From London to Aotearoa: Using Humor to Explore Culture & Content - Curls.

uh chat came up to me gave me a hongy I've got no shame in saying I walked away and my bottom lip was quivering welcome to the podcast kills good day me thank you no you're welcome um why don't you quickly introduce yourself for sure hello I go by the name of Cs I am a Creator living in ALA I made videos on Tik Tok Instagram YouTube I've been doing it for just shy of 18 months now I am originally from London I've been living in this wonderful country for 4 and a half years loving every minute well 99% of 99% of it and love what I do and here I am ready a chat to the legend that is stand love it love it

so you gave me a few answers there 18 months 4 and a half years first of all take me back to four and a half years why did you move to New Zealand in the first place so I originally when I was 25 in 2018 I left London to go to Australia for one year which as I'm sure you're well aware is more and more a right of passage people from the UK these days of course and after one year um I I went home did did my year and then after after 6 months being back in London once the initial kind of you know I came back in summer right so I was like oh amazing why did I move away in the first

place blah BL blah blah and then slowly the clocks went back winds crept in I was like Ah that's why I knew that's why right so I thought okay I've done Aussie I think the process of say Canada and us is a lot more in uh complex yeah and I I thought New Zealand yeah let's give that a go so I landed in New Zealand 1 of March 2020 which was just around lockdown time so I had to bust my backside to get a job and an apartment my ASAP got it by the skin of my teeth and after essentially probably a couple of months of you know being un being in a bit of a precarious situation with work and Liv and everything else

it all slotted into place around I'd say June July time 2020 and then by the time that lockdown and everything else lifted around the world well it had been 2 years so for me by that time as you know two years you know you you've set down some some routs to an extent had a job had a circuit of mates I had a really good Social Scene yeah and I just F love with the place and I sort of thought to myself you know what let's let's see where this goes and what were you doing for work so I was the marketing manager of the Wellington Orchestra Wellington uh so I did that for three wonderful years it was I was really lucky to have

that job to be honest yeah it was amazing and what's interesting is that I think a lot of people sort of very very um kind to me about my Um passion if you like or love for mold Monga and Salon culture Etc a lot of it actually came from that job okay because obviously it's a Western Heritage art form and my job in marketing was to set or part of my remit was to make what is a Western Heritage art form more relevant and accessible in Alor so it's essentially taking something which by its very definition is a dare I say elitist European uh well eurocentric to an extent yeah um medium in a country where for all the right reasons we are prioritizing perhaps

not sure that's that's the correct word prioritizing indigenous cultures and it was my job to sort of navigate us through that in those three years and obviously my predecessor the same thing so yeah I really enjoyed that job that's interesting that explains a lot explains a lot when you going into that role did you have prior experience of anything related to be honest no I uh well I mean maybe marketing or something but not that problem that you were trying to solve no for sure so so I have had degree um in it's like real estate economics so it's yeah I know so bizarre so bizarre sort like commercial property and bit of like Land Management never used it and then I but through three

great years at Uni that love it so I did that and then funnily enough actually and the way a lot of the degrees work in the UK I'm not sure you're familiar with this but uh they're fouryear degrees and for the third year you work in industry and then you go back into for your final year and I actually worked at the head office of McDonald's um in um you know land per Acquisitions which was nuts we had we had a McDonalds on the bottom floor of the office which was free all day every day oh my God that's Connor's dream I tell you what honestly it's interesting because we also had a healthy like canteen next door which is also free and for the

first few months of working there you know I didn't eat the McDonald's once I was being healthy I was like I run like a half marathon I was in gym every day but the final few like weeks and month knew I had uni on Horizon and I ate probably every day weeks I the mirror I had a double take I was like what has happened to me man it was seriously it was so bad I L pregnant but it was just it was shocking funny yeah got to be done it's got to be done I couldn't I don't know if this office could resist that there's no way to there's no way we'd be having cheeseburger challenges every day even the cokes in the fridge

that's minimum and destroyed but you know what I've got to say um there are certain things which you can get in the McDonald's at home which you can't get here one of them being um I'm actually sorry salivating as I'm thinking about it so it's a Christmas item emal cheese Dippers so if you imagine a chicken nugget but with like oh my god with like perfect gooey cheese on the inside and little like cheese almost like chees like chocolate chips but cheese on the outside you dip them in like a sweet chili or curry sauce don't tell Nate don't tell Nate Nate will miss it oh my God that's the best I love that that is kind of funny the differences in um I mean

we're going a straight off topic here but like the differences in fast food and different countries like like it cracked out the first time I had KFC in the UK and there was baked beans served with my yes like yeah baked beans with your KFC it's so weird um that's so funny okay so that's interesting ah it explains that explains a bit now that I know about the Wellington Orchestra I um so you did that you said three and a half years with them so like a year ago assuming you moved on from that role roughly yeah so 6 months o October October last year October last year and is that because the creative world had started to take over or you've got a new

job uh yeah so so it was it was a mixture of things really I think I've been in the country at that point for yet as I say just just shy four years and I think I I've always enjoyed traveling right for the past sort of seven or eight years I've loved it I get um you know itchy feet as they say quite often and adore this country as I do it's as everyone knows it's difficult to travel right we've got Aussie we've got you know Raa we got places that are nearby but we're still very limited and I've been very spoiled growing up and being able to go oh I'm going to go to Berlin at the weekend Paris you know whatever so I

I think I wanted to do a bit of traveling so I left the country actually in October yeah so I guess leaving my role was a mixture of wed to do some traveling but also yeah the the videos were growing and I I I re genuinely loved that job I really did and I think that it's not that my heart wasn't in it cuz I still loved it the same but I was finding myself making really really silly mistakes like for example obviously part of my job was you know uh the program that we do for example concerts and I remember one of the concerts like this is so I can't even think I've tried to bury this thought but like so the the the

show was called Pharaoh right but the previous show was called prophecy when you open the program it said pharaoh on the front and it had in big letters prophecy on the inside so I had the name of the previous show 2,000 people were seeing that in their hands and I looked at it and I just I I almost burst into tears and I just thought yeah a year ago I would never have made that mistake and I thought I do you know what it was I almost felt like I didn't deserve the role I was like I'm not deserving this anymore someone needs to come in and and give this the the labor of love that that it deserves because I wasn't doing it justice

to be honest yeah that's a good place to be actually in career like to know that and I think that like people who stay too long in jobs is never good thing like especially when you're in a job in marketing as well where your jobs to communicate things like that you start repeating things you know and so you need someone else to come in and take and build off of what you done so I mean it's good that you recognized that and didn't like yeah let it burn before you got told to bugger off well well yeah well this is it and and I think it's it's something that I you know before I started doing the videos I I I I did it allowed

me to feel like I had my finger on the pulse of Wellington a little bit you know I'm I certainly wasn't well known but my job took me to places that you know an office job say my previous job in Australia I was in a call center for example just for six months like a backpack of job yeah the the the orchestra role oh I mean you know sometimes you're meeting with people from the council or local e or you're going out to schools out in the Hut and POA for certain schemes to help young ones into music and you know some of the things that I learned I mean my ignorance of the realities of this country were Stu before I got here and

