This Creator Has 500K Followers... and Still Works a Day Job - Nerida Jantti.

have some fun with it, you know, come and dance with us. It's cool. At one point, we lost our apartment because we didn't realize that we're on the um We have had some people say, "Hey, you've inspired my boy to dance." Which I just love. That's cool. That's amazing. Love I really want to get out there a lot more because the dopamine hit that you get from doing that. It's well worth it. So, I want to share that because it is hard. Like, dance is hard to make money in New Zealand, even in Australia. Today's guest, Narita, has over 500,000 followers, was on Dancing with Stars, and is pretty well known in New Zealand as a professional dancer. Yet, she still has a day job

that supports her career. And when I asked her about it today, she talks about how her day job is what allows her to do the dancing, and the dancing allows her to connect with her children, and that is more important than anything. Anyway, tune in today and see how she did it. All right, so welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. No, thanks for coming on. Um, I would like you to quickly introduce yourself and then we're going to jump straight into it. Cool. My name's Ner Janty and I've been a dancer now for a very long time and I've always loved to dance and during co I decided to start dancing with my boys as a form a way of

getting together and spending some quality time together and it kind of made me realize how much quality time was spent during our dancing time and we would have a lot of laughs and a lot of fun and we kind of realized that it was going to be something that was growing into something for a bigger audience. you know, other people who wanted to get involved and have a dance and you know, not necessarily be exposed to other people with a bit of fun with it. So, this is kind of how we got into this. I mean, I've never really been a social media kind of person, but yeah, it's crazy how things happen though, right? That is. And so, that is good cuz I was

going to ask you where this journey started, but your social media journey started in lockdown. Yes. So, that's that. Um, was there anything like from a brand perspective and like a publicity perspective, what happened before that? Like is there anything before that? Well, uh I moved to New Zealand uh for work and I was I was cast on Dancing with the Stars as one of the professional dancers way back in 2005 for the first time and um I competed on that show for a few years. Really loved it. It was something that was completely left field and it made me realize that anybody can learn how to dance and the joy that it brings people even though it's a challenge for a lot of people

when you actually perform or you get out on the dance floor it's such a buzz and the dopamine hit that you get is just phenomenal. So from then after competing in that for a few years I decided actually I think I would like to get behind the camera. So I became dance producer, head choreographer for the show and uh yeah the the rest is history from there. Um I was a competition dancer before then but you know as we get older you kind of move into other things bit coaching you know things like that and after Dancing with the Stars CO hit actually right in the middle of one of the series we were locked down so we had to shut down but you know

I I to stop dancing for that long was not good. So, you know, and a way to get my boys and I kind interacting with each other was to come together to dance. Got it. I have neurodyiversity in my family. So, my oldest boy is on the autism spectrum. Uh, pretty sure I've got something going on there, too, which is cool. Um, but it was a really good way for us to kind of get together and do something that we all enjoyed together. And, um, you know, part of what I do now is being inclusive of everybody. Everybody can do it. So, yeah, really trying to get that message out there. Yeah. Nice. That's great. I knew obviously that you're in Dancing Stars, but I

didn't realize how far back it went. Long time. Yeah. Which is awesome to be part of that. You're you're the reason I don't know is because I was pretty much gone from the country almost the entire time that you're on. That's why I don't know that. So that makes sense to me now of where you're at. And then that brand that was starting to be built before you even started to dance on Tik Tok. When you first started on Tik Tok, did people remember you from those days? Was that a part of it? Yeah. Yeah, they kind of did. Um it's amazing memories people have actually. Yeah. And people think that we won. We didn't. We got second. I got second twice. Like oh wow.

But um but yeah it was it was something as I say even watching it on TV it draws you in cuz you watch how people struggle through it and then you see you know highlights of oh gosh this is so amazing. It's so much fun and you get to see the whole journey for them as well. So people are drawn in that way and they kind of want to want to experience that as well in a way. So that through teaching dances or private lessons or whatever, you know, it's really opened my eyes to a lot of different things like that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm sure like those exposure moments, especially on something like TV because of the authority that still comes with TV. Oh,

yeah. The the opportunities must be endless. Yeah. Well, I mean endless as much as New Zealand can make things endless. Well, yeah. You know, I mean, for dancers, it's pretty it's pretty scarce. So, a lot of dancers do travel overseas to work um or to compete, but I was really lucky that I could do a lot of the stuff here. And um as I say, you know, working even with neurodiversity on Dancing with the Stars and so many different personalities and strong personalities, you know, people that were successful in their own right, then all of a sudden they had to trust somebody that they never knew to make them hopefully not look like a muppet on live TV. Right. I love that. Um that transition

to dancing on socials. Yeah, I want to dig into that a little bit because like it's not actually normal for people who are really skilled at a particular art form or something to then jump into something like that often because they will call it an art form, which it is of course, but then they think it kind of diminishes the art form by jumping in and doing something like that. Like, how does how did that play out for you? Well, for me it wasn't really about showing the art form so much. Um, I mean, we tried all different styles. I mean, I'm a ballroom dancer, right? A ballroom dancer doing hip-hop, eh, it's not natural, but you know, why not? Why not give it a

