#11: Trust your gut

*Music* My name is Sam Russell, one of Jay and right, and this is "Create Your Story". *Music* *Clears throat* We're on B. We're back! Great story. Episode 11. Oh, so that's how in sync we are. I'm telling ya. We've had a week off and we're still in sync. I feel good, I'm fresh. I feel good. No, I was actually saying, tomorrow's my birthday. Oh! And I was saying to Riley last night, I was like, you know, it's weed. When it's your birthday coming up, you're all pumped and in this weed energy about ya. But then when it's not your birthday, you're kinda like, oh, you're a nice bud. Yeah, it's your birthday. I was like, I remember Jayden said to me the other week, like, yeah, it's my birthday. You're like, coming up and I was like, yeah, it's a good one. Good one, bro. I'm a day. But it's different when it's your own birthday. Well, that's ya. I feel about you. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I was like, dude, it's all good. Good on you, bud. Yeah. How old? 27. 27, bro. 27, bro. 27 laps around the sun. Last day, about, last day being 26. It's wild, I. It just keeps on going up every year. As everyone knows, that's how it works. But even like I reckon, I still feel like I'm 21. But I used to. At times. Like, I've been in, I've been in youth work since I was 18. And I used to have young people when I was like, 9, 8 and talk out talk or whatever. I've been, how old are you? About 9, 8. You're 19. Well, cause. And then now I do that. And I'm like, how old are you? I'm like, 26. So like, are you 26? You look 18. I'm like, yeah. But it's like, otherwise invite me to the youth advisory and come to the youth committee. Come to the, I'm like, bro, I'm 27. Hey. You want me or not? Yeah. Now, I just think of like, even back then, you're like, oh, well, I'm 28. I'm going to have this or have this set up and do this. It's like, fuck. Right. I don't even know. I don't even really change me. I need much. Fuck it. That's the reason. Like, that's the word. The biggest thing that gets everyone unstuck is it's like expectation. Yeah. Cause it's like, everyone has this idea of like 25 full time job, good job, cars, marriage, kids. It's like, it's not for what? Yeah. Create your own story. No, I think, I think the whole, I know like in Australia, especially around the world, it's all sort of changing a bit. There's a bit of a shift to be like, no, well, that's, it's not what you need. It's, I think happiness and mental health should be the forefront of everything you do. Don't worry about a car. I mean, don't worry about a house. I don't know how I'm going to afford it. I'll just have to, so I mean, getting the good, in the good books with the Ren say, hopefully, just take over the ears when they. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you listen to Mum and Dad, I love you so much. I'll make you dinner tonight. I love you. I love you. Lauren Muller was in the shed. Yeah, I'll be selling them. They can go. They'll be the first to go on your once in a while. It's too bang. Make a quick cash. So I just don't know about like that lifestyle, bra with the whole, like, you know, get a house that you pay off the rest of your life. Like, I get it, but my parents have, they're only half to join in their whole lives. And like, you know, no, she's kind of like, especially at a young age, like I was listening to podcasts with investors and people saying like, it's probably just not the right way to go right now. If anything, there's people out there and I would probably consider this pathway more, going by an apartment somewhere and renting out and then you rent your house and then they pay for your rent, but you have like, equity or you have like, and that's it. So yeah, you still building that set. Yeah. I know I'm just in a point now and I've sort of been in it for a while, but finally have, we've finally just been saving a bit of money, but like my goals to travel a little bit. Yeah. Before I do any of that stuff, I'll get locked down or anything. There's a little bit of travel and just see a few things. I do want to do a trip around ours. I want to do ours. I brought so I wish I could remember this girl's name because I'll shout her out, but luckily we're a small enough thing we can get away with it. I think her name's DJ, but that's a TikTok name. But I don't know if you've seen it. Have you seen it? I know you're talking about I think. She put this two-part video out on TikTok and I only saw somebody across yesterday because my sister reposted the second part and I was like, all right, I got a part one and have a look. She would go solo, travel in every year for a birthday just to a bucket list place that she went to. Wherever she'd want to