September 15, 2025 • 37 mins
What happens when you take comedy, curiosity, and courage… and bring them to the streets?
In this episode of Baskets of Knowledge, we’re joined by Jasky Singh, better known as @sikant the street interviewer who has redefined how we connect with strangers. With a community of more than 140,000 followers across his socials, Jasky has built one of the most engaging and unfiltered interview platforms in Australia, if not the world. His short, raw, and often hilarious videos capture something rare in today’s fast-paced, polished world: authentic human connection.
From a young Indian migrant studying engineering to an entrepreneur and now a viral street interviewer, Jasky’s story is one of following curiosity, taking bold shots, and trusting yourself even when the world expects otherwise. We dive into:
- How a shy engineering student became a fearless public conversationalist
- The art of using humour, silence, and body language to disarm and connect instantly
- Balancing entrepreneurial success with creativity and family life
- The power of communication in an AI-driven world
- Why embracing identity and culture is key to resilience
This episode isn’t just about street interviews. It’s about what it means to truly connect as humans, in the messy, funny, imperfect, and beautiful ways that only real conversations can reveal.
Whether you’ve laughed at his viral videos or never heard of him until now, this conversation will leave you thinking differently about communication, confidence, and the courage it takes to just show up as yourself.
Key Takeaway:
Communication isn’t about the perfect script, it’s about presence, curiosity, and courage. And sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is simply start the conversation.
Listen now and discover the person behind @sikant the man bringing humanity back to the streets, one unscripted conversation at a time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh here.
In Tana here. Welcome to our podcast Passes of
Knowledge chats with a difference.
In our podcast, we invite guestsfrom around the country and
around the world to talk about how they got to where they at
the moment. It's about a journey, it's about
an experience, it's about their life.
(00:26):
Yeah, To continue, welcome to another episode of Baskets of
Knowledge. Once again, Tan is not here with
us. He's awaiting some pretty cool
science things as he does. And it is just me flying solo
today. And today I'm really excited to
have our guest. You may have heard of him or may
not have heard him. If you haven't today you're
going to hear more about him. This is someone that I've been
following on the on the softwares for a while.
(00:46):
I came across them in my one of my thesis.
Like this is a very interesting human being and I just enjoy
what this person does as they got.
Then they talk to people, but obviously it's more than just
about what they do online. It's about who the other person.
But before we talk about that there, I'm going to introduce
Jessica Sing to our podcast, otherwise known as Pacific Hunt.
(01:08):
Welcome to Boss Knowledge. Thank.
You for having me, Prajesh. It's a pleasure I'm looking
forward to. It Oh beauty Jessica, people who
know nothing about you. Who are you today on the 11th of
September, which is quite an interesting date to have this
episode as well. I know, I know 2 brown guys on
9/11 let's go, let's go So Oh yeah I mean look, I'll try and
(01:31):
be as quick as possible, don't want to drag on any sort of
background. Essentially Indian migrant,
moved to Australia at a very early age when my parents moved
across and have lived here forever.
So now obviously classify myselfas Australian and initially
studied electrical engineering, computer science because I was
(01:54):
told by my parents I should havesomething serious to do in life.
I knew I was never going to do it.
It was never inclined to be thatkind of a cubicle worker sort of
personality. Not that there's anything wrong
with it, I just wasn't. I knew that wasn't going to be
my thing. So then really just the rest of
my life has been communication. Communication in all forms,
meaning sales and presentations did did a lot of creative work
(02:17):
like a wrapping and and a lot ofaudio related creative stuff,
which again, we can go into detail, but I'm trying to be as
brief as I can. So the two sides of my life now
look like private equity, which is businesses that we have
either organically grown from, from the ground grass roots up,
(02:39):
all businesses we have acquired or taken over or had ownership
in and improved in some manner. Management, you know, structure,
efficiencies, models and whatever.
Generally sales because that's really the thing that I'm very
good at. But one thing that I'm
personally good at, not very good at, it's a bit boastful.
And then the other side which people probably, yeah know, know
(03:01):
me really well from is the street interviews.
I guess we can say we are the most popular street interview
channel, at least in Australia, if not in the world.
And yeah, it's it was always an extension of stand up comedy.
I always wanted to do stand up. It was a thing that freaked me
out. I tried it, did it, and then I
really wanted to improve my skill set.
(03:22):
So we're like, let's film it, doing it in public, which is a
weird idea, but it it worked. And that became the thing that
merged stand up and also became a thing on its own that people
enjoy. So that's that's as quick a
summary as I can give you I. I I, I, I love that because, you
know, it's got your two worlds. Most people only know you for
your street comedy, but there's a lot more to you than the
street, the street comedy, you know, as you spoke about before
(03:43):
the private equity, which peopledon't know about it on sea.
So when I was doing my research,like, oh, wait a minute, this is
the whole different side that people know actually know about.
There's actually some real amazing things going on in the
the back end, which is actually who you are.
But I guess my first question for you is, is as a brown
person, and I asked this because, you know, this is so
crazy, the world is going the ballistic out there, Is it
(04:05):
becoming harder for you to have those conversations on the
street or has it become easier because people recognize you?
Firstly, how do you classify me as brown?
I identify as white, so I'm really sorry.
It's my. It's my.
It's my ration, my computer. I apologize.
Yeah, you need to. You need to change your
saturation. It's gone too far to the other
side. I'm actually very white.
(04:26):
No. So do you mean in terms of like,
does it face backlash being a brown person?
Is that the? Reason I ask that question is
because recently what happened here in New Zealand, I'll give
you some context in New Zealand,just recently, the a New Zealand
CEO is an Indian person and the backlash was just crazy.
And just because he was brown and was, hey, why, why are we
(04:46):
hiring a brown person to lead tobecome a CEO?
And as I've seen more of this rhetoric going out there as
well, and but it's not going outthere.
It's actually more people are just saying it like if there's
no consequence and for someone like yourself who's out there in
in the public face as you're talking to, you know, the whole
range of people, do you find that people, you know, we just
see the snippets of things that go out there and how do you find
(05:08):
yourself as you adjust in this crazy world here?
No, look, it's, it's a very, very good question.
And I'll, I'll tell you a short story that probably kind of
summarizes it really well. So I was, we were just
travelling just a few days ago and I was in Adelaide, which is
another part of Australia. We're based in WA.
So this is what people call it, the most boring part of
(05:29):
Australia. But anyway, we were there.
That's got nothing to do with the whole story.
So I was just in the security check in to get back on a flight
to get back to Perth. And then this young Indian kid,
I, I, I'm guessing his age, I didn't ask his age, but I'm
guessing it'd be early 20s, maybe even late teens, was a
young kid. And he came up to me and he was
(05:49):
like, hey, look, man, I, I love the stuff you do.
I follow you, blah, blah, blah. Do you mind if I ask you a
question? I was like, yeah, of course,
man, there's no problems. And he, he was like, how do you
feel with the whole rhetoric, the narrative around the
negativity around Indians? And he goes, I always never
(06:10):
really felt like I was Indian because I was because he's, he
had a full Aussie accent. It wasn't like he had, I mean,
aside from looking at me like he's obviously from that part of
the world or his, his generation, previous generation,
whatever. So he, he, he's fully, you know,
sounds like an Australian, right.
And he was like, man, I never used to care, never used to
(06:31):
really bother me. It was never a thing that even
crossed my mind. But now he goes, I feel, and I
don't know what word he used, but some synonym of ashamed, I
feel ashamed of mentioning to people that I'm Indian.
And, and he goes, 'cause I feel like I see the expression in the
face change. And it really saddened me that
(06:52):
that's how a young kid is feeling that like, oh, 'cause
he's, he's not even Indian. He's actually an Australian guy,
right? Just 'cause you know, whatever,
you know what I mean? Like he, he, he feels
embarrassed about saying that myfamily or whatever we are
origination or culturally Indian.
(07:15):
And so basically what I told himis really how I answer this
question. I just share that story because
it, it showcases this. Even young kids are starting to
have some weird like disconnection from wanting to
identify, feel like they are, you know, Indian or, or, or you
know, the word Indian has now got this weird negative
connotation. So I, I told him, look, I'm not
(07:39):
anyone to give anyone advice. I, I try not to give anyone
advice because I'm mostly wrong.So I can only share my
experience is that I came to Australia when I was the only
brown kid in the entire school, right?
And at that time I was practicing Sikh.
So I had the turban beard. So, you know, if you want to
(08:01):
sore a thumb to stand out, I wasthe one right.
And and I'm being brutally honest from that point to now, I
have never experienced racism, right.
And I think it's just weirdly how I it was.
