Uncommon Courage

The Know Show – theme, the current state of sales

May 20, 2022 Tom Abbott, Andrea T Edwards, Joe Augustin, Tim Wade, Episode 64
Uncommon Courage
The Know Show – theme, the current state of sales
Show Notes Transcript

Welcome to The Know Show. Join Andrea T Edwards, Joe Augustin and Tim Wade this week as we review the news that’s been capturing attention around the world. We’re thrilled to have Tom Abbott join us this week. Tom is the CEO of SOCO Sales Training and joins us to talk about sales in a post-Covid world. He’s also a passionate news watcher, so it’s going to be a big wide conversation. 

In our theme section, Tom will dig into how the pandemic changed everything and changed nothing when it comes to sales. What does that mean? You’ll have to come and join us to learn more. Tom is all about optimizing sales performance in far from optimal times and is going to provide some great insight about selling in this new world. 

The Know Show is a Livestream held every Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Tim Wade and Joe Augustin, and at least one special guest, review the news that’s getting everyone’s attention, as well as perhaps what requires our attention. We’ll talk about what it means to us, the world and we hope to inspire great conversations on the news that matters to all of us. 

The Know Show is based on Andrea T Edwards Weekend Reads, which are published every Saturday on andreatedwards.com, and covers the climate crisis, Covid 19, topical moments in the world, global politics, business, social issues and passion/humor/history. Join us. 

#TheKnowShow #UncommonCourage

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage

My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar

Unknown:

Welcome to the no show. My name is Andrew Edwards. My name is whoa, I'm moving around. My name is Tim Wade. And my name is Joe Augustine and welcome to the no show. It's, it's a show. That is well kind of up knowing. And although sometimes when you listen to us, you might not get that impression. Depends how last minute we've actually come on to the show. So Tim, welcome back. We haven't seen you for a while you're asleep for so eyes. Or a site that causes sore eyes. But yes, yeah, I've been away for a little while. It's an I'll be away again, actually. I'll be here next week. But the week after that, I'll be away for a couple of weeks in Australia as well. myself next week, button up. None of us will be here next week. That's right. That's right. We've got a convention to attend. We have a convention, it's quite a yes, I'm looking forward to that, to that Jim's been busy with with studying, studying up and picking up on biblical studies. But I didn't know you would go all the way with the hair cut as well. That was, you know, it might have been a mistake having this error because I'm about to go into an Australian winter. And having you know, having bit more hair on their head is usually quite quite good. Otherwise, I get a bit cold, but it should be alright. They say they say there's a week between a good haircut and a bad haircut. And I got about four weeks before I redeemed myself from this one. So the objective of the show for those of you are joining us, perhaps for the first time, is, it's a show to help you kind of have a look at all the news as much of the news as you can. At the same time, we don't just look at one side of things, we look at as many sides as possible. And as I have been trying to say the last few weeks, we will hopefully make you the most interesting person at a dinner party, if not the most, most irritating one. And to also make sure that we have a diverse point of view, diverse points of view shared on the show we bring a guest on. And this week, we're very, very pleased to have with us, someone who is an international motivational speaker. And also of course, and this is the thing that I will need him to confirm as soon as he comes on, because I will want to say that he's been voted the his company's been voted the top sales training company in Asia. Would you please welcome to the show, Tom Abbott. Hey, everyone, how are you? Very well. Yeah. Jim, Andrea, Joe, how are you? I'd like to vote Tom's company, the top sales company in Asia. So there has been a vote. And I remember, I can't remember reading something like that. I'm not sure if I if I if I have that wrong. But if not, you can misquote me. Well, it's been several years. He's been winning awards. Yeah. Well, we've won awards in the best sales training provider category in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, about five or six years in a row. Well, that's pretty much Asia, isn't it? It's bigger than those two bad. Yeah. And we're really excited about that, because that's at the HR vendors of the Year awards. And that's really not our peers, kind of like up voting us on social media like, wow, Tom, you're cool. It's not a popularity contest. It's really senior leaders, HR practitioners around the region, who look through our application, and they do some serious background checks and get a little bit more information than I think they need to. But it really helps them make a determination as to, you know, who are some of the big players in each industry. So I've always been really proud of that. You know what I really like that qualification, because, and it's, it's sad that we have to qualify like that. But there are so many awards out there, where you either get it for showing up, or you get it because you've paid money to be part of the group that will be awarded or Exactly. Or you get it for just going Hey, guys, upvote me, I've got more followers. But this is the real deal. This is people who are actually hiring businesses to do this, and are recognizing quality out there in the industry. And so congratulations, I really admire that if you don't need to put the word guru after your name. Because you've got legitimacy from clients. But you know that that photograph of you that you submitted in the speedo though I think it really helped. But whatever it takes. Yeah, nice one. Very nice. Well, nice to have you here. Today, we're going to talk about lots of news. And and, Andrea, can you tell us a little bit about what Tom's special segments going to be about when we when we get to that now we're going to talk about the current state of sales, how nothing's changed, and everything has changed. So I'm looking forward to that and because I think it's a really interesting topic, you know, so many people have got different perspectives on it and I like the way that Tom position it is both so but Tom, give us give us a bit more background. To tell us tell us your story. My story. Yeah, geez. Like where do I start? 1971 Born Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I lived in Vancouver for several years. That's my hometown. But my wife Elena and I moved here to Singapore in 2008. And really didn't know what to expect. But we thought we'd give it a go. You know, we started working here we started the business, SOCO sales training in early 2009, officially incorporated in 2010. And, you know, really haven't looked back, you know, the rest is history, we've got a small team around 10 people, about five or six based here in Singapore. And then the rest, we have some some freelancers around the region, we also work with a number of trainers around APAC and the world. In fact, we just started working with one in, in Europe, which is really exciting. We've got one in the US as well, to kind of serve our international customers, we've always been a a regional sales training company. And that's one of the things that really has separated us from from some other individual trainers is our ability to, to work with teams across the region in multiple languages, which is really exciting. And in the last, you know, year or two, we've had some customers that have really helped us, you know, grow beyond the region a little bit. I mean, we still specialize in APAC, but but we do have some customers where we're serving around the world, which is, which is really exciting. No, no. So I met you probably pretty early in on the journey, the last couple of years for you and the business has been been okay. I know a lot of people in our field have really struggled how's it been for you? It's been more than okay. I mean, I hesitate to, I mean, obviously, the last two years have been a really difficult time for a lot of people, especially in our industry, among others. But obviously, if you're in speaking, training, coaching, anything that involves conferences and events and people gathering, you've been, you know, possibly devastated your business. I know a lot of our peers have really had a hard time and haven't recovered. That first wave, you know, I remember back in 2020, I just got back from from Canada, I was doing some work, we have another business in Canada. So I was doing some work in that capacity. And I was on the plane was just starting to hear a little bit about this thing that was known as, as the China virus. That's how it was referred to. In Vancouver, BC, Canada at the time, was the China virus or an Asian virus. But there wasn't really much news about it. So I hopped on the plane, I'm flying back to Singapore, going through Taipei. When I get off the plane, I checked my WhatsApp messages. And I can see my wife Elaine is saying, Hey, Tom, is everything okay? You've transited in, in Taipei is everything fine. I'm like, of course, everything's fine. What's going on? She's like, you know, everything the world is upside down here with with COVID. And you know, flights are being canceled, and people are being quarantined, and all of this. So I kind of made it back home before things went really crazy. But, you know, aside from I think, February and March, which for us, it was like zero revenue, there were literally no events and events being canceled or postponed, we did a really good job of getting all of our customers who booked with us to either postpone it, or immediately convert to virtual. So we've been doing virtual programs for almost a decade. But that's just been with a few customers. So we had to kind of before we'd have to pull them kicking and screaming, but we were ready to go. So and we've already seen that there was going to be this transition to virtual so and we work with regional teams, as I said, so we always did have the capacity to work with teams remotely, even before COVID. So for us, the transition was actually very smooth, we just doubled down on our efforts, made sure that we didn't lose anything. And in fact, we launched a few new programs, you don't have to sell virtually, how to manage a virtual team. So to be honest, it was only I think, two months, which were really challenging. And then may we got back to our pre COVID revenue. And then it's been a great two years for us. That's awesome. Awesome. I think that everyone I know who was prepared, had already been virtual seem to succeed a lot more through the times. What's interesting, Andrea is I mean, you can probably see over my shoulder here, I wrote the book social selling in 2015. And in fact, that book is based on workshops that we've been doing since 2010. So virtual selling, remote selling, hybrid selling. These are things that we've been doing and talking about for about a decade. So we could see that over the last few years there's been this trend towards people working from home working remotely working from anywhere. So we knew that hybrid people were working from home which means they're buying from home, which means you have to sell from home. So for us this wasn't you know, it wasn't a jaw dropping In fact, it was like, yep, we saw this coming. We were prepared for it and COVID just accelerated it. But guess what we're ready to go. So let's get going. And we told companies to what are you going to do? Are you going to wait it out? Like you still have revenue targets, like companies still have revenue targets. And they still have. And I've always felt that there's still consumers that want to buy stuff. So the world did not get, you know, to a standstill, like some weren't severely impacted. Obviously, when we look at the circuit breaker here in Singapore for about one or two months, you know, everything was closed, per se, but especially you know, f&b and all of that kind of stuff. But everything else was still going. And I just feel like it was people's mindset, a lot of people took a wait and see approach. And let's just see, and this isn't the right time to be selling, it needs to just be you know, caring and like, What are you talking about, like, you can sell with compassion, like, you can serve your customers, like, keep your shingle out there, let people know that you're still around, and you won't skip a beat. Because business will go on, it's just a matter of will you be servicing them or someone else. So I tell my team that, you know, some some hard work and good fortune, you know, really paid off. So just to be format of the show, we're going to be talking about the news and responding to it. And I was having a bit of a slot. So for me, when I when I when I when I send out the invite to Tom, I was thinking myself, I'd like to see how we can approach some of the problems that we always bring up on this show, and how we can use a sales driven approach perhaps to solve some of these things. Because I think that if you if you, if you think about it, I mean, you know, and with due respects to the respect to vegans who are watching the show, they're not always the best salesman in terms of what, you know, what's good for the planet and stuff like that. So let's, let's plow ahead, let's have a look at what's in the news. And then, you know, let's shoot the breeze. Cool. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Let's get stuck in so starting off with our nice story, of course. It's the Queen Jubilee. And it's been a lovely little distraction in the world. I don't know if you guys have been noticing it. Yeah. The Queen seems quite frail. And I, you know, she had COVID. And I think there's a lot of warnings about her health. And she's got to take it easy, but I don't know, she kind of feels like she's out there giving it a go and just living life to the fullest because obviously, I think he knows she knows her time's coming to an end. And just seeing her turn up at the the Elizabeth line, the new tube station, I thought it was our tube line. I thought it was really cute. If you guys had had a look. And it's got a big concert coming up queen and Adam Lambert will be there. I wish I was there. If you guys have had a look. Yeah, like I like it Gee, she turns out, he turns up to Paddington Station to formally open the Elizabeth line, she's 96 years old. I just think she's amazing. Imagine what she's seen in her in her tenure. You know, it's just incredible. And when you have when you see movie, like the, The King's Speech, where he's stuttering away in the movie, and that's her dad. You know, it's it's the time at from from her as a little girl, then through to now is just been phenomenal. So, you know, there's countries that are divided a little bit by by the British Empire, and what that means and everything else. But as a states person, as a state, as a state's woman, and a head of state. I think she's just been remarkable, remarkably resilient, remarkably patient with the nonsense that happens in the world. And good honor, because we're not going to have her for much longer. And I'm think, yeah, and in her own family, of course, right. When talking about nonsense, and we're all come on most people, right? Yeah, I'm Canadian. So definitely, you know, my take on it is I've I've never really been that interested in what happens with the royal family. I know some people are like, Oh, Kate Middleton and this and that, and Harry and this and that. And I'm just like, their people. So I don't really get starstruck or fascinated by these things. But I really do love Tim's approach, you know, his point of view around just her as a person and what she has seen holy smokes like, and she really is almost that linchpin or that that tipping point between kind of the the old world and now I mean, really, the whole royal thing to me doesn't have much significance in in 2022 To be quite honest and and that's why we're seeing around the world that also brings up some really horrible memories for a lot of people. I mean, if you're Commonwealth white colonial then you're like you see her and the family through a very different lens than if you were colonized. Yeah. So it's just very, very different. So, you know, good, good for her. Good for her doing what she's doing. And I love to see people out there doing stuff. But you know, I'm not a huge I don't get excited about, you know, ribbon cuttings and things like that. And, I mean, depending on the color of the ribbon for me, but but the, but with with, with the when you think about England, and if you remove the comma, the the monarchy from England, how, how boring would England be? All they would have left is Boris Johnson and football. So he has the coolest hair. He really does. I think he he puts Donald Trump to shame with that hairstyle. I think Tim could reach down right now and pull out his hairstyle. If you've got it right next year. Oh, if you noticed, I went. If you notice I went dark. It's because we just had an electricity drop out. So hopefully everything's back on track. For me, for me with the Queen, it's a respect for her. And for her her work, her discipline. You know, she's, she's, she's always worked hard. And that's what I admire about her the rest of the show I