I remember actually I think it must have been maybe my first or second week in the job my rgm at the time she took me out to pod sorry apologies took me out to uh n you know lower heart kind of way yeah and she said to me that there are kids there who have never been to Wellington yeah and I I really couldn't wrap my head around that and I and again it it was a real sort of self-facing moment because I thought my initial reaction was almost like really like I was sort of like baffled but then I thought well who the hell am I to assume that someone a has the same privilege but be the same desire to sort of like

oh big city oh this is so much better than my local area like I was almost like scoffing at the idea that people wouldn't want to go to this big city opposite them but well you know it's just not the reality for some people it just isn't so yeah transformative time definitely that's so interesting it says a lot like because we were this is what we were talking about the other day when we were discussing on the podcast like where does this knowledge and understanding of New Zealand and Alo come from and the people and like this is it right yeah tell me oh yeah go well I'd say it's twofold I'd say I'd say the High um how can I put this perhaps the

more D I say intellectual stuff is definitely that side of things intellectual is the wrong word maybe maybe the more highbrow stuff should we say but also um when I moved to the country I was very very lucky because um now this a bit cringey but uh there's a Facebook group in Welling anyone who from wellingt will definitely know it or surrounding areas big Facebook group you know something like 200,000 people whatever local notice board anyway obviously on there people very often uh post looking for a job or an apartment and it's always the same thing hey I'm James I'm 22 I'm from wherever I'm clean and tidy and I don't mind vegetarian food looking for a flat and and they never get any posts

right sorry any any responses I post on there I'm so embarrassed thinking about it now but it worked yeah picture of me uh looking just like silly face as usual and the caption was something like Hello uh I'm 27 which is uh one of those ages where it's like kind of old but kind of cool at the same time um I'm really tidy I don't smoke but if you do feel free to smoke directly in my face like I I don't mind just a really sort of like trying to get get under the skin of people a little bit and you know the response was really great yeah and I had this group of of uh six kiwis who messaged him were like hey man

like we've got a spot in our house come just come yeah and I was like oh my God this is this is too perfect so I lived with six other kiwis and they were all from different parts the country but as I moved in lockdown hit so I think two of two or three of them went to stay with their family so me and three others a guy from ockland a girl from denan and a guy from inago I'd never met them before and after gu speak about this sort of law um that I perhaps know about is that it's through experience as an example went to the dairy got a pie he got it came back out of the packet on my plate knife

and fork the three of them looking at me like Geor Dr like what we are going to phone immigration and get you deported like what are you doing and I was like oh oh okay there is I'm starting to understand the culture a little bit here there are some things going on here that I just was not across so yeah I think there was as I say so to to to recap the orchestra job gave me that sort of highbrow cultural understanding but being with mates for a couple of years gave me the sort of day-to-day stuff yeah that street smarts part of it sure deadly got it got it I love it that's interesting um okay before we get into that part of it

because I do want to talk to you about more about that but I want to ask know more about this creative Journey so you said 18 months ago you started this roughly yes okay why cuz that's when because that's when I I first saw you you had a few videos quite early yeah take off and I I remember seeing it we all sort of talked about I think it was even close to like when we first took on one New Zealand as a client and we were thinking is this like the maybe the right guy for something that we had at the time it didn't work out cuz the thing didn't happen but that's when we first started okay so why did you start it's

it's strange because I'd always done like little creative things like I I I I dabbled in a bit of stand-up comedy I I had like an old I did a try to P I did like four episodes of the podcast once uh and I think at University I did I quite quite enjoyed acting so I did like a bit of singing bit of acting just creative Pursuit and I I can't remember who said it but I remember hearing one day online they say the pro the problem if you like with creative people is they struggle to monetize what they do and I just it was something just went off in my brain and I was like oh my God it's almost like I've been waiting

for something to fall into my lap because I'm thinking like if I put enough of myself out there something will happen but inevitably it never did and bizarrely enough I actually was offered a job in Australia right this is going back to October 2022 yeah offered a job over in Australia and I sort of thought it was almost like a Hail Mary I thought you know what I'm leaving this country so let's just do let's just do a YouTube video like why not went down to Kmart $40 ring light I got um like a little microph I knew someone worked at JB high five got me like a discount little microphone and I just wrote I didn't write a script I just wrote 10 points

got it that are you know 10 things they don't tell you before moving to New Zealand right so as I say no knife and fork on the pie they love birds uh you not everyone loves Lord of the Rings those sort of things and I I swear to you not only did I not write out a script the whole thing in one t the first time just did it and I thought and I and I looked I was like well I've said that wrong I've said that wrong I've said that wrong I've hesitated there I've said the wrong thing there but I thought you know what let's just put it up so I did some rubbish editing on iMovie as I still do now so

bad seriously and um anyway after I put it up and after like 10 days it was like three views right I went to Wellington Phoenix game yeah and this this lad uh was like are you the you're you're the fellow off YouTube I was like oh yeah you're you're one of the you're 33% of the entire viewers you're one of the three and he was like no man like this it's doing all right I thought hang on a minute got my phone out and it was on like something like 65,000 views or something yeah I thought something I thought this is crazy I actually left the the game I think it was like 70 minutes in left the game went back to my apartment and

I just recorded another like three videos again gimicky stuff like 10 things this 10 things that yeah and I tried some New Zealand snacks or whatever and then suddenly it was just going crazy people were coming up in the street and I was like this is really really interesting and then someone said put them on Tik Tok and I was like I don't know anything about Tik Tok I don't have Tik Tok I don't use Tik Tok I know it's like maybe for kids I could don't really get it someone was like just put it on there so lo and behold put my first video on there and I said to my mate I was like is half a million good like I don't really

know like is that a good 500,000 he was like you're joking I don't know like I I felt like such a fraud because I I don't know what this platform is I don't know about this medium but somehow it's taken off and then um and then the last last thing that happened this chap got in touch with me who was from I believe he was a either a lecturer or a researcher in bird conservation right so random and he said to me uh look love what you do again I'd only made like 10 videos I love what you do I'd love to pay for you or at least fund your trip to um do you know Tity Tity mangi yeah head up there and it's

like an open air bird sanctuary I was like okay wow and he was like yeah go there he was so lovely he was like I'll give you a couple of nights accommodation I'll give you some spending money while you're up there I'd love for you to film this island and I was okay and he was like and while you're up there you know you may as well get some like Orland content too I thought okay so went up there and I filmed along like kro I'm a CBD around the island and I thought like okay now we're getting somewhere so that job that you that I mentioned I had in Australia I actually went you know what I'm I'm not doing this so that's fine

