both of that is by trying like by actually giving something a crack.
And >> yeah, and failing.
>> Like I I I I love that. Like you're whatever it is, 30 nos away from your dream partner or 30 nos away from your dream job or whatever it is. Like if people started to reference the amount of nos it would take to get somewhere like knowing that you will fail but that is like part of the pathway rather than being like oh I I think I may be successful. It's like I know I'm going to fail but I can only fail so many times until I am right. I think the beauty of life business all of those things is like you only have to get it right once. And content to me is like this great exaggeration of that as well because you can post post nothing happens. Post post post, nothing happens. You're a little bit better.
Post post and suddenly that one post does really really well. Sets off the chain reaction. And we've experienced that and had it. I think content is just an exaggeration of business life. Like you can fail seven 8 n 10 times and you only need to get it right once. And that one time that you get it right could be the thing that you ride off into the sunset with.
>> Do you think that's a big reason why the pivot inter roll your app and building out software to allow people to do that?
I don't know what the underlying mission is, but the the piece from the outside looking in. There's an ability to unlock a lot more lottery tickets for people to be able to change their life and step into that new life that they want. You know, the content game is something that so many people are striving towards. I can't remember the statistic around how many kids want to be influencers now, right? Um, do you think a big piece on that is is creating a a system that works from the get- go that can maintain its quality at scale and allow people to unlock more of their dream life if they just be consistent with using it?
>> Yeah, it's it's tied to lowering the barrier to content, right? Like everyone wants to enter content or a large portion of people do. But the gap between entering is a skill gap and that's why for a long time I taught content creation cuz it is a skill to be a creator and to understand ideation, filming, editing like these are all roles that I would hire internally. I have a creative director, videographers, editors, social media managers, and we both had to learn them from scratch. And it's definitely a skill that you can learn and you learn through practice, but you can also teach that skill and hopefully get someone there a lot faster. So for a long time I taught it and it's got to a point now where to have the impact I want to have I realized that putting all of my lessons into an app that's accessible to a far larger range of people given that the teaching component required a lot of my time in terms of consulting or consulting from my team. Putting it in a vehicle where more people could access it was that first step. And I think it's now looking at, okay, if we were to lower the barrier to a point where it's no longer about the skill. So the difference between the greatest creator isn't who's got more skill at editing, who's got more skill at ideulating. It's down to where do those ideas come from and like how pure are those ideas and what is the lived experience that that creator is speaking from. And the hardest thing I found or actually I realize that the most enjoyable work that I did at Amplify was finding people that had huge lived experience but very little content skill and my job was simply to unlock that content skill so they could start to share their message with the world and we had some awesome examples of that like Jack Faint he ran across India insane story raising a tremendous amount of money for for cancer ran across the entire of India in 80 days like crazy story and just unlocking a few things in the content which then amplified his story with the world allowed him to raise significantly more money through his charity. And it was those stories and missions that for me it's like that's the most gratifying thing you can do is like if you have a skill of how to market yourself, why not give that to the people that have the best stories to market? And the job with RO is to try and reduce the barrier to entry as low as possible so that anyone who has ideas, anyone who has stories can pick up their phone and reach millions of people around the world.
Can you talk to me a bit about the progression of your career over the last couple of years and how it led you to roll? Can you explain a bit more about the steps on the journey and you know that great Steve Jobs quote about connecting the dots looking backwards not forwards and being able to understand them. If you look at all of the key dots in that journey from when we were first living together in Bondi and you started posting content being in fitness, can you share how it progressed all the way to where it is today to give you the confidence of knowing how to build this app that helps so many people and that works so well.
>> Yeah. So I think everything's got to start from acquiring a skill. And for me, the actual first skill I acquired, which was over a decade of refining that skill, was getting in shape. And then it was moving to teach other people one-on-one. So that was around the time that I was creating content and seeing people resonate with the message, which I think Instagram's visual platform. I think the decade of training had probably paid off at that point and moving into that one-on-one coaching both with fitness and then moving and productizing that into a system with Pure Body. Now the same thing was happening with content creation sort of unbeknown to me at the time. The vehicle at which I was sharing the acquired skill was now developing a new skill which was content creation. How to build and monetize a brand which I did back from September 2023 when we were living together and grew really really quickly like 100k in 100 days and realized that there was a skill there. And I remember when we created on the daily that first uh sort of online community with yourself with Tom Prime and Jake and even then I'd wanted to share that skill that was my contribution to the on the daily community resources was like a content creation guide and after on the daily wasn't you know super successful again we learned what we maybe didn't want to do or wasn't going to work at the time it sort of led me down this path of refining that skill a lot further over the whole year and monetizing through pure body through the coaching and then building what was the next stage which was the one-on-one coaching and then eventually amplify which was like the systematized version of that where I could bring on coaches and remove myself a little bit from the business and the final tier of this productization of selling information around what you do around this one skill was really always going to be software.
It was funny because back in December of 2024 when I was considering building Amplify and what it would be like bringing on some one-on-one clients, I was looking through my posts and seeing a huge number of saves on content that wasn't valuebased content.