couldn't care less about. But for her, I have a respect for her as a woman. And I think she's carried herself incredibly, over the years. So that's when I really do enjoy some of those, like movies like Elizabeth and things like that, like I love. You know, I love a good thing a history, you know, and I'd love to see like, Why is the world the way it is today? You know, and I find that fascinating. And what have we lost? Because there's sometimes when you watch those shows you go, would it be nice if we still had that sense of decency? Or wouldn't it be nice if we still had that? You know, those sorts of things. And then there's what have we gained? Of course, there's a there's a lot of change that's happened. But well, it's all contextual. And all a matter of perspective, isn't it? Because when we talk about the decencies, again, it depends who you were, what your class was what you looked like, decency looked very different to different people. Well, yeah. Is everyone standing Okay, and connected here? We're good, but I think you're having some connection issues. You're you're a little bit pixelated and rosin, folks Frozen. Elsa from this point? Yeah. But I've seen worse. I've seen worse freezes than that. That's not bad. Yeah, back to back. Do you have a thunderstorm at the moment? Is that what's happening up there? I can see a storm. Yeah, brewing outside. But there's been throughout the day, there's been these little flickers, and it's in Thailand. So it happens. Let's move on to the to another story. So the US Soccer has agreed to pay, it has agreed to equal pay for both the male and the female teams. So the American women are not getting a lot of good news at the moment. So I thought that was a great news story that we should be paying attention to. And they will and truly deserve it, especially the American team is phenomenal. So I was pleased about that. And the women had it was much better than the men's team. Yeah. And the men's team were okay. But the women's team is, is been winning all the awards. This is groundbreaking. This this for sport is phenomenally important. So the deal is that the women in the national team, because in the private teams, they get paid based on individuals, but in the national team, they get paid, whatever they get paid. And so they've struck the agreement that the men's team plays in the men's team players, the women's team will get the same pay. And they will pool all the prize money from the tournaments that they're in and shared equally across the men's and women's team. So if the women's team wins the World, the Women's World Cup, and the men's team gets knocked out in the first round of the Men's World Cup, weirdly enough, the men's team will probably get paid more, even though the women's team wins the tournament. So what happens is all of the prize money goes into a pool and it gets distributed evenly across across the national teams. So from a from that perspective, I just think it's it's really, really amazing. It's it's, it's groundbreaking. Yeah, well, I mean, it is in that sport, for sure. I mean, I'm a huge tennis fan, as some of you may know, and there's been equal prize money for both the women's and the men's tour for a few years now. So in soccer, sure. Groundbreaking in tennis. No, but it raised Some interesting questions because, you know, and one has to tread very lightly when they say what I'm gonna say next is like, I'm all for equality of opportunity, but not necessarily equality of outcome. So what does that mean? Well, again, I'm a huge tennis, fan, love, love women's tennis like they're off the charts phenomenal. And as Joe was mentioning, my perspective, from a sales context is, well, what's the viewership? You know, I'm who's filling the stadiums, who's sponsoring the events who's watching. So if one sport is just more popular than another, whether it's men or women, I don't care. If one sport is more popular than another, if you've got certain players that are more marquee and a draw than others will then those players, those teams, those events, and sports should naturally get more, right again, equality of opportunity, like everyone gets the same shot, we all start with a level playing field, I 100% support that. But you know, you start getting into quota systems and this and that, look, when we look at tennis, for example, and this is probably a little bit different from soccer, but I can only speak to what I know, in the Grand Slam tournaments, like the French Open coming up, the men always play best of five sets. The women, on the other hand, always play best of three sets. But the prize money's the same. So if a man wins the French Open, and he plays best a five set matches walks away with $4 million. Hello, hello, we're in the wrong profession. Actually, we're not It's not talented. But anyway, different talents. $4 million. The woman's French Open champion will also take home $4 million, but she plays Best of three sets instead of best to five. So there are some men that say, Hey, the minute the women want to step up and play best of five, I'm more than happy to give them equal prize money. But then they're shunned as being sexist. And it's just like, No, dude, I'm just talking economics. Like, it's just, you know, so that's kind of how I see it, i equal opportunity, but not, you know, quality, I'm just gonna say, bring it is here, bring it in socials here. And we're happy to have him. I agree with that, you know, when I was in the military, there was a lot of there was a lot of sort of talk about the fact that women, you know, we did push ups differently to men. And we did different things that were different to men, right? And the reason we do it is because we're physically different beings, right? Men and women are different. But be careful, Andrea, if you say that to some extreme left wing people, they'll say no, everybody's the same, we have to treat everybody exactly the same. But the impact the impact physically on the body, you know, I don't know what you mean. But the impact physically on a body for for women to do three is equivalent of the impact of it on our body for a man to do fight. So, you know, it's those sort of things, but the majority of money earned in professional sports isn't what you get paid at tournaments. It's your sponsorship. And that's, that's where the real money comes in, when it comes to being a sports person. So like, if you look at the Williams sisters, or geography, or any of those sort of people, what's that? You know, what's that balance sort of look like? And, you know, typically, the men still come out on top anyway. But I think you know, that that argument, I appreciate it. But at the same time, I think that there's another story. And the other thing, of course, on the flip side, you look at someone like Maria Sharapova, there's been a lot of players out there on the women's tour that made a lot more than some men and endorsements just because they were attractive. And yeah, of course, so and so it goes both ways, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was gonna say, Tom, your three set five set argument has a small Florida, and that is that the man can play pretty badly for two sets, and then go, Okay, let's get this together, and come back and win. And clean up the women. They've got to be on their game for the whole three sets. They gotta fire. Yeah. I know. It's a lame argument. It's a landmark that I understand the point. I understand the point. Now from from a broadcast perspective, there's always gonna be to ups and downs, right, because I didn't know about this before, but you actually sell more commercials in a in a five set game. It's just like, it's just like, you know, American football. I mean, it's, it's a short game, but it takes five hours, right? Yeah, I think people have to understand the economics of it, right. I mean, it's all about money, and commercials and sponsors, but also just the athletes like if I'm, if we want to talk about equal pay, then let's do the same job. So if I have to play on average, three hours, and you only have to play an average of an hour and a half or two hours. I don't understand why we're both being paid the same. And it's not a gender thing. It's not a political thing. It's just an echo. nomic thing, you know, now, if, however, the woman's tour is is and there have been times when the women's tour and the women's matches have just been way more exciting than the men's well, then that's reflected in ticket sales. And in that case, definitely, you know, tennis is an interesting sport because you only get paid for performing, which is very different from some team sports where they sign a contract and advance and all of that, but you don't when you don't get paid. And that's one of the things that I really do admire about professional tennis. Yeah, yeah. So going back to the the actual soccer story, I think what's really interesting there is it's, they're not saying it from a team's perspective and individual contracts perspective, but they are saying it when you're representing the nation, and you're on that national stage, and it is a 90 minute game for the men and the women. So on the length of time argument, you could argue it's the same 100% and and for absolutely sure, the men's team has a lot more people watching it globally, men's football than women's football, but they're bringing women's football up and there's and there are tournaments happening and everything else and And personally, I don't really watch the women's football but partly because I don't think it's televised here. But the but I do watch the men's football. So it is there is an imbalance in in viewership, partly and also, if it was on I might watch it but it's not on. So well. That's the thing. A lot of a lot of it Tim has a chicken and egg thing because yeah, I don't know if it's because I'm getting more gray but as the years go by, I'm playing a lot more doubles and Holy smokes. I love watching doubles tennis. Yeah, Elena and I just played a tournament mixed doubles. We made the semi finals together first time playing as a team, which was awesome. And we're still together which is which is which is good. But look, they never televised doubles on TV. You know, it's always singles. And you know, but it's a chicken and egg more people play doubles and they play singles. So if they if they aired more doubles on TV would viewership go up, it's the same thing the prize money in doubles is pitiful. Now we don't we don't see doubles players going, oh, I need to get paid as much as you know, the federalism the joke of it just and then the dowels because we're doing the same thing. It's like, dude, no one cares. Like no one cares, that you're playing mixed doubles on court 13. You know, you know, they don't care. So you know, what we have to do, I think is to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to play and to compete at the highest levels and to be compensated fairly for the value that they're bringing, and that they're given those opportunities. And so regardless of the the finances around this, it's it's I think, a good move, that women's soccer is getting noticed. And I think anything that shines a spotlight on any sport that needs it is a really good step. Yeah. It's a lot about airtime. Especially. I mean, you don't really I was I was I was getting a bit more involved than I usually am with sports broadcasting this past few weeks, right. You know, like, there's a Chelsea women's team, there's a menu, women's team, there's that whole bunch, as well, they play in smaller venues. But they treat them very much like the like, like the big events that they will be elsewhere. I mean that the venues are a bit smaller, but the excitement that they have with the commentary, it's all there. And if something isn't on TV, I mean, that's really how a lot of people work is that it doesn't kind of exist, right? It hasn't it hasn't had a chance to have the audience go like, Oh, I recognize that. So like what's recently happened in Formula One as well. I mean, they haven't got Formula One for women yet, but they've started the the races in similar cars. And they have, they have a women's race right now. And they don't have as many venues. But what they're doing is they're running two races a weekend every time they do a race. So they get two sets of results and all that. But it is coming out there. Right. So the problem is also the who pulls the levers or who holds the levers, you know, in terms of letting these things on TV, or this is a thing. Yeah, sorry, Joe, I hate to cut you off. But because I want to build on something or just kind of clarify something you had mentioned about Formula One. So let's watch a little bit of f1 I'm definitely not an f1 aficionado by any sense. But there is this really cool show on Netflix that I love that gets me excited about it. Yeah, I remembered it's called and it was really cool show drive to survive. Something like that. Right. But so I don't I don't know. I mean, there are some sports where obviously we do need gender separated just because of the physicality that Andrea talked about. And that just makes perfect sense. But Formula One driving, I don't know, I'm not enough of a driving aficionado to say that there should be two tours. I mean, I don't see why women shouldn't be on an f1 team driving these awesome vehicles. So Yeah, but I could say that it's coming down to something as simple as how women lose perspiration versus how men lose perspiration because it's such an intense sort of 90 minutes in the car. And, you know, the show that you've been talking about, which actually got me into Formula One for the first time. You know, and if, over time, we'll say, Can women compared to the same level and if they can, and there's no, you know, it's just equal, then great. But But then the other thing that Tim was talking about is media opportunity and media coverage. So in Australia, we've really seen a real transformation in the last four years. Female cricket and Aussie rules football with female teams, and the country's getting behind it, but the media's got to get behind it, the exposure for the girls, you know, the Australian strains are so proud of our Olympic swimmers. But we're we we're not proud of all these other female sort of sports that women accelerate. So I think there's, there's, there's a lot of work to be done. And you know, we're still, we're still dealing in many countries, like there's, there was a story in Malaysia a couple of weeks ago, where the, the female team went in taekwondo or Judo or something, they couldn't even get the money in the sponsorship to go to this European World Cup, and they somehow scrambled it together, and one of them one, you know, so now they've got the attention, now, they'll get a real investment that needs to start younger, and, you know, a mentor, let's just be honest about, you know, we have to want to know the difference between us we have to, and what that means as far as what you're capable of doing. But, you know, time is a measure of physicality to me isn't necessarily correct. If our bodies, you know, physiology physiologically work differently. So, you know, I didn't expect this story to, to create so much conversation, I thought we'd be able to the fact that what is it plants have been grown in soil from the moon for the very first time, just you go back to the girls. The thing about the TV rights part is that there's a mindset that is still in 1970s. And we've got streaming of everything. And if we're gonna get streaming of somebody watching some other TV show, and that streaming, then surely we can stream women's sport, you know, there's more opportunity. There's so much nonsense being streamed. So I know it's expensive to have a live broadcast. But there's a lot of people, there's a lot of people that can, that can can be out there learning to commentate, learning to do all of this, at the lesser watched elements. And there's a lot of people that that would be happy to do it. And even if it's not streamed or broadcast live, which there's absolutely no excuse with all the lives that mean, if we can livestream this, they can livestream a woman's football match, you know, so, so if there's really no excuse for not having it available, and with all those pay TV channels to have more content, so I get the I get the men's football. So I've got a TV channel where I can watch live games only on the weekends. Because I bought the television and it came with it for free. I'm a bit too tight to pay for the midweek ones, but I can see all the recording programs. So the midweek ones are all at 3am Anyway, but I can I can I can watch the recording the recordings, the playback of the actual match, if I really wanted to sit through the whole thing. There's no reason why we can't have all of those in there. So it will no there isn't and you know I subscribe to tennis tv.com I have for several years. And it used to a few years ago stream all of the ATP, which is the men's and the WTA tournaments, Women's Tennis Association, but somewhere around licensing and negotiation, they stopped airing the women's and now it's just the men. Why is that? We love to watch women's tennis. It's frickin amazing. Singapore, my gosh, when we had the WTA finals here, like five years in a row, Elena and I were there ever like every day, during the tournament, it was just amazing having in our backyard, they're off the charts. Next Level. super amazing athletes and we pay whatever we paid to see them. It's world class. And when some people are like, Oh, but they're, it's just the women I'm like, then you just don't know frickin tennis dude. World