It was from my mom. Like I feel like I've weirdly
been conditioned to go when someone is saying you can always
interpret it as racist or you can interpret it as something
(08:23):
else, right? And for some weird reason, I
never interpret it as racist. So like you could, you know, say
if you were just a general, I don't know, like a hillbilly
rednecky kind of Aussie and you just go to me and go, oh, you
Curry muncho. Now I could go, oh, that's
really racist. Or I could be like, yeah, man,
you fucking Big Mac hamburger. I don't know, like you, you're,
(08:47):
you're like, is this banter? Is this racism?
For me, the always the, the, thecoping mechanism and the, and
the way to respond was always, Oh yeah, he's just trying to
take some jibes at me and let's go.
And so basically I told him I was like, it sucks that you, you
think that because you know, there, there's, there's so much
amazing positivity around being whichever part of the world
(09:10):
you're from, right? Like there's so much cultural,
so much historical and whatever.Like all those things are, are
amazing. Like, especially if we're
talking about India, like there's just so many things that
come from India that are that no, no other parts of the world
have ever done. So it's, it's, it's beautiful.
But thinking that now being Indian is a disadvantage.
Getting that in your head is nothelping you.
(09:31):
Regardless of what it is like it's not going to change
anything. Like what are you going to do?
What are you going to just now do white face and walk around
and pretend no one notices you're Indian.
Like if if you do that it doesn't help you.
And secondly, I don't think there is any negative.
I, I get so much support from all parts of Australian, even
(09:53):
international people that it could be white, purple, green,
yellow, whatever a person is complete support.
Just always positivity. Yeah, there's a, there's a ton
of negativity. But again, I'm like, whatever,
they don't like me, that's OK. That's they're not everyone's
going to like me. But anyway, this has gone very
long. But all I'm really trying to say
is in the end, I think it's magnified by what we see online
(10:16):
in person. I never have experienced that
level of hate. There are a few Dick heads in
the world. They're always going to exist.
You know, fuck them. Like, I can't explain any other
way of doing it. Who cares?
Like they're, they're just Dick heads.
But there is there is a little bit of like backlash around it,
but I think it's very, very segmented to an audience that
(10:37):
typically you should avoid anyway.
They're just, they're not good people.
They just have something wrong with themselves.
So they just using it as as hatred.
But I think be proud of where you're from.
Like, you know, an Indian, Indian culture is incredible.
Like I just think there's, there's no other culture that I,
I mean, I am from that part of the world.
So it's a bit biased. But yeah, be proud of it.
(10:59):
And I think thinking, seeing online rhetoric that you feel
like is is ubiquitous. It's not.
Yeah, I think I love that because because a lot of people
just see the online and they just, it's a echo channel,
right? People just see what they want
to see and they just calculate those there.
It's really quite funny. A bit of a similarity.
I also do computer science. Hated it, do not enjoy.
I did it because mom and dad said it's what you got to do.
(11:21):
Do not do that at all. That's not what I do.
And also, I grew up in Africa and I grew up in Zimbabwe and my
parents grew up in the apartheidregime.
And they also told, hey, it's the Barshi attitude to people
can be racist, but it's your choice and whether you believe
them or not. So it's I just want to say that
because it's great you saying that she doesn't actually know
what they they're going to thinkwhat they want to think.
It's how you take it on. And if you go, it's up to you,
you know, I'll just walk away, which is really beautiful.
(11:43):
Yeah. And I guess violence is a
different thing. If it starts to lead itself into
violence, that's different. That's that's different.
Whereas I, I, I just think in, in most situations, labeling
things too quickly doesn't benefit anybody, right?
Doesn't because we don't know the other person's intention.
And I think nowadays we're trying to create intention in
the other person which doesn't exist.
(12:04):
Like I'm just now saying your intention was to be racist.
Whereas sometimes some of the things I say to someone, they'll
go, man, this guy must be reallyracist.
But it's about tonality, it's about the back story, it's about
context, it's about how your body, there's a lot of
communication skills that go into delivering just the words.
And you don't know a person's intention.
(12:25):
And if there is malice from thatperson, well, they shouldn't be
doing it because they're, they're just malicious.
So, you know, malicious people. If it extends into violence,
then it's really bad. But yeah, I mean, you know, many
years I thought there are thingsthat have been said.
You know, I just weird, weirdly just think I've never really
thought that was racist. I just kind of was like,
whatever, we're having a banter.Let's go, let's go.
(12:48):
Yeah, let's play, let's play. I watched that because I, I was
into Trevor Noah's podcast yesterday and the key, what he
said was context. Everything's context.
And when you take away context, everything can just sound good
or bad. Not actually sounds bad out of
context. Exactly, exactly.
Like you see someone who's lost a family member and they are,
you know, really, really depressed for years to come.
(13:08):
And then you see another person generally, maybe similar
circumstances, loses a family member and they use it as OK,
I'm going to use this as fuel todo something.
So you can you can look any really bad situation and the
perception is everything or or reaction to perception is
everything. Yeah, so true.
I'm going to switch focus and talk using the word fuel.
What is your fuel to go to St. St. comedy because you you were
(13:31):
doing your engineering thing. What is your mark in comedy?
Had your thing in in Malaysia going St. comedy in Perth.
What what is the driver to that there?
Well, I was doing stand up and Ireally struggled with crowd
work. When you kind of break the 4th
wall and you're talking to the audience and as soon as that
would happen, there would be a Heckler or there would be a
(13:53):
situation which was difficult tonavigate.
I would just really, you know, start to sweat and get
uncomfortable in terms of what I'm supposed to respond with or
keep my keep my composure. It became really difficult so
that I need to build on this skill, but you can't keep doing
stand up crowd work at, at, at gigs where you're given an
(14:14):
opportunity to perform. So you can't just go and burn it
and just start doing crowd work,which is is like a tightrope
walk for a show that they haven't really invested in.
You have to be good at it essentially.
So the Me and my cameraman, now business partner Slash producer,
he's, he's one of the best crowdwork comedians, you know, I
would say near the top, top three in the country.
(14:35):
And he's, he's an incredible, yeah, incredibly talented
comedian. He was like, man, we'll we'll
just find a place where there's an audience and you just try it.
And then we said, we'll film me trying it, which is walking up
to a mall where there's a lot ofpeople and then building that
skill. And by recording it, there's a
bit of accountability as to how you've done.
(14:56):
And you can watch the game tape back and improve.
And that's kind of where it stemmed from.
And it became incredibly popular.
People really wanted to see thatmore than the stand up.
So it just became the primary content thing.
And as a surprise you how popular you become, are you
surprised by? Well, people are just.
Loving this content or taking toit?
(15:18):
Definitely. Like it's, it blows my mind that
like I'm in different parts of the world and people still come
up and go, hey man, I watch yourstuff and I'm like, what the
hell, I'm in Japan. This is insane, right?
So it is, It's always mind blowing that the that this this
stupid thing that we just did cause out of just our curiosity
and interest. And and I've always had a
curiosity for people. I think maybe that just is what
(15:39):
relays into the the content is that I'm really curious about
talking to other people. But yeah, it blows my mind.
Like you would go into, you know, places and, and the people
that it reaches and, and the the, the positive response you
get and, and to an extent you can actually do really cool shit
that there there isn't the opportunity of doing in in other
(16:00):
forms like in business and whatever.
Yeah. Yeah, and and it's really what's
what's what I why I like watching your videos is people
are just being real. And you see everyone's got a
story. There's no there's.
No. Makeup, there's just them being
them at the point in time, whichis so beautiful.
Yeah, yeah. We try and keep it as raw,
unfiltered. And also it can be confronting
(16:22):
because you're having a conversation and then you watch
it back and go, I said that shit, fuck.
And then now you're like stuck with the thing.
But then I do the same to myself.
You'll hold myself accountable. If I say something dumb, then
that's that's just what it is. But it's got to be raw,
authentic, clear, just a conversation with someone.
But also, it's got to be funny. Yeah, totally.
Yeah. Yeah, so it's hard.
(16:43):
No, but it's it's, it just comesso naturally with you, with the
way you you. But what I've noticed is you let
the other people do all the talking and you ask one question
and people just talk. I think this is very clever.
Yeah. I mean, it's a it's, it's, I'm
getting better, but it's, yeah, it's been a lot of training, a
lot of practice. I was not naturally good at it,
no. Yeah, No, thank you.
I mean, I, I, I do coaching as well in my as another key, but I
(17:06):
learned out of questioning as you, because the questioning is
where you get the answers that people, people just have to
talk. They just have to give them some
space and they talk. Yeah.
I mean, the, the one thing that I think maybe people can take
away to benefit themselves in a situation where there is high
pressure or like what, what, what am I trying to use in a, in
(17:28):
a communication environment where there is some level of
impromptu discussion that can have an impact in some way is I
think the words we've, we've heard this, I don't know,
there's some stat 87% of it is body language, right?