go? But the the another reason why I did it is homeschooling for me was a nightmare, right? Anyone with kids doing homeschooling, especially boys, they were just like, no, not about it. So, I thought this is kind of a way for them to learn different skills as well, you know, learning coordination, learning teamwork, learning a bit of a work ethic, uh, as well as, you know, making it as fun as possible. So, it was about that side of it as well, not just, hey, I'm a dancer. You know, let's show off with this, but it was just helping my boys um, learn something that was a little bit left field and just to show that dancing is cool. Whether you're a boy or a girl,

doesn't matter. It's cool, right? Yeah. That's awesome. I um yeah because I wondered that when I saw it and then your history like I find it we we work in our business with a lot of people who are very good at what they do in all fields not just in art forms but in like engineering or legal or whatever and they find it really hard to then go and communicate that through social media because of like this fear of like no I've got to be the best or I've got to look the best and everything. But what you said there is actually just you needed a purpose higher than yourself almost to do it. Your reason for yourself which was teaching boys which I think

is quite interesting. But like did that was that just out of necessity because of the cons like how hard it is to homeschool boys once we got into lockdown or was it like quite a considered decision? Um yes and no to both. Um you know at first it was just to spend some quality time with the boys. Um, but then you know I kind of realized how it affects other people on social media as well. I mean to be fair I had no idea it was going to take off the way it did. You know I had I think I had 900 followers or something to start with and it wasn't about gaining followers. It was about connecting with other people and saying hey look

this is we're going to try this style. Do you want to try it with us? And so they you know they they would remix our reels and and show us their version. and we actually get to meet people from all over the world that um whether they're families or solos or whatever. It's just such a cool way to connect with people. And so, you know, bringing back to that inclusion thing, doesn't matter who you are, what you do, have some fun with it, you know, come and dance with us. It's it's cool. I love that. How how fast did that start to take off? Um because I do remember early on seeing you. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I was kind of I was kind

of trying to read up on how to, you know, work Instagram. Um because it was Instagram that I started with. I didn't really do too much on TikTok in the beginning. Uh and it just basically said post as often as you can. Be your authentic self, you know, and I think that's part of what we try to carry through the whole time is we are our authentic self. We don't have special lighting. We use a phone for filming. Um we'll occasionally do a live to have a chat to our followers just to say, "Hey, you know, we are real. you know, we're not um we're not doing this for profit because let's face it, in New Zealand, Yeah. you don't do it for profit. Do

you know what I mean? Like, we're not a country that we can make money on Instagram. Yeah. So, it was purely just to connect with other people and just to learn as much as I could and also teach my boys that there are other people out there that appreciate what they do and um you know, you put this together and you can have some success. And from that we started to see oh gosh you know um we're getting quite a few numbers like I think one of them our most popular one was staying alive by the beeges. We had 16 million plays on that one thing and it was like how did that happen? So you know you try to mimic that again flop. You

do something completely left field boom it goes up again. It's like how does it work? But it was just as I said you do have moments of oh wow we're getting a lot of people watching us. It's kind of addictive that way, but then at the same time, you know, you're doing it for fun. Yeah. You're not doing it for profit and you're doing it for learning yourself. And also, as I said, teaching my boys, I never stand at the front of the the room. I'm always pushing my boys forward cuz it's not about me particularly, even though I'm learning a lot. Yeah. How did the like talk about how the boys like um how they were throughout that journey? Yeah. Um like Yeah. just

explain like their thoughts and processes going because it had been quite unusual for a kid all of a sudden 16 million people seen them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean to be honest um they didn't have their own accounts cuz they were so young. Yeah. Um and I still uh monitor them very closely. Yeah. Cuz there's a lot of crazies out there, right? Plenty. Um you know, in the beginning they were teaching me, mom, this is how you do a Tik Tok. This is how you do an Instagram, you know. So we were kind of um following some trends and you know seeing where that goes. But then we started to create our own thing which they got a real buzz out of and they started to

see oh hey people are actually watching us for who we are rather than you know because we're copying somebody else and I would show them a lot of the comments cuz as you can imagine a lot of them were about them cuz it was about my boys you know my boys and I dancing together and and as they got older I started to think gosh you know are they going to get bullied? Yeah. You know, that was a thing I was thinking at school, were they going to get bullied? And, you know, truth be known, there was a couple of instances where the kids were like, "Oh, you're that kid that dances with your mom." You know, and um Jet would say, "But yeah, my

mom's cool." Yeah. You know, um imagine if you had a mom like mine, sort of thing. Um I love that. Yeah. It was It's cute, but you know, and I get it. You know, people would say, "Oh, you know, he should be outside playing rugby," which he does, you know, doing something else, which he does. But um you know I just I found it really cool that my boys would still come back at the end of the day and say, "Hey, mom, should we do this? This looks like fun." Yeah. You know, um and I know that it's a rarity. I get it. There are not a lot of families that that will willingly do that together, especially boys. But um I just love that

they're still willing to do it with their mama bear, you know, and just to make it cool for other boys to try. You know, we have had some people say, "Hey, you've inspired my boy to dance." Which I just love. So good, you know. Um we've worked with some uh neurodyiverse kids. We've worked with Star Jam um which was just so rewarding, you know, just it it was just so much fun. Uh you know, they do a big concert at the end of the year and we got to choreograph some of that and go along and it was just such a cool thing. You know, that was that's that's where I find reward doing the social media thing. How old are the boys now? Case,

