Transcript of AE 972 - Why Quitting $150k/Year Job is Worth It | Kyrin Down

G'day, you mob. How's it going? Pete here, from Aussie English, and this is obviously another Aussie English episode. So, today I have an interview episode for you where I sit down with Kyrin Down. Kyrin Down is from Brisbane, Australia. He is a fair dinkum True-Blue Aussie guy. He studied mining engineering at a university, he then later went on to become obviously a mining engineer working for Rio Tinto.

He then threw it all away to globe trot, to travel around the world, including South America and Central America as well as Asia, start learning languages, he fell in love with a Colombian. He's just had a really interesting story, and the guy's not even 30 years old yet. Right. So, yeah. Anyway. He reached out after the Bec and Penelope episode that I did recently, the interview episode with the girls from the Language Chats Podcast.

And just said that he loved what I was doing with the podcast. We sort of had a bit of a chat, got to know one another. He's got a podcast called Mere Mortals, so go check that out, guys. And yeah, we just had a lot in common. He is a minimalist at heart now. He likes to talk about deeper topics, so this interview ended up going for about two hours, which is why I've split it up into two parts.

Today is the first part and I will release the second part soon. Anyway, without any further ado, guys, let's get into it.

G'day, you mob. welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I have special guest Kyrin Down, who is the host of the Mere Mortals podcast. But more than that, you have a pretty interesting background, as I was just telling you, that I was looking into your LinkedIn. So, you've worked in mining, you've done quite a bit of extensive travelling.

As you can probably see, guys, if you're watching the video, there's a picture of South America behind him.

Got my Argentina beanie on, as well, so.

How dare you, dude? You've got Brazil behind you on the map and then you have the Argentinean beanie on.

Yeah, well, funnily enough, this one gets insulted a lot because it almost looks like Chux. So, I've had a couple of times people being like, are you wearing Chux on your head? And I just went, there's a lot of Argentinians who would not be happy about that.

For those of you who don't know, Chux, so you mean the stuff you clean the kitchen with, right?

Yeah, exactly.

These are these, what, blue and white wipes.

Yep. Yep.

But, yeah. You've also had some background in mining engineering and working for Rio Tinto, which is really interesting because, I don't know if the listeners will remember, but I had one of my friends on a few years ago who was named Matt and he had finished mining at Melbourne University. And I think he worked for Rio Tinto and then after three years, decided to just ditch that and go around South America for a year and a half.

Was his name Matt Whittenbury?

No.

Okay. I was going to say that I might- Because that does sound like the story of a lot of people.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I thought, I guess we could start with you are different from me and that you grew up in Brisbane. So, what was life like growing up in Brisbane? In Queensland, right.

Yeah, yeah. I mean like Brisbane's, my hometown, so I'm always going to say, you know, good things about it, so. Yeah, I grew up...

...Give us the honest truth though. Give us the underbelly, the dark side.

Yeah, well, I can give you a bit of the dark underbelly. So, I grew up between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, so those two are about an hour apart and I was halfway between those and that was the Logan area. So, I guess you could say I'm a Logan bogan if you really want to get to it. I always used to say I was the- In the nice part of Logan, but...

That wouldn't have been the first go to for me, for Logan bogan. But so, that's the sort of slang term that gets thrown around, is it for Loganites?

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And- Look, honestly, Logan really isn't that bad, like compared to everywhere else it's sort of- It's the same, it's got, you know, its troubles and whatnot. But, nah, for the most part it's good.

It sounds like Geelong, which is where I'm from.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, it's okay. But it's pretty rough at times too. It's a bit, yeah, rough around the edges, but you know. What can you do?

Yeah.

Yeah, so Brisbane, I guess you guys have all the good things. You're not too far north, not too far south, you're just right.

That's pretty much what I say, I mean like the weather's, you know, nice as well. I mean I'm a little bit of a complainer so I'm in- Decked out my jumpers and stuff. Even though it's, you know, barely winter here.

Are you allowed to own those as a Queenslander or...?

Yeah, yeah. I think it's a little bit on the sketchy side. I try and get away with it.

I remember when I was doing biology at Melbourne Uni, and I was going up to Bundaberg to do the turtle volunteering up there. Every time you would go to Bundaberg, I would never be able to wear more than a singlet and shorts, even at night, because it would be in summer, at least it would be 35 at night, 35 during the day. So, this is probably halfway between Cairns and Brisbane for those wondering.

But I remember always going to the mall and you would see people in full tracksuits, and you'd just be like, you guys are psychos. What are you doing? But I guess you get acclimated to it.

People are different, man. People are- Yeah, I'm the same. I sort of try and stay in the middle zone. I remember when I was a kid, though, I would brave the winters in essence and people would think I'm crazy, but I was like, this isn't too bad because my mum's actually from New Zealand, so I feel like I've got a bit of a Kiwi blood in me to protect me.

But now I've been in Australia so long, it's like, nah, any slightest bit of cold and I'm out.

It's funny how used to it you get, though. Like my wife- I met my wife, she's Brazilian from Maranhao, in the north. So, I guess, I think behind your head there it'd be...

Yeah, that would be...

Yeah, right up the middle there. Yeah. Like about half a foot in front- Above. Above your hand there. So, Sao Luis is the town that she's from, so which is...

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Right near the Amazon and where it opens up, I think, sort of a little bit further north. But yeah. So, she's from like two degrees south I think maybe, south of the equator and came to Australia and was whingeing about the heat in Townsville, and I'm like, that's even further south.

And then the whole time it was just like, we need to live somewhere like Melbourne, if we can get to Tasmania, let's do that, because just fuck this heat, man. And I'm like, where did you grow up? You grew up somewhere where it was like literally 35 every hour of the day. And she's like, yeah, exactly. Screw that.

But it's funny how she was obviously used to it for her entire life, you know, you sort of- I notice when I go to Queensland, I start sweating a lot, but then after a week or two your body kind of gets used to it and it's just like, oh, okay, I don't have to sweat like I used to. You know, it's really funny how it kind of acclimates after a little bit. I think it's probably the same for the cold.