Or whatever that stat is. And, and it's actually virtually
the whole thing. That's a whole game.
I could say two different sentences to you and depending
(17:51):
on my body language, the words could be identical depending on
my tonality, speed, volume, all of those things, it would have
two very different outcomes. Like, you know, if I give you an
example is if I go Prajesh fuck you, right?
That's, oh, you're ready. You're, you're charged, right?
(18:12):
Or where as I say, Prajesh fuck you.
It's, it's the same words and it's delivered with two
different body languages. Leaning in versus leaning back,
bit of laugh, you know, like obviously I'm using the worst
possible 2 words to use, but butit drives the home the message,
right? Like it's all about everything
(18:32):
else, not the words. Totally, totally.
And that's really powerful. That's really, really important
to remember. It's not the words that matter,
it's the way the words are said.Again, context.
Context changes everything. The other thing, you know, at
the at the start you spoke aboutall the things that you do.
How do you balance your creativeside with your entrepreneurial
side? Because there's two sides to
you, because obviously you can'tbe too creative and your other
side will just fall over. How do you manage to balance
(18:54):
that day and keep yourself? I'm sane.
I. Guess barely yes.
I'm assuming you're saying Sorry, there's an assumption.
Yeah, yeah, barely. Yeah, it's very, very difficult
sometimes. I think I've taken on too many
things and, and honestly, I think that my next step is to
try and prioritize and, and limit the amount of demands that
(19:19):
I'm kind of like putting. I'm not putting on myself.
Like I get into it. It's voluntary.
No one's asking me for it. It's just, yeah, I'm very bad
with prioritization. I think I just take on a lot of
things and that's, yeah, I'll just figure it out.
But at the moment is probably the one time in life where I'm
like, I need to, I need to cut some stuff back because I'm not,
I'm not managing very effectively because also I've
got two young kids. So there's a, there's a family
(19:41):
component which takes a lot of time and I don't want to
compromise that for other stuff because it's a short lived
moment and they're already growing up.
So yeah, I, I don't have a answer.
I'm very bad at it. But but but but that's honestly
right, because people think everyone's got a perfect
everything sorted, but it's not really it's you're living your
life and again, great, great, great segue into your family
(20:02):
life because you know, you're our celebrity invited comments.
Actually you are. How does that direct with your
family, especially young family,and how do you protect them
from, I used to protect but shield them from some of the
things that are being said aboutyou?
Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a very good question.
It yeah, it's, it's look, I, I probably, I'm not anywhere near
(20:22):
a level of celebrity where it gets invasive.
So I can imagine where I can seeit at times where this like, for
example, if you walk through theshops and every, you know, 10
meters, someone's coming up to you and you're with your kids,
which has happened. And I'm like, imagine the scale
of the next person who's actually like AI don't know
Shahrukh Khan or for for example, him walking through
(20:42):
anywhere would be outrageous. I can't even imagine that that
would be that would, where you'dhave to.
I think it's like you got you'vegot baseline of where I am to
like, you know, maybe Shahrukh Khan level.
And then there's like at that point you already got structures
in place. And my point, there's no
structures because it's not at that scale where I need the
structures in place. The stuff that I worry about is
(21:05):
saying or doing something that can potentially get the family
involved. And the way I've done that is
essentially, unless you go to LinkedIn or really are
interested to know what I do forwork, most people don't know.
Most people think that's all I do is the the street stuff.
So I kind of keep the professional in St. as detached
as possible. And also, yeah, just just with
(21:29):
like family, there's no names, pictures, all of that kind of
stuff. Addresses, mobiles, all those
are disclosed. It's undisclosed.
And aside from that, if you know, someone messes with your
family, like we're ready. So that's, that's really what it
is. I, I mean, I don't know, like I,
I don't think I'm at that stage where it's like getting
invasive. But you do get some crazies,
(21:50):
man. Like they're, I've already
experienced some crazies where they'll just find where you are
and they just come and see you. I'm like, I have no idea how
this guy knew where I was, whichis wild.
But yeah, yeah. I think as it gets bigger and
Wilder than you, you know, I like someone like Mr. Beast.
I remember listening to a podcast with him and he's like,
I have to have so many procedures in place just to go
(22:11):
to an airport because it just shuts the whole place down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we'll know when we come to
the airport in Perth and go shutdown because you're coming with
stick up. Ah, step away, step away.
Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt that's ever.
Going to happen How funny and you know, have you had a a comic
that's been your inspiration or have you just have you said this
(22:31):
is my jam or has someone been the person that you looked up to
to go this is really cool? Yeah, there's quite a few.
I used to watch a lot of stand up comedians and and then learn
from them. One of the probably get the
Mount Mount Rushmore of the comedians for me would be Louis
CK, Dave Chappelle, Andrew Schultz.
(22:53):
And yeah, there's other, there'sprobably like a list of other
fringe ones, but those are the three that again, I think
everyone's got Dave Chappelle ontheir list, but that's just
because of his longevity and thefact that he can still do comedy
comedy. There were some people that I
used to really, really like, like Jim Jefferies and and other
Australian comedians that that Ronny Chang and whatever they
(23:14):
got the global scale. But I feel like other things
move them away from what they really were good at.
And then it just dilutes the original thing that made them
amazing. So not nothing against them, but
I just, yeah, I've lost interestin their comedy because I just
don't think that's their primaryfocus.
But yeah, those those will be the top three.
(23:36):
Yeah, and the one thing you notice is you'll be like Steve
Jobs. You'll be the same thing all the
time. Is that a on purpose to put the
black wearing black as well? Is that is that your?
Persona That's a high praise man.
I wish I was anything like SteveJobs.
It is. It's more yeah.
I, I, I think I got it borrowed from some podcast many years ago
so I can find the things that you can just wear repeatedly so
you don't have to think about it.
(23:57):
So I think for probably 10-15 years I've worn the same stuff,
like it'll be jeans and a black T-shirt and that's it.
And I've got like 50 of the same.
This makes life easy, doesn't it?
It's a uniform done. Happy Days 100.
Percent, you don't have to worryabout if I'm going to a formal
thing, if I'm going to a a casual thing.
And you know, as and the spectrum is how, how new is that
(24:22):
T-shirt that I can wear depending on the event.
So it's a really important event.
The T-shirt's got to be on the newer side of the spectrum.
If it's just a more casual thing, it can be on the other
side of it. That's that's it, yeah.
I love it. I love it so, so, so, so easy.
We don't have a lot of time left.
But one thing I do want to touchon, which I really, really got
to was the fact that you are giving back into education, the
K12 education stuff. Where does that come from?
(24:44):
Because that is really beautifulbecause I have an education
background. I was like, this is really cool.
What are you doing in that spacethere?
No, I really, yeah, I've always wanted to do it is is because
we've where where I'm sitting right now is in the offices of
our education. Well, now not only education,
but it was an education primary business, which is like a lot of
the interactive conferencing solutions like I'll just swing
(25:07):
it around a little bit so you can see.
So that business was, it's called K20 Visual, which we've
had for which was the first business that allowed us to
build the private equity portfolio or business and
whatever. And we've always wanted to do
the actual like teaching education side as well.
And we never found the right person to do it.
(25:29):
And unfortunately we did find her.
And then she got really unwell and actually passed away, which
is incredibly sad. It was, it was over a very short
period. So that really affected all of
us. So yeah, it is something we've
always wanted to do. And, and I think the thing that
I've started to weirdly realize,which I probably knew, but I was
trying to avoid it because now it's going to add more workload
(25:50):
to an already like challenging workload is doing all of the,
the, the, the tutoring or the, the one to one group, 1 to many
support in a group setting. If I feel like what people
really want is more of the soft skills training as adults, as
(26:10):
university students, as professionals.
And it is something I've studiedfor my entire life and I keep
getting more requests for it. And then I'm like, that is
probably the thing that I need to build out because that's what
people don't have as much support for at the moment.
It's not taught in schools. There's not really that many
great resources. Obviously you can read and learn
(26:31):
and but someone who's potentially practiced it for
nearly 20 years, I'm like, I'm sure I can help a lot of these
people in some way. I just don't know how I do it
without it adding more of me needing to do the thing which
which I'm trying to figure out because it seems like that's
where a lot of the help is required.
And that's where you can have a massive impact with the world of
(26:52):
AI coming in. Communication is everything
because one to one communication, being able to
talk to someone using your words, your body language, your
communication skills to open doors, to transform your life
essentially. Because it's done it for me.
I'm sure it's done it for you. Like, you know, you can be able
to communicate, change everything.
So yeah, I mean, it is somethingwe've always wanted to do.