So, it wasn't like, oh, save this meal plan. It was completely unrelated like lifestyle mindset content. And I was sort of wondering why these posts had 30 40,000 saves on them. And I realized other creators were doing exactly what I do. Scroll Instagram, you know, look for inspiration, save a post so they can come back to it and recreate it. So back then I decided to connect the dots and I created these Cap Cut templates which was Cap Cut and Notion sort of smashed together in a very bootstrapped MVP where I took 20 of my top performing posts, five training, five nutrition, five mindset and five lifestyle and I basically presented them in a way where someone could just buy them and they could just have the Cap Cut templates.
Now we had over 6,000 users um of these templates which validated the MVP of okay people clearly want this. They want dumb for you ideation and some component of done for you editing. So that sort of led me down the path of finding Caleum who's my technical co-founder for RO and really building this project over 12 months and software is such a pain to build. It's not just filming all video or strapping some things together with existing programs. We're really building this from the ground up and you have to paint your vision when you're non-technical like myself incredibly clear to someone who is technical cuz often there's this gap between the way that you see the product evolving and the way that they see building it and you're trying to reduce that gap at every turn as much as humanly possible.
So it became this 12-mon journey of just going back and forth. And he was in Austin at the time Kiwi just yeah met through mutual friends. He was a Kiwi living in Austin working at startups and I sort of told him this idea and he'd work on it over the weekends and eventually I convinced him to come and join full-time, flew him out to Sydney, met in person, he worked out the office and for about the last 4 months he's worked pretty much full-time on it and now about a month ago we launched at 1,000 users today which is awesome. a thousand paid users. And what's funny is like we launched on Tesla and again like you've known me for a while. I am the biggest proponent of like [ __ ] it, ship it as like my motto and like some people are going to hate you for that. Not hate you but some people be like ah you should like wait until the product's perfect. It's like just get it out there. Get it out there and get feedback on it. So we launched on test flight which basically means Apple's developer program which is essentially just meant to be used for test users and we pay using another platform. We use VO using another platform and we have test flight. So it's like the most frictionful onboarding process you can ever imagine. But from trial to paid on a 7-day trial we're getting a 44% trial to paid conversion which by app standards anything above 40 is like elite. So sometimes you just have to press go and you've just got to accept that yeah there's some people are like ah it's on what's this test flight this is annoying d but it's a tiny percentage and the people that are using it are loving it and we've had incredible feedback. So we're publish now we just go back and forth probably by the time this airs will be on the app store officially uh which is super exciting.
So once it's like properly on the app store, that's like technically when we've launched launch, but we're heading in the right direction already.
>> Yeah, it's so cool. And for context on people listening, when we started posting all this lifestyle content, we would film our days and then lie on the floor of our apartment and piece together all scroll on Cap Cut, scroll through our camera roll and find all of the things and spend hours every day creating the content. And we would film it and create it. And um and it was a it was a process. It was a process. And so now what you're doing with roll is it's actually scouring through all of your content in your camera roll and then grabbing the most viral content online and making it for you all done for you basically. And so it's like roll it's roll real to roll to real, right? Like camera roll to real in minutes or seconds. And I think when you think about the the gap it's filling, it just it touches so home because everyone that's trying to create content, that's the biggest friction point. Even me, I found myself just filming so much stuff.
I'm going to do a day in the life and then the content just sits there cuz I don't make it cuz the friction point of lying on the floor and making all the content was one that I just didn't want to do. And so if anyone's listening to this and they want to try out roll, I think it's rolltore.com.
>> Yeah. /Cris and you can get a free month on the platform and try it out for yourself. I'll leave it in the description below so you guys can check it out. Uh I just have seen Alfie's journey from start to finish and played a role in it and like it just makes so much sense. If you want to post content, if you want to put your stuff out there and you really want to create something and and be more public with what you're filming and what you're documenting in your life, uh Roll is going to be the number one app for you to try that. It's going to replace all of your other editing softwares and it'll be a game changer. So, go to link in the description and you'll get a free month on the platform uh so you can try it for yourself.
>> I like it. Thank you for the plug.
>> I would love to uh go back to something you said just before. So, uh, you mentioned something happened at the start of the year where your dad got really sick, um, and he had to go into surgery, open heart surgery. And I remember that happening because what a lot of people won't see online is is you're quite a giving guy and you give to a lot of people around you and you had a New Year's planned with Bri with family and you know you spent all this money on this experience for your family to have and something happened with your dad and you pulled the plug on all of it. Still said that they could all go without you and then you flew to New Zealand by yourself. And I remember Bri explaining this to me. Flew to this New Zealand by yourself to uh to spend some time with your dad. Talk to me about that moment then and going back into that time and what was going on in your mind back then that made you a decide to do all of that and and yeah, just talk to me about your experience and what that what that taught you and what realizations you had back then.
>> Yeah, I'd say I'm incredibly fortunate uh because my mom's a doctor. So I think whenever you have a doctor in the family, if anyone does have a doctor in the family, they'll know this, there's a level of just like safety and security that comes with that cuz I think they bear the brunt of most of the like trauma that comes with the experience of someone close to them getting sick or being unwell or or you know in danger.