class and they would kick your ass in a heartbeat without even trying. They're amazing. And it's just great quality tennis. And even like, I was just telling Elaine today, I was on Facebook, which I'm rarely on but I was on Facebook this morning. And scrolling in my feed is like all PGA and LPGA. And they're amazing golfers like so. To me. It's not about gender, but what we need to do is to make sure that any little boy or girl who wants to do anything, has the opportunity to do whatever they want and there's no one going Oh sweetie, you have to do this. There's a cheerleading thing and you can cheer on the boys okay, sweetie, we can have a a world like that. Any girl who wants to do whatever the heck she wants, whether it's tennis, rugby, golf, wrestling, whatever, there's something for her. So we've got to have something for everybody out there. And those role models need to be on TV. Well, that's it, there's a bit more going on behind this as well. Because I mean, like, I have friends who are in the broadcast world and doing the WTA in Singapore, for instance, right? In the first year, and then the years following what they had to do in the end was actually not light certain tiers of the stadium because it wasn't being as well attended in in real life as well. So there's, I think there's so much more going on than just saying, Okay, we got to have this for everybody, we got to be giving them access and all that, I think that the promotional aspect is definitely part of it as well. There's right pricing, you know, like like it, would it would it be better attended if it was right priced? Is it has it been priced, you know, like to exclusively, you know, whatever, there's so many things that have to come into play. And you don't like for I'm sorry, I'd read well, we will finally get off this topic where the three guys it's a great it's also about well held ideas by people in power. So like the NBA, women's basketball, for instance, in the US had this really huge problem because there wasn't enough money to pay the women as well. That's what they were, they were saying, and factually, it was correct. But the reason it happened is because the men's and this is college basketball, by the way, the men's college basketball was being paid for as a big contract, and the Women's Basketball was being thrown in for free. So they they literally wasn't the money. I mean, not for free, but as a bundle with a lot of other stuff as well. So the main thing was the March Madness, you know, thing that they did, they branded it, and they made a big change, by the way as well. I think this is the first year that the Women's Basketball has also been branded as March Madness. But it's that kind of it's a kind of thinking by those people already kind of around that that crazy creates a problem, right? If you talk about when would I schedule prime events, you not likely want to use the prime time for a women's game because you'd go like it's definitely the wrong thing. But you've also got to do some some I mean, I think you got to go through the metrics and check for sure as well. Because I do think it's a it's a it's a hard decision for someone to say, I'm going to schedule a women's event which hasn't proven itself to be as popular in place of a more popular event and is primetime. Would I do that? chicken and egg thing and let me let me add something here. I also used to love MMA mixed martial arts. So when I was a younger man, I'd be watching the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship every time it came out. Hey, Tom, Tom, are you about to go to Jelly wrestling in a minute? No, okay. Right, but, so what ended up happening, right, so if you've heard of Ronda Rousey, so about 10 years ago, Ronda Rousey Ronda Rousey comes out, and Dana White took a big gamble, to start promoting her and to start building up. You know, women's MMA and showcasing these fighters, and I gotta tell you something. You know, Amanda Nunez and Ronda Rousey, and a whole bunch of them are amazing fighters. So if you love the the sport and the art, bring it on. And in fact, something that he did a few years back was they had a woman's title bout was the headlining fight on the card. Wow, wow, that was a headlining fight on the card. Right? And so it's possible and it's it's doable, we, you know, you just see as as kind of two, two parts, two sides of the same coin, but we don't need to compare them exactly. Because they're not the same, obviously. And you look at the heavyweight men, and you're just like, wow, whoever gets hit first, it's game over if you don't have the power thing. But, you know, with women's MMA, you know, they're faster, there's more hits, and let's be honest, I mean, if they're attractive as well, the guys like to watch them in the way ends and I mean, they they know how to play it up. So, you know, guys and girls love watching women's MMA for various reasons. Right. So there's definitely precedent there. Just before we go to the moon, Andrea the moon yeah. The last thing that that I noticed in that article, was the quote, this is a truly historic moment, and the quote continues, but the quote is from the US Soccer president, so the president of US Soccer I'm Cindy Parlow cone. And I think the fact that the President of US Soccer is a female has a lot to say about the change that has been brought in to the association. So I think more women in leadership, you're going to start to see the perspective coming in, rather than a gun, a bunch of guys in the backroom going just televise the guys, nobody's watching. Whoa, yeah. And I think, I think for that, I think it's a, if guys are worried about their position, they certainly they perhaps need to think a little bit more broadly, rather than just playing the same old game that we've been playing in the 80s. Because stuff's changing. So I don't think anybody should be, you know, worried about their position. My gosh, we we talked about this in Asia, professional speakers, Singapore, that we all work together to build a bigger pie, we're not fighting for the same piece of the pie, we're building a bigger pie. So so it's not about who gets more airtime. There's enough out there for everybody. And I think this world now more than ever, when everybody's got their own YouTube channels that they like, and they're getting their watch lists on the streaming platforms, there is enough out there for everybody to enjoy. So just listen to anybody create the content you want, do the sports that you want. There's going to be an audience for you. And now more than ever, easier than ever before you can get people to be fans. Yeah. Oh, my God, my god daughter in in Australia, is I think she's 16 Now, and are 15. She's 15. And she is going to be an Australian women's cricketer. She absolutely will be she's already representing Victoria. She's phenomenal cricketer. And, and she's been she's been picked in, in boys teams to play. So she's she's, I mean, that isn't happening at the national level. But she's, she's gonna be there. So it's a it's, it's, I'd like to take some credit, because I do I do remember bowling to her when she was about five. I think it's because of me. But it's all about you have to take some credit for her amazingness. But she Yeah, so she's, you know, it's, it's there. It's just great that the platform and I love what Tom said, any little boy or little girl should be able to watch role models. And think I want to have a go at that rather than being being forced into some sort of gender role based on a stereotype from the 50s. Yeah, yeah. And also take the judgment away. So I was a teenage bodybuilder, right, which wasn't considered a very feminine sport, but I loved it. And I was cycling at the same time. So I had, like, my leg muscles were the ambition of the men in the gym. Wow. I had a client conference once where I was emceeing and we had, we had a panel of, of senior leaders from this financial organization, and had this sort of q&a thing happening in the audience had to guess who it was, and the other members of the panel who had to guess who it was. And one of the questions was, I was the head cheerleader for the cheerleading squad for the football team at college. And they all they all chose the woman who hadn't been chosen yet. There was two women on the panel. And no, it was a guy. It was this big guy was the head of the cheerleading squad and everyone was like, what? And he goes, of course, that's where all the pretty women were, why would I be on the boys team? I don't want to hang out with guys. And very smart. Very, very, very smart. But I think the consensus, you know, like, it's Tom said, every little boy and every little girl should be able to pursue whatever path they want to take, you know, and what, as long as they do no harm in the world. And let's let's just, we've just got to open the world up for all of those opportunities. And that applies equally to sports as it does to sciences. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. Everything. You know, I think definitely. That was the same way do we have to move on because we are agreeing too much with each other? There's four of us. And we all agree. Yeah, no. She'll be controversial and go to the moon to plant their letter. Yeah. So they're planted some plants in mountain dirt, which is called lunar regolith. I've never heard that word. Anyway, apparently. So it's a success because it grows, but the plants actually get stressed out by the experience so not going to be a solution for us to migrate to the moon anytime soon when we destroy the planet, but anyway, another story that's really Can we can we imagine? All right, the plants are getting stressed. It should be good for wine because they like stressing the grapes to make amazing wine. Imagine getting some mood In one. So all I'm saying is, you know, I read that story. And what was really cool about that is that is lunar dirt that they brought back from one of the expeditions like 30 or 40 years ago, which is amazing. I'm trying to picture it like someone's like, dude, you've got something on your shoe, what is that? It's just some dirt from the lunar landing, let it just knock it off, and they kept it somewhere or something. And they finally figured out, let's do something with it. And then a plant could grow in that in some way is is awesome. I'm always I love science, and I love space exploration. And what I love about it is not so much the let's colonize the moon. As much as let's figure out cheese. Let's figure out how we feed people in Sub Saharan Africa. Let's figure that out first, can we do that? So let's use technology and science, the things that we discover to try to, you know, we're trying to like, you know, Elon Musk likes to talk about let's what's, what's that term again, to make? No to make something like the Earth? What's that term? It's TerraForm. So, you know, he wants to terraform Mars? Well, why don't we start by terraforming, you know, laterra the earth, you know, like, let's make it better. If we can, if we can terraform Mars, we can fix the problems on Earth, we can do that. So let's make sure we actually do that. And I mean, my God, don't get me started $40 billion aid package going to Ukraine from the US while they have homeless people and people who are not eating in their own country infrastructure, falling down. Unemployment, and high inflation. But the minute there's a war, the middle military industrial complex, we got something for you. We got money for you. Health care in the US. Nope, can't afford that. But we can afford this. So it's just very interesting where people in nations put their priorities. So let's let's start looking more inward to home. Yeah, absolutely not no disagreement there. But let's stay in space. So it's now cool to see UFOs. There's been quite a few pieces. There's a great piece of Rolling Stones. But it's been the first hearing in 50 years for the US Congress. And basically, there were 400 incidents reported, which is 250, more than 143, included in a report released the year before. So basically, the military is saying it's cool, we're gonna make it easy. We're not going to make a fool of you, we're not going to laugh at you, if you see a UFO because it's actually part of national security, we need to know about this stuff, so that if there's a risk, we can mitigate it. So I thought that was a pretty cool little story that was going around. Do you guys have uh, let me let me just say a little something. If there's a risk, we can mitigate it. Sorry. If there's UFOs. And I believe that, you know, sure, we've probably look, anybody that's smart enough technologically, to do space travel from wherever they came from, that we can't even see. If there's any danger to us. We're not mitigating it, like if they want us done will be done. Do you know I mean, look, anytime we look at history on the earth, anytime a more advanced civilization has visited a less advanced species or civilization, it is never ended well, for the less advanced species never never ended. Well. So why would we think would be any different when and if we get officially visited by some extraterrestrial because of the rules? Because it stopped? The Prime Directive, the prime directive? And yeah, yeah, the prime example. But that only applies to that only applies to humans. It doesn't that we don't interfere in their stuff. But I don't think they people, people aren't that the aliens are going to leave Earth alone, because we've got too many satellites and debris orbiting the planet that it's too dangerous for them to fly in. There, they'll come in and get hit by something and wipe themselves out. Anyway. Yeah. But they're here. They're around, you know. So I mean, like, there have been so many sightings, and now more than ever, when people have got, you know, cameras at their disposal. There's going to be more and more sightings, more and more reportings. I find the topic fascinating. I mean, I could talk for hours about you know, UFOs and extraterrestrial life. And it's, I mean, for me, it's inconceivable that there is not intelligent life out there. It's just mathematically impossible. We were not chosen in the whole universe to be the only sentient beings it doesn't. It doesn't that doesn't fly with me. If if we just grasp a little bit of science and you do some math, it just would stand to reason that there are countless species out there, beyond in the cosmos beyond what we are capable of seeing, and certainly well beyond capable of getting to. But I don't know, there's just something I don't know about you all. But since I was a kid, I've always been fascinated with the solar system, and the galaxies and universe and all of that. So I mean, there's a part of the kid, the kid in me wants there to be life out there as well. Yeah, but I do I want to go back to what you said a little bit earlier, though, Tom, there is this, this massive amount of money going into the search for it, when there are problems as well. And I was just, I quickly did a look up, it was, we spent in 2020, we spent $49 billion to two. No, that was it for that first space shuttle in today's in today's rate would have been $49 billion. And we have a huge space program with all of this sort of stuff. And it's important to, to, to, to get to understand it. And at some point, you got to spend the money to get to understand it. And the cheaper time is now rather than later, where the every dollar is worth a lot more and all of that sort of stuff. But you know, when when you said aid packages, you can snap your fingers and go there when there's real issues in your own country or real, real issues in different parts of the world, or real issues wherever you're sending whoever's sending aid, then yeah, that is, it starts to beg the question, what are we doing? But Well, it's interesting. I mean, we obviously have to prioritize our spending, right? And not everyone is going to be happy with how we budgeted the spend, right? You know, I used to think, Well, wait a minute, why would we spend so much on space? And if I'm not wrong, NASA's budget has been cut back almost like every year for quite a bit. Right. So though, that just recently had a big boost from Biden massive boost, just recently, how much? I'd have to look for it, I put it in it was$3. So I mean, I think the great thing about space exploration is their spin off benefits, because there's a lot of scientific innovation, developments, inventions, practical applications in day to day life that actually come out of people thinking about how do we send people into space? How do we do this? How do we figure that out? And then the applications go far beyond just what we see there. So there's their spin off benefits went up 3% Congress's appropriation for the fiscal year 2020 To increase NASA's annual budget by 3% to about 24. billion. 