You'd come to Melbourne and then have your first winter and be, you know, sleeping in a full tracksuit and bitching about it. And then after that you'd be like, oh, this is great, I can't go north.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. So, was it all glamorous, though? Is Brisbane- Brisbane gets kind of a bit of shit I think from the rest of us. Right. We always, you know, the Melbourners and the Sydney siders just crap on pretty much every other city in Australia.

But I often think when I went to Brisbane, I kept saying to Kel, my wife, we should live there, that'll be- It's kind of like a better version of both Sydney and Melbourne because it's smaller and it's warmer and nicer in comparison to Melbourne.

Yeah, I think, like for me, it's just got all the amenities, so, you know, all the good stuff that you can get in Melbourne and whatnot. And we pretty much have it here. Like I'm really struggling to think of things that, you know, people say, oh, the nightlife and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, just depends how many options you want.

For me, I'm definitely like, you know, if there's 50 different tubes of toothpaste in the grocery store or something it's like, oh, do I really need all of these? I'm pretty sure like if I just had 4 to choose from, I'd still be good as well.

Well, isn't that- What is it called? Like choice fatigue that you end up getting, I remember there used to be a few Asian restaurants that we would love going to in Melbourne when I was living in the city, there studying, and I remember sometimes I would just get massive choice fatigue because I'd open up the menu and there'd be 250 options. And...

Yeah, that's ridiculous.

...I would just be like, I feel like whatever I choose, it's not going to be what I really want.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Someone else is going to get something and I'll be like, damn, I wish I got that. Whereas if it was 12 items, I would have been like whatever I end up getting, it's going to be the- I'm going to feel so much more satisfied.

Definitely, definitely.

Yeah, crazy...

Nothing in particular. I love Brisbane as a city, as a place. It's always been pretty good for me and, yeah, never had any problems with it, I guess.

Are there lots of migrants now in Brisbane, in the city? Because that was something that I noticed in Melbourne when I first started studying there, it would have been 2006. There were quite a few migrants, but it seemed to over the next- Well, I guess it would be, yeah, 15 years. It seemed to go through waves of like different groups. So, there were-.

I remember at first there were a lot of Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, a lot of Southeast Asianers and Asianers that would come over and we're studying there. But then it was interesting because it kind of changed, you had suddenly this influx of Colombian's and then maybe 5 years ago, maybe a bit longer than 5 years, 10 years ago, Brazilians, like crazy.

And so, it was really interesting to see the sort of demographic change that took place inside the actual city itself.

Yeah.

Did that- Has that been something you've noticed in your lifetime in Brisbane?

I've definitely noticed some things, but it's hard to tell if it's just, you know, in my tiny perspective and the people I tend to draw in and what not or if it's as a whole trend. But yeah, definitely for me it was probably like around the high school years was when I started to notice, like, oh, wow, there's a lot of like islanders here, for example. So, Fijian, Samoans, you know, Kiwis.

Everyone just seemed to be coming in and that's who the people I was, you know, making friends with and just interacting with. Could have been just my high school, but also, you know, that was the feeling in the air, I guess. Nowadays I would say, yeah, it's definitely like the Asian cultures coming in pretty hard, but not as maybe as hard as-

For me the- Actually traveling to Melbourne going along the Great Ocean Road, that was surprising, seeing how everywhere had English and then Chinese, you know, everywhere. I just was not expecting that. So...

Did you get blown away by the signs that said make sure you drive on the left? Or in Australia you drive...

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

...On the left. I remember we would always go down the Great Ocean Road and I'd be like, Dad, why the hell are these signs here? Because they're never anywhere else. You don't ever see them anywhere else. And he's like, clearly, there's been enough accidents with people who forgot that you drive on the left here because they're tourists.

And that the Chinese are interesting because I think a lot of the time they come to big cities, but they kind of do their own tourist thing where they go in really large groups using buses. So, they must all sort of go to the, you know, Wilsons Promontory and Gippsland, and then on the other side, it'll be the Grampians and the Great Ocean Road. So...

Yeah.

Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it, when you see that? I remember there was a sign in one of the chocolate stores that was like, don't stand on the toilet in an Asian language. And I was just like that's just something that would never occur to me. But then I remember when I was travelling around Indonesia, a lot of the places didn't have toilets and you would have to squat over a hole and so I'm like...

Yeah. Exactly.

Okay, well, I guess that makes sense, you know, to some degree.

And this is where you start to get all those funny memes of like, you know, all the crazy toilet things of what you are and aren't allowed to do...

Well, it's just...

...Always great.

These are those interesting moments you have; I think you probably have gone through many more of these than me because you've done more travelling, it seems, especially in South America and throughout Asia. You become so much more aware of how it's kind of all arbitrary, you know, these cultural standards and what we think is, okay, you know, like here you can't really spit on the street. Right. Or at least it's a sort of no, no.

But in many other countries, it's kind of just, it's just not a big deal. No one cares. You just do whatever you want to do. And I remember one thing that I went through when I was in Indonesia was the- There was a lot of litter everywhere, like people just threw- They'd finish, you know- I don't know. There was one scene. We were crossing a river in the jungle. We were doing some field work for my PhD supervisor.

And one of the guys took the batteries out of his camera and just threw them in the river and I was just like, I was like, dude, what the fuck? What are you doing? You can't- We're in the pristine jungle, you can't just throw batteries in the river. And he was just like, gone, like, gone. Gone, disappear. And I'm like, dude, your village is downstream from the river.

Like, the batteries are going down there, where they're going to leak out all of this unwanted crap. And I remember my supervisor being like, he's got other priorities, dude. He doesn't have time to worry about this kind of shit. This is a very Westerner kind of way of thinking about it. And it was like one of those moments where you were like, oh, my God, I'm so, you know, just locked in my own cultural perspective of the world.

And it's good to kind of get an outside perspective of, like, you know, these people were some of the happiest people I've ever met, but some of the people that had the least that I'd ever met as well. You know, they didn't have Internet or phone in some of these villages, and yet they were the happiest people running around making jokes and wanting to play with you and touch your skin and be like, oh, white guy, you know?

So, it was really interesting. But did you get to experience that whilst you were doing a lot of travel after you finished...?

