Uncommon

Steve Hui or “The Points Whisperer” as he’s affectionately known, is the Founder and CEO of iFLYflat - a rewards points specialist service based in Australia. If you’ve ever wondered how to create a level of luxury and access through your spending, then Steve is your man.

There’s no doubt that at some stage in your life, you’ve endeavoured to use your frequent flyer points, aimed for an upgrade or maybe just dreamed about a beautiful flying experience for once. Like most of us you’ve probably come to be shocked at how out of reach that really is, or how long it takes to accrue anything of value.

So with all of the noise out there on earning points through spending - how do you know the best way to go?

With Steve’s knack for numbers (thanks to his accountancy background), his passion for flying, and ability to analyse opportunities assists in this process of identifying the how, where and why for any business traveller, or individual wanting to book their trip of a lifetime.

As Steve mentions, Rich Dad, Poor Dad was the book that shaped his view on how he values money. It’s all about maximising those dollars to provide you with access - where you really can get that experience, if you just do the numbers right...and with far less money than you’d think.

Dr James Martin is a Senior Lecturer and Criminology Program Coordinator at the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University. He has specific expertise in cryptomarkets, online drug distribution, organised crime and vigilantism.

James (like our previous guest Dr Stephen Bright ) has an exceptional ability to highlight the intricacies and misconceptions of the way in which the general public views illicit drugs, challenging what you believe of the government narrative. His leadership in research on a new and burgeoning field of criminology - Cryptomarkets - is underlined by the fact that his work was referenced in the court case of Silk Road’s accused mastermind.

Cryptomarkets have had immense success with decentralised protocols like Bitcoin’s Blockchain and the anonymous browser Tor, which emphasise a key geo-socio-political theme we see happening across the entire world - decentralisation.

This episode will challenge your perception on drug culture, trade and enforcement - hopefully enlightening you along the way. James finds himself continuously reminding people that Criminology is just not as glamorous as TV portrays it - we’re looking at you, Law & Order!

Elaine Stead is a Venture Capitalist, and is the Head of Blue Sky’s VC division.

Elaine is not your traditional VC (the Patagonia vest wearing kind), but an embodiment of the new generation of young VC’s entering the game - former entrepreneurs with a nous and passion for technology and teams.

You’ll discover that Elaine is unique in her understanding of the “game” that is venture capitalism, and has built an offering at Blue Sky that provides Australian entrepreneurs with rare access to Asia and the Americas.

She is open and incredibly sharp with her wit (trust me, you should follow her on Twitter for the travel tales). But Elaine also displays incredible awareness and emotional intelligence - only attributes that could be fostered by her unique upbringing and career.

You’ve probably heard Elaine articulate gems about what it takes to build a companies in many interviews now, So I hope that we’ve been able to capture a snapshot of her united theory of entrepreneurship for you.

Seb Lindner is an entrepreneur who’s built an incredible lifestyle off the back of Airbnb - with some indirect guidance from lifestyle entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferriss. Originally starting out with Short Stays Victoria, Seb has since branched out into multiple projects including urban agriculture, and most recently, his ride sharing app, Buckle Up.

You’ve no doubt heard people like Gary Vaynerchuk highlight how high-tech, massively funded, cash-

guzzling startups are the trend, and that at some point this ‘glamour’ of entrepreneurship is going to come crashing down. This obsession almost makes it impossible for the everyman to consider starting a modern, yet agile, small business. Coincidentally, Jack Delosa recently highlighted that the greatest reason for entrepreneurs joining The Entourage was not because they wanted to earn a million dollars, but because they wanted to define their lifestyle and do something that had meaning to them.

What I like about Seb is that he bucks this glamour trend. By building such a simple business first, he learnt what mattered to people and the product, then removed himself entirely from the day-to-day process. By doing that, he’s demonstrated to you and I, that you can create space through modern small businesses. Space that is so crucial to working on the business, developing yourself as an individual (through, say, meditation retreats), or simply attempting challenging new projects (like Buckle Up).

This interview, along with one of our previous episodes with Nathan Chan, gives me immense confidence that businesses like ours and yours can reach the goals we want, so long as we don’t overcomplicate what can be necessarily simple. Doing that can open up your life to an opportunity that you never thought possible.

Josh Wade is a comedian, entertainer, podcast host, and budding documentarian. Josh has built a career around brilliant comedy that was forged in the pits of YouTube through sheer necessity and the creation of the realistic character, “Cunny”.

Josh is as real as they get. They often say that art must reflect your life, and he has certainly experienced it through dark periods that you and I may never have to experience.

His acceptance and openness of these hardships shows a man that can dig deep into just about any topic, and tell the story behind it.

You’ll learn through his stand-up, docos and podcast that he has a thirst and drive to understand the intricacies around your world, helping people understand it further in the process.

This was an amazing opportunity to interview a young man that’s achieved a lot in a small period of time, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Philip Dalidakis MP ( @philipdalidakis ) is the Victorian Minister for Trade & Investment, Innovation & the Digital Economy, and Small Business. In addition, he is also MP for the Southern Metro area.

Phil is a unique individual, a life-long St Kilda supporter (something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemies) and a politician who genuinely cares for building the infrastructure that will allow Victorian businesses to succeed, while setting up a future that his children can be proud of.

I believe it’s incredibly important that we engage and understand the leaders of our community. For the Startup & Innovation sector across Australia, this will be a useful conversation for considering the goals of Phil and his team in the community.

I hope that this interview will showcase that politicians are just ordinary people, tasked with a never-ending list of priorities, a mob of people looking to get something out of of them, all the while trying to navigate our future.