Um because everyone just looks to them because they become this like translator between you know an actual you know doctor who's seeing you know the patient being your your loved one and the doctor who's in your family who becomes the translator of the news and I think that's incredibly hard for the person.
Also, unfortunate mom's also like an incredibly strong woman. And for us, I think it does add this layer of like security in a way because I just know he's in such capable hands both from the New Zealand medical team, but also from like mom as well. So, I was never like super super worried in a way. Uh I think also dad's like a very like positive upbeat person. So even if he wasn't feeling great or if he was anxious or nervous, I don't think he'd ever like really show it uh at least to us. So yeah, it's just I I just felt really lucky because as an example, my brother's like an incredibly successful smartest guy I know, like incredibly successful software engineer at a very like top- end trading firm. and he's like, you know, making awesome money, all of those things, but it's like he has to ask for leave and he's like chewed up pretty much all of his leave this year just going back and forth from New Zealand to a point now where he can't really do too much travel. It's just that realization that being your own boss, although there's, you know, all of the things that come with entrepreneurship, you are in such a fortunate position where you can just up and leave and go, I'm going to go to New Zealand for a week and I'm going to book a oneway and it doesn't really matter when I book a flight coming back. So, I was actually just really fortunate to be like, I'm so happy I'm in this position where I can go and do that. Uh, but yeah, lessons that life's short, man. like you don't get along. Um like dad's like 65 now I think 65 66 and it's like crazy to think that he's like yeah at like retirement age.
Um you know my parents are both very young at heart people. You know they went to Coachella like a couple years ago. They're they're fun people and but it is a reminder it's so short and like you blink and you miss it. And I even feel like that now at 26. And I'm just like, I want to squeeze as much as I possibly can out of life. And I think everyone should. And it's a shame for people not to have that attitude because you will just blank and miss it. And like yeah, it's awesome. And I think that's why like we'll always have a great friendship and get on because I think we have that similar outlook of just like why wouldn't we want it all?
Why wouldn't we want to go and try that?
Why wouldn't we put ourselves in a position to win? And I think sharing yeah a little bit a blink of time with people who see that same perspective is really important.
>> How have you gone on that friendship piece?
like hopping into businesses with friends, uh bringing your partner Bri into business, um changing business, being the leader where you're doing what genuinely feels right for you in that moment and it just makes sense. But you know, at least from my experience, what I found is no matter how much you share it, they're not going to fully understand what you're actually meaning and why you're doing what you're doing. And how have you found navigating friendships, team members and and being a leader and and and trying to like maintain all of the friendships and relationships whilst you know growing so much and evolving so much.
>> I think you just need to have like a super glass half full outlook on life and outlook on people as well. I think if you always take like a positive view, which is hard to do in the moment, hard to do in the heat of the moment to believe someone has like really good intentions like from their perspective, from their eyes, they truly believe that they're doing the right thing because people don't act out of like malice or evil very often, if not ever. I think as long as you adopt that world view that the world is a good place, people do have good intent, it allows you to see things in a light where yeah, you're just super positive the whole time. And I think if more people could do that, it would be so much easier for people to cooperate at scale. I think we're pretty good as humans to cooperate at scale. But that's probably been the biggest thing is just like understanding what drives people, understanding why they do things, what their intent is. And as long as you come at it with an assuming positive view, normally it ends out pretty well.
>> Yeah, I think it's so important. But I mean, what I'm just what my where my mind was going when you were explaining that I've been deep diving into religion over the last like 6 months just really trying to like learn more and just just see where it goes because especially when you're over here like Christianity is so massive in in America. It's crazy. It's massive, right? Like the first time I ever spoke about >> Christianity in a video, it got millions of views. First time I've ever spoken about, right? But I think the the probably the reason why it went so well as well is just because I'd spent 6 months or 5 months like going through it being so frustrated reading stuff and going like no that's so ridiculous having like a girlfriend that was so religious but then seeing how much she lit up and was smiling and happy all the time and how positive she was. And so I just went like there's something in that. So I like keep going, keep going. But one of the pieces about religion that I that I I've never I've never been able to resonate with and I struggle with, at least from what my understanding of it, is they talk about how the world is evil and like we're all sinners. The world's evil. Um it's a broken world. Maybe they don't use evil, but they always say it's a broken world, but then they're so positive all the time. But then when I'm the most positive, it's when I have the most positive outlook on the world. And so I've never understood it. And I this isn't even like a question for you. I'm literally just exploring what came to my mind. But I've never understood how and maybe if someone's listening to this that is religious can drop a comment down below and like share their thoughts. But I've never understood how that's a powerful liberating feeling reading like we're in a broken world.
Everyone's broken. Like how does that make you a better person? And it's always been a fascinating thing to me to like unpack because being over here you see how powerful and how much of an influence and impact like Christianity Jesus has on the whole well I mean the whole of America. Um, but then there's pieces of it where you just go like, how does that add up? And it kind of gets a bit frustrating. But I do believe that there's this positive nature that if you can adopt the nature of like no one's trying to do you wrong for the most part. Like people are really making the decisions based on the information they have and they they are trying to do the right thing for the most part. Um, it is quite a freeing feeling cuz you don't have that like I don't know if the word cynicism or you don't just have that negative default that you can have if you just think everyone's messed up and evil.