Yeah, you definitely get bits and pieces. I remember one that sticks out for me was my ex was Colombian and I'd sort of like met her in Argentina. A couple of months later, like met her and her parents in Colombia and then met her back in Argentina again.

And there was just this one point where we were, I don't know, we were just discussing the relationship or something, and she was like, oh yeah, but we're not really boyfriend and girlfriend yet. And I was going, oh, okay, I thought we'd like, definitely reached that point. And she was saying, no, it's not until you say, "ti amo" that it's, you know, official, which is, you know, the translation "I love you".

And I just went, whoa, that's way more than- You know, in Australia I'd like, I do not feel comfortable saying like, "I love you" as the next instigator for being boyfriend and girlfriend. That's like, well down the line, so.

It's so- Even that I haven't really thought about. There's a thing in Brazil where they call it "ficar", which means "to stay with", right, I think, and Brazilians are going to ream me because I don't really still get the whole dating culture because I didn't- I dated one Brazilian and I ended up marrying her, so this is my N (sample size) of one.

But they have this thing called "ficar" where I think it's kind of like hooking up, but a little more than hooking up. It's not like a one-night stand, but it's not an official your boyfriend and girlfriend thing here. And you can be "ficar-ing" with various people at the same time. And so, it is very-

It's interesting how you have these different cultural expectations around relationships on what is and isn't okay, you know, and the same with me, I think when I was in Melbourne as a single student dating people. I mean, I guess it happens within cultures, too.

But it would be I was dating one person at a time, whereas, you know, in other places around the world, at least in Brazil I've heard, it's much more acceptable to be, you know, being able to date multiple people. It's not a big deal. But then once it becomes serious, it does. And so, it's interesting how those things differ.

Yeah, I had a Brazilian friend here who was telling me how, you know, everyone in Brazil would go out to the clubs and whatnot to basically, like, you know, meet other people and meet partners and whatnot. And I was saying, what if you're, like, introverted like me and you don't really get out that much. He's like, no, everyone goes out to the club. You don't get a choice.

I don't think there are any Brazilian introverts, to be fair.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's, you know, that's probably why.

Well, that was one thing I heard from a girl that was my ex's sister. She had been dating a Brazilian guy and she was like; these guys are hypersexual in terms of- In comparison to- She was Australian. In comparison to Australian guys. And I think that was one of these things where she at least was really attracted to it because she was like, Australian guys are always waiting and they're sort of, you know, much more unsure of themselves.

Whereas this guy just went in for the kill the moment he saw me, and I was just like, yeah, I would totally not be doing that with someone I didn't know. And then the other side of it is, like my wife Kel is like, oh, man, I can't handle Brazilian guys, you know, like they're too full on. And I mean, obviously, this is a stereotype. Not every Brazilian is like that.

But it was really interesting hearing from both these two women from opposite sides of the ocean that they were enamoured and unenamoured, I guess, with the same things. And it's probably the whole you don't like what you have, you kind of find the external thing kind of interesting and different and exotic. You know, I'm constantly like, Kel, let's go to Brazil. It's going to be amazing. The place looks phenomenal.

And she's like, yeah, no, like I grew up there. I don't want to go back. And I'm like, well, I don't want to stay in Australia because I grew up here and I don't want to stay here, you know, I want to go around and see the place. And so, it's interesting how much your sort of like, the grass is greener, right?

Yeah, for sure. And it depends on like, yeah, I think on the person as well. You know, there's always that sort of saying, there's more difference, you know, in groups than between groups. So, even though you take like your average Colombian or average Australian and there's not that much difference compared- Well, the difference between them isn't as big as just, say, the people within Colombia and the people within Australia, so.

Probably matters where you meet them, too, because I imagine, for me at least, the average Colombian I've met probably doesn't represent Colombians very well because they're all the ones that have come to Australia that are probably, you know, relatively well off a certain demographic, have a certain goal. The same with like Europeans that meet Australians on Kon-Tiki.

It's like, don't think that's the average. Please, dear God, don't think that that is what represents the average Australian.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, how did you end up getting into mining? Is that something that you always wanted to do as a kid, or you just fell into it?

So, I was always really good at science, maths, physics, those sorts of things. Just math, math, math, math. But had no idea what I wanted to do growing up, whatever. So, my dad's in my final year, sort of took me to just a couple of different workplaces of, you know, his friends and I would get to spend a day in a, you know, electrical engineering, a day with just other random stuff.

And one of his friends is a mining engineer and they let me sit with the graduate. And honestly, it was so simple how big changes in your life can come from these small things. And he was just showing me on his computer, just like a 3D image of a mine and like a CAD program, so, you know, he's moving it around and doing all these things. And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool.

And then he showed me a PowerPoint of, you know, the biggest mining accidents that have happened, so landslides, of dozers getting, you know, picked up by these gigantic machines that are hundreds of metres tall and things like that. And I was just going, hell, yeah. Like, that's awesome. That peaked in my brain. So, yeah, that's essentially why I got into it, went to Uni, and then was like, oh, alright.

I guess I'll do engineering and I'll do mining engineering. That sounds good enough.

Did you get to ever drive one of those big arse mining dump trucks that's like the size of several houses?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I've got a couple of photos of me standing next to it and the wheels are double my height and...

Kel didn't believe me, I was showing Noah. Noah's obsessed with what- My son's obsessed with watching YouTube compilation videos of just trucks, you know, so there'll be like ambulances. And it's just like with the sirens on constantly he'll just sit there and watch it. And he's just like fire truck, police car, ambulance, fire truck. And I'm like, you got it son. You're crushing it.

But then I put on the mining one because I was like, there must be some really cool mining videos. So, lo and behold, there's a lot of channels that just do footage of mining. That might be, you know, your next sort of entrepreneurial thing. You just have to get into the mines and start filming it for kids. My wife was looking at one of the tracks and she's like, looks pretty big.

And I was like, wait, because it was coming towards the camera. And I'm like, see the guy in there? And she's like, oh holy crap. I'm like, the tyres are probably, you know, two times your height. You could hide, you could probably sit inside the tire rim. Right. And, you know, probably run whilst it moves.

Yeah. Yeah. Like a little giant hamster.

