Flight Mode

Emilie is a mental health therapist by trade, and blogs about personal finance and her journey out of student debt.
She is currently documenting her and her husband's journey towards a high student debt on an entry level salary.
Emilie is not proud of her debt but she is proud of her education. She has got big goals of paying off her debt and building wealth - a situation that many of us can relate to.

I catch up with my boy Ace to debate whether or not money buys happiness. Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts...

Damu Winston is in the process of writing his first book - The Blockchain Time Capsule.

We jam about the fundamentals of blockchain at the highest level.
What's driving the hype.
What's going to make it sustainable.
And what the future looks like with blockchain and AI.

Tune in!

I'm quite the opposite of an All Blacks fan, but I was feeling super inspired after reading, Legacy: by James Kerr. The book is about what the All Blacks can teach us about leadership and teamwork. In their last 100 games, the All Blacks have had a win rate of 75%... The highest by any team in any sport.

On this episode, I'm going on a rant about my reflections on leadership and how we can be good leaders in our 20's.

From my experience in work groups, university teams, sports teams, and not-for-profit projects, these are some traits I've observed from the young leaders I've been fortunate to work with:

1. Be on time and come prepared

2. Set an agenda

3. Take responsibility: Own up to your mistakes, statements and false assumptions. Commit yourself to team tasks

4. Avoid pettiness

5. Include all, exclude none

6. Build on team ideas before proposing your own: Become a strong leader, by first being a good follower.

Listen in...

On this episode, I sit down with my fiancé, Vanessa Desai.

Vanessa is a qualified neuroscientist (probably the only one I know under age 60 :). When she's not dropping knowledge bombs she's continually updating her knowledge on this taboo'd topic and confronting it on her blog (vanessadesai.com).

We talk about the science behind anxiety, recognising your triggers and some coping strategies.

We're all inevitably going to face anxiety and fear at some point in our lives. Listen in to this episode to learn how to deal with these situations effectively and maintain a positive attitude :)

Much love

This past week at the Australian Edutech Conference, Shirley Alexander from University of Technology Sydney gave a captivating talk on how to prepare work-ready graduates in 2018.

She highlighted a current problem which I found heartbreaking to accept.

That is, Australia is currently facing its all time highest unemployment rates for recent graduates. Ie. Students graduating from university today are likely to be out of a job in their first 6 to 12 months from graduation. More than ever before. Of course, this would be the most de-moralising experience for a student who’s invested years of his or her life acquiring a degree, only to find out they’re not walking into a job in their field like they expected to or that they were told they would by family, peers or previous high school teachers.

Shirley puts this down to two things:

A lack of interpersonal and communication skills
A lack of care in creating applications specific to a particular role

It's no secret that company cultures have changed massively in the last 10, 20, 30 years. As a result, so has the required approach for the 20-something year old in landing his or her dream job (or any job).

I sit down with Uber's Engagement Officer, Dive Shae to talk about his approach to landing a job at an innovative, and forward looking company like Uber. We also look at ways to grow within your organisation and how to add massive value to any organisation, from both inside and outside.



On a side-note, we look at Uber's biggest competition - private car ownership, and explore this question (23:00 to 28:00):

Is it really worth spending $10k on your own car (upfront) plus continued maintenance, when you can take Uber to anywhere you want in your city for between $6 and $80?

I sit down to jam with Chris Della (@chrisdella) - former bank valuer, turned real estate agent specialising in first time home ownership.

Bank valuation offers a slightly different perspective on real estate sales.
Chris drops some absolute fire and some very counter-intuitive advice on first time home ownership. Advice which is non salesy and highly practical.

I learnt a TON from recording this. If you're in the market for a new property or are a first time home owner, DO NOT miss this episode.

On this episode I'm joined by human guinea-pig, Ron McClurkin. We de-code some of the most popular diets going around today for athletes, bodybuilders and full-time workers.

We focus on keto, flexible dieting and intermittent fasting. Super interesting how diets are dependent on our respective lifestyles and personalities.

Whether you're training consistently or infrequently, your diet plays a massive part in any fitness goal. With so many diets out there, the challenge is to find the right one for you.

Despite training my tail off at the gym I've always felt my diet has slowed down my progress (sweet tooth problems). This 45 minute conversation with Ron really helped me find the diet best suited to my lifestyle. Listen in to learn more :)

Know someone who turns anything he/she touches into gold?

I caught up with a friend of mine with the same gift to find out how he does it.

By day, Brian Arpie is software engineer at NY based tech startup, Aloe. In addition, he has also been a professional poker player, an American ranked chess player, and taught himself how to speak Mandarin and Spanish fluently. Basically, the guy's a self taught ninja.

In this episode we discuss how when we do things that are both fun and challenging, they become a creative outlet. By doing things for a creative purpose, we don't need to search for outside motivation to keep us going. We just practice it daily, weekly, monthly until we develop a real skill for it.

What's your creative outlet?

I sit down with a friend who I haven't seen in 5 years, Travis Telfer (@imtraviswilliam). Travis is many things - owner of a chain of fitness clubs, digital strategist and practitioner, world traveller and fitness enthusiast. A busy man by any definition, Travis still manages to hit the gym 6 times a week and get after it. I was fascinated by his dedication to prioritising fitness. He shares with me his routine, some workouts, and his view on "balance". Listen in..

I’ve been sitting on this idea for a podcast for the longest time. But there was always something holding me back. I thought I was too busy at work or fitness, maybe it will cut into my family time or my social life. While all of these are valid, I think the main reason was this fear of putting myself out there. A fear of opening myself up to criticism and judgement. But I think there’s also a huge upside in sharing our thoughts. For me it’s a chance to give back to a community by sharing meaningful ideas and conversations, scratching my own itch - whether it’s in business, health and fitness, sports, cryptocurrency, education, global warming, the animal kingdom, travel, and a sense of purpose in learning and sharing new ideas. I plan to host a number of interviews with people from different walks of life and have conversational dialogues with them over a beer or three (to make sure we’re honest) and deliver these to you.