>> Yeah. Just like the paranoia. I would say back to your point on religion, I think it's about seeing light in the darkness. And I think the whole concept of religion, at least for Christianity, is around this idea that Jesus died for our sins. So the sins are inevitable because we are human and of fault. and Jesus being pure and sinless. That is the idea that it's like you he died as the sacrifice as the forgiveness for our sins. And I think the important part is like I the part of the religious text that I like is the idea of like don't don't throw stones from a glass house. like the concept of we are all sinners and we judge other people's sins because they are different from our own and because of that we believe they're worse sins or different sins but it's at the end of the day we're all sinners and I think it's taking that and saying despite all of that you have full forgiveness because Jesus died for your sins so I think there's some like beauty and solace in that and it's a way to navigate life of being like you're not going to live it perfectly and there's going to be trials and tribulation and times where you make mistakes and and you do sin and as long as you repent for those sins and are truly sorry for those sins, there is always room in the heavenly gates for you. And I think that's the most important part. Again, it's not saying someone's going to live like the most perfect life, but is saying at the end of it, as long as they can look back, repent for anything they did wrong, and be proud of what they did do, then they'll be led in.
>> Yeah. and then making sure that your ego doesn't get in the way there. Because then when you have your ego playing a role in that decision, then that's when you can put yourself on that moral high horse of, oh, you're sinning, I'm perfect, or like, I know what's best in this ego-driven lens. And then you can kind of get caught looking down on people when realizing like we're all just we all just are really trying to navigate it as well.
>> Yeah.
It's yeah, religion's an interesting like I don't know for me in my chapter of life where I am now I think it's yet to be opened. I'm sure one day the book will be opened. I'm like very open but um yeah I think for now there's things that like fill my cup outside of that. I would agree as well and I'm I guess the piece that keeps drawing me back as well like I've seen you talk about a lot of the stoic approaches and stuff as well and and I I resonate with them a bit but I I look at it and I go like stoic nature of go through more [ __ ] things get easier. The hard like if you go through hard like it's probably more light at the other end because it's a path less walked all that stuff.
religion is that too when you're not brought up in it because it's so hard.
So I think the thing that's actually drawing me back to it as well is how challenging it is like how frustrating some stuff is when you deep dive in it when you're not grown up in it as well.
It's just like one of those things where I just go like there's got to be something there. So I just keep like I keep looking into it. It's it's definitely a journey where everyone's on. And the thing is that I also remind myself as well is like I meet so many super successful people I would consider a role model that I look up to that believe in Jesus and then others that don't, right? That use it as their moral compass and others that don't. And it does make me if it it's great because it doesn't give me this like narrow approach of like this is the only way.
Um cuz yeah I guess um Grayson Hart had had him on the show and he was talking about how there's only two emotions love and fear and he's like one is true and one is illusion and he was explaining how like love is true and fear is illusion and um and I think there's a piece around like around like the scripture in the Bible and stuff that's so rooted in love and all that stuff I think is great but then there's also the pieces that are like kind of rooted in fear as well. And that's the stuff that probably someone looking from the outside in that hasn't been so influenced by it growing up would push them further away. The stuff that like adds power, fear, division, all of that stuff does potentially push someone further away that hasn't like got that relationship already.
>> Yeah, I think it's like a push and pull relationship. I try not to transcend into marketing speak when I speak about religion, but it is like a push and pull of like ways to live your life. I think there needs to be a pull component which is the love and and the opportunity of what's to come and then there's a push component which is the fear of you know if you don't do it what happens I think that's hard it's a hard thing to balance.
Yeah. What if we go back to this nature of Australia and the country you mentioned it's the place where you see yourself I can't think of a better place to raise my kids. Do you think it does come down to like seasons of life and what you're trying to achieve and then optimizing for that uh and the different places around the world serve in different ways?
>> 100%. Yeah. I've sort of split different places I've been to like pleasure, power, money, and fame. And like all can be good, all can be bad. Like, you know, there's places of pleasure. Uh you could say Malibu could be a place of pleasure.
You could say barley, iba, you know, there's pleasure that can transcend into drugs, alcohol, all of the vices. And there's pleasure that can just be genuinely really enjoying your time there. There's like money, fame, power, you know, in every city that you go to.
And some more dominant than others. And I think Australia's got that beautiful balance of available lifestyle that's like incredibly clean, uh, incredibly beautiful, but then it's also got at least enough ambition, enough drive that there is still a monetary incentive to, you know, perform and be successful, you know, compared to a place like Brazil with coastline or or somewhere like that or Spain where somewhere along the way they got too comfortable on the beach and the lifestyle crept in and then the work sort of balance starts to get too prioritized to the lifestyle. And I think you need that balance. I've always said Sydney is the most amazing city to live in if you're working like in a full-time job cuz you've got financial capital like southern hemisphere bar Singapore but for Australasia at least in like Australia and New Zealand and then you also have the beach and you can be you know at a beautiful like worldass beach in 5 minutes and I think that's super unique but if you can access the entire world then suddenly places like Cape Town like LA like Boston, like New York, you know, like Marba, Bali, like all of these other places that aren't accessible to someone who's working, you know, 9 to5 suddenly become quite attractive because it's like, ah, I can actually go and live here and it doesn't matter that I'm not near like some thriving financial hub.