I'm sticking I'm sticking it out I'm going to stay here work with my existing job that I had Plus the videos and then 18 then a year after that so 6 months ago I quit my job so the last 6 months I've been doing this full time and cool here we are nice and when you say you've been doing this full time is that because like it replace your salary or like from a money perspective like is it or is it just like you can see that it's going to it's it's very inconsistent so for example I'd actually to be fair I'd saved up like a good amount of money so I was like you know what I want to do like three or four

months of traveling you know go to Asia go back home for a bit and do that so so I sort of said you know what let's do that and let's work out the rest later to sort of see what happens and then I think it was around uh January time that I had a couple of opportunities come through cool so black caps for example I did a video with with those guys and I've got a thing coming up with Burger King tomorrow for example excuse me and um I thought to myself okay let's let's get back over there like there's some things going on here but of course I'd left my job I'd left my apartment I'd almost I'd kind of you know like let

let go of the rains in a way I was like see what happens and then essentially since mid-February I've been back in the country but I've been going all around I've been staying actually in Backpackers hosts because it's just so cheap it's so fun you meet new people all the time um but just sorry to regroup back to your back to your question in terms of uh I guess uh longevity Etc it's yeah it's a really really interesting one because I remember looking at say for example my um incomings financially in December yeah I was like what yeah like damn this is actually decent and then January I was like I need a job it's really it's honesty and sometimes excuse me videos particularly on

YouTube they will um grow you know retrospectively so that you know residual income when you sort of sit there and be like oh this is not looking good one month you might get a couple of thousand I mean I will happily say this month I've got $500 you and that for a month is obviously not enough to live on so I think um excuse me sorry a lot of people have this perception like especially I get um if I ever sort of meet like I say like one of the school kids ask for a selfie or whatever they like oh you making loads of money off Tik Tok shout me a feed I'm like oh I wish I was like I really not like at

all so yeah for sure but it's what I like about it is that you started YouTube originally because like YouTube takes forever to build the fact that you've already got monetization off it at this point is amazing you know that you've gone in on it so I I think it's a pretty good place to be after 18 months of being in it or whatever that time frame is um but tell me then so you've six months quit you did a bit of travel come back and forth here YouTube's going to pay you 500 bucks you got a few other gigs going on you I think you you obviously got some level of confidence of the future what is that and where does that come from

what's the plan anyway yeah I think essentially so I also do I do have a couple of other bits that I do so for example I will help out a company with like a Twitter page or something because I used to so um another bit of backstory a long time ago when I was at Uni I was think I was 18 I made a Facebook group yeah called uh things londoners don't say right so you know like standard stuff this is 13 years ago oh we need more pigeons wish the staircase at c garden was longer that sort of stuff and you know some blo was like Hey man love your work like I'll give you £100 for the page and I was like a

student broke and I was like oh my God amazing and I thought now hang on a minute hang on a minute let's let's let this grow for a week or something he came back a week later was like right give you ,000 I was like okay now we're getting somewhere so I do a few of those things essentially like not on that Viral scale but it's managing existing Pages or tiny bit of consultation it's all it's all few and I would to sit here and say that I am so switched on and I've got this business plan but I don't I really don't I just I know everyone says oh I'm winging it I really am winging it like I honestly am like I'm um

I'm flying to Australia on Friday for a few weeks cuz I've got a lot of mates from home out there and uh in September I'm going back home because uh my best mate is getting mared married and I'm the MC for the wedding which would be great and to be honest beyond that I'm like Okay cool so I've got uh my I've got Australia next week I've got my my mate's wedding in in September and then there classic kiwi summer after that and that's the extent of my business plan to it's just sort of like I plan it by where it's going to be fun what's going to happen and sort of work it out along the way really yeah love it you know like

the best thing about that is that even when you've got a business plan like like you got a business like ours we're still winging it like half the stuff I do I mean these guys know like I'll come in and like I'll just like oh we're doing this thing now and they're like what the [ __ ] like what do you mean we're doing this things then you diid like when I told them at the start of the year we starting a newsletter and then I told Charlotte who's the head of our newslet she's like when when are we doing this in the day do you think we have spare time I was like you're going to have to find it like we're just going to do

it I'm winging this right um so I love it so I'm all for it I love the what I loved about that conversation is like I'm going to Australia for a few weeks and then my mate's thing in wedding uh wedding in September there's like May June July August in between that like or at least June July August like what about the winter months like I'm I'm saying a Backpackers for three months in the winter just ignore that I'll get through it September and then it's like oh it's already January again yeah Lally it's like I said I really wish I could say no but you're absolutely on the money it literally that but yeah I guess um I think my problem was though when

I was in Wellington as much as I loved that and and also in London I think we're so guilty of this like sedentary lifestyle right and like I would get so fed up with routine and I think it really would play on my mind particularly as I say in Wellington when I was going from home to office office to home and it was every single day and when you know sometimes that's amazing and some that's what you want but after a while you know as you say like a year goes by right goes by like that and yeah well hang on a minute what what have I actually done in that year and like yes obviously go to the gym and sort of improve here

and there but realistically I think since I since last October when I've quit as cliche as this sounds I've been more dare I say it more present I think and every day I sort of wake up and like right I don't know what's going to happen today I think now I'm in a position where every day could quite easily be either the best or worst day of my life and believe me the past few weeks I've been a Testament to both sides of that believe oh I love it yeah so are you then taking that time to continue to grow this create a world that you've developed or are you just there's a bit of everything going on yeah so um so for clarity in

terms of my desire for the videos yeah I I love it like I absolutely adore it like I really really do so yeah I won't be slowing down anytime soon like definitely not and I think and you know what's interesting actually is that don't get get me wrong I will forever and always want to keep my content New Zealand based because I love it I and also I know about it you know what I mean so if I try and start posting about other things I just won't sound as authentic or as enthusiastic that being said I do think that essentially YouTube and Tik Tok were the things that I were my hero products if you like yeah but um now my Instagram has started