4 billion is not that much. Really? No, it's not. So look at this. NASA's annual budget was 24 billion. That's for everything NASA does for the whole year. Yep, they just approved a 40 billion aid package. That will be like in a matter of days that will be spent in a month. So if we look at the priority, we're gonna look at the total defense, cuz that's just NASA's funding. Right? There's also Space Force does that even still exists? Now that was G force. Oh, the planet? Yeah, so the total national defense budget in 2022 completely different 792 billion, but there's all overlaps. And like you were saying like that, yeah, the research they do in one gets handed over to the other. So a lot of the government spending on research in in defense as well as aerospace and space that may have heard the learnings then get they get developed within the commercial sector. So 100% And I heard that 40 That $40 billion aid which is just believe me the the the latest, but not the last cash infusion that will go to this supporting you know, the fighting. It's funny, no one's talking about you know, peace talks and negotiation but everything is about escalation and more troops and more weapons I find that quite interesting. Like, like that's the way it's there's been a lot of efforts at peace talks, but it's Putin's just not come. I haven't heard. I haven't gotten it's been pretty consistent and just don't know, all these talks had been led by women's teams and we just haven't gotten coverage so been happening in Turkey. So what he's been sort of leading in that but Putin is just saying that not interested. Money in war. Always want to get to get the world recession. But if you want to get a world out of recession, you always go to war. It's always the way it's worked, you know, so you get get the defense industry working jobs. Money spent that community everyone benefits. And if you look back through history, look at the millennia reducing population. So there's more for everyone? Well, depends, because what was not so much the population reduction happens in other places now versus in your own country unless you're a country like Iraq or Afghanistan. Right. So, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, look, if we want to talk about Afghanistan, so there's there's a 20 year war in Afghanistan that was never won. And from what I've heard, it was not one that wanted to be one. It's the it's the world is full of these perpetual conflicts and perpetual wars that are not intended to be one they're intended to be happening. And money consistently being spent and going to defense contractors. That's just how the script, the playbook goes out. And it's very sad. And some conflicts happen in some don't some some places we need to be in some places get completely ignored. There's a lot of conflicts in the world. I was just talking about this with my family a couple of weeks ago. There are so many places in the world right now that that have so much conflict and 1000s of deaths happening. But we don't hear about them. They're not newsworthy. Yeah. And that's, that's really sad, and no one's going to help them. But we go and help some people but not others. It's unsettling. Yeah. Yeah. Let's move on to baby formula. Right. So I'm sure. On Plex right now. 27 live conflicts right. Now, let's go to baby formula. Does that include like, resurgent sort of activity or just for Ukraine? We've got Biden just decided to go back into Somalia after Trump took them out. Lebanon, Yemen, Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, and the conflict in Ethiopia at the moment do you know, and others, so yeah, there's, there's a lot that's going on, like we've talked about it over the weeks, you know, countries that were peaceful, but now because of food famine, you know, just energy shortages. And it's not because of the Ukraine war, it started before the Ukraine war. And we talked about some of them last year, but it was in a pretty shaky place. Okay, so let's talk about baby formula. So more people in the world. But this is a huge story in the US right now. So basically, Abbott nutrition, which is part of our big tech, not the Abbott Laboratories, no relation to me, I must say, yeah, one of the one of the I'm a distant cousin, baby formula companies in the world, I was once asked if I'd be interested in pitching for some business work for them. And I, I can't, I can't work for companies that do baby formula, if they were, especially if they were involved in the 70s and 80s, where they completely brainwashed women in the developed world, to move from and to have shame about breastfeeding and to move to formula feeding. Because it's been incredibly destructive for women. And I'll talk about that a bit more in a moment. But today, Biden got some, there's a rule where it's like the Defense Act or something, and they go out, and they're doing industrial scale sort of production. So anyway, he went out today, and I think that's been approved with the majority, but 100% of the Republicans voted against it, which is like, oh, pro life, yeah, but let's not give the mums formula. So it looks like it's going to be sorted out soon. And it's looking for approval. And it all started when they took their milk off the shelves because a couple of babies died because of a bacterial infection. So a couple of issues that come up for me in this whole story that add to what we've been talking about, first of all, at the beginning of the pandemic, we just saw how fragile our world is, right? You know, where we get stuff made, where we get stuff from. And we we understood that we're the world's being held to ransom, you know, China makes this bit, India makes this bit and if, you know, we get into a situation where we're in where everybody needs those bits, it's a problem. And here we are, again, and again, and again, the world's sitting there struggling with, you know, how to how to solve a problem. But the other side of the baby formula thing that really, really upsets me is so when our community was working really, really hard to raise money to buy food for people because they were starving because of the economic crisis that was created in the back of the pandemic. And people were, it was it was so hard being around such suffering, I have to tell you, but one of the things I was constantly getting was requests for baby formula. And I was I was going out and I was talking to these ladies and you know, the kids are 567 months old. So the conversation about breastfeeding is already gone. Right so that that's also been happening in the media. Yeah, haven't started yet, you're not gonna be able to do it. But when we're trying to feed so many people, the last thing we could do is to get formula. And because it's so expensive, and if you can buy lots and lots of rice, for people, that's more that's going to fit take care of more people, right? So it was a real, it was a real, it was very hard, right, especially as a mom myself. And so what the women were doing is they're boiling rice, and they're using the water from that to feed their babies. So rice is full of arsenic, but the water that you boil it in is really like high levels of arsenic. So basically, all of these children around Asia, in developed countries, poor countries that have been suffering, have been basically being poisoned. And nobody was paying. And I published a blog on it, nobody, probably the least reads I've ever had on the blog. But you know, so America has got all this attention for the for the mothers, which they should, because it's a very difficult thing. But all over the world, there are women who cannot afford and 40% minimum of their income goes towards buying formula when they're earning income and can afford to buy it. So. You know, to me, it's been a real, I haven't sort of shared on social media about it. But it's been a real case of the global hypocrisy. So women in wealthy countries, families, and wealthy countries are suffering. Media loves it all over it. Women in poor countries are really, really suffering now and gives a crap. And it pisses me off. It really pisses me off how we just don't seem to see that. Anyway, so I'll hand it over to you guys. Well, look, Andrea, what you're saying with the baby formula issue is what I've been talking about with, you know, military interventions around the world. I mean, there's, there's some people that are worthy of notice and help and some that aren't. So there's, there's double standards and hypocrisy is no matter what the issue is. And that said, I mean, I'm pretty far removed from the baby formula. Topic now that I've got, you know, an eight and a six year old kid. But, you know, we use formula. Right, we use formula, you know, early days, I mean, not not every minute use formula. Not Not every mother can or wants to breastfeed so, so that there are options available to mothers to nurse their kids, the way they choose to nurse their kids, I think is important. You know, I haven't been following this issue, you know, too closely. But I mean, you know, shortages happen, and there are shortages of a lot of things around the world right now. I mean, supply chain issues, and all this kind of stuff. So I don't know. I mean, if babies are going hungry, I mean, other other alternatives to formula? I don't know. The big Well, the problem is, well, the challenge for this one is in the headline, the headline is, America is running out of baby formula, because three companies control the market and babies aren't that profitable. Now, I don't quite agree with the babies aren't that profitable? Because it's a massive market. You spent so much money on formula. It's funny. Expensive. Yeah, they're very expensive, a massive cash grab. It's a massive cash grab, that really preys on young parents first time parents insecurities about taking care of your kids and doing the right thing. I know if I remember. Now, we were very careful with ours, what we did was we always gave them a little mirror, we put a small line of formula there and they use dollar notes to get it. We were okay. That's how it started. Yes, sir. Which I all right. The one thing the one thing that we you know, we have as a human race, and it should not a human race it the the whole mammalian sector, right, is that we can actually use each other's milk. And this is the one thing that we don't seem to do enough of. So the whole idea for me, formula, which is crazy. It's like we grew up I mean, I grew up on just powdered milk, and didn't grow any horns. Right. But, you know, some would say, maybe I haven't fully formed, but I didn't I didn't have formula when I was growing up. Turned out pretty. Okay. The whole idea that you would, you would buy, you know, the Kansa this small, and it's 50 bucks, right? Yeah. And it struck me a few years ago when I saw that someone had you know, like, like, like, you know, when you what you do is you that is shoplifting right? And when you hear people are shoplifting, baby formula, and not because they need it but for profit. They you know, something really bad's going on, right? Because it is very profitable to shoplift something that can be sold like that. It'd be 50 bucks like that. If you're in a supermarket. That's probably as much it's it's gold in terms of even the brand is gold but it's also gold and you know, in terms of price of Something that sighs that's a good point. I think the challenge of profitability there is it, it's expensive for us. But the challenge on profitability is because of all the hurdles and hoops and regulations to make sure that it's all pure and pristine and everything else, you know, but I mean, anyone who's had more than one child, or has been a sibling of more than more than one other knows that the first child gets the sort of, you know, the Golden Glove pristine drop, you drop the Drop the beat on the floor, it goes in the rubbish bin, the second child has dropped the meat on the floor, and you give it a bit of a rinse and give it to them. The third child, you got to eat it. Yeah. So yeah. A lot of these things are just massive cash grabs. You know, we see this with Big Pharma and all these kinds of companies. And what's really sad is, and we look, we've seen this, you know, not to go down too far down the rabbit hole. But we've seen this in this whole COVID situation around vaccines and with treatments. And there are some drugs that are just immediately shamed and and made to look like their horse de wormer, when there's studies that actually show that they have greater efficiency and treating COVID than some of the mainstream, unsurprisingly, insanely expensive drugs compared with some that are just pennies. So you know, a lot of it is sales. And Joe, you want it to hear from a sales guy, a lot of this is just frickin sales and marketing, is able to position themselves as the right choice who's able to, you know, slander and smear the competition, which is exactly what's been done with like ivermectin, for example. Even though I've seen study after study that actually shows that it's as effective as other treatments out there for for COVID. You know, hey, Facebook, don't don't cancel, cancel this show, because I said that or put a label on there. But I'm just, yeah, Tom. I've seen people on the show. So some things are accepted as fact and true when we talk about disinformation. And we talk about, you know, fake news. It happens. It's, it's not, it's not a maga specific problem. Yeah, but the baby formula market is the one that is like, if you're interested, go and have a look at it. And it goes back well into the 70s. And the 80s. And those companies, and probably the profitability comment is actually also a around. There's so much legislation around how they do what they do now, because of because of this history. But they did. They did the damage. You know, I mean, Philippines went from 80% of the kids were breastfeed to 80% of the kids are on formula. The garment factory workers in Cambodia, are paying 40% of their salaries towards formula. And they're earning $190 a week. Well, why is that? Maybe I don't know what, why is that marketing, the marketing of Nestle? And, and those sort of companies, they they basically came down to consumer choice, right? I mean, now they change the cultural acceptance of breastfeeding. So it became a shameful thing to do. And that's what they did. And it was so go and have a look at it. It's, it's one of the most bizarre because I'd always heard the opposite. I mean, I'm from a generation where women seem to be shamed, for not breastfeeding, and for doing the unnatural thing. So this is news to me. That's a that's a different topic for me. Because yes, that that is definitely happening. And it's definitely part of raising kids. And I saw those people in action shaming people for not breastfeeding. And I believe you should do whatever the hell you want. But this is a different thing. This was actually they changed the culture, again, to be against breastfeeding, and shameful in traditional conservative societies, all around the world. And then as soon as COVID hitting these women couldn't afford to pay it. Those companies have been nowhere to support them. So yeah, it's so it's a really interesting, it's a lot more interesting than I think people give it credit. Should we move on to the next story? Yeah. All right. So we've got the buffalo shooting, which is obviously something that started the week 10 People innocently doing their Saturday shopping at a supermarket gunned down by he's been called a terrorist by some but not by everybody. I'm I'm actually at the point where I really struggle with having even an emotional response to these stories, because even though I'm devastated for the, for the people who died and for their families, and for the people who are affected, there's an obvious solution to the problem that we just don't see sort of happening. So it's, I don't know, do you guys feel the same as mass shootings? Yeah, I mean, look, there. There is a I've seen stats that say that there's a mass shooting and a mass shooting is defined as I think more than three are four people killed? Okay? There's like a mass shooting happening in the US every day. Yeah, every day, there's something happening now maybe not 10 people in, in a store. But there's some sort of a mass shooting happening every single day statistically in the US. And I don't know, I'm becoming desensitized to it to it. I mean, the answer seems to be fairly obvious. You look at New Zealand, and when they had something happened Jacinda Arden in a heartbeat got everybody on both sides of the aisle to start looking at gun control. But you know, you get these folks in the US that I feel misinterpret the first the second amendment, they talk about the right to bear arms, but they actually don't get the context, which is to protect them to have an armed militia to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And the context of that was basically if the Brits come back, that was my understanding, if the Brits come back, you as Americans have the right to bear arms against them. But you asked, I mean, most Americans perhaps are not historians. And they're not reading the Second Amendment. But they feel like I've got the right to have an AK 47 to protect myself. It's ludicrous, right? So it doesn't make any sense. So you've got this gun culture in the US. And that's what happens when people have access to guns, and what guns don't kill people kill. Well, let's play word games. Everybody. Like, let's keep it real. If you remember, I brought this up. I brought this up a long time ago as well, right? Because it was it was it was a revelation to me when I when I found out about this. Canada has more guns per capita than the US. But you know, when you met, you talked about culture. That was actually quite interesting, because I think I think that's, that's where the difference. I would like to see that because that that surprises are more guns per capita, per capita. Okay, that still surprised me. But I'll tell you, capita is that in Canada, we've got very tight gun legislation. So that does surprise me. But I will say that guns in Canada would be like hunting rifles for some dude in the Yukon. And that's very different from having a gun culture. And like, you know, people walking around could get one with firearms, and they can buy them anywhere. That's not the case. In Canada, it's not that easy. So it's just night and day, it's very different. If you if