>> Do you think the people around you are the most important thing that that you're no matter where you are? cuz I found whenever I'm traveling it, who I'm with as well makes the experience so much more enjoyable. Like you can be with your best mates really wherever.
>> It's true.
>> And it becomes great.
>> I would say though the world's changing to a point where the people you surround yourself could also include the people that you know you FaceTime someone for an hour every single day. Are they not sort of with you influencing your thoughts, the way you speak, the way you see the world? So your surrounding I feel now is transcending between just physically with people and also digitally who you surround yourself with. So I think that's a nice like reminder that although you may not always be in the same city as those people that really inspire you, if you catch up with them enough and share enough thought with them, I think they can still heavily influence the way that you're shaped. for high achievers and people that you know are forward thinking really trying to strive and grow and have thoughtprovoking conversations and you know level up in their career in business potentially or um spiritually whatever it might be do you think that certain places will attract certain people and so it's more advantageous to be in certain places like Alejandro for example he would talk about uh oh this place is so great it's a high barrier to entry and you like reference like the higher barrier to entry will attract a certain place, certain people. Like I spent 3 weeks in Bali a month, two months ago, whatever, right? And I uh I love Bali. Like Bali's so great. Like I I genuinely do. But at the same time, it's still a rich place for broke people. Like it's still a place where you you you can't drink the tap water. Like it's still a third world country. there's still aspects of it that result in me going like not too long of a stint there, you know. Um whereas places that have a bit more of a higher barrier to entry allow me to meet more people that stimulate my brain, meet more people that, you know, inspire me, that open my mind, that make me feel a bit more inspired, not drained. Um and then also, I guess the key piece there is community. And a thing I realized as well about community is something so special about seeing familiar faces when you're not planning it. So like the same barista at your coffee shop or the same person on your afternoon walk like all of those aspects that I would say is powerful about community is famili familiar familiar faces without planning like not scheduling a meeting but seeing people regularly is pretty cool. And that's another thing about Bali is it's so transient that people are like coming and going and so you're meeting so many new faces and rather you're not really connecting with the same ones at all all the points. Um yeah. Do do you feel like what where do you live in that lens when it comes to travel and settling down in certain places?
>> Yeah, I think the places you pick are really important.
I would say yeah, it's the it depends what you're after. Again, if if your lens is I'm only inspired by people who've made 50 million, Bali is probably not the place for you. Um, but if that lens shifts, you know, if you wanted to go and meet like the most in touch like yogi practitioners, I don't know, maybe you got to go to India instead of Bali.
But the example being that you could still go to a developing country and find that set of people. I think it just depends what your prerequisite for finding those people is or are um for Alejandro makes sense. for context.
Alejandra's barefoot closer who's uh was the first uh first technical employee contractor at Amplify been like closing for me for like last year but I think again he comes from like Spain so he probably is looking for places that do have a higher barrier to entry cuz he's seen what happens when yeah do you descend into this like lifestyle dominant nature and he's seen you know he speaks about it all the time he's like yeah everyone's just like knocks off work and you He literally said to me, he said, "If you told Yeah. If you What did he say? Oh, yeah.
This is what he said. He's like, "If you said you'll get paid $1,000 an hour, the Spanish person will work one hour and go surfing for the rest of the day." Best way you could describe it. Uh, which is fair enough.
>> And Alejandro is like, "I'll work 19 hours.
>> He'll like work all 24 hours." every person I hire below me is going to leave and say to me that I cannot work under you ever. You know what's interesting though? I think the thing that I'm piecing together here is the financial freedom unlocks ability to travel all around the world and pick your places. So, for example, like Steven Bartlett, he's just got engaged with his partner who is a yoga instructor and I think she has a studio in Bali. And so he actually spends a bit of time in Bali writing books, hanging out, like probably like tapping into that spiritual lens, but he's got the biggest podcast in the world and he's main he's got headquarters all around the world, massive offices in London and New York and in in LA. But but he can just go there and not have to worry about staying there too long or not have to worry about how cheap Bali is or anything. He's just being able to go there for its beauty and what it is and really soak in the culture there as well. And so I guess that the answer is not about rather a certain place to lock down. It's like if you can create the financial freedom to just do it and then when you've had enough of it, get up and leave and go to the place that you love and build roots in certain places that you really love, then it's not even a matter of a discussion of where you need to settle down and where you need to live. Cuz if you're if you're living in Bali and you're only motivated to make enough money to live in Bali, you're never going to leave Bali because you're going to experience a luxury lifestyle there. And anywhere else you go based on the resources that you have is going to feel like [ __ ] And so like like going to Bali with abundance allows you to enjoy it and not get swept up in it. Um >> yeah, you're not relying and I think that's like one of the biggest and hardest transitions. Not so much for me because I'm used to it now, but honestly for Bri because she still lives in this mindset of like, "Oh, we got to get a house here or we got to do this or oh, we got to like plan where we going to live." I'm like, "No, we don't." Like, we genuinely do not have to plan anything. Like, I don't know. And I know that's like lifestyle dependent. Like, for me, honestly, I would live on the road for the rest of my life. At least for this portion of my life. I'm like in this mindset of put me I'm so chill living out my suitcase. Um, and it's not like I don't know. Yeah, it's funny. But Bri is very much like a we gota like do I'm just like see where the wind takes us.