to grow as well and I think as I'm sure you're well aware with your stuff is that Instagram allows you a little bit more freedom cuz I think people buy into you as a person a bit more perhaps whereas you know Tik Tok it's so fast food you know I mean not to say that it's not amazing but it's very like oh this thing okay next thing next thing next thing but Instagram I think because you put up story I quite like using stories and keep people informed of my dayto day and it's very interactive with messages and whatever else so I would say that Instagram is I might experiment in the coming months with things that a bit more a bit broader perhaps but

yeah I won't be slowing down on the on the content that's for sure no that's good um and tell me like I know you're winging at all but what would the perfect outcome look like over the next 12 months like is this Creator world what you want like do you see that as your future in being a full-time Creator yes I think to be honest I I I think that I am very very bad at a lot of things but I think there's a tiny little sliver of the pie pardon the pun that I'm that I I I don't want to sound good at but I I'm confident with and I think that I I'm very interested in things right like I'm interested in people

I'm interested in cultures I'm interested in food and sort of what makes us different because we're sitting here having a brilliant conversation laughing away chatting away mutual respect all that stuff but also our lives couldn't be I'm sure childhoods completely different right different so but and that fascinates me it fascinates me that we and I'm probably getting a bit too philosophical here but fascinates me that we have had these you know Decades of lives that are so different but we sit here and we're we're just on a level about the same thing so those sort of things fascinating so I think essentially I still want to always use that Curiosity and that interest and throw in a bit of humor and I think the sort

of self-deprecation which is what I think the UK and New Zealand really comes together on right like that of no ego conly taking the piss out of yourself and just I hesitated to say the word piss I I never swear in any of my videos I was like can I say this I say lots of [ __ ] swear don't worry I could never get mantiz I'm terrible about it you're free but um but again to regroup to your question I think I would enjoy in layman's terms I would enjoy doing what I do with less admin like I really am not good editing I'm really not good at uploading and Technology any of that sort of stuff so I would really really love to go to

places uh and go to interesting locations and trying interesting food meeting interesting people and and getting paid for it I think that's essentially what I'm doing now but on a grander level essentially yeah that's cool I like it cuz then I mean you're not really winging it then actually I mean you're winging it and that you don't know maybe where the next paycheck comes from or whatever but like you're young enough to be investing this time in building this business which is curs right so like everyone at the beginning of their business Journey CU this is a business right you're the now the business we all are just winging at this sort of [ __ ] and we all are like you don't know where the next

paycheck is coming I remember like let's call it six months into your journey cuz like yeah we'll take the first 12 months is just some ground work but let's just say even if you took 18 months like even 18 months into my business I would have been April 2021 and we were four staff at that time but like I had no clue where I was going at that time I was still helping people get coffee dates on LinkedIn like I was still trying to get people in LinkedIn to like meet up and you know that's what I was helping people do and then like you fast forward I don't know a year and I hi this bugger going let's try to make some videos he's

like what videos we making I like I don't know let's figure it out like here's a client go film and he's like [ __ ] right what the [ __ ] did I get myself into um but I think you just wing it anyway and that's the joy of it and business I think the thing though that most people get wrong is that they don't there's nothing they're building so like if you're not building something then you're not doing anything and you're building your brand which is curls and all the ways that you're doing it and we were building my personal brand and the attention seeker brand at the time and I see a lot of small businesses they're still wing in at 5 years in because they've not

built anything they're just trying to get the next paycheck and what a we did all the way along is like take that paycheck and then reinvest it and just like to have four staff after a year was or four of us on the team was outrageous like we were definitely not earning enough money to have that many people in the team but like the goal was I said to them I was like look I need you guys to execute on this business that I sold cuz I've got to keep growing the business uh the brand so we keep getting this more come in and finding the next paycheck and that's just what we've done ever since like we just kept on hiring more people to

keep growing the brand and I've got a question for you actually on that what was there any difficulty in CU obviously it's your they say your baby right you did you find any difficulty slash what was the process of understanding other people buying into your vision because you're essentially spreading something that's so personal to you and obviously as you say you're hiring people for the first time you understand what I mean getting on that on that Vision how was that um so the first hire I mean outside of my dad who came and helped me at the beginning cuz I needed to be off to fire him without getting in trouble cuz I didn't know if it was going to work but outside of him

Alicia was my sick or real hire my first hire who's still with us um she had been with me for like she had worked to I with me in the hotels for like 11 years at the time so she had already bought into the vision that Stan you're just crazy enough to make this work I'm in so she flew from Alburn did her quarantine and came and worked with me and then we had two next stuff grer and liby and honestly I don't know if they ever really did buy into the vision they were just like [ __ ] I got to get my paycheck like they that's good enough right you know like they just wanted a paycheck and like they're great I got nothing against

them but like at all actually like they were so instrumental in this today like none of the guys here would have had a job if I didn't have those two do everything they could to help me build this but I don't know if they ever bought into the vision right they were just like God of shaking his head he's like but I don't think that's against them they were just like at the time they were young they had been made redundant from their jobs because Co they needed money and I think sometimes like as business owners you go look I've got this cool Vision I'm trying to do I've got this thing I want to build like come with me on this journey and most

people are just like yeah look you're going to pay me for it and know and like can you really expect more from them at that beginning cuz you haven't proven yourself you've not done anything there's no reason to believe you now with Lea was a little bit different because Lea's like stand I've with you for living years I've seen what you can do in business like I know you can do this so I bought she bought in I mean she worked with me for five months for free like bought her own laptop was just like I'm man don't you worry like I got this um and which is well now she can do whatever she wants pretty much cuz she does whatever she I don't

know what her job is anymore like we've almost made her redundant right like we just don't even know what she does she's in barley right now like I don't know what she does she can do whatever she wants but like um now so so that was the beginning right and then slowly but surely you start to build up some runs on the board and then you build up brand and you start having a presence online and people start to know you and there was a switch that started to happen where people at the interviews already knew who we were so there's a switch that happened probably in like 2023 probably a like start of 2023 where all the new staff and people came in fire

they kind of already knew us they saw we had runs on the board they understood who we were and what we did they seen our you know we're averaging 10 million views a month at that point and so people were like you got like we get you guys and but that all happened like real gradually over time and then all of a sudden people like came in going okay we get the vision now we want to be part of this thing we see you guys are doing something different and then over that whole journey with like you know Connor's like second longest person now after Lea and the guys who have been here for a while Joanie and um Sophie and Nate even at this

