Ai will never replace humans
You know why Ai will never in our life time take over our lives completely? Because it can’t understand or comprehend human emotion. Will it ever be able to? No it won’t.
See humans are pretty resilient and committed to the things they deem as important. An ai run bit of tech can come up with likely solutions, can run a probability pattern to predict outcomes, but that’s all data based. It’s decision making doesn’t come from an emotional perspective, it comes from a rational and logical perspective…that’s why it fails.
Humans, well some of them will never give up on a goal, a dream or a life they want. Many people would make life changing decisions not based on fact but rather on emotion. They may quit a job to become an entrepreneur and tell themselves everyday they’ll make it work, when an ai bot will say don’t quit your job, stay where you are and be happy. Humans when they quit a job are often not thinking rationally. An ai bot will give you its plan for your exit but never offer over emotional knife throwing craziness.
I’m not saying we want the knife throwing craziness every day but the Ai bot may be able to pick up on signals and when it’s time to head off to the bed. Ai has the chance to change the world, and we are already seeing changes, but we need to hang on to who we are. Ai is one of those invention that you could barely understand when you first came across it, but now with it everywhere we need to be very careful about what we let it take away from us. We need to keep our humanity, our unpredictability, our love, our emotions and our souls. Ai will be given an update to learn about human nature but it will never replace us and neither dam well should it
The truth will set you free, but it can be lonely
You know what the hardest part of being upfront with people is? Being cast aside. The truth will indeed set you free, but the reality is people don’t really like hearing the truth. I suppose it takes courage to say what you really think, but it could also be labelled stupidity given when you do say something of truth people cut you off.
Now I actually couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about me nowadays, yes I’d like to have more approval I suppose but peoples opinions of me won’t keep me awake at night. The line that NFL legend Dion Sanders gave to a media conference a number of years ago in which he said; “…what part of you thinks I would care what you think about me…”, is a line I’ve always kept with me, but if you’re going to be that person then you best be ok with being alone.
I can also smell bullshit from 1,000 miles away. A stressed business, a person who is lying not only to themselves but to the people around them, a person that’s all nicey nicey to you but then makes absolutely no effort to maintain communication, the person that promises the world and comes through with zero…l’ve heard it all and met them all. Now I don’t set out to tell these people what I think of them there and then, that’s just rude, but I keep a mental record and am proven right 99% of the time down the track. Do they know I’m keeping track? Maybe maybe not, but I’m not often wrong.
It’s not my intention to cause offence to anyone, but I think I spent so much of my life trying to appease people and not being who I was meant to be that my brutal grip on reality is now not for everyone. It’s ok not to like me, it’s ok to avoid me, but at some point the truth will come home to roost for most people.
For me, the truth has set me free. I don’t have to put up with people I have no time for, I don’t pander to the deliberately selfish, I can’t be bothered with those that lie to themselves or those around them and I’m just not going to work with people I have no respect for. My choices, my life but if you’re going to be the same then be ready for a small circle of those that understand you and be content with your own company.
The day after
Hey guess what?! Writing a book and putting it out there suck ass! While a good number of people have bought the book and been hugely supportive of me and it, the whole process of releasing it felt like throwing it down a dark well with no bottom. Not long after throwing it in said well I felt like throwing myself in after it!
Don’t obsess over it my wife said…to which I replied, I’m sorry how long have we known each other?! Of course I’m going to obsess over it! She rolled her eyes and said, yes I know you are!
The idea that any book can become an instant success is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. Yes of course there are authors that do see their book sales go through the roof instantly but what percentage of writers does that happen to? It comes back to how you judge success and how willing you are to be the person that keeps going no matter what.
I’d of course like my book to sell millions of copies, become a Netflix series and stand out as a beacon for the hospitality industry, but if it doesn’t then that’s ok. Why? Because while I haven’t had tonnes of money to spend on advertising it I’m a published author. I wrote a 35,000 word book. I published it myself, had some help with design but put it out into the world on my terms and did it the way I wanted.
The empty feeling I had yesterday as I threw the book out there is still there today, but we’ve sold some books and while I’ve got my sales targets the next one is already in the planning. So all
I can say to people wanting to write a book is give yourself a time line, give yourself an end date and accept that while you will have a sense of achievement when it’s done it will be one of the loneliest experiences of your life.
With that in mind! Buy my book using the link below!
Putting it out there
There’s part of me that would rather stand naked in the middle of Bourke Street than have my own book out there in the big wide world, but I also know that a huge part of what I do nowadays is putting myself out there no matter what.
Singing for me in public was for a long time terrifying but later on it became e something I looked forward to. When I took to writing Ronnie Di Stasio said to me, never put anything in the world you’re not prepared to stand by, and I’ve never forgotten it. Everything I write I stand by.
When I decided I needed to have a book out there it needed to be on something I really knew about and I needed to be able to entertain, tell a story. So I picked hospitality and hopefully I will entertain people with it but it doesn’t mean I’m not extremely nervous about it selling. If it sells under 50 copies in the next year that will be humiliating, but maybe it’ll sell 100 and it won’t be quite so bad…who knows?! The point though is that to get to where you want to be you have to put yourself out there.
You have to be prepared to stand up bollock naked, metaphorically or otherwise and lay it all on the line. You can pay attention to the noise, you can buy into the praise or the criticism but you have to stand by what you’ve written. You have to believe it, you have to be able to explain it and you have to be able to take the good and the bad because that’s how you get to the next one, then the next one, the one after that.