Jordan Shanks aka Friendlyjordies is a comedian, radio host, YouTuber and creator.

You have no doubt seen the extent of comedians that we’ve hosted on this podcast including Neel Kolhatkar, Titus O’Reilly, Tom Ballard and now Jordan. I strongly believe that in this moment in time, comedians play an indispensable role in keeping both the media and public discourse in check.

In this new digital media world, there’s so much content being distributed that I think the real value in future will come from people we trust. This group of comedians, including Jordan should form your “Counsel of Bullshit Detectors”.

While everyone is paranoid about skin colour, social justice and being excruciatingly politically correct - these people are keeping it real about legitimate topics and challenging the current process of blindly following group-think.

It’s important then that both you and I are able to get a mix of comedians that have certain political biases. Jordan is unabashedly biased about his political leanings to the left, and he will challenge any conservative with sound rationalism across many topics. I have personally loved Jordan’s Friendlyjordies channel since YouTube existed in my life, and I find his work hilarious.

It doesn’t surprise me that with such intelligent “infotainment” that Jordan has brought further sides to his creative work; in particular radio hosting, and life advice. His life advice channel has been incredibly refreshing and a real contrast to many comedians, showing that he’s always focused on being better.

Intelligent and truthful comedians are important to your future, and Jordan will be a crucial piece of that to your “Bullshit counsel”. I hope this conversation convinces you as to why.

Adrian Stone is your favourite small-time VC, and a self-confessed personal finance geek. Adrian has started and sold a multi-million dollar insurance technology business, seeded numerous startups and founders in Melbourne, all the while building a comfortable real estate portfolio.

I’ve been wanting to cover the area of personal finance for a long time now, and being that Adrian is an expert on the topic (with intentions of writing a book), I thought it made sense to rope him into speaking to you again. Everyone claims to understand personal wealth and finance, but Adrian makes a valid point in that unless you’ve had some form of financial success in your life, you really shouldn’t be writing about it.

So why is personal finance important?

If you think about it, personal finance allows you to work back and ask - why am I doing what I’m doing with my life? By articulating why you’ve chosen your profession - the business you’ve started or lifestyle you’ve created - you’re able to clearly delineate how you want to spend the time you have in this precious life and how you will fund it.

At the end of the day, we need cash to live. Warren Buffett has always said that “money doesn’t know where it comes from...it all spends the same”. Whether you run a brick business or a technology startup, knowing how much is coming to you and when is important for outlining and defining the lifestyle you want.

This episode is a nice primer for future episodes covering all the key topics across debt, budgeting and finance.

Tom Ballard is a comedian, TV show host, and former Triple J radio presenter.

It’s kind of surreal to believe that after all those years of sitting in traffic on the way to university, listening to Tom & Alex’s breakfast show, that I’d find myself interviewing him in the flesh. Life can be funny like that.

I have immense respect for what he’s done as an entertainer - it’s the sign of a great comedian when they can effortlessly move across different mediums - whether it’s TV, radio, podcasts or stand up.

Tom’s podcast (Like I’m A Six Year Old) is undoubtedly one of the most popular Australian produced shows at the moment. His ability to have well balanced, inquisitive and funny conversations across many political topics is exactly what you need in a world where everyone’s screaming at each other. Although Tom is politically left, you’ll find many conversations he has with people who have diametrically opposed ideas - and yet a civil conversation is still able to be had. This is the secret weapon of comedy.

I believe it’s important that you and I continue to learn together about having deep, long form, political conversations. Without it, we won’t be able to make sense of the flood of content and sound bites that pervade our digital world.

This was a refreshing take on how Tom views his world, and challenges political conversations.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Jessica Curl is a functional diagnostic nutritionist, personal trainer, strength coach, former athlete, and now, owner of The Better Health Project.

When my former guest and now coach, Paul Creasey, recommended I interview Jess I thought I should sit up and pay attention to what she’s doing - particularly because she has incredible insight and knowledge when it comes to sleep.

My own experience with sleep and stress management began way back in 2012. Like some of you (25% in fact), I was experiencing debilitating generalised anxiety disorder. I remember going to hospital several times in an ambulance and it wasn’t until I was sitting in a hospital bed in the emergency unit, where both my dad and the resident doctor (who now knew me by first name) gave me a very frank conversation about lifestyle.

That whole period was really the catalyst for a chain of self improvement (particularly focused on the brain and body), and hence resulted in the eventual creation of Neuralle.

I know that statistically you’ve experienced anxiety at some point in your life, which is most often correlated with poor sleep and stress management. During my own self-discovery, I realised that sleep and stress are the bed-rock of your health, and it’s incredibly likely that you aren’t managing it correctly - in fact not many of our listeners are. 30% of the world is sleep deprived according to the WHO, and the effects are enormous (reducing our sleep by a third increases DNA damage by over 200%) .

There are over 82,000 results for “sleep” books on Amazon as of October 2017, and I’m absolutely sure that the majority carry on with old wives tales about everyone needing 8 hours sleep, that consuming a high dose of carbohydrates before bed helps, or drinking lots of water before bed is required.

We were originally considering writing an e-book for you and our listeners, but we instead decided that interviewing someone like Jess and sleep scientists, would be a better way of opening up your knowledge.

The importance of sleep cannot be underestimated. In our interview, Jess noted in a piece of peer-reviewed literature, that the longest known example of a person surviving without sleep is 18 days, and for surviving without food, is over a year.

Jess is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to this area, and I know that this is a great way for you and I to start our research together.