stage they've all kind of like we've built this together now and so because I share every single part of everything like the guys want to know anything they can like it's not necessarily like I just sit down and read them a Bible every day of all the stuff we do but like if they want to get the cash flow statements the bank balance they can have whatever they want like it's all open available for everyone they know that I'm not fullish [ __ ] I suppose and so they they've come along for this journey they've helped build it like Connor these guys like they've been part of the reason we're here and so they might not be like drinking the Kool-Aid but at least they're like okay

we get what we're trying to do they're learning a whole bunch from it now the shared vision of like when we built our pillars and our the reason we get out of bed every day like as a team it wasn't to like like nowhere on our company documents does it say do the best work for clients that make the best no nowhere on there is there anything to do with our clients our like purpose for getting out of ited every day is to do cool [ __ ] that's it that's everyone in the team knows it the way you do cool [ __ ] is by looking after your clients making sure that they don't you know you serving them well so they pay us money because that money

lets us go do all this cool [ __ ] and so I guess long story short you you can't force that at the beginning yeah of course you have to build it over time and I think we're in a pretty good place now like the stuff like you know I use Connor cuz he's right here but Connor and the rest of the guys who have been around for a while they B into the vision of like we say we're going to do something and then we do it at least they might not be drinking the Kool-Aid I'm serving but they get that like okay when s says we're going to do something as a team or we say we're going to do it cuz like these guys

have made their own decisions and executed on it and it's worked and now they're like oh cool so when we say we're going to do something we got and do it and then now that Vision has been experienced and I think the vision like people who come in now they go I've seen you do it but we still got to it's going to give me six months before I fully buy into it and we got new staff now who like love our culture love our team love everything being here a month and like this is the best but they're not the same Bor into it like say Conor is right like and Nate and the other guys have been here for a while but they

will of course over time so I think like for you as you start to build our team because you know you just told us you hate editing you hate the admin you had all the stuff which is good cuz I'm the same I'm going to walk out of this podcast and be like Conor you deal with Conor's going to go to his in and be like can you deal with all this [ __ ] I don't want to touch it but like you just need to trust that those people initially want to get paid two you'll achieve some cool [ __ ] with them that CH achieving cool [ __ ] is going that makes people feel good like when you have this fulfillment and growth and then if you can

just like be a good person to those people for long enough you don't have to be nice that's a different thing like I'm like the guys know I'm not a nice like I'm grumpy Stan but like if you could I can still a good person like I don't rip them off I don't lie to them like it they they know it all you build trust with them over time yes and then once you get that you start to go like Conor knows if he really needs something from me like he might have to Bader me constantly before I give it but like he knows that if it's really important he I'll get it for him of course like I'll do the thing yeah comes to

sh yeah exactly I'll do it you know he has to be a creaky wheel before I actually give him the thing he wants right cuz you know sometimes there reaction is just oh get this thing and we'll fix it and I'm like yeah we'll see we see if he still wants it in a week and if he does and he's like I'm like okay maybe a bit closer we'll just until he comes back and he's like S I need the [ __ ] thing we're filming tomorrow I'm like oh [ __ ] okay go go get it you know but like um yeah does it is a tough thing man vision and culture is real hard to build and it's real easy to break it can take years to

build and days to break and also the fact is that regardless of anything everyone needs a job everyone needs to work so you know you're going to have to buy into someone's Vision like for example I referenced earlier with my time working for McDonald's well I mean their vision is Burgers right it's literally Burgers so I thought like do I really I I couldn't get get in I knew I was there for a year it was a student job to an extent so you know it was fine but everyone has to buy into someone's Vision or dare I say everyone has to get paid everyone has to get paid so you got to ask yourself well okay maybe I'm 80% in I'm not 100% in

I'm 80% buying in but it's better to be 80% than say 40% yeah so it's like well let's suck up that last 20% and crack on anyway because it's the best you're going to get what I say to a lot of the guys here is like don't do this um job fully for the fact that you're going to help us build this great business because at the end of the day I benefit not you from this business getting huge yeah fine I might increase your salaries over time and you might get paid really handsomely and for some people you might become pseudo famous because you're in our content whatever but actually like what is it that you can get out of this time while you're

with us cuz you're not going to be with me forever like you're going to quit and you're going to move on to other stuff some of you might stay and just be part of this crazy Journey for 10 years but even then that's not even life like you've got another 50 years left so like what can you get out of it and for me there's a few things like um their own personal professional development is huge like ask lots of questions push yourself like what is it that you can learn and grow and develop and learn new things that's a real big one I think that's where you'll get most out of it in a role like if you if you're only in it for

money it's hard to go to work every day especially in today's world like if you live in a western country New Zealand Australia UK us something like that Canada at least in our countries where I've seen getting money is not that hard like it's hard but it's not that hard right like it's there are obviously people who struggle and who don't have the Privileges but like even if you go like relative like you go through Southeast Asia and th like if they're getting 100 bucks for the month that's a good month right and there places I've been so relatively I get it like there are still people I come from a really poor background I grow dirt poor for man out South Oakland but like

you could go to countdown and pack shs and get seven $20 an hour these days right like not that that's great money if you have four kids that's probably not going to really too much but what I'm trying to say is like you can't do it for money and especially if you're capable of getting a job in a marketing agent you're probably capable of getting a job at a lot of marketing agency so you're not that lower end of town so you can't come to work for money there has to be something else and so for what I say for most of guys it's going to be your professional and personal development you're going to become better at the thing the tasks that you do

a better leader better Communicator better strategic thinker Better Business operator whatever it might be like learn those things and then on top of that the thing that we really push in this business is build your own personal brand like I will pay you to make content for yourself on social media you get to take with you I'm paying you to do it like why don't you do like is a [ __ ] struggle like it's I tell that's good man that's really good you know it's like I got 27 guys out there or whatever it is and like the conos like it's pulling teeth right to get them to post like it's p like it's pulling teeth like he's really good at it there's a few of

them like him Janie obviously um she's quite she's obviously got biggest following but then Conor's like very good at it and there's a few others like ABD was like coming right for your heels right now um there's a few of them who are very good them like I will literally pay you to sit here in your desk and on the computers I paid for you on the internet I paid for with drinking the coffee I paid for to write a [ __ ] LinkedIn post you [ __ ] and I've got a cycle you take photos on a I can't do it today I'm busy it's like and they all know this is how I feel so I realize that you can't force people to do that that's but