>> Well, perhaps what Bri wants is maybe a family and >> No, I think down the line for sure. I don't think she wants that yet, but >> in time. In time, >> but it's more like that. I I feel like she draws comfort from, you know, like home and and >> yeah, I guess being in one place and all those things which I think are great.
Like community is a big part. Like when I'm in Bondai, the awesome part is I go to the depo, I see the same people every single morning. They're so lovely. I go up to Verdice, got Rosson, got Hamish, got Cal, got like the whole crew there and everyone's so lovely and awesome.
And it's like what a warm fuzzy feeling to know that you can just step into that. But it's almost in the same vein.
I know that will be there when I come back. And I know that, you know, I've been away for whatever it is, two weeks, I'll come back and it'll be the same.
And that's the beauty of it as well, that you can step back into these worlds, go experience so much, come back inspired, come back with a fresh perspective, and then jump straight back where you left off.
>> I think I like that about Bondi, too, because if I think about Bondi, I've left I've been gone for years now, and but every time I go back, it's this warm fuzzy feeling of how good is this place?
Uh, and so it doesn't actually get old.
I mean, look, like admittedly, when you're gone for a certain period of time, the staff change at the place. You know, you're less of a familiar face, so you don't get as loud as a hello and a slap up with a handshake of a guy. Like, you don't get as much of it, but you still get to like tap in. It's kind of like if you experience enough time in a certain place, it'll always have that special part in your heart that when you go back there, it kind of lights a little spark in you.
>> Yeah. There's like the uh Yeah. Nostalgia. That's the word.
>> Yeah. So, for you then, you've got after here, you got a bit of travel. What's been the what's the focus going into this year? Um, obviously you've got the app that you're building and that's your main focus from a business standpoint, but you're going to be on the road.
You're going to be in suitcases. Um, I hate the idea of suitcase life to be honest. Like I actually like I I like doing little sprints, but last year it was a bit too much for me where I just went and maybe look when I've settled down for a bit too long, I want to go again. Maybe that'll be a case. Um, >> I think you've got added baggage of uh podcast equipment to lug around and there's there's more complexity. Uh but yeah, focus will be RO and I also think building RO like so differently to what I've done in the past. It's so funny.
It's like everything I've built like personal brand like build a personal brand and that's you know there's the thousand users is so tied to the success of the personal brand and just translating that into um into the product cuz you can build so much trust when you put your brand in front of it.
But I'm building this in a way that will scale far beyond me. Like our goal is like if you're a RO user, you don't have to know who I am. And that's like really important for me with this vehicle particularly building this in a way that one day I'll exit. And I think to exit anything, you have to have the separation from the founder. So my role in this is still doing all of the marketing and and product building and still like heavily heavily involved. But eventually you'll see less of my face as the face of ro which I look forward to as well. And it's this nice transition which I've always said that by the time I'm 30 I won't have social media. 26 now so I've got four years just I have no intention to raise my kids on social media or be like a super public face on social media. I think it's an awesome powerful powerful tool but being in the spotlight never really my intention like long long term. So for this and having roll it's a way for me to create a vehicle uh that will impact as many lives as I want to will create a lot of wealth for the people for myself and the people around me and also remove myself from being so front and center. I have no intention to be famous to stand on stages to yeah really do anything. The amount of fame I've had's been great and incredibly beneficial, but yeah, it's about like impact and I believe through role I can impact as many lives as I want to.
>> Why do you feel like you want to remove yourself from the app outside of the exit? And what makes you not want to be public on social media?
>> I just again like once you're in the spotlight for a while, you want that like anonymity back again. you see that with like much more much more famous people than me, you know, celebrities who've got them following around. You know, there's pros and cons that come with it. It's still incredibly gratifying, you know, when someone comes up to you, you know, having a coffee or whatever it is and they say, "Oh, you inspired me to do this or that." And they tell you their story and they said when they first saw the content, that is awesome. You're a hero in one person's story, but you're also a villain in someone else's. And I think inevitably just by percentages, the larger you get, the more yeah, there's a small percentage that disagree with what you do or don't like what you do. And I think it's just an unnecessary privacy risk, I guess, particularly as I have children. If I think of what's my number one priority, it's probably the safety of my children. And not that I feel like I'm not safe or in danger or like not that I feel like I'm in danger, but I think it's just if I was to prioritize my family, me being on social media probably wouldn't be that prioritization. And it's also timeconuming.