my oldest is just about to turn 18. Wow. I know, right? Wow. And my youngest one, Jet, will turn 14 this year. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Um it is an interesting thing to have like uh boys especially in their teenage years to do that sort of thing with their mom. So that's like I mean that's something that should be hats off to you. Like have obviously raised great men who want to do that sort of thing cuz I can imagine at my age at 15 if my mom had have asked me to do that I would like no but you know what I mean? Like I think maybe if I asked them when they were this age they would have gone oh no what are you

talking about? I don't want to do that. But because they started from a younger age, they they're they're kind of okay with it. I mean, admittedly, we don't do it as much as we used to cuz now we're we're released again after lockown. We we're leading our own lives, but every now and again we, you know, maybe once or twice a week we'll come together and do something for fun. That's cool. I love that. Tell me about when it became like when did the moment happen where you're like, "Oh, there's something more here than just us making fun videos cuz like obviously that brand has led to opportunities and you guys doing stuff." When did that moment happen for you? or did you kind of

already know that it would or like where was that? Well, I didn't know. Um, and to be honest, uh, a lot of our followers are international. Um, I mean, we're getting more Kiwi followers and Australian followers now. Sure. Um, but as I said, it it's not so much about how many followers, it's about how we connect with people. And so, you know, a lot of our stuff that we were doing um, really appealed to Americans. And, um, I was kind of thinking, you know, how can we make something of this? Um because there's so many people are asking, "Oh, can you guys show us how to do this move or do a tutorial on this or you know, so I kind of thought, well, maybe

cuz I don't see a lot of dancing in schools here in New Zealand." Um they used to have they there have been some programs in the past and so I thought, well, um first of all, go along to my kids schools and teach them how to dance for their school dance at the end of the year, which was great fun. That's amazing. And uh I thought well you know why not develop something that and it doesn't have to be school kids and it doesn't have to be kids. So you can go onto a website and you can learn this style of dance you know in all different levels all different age groups. So that's why I thought if I can do something like if I

can develop something like that then, you know, possibly that would, you know, financially help me out a little bit, but also, you know, it'll it'll g give people access to more different dance styles that they can try at home or at school or whatever. So I really want to get dance out there a lot more because the dopamine hit that you get from doing that, it's well worth it. So I want to share that. I love that. That's great. And so that is something you built and developed as you still in progress. Okay. It's still in progress. Still going with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, sharing my journey through speaking as well, you know, having a chat to people cuz

as you probably noticed, I can talk a lot. This is good. And I enjoy speaking. So, um yeah, just just kind of branching out a little bit, maybe um trying a couple of things here and there, but I'm just I'm just going slowly because I just I still want to keep it authentic. I don't want to make it anything that's not us, you know? So, um, yeah, it's in the pipeline. Okay. Before we dig into that, cuz I definitely want to dig into where your future's going. Yes. Tell me more about like were there opportunities that came through? Like, were you getting brand many brands and stuff wanting to do, you know, collabs with you and activations with you and stuff like that? Like, we

did get a few um requests for collabs. We did get several. I mean, some of them in the beginning, we were kind of like, look, we want to stay within New Zealand. Yeah. Um but we notic that our brand is more worldwide. So we do collaborate with some uh international companies that are within New Zealand as well. Um we do get you know we work with a lot of Kiwi companies too. Cool. On a regular basis some of them some of them are just a one-off type thing. Um but you know nothing nothing big nothing that's you know too over the top. And as I said you know if sometimes you kind of got to go maybe that's not really you know our our thing.

um we wouldn't just say yes to everybody. Yeah. Uh we were invited to do America's Got Talent um a while ago, but again, it's not really us. So, um you know, we're kind of trying to keep it um authentic as much as we can. So, yes, we do collaborate, but um we're pretty selective. Yeah. And is it like, and you know, tell me if you want to answer this or not, but is it like is it your brand and your sort of business, if you will, that you sort of like your kids work with you on, or is it like a collective thing that's all of your guys? Well, with the website that I'm developing, uh, it is it is me. My my my sons

do work with me on that. Absolutely. Uh, and you know, if if anything comes of it, they'll certainly share in the profit. Um but um I try to kind of branch out a little bit to show you know because I I do show some of my students um in some of my reels and other fellow professional dancers and things like that cuz as I said I wanted to keep it open to try and be as inclusive as possible and I didn't I never wanted to put any pressure on the boys or for them to do anything that they didn't really want to do. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Do they do things uh you know especially now that one of them's 18 and going to

like do they have their own brands? They built their own social media. Is that something that they're real interested in now? They just kind of do it as a project with mom. Uh they do have their own social media. Um my eldest boy is fascinated by trains. Oh yeah. So he does little vlogs and things like that every now and again. And my youngest one, he's rugby, scootering, you know, he's all about different sports. He loves his sports. So he'll post little things like that, but nothing nothing neither of them are particularly keen on doing anything too hardcore. Uh it's more about just being kids. Yeah. and um you know they'll join in with me every now and again and they have fun doing that

especially if we get invited to go and teach a class around the country or something they're all for it but yeah they're not not really keen on building their own brands yeah they're still kids yeah they're still young they're still young exactly and so then you talked about like your other students and things so that's like the main I guess like the bread winner for you as a business and is like you you teach classes and things well I teach privately um funnily enough that's not my main at the moment. I came to New Zealand as a a poor amateur dancer and just wanting to, you know, represent New Zealand at Worlds with my partner at the time. Um, so I'm I work in athmology.