what I what I am trying to say to the guys is like if you go talk to the who are older in this team the 50y olds every single one of them will say man I wish in my 20s I built my personal brand because I would be so much more successful right now because if I wanted a job I just be like you know me I'm stand give me the role and you would get it because people already know your history they know what you've done so I think uh if you were to bring on team and anyone listening who brings on team like the way to like at that initial stage where money is probably the reason they're taking the job with you

what else can you give them that cost nothing and some of that is like one thing that you could do like specifically in this conversation is you've got ability to tell a story that most people don't know how to do you've got your own unique way to do it which obviously resonated because you wouldn't have the audience that you had if you didn't but that's a thing that not a lot of people know how to do like not many people are very good at telling stories um especially not for cam you know they can do it in mates and circles that doesn't always translate well to video and whatever right so like there's things like that where you can go hey look you work for

me like hey I know we're doing this thing where I do all the stuff and you have to edit but like why don't I teach you what I did and actually you might not even know and this is my next stage of questioning so actually you might end up learning yourself like what is it that I actually do like how did I make that video go viral or how do I write my stories like [ __ ] I didn't even realize I was a Storyteller until I sat this podcast with this bull dude and grin and then now I'm [ __ ] am I a Storyteller [ __ ] why am I a Storyteller and how do you teach that so you learn how to teach and articulate more which means

you can scale your abilities now because now you can tell other people how to do it and then they're like holy [ __ ] like I'm learning from KS like this guy knows how to do stuff like that's more valuable than money because if I now know how to um make videos that go viral well I can get paid by this guy to learn this thing that can then build me my own business exactly right and like I put Conor cuz he's right there but he he does same I mean [ __ ] like he's like that t-shirt is wearing is his own brand like he spends he's built his own brand in here everything we learn he's like cool I'm just going to do it for my own

brand and like he's pulled it out the whole way along when he first started it [ __ ] I try get in at 7 in the morning do my own work he's like stand stand stand like give me like what about TX like what does profit mean like ask question what's a balance sheet um but now he's like you know he's built a pretty successful label now and he's like obviously going through that journey and and what he's doing they all can do that and do their own thing now and even like as an example so like started with us had 400 something followers wow now she's at like 670 or something now and built out she's the face of our attention Seer one built that to

700k and so but she is a way better content creator now than what she was when she started not because she can make necessarily better videos because she can articulate what she did she knows now why she made a good video and why she made a bad video which means she can scale her so if she went off and did her own Media company on her own she could hire in three people and be like this is what you need to do you know so she's better for it so I think like part of that culture piece and how to get people on the journey is like what else is there for them yeah of course okay I'm going to ask you some questions because

I realized it's already 10 3 I think you've kind of answered it but I want to pull the pieces together cuz you did some stand up you're pretty funny guy you understand his self-deprecating humor which is as you say is a very British kiwi thing um the Wellington Orchestra taught you a lot about um New Zealand society and everything around it and then you had these three mates in lockdown who like taught you the street smarts of it right and it's sort of like culminated in this like character you've now developed curs which literally that's your whole Channel your whole channel is like I know more about New Zealand than the kiwi's watching like kind of but in a funny way but you do it

in such a relatable way that we're like that's so funny we knew what was coming as the joke because we get it exactly yeah yeah yeah but then it happens yeah you know like my like the spots one where you went anded spots like that was so funny like you knew exactly what was about to happen it's so bad I released that video on the same week I did w um L which you know and I remember people commenting being like this guy's content just got so out the gate like out of nowhere like this got to mix it up a bit you know you know it's out the gate when you were showing up on Alicia's for you page cuz you Alicia was sharing

all those videos with me and her video all the [ __ ] she watches was [ __ ] crazy so I want to ask like when it comes to that I don't know if you watched our video or thing about you I did yes I did thank you one of the things I was saying in there which I want some clarification is like it's a real normal thing for Comics to like land go find a few people people I can't they have a name for it but like go and find people and just be like tell me everything so that when they get up on stage they can take their joke they've already got and then translated into the local humor is that something that you did innately or

is it something that you just like naturally learned over time in this process of building this so twofold firstly I would say it was nothing was planned that's all you know obviously because I had been in the country for something like 2 and a half years before I made a video so you know that that would have been one heck of a research trip you know for so long but yeah of course once I started making videos I definitely would seek out that knowledge more you I remember speaking to someone and they said oh lunch and meat and I was like what's that and they were like ah just trust me like just lunch and me put it on your Instagram and I put it

and the respon everyone was going nuts they like oh yeah you got to put roll a ketchup in and roll it our T sauce or whatever oh yeah maybe put a cocktail sticking some cheese go to a supermarket when you're shopping with your mom and you want yeah yeah and I was like okay so it's clearly got so much more to sort of un unlock if you like um but what's interesting is that I think people this is going to sound like a really bizarre comparison but bear with me so you know when you pay say for example a graphic designer right for a bit of work and it takes them like five minutes and for like a little squiggle and you sort of think

almost a bit short Change you're almost like well hang on a minute you I paid you x amount it's only taking you five minutes but what you're paying for is their years of craft and study etc etc with my YouTube stuff yeah just to I really really I'm terrible at giving myself any credit I'm going to try here I think that when I look at my video and I say oh well I've just done one silly I did one silly video and it blew up and it took me 10 minutes to make it 5 minutes to upload it yes but it also took me two and a half years before that of living you know a lot of my friends in newand was sort of

like amazing very supportive and brilliant brilliant people but there was sort of a bit of ribbing at the start of like well maybe I'll just go to the UK and get a sandwich and like I'll I'll be famous too and I was like you're so right with what you're saying but let's not forget all those sort of like without being too depressive like Dark Lonely Nights in Wellington where you know it's July here freezing cold it's you know it's my mate s my best mate Simon's birthday or like my best mate Dave's engagement party and I'm not there and like you know I spent all day like speaking with people who I love but I I'm not I don't the connections are perhaps more superficial

because people I've grown up with so I guess the point I'm making is even though it was like a gimmicky silly video and it's like it sort of went from there there was in answer to your question an accidental two and a half year research trip so yeah so effectively I did do what you're suggesting but not deliberately yeah do you think that I still think there's some deliberate there and I and you might just be like shut up stand I told you this time the reason I think this deliberate is that you've like how do you know to ask the right questions there you must be fairly curious anyway you must there must be a part CU like you've found things that like don't

just come up a normal conversation and if they do a lot of people like my wife who's Australian still doesn't get stuff about New Zealand has lived here as long as you have and because she's not as curious you know do you know what this is a strange answer which I've only actually just confronted in my head but I think it's it's potentially comes from a place of insecurity and I'll tell you why very interesting I grew up in North London uh extremely Multicultural right very Multicultural we were lucky enough to have like oh where to start Jamaican culture Indian culture my mates are Jewish I've got mates for Pakistan everything and anything you can think of yet I was this sort of like white