Doing anything that shows who you really are is hard, but imagine a life where you don’t make yourself vulnerable, where you don’t take risks and where you’re not putting yourself out there…that’s not a place any of us should live in, but regardless it doesn’t it make it any easier to stand there naked in front of the world!
Writing a book
Was writing a mid length book hard? Not that hard but it certainly takes a little bit of determination to make sure you get it done.
The biggest tip I can give anyone thinking about writing a book is have a deadline. If you’re lucky enough to have a publisher they’ll give you the deadlines and I assume keep on top of where you’re at, but if it’s just you, then you have to be brutal with yourself as to when you need to have it all done by.
I set my book up into chapters of different topics, the chef, the owner, the waiter etc…each chapter is about 1,000 words so the ideas don’t need to span hundreds of pages. I didn’t really have notes rather I had topics within each section and I just wrote. I made myself keep to writing a chapter if not two everyday which got me to my deadline date.
Once it was done though and with no publisher I had to work out how to actually publish it. If anyone does want some tips feel free to email me at news@hoodiesmedia.org but all I’ll say here is, don’t sign up with a self publishing ‘expert’ because you can do most of it yourself.
I have several other book projects I’d like to get done now that I’ve done the first one, with the next one being a novel. Now that is taking a very different route because I have to have notes, characters, plot design and development ideas plus it’ll end up being 100,000 words so I need to make sure I stay on track. Again though for a novel you can absolutely publish it yourself!
Writing a book for me was a little cathartic, while I don’t go deep into the lives of my family or certainly gave me the chance to write about them in a way I had never done so. The next book will be the one that really delves into who they are.
Did I enjoy writing my first book? Yes and no, there were days when I thought oh just fuck off, but others where I thought gees if I pull this off I’m a published author. Will it sell? Mmmm who knows, I’ve got a plan to help it sell, but hey at least my wife said she’ll buy one!
The Days of zero progress
I think I write some of these soul pieces to vent off the back of my own experiences but to also say to people they’re not alone in their frustrations.
Yesterday I had one of those nothing days. Days where you’ve got your head down, working on x project while you’re watching numbers and hits on content to see if you need to make adjustments. I got to the end of the day and felt like it was just a crap day. Phone didn’t really ring apart from a couple of arrogant chefs and nothing really happened which in my world is ok sometimes but it just throws you off.
I got to that point where I started doubting everything I do! Ugh that’s crap, ugh that’s never going to work, that will never happen, no one wants to talk to me, blah blah on it went, but it made me think…these are the days you have to write off and say hey ok that wasn’t a great day but we still showed up. We still got stuff done and we are still on the journey.
So much of what I do is flying solo. No one would know if I sat on my phone all day doom
Scrolling, no one would know if I watched Netflix all day, but I would. Even on the hardest days I still have the discipline to stick to the plan, get things done and move on.
Working for yourself can suck. No one believes in you, no one thinks you’ll make it work, no one will offer to support your ideas but you have to keep going. It’s the days that are the quietest that are the struggle but they are the days that really make you who you are.
Putting yourself out there
Writing your first book is one thing, but then asking people to buy it is a whole other thing. When I sang I never really thought about it, it was part of who I was and I’d just rip it out, but this whole writing things has taken something else inside me to say hey let’s go do this.
It was Covid when I was encouraged to write more about what was happening around us and what I wrote got traction. But I remember joining LinkedIn with zero followers and no real idea what I was doing but jump forward to today and there are thousands of people following me.
See I am a terrible self publicist and because of that I’ve had to have a few hard conversations with myself about what I’m doing. You have to believe in yourself and what you’re doing because if it’s not you then who will it be? You might be lucky to have a supportive partner or family but they’re not the ones who will need to be doing the work, you are.
So if you’ve got a plan, got a dream, an idea or something that you think you need to do then you have to be prepared to put it and you out there. If you’re not and you can’t do it, go do something else, because until you can be putting yourself out there confidently and courageously you won’t make it work.
Be brave, be bold, keep going when there’s no one around and don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.
Let’s go Fat Dad
Ok are we in or are we out? Check back with me later in the week but the plan is to get fit. I know I eat too many chips, have chocolate too often and have a massively unhealthy addiction to soft drink, but I gave the fags away so why can’t I keep the CCS? (Chips, chocolate, Soft drink) well it’s because they’re just straight up bad for you.
The drinking doesn’t help either. Not that I’m heavy drinker but it’s a great source of being a fat ass so guess what bye bye booze! Despite having given smoking away some 7 years ago I feel I ate less when I smoked but the idea of lung cancer and my family saying enough is enough has got me on the healthy side of life.
I did my biannual bowel cancer screening recently which casa back negative but how many of us know someone who knows someone who’s died from it had cancer? Too many and while our whole lives suggest we are bigger, fitter faster and smarter than ever before, we seem to have these massive increases in cases of cancer and of injury, why? We need but look at our food…
The whole point of this is that I’m starting to get fit again, lose 10 or 15 kgs and not die before agency father was, 62. Can I do it? I can, but will I? That remains to be seen but let’s go have a major crack at making fat dad fit dad again!
Putting yourself out there
I’ve had a couple of weeks of hey this is all going ok, until late last week and whack! If you think I disliked people before I found a whole new hatred for some of them when I was told how to run my business by someone who could barely run theirs. I was actually quite proud of myself for not losing my shit at them, instead I just said no problem and all the best.
It gave me opportunity to reassess and go over what I was putting out there and I thought, hey I’m ok with what I do and how I go about it. If people don’t like it they can fuck off! But then another whack! My book!