you, if you were Farmer of chickens, there's a good chance that you're going to be eating a lot of chickens for your evening meals. And if you're a country, that's one of the number one exports is military weapons, then there's a it's fair enough that all that people have them. I mean, it's you know, but it's stupid. It's, you know, it's you to use the chicken metaphor. It is like a chicken and egg thing. Right. So look, Elaine and I have talked about this before, if I if we ever moved to the US. Okay, I hate guns. So I'm gonna sound like a big hypocrite. If we ever moved to the US, I would feel like we would need a firearm somewhere in the house that I can access in case there was a frickin intruder. Because he's got a gun. He's got a gun. Yep. Now perpetuates that perpetuates this whole cycle. Right. So, so. So what do we do when normal semi sane people like me who hate guns now feel like they might need one to protect themselves. But it's hypocritical because in fact, I think studies have shown that most people they get killed by their own gun or at someone in the house that gets killed by the gun. So it's not even that intruder. Like it's not even that. Yep. You know, and it's and it's often suicide with the gun. So there's massive problems that need to be solved that at a at a fundamental level. Yeah. And it's not every state in the US. So we've my husband and I have had the same chart, if we ever moved to the US, we're gonna get a gun. I'm like, No, we just live in a state where they don't have them. And there's plenty of those states. So you don't actually have to make that decision. If you move to the US just, you know, you got to somebody like Massachusetts, whether it's not a gun culture, because people just don't have them. But um, but the but there's another story to this and it's not just it's not just the mass shooting, of course, it's the reason behind it. And basically, this piece in The Daily Beast called Republicans must answer for great replacement theory violence, and the saying Republicans in the conservative media ecosystem have to answer for the blood on their hands. And of course, we're seeing a lot of people skipping around this story, especially especially in this media, but the the great replacement theory is at the center of this and this is basically obviously white people are feeling scared that we're not going to be the dominant race anymore and as a white person is so pathetic, but so people who believe in this believe that you know, everyone's coming to take over, and there's going to be more of them. And they believe that the Jews are the head of a nefarious international cable, who are deliberately using blacks, Muslims, immigrants of color feminists and LGBTQ to infiltrate, weaken, and eventually replace Western civilization, which is a euphemism for white people. As a white person just makes I just feel it's just pathetic, but using them, who's using those people? I don't know. That's what the that's what the GOP and the media conservative media are saying, right? That's what, that's what the, you know, the replacement theory. Yeah. And of course, then there's the whole Tucker Carlson angle who's saying, who's gone very, very quiet. And there's a proof that he sort of mentioned it for 400 times and on his show. So it's a bigger thing sort of that's going on, rather than just the Shooting and Gun control. It's also there's this narrative in the right, that is sort of creating fear in people. And it's, it's turning these young men into these into these terrorists who are just going out and killing grandmas doing their Saturday shopping, because they'd like skin. So, for me, I try to avoid left versus right talk, I feel like left and right talk is is actually a big part of the problem. I agree. I'm just talking about this. This is what the media is reporting. So I do agree but and it's and it's left media, you know what I'm saying? So it's not the media, it's, it's so look, you and I could find the same issue and then find two very different sources that would give a very different take on that. And that's the sad thing, because it's not a different perspective, which is healthy. It's a different political view and a different political agenda for for media. And that's what's really sad, and the left and the right, do it the same way. So while in the same hand, you might have the right going, oh, you know, you know, this replacement theory or whatever this is, same time. The left was all over that kid Kyle Rittenhouse. So Kyle Rittenhouse this 18 year old that shot and killed three people that this Black Lives Matter of and then walked away. Yeah. Yeah, the three people that he killed were white. But he's most people don't turn up and murdered people. No, he did. And it was self defense. I actually saw the video. Yeah, yeah. He actually was helping people at that event. And got chased by these white guys with guns and he defended himself and that's why he was acquitted. But the but the media narrative got people thinking it was this white supremacist guy that went across state to shoot up black people at a Black Lives Matter event. So this type of misinformation happens on both sides. So that's why I hesitate to write well, that's a big deal because that you want to know something when when Kyle Rittenhouse got acquitted. I saw footage of so many African Americans so many black people that were so upset that he got acquitted because they thought that he killed black people. It's it's horrible. And that was the narrative and a lot of people don't know the facts of the case. So anyway, that notwithstanding, look, to me crazy people are crazy people. I don't care what their ideology is. Yes. Is is are there people in the US that do believe that? You know, are there white supremacists? Yeah, of course there are. Are there racist people on in the US? Yeah, of course they are. That's a problem. But look, the US has a has always had racial tension. They've always had racial tension. So you've got racial tension, you add to the mix, people that like to stir the pot and get people to look outward instead of inward, right. So to me when we talk about them. It's so convenient for the powers that be the establishment the status quo, to get blacks to hate whites and whites to hate blacks. That's just so it's so easy, isn't it? For left to hate right and right to hate left. But when you think about it, what has the left actually done for most Americans today? What's Biden doing for people? Right, Obama, what did he do for black Americans? Not a whole lot. In fact, he incarcerated more people than Bush did before. And in fact, he started more wars than Bush did before. So when we start thinking about oh, Democrats are for the people. They're not, they're not doing anything for the people that they could be doing. I see them both as like corporatists. both the left and the right are just corporatist. They they accept money from corporate donors, and that's who they're responsible for. When you look at there was this four So the vote movement in the states a few weeks, a few months ago, where Nancy Pelosi, there was a chance that she not may not become speaker, she had to get enough votes from the Democratic Party. So there was a movement started by some people on the left true progressives to try to encourage the Democrats to force her as a condition of voting for her a condition to have universal health care, at least put to a vote, at least put to a vote so that you could see who supports it and who doesn't. She never wanted that to happen. But the so called squad, which I like to call the fraud squad, with AOC, and a whole bunch of other people that people love. Well, she's so progressive, they never once got behind the force of the vote thing, to actually force Nancy Pelosi to put this vote to put it to a vote. So anytime they have leverage, they don't do anything. And that's the scary thing, because they're all on the same side. So to bring it full circle, look, yes, another mass shooting? Yes, there's more racism, or there's still racism? Yes, because of the access to guns. When there's conflict in the US, it becomes deadly. And massive. So the US has tons of problems, they've got to sort out, and they've got for me, you know, big picture, get money out of politics, is one of the things that I loved about Bernie Sanders, at least. Now, he hasn't done everything that he should. But at the very least, Bernie Sanders, his average donation for his campaign was like 40 bucks. And it was from just average Americans, he would not take money from corporate donors. So that tells you who he's accountable to, you know, if you made politicians were stickers and logos like like, NASCAR and f1 drivers do, that'd be hilarious. Who really funds them, then you'd really see who they're working for. So there's just a lot of things that need to change in order for things to happen. I think I've talked about this maybe with you, Andrea, when we talk about the environment, environmental issues. None of that's going to happen. As long as there's money in politics and these big oil companies having influence over policy, it will never happen. And they have to be pulled kicking and screaming, or you've got to, you know, like there has to be a financial incentive if things could change overnight. And what we need is we need leadership that's not accountable to corporate donors to actually put their foot down and go, you know, what, within three years, no combustible engines anymore? Because the technology is there, they can make it happen. So if there's a will, there's a way, we just have to get things out of our way. Yeah, I mean, totally listening, hearing what you're saying, I don't necessarily agree like when you look at the left versus right thing, which I agree that the language is divisive, just in its own right. But I think politically, the US and most democracies around the world have had been basically handicapped for years now, because that there's no, there's no majority anywhere. Like I'm hoping in Australia, there's an election coming up tomorrow, I'm hoping. But that can't be a majority in the US. So the US by having a two party system, by definition, and they both care about politics, not people, you will always have half the people that are left in half that are right. Yeah, yeah. Which is different. To Canada's credit, we actually have three or four legitimate parties that consistently have a chance of winning, whether it's the liberals, the conservatives, the NDP, you've got the bloc Quebecois, and you've got the greens, and the greens are fairly powerful. So you've got five parties there, no one's afraid of like, oh, that's a wasted vote. But in the US, sadly, you vote Green. People play politics on Tuesday. But Andrew, that's a wasted vote, you better vote Democrat. So they try to brainwash you and say, Don't What are you going to do vote for Trump? You're going to vote Republican, you've got to vote blue. So guess what blue never has to work for your vote ever. They never have to honor any promises because they played the boogeyman and they go I'm your lesser of two evils. So we need to get to a point where people actually vote their frickin conscience and vote what's right, not play some political game in the short term, and actually get real strong third party alternatives out there that will hold people to account. Can you imagine if you actually told Biden and all of the Democrats Hey, dude, we're not going to vote for you. We're gonna vote for green egg He were on that we are on the cusp of revolution from a democratic voting perspective, right? So, and I think Australia tomorrow will be potentially the first sign of it really happening in the world, because it's a two party system, just like the UK, right? The greens are gonna get a lot more seats than they've ever had. But it's the independents in Australia that are going to be the decision makers, and they will align with the party. And apparently, the majority of these independents are females, professionals. And, you know, like you think for the Morison government who's been basically abusing females not taking some of the issues seriously. So, I know I'm looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow, but where we need to keep ticking things along. But there's one article that I really want to recommend it's in the shop. And you might think, well, it's gonna be you know, just a bit of a joke, but it's a good one. I watched all of sky after darks election coverage and have some fucking concerns. So this is a journalist talking about what's going on name of the article. And that's the name of the article. So it gave me an opportunity. So obviously, say, use the F word. But let's go past Twitter and musk. I do want to quickly mention COVID and monkeypox, which is obviously the new thing. So in Korea, they estimated 2 million people are suspected to have COVID 740,000 are in quarantine, they basically have no equipment, they can't test, they can't do anything. So, but they think that maybe 7% of the population is going to be impacted with COVID. And they think it's just going to be complete disaster. But the other story that's been breaking this week is about monkey pox, which is a virus that comes out of Africa. And the reason they're concerned is because they've never seen it spread the way it's spreading. So it was first seen 23 in Spain, and now it's in Britain, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden, Australia has just reported its first America's got some. So they believe that it mostly spreads in young men, it's not a good thing for children, it's closely aligned to smallpox. And if you've had a smallpox treatment, or injection, or whatever it is, I can't remember what smallpox was. You should be okay. But one in people wanting 10 people can die. And yeah, we're at the beginning of this. And it's exactly where I'm planning to take the boys in July. So hopefully, it's not something that takes off. So that's what's going on. With that, I mean, it's scary. I mean, look, I really hope that we take a good look at how we globally handled COVID, the last two years, some countries handled that well and some less so anybody who thinks that COVID was the last big global pandemic we're gonna face is a full. I've been I was telling people for the last two years, it's like the next pandemic, just around the corner. Like, of course, things mutate are a new thing. So, like, we need to look at how we handle this. And start, how do we prevent such things? How do we identify things a little bit earlier? What measures do we put into place? What measures do we not put into place? Do we have an over reliance on on vaccines? Or do we look at other things as well, in terms of, you know, you know, sharing some health information and prevention and cure. So there's a lot of things that I think we could learn from this current situation that I hope we can put into into place with with monkeypox, because we're always going to be dealing with this and all the four of us here were pretty young, you know, 40s 50s, I imagine. But look, I just thought to myself the other day, my gosh, when I'm 70 and 80. I'm gonna have a very different point of view around what these things are like, you know, I mean, I got COVID in November, I think of last year and I I barely knew I had it. I'm, I'm young, I'm fit. I'm healthy, strong, active. barely knew I had it. The only reason why I knew I had it was because we had to test our kids before they went to school one day, and I was testing the test to make sure I knew how to administer the test. And then it told me that I was freaking positive and like, oh shit. I was in quarantine. Like, God dammit. So that's the only reason why the only way that I knew but you know what, you know, fast forward 40 years 40 I'll be 90. Okay. But anyway, fast forward 30, you know, 3030 years or so. Getting any kind of a disease like that could be a very different scenario. So I really hope we get really good at figuring out how to handle these things. So so so that those that are greatly at risk are taken care of, and those that are not are allowed to go About and live their lives. And that's both neither of those two things happen I think as well as they should have. There's there's some noise and chatter happening that was probably gonna get noisier. And that's with regards to who wanting a wanting countries to sign up to a global mandate of how to address future pandemics and health crises, where the who will have some sort of controls as to how the globe response. So in one sense, that sounds like a good idea. It sounds like a good idea that, that it's not all going to be, you know, stuck, all the vaccines are going to be produced in one country and exported to the world, especially first to the world that pays for it, and then maybe to the others, at some point when we think that, you know, we should. So from that perspective, the WHO having those sorts of powers or control could be really good, but the chatter is against freedoms, and giving the WHO global power over the sovereignty of it of a nation to deal with a medical crisis. And so that chatter is likely to get noisier. And that's a really interesting one. So when you say, it would be great, you know, if we can handle these things better, in a sense, it's to give authority to an organization who is good to handle it for the for the planet, rather than for a state or, or a country where the weather is absolute power corrupts? Well, whether it's an organization or a collective, right, so I mean, look, we could look at, for example, the United Nations, to me, the United Nations in its essence, I