Yeah. It just looks ridiculous. Right. But I imagine the size of these things is all just about efficiency of moving enough product or enough- What would you call it? Paydirt, ore?

Yeah. Yeah. Generally, the bigger the machine obviously the more it costs but the more efficient it gets over time, just scale of economy sort of stuff. But yeah, when you get- The thing is like those aren't even that big when you get to, you know, the shovels or you get to a dragline, which like I was saying, you know, imagine a crane that you just see and then imagine...

Is this the one- Is this the one with that turning wheel that has like a whole bunch of buckets on it and it just literally goes along the edge of where the ore is and picks it up and shoves it onto the conveyor belt or...?

No, no, that's a- Oh, geez. It's- Yeah. It's been five years since I've been in...

It's alright, I'm not testing you, no marks.

Yeah, no. Draglines are essentially like, imagine just a gigantic sort of like, if I had to guess probably 50 metre by 50 metre by 50 metre box. So, half a soccer pitch just high up, and that's just the workings of it. And then there's a huge crane attached to it.

Yeah. I'm having a look at one of them now. The images, holy moly, this is like the biggest digger you can imagine on steroids.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, those things they just power through and they'll just pick up dirt and chuck it, you know, way behind them and form like- They're essentially forming mountains behind them, you can, you know. If you had a snowboard or something and it was a nice chilly Brisbane day, although that won't really happened. But yeah, you could- Those things are huge, just gigantic.

How do they get these things to the mining place? Or do they have to construct them there? Cos surely, they don't fit on the roads.

Yeah, parts of it do. So, they'll bring like, obviously, there's like the big the real big stuff, you know, there's some things, like you can't make a cog any smaller if it's yea big. So, there are some things that they'll have to bring just through the roads, and they'll just block off the whole road for however long and just it'll just come along. But yeah, most of it's done through building it on site.

Good God. That'd be like ants making Lego, right, if you had a video of it over time capture or something like a time lapse.

Go on YouTube and you will definitely find a dragline builder. Yeah.

...My son will get into that. Yeah, far out. So, what made you decide to sort of get out of mining after three years? Because it tends to be one of those jobs that's renowned for being massively lucrative and, you know, you get to see a lot of the country quite often.

Yeah, I- Look honestly, the turnover rate while I was there was pretty high. I think I almost did well for getting to three years because it's...

I was going to ask. That was going to be the next question.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a- Look, it does pay well for sure, but there's a price you pay for that. And that's the isolation, that's the shitty work hours, that's the FIFO work. If you've ever done night shift, it's, you know, that stuff's terrible for your body. Like it's not good for you...

So, was it the also the shifts are like 10:00 on, 2:00 off or 5:00 off or whatever it is?

Yeah, it depends. Like you'll get some which are nice, which are more even so it'll be like a 7:00-7:00, 6:00-6:00 or, you know. There's real weird ones as well that are like 4:00-3:00, 3:00-3:00, 4:00-4:00. You know, just changes all the time, so...

Is that just arbitrary? Like it's based on how many workers you've got of a certain job, and you'll just be like, alright, we're just going to say this week it's three days on, four days off for everyone and we'll just rotate through you.

Depends on the workers unions as well. They sometimes- They have a lot of say in dictating what type of roster they want as well.

So, it's a bit of everything you'll get some people who are like these really short, sharp, changing ones because they can go home more often than there's probably more like younger single people who are like, I can do three weeks on, like, that's okay. And I'll come back with, you know, 20 grand or whatever it is, so.

Well, I've had friends do that. I remember working, I was working at a pizza shop when I was in the end of high school and I remember there was a guy there who was a miner and he was just like, yeah, I just went there for three years until I had enough to buy a house. I was just like, fuck, that's insane. But he's like, man, there's nothing to spend it on. You can spend it on booze and maybe prostitutes and food but there's-

You've got nothing, if you're in the middle of Western Australia, you know, he's like, there's just literally nothing for you to waste the money on unless you're buying stuff there and being an idiot, you know, like a house or cars and stuff. But if you- If you're being sensible and just working, it's not like you can go skiing or that you can hang out with your mates, you know.

You have to fly all the way home to really, you know, go nightclubbing and that sort of stuff properly.

Yeah, that's a problem because a lot of people will go home and then they will go...

Oh, okay.

...Just- I had a friend who, yeah, was in the mining boom was just, you know, he was there for the good times and was like, he'd get off shift and be, you know, I've got a week and a half to kill. What am I going to do? I'll just fly to New Zealand. I'll fly to Papua New Guinea, like I'll fly to wherever, spend three or four days there and then come back. And that's just, you know, not the most efficient way to travel...

Or save money.

Yeah. And honestly, the amount of people who have jet skis is ridiculous. And that was always my... If you have a jet ski and you're living in, you know, central Queensland you're not getting much use out of it. So, that was always like, what are you doing?

It must be hard, I guess, you know, you have these guys who are out of university, and they would be on bugger all money if they were even working while studying. And then all of a sudden, they're on, what, $120,000 to $200,000 a year, depending on what the job is. And, you know, a lot of the time they're working large chunks of time. But they can't spend the money, so then they find themselves with these huge bank accounts.

They go home and they're like, well, it came pretty easily, so I assume it's always going to be there coming in. It's sort of like the musicians that get rich really quickly. Right. And then all the sports stars who get paid these ridiculous amounts of money and then burn through it because they haven't been taught, you need to invest, you need to be careful.

Don't just buy Ferrari's and houses that you're not going to use and you're going to want to get out of.

Yeah, for sure. And it, you know, just depends where they come from. I found that the people who lived out there, like the- Saw more country folk, I guess people who weren't doing the FIFO work.

Yeah.

They generally were better with it because, you know, they'd grown up on the farms nearby and they had all the connections and stuff. So, even if they did spend money like it wasn't extreme, whereas yeah. And most of them aren't, you know, university graduates coming in, they're, you know, sparkies, diesel fitters. You'll get like all these types of people and then some of them are really, really young, 18 years old.

And, you know, imagine getting more than your parents have ever earned, just straight out of like high school essentially. And it's, yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy when you think about it.

So, it was mainly just the work hours and shifts and everything. And you were just like, like most people you were just like, yeah, I'm burnt out. I need to do something different.