Writing a book of some 35,000 words hasn’t been a torture, it’s been hard but not horrible. The issue is that now it’s finished I’m terrified. Terrified because while I can put myself out there with my business, the Daily, videos etc this book is a real slice of me and I’m not great at putting myself REALLY out there.
In the years I was at uni I did a drama class which I loved and hated at the same time. I was always very nervous about being vulnerable in front of a crowd and while I came to terms with it later at drama classes I was a nervous wreck. Needless to say I had and still have trust issues but this book has made me feel like I’m back in drama class.
The point of all this is that at some stage you have to put yourself out there. You have to be vulnerable. Whether your speaking in front of a crowd, delivering a conference presentation, performing, talking about a book you have to have the confidence in what you’ve done and what you can do to be able to deliver.
Am I confident in what I’ve done with my book? Fuck no, but I sure as hell don’t put up with people who give me the shits!
One day it will all be gone
At a kids concert recently we came home full of those proud parent moments where that little person you made can now step onto a stage and throw their arms around being brave and confident. It made me think that soon it’ll all be over.
We are always proud of what our kids achieve at whatever age but the school concerts and the sports and the kid like stuff will soon be all over and may never return. We’re older parents so will be seriously old by the time grand kids come around if they do in our life time, but while we live in a house full of toys, glitter, left behind games, books and clothes scattered around it does make me a little sad.
You don’t want your kids to grow up but you kind of do, they have to and they do but there is something very special about having the stuff lying around. Yes it’s fucking annoying have crap everywhere and them not doing what they’re told, but sooner than you realise it’s gone.
As I’ve got older I’ve found an inner peace that I didn’t have when I was younger, and while I like to have some semblance of order and control in our house I don’t get that upset about the kid stuff being around. One day it’ll all be gone and I’ll miss it terribly so for now it can stay where it is.
Watch the sunset
I saw a picture recently of a man lying on an ambulance bed looking at the sunset. Standing beside him were two paramedics both also looking at the sunset. The story was that the man was on his way to palliative care and he’d asked the paramedics to let him watch a sunset for what would probably be the last time. They agreed and stood beside him as he took in his last sunset.
It sounds somewhat wet, for want of a better description, but even now when everyone is doing it tough we need to make time to watch the sunset. But it’s not actually about watching a sunset it’s about acknowledging and caring about the things that truly matter in our lives.
We’re busy, we’re chasing more money, we need to feed families, to be better parents, to do more at work, to keep the balls in the air but we can so easily let the important things slip away. They slip so far away that when we get to the end of our days we sit and say I should’ve done more…
Don’t miss the sunset and don’t miss the important things that are the easiest to see because they’re right in front of us each and everyday.
Kids and resilience
People shit me, but stupid people shit me even more, especially when it comes to kids. In the modern era of everyone has feelings, people have safe spaces, everyone has a voice and there are no wrong answers how exactly do we teach kids resilience?
Now I have made some mistakes as a parent but what I’ve always thought is that kids have to learn that life isn’t rainbows and unicorns, they need to learn resilience. I learned about life the hard way and don’t want my kids to learn things the really hard way so we give them opportunities that can indeed see them fail. They have to fail to learn but while we all want to keep our kids safe and protect them what on earth do some parents think they’re doing?!
We had an instance recently where a sports group one of our kids was involved in didn’t make it through to the next round of competition. They were all new to the sport but really were a bit rubbish, but as much as some of them tried their best the team simply wasn’t good enough to make it through. We as parents knew it and explained it just that way to our kid. We said hey good try but you’re going to have to work harder next time if you want to be better. Upset yes, but not devastated and said I’m back in for next season…ok good. But fuck me!
Next thing we know, there are upset parents that little Sunshine didn’t get through that an appeal needed to go in that they deserve to have their chance to shine…and of course there was the issue of money but really? Are we so moronic that we can’t see that our kids need to learn hardship to be better? Life is tough, we need kids to learn lessons but giving them praise when it’s not deserved does what exactly?
How do we see new leaders emerge, how do we see advancements in society, how do we solve the problems faced by people and how do we give kids a future if we tell them that everything they do is amazing when it’s simply not? Kids have to learn resilience. While they might bitch and moan about it the life long lessons they get from having to get up and try again are much better than the delusions fed to them by parents who want little Sunshine to get a participation medal.
Cut the bullshit
A few days ago I had a cull. A cull of the things that had real bearing on my life. I cut out the things and people that I was wasting time on and gees! Not only am I more productive and focused but it feels as if I’ve lifted a weight off my head.
How many of us waste time on shit we don’t need to? See I don’t understand why people need such a big circle of people, I’m a grumpy old bastard it must be said but I don’t need to be taking selfies and talking to people to make myself feel better about who I am.
Less is more. No we can’t get to where we want to be on our own but the more focused we are, the less distractions we have and the better we feel about our own direction the more we will get done.
My advice? Learn to be alone. Learn to get through a to do list without picking up your phone. Stay off social media. Be relentless in pursuit of what it is you want to get done and be productive each and every day. Don’t listen to the noise and be who you’re meant to be without trying to please everyone around you.
Be Focused. Be Relentless. Be Successful
Define your own success
There are currently 8.3 billion people living on planet earth. Of those 8.3 billion 3,000 are billionaires. That means that 0.000036% of people on this planet are billionaires. I am all for saying you can do anything you want in life and be who you want but while you may end up as part of the 0.000036% we don’t need to find success in money and what social media defines it as.