What's that quote? I wish I could reference it around how the thing around like people want what is it around like the money and being rich and famous. Uh I don't know if you know the the quote around like people are people are people that are people that are extremely wealthy want to become famous and the people that are famous or people strive I I'm going to fully I fully butcher I don't even know what the reference but there's something around like people that are striving for fame only really want the financial freedom um and but then they they get it and then they kind of wish they didn't have the fame in a sense. It's kind of like like sometimes you want to walk down to the beach in your underwear because you didn't have a thing and like it's like like just like a a nature and you don't want someone to take a photo of you or whatever. But there's like aspects of the fame that are so great. But I wonder if the people that are striving towards it actually want the fame if that's the thing that they want or is it like the money that you unlock potentially if you can do it right. Um and then the question then becomes is the if we remove money from the equation is the fame a net positive for you in your life >> and if it isn't then maybe is there a way to create the wealth without the fame or is the fame going to just help slingshot you so you can actually remove yourself from having to work and be in a rat race for a longer period of time or something. I don't know. Just exploring that idea.
>> Yeah. I think anyone who like straight up goes like, I want to be really famous. I'm like, that's a huge red flag in my book. Like anyone who's really craving fame, I'm like, you were deprived of something as a child.
>> Yeah.
>> Um Yeah. Just for me personally, it's like never been about that. Like I've never intended to be like I just want I just want to be known by everyone. It's like uh nope. I want to be known by like slick few people that will buy and love the stuff that I create. And that's good.
>> Yeah. I think when I think about my life, the the piece that excites me about building the quote unquote fame is to be able to have more leverage when I do the things I truly want to do. And so like the things that really light me up is like spending hours writing a poem for example. And it's so funny like when we first met you were like, "Oh, I saw you as this like poet guy."
>> You used to do it in your car. That was all I saw.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And identity.
>> But it's funny how it comes back cuz that's the thing that just lights me up the most. Like if I write something and then I deliver it in a because I think a lot of part of the poetry is the delivery as well. Like that excites me so much. And so this idea of being able to like write a book filled with poems and then like tour the world and like deliver them in cool ways and speak them on stages and stuff is like super exciting for me. like that like at this point in my life lights me up so much and then having fascinating conversations with my show of course. Uh but like that ties me to this process a lot more than like building the fame I think like like being able to like >> but I think there's an element of you that wants to be hurt.
>> Yeah. which I think is tied to fame in a way because fame requires an audience and so does being heard >> because if I said would you have the same passion to write the poems in the book if you couldn't share it >> yeah and it probably wouldn't be the case and so then that then becomes like and this has been a battle that I've wor been trying to work on for years around external validation right of like like what what is making me overextend or strive for something that I only want because of what other people are going to think of the thing.
>> Yeah. It's like, do you want it or do you want other people to know that you have it?
>> Yeah. Huh.
See, it's so fascinating because like I share so much less of what I'm doing now, but like is there a reason behind that as well? So that then like like it's so interesting like the rabbit holes you go down and understanding like why you're doing them because yeah if I didn't share them to the world would I do them?
Maybe not. And so that's like another whole spiritual journey in itself just to like go and unpack that and figure it out. It's just a balance. I think it's a balance of impact. I think you can get super deep into this stuff and like start questioning everything. I think as long as you act in like accordance to the impact you want to make in this world. I think everything is sacrifice.
Like dude like Galileo said the world was round and like got like completely ostracized by the like church and they said it was like the devil and threw him out you know like any great anyone who's made meaningful impact in this world at the time has been like heavily criticized or have not at some point in time has been heavily criticized. And I think that's just the consequence or the byproduct of standing for something.
And whether it's for external validation, whether it's not, I think I always draw back to this point of like, do you genuinely believe that the thing that you're pushing makes the world a better place? Like, do you genuinely believe based on what your understanding of the world is, do you think that the thing that you're pushing leaves the world a better place by you being there? And then and then like having that helps give you passion and purpose. I feel like having something that's that's greater beyond you to serve, you know, like >> this is why religion's so popular.
>> Yeah. You need I think and and also probably really popular among very successful people because I believe as you like start to climb the rungs of life from a monetary perspective you can't you start to answer to less and less people and at some point you're sort of looking down at this you know top of the hill and going like I don't really answer to anyone and I think that's a really lonely spot for a lot of people. Cuz if you don't answer to anyone, you have to completely be 100% responsible for all of your actions and for all of your direction and for all of your thoughts.
And it's a lot harder, I think, to navigate in a space where there's less of a trodden path. That's why I believe like once you sort of start heading to that point, and again, it's almost Maslo's hierarchy. Once the food, water, shelter, that's been taken out, he starts stepping up. you get to a point where you're just like okay well what what is the point sort of run out of things and I think some people exhausted in different ways but yeah there is a point in time where it's like got all the cars done all the things done all the experience like what is really left I think at that point people have to really look inward and that's when they start you know finding those callings >> yeah I think I wrote in my little book uh a couple months ago I think I was in a bud in a treehouse.