(27:13):
We are doing it, but I feel likethere's going to be a
prioritization of trying to rollthat out to some extent because
people need it and I don't know where the other resources are.
It's all right, because I don't know if you saw a study that
came out yesterday from Harvard basically saying that AI is now
being used as companionship because people don't have to
(27:33):
communicate with humans. So they prompt chat and it's
it's it's increasing. So it's not about, you know,
business. It's about, hey, ChatGPT, let's
have a relationship conversation.
And that's just, this is exactlywhat you're saying.
We've got to change that, that whole aspect.
But we don't know. You don't know.
Yeah, yeah. And I don't.
And I think, again, I can't see the future.
I don't know what the future holds.
(27:53):
No one knew AI was coming. But I just think if you look at
the the thing that's going to still be the most valued in a
world where most things AI is going to be able to do better
than us is verbal communication or in person communication, like
in person events, in person gatherings, in one to one real.
(28:17):
I don't know, maybe we'll have earpieces and AI will help us do
the words or whatever. I don't know.
But I think that's just so important and people feel it and
they're like, I don't know whereI can learn this.
So yeah, I don't know. I do think that's something I
would like to do, yeah. That's very powerful because
communication is key. Looking towards eyes is it's so
hard to do, but it's so powerfulwhen we can do that there.
(28:40):
Yeah, exactly. I know your time is going to be
up, I just have one more. Question.
We can, we can do another 10 minutes if you like.
Yeah, yeah, no problem. You're beautiful.
Thank you. Yeah, of course.
I just, I just love that becauseI'm in education, I see young
people who don't communicate or choose not to communicate.
And I'll tell you the biggest travesty is when you walk into
schools and you see people on their phones at break time and
(29:01):
not running around and playing. So when I hear what you're
saying, I'm like, you know, withwhatever it looks like in the
future, it's it's going to be better for humanity if we can do
that there. Because if we don't, then these
things take over and we lose whowe are.
And you can't do what you do on the street or people can't do
that anymore because you're not talking to each other.
Yes, yes, yeah. So are you wondering what what
(29:23):
we should do? Yeah.
What I'm thinking is, you know, as, as you, as you think about
your 20 years of, of doing all the things that you're doing and
you're watching, as you see how people, you know, using these
more or not these more. How do you see things like
comedy coming to place and actually getting people away?
So actually we can actually go and have fun without things
being serious and having just torely on devices.
(29:51):
Yeah, I, I haven't thought of that.
That's, that's, yeah, I, I thinkI, I, if you look at like
generation, sorry, historically humans have always, it's like an
inbuilt evolutionary thing wheresometimes certain words I say,
like actions I make with my mouth and say these certain
(30:13):
words and you involuntarily start laughing.
It's like a. It's like a weird thing where
it's like, OK, that's built in for a reason.
You would, you would imagine, like, why is it that I say
something now and you can't control yourself?
But to go like it's, it's, it's crazy, right?
Like it just makes you think, all right, evolutionarily,
(30:33):
that's that's got to be important to humans.
What is the importance? We all know, like you go to a
comedy show, you just feel better.
You feel relaxed, you feel like you feel connected.
If you're in a in a group of yeah, there's, there's nothing
like a live comedy room of about100 and 5200 people that's kind
of the right size and you're allin this tight knit space with
(30:54):
rows of seating. And just the fact that someone
has just been on stage, all they've got is this a microphone
mic stand and they're just saying stuff and everyone's in
hypnotism of laughter. I don't think that can go away.
Like that's just built in. Like if and even if you look at
comments on most videos, it's just someone saying the funniest
shit. And we laugh.
(31:15):
We really go, man, that just makes you laugh.
So if that you know, is this is the thing like AI kind of is, is
this weird concerning thing, which I've never felt in the
past. It's like, I'm like, you got to
spend three to five years to getany sort of business, any real
momentum and any real foundation.
(31:35):
And now it's like, do you spend those 3 five years and you set
up a dope accounting practice that in five years is worth
nothing because AI can just do it.
And but at the same time, it's like you can't think of what the
future is going to hold. You've got to just go with your
instincts or what you can do thebest, merge with your strengths
and what you feel like the worldneeds from you.
And that's why I was talking about the soft skills thing
(31:57):
because I'm like that. I feel like that's what I can
deliver to the world to some extent.
So yeah, I don't think comedy, Idon't think a lot of the the
interactions 1 to one will decrease.
People always say, you know, younger kids are getting worse
at communicating in person. I don't really see that.
There are a lot that are maybe chronically online, whereas the
(32:20):
general young person loves a bitof laughter, loves a bit of
communication. They they love to get amongst
the banter. And I've met many of them and I
don't know if it's gotten worse.I think they just, they just
need a bit of training to be better at it.
But I think they're, yeah, I think it's going to be the the
most important thing really. So I hope it stays.
(32:42):
Yeah, and, and, and it's so truebecause a lot of young people
know I work with lots of 15 yearolds, 16 year olds, and they're
so aware and they're so confident.
I was like, when I was 16, therewas no way I was at a
conference. No way.
That was one of my friends says when he was 16, he was either
eating pies or chasing girls. That's it.
That was that was his life. And I was like, yeah, this is
very true. Yeah.
Sounds like my life, yeah. Sounds so true.
(33:04):
Last question for you, Jeske. This podcast is called Bastards
of Knowledge and every guest we have one, we invite them to
share a piece of knowledge to gointo our basket.
You've shared quite a few thingsin from your life experience,
but is there one piece of knowledge you'd like to share
with myself and our listeners from your world of any part of
your world about business knowledge, comedy, anything?
(33:27):
Yes, yes, I, I think the thing that it, it's kind of the best
way for me to answer this question is to go back and go,
Hey, let me go 10 to 15 years prior and what would I tell
myself? Because that even though that's
such a standard question, it makes you reflect on what have
you learned that's probably the most important that you could
pass on earlier. Not that I would do the
(33:48):
butterfly effect and change something because I'm very happy
with the things that I learned. But I think the one, the one
thing that I used to hesitate on, I always felt I knew my
strength. I knew the thing that I was,
it's going to sound really fluffy, destined to to do, but I
(34:09):
always fought against it becauseit wasn't the societally normal
thing to do. Especially with the sacrifices
my parents had made to come to this country and give us all the
opportunities that we would not have had had we still been in
India or another part of the world.
I was like, I better at least besensible.
But deep down you kind of know. So the easier way to explain
(34:35):
this is shoot as many shots as you can and and you'll know
intuitively when something sticks, like sticks in the sense
you get some confirmation from the world that maybe you're on
the right path. You'll get some internal
confirmation where, yeah, this, this just feels right.
Like this feels like what I should be doing.
(34:56):
Because when I started doing sales like cold calls, I was
like, fuck, people hate this, but I love this.
What the fuck is this? It's weird.
And, and you get confirmation, people are responding.
It's like, well, that person next to me is doing it.
They can't get the response. So there's real world
validation, whereas there's internal validation like I like
this. And, and it's always about doing
(35:19):
the thing, you know, then you know what you're strong at.
And I think if you take enough shots, you realize, I'm, I'm
good at this. And if I'm good at something,
I'll get the validation to startto enjoy it as opposed to going,
what am I passionate about? Cause passion, it doesn't, it's
not monetizable many times. And like in world, we need, we
need something that merges with the market, right?
So yeah, long winded answer, butI'll summarize it is take a lot
(35:42):
of shots, understand the thing that you feel that connection
with the world with and then just trust yourself because it
it why live a life where you're at the end of it?
You're like, what the hell did Ijust not not against
accountants, but it's the first thing that comes to mind is
like, I just did accounting for 30 years and now I fucking hate
my life. Like what's the point?
(36:03):
Yeah, yeah, I love that, you know, trust yourself.
And I mean, it's it's important how many of us don't do that
because we live in the society'sworld.
You know, society says do this place safe and OK, trust
yourself, Take the shots and seewhat happens.
Beautiful. I I love it.
What a great way to in there podcast.
Any last words before I say goodbye to you and thank you for
your time? The only thing I want to say is
(36:24):
you, you, you ask really good questions.
You're very, very thoughtful. You've come with questions that
I haven't, you know, thought of and it's actually given me a
little bit more clarity on, on some of the things which I
haven't deeply sat down and, and, and really, you know, tried
to articulate. So yeah, kudos to you.
You ask good questions, you're good at what you do.
So I've enjoyed it. I wish.
(36:45):
Thank you. A lot more just by answering the
questions. We've got to come back, come
back again. But thank you so much for
jumping on. And again, you know, what I love
about today's episode is the theperson behind the person.
You know, we see one person. And and as you said before, when
I jumped on to to the card more for you, I went to your LinkedIn
and I was like, huh, this is notthe person that I thought I
(37:06):
knew. And this is where I was like,
mind blown. So really beautiful.