So I've worked in medicine my whole life. Got it. Uh, I've been in the same company now for 25 years and still there part time. So that's kind of, you know, that's how I earn my money and my dancing is what I do. I had no idea of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. It's tricky to make decent money as a dancer here in New Zealand. I'll tell you that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. That's actually one of the questions like I like it's kind of what I wanted to know. I didn't realize that you worked in that field as well. Yeah. Cuz because it is hard like dance is hard to make money in. In New Zealand, even in Australia, um which is

a lot bigger country here is still a hard place to make money in. And I was wondering to myself like was there enough coming through the pipeline of the brand? Cuz I have met people with brands about your size in terms of social media who can earn an income. Maybe not one to support two teenage boys, but like definitely enough to earn an income. So, I was wondering what that is. But that makes so much sense. So, you've had a job for 25 years, you work part time, pays a mortgage, takes care of the base of it, which I think is quite interesting and important for like people listening to hear because we talk about this a lot. Like even if your job part time,

as long as it pays you rent or your mortgage, then it allows you to focus on the other things. Absolutely. like how like from your perspective now like and and you don't have to give like hard fast numbers but like as a percentage wise like how much is the main job supporting your total income sort of levels? 80% I Yeah. See that's great to for people to hear I think. Yeah. Yeah. If not more. And I'm also teaching my boys cuz both of them love performing arts. Yeah. Uh Case wants to be a drummer. Jet wants to you know play guitar. Yeah. You've got to have something else. Yeah. you know, you've got to find something else that you're at least interested in to work

with at the same time because that's just the reality of things. Whether you're any kind of actor, singer, performer of any kind, you really got to have something to back you up. Yeah. That's so responsible. That's so responsible. No, because like we have lots of people who come on this uh podcast who are like all different walks of life. Yeah. But a lot of them who are trying to make it but they live really like humbly I suppose like quite no money coming through the door regularly feast and famine you know and it's like because they aren't willing to like do a boring job to pay the bills. Well it doesn't have to be boring but doing something that's not their passion to allow them

to focus on their passion. But then you've reached these highs of highs in your career, right? And and especially in a country like New Zealand, Dancing Stars, producer, the teaching of all of it. Um, and the competitions and then the fame that's come from the social media channels whilst also holding down this other job for 25 years. That's insane. Kind of got to do it. Yeah. I mean, to be able to sustain, it's insane. True worker. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. No, it's such a good thing. I'm really happy to hear that that is the case cuz I didn't know coming into this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Reality. But it's so good because like people like like say for our brand, they'll see our brand,

they'll see, you know, there's a couple million followers across all of our profiles that we have and they'll think, "Oh, they must that's how they're making so much money with those followers and what they're doing." And I was like, "No, no, like there's a entire agency behind this that grinds out all day long to to be able to fund this part that this is like we call it doing cool you know? Like we want to do cool That's why we come to work." Yeah. But it's like 1% of the time. Yeah. If that. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz actually most of it's just like monot Well, not monotonous, but it's day in day out. It's part of the grind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And I know

even with, you know, if I'm developing a website Yeah. I'm all about the creative side. I'm all about I just want to do the dancing side. I don't want to do the admin side, but it's got to be done. You know, if you you just you've got to work at whatever you want to do. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Was there any part of you like have you ever throughout this period then whilst you're going through all of that, juggling the job, juggling all the other things, gone, um, man, I wish I could like I've seen these other people in the US and stuff like make these huge careers out of it. Has any part of you going how do I do that? Were you okay with

the life and style that you had it? I'm okay with it. Um to be honest, like I mean I never set out to be famous or you know whatever, but to do what I do here if I was doing that in the States. Yeah. I think it would be so much harder um you know with because you you do get a lot of messages even now I must answer 300 messages a week. um just you know people just want to have a chat or they make a comment or you know whatever and but to kind of be able to do that as a business it's got to be tough and I think you you potentially would lose the love for it a little bit um

I mean I dance part-time I love it and I've always loved it I do think though if I did it full-time it wouldn't become as exciting uh you know and that's the that is the reality of it you know I mean doing Dancing with the Stars for 3 months at the end of those three months I never want to do it again, but I put my hand up again for it every year. I love it. That's so funny. Yeah. And I mean, I still dream about it, you know, at night time. I I still think about, you know, choreography and I still think about, you know, what this show could do and da da da. So, it's still it's still there. I mean, whether it

comes back to New Zealand or not, I don't know. But, you know, it was such a huge part of my life. But, at the end of that time, you are just mentally, physically, creatively done. Yeah. So yeah, you know, it's really nice to have it in spurts like that and then just go back to reality for a while and then, you know, possibly go back to it again. But um yeah, I I I do love the balance. You've got to have balance and um you know, even with exercise, you know, I do Pilates to mentally balance myself because it quietens the the crazy busy brain down. So you you really got to find a balance no matter what you do because then the love that