Um, I was like, I've been on a goose chase just to find out what was already here. I was I was It's like it's like we go on this massive goose chase and then end up in the spot that we were in before. But obviously like we've exhausted the desires. We've learned a lot more about oursel. We've found out more about what we don't like, what we don't want to do. So then we actually fill our days with things that we truly want to do, with the people we truly want to be around. And then hopefully that becomes a more fulfilling life. But I think the key part around that is like uh when you chase externally it's fun but fleeting and it it like it's good but then it gets old really quick. Like I think um I was just with uh Thomas who's the founder of the Hype House. Um, that was back in the day when all like the the influences and stuff were like booming. And >> we're just at his house and he has every he has like three Porsche, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, like his whole and they're all wrapped in blue and he's got this whole massive house up up in in California in LA. And um and it's funny he was like he's like, "Dude, I'll be honest. eating gelato at night after eating some steaks and we were sitting and we were just chatting and we were looking at some of his cars after at the gelato place and and he just goes he's like dude I want to tell you a story when I got my f when I got my second Lamborghini at 21 years old he's like I picked it up and I drove it home and I'm not even kidding you the moment I got out of the car it got old he's like he's like he's like and I was 21 years old, making millions of dollars and like best friends like really good friends with Jake Paul when he was booming up 2017 like all this stuff. He's like, he's like, and I and I looked at it and literally looked at it and was like, "This is already old." And he watched it in live time.
And and he and it's funny though, he he said he came around in circles where when he actually looks back at that point in his life, he was he was with people that sapped the life out of him, that sapped his energy, that really drained him. and he said that now that he's got a great life, a great partner, and he's passionate about things he's doing, he can actually enjoy those things a lot more. But but during that rat race of like being on the goose chase where it never ends, um you can't even enjoy the things. And so it's like all goose chases end in the same spot, if they ever end. And the the greatest gift like someone that's achieving great things can ever achieve is the feeling of like enough is enough.
Um because I I wonder if when you're constantly striving if you can ever actually even enjoy what you have.
>> Yeah. But it's also a reminder that those things are actually really fun and cool and enjoyable. But it's just if you put all of your eggs in the basket of that's going to be my validation and that's going to be my everything. It's going to be fleeting.
But like they're still great.
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah. They can still be enjoyed. Like jump in, I don't know, Ferrari, Porsche, whatever car it is. like put the foot down like that would feel awesome.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, it's a it's actually just removing your worth from the thing and your identity from the thing and you'll actually be able to see it for what it is as a toy and as a meek measure of success, but rather a thing that just can make your life >> just a bit of fun.
>> Bit of fun. Yeah. Put a smile on your face a bit more. And then you can actually put more smiles on your face and not feel like you have this pressure tied to you by achieving the things that is supposed to be success.
>> Yeah. I appreciate you coming on the show, dude. I uh what's this? Round four.
>> Yeah, I know. We're racking them up.
>> You'd be the most returned. Well, when we started the show, you're actually going to be a part of it and do one a month. And so, we're on track.
>> No, it's cool. It's It's been a pleasure, bro. Um I think each time we do these, it's in a different set in a different space. I'm glad we uh we got to do this when I wasn't up all night trying to build a set and carry power.
And >> that was crazy. I think it was fascinating just as we wrap this up like like this the [ __ ] that it that took to get that one built was like so chaos and then we were rushing against time and then >> no ND filters >> no ND filters nothing. Um >> I don't even know if you knew what an ND filter was at that point.
>> No I didn't >> cuz I literally asked you I was like do you have ND filters? And you're like >> nope. Um I didn't. I didn't. And and I guess like there's another piece in that, right, of like I didn't know anything and I I'm still figuring it out, but like when I started the show, I had no idea what I was doing.
>> And I just think as you say, like >> just get it out there and try and you'll figure out things along the way. And I just look at that and if I if I constantly was waiting for the perfect moment, none of this would ever happen.
I would we would not be sitting here in Malibu. We would not be even having this conversation. And we would like none of this would have happened. And and there's just this thing and even from helping other podcasters grow, the biggest thing is people just get in their own way. Like the biggest thing is they they're the problem. Like they get in their own way. They overanalyze everything. Everything has to be perfect. They don't want people to perceive them in the wrong way. They get stage fright. Like anyone that wants to be a podcaster probably likes to talk cuz they want to be a podcaster. So like you can do it, but then all the stuff comes up. You get in your own way. It's a whole thing, right? And it's just like taking that imperfect action eventually results in a way where you're actually quite confident with what you're doing.
And all of a sudden, a byproduct is by continuing at that you start to achieve the things that you actually want. And most of the time it's far greater than what you actually intended and set out to achieve.
>> Amen.
>> Thank you, brother. I appreciate you guys for tuning in. Leave us a fivestar review on Spotify and I'll leave all of Alfie's deeps in the show notes, but and and go check out Roll and Yeah.
rolltoreal.com/chris and you can get a free month to try it out for yourself. It's a game changer if you want to get into content or streamline a lot of your systems or fire your editor up.
>> Boom. Signing out. See you guys.
Bye-bye.
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