Yes, money makes life a whole lot easier but sitting on my couch at home with two of the three kelpies, writing, sending emails, doing what I need to do for family and work that’s enough, that’s success right there for me.
Do I like antique watches? Yes. Do I own one? No. Would I like to build a shed house at the beach? Yes. Can I? Nope. Do I love the sound of a mighty V8 in an 1960’s or 70’s muscle car? Absolutely I do, but do I own one of those? Nope. Does any of this matter? No, it does not, why? Because I have the things that make me happy…a partner I’d give my life for, daughters who are doing their own things and becoming who they’re meant to be, dogs, cats, horses, health, food on the table, a roof over our heads, cars that get us to where we need to be and simplicity.
Do we aspire to have the Shed house? Yeah we do, but if we don’t get it will it ruin our lives? No it won’t.
Success is what ever you define it as, and while things will and can go wrong there is one thing you absolutely must have to be successful and that is an honest no bullshit relationship with yourself. If you’re lying to yourself then you’re lying to everyone around you and you will never find joy or success.
Be who you are, be who you’re meant to be, find joy in simple things and most of all define what success really is to you.
Do what matters & ignore the noise
WhatsApp groups part of daily life now. Created for this reason or that and when I ditched a few of them recently it got me thinking that we really do need to think about what matters and what doesn’t. Once we’ve established the important things in life that’s where our focus needs to be.
It’s so easy to get caught up in our phones nowadays. My phone is my life. I can do pretty much everything on it. I use it for research, emailing, social media marketing, brand development and entertainment…I’d be lost without it, but as I exited several WhatsApp groups it made me think I really need to pull back on phone usage.
Now I make a concerted effort to leave the phone at home when we go out on family events. I don’t need to respond to emails within five seconds of them hitting my inbox, I don’t need to call back immediately and I don’t need to have conversations with people who aren’t going to listen.
In the hospitality industry everyone is smarter than you. Everyone has an answer and everyone is right. When you do get a consulting gig or you do find yourself in a position where you’ve been asked for advice it can go one of two ways. The first is that no one listens and you feel as if you’re wasting their time and yours or the second is that you’ve made a connection for life. The second is the one you want obviously but the trick is knowing how to and when to avoid the first one. My answer, trust your instincts. At every stage of my business journey I’ve been right about how relationships and situations would play out. The early ones I took because I needed the cash flow but now as much as I still need the cash flow I avoid the ones where my intuition is saying danger danger danger!
It’s all about choices and then it’s about making the choices that are important for you as a person and your nearest and dearest. Less is more I say, less distractions, less people more meaning. It’s a balance but start with less distractions you’ll be amazed how liberating it is.
Ai is a bubble
I love and loathe Scott Galloway. The man is like Elliot Goblet (google it) but is a genius of business and giving it to people straight. He doesn’t mince his words and while he can wind you up he’s not often wrong.
On a recent podcast he was asked about Ai and its current valuation and he said it was so over valued that it’s getting to a point where people will be shorting it. Is he right? Well yeah he probably is. See while Ai is an amazing thing how do any of these investors who have handed over trillions of dollars get their money back?
Remember the tech bubble? How did Napster fail? How did we see so many tech startups go down the tube and only the strong survive? Well it was about supply and demand but it was also about some tech companies being able to make it all work financially. When Facebook started there were no ads, instagram the same, but now? You pay Meta to advertise, what’s Chat GPT doing to recoup money?
The Chinese EV market is flooding the world. Cheaply made cars that are so fast and so easy to drive we seem to be just saying yes at every opportunity. So while the Chinese have taken over the EV market what’s to stop them doing the same thing to the Ai market? Nvidia now sell their chips in China and so not if but when China designs Ai models that are faster and more efficient than the likes of Chat GPT what then? Well stock markets across the world that are facing collapse because they’re over leveraged with investment in Ai.
Governments across the world are allowing massive water sucking data centres to be built across their communities and while that’s good infrastructure planning you can’t help but ask when the Chinese will be swooping in to buy the lot.
Ai isn’t going to ruin humanity, humans can do that themselves, but while the world is banking on Ai changing the world it’s just not going to do it to the level some are suggesting. Galloway is annoying but not often wrong and I’m right with him on the future of Ai.
Rich people & advice
We’d all like to have more money, even though money can ruin your life it does make things easier. Anyone that runs their own business invariably didn’t start it to become rich, they did it to make a difference, to be their own boss and to be independent, but as we all climb the ladder you know what we can do without? The rich person handing out advice!
Now there is a big difference between those that motivate and offer advice to people. Their people who can definitely help, they offer pathways to making things simpler, more accessible, how to balance situations. They do it via their own experiences and they don’t need to be billionaires sitting on a yacht they can be anyone who has found a way to succeed and simply want to share those experiences, but then you have the rich person.
Scott Calloway who I love and hate at the same time said of rich people suggesting we do what we love, that they probably got rich by building oil wells or sucking the life out of the planet. Now I’m paraphrasing for Scott but the point he was making was that rich people often have absolutely no realistic advice for those on the bottom rungs of the ladder.
There was a comment posted by the founder of Netflix on social media recently that said, anyone that gets into business to get rich is wasting their time, says the billionaire. Now he’s not wrong but really? That’s the best advice he can give? Don’t do anything to get rich? Do what you love? You couldn’t offer something better than that? Timing is everything? Luck plays a part? Be ready when no one else is? Nope, don’t do anything to get rich. Cool thanks!