you have for this thing that you do is always there. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No, that's such great advice. I think it's such so great advice for people watching because a lot of people are young, start their careers that listen to this and they hear me saying the same sort of stuff about it and like, oh yeah, that's just St. he's just a grumpy old man saying the things that he's saying. But like especially my stuff maybe. Um, but it's good for people to hear like from other people that it's not just some random thought that I might have that actually like um, so I I'll go on other people's podcasts from like business level podcast and they'll always ask me like how do you take

such risks in your business and do the things that you do and grow and it's like well cuz actually like I've hedged my bets with lots of other things like I worked in Australia and I built up I had a really good career there where I built up a large superanuation fund so me and my wife both had that where is enough now that once compounded interest takes us through to 65, we'll be enough to retire on. You know, there's all these other things that we've done that have allowed us to go we've done all the work and the the the foundations that actually this business doesn't we don't need this business to retire on. You know, this business is for us now is we're

having fun. I love business. The way you love to dance, I love to do business and so I can play and have fun here without having to worry about will this thing um allow me to retire? Yeah. you know, like, and most people don't. Most people are trying to go in and go, "No, this has to work. If this doesn't work, I'm over. I'm done for." That'd be like, imagine going into your dancing career that way. You'd be so stiff cuz you'd be like so stressed the whole time. And you get injured and you're done. And you're done. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah. I mean, I've got um friends who who are playing rugby, you know, from a young age or parents

who have got kids playing rugby, getting into the junior all blacks, and it's like, have you got another career behind you? because you know it's awesome that you're there following your dream but you've realistically you've got to have something else behind you and as I said it's just the same you've got to have that balance work life um so you love your work um both different types especially if you're doing something that's completely different from you know from each other like dance and medicine I mean pretty different um but yeah it's it's it's worked for me so far and long mate continue you know where did that mindset come To be fair, when I left school, um, I moved away from home when I was

17, so I could train in Sydney. I'm Australian. Yeah. And, uh, so I was living, you know, an hour and a half away from my family home. And I thought, and my mom was great. She she led, you know, I I follow her example. She said, "You've got to make your own money to do this." You know, at the end of the day, if you fall over, I'm here to support you, but, you know, you really need to to do that. And we were living off $40 a week for food at one point, you know, just so we could have lessons and and go traveling and things like that until we got some sponsorship. But it just it teaches you so much about the value

of money, about the value of working hard uh to be able to actually achieve your dreams. I mean, you get the the very small percentage that that you know reach a high doing what they love to do. Yeah. But that's a very small percentage and you can't bank that that's going to be you. You know, it might be Yeah, but it might not be. So, it's good to have something on the side. Yeah. Sounding familiar wise backup plan. Have a backup plan. 100%. Always a backup. Got to do it. That's real interesting to hear that cuz it's that's my almost my story too, which is that like I moved away from New Zealand when I was 21. I moved to Australia. So, I went the

other way to you. Um, and but I was the same like I well I moved to Australia during the GFC. Yeah. And um so just beforehand actually so we got jobs. I was with my brother, my cousin. Um so three of us were living, GFC hit, work disappeared for those two. I was the only income coming in. Um trying to support them. You know, I was getting like maybe 600 bucks a week to support three of us pay the rent, pay everything like throughout this GFC process and stuff. At one point we lost our apartment because we didn't realize that we're on the um the strip of the uh the Gold Coast. Um uh what do they called it? The old Indie Car strip that

the Gold Coast. We didn't realize the apartment cuz we were new to Gold Coast. The apartment we rented. The reason they gave it to us is cuz we were willing to sign a six-month lease which ended the week before Indie, which they obviously could rent out for tens of thousands of dollars for in a week. Yeah. And so then we couldn't get another apartment cuz there was also Indie which we didn't know about. So we couldn't rent one. So we lived in our car for six weeks, you know, and just like everything I had to. And then I said to my brother like three of us can't live in this car. He had an opportunity to live. So then I paid his rent to live

with someone else buying us all food. But it taught you how like every single dollar. Yeah. Where does it go? This money isn't easy to come by, so we got to do it. Which then meant like, okay, I can't get in that position again. Yes. How do I what's my nest egg? Like what do I build up around me? Like how do I have it? And uh that's now like why I talk about hedging my bets every everything in business. It's like I'm gonna go real hard for this, but if it falls over, that's okay because this is still good and I'm okay with this level. This level's not bad. It's just not as good as if I win over here. Yeah. Um but a

lot of people like like this way you like Lee's probably going, "Oh yeah, I've heard this before." Because it's something I always harp on about. And a few of the guys in the team who are like really good with their finances, everyone else looks at them going, "How do you know like to do this?" You know, like and it's like because we've all been there where there's we've had nothing or we've had very little to do with this. It's kind of thing. So that's good advice cuz I don't usually have this conversation on this podcast cuz hey, they don't like most people just like you got these young kids who are blowing up on Instagram or Tik Tok get off on these brand deals. They

might only get two grand, but for them it's like, "Oh my gosh, yes, quit everything. Two grand. Let's go. Let's go all in." Yeah. The next paycheck six months later. Yeah. So, that's really interesting and great advice. Like, um, obviously we have the business owners who come through, they're different. They're probably closer to the way we both think, which is I mean, they're running a business first, the brand second. But a lot of young creators like they are chasing the dream. And it's like, you can chase the dream, right? But you still got to have a backup plan. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. That's great advice. That's great advice. I'm just um it's rolling around in my head now cuz like I can't stop thinking about like