Yes. I mean, like for me it's kind of hard to say because I had probably one of the best gigs that you can ever get out there. I was working a 9-day fortnight. So, when you're an engineer working in the office, you don't work those typical ones. You've got more- A more closer to the 9 to 5 thing, although you still work longer hours, so I'd work 11 and a half, 12 hour days. But it'd be like Monday to Friday, Monday to Thursday.

So, I always had my weekends off, for example. I was in Mackay, which is a pretty big city, and it was only a drive in of an hour and a half to where I worked at, so all of that combined, like it was still kind of shit, like you wouldn't have time to do, you know, go back- You could go back midweek, but you're so exhausted you're not going to do anything on a Tuesday or Wednesday night other than like I had a soccer team.

So, I would go to training and then like eat, go to sleep and then go back out to the mines sort of thing. And yeah, like, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. And I always just thought, you know, you can get- What is it? The average person works 80,000 hours so in a lifetime. And so, using that 10,000 hours to master anything rule, it's like, okay, what 8 things would I become a master at?

Keeping my mouth shut in meetings and, you know, listening to what the boss says, creating designs that are just going to be used up and then spit out the next week and then I have to redo it all again, you know, talking with people who I don't really care about, who are like I wasn't good friends with, about shit that I didn't care about.

So yeah, for me it just got to this point where I was like, nah, if I got to get like good at 8 things, I'd rather choose them and, you know, try and work out from there what I want to do.

It's funny how that's such a modern sort of privilege. I mean, I imagine that it's not just a Western thing, but the whole being in a situation where you have the luxury of actually pursuing happiness as opposed to just doing what your dad and his dad and his dad and his dad always did. Like, I was talking recently, I was interviewing my parents and chatting to them, and they do a lot of family history.

And they're always talking about some of the people they dig up in our family. And they're like, yeah, the dad was a scissor putter togetherer. The mum was- Or that his dad was that, the other one was, you know, a farmer, his son was a farmer, his son's son was a farmer. And it was like, you know, that's the same way for ten generations.

So, it's always crazy to me when I think about it now, even my parents are probably that first sort of generation that got to kind of choose and be able to pursue happiness later on in their lives. I think, like my grandfather was just an engineer for his entire life and, you know, just had it all kind of set up.

But I think he was- That generation, my grandparent's generation born in like the thirties would be that hard core, you go to school, finish high school, maybe go to Uni if you're your man, get a job and that's it for the rest of your life. You just keep getting an income, have a family, take care of your family and then clock it at 60.

Yeah.

But so, yeah. Anyway, it's really interesting that people like you and I, I'm the same, I went through university, I did three degrees, all in evolutionary- Well, biology- Evolution biology and evolutionary biology and then after that I was like, oh, fuck this, I'm going to do podcasting.

It makes me way happier helping people than just being in a laboratory all day, working on stuff alone, again with people I don't necessarily like talking about crap that's not important to me and, you know, whingeing about some guy who got a grant that I should have got and, you know, published a paper on something that I thought was cool and was trying to do. And it's just like, oh, my God, why are we- You know, It's not worth my time.

I'd rather, you know, learn guitar or do jujitsu, or learn languages or, you know, help people. So, you went through the same thing?

Yeah. Do you think it's due to, so like- You hear this phenomenon nowadays of you're going to work an average of like 7 jobs over your lifetime, probably even more for the millennials coming through. And I've always just wondered, you know, is that due to technology changes, as in your job gets made redundant so fast that you just need to be into the next one? Or is it having that luxury of searching for your jobs or like a mixture of both?

It's fascinating to think of, you know, what drives that change, because there's definitely still dudes at the mine who'll life it. It's like, yeah, I'm going to be with Rio Tinto till I die sort of thing.

I think there's always people like that, though. There are still guys working at the pizza shop that I worked at when I was a teenager who were my age, who'd finished high school and got a job there and they're still there. And I think it's a personality thing to where they're just like, I'm just cruising.

Yeah.

I was saying this to Kel, we were driving through a few of these suburbs nearby where they're kind of the lower-class suburbs. And again, what I'm about to say doesn't reflect all the people that live there, probably not even, you know, a large percentage of them. But there are definitely a lot of people that you see there that are of the age, you know, they shouldn't be, and they're doing the kinds of things that teenagers are doing.

You know, so you'll see some 50-year-old dude in a hoodie doing drugs in the street and just yelling at someone or, you know, two guys hanging out together, kicking the footy in the middle of the day. And they're like, 55 years old, drinking beers and you're just like- It's really interesting that there are obviously certain kinds of people that are just, I just want to have fun for my entire life with my friends.

You know, I don't want anything serious, I don't want a lot of responsibility and I just want to cruise. And so, I think that's the kind of person, you know, there's this- Those sorts of people who are- Just get me to my base level of comfort and then I'm set and I'm just like everyone else can go fuck themselves. I'm just going to do what I want to do.

Whereas I think for me and a lot of the people I know, it's like you get this ambition kind of smashed into you as well, and I think you're also, we're sort of taught by society to look at how everyone else is doing around us and try and beat them. And then on top of that, we have the whole life's changing so fast with technology that's changing that, yeah-

You know, even my parents had probably 5 jobs each, you know, they've changed, they've worked at universities, they were high school teachers.

Got bored with that and then when they're at universities got made redundant, switched into another parallel position at the same university and then got made redundant and then, you know, some department closed and then they had to move into another position and so constantly upskilling and everything.

So, it is interesting, but then, as you say, I think we also do have so much crap that we can buy these days and that we have so much excessive wealth. Right. That- I was saying to my folks, you know, did you guys buy us blueberries and strawberries when we were kids? And they were like, we didn't have the money for that, and the season, they were out of season.

The closest we got was the blackberry bush that we had in the backyard that had fruit on it for 2 weeks a year. But for my son and my daughter, we go to Woolworths and there's just always blueberries and strawberries and, you know, all these sort of little things that I hadn't thought about, but my wife points out and she's like, that's fucked.

Like no one in Brazil gets to just spend $7 on a punnet of blueberries and give it to their kid and that's just their breakfast or something, or, you know, give it to them over a few days. And I'm like, it is so crazy that we've just gotten used to this, you know, the way that capitalism works, where we have access to so much stuff.