So thank you for sharing that there.
And thank you for being authentic to yourself.
And for listeners out there, hopefully you learn something
today. If you haven't learned
something, it's because you fellasleep.
Wake up again and go have a listen because this is a great
podcast. Thank you for your time and
we'll speak soon, I hope. Thanks, Jesse.
Pleasure. Yeah, we'll do it again.
Thank you. Take care, bye.
(37:32):
Thank you for listening to Bastards of Knowledge.
Yeah, we hope that you found something useful to put into
your bastard knowledge. And as we said before, remember
to put something little into your bastards of knowledge every
week. And as always, feel free to
like, comment and share this podcast.
Thanks everybody. Bye.
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh here.
In Tana here. Welcome to our podcast Passes of
Knowledge chats with a difference.
In our podcast, we invite guestsfrom around the country and
around the world to talk about how they got to where they at
the moment. It's about a journey, it's about
an experience, it's about their life.
(00:26):
Yeah, To continue, welcome to another episode of Baskets of
Knowledge. Once again, Tan is not here with
us. He's awaiting some pretty cool
science things as he does. And it is just me flying solo
today. And today I'm really excited to
have our guest. You may have heard of him or may
not have heard him. If you haven't today you're
going to hear more about him. This is someone that I've been
following on the on the softwares for a while.
(00:46):
I came across them in my one of my thesis.
Like this is a very interesting human being and I just enjoy
what this person does as they got.
Then they talk to people, but obviously it's more than just
about what they do online. It's about who the other person.
But before we talk about that there, I'm going to introduce
Jessica Sing to our podcast, otherwise known as Pacific Hunt.
(01:08):
Welcome to Boss Knowledge. Thank.
You for having me, Prajesh. It's a pleasure I'm looking
forward to. It Oh beauty Jessica, people who
know nothing about you. Who are you today on the 11th of
September, which is quite an interesting date to have this
episode as well. I know, I know 2 brown guys on
9/11 let's go, let's go So Oh yeah I mean look, I'll try and
(01:31):
be as quick as possible, don't want to drag on any sort of
background. Essentially Indian migrant,
moved to Australia at a very early age when my parents moved
across and have lived here forever.
So now obviously classify myselfas Australian and initially
studied electrical engineering, computer science because I was
(01:54):
told by my parents I should havesomething serious to do in life.
I knew I was never going to do it.
It was never inclined to be thatkind of a cubicle worker sort of
personality. Not that there's anything wrong
with it, I just wasn't. I knew that wasn't going to be
my thing. So then really just the rest of
my life has been communication. Communication in all forms,
meaning sales and presentations did did a lot of creative work
(02:17):
like a wrapping and and a lot ofaudio related creative stuff,
which again, we can go into detail, but I'm trying to be as
brief as I can. So the two sides of my life now
look like private equity, which is businesses that we have
either organically grown from, from the ground grass roots up,
(02:39):
all businesses we have acquired or taken over or had ownership
in and improved in some manner. Management, you know, structure,
efficiencies, models and whatever.
Generally sales because that's really the thing that I'm very
good at. But one thing that I'm
personally good at, not very good at, it's a bit boastful.
And then the other side which people probably, yeah know, know
(03:01):
me really well from is the street interviews.
I guess we can say we are the most popular street interview
channel, at least in Australia, if not in the world.
And yeah, it's it was always an extension of stand up comedy.
I always wanted to do stand up. It was a thing that freaked me
out. I tried it, did it, and then I
really wanted to improve my skill set.
(03:22):
So we're like, let's film it, doing it in public, which is a
weird idea, but it it worked. And that became the thing that
merged stand up and also became a thing on its own that people
enjoy. So that's that's as quick a
summary as I can give you I. I I, I, I love that because, you
know, it's got your two worlds. Most people only know you for
your street comedy, but there's a lot more to you than the
street, the street comedy, you know, as you spoke about before
(03:43):
the private equity, which peopledon't know about it on sea.
So when I was doing my research,like, oh, wait a minute, this is
the whole different side that people know actually know about.
There's actually some real amazing things going on in the
the back end, which is actually who you are.
But I guess my first question for you is, is as a brown
person, and I asked this because, you know, this is so
crazy, the world is going the ballistic out there, Is it
(04:05):
becoming harder for you to have those conversations on the
street or has it become easier because people recognize you?
Firstly, how do you classify me as brown?
I identify as white, so I'm really sorry.
It's my. It's my.
It's my ration, my computer. I apologize.
Yeah, you need to. You need to change your
saturation. It's gone too far to the other
side. I'm actually very white.
(04:26):
No. So do you mean in terms of like,
does it face backlash being a brown person?
Is that the? Reason I ask that question is
because recently what happened here in New Zealand, I'll give
you some context in New Zealand,just recently, the a New Zealand
CEO is an Indian person and the backlash was just crazy.
And just because he was brown and was, hey, why, why are we
(04:46):
hiring a brown person to lead tobecome a CEO?
And as I've seen more of this rhetoric going out there as
well, and but it's not going outthere.
It's actually more people are just saying it like if there's
no consequence and for someone like yourself who's out there in
in the public face as you're talking to, you know, the whole
range of people, do you find that people, you know, we just
see the snippets of things that go out there and how do you find
(05:08):
yourself as you adjust in this crazy world here?
No, look, it's, it's a very, very good question.
And I'll, I'll tell you a short story that probably kind of
summarizes it really well. So I was, we were just
travelling just a few days ago and I was in Adelaide, which is
another part of Australia. We're based in WA.
So this is what people call it, the most boring part of
(05:29):
Australia. But anyway, we were there.
That's got nothing to do with the whole story.
So I was just in the security check in to get back on a flight
to get back to Perth. And then this young Indian kid,
I, I, I'm guessing his age, I didn't ask his age, but I'm
guessing it'd be early 20s, maybe even late teens, was a
young kid. And he came up to me and he was
(05:49):
like, hey, look, man, I, I love the stuff you do.
I follow you, blah, blah, blah. Do you mind if I ask you a
question? I was like, yeah, of course,
man, there's no problems. And he, he was like, how do you
feel with the whole rhetoric, the narrative around the
negativity around Indians? And he goes, I always never
(06:10):
really felt like I was Indian because I was because he's, he
had a full Aussie accent. It wasn't like he had, I mean,
aside from looking at me like he's obviously from that part of
the world or his, his generation, previous generation,
whatever. So he, he, he's fully, you know,
sounds like an Australian, right.
And he was like, man, I never used to care, never used to
(06:31):
really bother me. It was never a thing that even
crossed my mind. But now he goes, I feel, and I
don't know what word he used, but some synonym of ashamed, I
feel ashamed of mentioning to people that I'm Indian.
And, and he goes, 'cause I feel like I see the expression in the
face change. And it really saddened me that
(06:52):
that's how a young kid is feeling that like, oh, 'cause
he's, he's not even Indian. He's actually an Australian guy,
right? Just 'cause you know, whatever,
you know what I mean? Like he, he, he feels
embarrassed about saying that myfamily or whatever we are
origination or culturally Indian.
(07:15):
And so basically what I told himis really how I answer this
question. I just share that story because
it, it showcases this. Even young kids are starting to
have some weird like disconnection from wanting to
identify, feel like they are, you know, Indian or, or, or you
know, the word Indian has now got this weird negative
connotation. So I, I told him, look, I'm not
(07:39):
anyone to give anyone advice. I, I try not to give anyone
advice because I'm mostly wrong.So I can only share my
experience is that I came to Australia when I was the only
brown kid in the entire school, right?
And at that time I was practicing Sikh.
So I had the turban beard. So, you know, if you want to
(08:01):
sore a thumb to stand out, I wasthe one right.
And and I'm being brutally honest from that point to now, I
have never experienced racism, right.
And I think it's just weirdly how I it was.
It was from my mom. Like I feel like I've weirdly
been conditioned to go when someone is saying you can always
interpret it as racist or you can interpret it as something
(08:23):
else, right? And for some weird reason, I
never interpret it as racist. So like you could, you know, say
if you were just a general, I don't know, like a hillbilly
rednecky kind of Aussie and you just go to me and go, oh, you
Curry muncho. Now I could go, oh, that's
really racist. Or I could be like, yeah, man,
you fucking Big Mac hamburger. I don't know, like you, you're,
(08:47):
you're like, is this banter? Is this racism?
For me, the always the, the, thecoping mechanism and the, and
the way to respond was always, Oh yeah, he's just trying to
take some jibes at me and let's go.