go, she'd just go basically for like half a week or whatever. And she went to Paris last year on her birthday. So it was like May last year. What she would do is the night before a birthday, she would always go and watch the sunset. So she's over there, Brian. And she tells a mad story to her. I give it to her like I was in trade. I was like, I want to keep watching. I might be able to put it up somewhere for years, but she basically was at the awful tower and she's like, I have a few rules or non-negotiables that I have when I'm traveling either solo or two or we've got two girls as a female going overseas. She's like one of them is like, don't stay in the same place for too long. Once people around you kind of work out that you're alone, you're an easy target. She's like, so I'm watching the sunset and the sun goes down heaps late. Takes ages to go down there, particularly when I brush. She's at the awful tower, picked me up by a cell. She's like, I'm there, I'm watching. And she's like, I thought to myself, I want to wait until dark. So I can see the awful tower with all its lights on. These two guys come and sit like right in front of her and start watching the awful tower. I didn't really think anything of it. One of them turned around and smiled at me and she's like, I took note because he was like incredibly attractive guy. So being friendly, I just smiled back and then he came over and he started speaking to me in French and I was like, sorry, I don't speak French. And he was like, oh, you don't speak French and she's like, oh, you speak English and he's like, yeah, where are you from? And she's like, Australia. And he's like, oh, like, he by itself or she's like, no, no, no, no, like I'm here with like a French, that the room, obviously a lie. And then he asked her for a phone number and she didn't give it to him. But then he asked her for her Instagram and she's like, yeah, whatever, anyone call me Instagram, go to him. And then she still didn't really think anything of it. They were like, come back to ours. I have an party and she's like, no, I don't drink and they're like, you don't have to drink. That's all right. She's like, no, I'm just going to go back to the hotel and then he was like, came up behind her, grabbed home, was like, all right, well, before we go, we've got her at least get a photo and they just started taking photos over and she straight away covered her face because she knew that like that's not like you can get sold on the black market and shit once you got photos of her. And she's like, so I sat there and they walked off and I was just thinking like, she was like, I was spinning out a bit and I was like, nah, I'm all in my head. And then they walked down and you know how he's people always sell stuff around half a hour. They walked up to one of them guys, looked over and pointed straight at her and she's like, I was just like, I need a run. She's like, FaceTime my best friend and said to her like, I'm going to go into every single restaurant and cafe in the area, just go in to go to another one, go to another one, go to another one, just make sure they're not following me. So she did that brush, she got on the train, she took her back to her room and she's like, I'm on the train and I can see one person on the train and like, he was like a sleep or whatever, just chilling. Oh no, he was just like, doing nothing. She's like, he wasn't part of them or whatever. She's like, just as the doors were closing, like six people rolled in, the two that I've seen at the awful tower, the one I was talking to sat down there and didn't even talk to me. All these people came and sat next to me, girl came and sat next to me, started trying to talk to me. And then another group sat in front of the door so that she couldn't get out. And it was basically just like, she FaceTime to friend again and then like, she got off the train at the next, like her friend was like, he needed to go to like a busy train station. So the next one was like, not to alarm and she's like, there's got to be a place off to there. She's like, I got off the train at the, at the, that place, there was no police, there was no nothing like it was quite as she's like, so I went to get back on the train, fake it, got off again and then heaps of them got on and thought I was on the train. So they, I lose the heaps of them. She's like, I thought I lost them all next train come, got on there was one guy there asleep. And then I sat in the corner where I could see everyone in my back was against the wall. This one girl came and sat right opposite me and just stared at me and didn't say anything. And she's like, I was winging out about it. And one guy sat in front of me and was looking at