We can learn much from those that have succeeded and mind you being rich isn’t the only indicator of success, but we have to find our own way. Listen to everyone, take what you want from each and find your pathway. The piece of advice I’ve taken from a successful person is from Steve Jobs who said, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are often the ones that do. Go find your piece of advice and if it’s wanting to be rich then go do it because it’s your journey not theirs!
Brutal truths
If ever there was any advice I could give to people running their own businesses or to those chasing a dream it is, be honest with yourself.
The whole idea of doing your own thing, setting up your own business and being your own boss is all well and good but if you bullshit yourself about any step of it you are cooked. To get to where it is you want to be you need to be your own best friend, your greatest critic and also your most honest set of ears.
The other thing you need? That one person in your life that says I’ve got you. The brilliant author, motivational speaker and businessman, Simon Sinek made this point about having that one person in your life that is there for you no matter what. They’re going to be there for you when you fail, when you’re struggling and when you succeed, you need that person! I was incredibly lucky to find my person and as much as I can unquestionably be a dick she’s got me.
When you are lucky enough to find that person, your person you also have to be brutally honest with them. If you’re bullshitting the person who is there for you no matter what and they find out or realise you’re not doing everything you can to get to where you both want to be, they’ll dump you so fast you won’t know what hit you. So be honest, be brutal and don’t bullshit yourself.
Setting up your own business, chasing a dream, being who you are meant to be is hard, it’s lonely and not everyone can do it but if you’re serious about it do not make lies your master.
Why V8’s matter
I watched a movie recently where at the end one of the lead characters was given an old Chevy Camaro. The character for most of the movie had been quite downtrodden and lost but was surprised at the end of the movie with this old classic car. When he got in it he cried grateful and when he started it and the V8 came alive he laughed and a wore a smile of sheer joy, he was alive!
Now ok this was a movie but I remember driving an old Chevy truck with a V8 in it and I felt exactly the same way. It gave other people joy as well, a father and son drove past me staring at the old truck with massive smiles on their faces. My 92 80’s series Landcruiser gives me a sense of joy because it’s something you need to actually drive instead of sitting in pressing a button and being told what to do.
See in an era of automation, of a time when we seem to be allowing Ai to take over our lives we need to remember what living, feeling and freedom are all about.
We turn on the TV and see more violence, more
Government ineptitude, more EV’s arriving on our shores, more jobs taken by Ai, more cost of living pressure’s heaped on our weary souls but we need to remember that we have to allow ourselves to live. We can’t just be told what to think, what to say, how to act, what to drive, who to listen to and what to wear…we’re human! We need to feel alive, to feel free, to touch the rainbow, to feel the rain on our faces and to swim in the ocean.
It is hard to find time to feel free, it’s hard to think we are still free given all we have to contend with but no matter what we have to find our V8 moment and remember that we are still allowed to find joy in being human.
The motivators
We all have the people we listen to for motivation. David Goggins running like a madman, Tony Robbins doing it to feed the world, Nick Saban showing young men how to be men and all kinds of influencers showing us how to be better people.
There’s a lot of confusion on how to stay motivated. There are so many people saying so many things and they say it with such certainty it’s hard not to buy into it, but the secret of all it is that we have to find our own way.
My wife can’t stand him and I only take some of what he says onboard but I kind of like what Tony Robbins has to say. I really liked his documentary, I’m not your Guru, and while as I say I only take some of what he says onboard he helped me find my way.
When it comes to getting up at 4am, having life baths, taking peptides and journaling I say no thank you! I did try the whole 4am thing but I was asleep by 5pm and I hate getting up early and ice baths? Fuck no! But while I do write everything down it doesn’t make me less productive or motivated if I’m not up at 4am because I found my own way to get things done.
My wife is currently embarking on a new career in her post corporate life and as much as I’ve been down the path of going out on your own her journey is totally different to mine. She has to find her own way, I can make suggestions (sometimes to my own detriment and sleeping in the car) but it’s her journey and she needs to do it her way.
Motivation has to come from within for everything. Of you don’t have the motivation to get up, keep going and be better than nothing will ever change, you won’t get to where you want to be. So find your way, do it your way and while it’s important to understand how other people go on the journey it’s your journey so do it your way.
Mind over matter
In the last few days we’ve seen some truly awful things happen. While we’re deliberately not talking about some of them here at Hoodies we all at some stage need to use the old mind over matter strategy to be able to work through the things we have deal with.
I can’t tell you the number of times I have sat at my desk in my little home office thinking this is all a waste of time! What the hell am I doing!? But a day later I’m unable to stop writing and planning my next project full of excitement and optimism. To make that change though is about how you manage your mindset.
For years before I set up my own businesses mind set sounded like an absolute wank! Mindset I thought, pfft that’s all bullshit, the only mindset you need is to just keep going. Now that’s still true but it wasn’t until I realised that forging your own pathways isn’t easy and that no one is going to help you that have to have the right mindset.
The idea of mindset isn’t just about positive thinking. It’s not just about being able to come up with a plan, it’s about being able to push your brain into doing things you really don’t want to do. It’s about making yourself develop routines and strategies that enable you to adhere to the plan you’ve mapped out for yourself and your future.
The mind is an extraordinary thing and you need to master it before you can really succeed or simply deal with what you have to. Mindset isn’t just about making money or winning trophies it’s about dealing with things, understanding yourself and being who you have to be.
It’s not easy to overcome the things and road blocks your mind puts in your way but if you can then you’re setting yourself up for success and being on a pathway that can get you to where you want to be.
If
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
The power of kids performance
When kids have their chance to shine in an environment where they can be themselves and feel supported they are simply so much happier and confident.