And even with the toys, right, we buy them toys they break. And I'm like, we're not going to repair this. How much is that going to cost? Who's even trained to repair a toy plastic car? We just buy another one, throw this one in the rubbish. And again, my parents would be like, Jesus, we never did that. Our stuff was made of wood and metal, you fix it, or you just deal with it. You know, so...

...You grind it until it's, you know, nothing's left on it, the wheels are square now.

Yeah, but I think it's a gift and a curse. What do you think in terms of the not just being...? I wish at times that I could be like that guy who just drank beers and had fun hanging out with his mates until he was 60 years old, you know, during the day on the dole or whatever is that stereotype Aussie, bogan kind of trope is. But I just don't think I could ever handle that. I'd be constantly there, like, I've got to do more.

I've got to do more. I've got to help people. I've got to find meaning. I've got to actually contribute. I've got to make more money. I've got to get a bigger car than the guy next door.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a- Geez, man. There's a lot of things in there. I would say definitely for me, I'm kind of minimalist in a lot of senses. I really hate seeing waste just in general. I don't know if that was something, you know, implanted into me as a kid. I definitely remember my parents being like, you know, you're finishing everything on your plate sort of thing, so...

I had that, too. You can leave the table when it's an empty plate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if it's, you know, if there's literally too much, then it goes in the fridge and you're eating it the next day. So, it's not like, you know, avoiding it now is going to make it any better because it's just waiting for you tomorrow, a day older, so.

And then your family gets a dog and you're like, oh, thank God. You just sneak it off the plate onto the floor.

I thankfully had a younger brother who was willing to please so my peas and corn, like the vegetables I didn't go- Didn't like would definitely go his way and he'd- I'm not sure if he liked them, but like, he liked me liking him, so.

Never went to waste.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah so, definitely, I mean, yeah, there's definitely some things to think about in terms of, you know, is it good to be able to get an apple, you know, a perfect apple all year round because, you know, obviously in some months the year that apple would be way more harder to, you know, produce versus, you know, the times of the year when it's easy to make apples.

Well, the thing with apples, I think, would be that in Australia at least, I think we follow the seasons as we go up the coast. So, I think they kind of ripen sequentially. The thing that's probably really fucked up is that we have avocados all year round and we get those...

That's probably a better example.

...We get those locally for summer and then we get all of the ones from places like Chile and Argentina, right, where they're going through a water crisis because all these farmers are trying to produce avocados. I think Mexico, as well is going through that, too, where it requires a ridiculous amount of water, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've only heard about, like, fast fashion recently. I'm just not into buying clothes that much or anything, like, I wear stuff out until it's, you know, too ratty or too holly and...

I feel you.

So yeah, like hearing about fast fash- I was listening to a podcast the other day and I think it was the 6,000 tonnes of fast fashion gets thrown out every 10 minutes just in Australia.

Woah. So, when you say fast fashion, you want to just sort of describe that for the listeners?

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean like this is going to be real basic in my attempt at it because I only heard about it recently. But essentially just following the fashion trends and I think this is, I think more of a woman problem in the sense, like, that they're just more on top of needing to have the newest gear and then so if you, you know, have something that comes out in the stores two weeks later, it's almost redundant again.

And so, they've just got all the stock that either needs to go out, and then there's the personal, you know, you've bought a wardrobe full of stuff. It's no longer cool anymore. What do you do with it? Do you throw it out? Do you, you know, just leave it sitting in there? What happens with it?

Well, that's so much to do with the marketing. Right. And I would say women are kind of a victim, I would imagine, of the marketing when it comes to fashion because they'd be the biggest target. And so, it's always like if you want to be, you know, an attractive woman, make sure that you have this new form of makeup, or make sure that you're wearing this month's certain type of dress and then, oh, no, there's a new one next month.

So, make sure that you go out there and get this dress if you want to keep up. And I can't imagine being on that sort of rat wheel of just constantly having to chase these things in order to keep up. But it feels the same, yeah, a lot of- This is why I imagine you've become a minimalist, too, because as soon as you-

As soon as I started getting into minimalism, I was like, oh, my God, I feel so much more relieved because now I just don't give a shit about things anymore. I don't care anymore about the big house or owning the Ferrari or like, oh, okay, those handcuffs are off. I've kind of have that burden off my shoulders where-

Yeah, my dad always has this story about one of his friends who wears high heels and gets really, you know, lots of makeup on, looks stunning every time they go out, but it takes so much effort for her to do it. And he's always like, why? You're married. Why do you care what other, you know, guys think? And she's like, I'm not doing this to the guys. I'm doing this for all the other women, who see me, and they're like, damn that chicks hot.

And I was like, oh, my God, it's so funny that it becomes this sort of- It's like the guys going to the gym wearing, you know, really tiny singlets. My wife saw one of those guys recently, he was like a bodybuilder, and he has like the- What would you call it? Like a tooth floss singlet, but it has like, barely like, what, a string over each shoulder? And she's like, why the hell do they wear them?

And I'm like, because they want everyone to see the muscles.

Yeah. And she's like, girls don't like it. It's not for the girls. He's advertising to other guys. He's showing other guys how big he is. Right. So, it's a funny thing with, though, that sort of competition between and within sexes.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

So, how did you get on to minimalism? Was that just something that you were like looking into the whole self-improvement thing?

Yeah, I probably that probably would have been the path. I mean, I've- Now that I'm getting older, I'm starting to notice, like, people who are, you know, ten years younger than me, sort of going starting on the path that I went down. And I'm just starting to see, like, oh, that connects to that, that connects to that and that's sort of made me who I am. So, yeah, just on that.

So, I definitely was very anxious, very shy as a kid up until, geez, like even 20 I was- Would be, you know, crippled with fear getting on the bus, and then like, you know, any girl, it doesn't matter if she was really good looking or not good looking would sit next to me and I'd just be, you know, silently freaking out in my corner going like, oh, you know, people are thinking of looking at me.