Suburban kid and I felt a bit plain maybe I felt a bit plain and I was like well what is my culture football and like chicken zegan masala and I like and I really really love London like I absolutely adore it but in uh obviously you'll no this from yourself from going there but like in Suburbia like anywhere it's this sort of artless void of kind of white bread cheese sandwiches Antiques Road Show and like wash the car on a Sunday you know it's that it's that sort of like middle England nothingness and I think that actually when I would sort of go out and about into London I'd go to carnaby Street I'd go to Camden and I would see that people say London

oh London's really good with diversity no no no no no no London is defined by its diversity right the the contribution of people who are first second third generation immigrants in terms of fashion music culture food London is nothing without those people so I think to myself actually I'm probably a bit maybe ashamed is too is too strong but I'm a bit desperate for more color in my life in every sense of the word so I sort of in a sense I'm kind of looking at my childhood I hear these wonderful stories quite often just to give you a specific example about food now um my mom you know lovely cook I'm not going to insult her food in the podcast mom you're I love

you like you're great but we didn't have that sort of like oh my grandma's recipe my mom's cooking in the kitchen it was never that so when I hear those I'm like I want I want a part of that so again to regroup back to the question I think it comes from a place of insecurity that makes uh it makes a lot of sense and actually like when you think about it from a Comics perspective when you watch any of the comics the best Comics who do it so much of it's the same and and it might be for different reasons it might not be the same as yours but like it comes from this place of like belonging I wanted to be part of

something I wasn't part of I I wanted to know about humans in a different way and I was curiosity that comes from it so actually makes a lot of sense and it makes me think like and like I said on that video like he he must be a comic he must have this the thing that comes from Comics because like you only see that in comics where they just like Comics do it deliberately because they're on tour they have to get it done like this but actually the reason they were able to become such big Comics who could go on tour is because they understood culture at a level that no one else did because they were this thing of like trying to find connection

with people and I think it's super powerful I don't think many people have it and I think it's why you find like some of the other big creators in New Zealand who do skits really well have it as well like if you think like the boys like us gang if you think about them they understand culture at a level amazing that people just don't get amazing yeah super good and like most people would just like think they're one trick pony their crew where they' be like oh yeah they're Pacific Islanders they can make funny jokes about being Pacific Islander but the reason why actually most of their videos are so good is that they've got this real weird blend of like white culture Pacific culture

just smash together completely you know like the the this the rap video doesn't go with the music like you know like that is my probably my favorite one of them it's unbelievable they take this like classic white song and some of them like I forget the one like the one of White Chicks um whatever her name is oh um Vanessa they take that one and they're just like this is quintessential Millennial white Millennial white girl completely every one of them knows it I'm going to do it and then I'm going to just be like full gangster you know and it's like the only way to know that is understanding culture at such a deep level like there are plenty of uh Mario Pacifica people who

didn't grow up in a world where Vanessa Calton was a thing who wouldn't understand you know and then there's a bunch of like white people who grew up with Vena Calton who won't understand the Tupac video right so I I I actually think like I think there's something in there and you know I think maybe um we spoke about this in email or something like this but I've been talking a lot of people about one missing piece that we have that we're missing in this office well not one it's a few missing pieces is these show writers who understand the world that way you don't even need them to be here all the time cuz they just walk in they're like you're missing the cultural

link here like this is a funny joke and this premise and everything's funny but the reason why it's not going to land is cuz like you missed the two cultural references right here it hasn't deep enough and you've missed the mark completely and I think that that skill is something like that's probably the like your 10 items thing same thing you knew to make those the 10 items you would have been told a thousand things but you know these are the 10 for sure this is the 10 and you know that CU it's just like these are the things that connects the culture that you don't know you know like the video you did the other day you're in the car oh was it the

other day or was I just watching an old video it might have been an old video where you talk about the blow on the pie thing was that the other day was that a I don't know that was that was about 3 weeks ago so yeah it was day I couldn't remember if I was watching an old one but like just those sorts of references where like um my wife clear knows it now but like she wouldn't have known it like she just wouldn't have known it cuz she's like what is this it's like oh it's like 15 years ago just like police T why why is the thing I was like trust me like it's as viral as viral gets in this country like

this is the thing and even like we did a video the other day for a company and I won't share it because I won't share the companies but like it was a reference to a um do do you know much about the lift plus ads has anyone to mention that yeah has anyone do you know the lift plus ads I don't I do I know lift plus but okay so this is going to help you [ __ ] I'm going to give you an next viral video trust mey this is a [ __ ] 5 million view video so there's a there's a video where there's like it's a bunch of boys they're like um they they created characters like four of them they a bunch of Islander guys

and this one token white guy and they're playing this game where they like put a wooden stick in the mouth have you heard of this no okay wooden wooden stick like a not a wooden stick a wooden spoon okay okay okay and they put in the mouth and the guy like bends over and then the guy hits him with the wooden you know kit kitchen spoon yeah yeah and so he's got the thing in his mouth he's like and the guy's like n it doesn't hurt it doesn't hurt he's like okay you do me so he puts his head down and the other guy does it does it to him and as he does it the guy behind him gets over and like hits him

hits him with the stick and so the guy thinks the guy thinks it's just the guy with his MTH and he's like [ __ ] like that hurts like Fu anyway everyone watching from New Zealand knows exactly as soon as I said wooden stick in my mouth wooden spoon every every key like I know about to say okay amazing like so we did this video for a client and it was them training like their neck muscles with a spoon in their mouth that was it cut ah now was it nothing more it's like okay but that's what it needs that's what it needs it would have went off yeah and they couldn't do it because um corporate was like look it promotes domestic violence and blah blah

blah sure whatever it doesn't fine but it's that sort of stuff that like those sorts of moments that if you know a culture well and you pull this off like if you if you made a video and be like Oh I'm going got a new gym I'm going to an Orland blah I'm just going to go for workout and you like got the head brace on and like I'm writing this down I really that's a good idea no because it works on your channel like it doesn't work on our Channel like we can't like we would have done it otherwise if we could have cuz there's nowhere for it to play have to credit you in the caption or something I think mate go trust