how many people I've tried to say this to you. I must say it to my boys once a week. Yeah. Good. Cuz you know, I don't want to squash their dreams. I get it. Have a dream. But you you just got to be sensible about it. Got to back it up with something. You know, what else do you enjoy? What else are you good at? You know that. Um and it doesn't matter if you've got your your fingers in a few pies because something's going to work. something there, right? Um, but yeah, it's it's super important and I'm so glad my mom taught me that. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Okay, tell me a little bit about the future. Like, so you got this website,

you got these other things like um and now that I know your philosophy on money and and life, how does that evolve like grow? Cuz like your brand's still growing and it's still great. Yeah, it's still very new really. I mean, I've only I've done social media now since 2020. So, it's in its fifth year now. Um, but as far as growing a business with it, I haven't quite started that. Like, it's in, as I said, it's on its way. I wanted to do it right. Um, and it was because somebody approached me and said, "Hey, are you making any money doing this?" And I said, "Well, no, but I don't really know how to." Yeah. Um, and so they said, "Well, you know, you've

got all this experience behind you. You've got all this knowledge in this back in this in this area. you know, they kind of guided me in a way and showed me that there's a big gap in the market for um people to learn how to dance easily. You know, rather than being intimidated by going to a dance studio or, you know, even someone going to the gym, you know, you've actually got to get up, go and do it. Whereas with this, it's online, click a button, there it is, and you can learn it for yourself, go, "Oh, actually, I really like this." Then you can go to classes if you really want to do that. Or, you know, for teachers at school, what am I

going to teach them for this, you know, dance curriculum? Oh, there it is. So, it there's something there that's available so teachers can learn how to teach their their students. Got it. Or they can just put the, you know, the television on and I can teach them because you've got two screens. You've got one of them is my son and I demonstrating and I'm talking you through it at the same time. So, there's there's a it's a different way to learn because as I said through Dancing with the Stars, you learn that people learn differently. You know, some people learn very quickly visually or um some people are a little bit more I see I can always tell an engineer when they come into the

dance studio because they learn very differently from everybody. Precision is key. So, you've got to learn pretty quickly. Yeah. You've got to be able to read the room pretty quickly when you're teaching a dance class. So, you know, doing it online, you've got to be really diverse. You got to make sure that, you know, anybody can do it and that it's fun. I mean, at the end of the day, it's got to be fun. uh as far as discipline with technique and things like that goes, if you want to do that, you can go to the advanced part of it or just try it as a beginner just so that you can actually have a bit of fun with it because like I say, I'm

trying to get this message out there that you try either by yourself or with a friend. Challenge a friend to do it. The dopamine hit is next level. It is so good. And you you actually forget about everything else just for that amount of time that you're doing it. And so all the busyiness, all the craziness in in your mind just disappears because you're focusing on this one thing. you're focusing on the present and the person that you're with at the time. So that's how it brings people together as well. So, I'm hoping that, you know, this can this can be passed on to whether it's schools or couples or just individuals just to give their mental health a bit of a bit of a

positive kick, you know, cuz I mean I know that here in New Zealand um I work um well I'm very good friends with um Sir John Kwin with his Mighty Foundation, you know, he deals with a lot of mental health with kids in New Zealand and um you know, dance is something I think that can really help with that. you know, I mean, having danced um with classes or, you know, um school classes, I mean, just as a they quieten down and they kind of do this as a team for a bit um and then they go back and do their, you know, their normal thing and they've had a bit of a dopamine hit in the meantime. So, it's so cool. It's just a

really good way to kind of re-energize and get you going again. So, the So, then this website and the platform as well that you're building is like a like a subscriptionbased sort of thing. It is. Yeah. Yeah. So whether if you're a school, you can, you know, subscribe for a term. You've got a whole term's worth of work there. Or if you're just doing it individually, gosh, I really want to learn country line dancing. I want to learn salsa. I want to learn hip-hop. You can download these modules and learn from beginner, intermediate, advanced, whatever. And it's my style. So when I say advanced, yeah, it's just faster and, you know, there's more content. But you know, it's it's it's fun. Like we always have

fun doing it, you know, because it's my son and I doing it together. So, I love it. Your oldest son doing it with my youngest son doing it with you. And with are you using like to build this? Is it like a you're using like a plug-and-play software platform to use it or you building it all from scratch? Building it from scratch. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Cuz that's not cheap. No. And so that's just all selfunded through yourself like and from your your job. Yeah, I guess cuz it's 80% of your money coming in. That's it. Wow. What gives you the confidence to invest like that? Because I I know these things aren't cheap to build even if you do them cheaply. Yeah. Well, yeah, as