And so basically I told him I was like, it sucks that you, you
think that because you know, there, there's, there's so much
amazing positivity around being whichever part of the world
(09:10):
you're from, right? Like there's so much cultural,
so much historical and whatever.Like all those things are, are
amazing. Like, especially if we're
talking about India, like there's just so many things that
come from India that are that no, no other parts of the world
have ever done. So it's, it's, it's beautiful.
But thinking that now being Indian is a disadvantage.
Getting that in your head is nothelping you.
(09:31):
Regardless of what it is like it's not going to change
anything. Like what are you going to do?
What are you going to just now do white face and walk around
and pretend no one notices you're Indian.
Like if if you do that it doesn't help you.
And secondly, I don't think there is any negative.
I, I get so much support from all parts of Australian, even
(09:53):
international people that it could be white, purple, green,
yellow, whatever a person is complete support.
Just always positivity. Yeah, there's a, there's a ton
of negativity. But again, I'm like, whatever,
they don't like me, that's OK. That's they're not everyone's
going to like me. But anyway, this has gone very
long. But all I'm really trying to say
is in the end, I think it's magnified by what we see online
(10:16):
in person. I never have experienced that
level of hate. There are a few Dick heads in
the world. They're always going to exist.
You know, fuck them. Like, I can't explain any other
way of doing it. Who cares?
Like they're, they're just Dick heads.
But there is there is a little bit of like backlash around it,
but I think it's very, very segmented to an audience that
(10:37):
typically you should avoid anyway.
They're just, they're not good people.
They just have something wrong with themselves.
So they just using it as as hatred.
But I think be proud of where you're from.
Like, you know, an Indian, Indian culture is incredible.
Like I just think there's, there's no other culture that I,
I mean, I am from that part of the world.
So it's a bit biased. But yeah, be proud of it.
(10:59):
And I think thinking, seeing online rhetoric that you feel
like is is ubiquitous. It's not.
Yeah, I think I love that because because a lot of people
just see the online and they just, it's a echo channel,
right? People just see what they want
to see and they just calculate those there.
It's really quite funny. A bit of a similarity.
I also do computer science. Hated it, do not enjoy.
I did it because mom and dad said it's what you got to do.
(11:21):
Do not do that at all. That's not what I do.
And also, I grew up in Africa and I grew up in Zimbabwe and my
parents grew up in the apartheidregime.
And they also told, hey, it's the Barshi attitude to people
can be racist, but it's your choice and whether you believe
them or not. So it's I just want to say that
because it's great you saying that she doesn't actually know
what they they're going to thinkwhat they want to think.
It's how you take it on. And if you go, it's up to you,
you know, I'll just walk away, which is really beautiful.
(11:43):
Yeah. And I guess violence is a
different thing. If it starts to lead itself into
violence, that's different. That's that's different.
Whereas I, I, I just think in, in most situations, labeling
things too quickly doesn't benefit anybody, right?
Doesn't because we don't know the other person's intention.
And I think nowadays we're trying to create intention in
the other person which doesn't exist.
(12:04):
Like I'm just now saying your intention was to be racist.
Whereas sometimes some of the things I say to someone, they'll
go, man, this guy must be reallyracist.
But it's about tonality, it's about the back story, it's about
context, it's about how your body, there's a lot of
communication skills that go into delivering just the words.
And you don't know a person's intention.
(12:25):
And if there is malice from thatperson, well, they shouldn't be
doing it because they're, they're just malicious.
So, you know, malicious people. If it extends into violence,
then it's really bad. But yeah, I mean, you know, many
years I thought there are thingsthat have been said.
You know, I just weird, weirdly just think I've never really
thought that was racist. I just kind of was like,
whatever, we're having a banter.Let's go, let's go.
(12:48):
Yeah, let's play, let's play. I watched that because I, I was
into Trevor Noah's podcast yesterday and the key, what he
said was context. Everything's context.
And when you take away context, everything can just sound good
or bad. Not actually sounds bad out of
context. Exactly, exactly.
Like you see someone who's lost a family member and they are,
you know, really, really depressed for years to come.
(13:08):
And then you see another person generally, maybe similar
circumstances, loses a family member and they use it as OK,
I'm going to use this as fuel todo something.
So you can you can look any really bad situation and the
perception is everything or or reaction to perception is
everything. Yeah, so true.
I'm going to switch focus and talk using the word fuel.
What is your fuel to go to St. St. comedy because you you were
(13:31):
doing your engineering thing. What is your mark in comedy?
Had your thing in in Malaysia going St. comedy in Perth.
What what is the driver to that there?
Well, I was doing stand up and Ireally struggled with crowd
work. When you kind of break the 4th
wall and you're talking to the audience and as soon as that
would happen, there would be a Heckler or there would be a
(13:53):
situation which was difficult tonavigate.
I would just really, you know, start to sweat and get
uncomfortable in terms of what I'm supposed to respond with or
keep my keep my composure. It became really difficult so
that I need to build on this skill, but you can't keep doing
stand up crowd work at, at, at gigs where you're given an
(14:14):
opportunity to perform. So you can't just go and burn it
and just start doing crowd work,which is is like a tightrope
walk for a show that they haven't really invested in.
You have to be good at it essentially.
So the Me and my cameraman, now business partner Slash producer,
he's, he's one of the best crowdwork comedians, you know, I
would say near the top, top three in the country.
(14:35):
And he's, he's an incredible, yeah, incredibly talented
comedian. He was like, man, we'll we'll
just find a place where there's an audience and you just try it.
And then we said, we'll film me trying it, which is walking up
to a mall where there's a lot ofpeople and then building that
skill. And by recording it, there's a
bit of accountability as to how you've done.
(14:56):
And you can watch the game tape back and improve.
And that's kind of where it stemmed from.
And it became incredibly popular.
People really wanted to see thatmore than the stand up.
So it just became the primary content thing.
And as a surprise you how popular you become, are you
surprised by? Well, people are just.
Loving this content or taking toit?
(15:18):
Definitely. Like it's, it blows my mind that
like I'm in different parts of the world and people still come
up and go, hey man, I watch yourstuff and I'm like, what the
hell, I'm in Japan. This is insane, right?
So it is, It's always mind blowing that the that this this
stupid thing that we just did cause out of just our curiosity
and interest. And and I've always had a
curiosity for people. I think maybe that just is what
(15:39):
relays into the the content is that I'm really curious about
talking to other people. But yeah, it blows my mind.
Like you would go into, you know, places and, and the people
that it reaches and, and the the, the positive response you
get and, and to an extent you can actually do really cool shit
that there there isn't the opportunity of doing in in other
(16:00):
forms like in business and whatever.
Yeah. Yeah, and and it's really what's
what's what I why I like watching your videos is people
are just being real. And you see everyone's got a
story. There's no there's.
No. Makeup, there's just them being
them at the point in time, whichis so beautiful.
Yeah, yeah. We try and keep it as raw,
unfiltered. And also it can be confronting
(16:22):
because you're having a conversation and then you watch
it back and go, I said that shit, fuck.
And then now you're like stuck with the thing.
But then I do the same to myself.
You'll hold myself accountable. If I say something dumb, then
that's that's just what it is. But it's got to be raw,
authentic, clear, just a conversation with someone.
But also, it's got to be funny. Yeah, totally.
Yeah. Yeah, so it's hard.
(16:43):
No, but it's it's, it just comesso naturally with you, with the
way you you. But what I've noticed is you let
the other people do all the talking and you ask one question
and people just talk. I think this is very clever.
Yeah. I mean, it's a it's, it's, I'm
getting better, but it's, yeah, it's been a lot of training, a
lot of practice. I was not naturally good at it,
no. Yeah, No, thank you.
I mean, I, I, I do coaching as well in my as another key, but I
(17:06):
learned out of questioning as you, because the questioning is
where you get the answers that people, people just have to
talk. They just have to give them some
space and they talk. Yeah.
I mean, the, the one thing that I think maybe people can take
away to benefit themselves in a situation where there is high
pressure or like what, what, what am I trying to use in a, in
(17:28):
a communication environment where there is some level of
impromptu discussion that can have an impact in some way is I
think the words we've, we've heard this, I don't know,
there's some stat 87% of it is body language, right?
Or whatever that stat is. And, and it's actually virtually
the whole thing. That's a whole game.
I could say two different sentences to you and depending
(17:51):
on my body language, the words could be identical depending on
my tonality, speed, volume, all of those things, it would have
two very different outcomes. Like, you know, if I give you an
example is if I go Prajesh fuck you, right?
That's, oh, you're ready. You're, you're charged, right?
(18:12):
Or where as I say, Prajesh fuck you.
It's, it's the same words and it's delivered with two
different body languages. Leaning in versus leaning back,
bit of laugh, you know, like obviously I'm using the worst
possible 2 words to use, but butit drives the home the message,
right? Like it's all about everything
(18:32):
else, not the words. Totally, totally.