me and every time we come, and I tried to talk to the guy that was asleep and he looked up and was like, no English, no English, went back to sleep. She's like, and every single time we would go to, would come up to a station, the guy that was sitting in front of her would turn around and smile and go, is this the one? And she's like, I'm like crying at this point. So she faced time to friend and her friend was like, talk on to her own and whatnot. And then the other guy woke up, that was a sleep like the good guy. And he was like, I talk on to her. And her friend on the face time was just like, said to all mate, do you speak this language or whatever? It wasn't in French, it wasn't Australian. It wasn't English. And it's like, yeah. So then there, like her friend that she's faced in Australia, therefore having a combo. And this chick was like, I didn't even know my friend could speak another language. That's a while. And then the other mate was basically translating back to her via her friend, like, I'm a security guard. I'll help you. You need to get out of here. Get off with me at the next station. And then she's like, is he part of the plan? Yeah. But we get out there. But then he just, yeah, he just turns on me. They get off at the station and he's like, gives her the, gives him her big jacket. I was like, you need to stay close to me because like, they'll steal you. And they walk off. And then they're like, he's like, you need to get on a bus and you need to get to where ever you get into. She's like, I'm not getting public transport. I don't need to get at Uber, but it's like, this is a bad area. I like Uber's not usually come here. Thankfully, and Uber did go there and they, she got back to a room bra. And like, by that point, she was going to post on Instagram. decided obviously probably not. So she posted in like her subscribers thing and they're like, you know, you go to the embassy. So she went to the embassy the next morning and the embassy were like basically like, you're on the black market. Like, you're like, they've got a massive black market over there and you're facing all your details is on the black market and people will be looking for you in France to try because it's heaps of money to like, to get someone like, if they got you that night, you would have been in a different country today, like, sold. She's like, it was verbatim like tick for tart, like taken. Like a movie, yeah. And they have you seen that movie? Yeah. And everything he was saying to us, Zach's saying in the movie like, and apparently she's like, oh, so you reckon like, they're like, we need to get you on the next flight to Australia and then it wasn't until like the next day. So she had to go back to the room and she's like, well, you reckon she got to the police station like reported and the embassy were like, I mean, you can if you want, but nine times out of 10, the police are also searching on the black market because of the power of money that it makes. That is wild. I and she got out of there thankfully, but so I won't be going to LA traveling. Right. It's fun. Yeah. Hey, I heard it. Like I was just, I want to look at that. I get that's a rabbit hole that I get stuck in there. I was sent to you because I watched it at work. And then I came home and I showed it to Raleigh. And yeah, it was just, it was spinning me out because like, and then she even like, she even put in like, like, it was a tick talk. So she even put in the comments like, this is the guy, like a family. True. Holy moly. You're a dog messaging privately. Then you're on the black market. I feel like he's Instagram and I was looking at it, but there wasn't much on there. It's a message and I say, great story. Hey, you want to get on the potting main. Yeah. No, but it's just like another thing, but like, is the Tushy God instinct. Yeah. Because she's like, no, something's wrong. No, I'm just in my head. No, if you know something's wrong, or you feel like something's wrong, nine times out of 10 it is, but the best thing you can do is trust that because, fuck, if you just think, and especially it's weird because more go to things like, oh no, that only just happens in movies. Yeah. You know what I mean, but no, it doesn't. It's happening. Yeah. That is wild. Well, and I'm a whole league. I'm very big on trust from my gut. 100. It's never normally like, small things. It's normally like you need to get out of here right now. Yeah. And I don't think that. And I'll just be like, like, I've had that at parties and then seeing shit go wrong. Like, I'm kind of like heaps of different things where it's like, I need to, I need to crew. Yeah. It can be anywhere, and I think that's the biggest thing. It's like it's