I say, I had, you know, I did have someone that gave me that push that I needed. Uh, and you know, I use them as a bit of a mentor. Um, which is great. Um, and they only interact as much as I want them to. Um, and it's just given me that extra little bit of a push just so that I go, you know, cuz you do, you mean you do doubt yourself, you know, you do have moments where you go, "Oh my gosh, can I do this?" You know, I'm forking out this money to do this. Is it going to work? I can only try. Yeah. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. You know, I'm not breaking the bank by doing it. I'm doing

it very slowly. Um, but, you know, if it does work, then that's a great second income. Um, you know, to keep things going. So, cuz, you know, uh, kids aren't cheap. No, no, not at all. No, not at all. You know, and um on that with uh when it's building like uh one of the things that's quite interesting, so you've got this mentor who's helping you through that process. I think that's always quite an interesting piece that people miss. And you know, like it's the old I'm really good at what I do, so I go make a business out of it, but that usually is never a good idea. No. Because business is its own thing. Yeah. And you need no business. Yeah. That's it.

you like cuz as I said I'm the creative side. Yeah. I know nothing about business. Um I mean my my life partner is a businessman and so he we have chats every now and again. He's very helpful. But to have someone that's you know outside the box come in and kind of chat to me about it and just go, "Hey, yeah, you can do this. You know, this is this is how you do it. Oh, okay. I see." So, you know, you try and learn as much as you can on your own, but it's so important to have somebody behind you to, you know, to just mentally help you, just to back you up, educate you. Yeah. What uh like if you think about growing

that in time, is your goal to just grow it through the Instagram and the Tik Tok? Do you have any other platforms that you I have been advised several times to go on to YouTube and I totally get it. Yeah. But it's um you know like I said I've still got to keep my work life balanced. Um I could spend all day doing social media stuff and for a while there during lockdown I kind of was you know um but now I don't have that time but I still want to do it right. So rather than start something up and for it to not kind of do so well. Tik Tok was is a perfect example. I just kind of started posting to that every

now and again and our following is going up on Tik Tok. Not that I'm, you know, I'm not particularly bothered about that because it's completely different audience. Um, and, you know, we love our, um, Tik Tok family as well, don't get me wrong, but, um, it's just interesting how the platforms work really differently. And, as I say, just being able to keep everything going, keep a house, you know, keep the kids going and all that sort of thing. You kind of got to do just little bits where you can. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I know LinkedIn's another one that I need to get into. I Yeah, LinkedIn. I was going to talk I I'm the preacher of LinkedIn in this world. Um especially I mean

LinkedIn's a whole another conversation, but YouTube is hard. Yeah. And I think you're right. I think that like what I've learned over the last 5 years in this business that we've built is that if I was to do YouTube again, which we will do many other things on YouTube, is I won't do another show, if you will, on YouTube that we've got a bunch podcast, we got a dating show that we create and all other stuff that we have. I won't do another one until I've got like an expert YouTube team behind it and just like be able to afford that team. Yes. I realized that like as I've gone through this process that um in every other platform quantity wins. Yes. Always. And on

YouTube like it doesn't work that way. It does. If you want to go if you want to take 10 years, maybe you could slowly build something up. But actually, like YouTube's one of those ones that actually you can have a video go viral tomorrow and there's really ways of how to do that. You can actually engineer it quite easily if you have the right people involved. Um, so that's so YouTube's I get your um stance on it there. But what about like YouTube shorts? What about just a shorts channel that's separate? Yeah. Um, that's what we've got. Okay. Oh, so you do have the YouTube shorts channel. Okay. But as I said, it's it's only got 10 videos or something, you know, it's very minimal.

Um, and I am planning on developing that more cuz I understand from what I understand about YouTube is it's more about people um advertising through you. It's all about advertising. If you can get people to pay you for advertising, you've got it sorted. If you have a certain amount of and it and it is about followers on um YouTube, it's about subscribers. So if you have over a certain amount of subscribers then obviously you you've it opens the doors a lot more for you. Yeah. Uh I mean you same to a an extent with Instagram where you know things open up for you the more followers you gain the more um things open up to you as far as um techniques or tools you can

use for advertising. But um yeah, as far as earning money through Instagram um and Tik Tok, it's very much about collaborations and like I say, we're very selective about that. So, we're not really we're not into that. I mean, the website hopefully I can direct a lot of my followers to uh and that would be hopefully a benefit, but um yeah, I I want to keep my Instagram and everything fairly authentic. Yeah, cool. I I would do the same. Like, so the the reason I wondered about YouTube shorts is like just repurposing content that's appropriate, your evergreen content on Instagram, Tik Tok, and just let it build in the background because you're right, you get it built up, you can earn ad revenue without having

to do anything. Yeah. Without doing anything, you're making videos. But um the the fact that you've got the website coming, my thoughts are that I wouldn't even necessarily push that through your Instagram and Tik Tok apart from having it there on the link. Yeah. And I would figure out ads. Something that I talk to a lot of people about is they think, "Oh, I built up this really good organic throw following now. I want to sell them some stuff and I'm going to make all these videos to sell them stuff." They never came for that. They didn't come to you to see you push a website. No, that's not what they're here for. But if you take your likeness and your brand and create an

ad and run it as an ad, people, we understand what ads are when we see them on Facebook. So if I see you on an ad, I'm not going to be like, I didn't ask for this. It's like, yeah, but I know how the platform works. I get this amazing platform because the ads exist. We all get it. Yeah. Now, if you the way that those ad platforms work, they're so sophisticated that you could make a couple sets of ads, run your ads on Facebook and Instagram and sell your website really easily. Yeah. Because you got such a good brand already. So, it's like that combination of stuff like where a lot but where a lot of creators go wrong is they like get, you