And that's really powerful. That's really, really important
to remember. It's not the words that matter,
it's the way the words are said.Again, context.
Context changes everything. The other thing, you know, at
the at the start you spoke aboutall the things that you do.
How do you balance your creativeside with your entrepreneurial
side? Because there's two sides to
you, because obviously you can'tbe too creative and your other
side will just fall over. How do you manage to balance
(18:54):
that day and keep yourself? I'm sane.
I. Guess barely yes.
I'm assuming you're saying Sorry, there's an assumption.
Yeah, yeah, barely. Yeah, it's very, very difficult
sometimes. I think I've taken on too many
things and, and honestly, I think that my next step is to
try and prioritize and, and limit the amount of demands that
(19:19):
I'm kind of like putting. I'm not putting on myself.
Like I get into it. It's voluntary.
No one's asking me for it. It's just, yeah, I'm very bad
with prioritization. I think I just take on a lot of
things and that's, yeah, I'll just figure it out.
But at the moment is probably the one time in life where I'm
like, I need to, I need to cut some stuff back because I'm not,
I'm not managing very effectively because also I've
got two young kids. So there's a, there's a family
(19:41):
component which takes a lot of time and I don't want to
compromise that for other stuff because it's a short lived
moment and they're already growing up.
So yeah, I, I don't have a answer.
I'm very bad at it. But but but but that's honestly
right, because people think everyone's got a perfect
everything sorted, but it's not really it's you're living your
life and again, great, great, great segue into your family
(20:02):
life because you know, you're our celebrity invited comments.
Actually you are. How does that direct with your
family, especially young family,and how do you protect them
from, I used to protect but shield them from some of the
things that are being said aboutyou?
Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a very good question.
It yeah, it's, it's look, I, I probably, I'm not anywhere near
(20:22):
a level of celebrity where it gets invasive.
So I can imagine where I can seeit at times where this like, for
example, if you walk through theshops and every, you know, 10
meters, someone's coming up to you and you're with your kids,
which has happened. And I'm like, imagine the scale
of the next person who's actually like AI don't know
Shahrukh Khan or for for example, him walking through
(20:42):
anywhere would be outrageous. I can't even imagine that that
would be that would, where you'dhave to.
I think it's like you got you'vegot baseline of where I am to
like, you know, maybe Shahrukh Khan level.
And then there's like at that point you already got structures
in place. And my point, there's no
structures because it's not at that scale where I need the
structures in place. The stuff that I worry about is
(21:05):
saying or doing something that can potentially get the family
involved. And the way I've done that is
essentially, unless you go to LinkedIn or really are
interested to know what I do forwork, most people don't know.
Most people think that's all I do is the the street stuff.
So I kind of keep the professional in St. as detached
as possible. And also, yeah, just just with
(21:29):
like family, there's no names, pictures, all of that kind of
stuff. Addresses, mobiles, all those
are disclosed. It's undisclosed.
And aside from that, if you know, someone messes with your
family, like we're ready. So that's, that's really what it
is. I, I mean, I don't know, like I,
I don't think I'm at that stage where it's like getting
invasive. But you do get some crazies,
(21:50):
man. Like they're, I've already
experienced some crazies where they'll just find where you are
and they just come and see you. I'm like, I have no idea how
this guy knew where I was, whichis wild.
But yeah, yeah. I think as it gets bigger and
Wilder than you, you know, I like someone like Mr. Beast.
I remember listening to a podcast with him and he's like,
I have to have so many procedures in place just to go
(22:11):
to an airport because it just shuts the whole place down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we'll know when we come to
the airport in Perth and go shutdown because you're coming with
stick up. Ah, step away, step away.
Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt that's ever.
Going to happen How funny and you know, have you had a a comic
that's been your inspiration or have you just have you said this
(22:31):
is my jam or has someone been the person that you looked up to
to go this is really cool? Yeah, there's quite a few.
I used to watch a lot of stand up comedians and and then learn
from them. One of the probably get the
Mount Mount Rushmore of the comedians for me would be Louis
CK, Dave Chappelle, Andrew Schultz.
(22:53):
And yeah, there's other, there'sprobably like a list of other
fringe ones, but those are the three that again, I think
everyone's got Dave Chappelle ontheir list, but that's just
because of his longevity and thefact that he can still do comedy
comedy. There were some people that I
used to really, really like, like Jim Jefferies and and other
Australian comedians that that Ronny Chang and whatever they
(23:14):
got the global scale. But I feel like other things
move them away from what they really were good at.
And then it just dilutes the original thing that made them
amazing. So not nothing against them, but
I just, yeah, I've lost interestin their comedy because I just
don't think that's their primaryfocus.
But yeah, those those will be the top three.
(23:36):
Yeah, and the one thing you notice is you'll be like Steve
Jobs. You'll be the same thing all the
time. Is that a on purpose to put the
black wearing black as well? Is that is that your?
Persona That's a high praise man.
I wish I was anything like SteveJobs.
It is. It's more yeah.
I, I, I think I got it borrowed from some podcast many years ago
so I can find the things that you can just wear repeatedly so
you don't have to think about it.
(23:57):
So I think for probably 10-15 years I've worn the same stuff,
like it'll be jeans and a black T-shirt and that's it.
And I've got like 50 of the same.
This makes life easy, doesn't it?
It's a uniform done. Happy Days 100.
Percent, you don't have to worryabout if I'm going to a formal
thing, if I'm going to a a casual thing.
And you know, as and the spectrum is how, how new is that
(24:22):
T-shirt that I can wear depending on the event.
So it's a really important event.
The T-shirt's got to be on the newer side of the spectrum.
If it's just a more casual thing, it can be on the other
side of it. That's that's it, yeah.
I love it. I love it so, so, so, so easy.
We don't have a lot of time left.
But one thing I do want to touchon, which I really, really got
to was the fact that you are giving back into education, the
K12 education stuff. Where does that come from?
(24:44):
Because that is really beautifulbecause I have an education
background. I was like, this is really cool.
What are you doing in that spacethere?
No, I really, yeah, I've always wanted to do it is is because
we've where where I'm sitting right now is in the offices of
our education. Well, now not only education,
but it was an education primary business, which is like a lot of
the interactive conferencing solutions like I'll just swing
(25:07):
it around a little bit so you can see.
So that business was, it's called K20 Visual, which we've
had for which was the first business that allowed us to
build the private equity portfolio or business and
whatever. And we've always wanted to do
the actual like teaching education side as well.
And we never found the right person to do it.
(25:29):
And unfortunately we did find her.
And then she got really unwell and actually passed away, which
is incredibly sad. It was, it was over a very short
period. So that really affected all of
us. So yeah, it is something we've
always wanted to do. And, and I think the thing that
I've started to weirdly realize,which I probably knew, but I was
trying to avoid it because now it's going to add more workload
(25:50):
to an already like challenging workload is doing all of the,
the, the, the tutoring or the, the one to one group, 1 to many
support in a group setting. If I feel like what people
really want is more of the soft skills training as adults, as
(26:10):
university students, as professionals.
And it is something I've studiedfor my entire life and I keep
getting more requests for it. And then I'm like, that is
probably the thing that I need to build out because that's what
people don't have as much support for at the moment.
It's not taught in schools. There's not really that many
great resources. Obviously you can read and learn
(26:31):
and but someone who's potentially practiced it for
nearly 20 years, I'm like, I'm sure I can help a lot of these
people in some way. I just don't know how I do it
without it adding more of me needing to do the thing which
which I'm trying to figure out because it seems like that's
where a lot of the help is required.
And that's where you can have a massive impact with the world of
(26:52):
AI coming in. Communication is everything
because one to one communication, being able to
talk to someone using your words, your body language, your
communication skills to open doors, to transform your life
essentially. Because it's done it for me.
I'm sure it's done it for you. Like, you know, you can be able
to communicate, change everything.
So yeah, I mean, it is somethingwe've always wanted to do.
(27:13):
We are doing it, but I feel likethere's going to be a
prioritization of trying to rollthat out to some extent because
people need it and I don't know where the other resources are.
It's all right, because I don't know if you saw a study that
came out yesterday from Harvard basically saying that AI is now
being used as companionship because people don't have to
(27:33):
communicate with humans. So they prompt chat and it's
it's it's increasing. So it's not about, you know,
business. It's about, hey, ChatGPT, let's
have a relationship conversation.
And that's just, this is exactlywhat you're saying.
We've got to change that, that whole aspect.
But we don't know. You don't know.
Yeah, yeah. And I don't.
And I think, again, I can't see the future.
I don't know what the future holds.
(27:53):
No one knew AI was coming. But I just think if you look at
the the thing that's going to still be the most valued in a
world where most things AI is going to be able to do better
than us is verbal communication or in person communication, like
in person events, in person gatherings, in one to one real.