Last night we were at a school concert where our daughter performed in an aerobics program that was just full of students having a great time and being themselves. The kids had unquestionably worked their butts off to get to their performance last night but they were supported by friends, family and the school who collectively gave them the chance to be who they are.
Kids are encouraged to be on iPads, to aspire to what influencers say is cool and the right look, they’re encouraged to conform and to allow their creativity to be taken away but it doesn’t need to be like that. No, not every kid has the opportunities some others are afforded and for some kids it’s simply about having shoes to wear to school, but no matter where kids come from, what they have and what they don’t have we absolutely must let kids be kids.
Over the last school holidays our local council in their infinite wisdom decided to close a skate park. Mind you it was to redo the whole thing but for the whole school holidays it was closed and devoid of kids. Not great planning but when it did reopen the kids were back in droves! Bikes, skateboards, scooters all up down and no hassles, kids just having a good time. It means that when we do give kids the opportunity to be outside, to have their opportunity to perform, to be part of something they can feel comfortable and safe in they can thrive!
In a world of social media, technology and shallow opinions we must give kids the chance to be themselves, to feel supported and to be confident in who they are. The rewards are infinite and the consequences for not giving them their moment to shine are devastating. Let kids be kids for their sake!
Now! Where do I get an adult pair of white Reeboks?! I’ve got an aerobics class to get to! Woo!
The place we need to be
When you’re tired
When you’re down
When you’re feeling like you can’t go on
When everyone and everything seems against you
When you ask what’s the fucking point
When you’re looking at your bank account seeing dots and zeros you’re asking what’s all this for
When you look at yourself in the mirror and think you could’ve been so much more
When the phone doesn’t ring and no one answers your call
When you’re looking off into empty spaces thinking can I be bothered anymore
When feel like going back to that person you used to be
When you think a smoke a beer or a line is the way to make it all ok
When you’re thinking you’re a failure and you’ve let everyone down
When you feel like nothing is working and nothing ever will
When you feel like everything you’ve built is nothing and it’s so much easier for so many more
When you feel you’re own mortality
When you’re a shadow of the person you used to be
When you think you just can’t go on…
That’s when you put down what it is you’re doing and say that’s enough now
It’s time to give myself this moment to flush it all away
It’s time to go again
It’s time to reflect on how far we’ve come but how far we have to go
It’s time to say I’ve got my direction and nothing will stop me getting to where I need to be
It’s time to say it doesn’t matter what anyone ever says
We know inside who we are
We know what we need to do
We know how we need to get there
Today is just an off day
And we all have them but we must never lose our focus on the places we need to go
So dust your self off and get a good nights sleep because tomorrow is the day we get back on with the our journey to the place we need to be.
Dads and their kids
If you get a chance go to the Instagram page of Elijah Holland’s Dad, Ben and see what a Dad’s love for his kids is all about.
I didn’t really have a whole lot to do with my Dad and as much as we’d reconnected later in his life it was a relationship that I never really had. When I had my own kids, daughters I had nothing except bad parenting to learn from. On the surface that sounds like a good thing when in reality I had no real idea how to deal with kids and then more importantly no one to ask about how to be better.
My first daughter is much smarter than me and was the product of a broken marriage so obviously isn’t a fan of me, but regardless of what she does think of me and the mistakes I did make I did everything I could to be there for everything. I never missed a concert, a school event, a birthday, Christmas, nothing. Did I have lots of money to spend on her? No I didn’t and did I get angry at her for treating me like a loser as she got older? I did but some of that was about me and how she was influenced. She’s off at Uni now and maybe she comes back one day but I live now knowing I couldn’t have done anymore.
When my second daughter came along she being also smarter than me she was and still is part of a strong family unit that she knows will be there for her no matter what. Dad drops her off at school, mum picks her up, we do things together and we are our own support network.
The point of this is that Dads do get shit wrong, they do make mistakes, they do sometimes live with regret, but for the most part Dads will be there for their kids no matter what. The kids might not realise it until years later and there may be major road blocks in the way of kids understanding their Dads but if the kids call out for help, how ever they do it, Dad is there no matter what.
Being a Dad goes beyond corporate spin and ticking a box. Being a Dad is hard and sometimes, most of the time doesn’t go according to plan but as Dad getting a hug from your kids and seeing them grow is unlike anything else. They are part of us, they always will be and if they have good days or bad Dad has their back and will drop whatever they’re doing to be there for them.
Purpose, Passion and Pathway
Who are we without purpose? What are we without passions? The reality is that we need purpose and we need passions in our lives or we live an empty unfulfilled life. Deep, but true, believer me I know.
When I was 15 I went to see Carmen the opera and from that moment I was hooked and wanted to be an opera singer. It took me years to become a paid opera singer but I did it. Once I had thought and once the realities of being a poor struggling singer sank in I had to work out what to do next.
For years my purpose was opera and I was lucky because it was my passion as well but it was gone and I had zero idea what to do next. With a family and kids came purpose, which was to be a dad, to provide for them and give them opportunities I didn’t have but there wasn’t a lot of passion in working half arses jobs that simply paid the bills. So passion was needed.
When Covid hit and the world came to screeching halt I did like everyone was told, stay home, get vaccinated, home school etc…but when Covid stopped being about a virus and became about government ineptitude and incompetence hey bingo passion!