know, 100,000, 500,000 followers, whatever they might get, and they're like, "Okay, cool. I'm going to push product on them, my product on them." And all you do is, you know, alienating your audience. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, for me, um, with the website, the difference is between the two, even though I do have some tutorials on Instagram, you only get 90 seconds. Yeah. And to be able to, you know, teach someone you because people are saying, "We want more. We want more." And I'm like, "Well, I can't do this on Instagram." So, that's another reason it's exactly potentially moving over to Yeah. to the website. Yeah. And I would definitely like when once you get to that stage um just partner someone like you can already

make your own creative cuz you know how to do it and sell your product. They don't have to be real like people always think that sometimes the creative has to be like really slick and do its thing and whatnot. But actually like to push a product cuz it's your brand and your son's it just has to be really authentically you and how you normally talk to a camera but then just run it as an ad. I reckon you'll sell the out of it. I hope so. If you run it as an ad, just ju just like my only just test it out a little bit. Yeah. If if if no one else has given you this advice, I'd hope to say the only thing you

take away from today is um if you ran those ads because of your brand, you'd fill it. Like you would you've got me thinking. Yeah. You've got me thinking. Trust me. We run ads for ourselves as of this year. And I I've never been into running ads a lot because we're professional services. Yeah. People don't buy us necessarily from an ad. They're never going to make a transaction from an ad. Let's put it that way. So, I've always done it from that's why we have such a big brand that we built because I knew that was the best way, but then we hired an immediate director who's now running the ads parts of our business for our clients. And he showed me, mate, you've already

got everyone already knows you. So, we don't have to get them to buy. We just have to get them to talk to you. So, now we can he just puts my likeness on a video or whatever it gets me to talk. And we well we made some pretty crazy ads, haven't we? Me literally like telling people they're idiots for not doing this thing. Like just some pretty bad ones and they've just gone through the roof. They've worked absolutely great. Yeah. And it just showed me the power of like if you've already got a brand, how powerful the ad platform now works. You know, Nike can run ads and sell craploads, but a new brand new shoe company that no one knows running ads, it's going

to cost them a fortune to get the ads to work. So that's definitely something. The other part about the LinkedIn like because I'm a bloody broken record about LinkedIn and why people should use it. Yeah. Like in our business like we've got 34 35 staff now about to hire another five or six and um which is quite quite large for a social media agency but we were 12 before I did anything but LinkedIn. Like all of that just came from LinkedIn. And especially in your space like the speaking gigs, those opportunities that come up through like um more like professional service based stuff that you can do. All of my stuff comes from LinkedIn. Yeah. Like all of it. I think more so LinkedIn is

going to be something that I have to get into over YouTube to an extent. I think so too. Um because I do think that YouTube is going to be too similar to my website. I think so. So um yeah, that's why I've kind of just kind of held off a little bit. I think so too. I think so. like you sound like you're just building your own version of YouTube that has a pay wall in front of it, which is fine and great. Whereas LinkedIn's like a different side of your brand and allows you to have this like conversation as a speaker, as a personality rather than the dance. Well, you're still going to have the dance brand behind you, but it's a whole different

thing that you come through with. Um, which is quite exciting. So, tell me like if uh you had a crystal ball and you could see like where this world takes you into the next sort of five years, where would you hope it takes you? To be fair, not very as far as uh geographically, not very far. No. Yeah, not geographically, but just like from a career and just a brand perspective and Yeah. Um to be honest, um I'm hoping for the best. Like I think if I can if I can um build the website and my you know my platform to a certain extent where it can financially support me so I can spend more quality time with my boys and you know in time

more quality time with my partner and my friends and things like that because I'm I mean I love people so you know being able to do this and and um still teaching dance and um you know speaking to different people about my journey and you know hopefully inspiring them in some way um to get out there and get moving. that's where I'd like to be. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've always loved working in medicine. It's fascinating. It's ever changing, but um it does get to a point where I kind of like even though I when I retire, I'd still like to be teaching dance. I'd still like to, you know, do my creative side of things. So, if I can build that to

a certain point where it can financially support me, great. And, you know, I don't have to be a millionaire. Yeah. It's just to a point where I can live every day as I do now. Yeah. I love that. That's such practical advice. That's the theme of this this whole episode. Just be practical about it. Do the same things you meant to do every day. Don't be an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. Don't be a dick. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. We're running out of time at this point. But hey, I really enjoyed that podcast because it's so different to the answers that I get from a lot of of the people that we speak to. Yeah. Because like people are young and they do dumb stuff

with their brand and their money and you know, like you're just like, "No, no, no. Just do this properly and you'll succeed." Yeah. And I think that that's such good advice that if you just take your time and you work on it slowly and you honor the people who are watching your content, you'll get the outcomes that you want long term. Fingers crossed. Well, it's worked for you so far. Yeah. Yeah. So far so good. And we're still growing. Um, you know. Oh, yeah. You are. Yeah. We'll see. Now, thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate having it was fun. I love sitting and chatting. Yeah. That's part of my channel, too. I just chat. This is my entire job. This is all

I do all day. They just see me walking around chatting to people. I love it. Yeah. It's the best. Thank you.