me if you pull it off right oh man hey it'll every single kiwi every single kiwi will share it done thank you it'll end up on like those kiwi humor papers I love those yeah they're awesome it be Nixon and his mates on the Kiwi you know pages that they've got yeah anyway we're getting off topic so I okay so I wasn't completely wrong you're not a comic by trade necessarily but you definitely have the same worldly knowledge like the way you look at the world culturally which comes from this insecurity place that you talk about which is just the place of belonging right yeah absolutely it's just I must want to belong with and like like I grew up in a world kind of

similar I'm not I'm not funny like it's not like I'm not a comic as in like I'm not I I understand jokes and I understand the thing but but I don't really know how to pull them off quite well I don't know how to get the punch lines and everything quite right I've never been good at it okay I understand it I can I can come off the joke I get it but I always need someone to write the actual joke for me to get the best of it but I get the concept of getting the depth of the culture because of like when I grew up so I grew up as half cast right so I was cook Island and um pakia and um

so my dad's called my mom's Park here so growing up on my dad's side I was the white kid growing up on my mom's side you're the brown kid sure um I don't know where they got Brown from but anyway um and growing up at school like I was always in the click of clicks that's what we called it like my group of mates was like me a moldy halfcast guy another Islander um an Indian some little scrawny white kid you know the dck of the school like we were just a group of Misfits sure sure sure but each of us was from another click right like just was from the Indian crew and you know whatever the elites I like it yeah I don't

know if we call us the elites we were definitely not the elites we were the we were the outcasts sure sure sure we were the ones who didn't quite fit in the main group so we had to form our own group yeah and so I've always like yearned for like what is the belonging like which group do I belong to which actually then out worked out really well for me because I never belonged in any group so then I just learned to W be stand and so now I've like got like the guys will know like I'm so not insecure like I'm arrogant to a fault where I'm just like I'm the [ __ ] best person in the world I don't care what you say like

I'm you know cuz like I had to learn to like love who this guy is cuz I I didn't get to be part of a belonging absolutely but it made me still understand everyone because I was like well I have to be able to talk to this guy like I want to be able to talk to this group of people over here because I don't want to be on my own I don't want to be lonely so it teaches you a lot about culture when you don't quite belong anywhere and I think that is like when you watch a lot of comics it's kind of how they feel it's like it's why a lot of comics suffer with depression and anxiety well this is it

and this is my next thing is that I think I mean to be honest it's probably we probably need about 10 weeks to have the the proper conversation about this but obviously in the UK we have the class system right so uh where you uh in your own situation the division if you like fed along racial lines in the UK because dare I say it was so Multicultural you know it more more Falls along class lines and almost an exact mirror of what you've just said my dad is the most working CLK com from literally the poorest uh electoral award in Newcastle growing up in the 50s and 60s and my mom is welltoo and Hello darling good afternoon like very very much so for

me admit my sister and I I mean obviously you know we're not unique in this situation of course there's heaps of people who have the same situation but my sister and I always say we were too rough for the Posh kids and too Posh for the rough kids so it's always the way so I I'm literally hearing what you're saying and I'm nodding externally and internally thinking it it that sort of De a ation of identity as a kid makes you crave it when you get older yeah yeah completely 100% which is why like I actually when people say like like whose job would you want in the office and blah blah and I'm like no literally mine like my whole job is I get

to talk to people all day and it ties me the [ __ ] out cuz I'm actually like quite naturally introverted so at the end of the day I'm done like I'm done I just built enough of the muscle I can get through a whole day now but like I'll get upstairs at 5:00 or six o'clock whatever and I'm just out until clea's like dinner's ready eat dinner I'm like okay I'm going to YouTube like I'm done yeah and then um and she gets it like she's along for this journey with me but I'm done because I'm interviewed but I love it because like you get to hear all these other people stories like the guy I was just speaking to just before coming this and like

the problems that he's trying to solve like he's trying to solve the housing crisis in New Zealand and he's come from this like World of like I can probably raise $200 million to do this I've done it before like it's not that big of a deal and I'm like as should do I'm like that's awesome that's amazing you know like I love hearing these sorts of stories so yeah I think you're right I think there's something there and actually what I really love about this conversation is it made me realize what we're looking for in that role is like that's what you're looking for you're not looking for someone with the skill set of knowing how to write I'm actually looking for someone who like

yearns for culture he just like hey understanding that because we don't have that a lot in our team right and that's the Beast we're missing actually it's the bit that I add sometimes to these discussions that I'm not the best at creating I'm not the best at the this sort of stuff but there's like sometimes where I'll come in and be like no this is the two bits that match together yeah I feel like a lot of us also don't have that experience for that kind of thing either right we haven't been there around around there enough to know that culture exactly yeah all we know is this and this is the thing and that's why I think that I'm quite lucky and spoiled with

growing up in in Europe because obviously we have everything on our doorstep and as I say particularly I mean there there's 300 languages spoken in London right we have a city of of 10 million people which is as you know double New Zealand and it's a tiny SP London smaller than it's tiny for that size it's crazy so I think that you're absolutely right it's about experience it really really is and that's why sometimes when people you know doing what I do people have been so lovely to me they really have in person online it's been amazing and I'm so I'm obviously so grateful but people talk about impostor syndrome and feeling like a fraud but I really do feel like that sometimes because I

think to myself well hang on a minute I'm just talking about what genuinely interests me and if that clearly resonates and comes across then great but I I just think to myself well I'm not doing anything groundbreaking I in life you know they say what is it be better or be first I don't think I've been better I think I've just been first I've gone to Pora gone toonga I've gone to spots in South ockland because when I've gone to you know I've seen the classic thing I always say is when people go to they come here they go to Queens town and they go the mountains of New Zealand they're so awesome and and they and the pronunciation CRA can't even do the impression

of the pronunciation that's gone now can't do it um hearing that I think like I don't know get a bit sort of overprotective I'm like hang on a minute let's just you're not showing the real country anyway I'm getting off topic my point is I think that showing cultures is something that interests me so much because like I say I didn't have that myself I felt a sort of jealousy if you like I was like everyone has got something to cling to except me and now I see a culture and I I want every part of it and you know two days ago on Queen Street something happened to me it's only the second time in four and a half years it's happened uh chap

came up to me uh gave me a hongy and it's it's only happened twice the first time it happened I was like oh sorry I this time smooth and I I've got no shame in saying I walked away and my bottom lip was quivering I was I'm even now getting bit think I swear to you it was the most it was it was stunning it was absolutely stunning and yeah some people say to me like you know why you so interested in cultures like what is it that sort of drives you that the inner nutshell unbelievable that's I love that are we're going to finish on that cuz that was a beautiful moment perfect awesome man thank you so much for sharing your story my

absolute pleasure thank you for having me cheers buddy cheers