Armed with purpose and passion I had to work out how to make both a manageable reality so I added a third component to the puzzle, pathway. I wrote down the three words and set about charting a way to making them a reality. How could I make my purpose and passion a realistic career is why I wanted to know. I had a several columns written down and wrote all the ways I could make them a reality and all the things that prevented me from doing so…
After a lot of writing and a lot of soul searching I came up with Staff Finder and then Hoodies but while I’d found my purpose, passion and pathway the real work began once I knew the answers.
We all need a purpose, we have to have passions and to make them a reality you need a pathway. That pathway is never easy and gees it’s a long path but if you can find your answers they will stay with you forever and you’ll never regret any part of the journey to finding all three.
Mindset
How many times have we heard the line, success is a mind set? That the power of the mind is what sets those who succeed apart from those that fail? Well no matter what anyone thinks about the idea of mindset it’s true because without the right mind set you’re never going to get to where you want to go.
Mindset is made up of so many different things it’s not just about a couple of hell yeahs we’ve got this, it’s about goal setting, planning, execution and delivery. It’s about thinking like you are the person you want to be and then actually being that person. If you want to be an entrepreneur then start acting like one, a race car driver, live like one, you want to train horses go live it. Don’t misunderstand me here, acting like the person you want to be isn’t about an aspirational life style, rather its about doing all the hard things that go with what it is you want to do.
You want to be a horse trainer, go work at the local horse stables, clean up horse shit, watch what trainers do, ask questions, read, learn and immerse yourself in the world. You want to be an entrepreneur? Read, listen, write, talk to people that have done it, lived it and are passionate about it. It’s all well and good for the great Tom Brady to say let’s fucking go, but the work he put in to getting to that point before games was barely comprehensible to the average person.
Success is a mind set and it starts from what time you set the alarm for, it’s what you do when your feet hit the floor in the morning, it’s what you eat, how you talk to people, what your daily goals are and what your longer term plan is to make what you want a reality. Without a plan you don’t have success and without the right mindset you will struggle to get out of bed in the morning.
Get your head in the game, start with what it is you want to do, who you want to be and tune your head into it…do it now because having the right mindset is realising that it’s you that affects the outcomes not anyone else, it’s all up to you. Let’s fucking go!
Lying
Imagine if you couldn’t lie. Do I look fat in this? Do you think I drink too much? Should we buy this? What did you think of your boss’s speech? Do you have a favourite child? I never had sexual relations with that woman…
How different would the world be? But as much as we can do without lying in some cases we actually need it. But if we need it it’s sort of ok, ok because a lie can be useful and while we’re not lying to deliberately deceive we’re lying for all manner of other reasons that justify the lie.
When we start lying about where we are to a spouse, that’s a pathway that ends badly for everyone. When we lie about homework we ultimately end up failing whatever test we had on said homework, but if we lie as to not offend, if we lie to shield someone from hurt or upset then lie away I say.
The lying to yourself is always bad news lying to yourself is not on at all ever. As soon as you lie to yourself you’re finished, because we need a clear pathway to be ourselves and that lying to ourselves blocks it every time!
The people who don’t lie to themselves are usually the people who have a brutal grip on reality. People who don’t suffer fools and don’t have time for innuendo or anything outside of their main purpose. Lying might be used as a tool on other people but they don’t have time or the inclination to lie to themselves about what they need to be doing and who they are.
Lying can be useful, it can be important and it can be ok but we shouldn’t do is believe the lie because that only leads to lying to ourselves and that one is the end for anyone that does it.
Disappointment
One of the sad realities of life is disappointment. Life unfortunately is not all rainbows and unicorns and we need to understand that disappointment and hardship will no doubt hit us in the heart but we have to accept it.
Running your own business with good intention leaves you massively vulnerable to people who don’t have good intentions. It’s a lesson you learn the hard way when your bills don’t get paid or someone promises you something but nothing ever eventuates. Now don’t get me wrong here both those things are ok and common in any kind of business but it’s when people aren’t straight with you that it becomes truly disappointing.
See, I’ve learnt the hard way that it is better to be totally upfront and brutally honest than it is to stuff around. Now my inner circle of people consists of, my wife, my youngest daughter and my 11 year old Kelpie and that’s pretty much it. Yes to get to where I want to go with Hoodies Media that circle will have to grow, but right now why I have is fine, but the size of that circle is in direct correlation to the fact that people don’t really like hard truths and in turn shy away from people like me that give it to them.
It’s when we allow ourselves to be open to the influence of others or ply our wares that we can be let down or in regard to what we’re talking about, disappointed. There have been a number of times in the last few weeks I’ve been disappointed and while some of it is on me we can’t allow ourselves to live in a bubble. We have to be vulnerable and understand that other people might not be as upfront or be on the same page as us.
So here’s to disappointment, here’s to those that can’t handle the truth and here’s to picking ourselves up and going again, because we really can overcome anything if we put our minds to it.
Pride
I’ve written about Pride before but now as the Artemis II mission ends and as Gout become the first Australian to run under 20 seconds for a 200m today we’re doing Pride again.
The Pride I think we should feel this Monday is for the crew of the Artemis II team. What an extraordinary achievement and I really believe the world is proud of them. We seem to be proud or have pride in people who have zero interest in us, but have to be dragged kicking and screaming to those we should be proud of.
Nationalistic pride is something that has become in short supply here in the great land downunder when we should be shouting from the roof tops about who we are and how lucky we all are. The whole Gout Gout thing can potentially bring back some pride to the country and for politicians give them an opportunity to talk about the positivity rather than the negativity that we also seen . Australia needs Gout Gout and we can’t wait to see what’s heights he can lift us too! Let’s go Gout we are all with you!