Like, what if she says something to me? Things like that. So, I definitely got on the self-improvement, you know, route journey. And then I think that's when it starts to lead into minimalism. I think there's definitely some connection there with, you know, you'll sort of like start to earn money, for example, or, you know, start to gain status. And then you realise like, oh, you know, I was- What was the point of doing this?

If you then get the girl, it's like, oh, what do you need all this stuff for? And things like that, so.

That's something that's really interesting that we never seem to ask ourselves. I think we never get asked by other people, why are you doing X? What are you trying to achieve by doing X? And it's interesting how we kind of just fall on these certain things, like we find a certain job. Why are you doing the job? Because my parent- You know, if you actually dig in, my parents always wanted me to do it, or it makes a lot of money.

It's like, it's funny that when you ask people those sorts of questions, it's very rare that you'll get to the bottom and it's like, oh, because it makes me happy. Because I've always wanted to do this just because I really enjoy XYZ, and it gives me a great feeling of satisfaction. It seems that it's always, well, we're doing it because we want to advertise to other people in society that we're successful.

But ironically, that's not success if you measure it in hap- If you're measuring success by happiness. Right. It's actually that you're getting further away from that goal quite often and it's kind of counterproductive.

Yeah. And it's unfortunately, one of the things is if you start to ask that question, enough, people start to dislike you because, you know, you don't like getting brought out of your own routine. So, it's one of those traps where, you know, people don't say it because, you know, people won't like you if your...

You're holding...

...Are you doing that? Why...?

You're holding a mirror up, right. And being like, have you seen this? Have you seen this?

Yeah. Yeah... And it's like, you know, equating success with happiness is a bit of a tricky one as well. I really don't like to think of it that way. I usually think more meaning is a better one. Like, if I- If I'm finding the real meaning out of life, getting a- You know, whether it be doing a book review or, you know, trying to learn a one-armed handstand or whatever it is. Like, that seems to be more- Less fickle for me.

Happiness for me is a very fickle thing, like it comes and goes in waves. So, I try not to focus on that too much. And it's more of like a by-product of doing all the other things well in my life.

I think that's a fair point because a lot of the- I've been going down this road recently, too, and it seems like a lot of them, a lot of the people who talk about this online are like, you're not meant to be pursuing happiness. So, you know, that was sort of shame on me for saying that. But yeah, meaning because it's like happiness-

Like sadness is something that you can't really avoid, but it's also not something that's permanent, it's temporary. And it allows you to, you know, find your sort of medium. You get to go through these waves, feel crap, but then as a result, you can feel happier later. If you feel happy all the time, you would just, it wouldn't be happiness. It would just be the norm.

Yeah, and then there's all sorts of things as such as, you know, if I asked you, would you rather have- Imagine all the best things in your life crammed into one day and then would you take that day if then the subsequent day or, you know, vice versa was like all the worst day? Like, is your happiness level on the happiest day more than your sadness level on the saddest day?

For most people I imagine they're like me and that they'll say, like, nah, I wouldn't want to take that hard day just to have that happy day as well.

Yeah, I think my life could be made very, very, very more times sadder and worse than it could be made very, very, very many times happier. You know what I mean? There is a lot that could be taken away from you that wouldn't be able to be paralleled in terms of people giving me something. Right.

Yeah, and that's why happiness is, you know, might not be the right thing to aim for. Maybe you should be aiming for, like, not sadness, you know, trying to just eliminate sadness or eliminate bad things from your life. That's why I liked stoicism actually. Got into that for a while and it was- I found that would be better at like, you know, if I-

If like a normal day or a normal year, I experienced these highs and these lows, I'd find that if I had a more stoic mindset, I'd sort of cap them a little bit. Like they'd both come closer to the centre, but that would be good because I'd feel the lower ones much more.

So, even though I might be taking away a bit of my happiness at the top, like getting rid of that worse sadness or worse hate or anger or whatever it is at the bottom is much, much more better for me.

It's interesting how much just being mindful of these things is helpful, too. I mean, I know that you're into meditation. I went down that road for quite a while and then had children. So, it's hard to kind of find a quiet moment. But it was interesting when I got-

Went down the road of mindfulness and paying attention to what I was feeling, as opposed to just kind of living the experience, you know, so if you get angry, as opposed to just riding that wave of being angry and just acting out how you feel, you think, why am I angry? What's the real reason for it? Should I be angry? Is this feeling justified? Oh, it's because he did this. Did he mean to do this?

Oh, okay, so it's not a big deal and then you're not angry anymore. So, it was interesting going down that road and kind of-

It feels like it's a way of capping those things, as you say, like the sad parts of your life or the stressful parts of your life, when you're suddenly able to kind of be mindful of these events and kind of step outside of just feeling it, notice it and then let it pass by, you actually end up being able to deal with a great deal more suffering or at least the suffering you're dealing with you can do so much more easily than you could previously.

So, it's so interesting that this sort of ties in with the amount of depression that we have today and social media and everything. It seems like everyone's medicated. It's interesting you wonder if people in the past had these kinds of issues where, you know, the guy in the seventeen hundreds working as a factory worker or a farmer, was freaking out about being able to buy a Ferrari to impress his neighbour. It's kind of like I doubt it.

He probably had other problems, like the plague or, you know, or the church or whatever. But you wonder if the- We have higher peaks and higher valleys now as a result of the way that the modern world is sort of set up.

Yeah, it's tough to say. I read this really good book on depression called The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon. Like, just this thick arse book, I think it was like 500-600 pages and he just went into everything related to it, you know, his personal experience and then as well as like the science and then personal stories from other people and whatnot and even just like the history of depression.

Where did this come from? Where- Was this a thing back in the ancient days of Greece and things like that? And yeah, it was still around then, so there's definitely like a a chemical or that imbalance in the head, the brain chemistry that's causing it. But yeah, definitely. I mean, like, it's- You don't have to go too far in human culture to see some places are better than others and some places are worse than others. And so...

But I wonder if they had that social anxiety, because you would imagine back in the day, even just a hundred years ago, you would kind of be born into the life that you were going to have for the rest of your life. Right. The position in society that you would always have, you know, if you're born into the upper class, it's pretty difficult for you to end up in the lower class.