feel like they're not living up to it, but the United Nations at its core, should be an organization that that you know, of nations that work together to try to come up with rules of engagement for how should we do things globally, so that you don't have people you don't have people operating unilaterally. Right. But and but you've got, and it's not like a one world government. But you do have a number of nations coming together to figure out, hey, how should we handle these types of situations? So if that's what the WHO scenario looks like, then then I'm all for it. But what we can't have, if you just look at the US, my God, it's United States, but quite divided, where one state has one set of rules, another state has another set of rules, don't get me started on abortion, it can be legal in one state and illegal in another what so as you fly over four states, you could be, you know, you know, what you want to do is legal here, but illegal there and all that it's to me, it's quite nonsensical. So we need to have some protocols, some standards that all nations at least have, whether it's binding, or non binding, but at least some sort of a checklist of like, Hey, here's what we should do when we detect our first case. Right? You know, like, I'm not a smart guy, but it's sort of like, what's the SOP globally? For when we detect something? Right. And what do we do? Yeah, so these are things that Yeah, and I think a lot of this is going to be we're gonna have to do this right. So monkeypox, spreading across Europe and around the world is shocking. Scientists, which is why we're hearing about it right. But basically, there's just so what are we doing about it? Like, what what are we doing about it just to stop this spread? Like, what are we doing? I don't know what we're doing. Yeah. But, and I think we're still in the stage of learning, right? So anytime that something new breaks out, they've got they need time to understand it. And, and we've never been very good at giving them that time. But with climate change, what's happening is the migration of animals and nature is happening as we speak. And they've done these mathematical equations have all these new animals that have never crossed each other's paths, who will now be crossing each other's paths. So things like Ebola outbreaks could be a thing in our future. And it's not a long time away. It's soon right. So like the World Health Organization saying we need a global strategy, we should we should do need a global strategy, especially for a Bible. You know, so, yeah, I know a lot of people are we're going to build one world government and all that sort of stuff. But if we don't get our our heads around the fact that we've got to work together as a global society to overcome all of the challenges that we face, then we're not going to overcome any of them. But um, we're not going to have time to go through global politics. I tried to say, Andrea, you're 100% Right. And when people talk about this one world government, there's always a negative connotation to it, right? I mean, you could say it as diabolical as diabolically is, you won that you won World Government. Right? We can say, oh, you know, one world where we come together and you know, we have global problems. Let's figure it out globally, right. So it just depends how you frame it and how you how you say it. But look, you're right, we have one globe, and there's nothing that happens here. That doesn't affect what frickin happens there. That's just the way it is. And we see that environmentally, we see that economically, militarily, I mean, all these things, so we need to try to come together and figure stuff out for the betterment of the earth. My gosh, I mean, there's this kind of metaphor, if, if, if, if bringing it full circle, one of those UFOs lands on the lawn of the Kremlin, or, you know, here in Singapore, or Parliament Hill in Ottawa, or the White House in Washington, take me to your leader, and they want to do something. Are we going to come together? Like, what are we going to do? I sure hope sometimes something happens, where we, we find that maybe I don't know what it is. Maybe it's climate change, but we need something. And I was hoping it would maybe it's cold, like, we need something that gets everybody to go Holy smokes. What's happening now is happening to all of us. And we're all humans. And we all have one. We're all one people. Yep. Yeah. It's almost like what what NATO and attack on one is attack on all, we need to have that philosophy across the board. Yeah, we're not going to get a chance to go through the the sort of political stuff so but in my weekend reads, I really want to recommend there's a lot of articles about like, what's happening in Sri Lanka, but also what's happening in the Horn of Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco. I mean, we've got a lot of countries on the on the cusp of starvation. So therefore, social unrest is really happening. So we're gonna see a lot going on Yemen, you know, it's it's already in a messy, terrible situation. Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria. There's some big stuff coming up for the world. So I just really want to encourage everyone to pay attention to it. And but, Joe, but just before we move on to the sales conversation, yeah. Do you want to just give us a quick update on what you're seeing on the global economy? You know, what's happened in the last week since the big crypto crash the week before? Yeah, not the quick summary. It's all going down. Well, you know, I told you, I told you about how last week, you know, I said, all the all the rich people, everybody's got the real money in there, they basically are holding cash right now, because that's the move to make. And just people who thought that last week was as low as Apple could go, you know, found out that Oh, no, we can go down still a bit more. There is definitely a move away from things I've had, I saw an interview on Bloomberg, where one of these very, very stately old investors, you know, this has been around and seen markets go up and down. He's preparing for the worst bear market he's ever seen in his life. Right. So I think there's enough there's enough sort of fear in the market, the technicals are certainly in place where all the loads have been tested. And if we break past them, and then they have been broken on a number of occasions, we're going to have a massive, you know, it's not a case of whether Apple suddenly becomes less valuable, or Amazon becomes less valuable. It's, it's a case of Tim pressing too many buttons while I'm talking. And also of course, yeah, so it's, it's a simple thing, right? I mean, the markets gonna move the way the market does. And if you if you are trading professionally, or you you have you have money in the markets, you have to do the responsible thing for your money risk management says, if everything is going down, and you're holding something, you should sell it, because that's the way to sort of minimize your risk of the world is de risking itself. tech stocks have taken the lead because tech is usually the more risky of the sector's but it also of course, having a much broader effect, because so much of the broader market is tech, everything is heading in that direction. So you have tech leading the way and you have then of course, Bitcoin, which is an all the crypto sort of being related to tech as well. I shared the curves in privately as well that that if you if you correlate the curves of an apple to Amazon to Bitcoin, you see a very, very similar curve in terms of where things are going. And actually, interestingly, now it's almost like bitcoins resisting the downward trend little bit. So it's an interesting conversation. Gold finally is sort of showing itself to be to be moving up a little bit. So maybe that could be the sign now for people running for safety. But until until just about, I think two days ago, gold wasn't going in the direction you'd expect it to go and people are fearful as well. So, you know, I think the dollar was still the king. And then now suddenly, there's a consensus that says It's time to go to Gold and Gold has popped up, you know, just just in the past day. Right? And bonds as well, right? Bonds are down invest as a, I'm not going to use the right words, but there's as a safe investment, they're not good, right? Well, bonds have actually been not been in fashion for quite a long time, mostly because of returns being as slow as they are. And because of the value of money is dropping, right? So I can have a bond, that that is a, you know, a strong investment, usually where you'll get your return or three 4%. But if you're, if you're inflation is out pacing that, then you're gonna go, nope. Why? Why would I do that? Right. So the opportunity right now or the way people can hold onto things to hold on to tangible things. So like I said, goals finally moving sort of another direction that might be where the movement will go through now, because when the market has to decide some things or look for the best choice that it can do. And right now, if you look at equities, it's not a good time to do that. If you're if you're risk averse, you're not going to go and try and catch all these falling stocks. If you're risk averse, you got to look for what's going up and currently there's a bit of consensus around goals so I think the money is going to go in there and that's going to sell I think it will self fulfill as in like it then will lead to gold going even even more and guns by guns. Oh, yeah, by the way, not want to perpetuate things that are wrong. I did a fact check on myself. In the in the US if we talk about registered firearms and versus registered firearms in the in Canada that the number I said earlier was corrected. They're more registered per capita. But what I factor in the unregistered numbers, it's just a whole different game. So I apologize for for for somewhat misleading you. There are 1 million numbers. Is there a more interesting registry? Well, because there's a there's a there's a manufacturing election booth where you have you have numbers that are sold numbers of guns made in most of the guns in the US and made in the US you have those guns produced in the all by public company. So you know how much how honey guns have been made and sold. In the US, you have a million sorry, over a million registered firearms. And 392,380 2 million, but you've got an unregistered firearms, and that really just throws the numbers around. Sorry about that. Wow. Well, I mean, that's fair enough, because if the registered one doesn't work, you need another 390 in your cupboard, to make sure that something at least works. Well. And here's the big distinction. Right. So and again, I'm not a gun aficionado. So I can't really say but I would imagine that the firearms that these Canadians have are like hunting rifles, which is very different from like these ak 40, sevens, that that people are walking into churches of all places and whatnot, shooting people up. So it's like, you can have the right to defend yourself, but not the right to destroy a small army. Like, is that what we're talking about? And that's pretty much the type of firearms that that are, you know, in the US, right, I don't get it. And the minute anybody pushes back a little bit, and God forbid, says, You got to do background checks before you buy a gun. People flip out and lose their marbles. Obama tried gay rights. Obama tried to he was furious when Congress wouldn't do it, because they're all funded by, you know, in our NSA, and that's not the speaker's Association. Yeah. But the NRA has been bankrupt for a couple of years, and they've lost their power. And they're moving south down into Texas because they were up in New York State. And you know, they've heard of that the people who were fighting against guns in America, they are moms against guns, so sort of groups. I've got a friend who's part of mums against guns. He's not not ashamed, but it's brilliant what they're doing and they are making, they are making headway because it's a bit it's just completely illogical. Alright, Tom, let's hand it over to you the current state of sales. You dropped your note now the 11 minutes? Yeah. How the pandemic changed everything and change nothing when it comes to sales. So what does that mean? Yeah, well, look, I mean, so one of one of my signature talks that companies are inviting me to speak on is like the state of sales, and what are the trends that are happening now that's kind of shaping the future of sales? And there are there are seven. But I think at the time that we've got, I'll probably just touched on one, and just unpack that a little bit. I mean, I think the biggest trend that's shaping the future of sales right now is that virtual selling is good for sellers, but it's even better for buyers. So that's something that a lot of salespeople are really struggling with that virtual set Selling is not just good for them, they should be good at selling virtually. But it's even better for buyers. So what does this mean? Well, their buyers actually want this now more than ever. In fact, 63% of buyers say that working remotely, has made the purchasing process easier. So that's interesting. So buyers like to work from home, they like to work remotely, and they're actually finding it a lot easier to buy things. Now, that could be a few factors. It could be, you know, fewer face to face meetings, it's easier for them to meet with multiple vendors, they can get information sent to them by email or you know, on social a lot easier than before, they can have more more conversations on social as opposed to face to face. But whatever those factors are, they're just finding it a whole lot easier buying remotely. So look, if your customers find it easy to buy remotely, then we've got to get with the program and get really good at selling remotely because virtual selling is the norm, right? So we've been doing virtual selling here at SOCO for years, even in Singapore with some of our prospects that would be in the CBD in downtown Singapore, hey, you know, should we meet up to talk about a training program? Sure, let me drop me a zoom link. So we would try that first as the default. So we were always like zoom is the default. Because my gosh, even a small place like Singapore takes a frickin hour to get somewhere, park your car, you have your 30 minute meeting, and then you go back again, and you can't back to back your meetings. Right. So I like to save the face to face when it really matters. But if it's just an initial discovery call or qualification, you can do that over zoom. And you can if you're good on camera, you can be just as compelling as effective as engaging. You could build rapport just as easily, virtually as you can. And in fact, you're respecting your customers time, because you can keep that meeting for 15 minutes or 20 minutes, and then they can hop on to something else. They don't have to worry about hosting you at all welcome, can I get you a coffee or a water or all that stuff? Now look, I had a face to face meeting with a prospect earlier this week. And it felt pretty nice. But I'll tell you something, it felt nice because it was novel. But it was like, oh shit, they're out in Changi. And we stay out here in Jurong. So it's gonna take me 45 plus minutes to get there. And then you know, you want to make sure that you're looking good. And like, you know, you're gonna have pants on, you know what I mean? All that kind of stuff. Make him stand up. Yeah, can I ask you so? Right? traditional industries, traditional industries, like financial services, like the big old property companies, you know, the ones that own the cities. A lot of times over the years that I've talked to them, they're very reluctant to move towards that sort of way of being because it's relationships. It's, you know, hanging up the gentleman's club, that sort of tradition, right? Have you seen a lot of those sorts of people who've been forced into this situation? Have they have they been able to flourish? Or are they just floundering? No, well, it depends. And it's about your mindset. Are you open to it or not? So I'm glad you raised that. Because in fact, one of our, how did we do this? In at the start of the pandemic, pandemic about? You know, let's say, let's say February of 2020. Okay? When the shit absolutely hit the fan, February 2020. I told my team, Hey, everybody, we're going to find a way to get through this, don't you worry about it. Fake it till you make it, I don't know. But we're going to find a way out. What I want you to do is I want us to email all of our past customers, and just let them know, Hey, we're here. It's probably a really tough time for you. If there's anything you need, just let us know. We're happy to help just leading with empathy. All of a sudden, we start getting emails back from from our customers. One of them was Huttons. Right? So Huttons emails, and they're like, Hey, how much do you charge for workshops? I'm like, oh, okay, here we go. Here we go. We're back. We're back. We're back. Right. So I closed the deal. We did 10 sessions with them with like, I think like 600 agents or something. And this was like the start of the pandemic. And it was all about social selling. And the book is based it's 10 essential strategies to prospect position and present using social media, digital media. There's 10 strategies. We did 10 sessions. There were like hundreds of people on each one. And this was like, in March, I think of 2020. So they were open to it, and they loved it, and they wanted to learn. And what I started then seeing in the newspaper