(28:17):
I don't know, maybe we'll have earpieces and AI will help us do
the words or whatever. I don't know.
But I think that's just so important and people feel it and
they're like, I don't know whereI can learn this.
So yeah, I don't know. I do think that's something I
would like to do, yeah. That's very powerful because
communication is key. Looking towards eyes is it's so
hard to do, but it's so powerfulwhen we can do that there.
(28:40):
Yeah, exactly. I know your time is going to be
up, I just have one more. Question.
We can, we can do another 10 minutes if you like.
Yeah, yeah, no problem. You're beautiful.
Thank you. Yeah, of course.
I just, I just love that becauseI'm in education, I see young
people who don't communicate or choose not to communicate.
And I'll tell you the biggest travesty is when you walk into
schools and you see people on their phones at break time and
(29:01):
not running around and playing. So when I hear what you're
saying, I'm like, you know, withwhatever it looks like in the
future, it's it's going to be better for humanity if we can do
that there. Because if we don't, then these
things take over and we lose whowe are.
And you can't do what you do on the street or people can't do
that anymore because you're not talking to each other.
Yes, yes, yeah. So are you wondering what what
(29:23):
we should do? Yeah.
What I'm thinking is, you know, as, as you, as you think about
your 20 years of, of doing all the things that you're doing and
you're watching, as you see how people, you know, using these
more or not these more. How do you see things like
comedy coming to place and actually getting people away?
So actually we can actually go and have fun without things
being serious and having just torely on devices.
(29:51):
Yeah, I, I haven't thought of that.
That's, that's, yeah, I, I thinkI, I, if you look at like
generation, sorry, historically humans have always, it's like an
inbuilt evolutionary thing wheresometimes certain words I say,
like actions I make with my mouth and say these certain
(30:13):
words and you involuntarily start laughing.
It's like a. It's like a weird thing where
it's like, OK, that's built in for a reason.
You would, you would imagine, like, why is it that I say
something now and you can't control yourself?
But to go like it's, it's, it's crazy, right?
Like it just makes you think, all right, evolutionarily,
(30:33):
that's that's got to be important to humans.
What is the importance? We all know, like you go to a
comedy show, you just feel better.
You feel relaxed, you feel like you feel connected.
If you're in a in a group of yeah, there's, there's nothing
like a live comedy room of about100 and 5200 people that's kind
of the right size and you're allin this tight knit space with
(30:54):
rows of seating. And just the fact that someone
has just been on stage, all they've got is this a microphone
mic stand and they're just saying stuff and everyone's in
hypnotism of laughter. I don't think that can go away.
Like that's just built in. Like if and even if you look at
comments on most videos, it's just someone saying the funniest
shit. And we laugh.
(31:15):
We really go, man, that just makes you laugh.
So if that you know, is this is the thing like AI kind of is, is
this weird concerning thing, which I've never felt in the
past. It's like, I'm like, you got to
spend three to five years to getany sort of business, any real
momentum and any real foundation.
(31:35):
And now it's like, do you spend those 3 five years and you set
up a dope accounting practice that in five years is worth
nothing because AI can just do it.
And but at the same time, it's like you can't think of what the
future is going to hold. You've got to just go with your
instincts or what you can do thebest, merge with your strengths
and what you feel like the worldneeds from you.
And that's why I was talking about the soft skills thing
(31:57):
because I'm like that. I feel like that's what I can
deliver to the world to some extent.
So yeah, I don't think comedy, Idon't think a lot of the the
interactions 1 to one will decrease.
People always say, you know, younger kids are getting worse
at communicating in person. I don't really see that.
There are a lot that are maybe chronically online, whereas the
(32:20):
general young person loves a bitof laughter, loves a bit of
communication. They they love to get amongst
the banter. And I've met many of them and I
don't know if it's gotten worse.I think they just, they just
need a bit of training to be better at it.
But I think they're, yeah, I think it's going to be the the
most important thing really. So I hope it stays.
(32:42):
Yeah, and, and, and it's so truebecause a lot of young people
know I work with lots of 15 yearolds, 16 year olds, and they're
so aware and they're so confident.
I was like, when I was 16, therewas no way I was at a
conference. No way.
That was one of my friends says when he was 16, he was either
eating pies or chasing girls. That's it.
That was that was his life. And I was like, yeah, this is
very true. Yeah.
Sounds like my life, yeah. Sounds so true.
(33:04):
Last question for you, Jeske. This podcast is called Bastards
of Knowledge and every guest we have one, we invite them to
share a piece of knowledge to gointo our basket.
You've shared quite a few thingsin from your life experience,
but is there one piece of knowledge you'd like to share
with myself and our listeners from your world of any part of
your world about business knowledge, comedy, anything?
(33:27):
Yes, yes, I, I think the thing that it, it's kind of the best
way for me to answer this question is to go back and go,
Hey, let me go 10 to 15 years prior and what would I tell
myself? Because that even though that's
such a standard question, it makes you reflect on what have
you learned that's probably the most important that you could
pass on earlier. Not that I would do the
(33:48):
butterfly effect and change something because I'm very happy
with the things that I learned. But I think the one, the one
thing that I used to hesitate on, I always felt I knew my
strength. I knew the thing that I was,
it's going to sound really fluffy, destined to to do, but I
(34:09):
always fought against it becauseit wasn't the societally normal
thing to do. Especially with the sacrifices
my parents had made to come to this country and give us all the
opportunities that we would not have had had we still been in
India or another part of the world.
I was like, I better at least besensible.
But deep down you kind of know. So the easier way to explain
(34:35):
this is shoot as many shots as you can and and you'll know
intuitively when something sticks, like sticks in the sense
you get some confirmation from the world that maybe you're on
the right path. You'll get some internal
confirmation where, yeah, this, this just feels right.
Like this feels like what I should be doing.
(34:56):
Because when I started doing sales like cold calls, I was
like, fuck, people hate this, but I love this.
What the fuck is this? It's weird.
And, and you get confirmation, people are responding.
It's like, well, that person next to me is doing it.
They can't get the response. So there's real world
validation, whereas there's internal validation like I like
this. And, and it's always about doing
(35:19):
the thing, you know, then you know what you're strong at.
And I think if you take enough shots, you realize, I'm, I'm
good at this. And if I'm good at something,
I'll get the validation to startto enjoy it as opposed to going,
what am I passionate about? Cause passion, it doesn't, it's
not monetizable many times. And like in world, we need, we
need something that merges with the market, right?
So yeah, long winded answer, butI'll summarize it is take a lot
(35:42):
of shots, understand the thing that you feel that connection
with the world with and then just trust yourself because it
it why live a life where you're at the end of it?
You're like, what the hell did Ijust not not against
accountants, but it's the first thing that comes to mind is
like, I just did accounting for 30 years and now I fucking hate
my life. Like what's the point?
(36:03):
Yeah, yeah, I love that, you know, trust yourself.
And I mean, it's it's important how many of us don't do that
because we live in the society'sworld.
You know, society says do this place safe and OK, trust
yourself, Take the shots and seewhat happens.
Beautiful. I I love it.
What a great way to in there podcast.
Any last words before I say goodbye to you and thank you for
your time? The only thing I want to say is
(36:24):
you, you, you ask really good questions.
You're very, very thoughtful. You've come with questions that
I haven't, you know, thought of and it's actually given me a
little bit more clarity on, on some of the things which I
haven't deeply sat down and, and, and really, you know, tried
to articulate. So yeah, kudos to you.
You ask good questions, you're good at what you do.
So I've enjoyed it. I wish.
(36:45):
Thank you. A lot more just by answering the
questions. We've got to come back, come
back again. But thank you so much for
jumping on. And again, you know, what I love
about today's episode is the theperson behind the person.
You know, we see one person. And and as you said before, when
I jumped on to to the card more for you, I went to your LinkedIn
and I was like, huh, this is notthe person that I thought I
(37:06):
knew. And this is where I was like,
mind blown. So really beautiful.
So thank you for sharing that there.
And thank you for being authentic to yourself.
And for listeners out there, hopefully you learn something
today. If you haven't learned
something, it's because you fellasleep.
Wake up again and go have a listen because this is a great
podcast. Thank you for your time and
we'll speak soon, I hope. Thanks, Jesse.
Pleasure. Yeah, we'll do it again.
Thank you. Take care, bye.
(37:32):
Thank you for listening to Bastards of Knowledge.
Yeah, we hope that you found something useful to put into
your bastard knowledge. And as we said before, remember
to put something little into your bastards of knowledge every
week. And as always, feel free to
like, comment and share this podcast.
Thanks everybody. Bye.
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.