If you're in the lower class, pretty difficult for you to end up in the upper class. Whereas today I think the message tends to be sent to a lot of people, you can be anything. You can do anything. You can get anything. You can have anything. You can be the most beautiful person in the world if you just, I don't know, work hard enough.

You know, it's something that I wonder if that's almost more of a curse than it is a gift, because you end up with that, as we were talking about it at the start, kind of like too many choices and then the kind of, well, okay, all right. So, I'll do one thing, oh, but shit, I could have done these other things.

So, you never get to feel really satisfied with one thing that you're actually trying to pursue because your kind of looking everywhere else. It's- I wonder how much- It's something we always think we live in the best time, when we probably do in a lot of standards.

We definitely do.

Like health. Yeah. Yeah. But I wonder with regards to, say, mental health or just social anxiety, if we're actually much worse off today than people have been in the past, because that would be something you would imagine a lot of people just never had to think about.

They were just like, I don't have to worry about, you know, ever getting this amazing job to impress everyone because it's just not something that's ever going to be possible.

Yeah, I think, like- I always would say, yeah, definitely. Like, so glad I'm alive, you know...

Oh, 100%.

...Like even if I was, you know, in India, being born alive in this century is way, way better than any other place at any other time essentially. Yeah, that's a good question. You know, is hope detrimental in some sort of sense in that you- False hope or hope that's just so unlikely to be realised, is that more detrimental than just not having that option at all? And it's like, I just got to do this.

Well, a good example, I guess, to sort of give you a concrete one would be the feminist movement, at least in its third or fourth wave, whatever it is currently like...

There's quite a few waves going on.

Exactly, as opposed to sort of the original ones that were just like, we just want to vote, we want sexual liberty. The ones today where it's kind of like there's almost at least in the West, this encouragement of women need to be everything that men are and were in the past, but better and they don't- They shouldn't need to need any men. They should be able to do everything independently.

They need to be able to have the full-time career, make the income equivalent to a guy, have all the children, be a full on amazing mother, also be, you know, drop dead gorgeous 24 hours a day and take care of their health at the same time. And your kind of like, I remember chatting to my wife about this quite a few times, and being like, the message here, it's not that any of these individual facets has a problem.

You know, women who want to follow their career should 100% be able to do that and do as well, if not better than any other man. The same with fitness, the same with family. But it seems like the expectation now is that women need to do it all, you know, and I mean, I'm sure it's the same, but different for a lot of other groups in society where there's a lot of expectations put on you.

But that was something I definitely noticed with the more recent feminist manifestation of the movement that has become so much more about women being independent of men and better than and also the message of just like you should be able to be a single mother, full time career lawyer that's rich as fuck and drop dead gorgeous. You don't need no man. And your kind of like, no one can do that. Like the amount of the-

No, there's only 24 hours in a day. There's just no way that you can have a successful family, a successful relationship with your partner, a full-time career, also be hyper fit from going to the gym, also worry about your appearance at all times. Like there's just no way that all of that can be done.

And I wonder how much that pressure, that messaging is kind of being sent to people is part of the reason that, you know, there are such high rates of depression amongst women today, especially in conjunction with like social media. Right. Where you're always seeing all these people putting up their best images constantly of living their best lives and never get to see behind the scenes.

And so, you're constantly comparing yourself to all these success stories like Kim Kardashian not realising that she's probably fucking miserable, you know, a lot of the time. You just never get to see that, right.

Yeah. I think that's the killer one, the social media. I mean, I don't know if you're the same, but I was able to go from 2012- I'd graduated Uni in 2013 and I had Facebook then because it helped me with Uni and then I went 2013 through to mid-2019 without having, you know, any of them and...

That's impressive.

It was a blissful life at that point.

You definitely did better than me. I mean my whole business is online and that's the gift and the curse thing of like I have this amazing business that I absolutely adore, you know, creating content for, and working for. But at the same time, it's sort of like I am- I'm handcuffed to social media. There's no real way around doing that because that's how I obviously connect with everyone. So, it's such a balance. Right.

It's like I have to make sure when I'm on social media, and I've been way more focussed on it ever since watching that doco the social dilemma. Right. Where they really sort of pulled the lid off the whole mechanism inside of social media that's focussing on getting your attention- Excuse me.

At all times and just making you effectively spend more time on the platform so they can show you more ads, and that they've used machine learning and billions of people effectively for the last decade and a half in order to refine this to a perfect skill. And it's so crazy, I end up-

I open up Facebook and before I even do what I was trying to do, I've forgotten why I opened it and I'm just scrolling through, you know, at times and your just thinking, Jesus Christ, this is- I feel like I just turned into a zombie.

So, it is interesting, but I've had to try and avoid using it and being like, I'm going to get in there and post my thing, and then it's kind of like going into the store and being like, don't look at any of the stuff that you want to buy. Just where's the exit? Where's the exit?

Yeah, the infinite feeds a hell of a thing. I really- I start to see this all the time now where it's- You were talking before about, you know, women who are having to try and do everything. And I always have a chuckle when it's like, you know, you find a person who's, you know, super engaged. And then they're like, oh, okay, I'm missing out on my health, so I got to add this into the routine as well.

And then it's like I'm starting to feel burnt out, so I'm going to, you know, be productive in my meditation as well. You know, you get to the meditation bit and it's like, oh, okay, I've got to be really productive and meditating. And it's like, when you were trying to get productive and meditating, that's when you've gone too far. That's when it's like no, now you need to like, just chill out.

Like you're overthinking things to the point of overthinking. And it, you know, can be the same things with like the social medias, as well, you know. What's their point of getting you on there? Well, to get you on there, to stay longer on there. And, you know, obviously for them, there's money involved at some point with the ads and metrics and whatnot. But...

When the irony would be- The irony would be that if they charged you, I- A lot of people would say, I'd be happy to pay to not see ads on Facebook. And it's like 100% they would have had that monetary model originally and they saw that no one signed up for it, you know, that no one was interested in doing it.

And so, this is why we end up in this situation where it's a double edged-sword, you know, it's free, but you have to see all these ads and we're going to manipulate the crap out of this system to make sure you watch as many ads as possible. Everyone says, oh, I'd pay money for it, but then that product never gets made. Right.