was I started seeing some agents and some were from Huttons that were getting really good at doing virtual tours and virtual showing of flats because they couldn't meet face to face. They couldn't do it. But they got really good at you know, whether it's drones and like, you know, photos and video and sharing that with prospects first and I had some agents that were closing deals on properties, sight unseen. Now guess what, everybody, this is not a new concept. So remember when I said that it changed everything and changed nothing. So it changed nothing. Because if if you've ever purchased real estate overseas, quite often look, we own property in Malaysia, and a lot of the owners there, I mean, 14 were half an hour away, we could drive over and see it. But a lot of the people that bought property there, Korea, Japan, never once set foot. They just had an agent that maybe takes photos video, share it with them, and they just look at the numbers. Does it make sense? So they've been doing this for years. So so it's possible, you just have to sometimes remind people, and this is what coaching is all about, right? Code training is teaching someone something new coaching is reminding them of maybe something that they already know that they did before that they maybe forgot or stopped doing. So it's like, hey, hey, have you ever sold a property sight unseen? Yeah, I've done that before. How'd you do it? Well, I did. Let's try it again, you know what I mean? So virtual selling is now the norm, the only difference now is it's not kind of like a during that during during circuit breaker, it was not a nice to have it was a need to have, you had to do it. You were either selling remotely and or delivering remotely. Look, we all of us here, if you couldn't deliver your your training programs or your keynotes, virtually, you were out of business. So you had to be very quick to do your virtual speaker, Keynote real and start letting the world know that you're equally comfortable on stage, and on camera. And the sooner you could do that, and let them know, it's just as engaging is just as effective. You find the stats on retention for elearning, and all this kind of stuff. And you make your case and the proof is in the pudding. You know what I mean? Like the proof is in the pudding. So we would always sell ourselves on a sales call is like, are you finding this engaging? Right? Like, do you feel like I'm there, this is how it's gonna be with your team, you know what I mean? So it's just how you present yourself. So look, virtual selling is is absolutely the norm, because our buyers have gone remote. And in fact, 80% of buyers want to continue working remotely, either half or more of the time in the future. So what we're seeing when I'm talking to bosses and leaders, their teams do not want to come back to work, or should I say the office, they don't want to come back. They want to keep working from home. So that's what's changed. That's one of the things that's that's changed. So if your team wants to work from home, they're going to be either buying remotely or selling remotely. So you know, we've all got to get with the program and just realize that that's that's just the reality. So I mean, people ask me, you know, will, you know, will working in the office, like, ever make a comeback? You know, like, will it come back? Well, it will, but not to the extent that it was at before, not to the extent that it was that before. And Elena and I were talking about this earlier today. And we said, look, as long as our team is productive, and they're happy working remotely, let them keep doing it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Only bring people back to the office for a specific intent or purpose. What's the reason for it? Are we having a brainstorming session where we need to collaborate, we're gonna do some whiteboarding and all that kind of stuff. And we want to have like a hackathon or like, what's the purpose for the for the gathering. But I'll tell you, people commuting for an hour each way two hours out of the day, and getting all dressed up real nice just to sit at a frickin cubicle and be on Zoom calls, but at least you're supervising them in your office. Those days are gone. Those days are great. Yeah, I think I mean, this, what's really interesting is that if they are productive at home, then you're not losing anything. In fact, you're gaining because you don't need to have as big of real estate footprint. Oh, and the amount of of, of facilities that you would end up saving, or if you're planning to grow your business, you don't need to add any more facilities you can grow into the space you already have. Because people are telecommuting, it's just it's amazing. It's so it you know, Tim, you're right so it's a mindset thing so you know, maybe we've here at SoCo, we've always been more progressive. How do I mean we've, we've always dealt with freelancers. We've always had people on our teams that were working remotely anyway, you know, we've got Alice in the UK and Tristan in Vancouver, and we've got Rachel in Hong Kong. I'm so we've always had people working with us part of our frickin team, part of our team working remotely. So that's always just been part of our culture. So again, when COVID hit, it was like, I guess it's just business as usual. The only difference is now the Singapore team works remotely, but we didn't have to learn how to work remotely, it was already part of our company culture. So as long as they're happy, and they're productive, have at it. And look, we also did get lucky because we still have a, an office presence in Durham at vision, vision exchange, the two nice big black towers near near jam. So vision exchange, we're on level 24. So we used to have office space there where our team would work every single day, and then dumped on dark COVID hit our lease expired. And then we couldn't even go in the office, we weren't allowed to go to the office for like four months, we couldn't go but we're still paying our rent there. That's not fun. But then fortunately, the lease expired I think in June of 2020. And then we just didn't renew. That's looking really lucky. Imagine if we signed the three year thing in January or something. And they were still charging rent. Those fuckers were still not only charging rent, but I don't know if you remember, they also got rebates from the Singapore government, the landlord's got to pass it on, and they didn't pass it on and they still get charges for rent. It's because of that headline, the headline had the F bomb in it. Now we're just the first time. So I've used on the show. Now. It's amazing. So one of the things I wanted to ask you is about the concept of, obviously, I understand that selling with empathy. So we sell, there's a lot of people out there who are not selling with empathy, and they just jarring they show up in your inbox and everywhere on social media. And it's just like, oh, gosh, you're so ignorant. Go away. Leave me alone. I'll never buy from you. Talk about that. Well, what specifically look? So what does it mean? What does when you say selling, selling with empathy is actually starting with it's one of the things I talk about in my state of sales. Talk is around having a buyer first mindset. All right, so with having a buyer first mindset where most people obviously they have a seller first mindset where it's just me, I want to hit my targets. Andrea is not a person, she's a number. You know what I mean? It's like, you see them as a prospect first, where you need to see them as a person first. So there's this buyer first philosophy that people need to have like, active listening. Number one, that's the critical foundation, like active listening, like, hey, well, what's going on in your world? What's going on? Joe? That's active active listening. Sorry, right. Right, right. Active listening. Right. So that's number one. And look, when I say that this is it's changed, and it's the same is we've always needed to have a buyer first philosophy. However, this crisis has made it even more so that you can't just be like, Hey, Andrea, how you doing? How am I doing? My husband lost his job. I'm here, I'm this this that, like, someone's got COVID. And I don't know, if I'm gonna, like, you want to know how I'm doing. That's how I'm fucking doing. Right. So. So. So that's where empathy. I know when I were getting real, but that's, that's where that's where active listening. And empathy really matters. Like it matters because your your customers are actually going through something right now. So you can't just one door and say, I want to sell something. He's like, Well, what's going on in your world? Like what's happening? What are some of the biggest problems or challenges you're dealing with right now? And if maybe, if maybe they say, Tom, our biggest problem is I still have a quota to hit, I don't have quota relief. Okay, I don't have quota relief, and I still have to meet my monthly targets. And I just don't know how I'm going to do it. Because all my customers are hard to reach. And I don't know how to sell to them remotely. So well, you know what, we might have something that can help you, you want to talk about that? That is all about selling with compassion, right? So it's buyer first, it's also sharing readily. So being completely transparent, and empowering your buyer with information. So there used to be a time back in the dark ages, where the salesperson was like the gatekeeper of all the Intel and that to get any information you had to talk you had to talk to me book, a call book a demo, you got to talk to me. That's too pushy, and people don't always want that. So having a buyer first mindset is like, hey, you know what, Andrea? Look, maybe you're not ready to talk. I've got Got a couple of resources you might find useful. Let me send it to you let me know what you think. If it resonates with you, if it's cool, I'm happy to hop on a call, but we don't have to, you know, so giving information to people and not feeling insecure, that oh my god, if I share this content, they're gonna know everything and won't call me. That's that's that scarcity mindset just doesn't work. Empower your customer and let them make their own choices. Solve, don't sell. So you don't measure your success and the problems you solve, not just the products you sell. are you solving real world problems for your customers? That's how you can measure your value as a salesperson are you solving problems, the sales will come Don't Don't, don't be sales Focus, focus on solving problems. And part of that is delivering value. So even after you close the deal, see that relationship through long after the deals closed, check in with people ask how they're doing, don't make it one and done, you close the deal. And you move on to the next person on your list. Check in with people. You know, like I've got people in my life vendors in my life that I never hear from. And they just contact me every year to try to renew something. Yeah, well, you're at the mercy of me changing my mind and going with someone else is going to woo me and take care of me. So it's very dangerous. So are you staying on top of your key accounts and looking after them? And again, that's all just part of selling with compassion, like checking in. How're you doing? You said your family had COVID last week? How's everything going? Just check in to check in not checking to be like, how are we doing on that proposal? Check in because you care about them, not because you're trying to close that deal. So some of this stuff, to me is common sense. But it's not common practice. And it doesn't happen in most of the sales world. But if you're if you're doing a SOCO jam, if you're doing a SOCO program, this is what we talk about. This is how you can be effective in sales. You want to get better at sales, just be a better person, try that. earn your trust with try that try being a nice person, you know, try to help people earn their trust, like, oh, actually, to act in your customers best interest. Like I've even told customers notice something because I could try to try to close this deal. But it's not what they need right now. Just before you mentioned the last thing you said, I just think to myself about the number of times that I've seen salespeople not representing good things, but just following those rules of being nice and checking and all that. And that really works. It works. Charm. I mean, you know, I've I've always, I've always tried to learn from people. Even that I don't respect, I've learned some lessons. And I've seen I've seen and met some salespeople who are just so good at what they do. Of course, they're selling terrible things. But you know, they were just really good at the sales process. Right, right. Yeah, well, I'll say one. Yeah, I mean, one thing too, is, you know, we actually never work with customers that we feel, sell terrible things. So that's kind of my own little ethic thing, that there's some industries that I just kind of stay away from because do I do I? Do I really want to help you get more people to smoke cigarettes? I don't. I tell my kids smoking is stupid. So how can I take money from a company to help them sell more? So I'm not judging anybody, but that's kind of how my mind operates. Like, I literally put my money where my mouth is, or I don't put my money where they want to put a smoke. I don't know. But I won't do I won't do it. And that's just me. Right? So some industries are fine. I would never like firearms. Like, why do I want that in the world? I've turned down a lot of business from Venezuela. Okay. For me, the formula. Yeah, baby formula is a great example. defense industry. For me, I don't have a beef with like, I don't, you know, I don't have a beef with some pharma because I know some of our customers do amazing things to actually help people live. You know, like Roche and companies like that. So like, I don't have a beef with like, you know, everybody in every space, but I am the kind of guy that when I hear something, and if it doesn't sit well with me, I immediately tell my team Yeah, hi. We're not going to sell to this company. You know, MLM and all that nonsense. I hate that shit. Like, why would I want to help these people? And people who do MLM they're not that people. I feel like they've just been taken advantage of. I'm sorry. Multilevel marketing. Oh, right. Yeah, of course, Amway and all that stuff and like them I have a problem with a pyramid scheme. I don't have a problem with MLM. But yeah, well, I have the same with you with regards to cigarettes. No, but let me tell you why I have a problem with MLM is because it's a pyramid scheme with a product so let's just keep it real. They make their money by recruiting distributors, they don't make throw money selling that frickin water filter. That's just the fact. And I've also seen stats that show literally like only one or 2% of people actually make any money in MLM. So the way it's set up is like they can't win. So I tell them, I say, Look, why would you want to sell something where there's already a stigma against it? Like, if an MLM person knocked on your door today or sent you an email? Like, what's your first reaction? Hey, tell me all about it. Or like, dude, I'm out. I don't need this. So if you're gonna put your entrepreneurial and your sales efforts anywhere, why would you put it in an industry where people already hate it, and it's already got a bad rap, put your efforts towards something that people want. So for me, you know, I remember I did one event that was hired by one company a few years ago. And that was really talking to the team about should I do this keynote or not do this keynote, because I really liked those people, like those people in the audience were so awesome and nice, right? And I want them to win. But then when I look at the people who pay me, I'm like, but I don't feel like this system is set up for you to win. And I don't feel like no matter what I tell you today that you're gonna win, you're going to try really hard. And you're going to do a lot of the things that I said, if you're one of the few that actually do. But I actually don't think it's it's right for you, and you're not going to win. So they approached me for a follow up because people really loved it. And they were like, Tom, let's do another one. I was like, No, I'm good. They didn't ask me why. And I'm glad they didn't. But I was like, I'm just, I'm just not available on those days. And every day they put on like, yeah, it's just, it's not a good fit, you know, and I tried to bow out nicely, you know, but it's just, it's just not, it's just not for me, I feel like there's, there's so much out there, I but I tell I tell Elaine and my team. I'm like, Dude, there's so much out there that I don't even need to do this. You know what I mean? Like an ethics ethics sometimes can be let's, let's all be honest here on the call ethics can sometimes be whatever fluid, okay, if you've got nothing going on in your life, and you've got to feed your family and someone dangles 10 grand in front of you for an hour. You know, maybe you go well, the ethics of this, and helping my family through this crisis are stronger than my ethics against this. So I'm just saying that moral and ethical dilemma. Yep. Yeah. Right. So. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful to be in a position where we've got more than enough work to keep us busy that we can say no to lots of things, so that we have room to say yes to the things that we want. Yeah. Nice. Because everything you do for someone you don't want as a gig that you're not doing for someone that you do want. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And it's good to have that position. Alright. Tom, thank you. We're not going to have time to go through the environment stuff. But I want to encourage everyone so the World Meteorological Organization released the four key climate change into indicators that broke broke records in 2021. So that's nice five. Yeah, exactly. I'm not doing too well. But anyway, it's greenhouse gas concentration and sea level rise, ocean heat, and ocean. I suffered a severe Calacanis. I can't talk anymore. That's it. Anyway, new records in 2021. It's not a good report. There's a couple of articles on it. And we're in trouble. Like, I think we understand that. A mock G goes now aim up the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. No, I just didn't. I assume that was a marvel supervillain. Yeah. So running, running this, you know, if you've seen them day after tomorrow, whether the ocean currents, right. So moving, heat up, moving cold water down, that sort of stuff. Very, very important. I was reading that, it's going to stop soon. And then it'll go through a whole big reconfiguration. And basically, just that will change the whole sort of chemistry of Earth. And somebody said, between June and August, the weather in the UK is going to go down to minus 18 to minus 15. So that's exactly when I'll be there with the boys. So I'm hoping the boys get their first taste of cold, and then stop asking to live in a cold country because I've never have anyway, lots and lots going on deep sea mining, you know, like this, it's all guns blazing. And it's, uh, you know, we start messing around at the bottom of the ocean, and it ripples up in the ecosystem that it impacts as it goes up. We saw 19 91% of the coral reef in Great Barrier Reef is now bleached from last week. So there's a lot of stuff going on. Please pay attention. We're in trouble. And we need to, we need to start acting but yeah, so is there any final news that's been going on this week that's caught your attention, guys. Well, let me just say something that there's two things I think we need to do. I think I love this, Andrea, I think there has to be a call to action For us as individuals, like what are you going to do to reduce your carbon footprint? I think we all have to be thinking about that. I will also say that you alone in this isn't a cop out, but you alone, US alone, as individuals are not going to have the biggest impact. We have got to lobby governments and get them to frickin do what they need to do to do the right thing. So I've always had this beef against people were like, Oh, don't fly business class. Oh, okay. So I'm the reason I'm the reason why the ozone is messed up because I flew business class, okay, I'm a consumer, and I'm given a choice of something, right? So we need to start incentivizing the behaviors that we want and disincentivizing the behaviors we don't want. Petrol, for example, should be way more expensive than it is right now. It should be way more than anybody who complains about it is getting a taste of frickin reality. It should be way more organized. It shouldn't be subsidized. We shouldn't be subsidizing frickin solar, every Eevee should be subsidized, not the other way around, you understand. So we're, our priorities are completely messed up. So from a legislative level, I think we elect people that we hope are going to do the right thing that need to mandate certain things. Don't give me an option for fricking plastic bags at a grocery store, don't even give me the option, get rid of them, get rid of them. And don't charge me for it. Because I'll pay for it, get rid of them, stop the things that you don't want and do the things that you do want. I don't think it's that hard. If there's a will, there's a way, but there's too much money involved here, that there's too much influence from certain folks and lobbies that keep the status quo. Until, until those big energy companies, they finally come around kicking and screaming, and now they're doing solar. But when everyone else wants to do it, they squash them and say it's like, it's too expensive, it won't work and and put fine, you know, a disincentives on them. But when they're ready to it's like the those with the money, they get to form the rules, but it's got to be turned around, right? So lobby your governments get them to do what you want them to do. Don't vote for anybody that doesn't do what you frickin want them to do. They are called public servants. They need to serve the public. Okay, so what am I epiphanies after 26 was, like, in 2025, I don't know for what, no, but the message that really came through clear, so governments won't do what they need to do until we vote for them to do what they need to do. So when people say that we don't, we we don't our individual actions don't matter, I actually think our individual actions matter more than we actually give a credit for. Because when we change how we live in the world, we then expect our leaders to change how they govern. But until we accept what we need to do, and reduce our lives and restrict things in our lives, and all the stuff that comes with it. Like you can see a lot of the voting that's going to happen in this 12 months, it's going to be punishing those in power, because people are suffering. The people, the government isn't necessarily responsible for the suffering that's been created. And there's a lot of other reasons where the suffering has come from, right. So we need to start to come together and to accept the suffering that comes with reducing our impact collectively, and we need a billion people doing this before the leaders will ever be in place. And businesses aren't going to change. Well, we're still spending so it's a collective effort that we've all got to do. But the more I mean, you know, even the basic things like stop driving a car, it's collective individualism that we do. Yeah 100% You know, look, you know, case in point you know organic food better than non organic food you know, healthier eating less meat you know a you know looking at all proteins that that's good let's not kill animals. That's a nice thing. Let's not kill animals. Okay, like we all like to eat food. I love a good hamburger. Don't get me wrong. I love it. You know, I love love chicken. Sorry. But is that what we should be doing as a species like farming life to kill them and eat them? I don't think so. I think we have a higher calling. We can do better. We can do better. All these cows the environment. Don't get me started. And Andrew, you know much better about this than I do. Because you're all in so the the environmental impact of livestock devastating. So one thing that I do, I'm actually a mentor, volunteer mentor for an incubator, a group called Big Idea ventures. And big idea Ventures is supporting the world's biggest challenges by supporting the world's best entrepreneurs. And it's like food tech and all protein and agri tech and all this kind of stuff. And I volunteer my time with them and work with some of their cohorts. It's big idea ventures. They're doing like you know, cheeses and like All, you know all this stuff at all proteins, right? And they're they're asking for so much money. So I help them with their pitches and all of this kind of stuff. They had a, they had a demo pitch day yesterday, which was really cool. So I like to support them for free because I want them to win. Like I want these guys to get some funding. But why do they need to fight hard to get like one or $2 million funding to try to launch something and it's going to be expensive, consumers aren't going to buy it if they can buy chicken, which is so cheap, it's insane. You can buy a whole frickin chicken for like $3 It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be that way. Because there's so much subsidies on that and corn and all this kind of stuff. So I felt like chemicals and antibiotics and you know, if you're gonna kill chickens, like the least harmful meats, right? So if you're going to eat any meat stick with the hormones, right so so people that are trying to do good for the world, whether it's all energy, all protein alternatives, like anyone who's trying to do good for the world, they have this uphill battle. Yeah, but those that are harming the world, it's just so easy for them to keep doing it. They get the subsidies and they get what they want. So we need to turn things around, you know, there should be taxes on these bad things and subsidies to get people to consume the things that we want them to consume that we know is good for the world. So anyway, do what you can find the plans for the Deathstar. If we can find the plans, we can destroy the whole thing there. Yeah, that'd be a box somewhere. All right. Speaking of which, I'm looking forward to the Obi Wan Kenobi series that starts on Disney plus, in about a week or two. I can't wait. That's gonna be a nerve. I've been taking Zoey through all the Star Wars we've just finished. We've just finished return of Return of the Jedi. Okay, cool. Episode Six. There you go. Yeah. So we've got and we've done Rogue One and solo in between. So we've sort of kept it in order interest. Yeah. Okay, good. Good. Good. Good. Good. You're doing after chronologically, but not chronologically. We didn't go into the into the Clone Wars or anything like that. That would we didn't do the prequels. Well, no, no, we did. We did the prequels of the movies. But we didn't clone was the series for example. The Clone Wars animated series, which is like seven seasons. Yeah, you didn't get around to the seven. Yeah, it was it was should be like 15 Before she saw the rest of the Star Wars things. If that was I will say though, Tim, I will say the Clone Wars animated series. The best Star Wars storytelling of the whole franchise. Yeah, I remember you saying it was fantastic. And oh my god. You know what you should do? I'm gonna send you a link or something. Watch the last four episodes of the series. Heart heartbreaking. It's amazing that transitions right into Episode Three in it. It's amazing. So anyway, check check that out the last four episodes. I'll follow up. I want to watch the last four because I do want to watch the whole thing. So it's sewn seasons grow. I know about I mean, I got a six year old once she's into you, I will send you a link of the 10 must watch episodes because you don't have to watch everything every season. Alright, I want to send Child Services over to Bishan Okay, all right. So apart from that, so what what are you watching reading listening to being distracted by Tom so you're getting ready for Obi Wan Kenobi getting ready for Obi Wan Kenobi just finished watching the drop out on Disney plus, that was really cool. Theranos Oh, yeah. Yeah, you should watch that. That's a really good series. It's a six part series about the whole Theranos story. Is that Amanda Sigfried plays her okay, it's really good. She's got her mannerisms down it's a really good series called the drop out so that's been really fun. And then for crazy eye candy stupid stuff. We watch a selling sunset on Netflix. Okay, so it's sunset selling sunset it's it's it's it's it's Kardashians meets Real Housewives meets Shark Tank. What sounds like a nightmare to me. It's a so much drama in its caddy real estate agents in in, in California. It's it's great because like we like to watch it for the the drama and the, you know, the look and everything, but also like their realtor. So we like the business. The sales part of it too. It's, it's actually it's a really gripping. It's a fun show. I can imagine. Interesting. Yeah. Okay, Joe. I want to use a bit of my time to give a plug to the Singapore government for what it's doing with regard to the government. They're taxing fuel and you get a $45,000 discount for getting him in V and Singapore before 2023. So take that. Yeah, it's awesome. He's and tell them in 2024 and make a profit. You might. And if I'm not wrong, Joe, they've also changed the COA category for these EVs. So it's also in a less expensive category. So that's that was a really great move as well. Yeah, so it's all totaled up to represent about a $45,000 discount. The problem is us really, because we're the ones who build things up and make them expensive. So while all these subsidies should bring the price down, we really want EVs. So we're making them expensive from a demand perspective. So we do have to do a lot more than what you know, like, Singapore has always been this great example to me. It's made everything unaffordable. And yet we determine that we want to afford it. So we're a weird bunch. And a good example of how it's not about what government can do, I think it needs to go a bit further than that we do need as UFOs to land and blow up something. In terms of what I've been watching, I found myself on Amazon Prime. And the two shows one is nine Perfect Strangers, which I think you'll enjoy. I think I mentioned it once before I finally finished the series. That's the one that has been called Kip and Jennifer, how many how many seasons, just one season, and it's, it's a it's a mini series. So it's, it completes, it's a very good show. The other show that I've been watching, which again, has not been very good for the brain is a show called laughing last one laughing. That there's an Australian one and there's a Canadian one, the Australian one is, is hosted by rebel. And what they do is they put 10 Canadians into a room for essentially six hours and the judges apologizing to each other the whole time. And you cannot and you cannot laugh. So so they're doing their best to make each other laugh, but no one is allowed to laugh. And what happens is as six comedians as 10 comedians are likely to do ones that they haven't got a laugh for three hours and four hours, they get increasingly desperate. And it's a mixture of pain and delight to watch this particular show happen. And I won't I won't spoil how it evolves, but it's quite a concept. So imagine people who need oxygen being deprived of it. And they only think the only way they can get it is to get someone else eliminated. Well, thanks. Nine Perfect Strangers on my watch list on Amazon Prime. Yeah, who? laughing Alright, Tim. Do you got yours? Yeah, we'll be alright. So yeah. It's like going back to Rebel Wilson. So she released her her movie senior year on Netflix. Have you seen anything about that? Yeah, I still I absolutely love Rebel Wilson. I think she's absolutely brilliant. But I still don't feel that she can carry a movie in her own right yet. And it's been getting great reviews, and everyone loves it. But I just she's just not quite there for me yet. Again, on Netflix, it's called senior year. So she basically has a concussion and wakes up 20 years later, and she has a concussion just like weeks before her graduation. So you know, there's lots there's lots to the story, but I just Yeah, I don't. Everyone loves it. Great. Oh, yeah. She's kind of funny. He's funny. Yeah, she's brilliant. So we are number one in movies in Singapore today. worldwide. It was like the highest watched movie on the day of its release on Netflix. It's just frustrating to everybody who writes real movies, really, because it's a terribly written movie. It's not ready for primetime. But it's a movie that got made. And people love it. It's, it's for the artists. Very frustrating. Yeah, right. Yeah. I also decided to give Roe vs. Wade documentary on Netflix or watch within two minutes. I said, I don't want to watch this. And we started watching the crown again from the beginning. Because the It's so ugly, it's just so ugly. The conversation that what people say how they feel. It's sad. It's depressing. So if you want to educate yourself about the whole Roe versus Wade story, yeah, it's definitely there. But um, I know, the Democrats, you know, the Democrats could protect women's rights right now if they wanted to, because they have a majority. But what they're doing is they're holding, they're holding that over the voters to get them to vote for them. And that's the character dangling. It's pretty gross. They could be they could be they could they could they could solve this right now if they wanted to. They're the majority. Of course, they're technically technically they have a majority, but there's one one person in that majority. It's one person majority. And then they've got that guy, what's his name? Who keeps basically siding with the Republicans so they don't technically have a majority. It's one of those issues that we see this time and time again when people Do have a majority and they have the power to do the right thing. They find a reason or an excuse why they can't do it. Why this isn't the right time, and why we really need your support. We need you to vote for us in the midterm elections so that we can do it later. Yeah, that everyone's like, just need to stop playing games with each other and start serving your community because that's what they're supposed to do. Anyway. Let's wrap it up. We've gone well over but we thought it would. And Tom, thank you so much for joining us really appreciate it. I hope you've enjoyed it. Yeah. This This was like the Joe Rogan experience went on for hours that that quote needs to go into our marketing. We made all the wrong people. Well, I didn't put out some misinformation so it's very much the Joe Rogan experience. All right, well, it's great. Great to share our share our experience. So it's been it's been a lot of fun. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate it. All right. I'm going off live now said Say goodbye. All right, everybody, have a great weekend, everyone.