Integrity
Integrity, the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
How many people today have integrity? Yes some people still do have it but a good portion do not. The quality of being honest is one thing, but having strong moral principles is another hint all together.
Morality is the stuff your grandparents taught you or you learnt from old school TV shows like the Sullivans. Men were made of good moral character, they stand up for women or elderly people on a train, they abide by the law, they’re honest, they treat people with respect and empathy and they act without deceit. How many people operate with all of that in mind today?
The sad truth is not everyone but there should indeed be more of it. No we’re not asking for people to take integrity to an extreme but what’s wrong with simply being mindful of your fellow man and woman? Many men could start by not being coked up liars, that would be a good start. But it’s not about the Coked up twats it’s about talking a minute to check in on the elderly neighbour, to be kind to the person in the cafe, to help someone with a bag to their car and to put away the phone to spend more time with the family.
Being from the dysfunctional family I came from I did actually get a good portion of my moral compass from Dave Sullivan but I also thought Jim Rockford was a decent man, both were TV role models that had integrity. In real life the likes of Tom Brady, Shohei Ohtani, Christiano Ronaldo, Jess Fox, Ash Barty and Simone Biles all highly successful sports people of great integrity. You have to look hard for people in politics, in business and in the rest of the world for examples of great integrity but that shouldn’t be the case.
The world is changing constantly now and not for the better so right now we need to rediscover what our grandmothers taught us because even in 2026 integrity still matters.
Honesty
I have nothing if I am not honest. How can we genuinely live any other way? After I’d gone through my own personal soul search I had a tattoo done on my left forearm, it reads,
La force, Le courage et la verite
Strength courage and truth…it’s how I live, it’s how I have built what I have and it’s how I feel we all need to live. There is so much utter bullshit in the world and while we don’t need everyone to have my brutal grip on reality what we do need at the very least is some more honesty in the world.
When I say honesty I’m not talking about the Jim Carrey movie, Liar Liar, I’m talking about being as direct and as upfront as we can with people without causing offence. Men and women both know how to handle relationship questions about truth but what’s wrong with calling it like you see it in the corporate or media world? So long as the honesty comes from a place of wanting to make a change or difference then say it like it is.
Honesty isn’t about being manipulative or offering truth to offend it is about offering realities. If you do this that will happen, is that the outcome you want? If this person does that the outcome will be, and so on. Honesty is indeed the best policy but will it make you popular? No. Will people like you more? Probably not, but will you be able to sleep at night? I’d say yes, but if you are going to be honest with people understand you won’t have many friends.
While honesty isn’t the popular choice for many people the one person you must be honest with is yourself. You cannot bullshit yourself because of you do, who else is going to call you out? Who else is going to say you’ve screwed up? Who else is going to make changes in your life? No one. As the saying goes, no one is coming to save you so be honest with yourself a what’s possible or you won’t survive.
Honesty is always easier said than done and believe me honesty has cost me a lot, but I’d rather be honest with myself and the world at large than live my life as someone else and not rooted in reality.
Pride
Having Pride in what you do and who you are is what will keep you motivated. It is a powerful thing is Pride, it’s what brings people together, it’s what stirs faith in a nation, in a sporting team and it’s what sends people together war.
Pride is about believing in something and standing by it no matter what. Having pride in what you believe or what you stand for can see you cast aside or put you on the outer but so long as you have that pride you have your motivation to keep going.
In the modern world having nationalistic pride seems to be something that is not always encouraged and yet why? If we are living in a free and democratic society then what’s wrong with nationalistic pride? What’s wrong with flying the flag of your country in the face of those that want to tear it down? Pride is a good thing and should be celebrated!
Today more than ever we need to have pride in what we do. We need to have it for the country we live in and the for the ways in which we live. If we can’t see how important pride is in modern society then we are in serious trouble of losing our identity.
Take pride in what you do, who you are and where you come from, because governments may take away all manner of things but they should never be allowed to take away our pride in who we are.
Resilience in 2026
Coming from a broken home, spending time in foster care and then having to rebuild my life more than once I have learnt the hard way about what resilience is all about. You don’t need to have been beaten as a child or suffer immeasurably to understand resilience but it’s unquestionably the case that right now all of us need to understand how to be resilient.
The big thing to remember about finding resilience is that it’s your journey! You can indeed take advice from people and social media posts but ultimately you have to find your own way forward and your motivations to keep going.
Resilience is simply the ability to absorb hard and challenging things and keep going no matter what! It’s about being pushed to your absolute limits and then finding another gear that says we have to keep going. Right now we need to find resilience in nearly every aspect of our lives. In business, in the cost of living crisis, in keeping food on the table and the lights on and now keeping petrol in the car. These are the things we all have to face but then if you aspire to achieve other things the resilience you need to find is on another level! Not only do you need to be able to deal with modern life, you have to bounce back from rejection and learn from all of it! Being able to overcome all of this is real resilience!
Resilience isn’t just about us overcoming the hard things in life we also need to teach it to our kids. None of us want our kids to experience some of the things we had to growing up but they still need to understand that life can knock you down and you absolutely must get up again! We can’t protect our kids from all the big bad world will thrust upon them but we can teach them about resilience then they will be much better off.
It is hard to keep going at the moment, it’s hard to rise above the noise saying don’t bother, rise above the negativity on social media, but we have to ignore all of it, keep going, go again and show the world what your version of resilience actually looks like.
Hard things are hard for a reason and right now things are hard but if you can find you’re own resilience you will ultimately be so much better off and you will have learned that from hard times come great success and opportunities! So get on with finding your resilience now.
#different 