easy to sit there and be like, you have the awful tower and, you know, maybe the like story you're going to be telling is that, you had to, you left earlier whatever for nothing, but it's your difference thing. Yeah. And I always, because I'm a bit of a, like, a bit of a true crime buff, like I listen to true crime podcasts. And I love watching, like, true crime on dockers. Yeah. And even just like big events like Sydney Seeds, like I remember. Yeah. I remember being a kid saying that happened. And I love saying like big disasters of it. That's it. Hey, I'm in the well burns. No, like, like, yeah, I'm the same. And nearly all of them say like, oh, there was always one thing that they didn't, they didn't trust their intuition. Yeah. And that's how I got there. Yeah. Like, um, that's the message. It's an army's and shit. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like news. Even on New Year's day, I think it was in, um, maybe not Japan. I was thinking, I think, remember that? And the kid was like, we need to get out of here. Everyone's like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And the kids run out of the beach, so he's need to leave. He's need to leave. And then it like, talk the whole thing. Yeah. Listen to the kids. I thought it was talking about bra and they reckon animals, animals, birds. They can sense like. Yeah. No, I always used to as a young filibel, like, if a, um, tsunami hit, like, trickered, make it all out of my wound from newly. Yeah. Well, yeah, come down the rear and then be out. Stop it, the traffic lights. He's kind of. Yeah. But trust you got that could be the name of the podcast actually. Trust you got. Yeah. Cause I don't know. Like, I haven't really done the heaps of solo travelling. No. I went to, um, the Brisbane and I knew a couple of boys up there. And that was my first magic round. I traveled up there by myself just on a plane first time flying and shit. And then, um, like, once I linked up with him, I was with them. But then I went to Melbourne with the mate as well and he stayed across the other side of the city in his own place and I did a favourite solo travelling throughout the day, just exploring stuff and like, it's a wig out anyway because, because I've watched so much stuff and I've seen so much of the true crime. And now I'm, I'm always profiling people bright. Yeah. It's bad. Like, I'm looking at people and I'm like, oh, I'm backpack, huh? Yeah. You're messing that hard. Like, you know what I mean? So, yeah. Yeah. I'm always kind of, um, yeah. And that's what they say. Like, you know, she was like, if you travel around, I don't make eye contact with people. Like, don't smile. Um, blah, blah, blah. And I was just thinking like, no, I wonder why different, um, races get bad names overseas. Oh, they're rude. So, yeah. So, just don't want to be put on a black mind. I, no, that's wild. I didn't even know that shit happened like over there. Well, the chick, the embassy was like, it's quite bad in Australia too, except it's just not as known. So, it's not as like, but I've heard it hate theions about ads or G-Dotes follows our outside of the awful teller and like, because they, what they, what they do is they give you stuff and then like, price it's all like something. And they're like, no, you got to pay. They're like, no, well, I didn't, you just put it on me. Yeah. And they start to get some arm. Yeah. And I'm trying to take me. Is it, I can they give me back after half an hour? Yeah. I'm just going to be kicking my screen now. I've been fucking doing everything again. Farting, kicking, spraying, spilling, scratching, scratching, scratching, sniffing. I'll be making up rumors, but, oh, he's talking about you. He stole the last one and he didn't even pay. He didn't pay. He didn't pay. That'll be said. I'll send him on the phone. Yeah. I'm like, you don't understand that. Like, he's working for this big mob and he's going to black market you, you, you, - And you. - Yeah. - Well that room was like, yeah. - Yeah, you know what he's doing? He doesn't wanna be here. - Is it like, bad over and bothering that with any of that stuff or even just like other way to add yarns about like all they're trying giffy drugs or cello drugs and then they coughs and they're, you gotta boy way out of it. - I think there's that. - Yeah. - I think, you gotta be smart and you gotta like, just have your weeks about, yeah. But I think I've heard of people getting into trouble over there. But usually comes down to respect to be honest. Like I've been in, there was a time, actually it was me and one of the boys. 'Cause gangs is pretty bad over there. And we got on the back of these mobs. It was the first one, it was over there. So it would've been like 16, 17. And I felt like this is not right. So I'm like, well let me know from there. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm like, he's like, oh, we need to go to the beach. And he took me down these alley, I'm like, well, this is not the beach. - Yeah. - I put off the box and it was like four different blokes. Just standing there and it was like a dead end. I'm like, oh, we're fucked here. I said, oh, I said to me, make grab your, like hold your bag and shoot because I'm gonna try and take it. I said, this is not the way to the beach. Like, yeah, yeah, through here, I'm like, no, it's not. I'm like, we're gonna go back this way. And that'll be it's us. And then we just started walking back and I said, oh, don't, just don't look back. And anyway, this is just a testament to the Bali baby but I don't know what was happening. But then there's a moment about coming on my call. We're gonna get fucked up here. It looks at me and it's just, hello. - It takes off. - Oh my God. - I did my headbrows like. - Wait, just a random gesture. - Yeah, one of them blokes. - Oh, true. - Yeah. - Like he just come back, oh my God. Like, just trust me, mate. I don't know if I'm broke. - Yeah. - Like get ready, we're gonna have to do something. But I've heard of people how, yeah, there's been things that have happened. But I guess that can happen anywhere. - Yeah. - But yeah, I think, especially with the hot, the real harsh drug penalties over there, you gotta have your wits about it. Yeah, like people will put it on ya. - Yeah, that's a decay. - Well, like, be trying to be mate and then that'll be a cop. - Yeah. - It's wild. But like I said, that can happen anywhere. You just gotta have your wits about your boy. - Yeah. - That's why you trust your guard. If you feel like something's off. - I see, trust your guard. - Trust your guard. But yeah, what else? - What else have been done? - Nah, I haven't been here for a minute. - Yeah. - It feels like longer than a week. - Yeah, I suppose we just took a bit of time with reassess. Obviously I started a new job. - How's that going? - Right, it's been a Hector K. So, yeah, he's different. We work for like a Lalk, so local Aboriginal Lions Council. I've never really worked for anything like that before. But I've never worked for like non-Aboriginal organisations that run Aboriginal programs, which is mad. It's like I'm learning so much. And I thought I knew about land rights. And I thought I knew about native title. But what I've learned in the last week and a half, it's just been out, bro. And yeah, I don't even know how much I can say with that. - Yeah, no, that's right. - With that, I'd love to see him be like, this is what they're known to us. But yeah, I don't want to be the reason why this amendment and all this bill gets pushed through. - Yeah, imagine that crack your story. - That's right, they can talk about the crux amendment. - Yeah, yeah, he cares for that. - But basically they pushed a bill through the parliament and it was an amendment to the current land rights act. And it was basically designed so that like, I can't remember the ins and outs of what they were trying to edit or what they were trying to change, but it basically gave them more right to be able to do stuff with land. And obviously when you claim land rights or native title, all like a net land, there's certain there's already a huge a low-caster jump. You can already take ages. - 100%. - Essentially not the financial year you just gone the one before, I think there was 160,000 land claims to give them back to local Aboriginal people. And in the last financial year, there was like 150. - True. - So they reduced it significantly. - Yeah. - And then they, yeah. So, but they pushed it through it like 938. No, I hope in that like no one. So I think, yeah, Claire is like the newswilk CEO. She's pretty smart too. And she obviously puts some things in place to kind of stop that from getting pushed through and then run down the parliamentary clock as it's good. But again, I'm very new to it. So just learning the ins and outs. But we had a meeting yesterday with the minister of land who pushed it through. - True. - So it was good. But I mean, - No, it's definitely, yeah. I feel like coming from an NGO and going into that space, I feel like NGO is a good place to start a reckon. Like you build your skills up in an, like in an, especially in non-aboriginal workplace. - Yeah. - 'Cause that has its own struggles in itself. Then you go over there when you're sort of support, more supported by other Aboriginal staff. But yeah, that's something that I'm not, I'm not gonna say that I know much about it all. Like native title, land rights and stuff like that 'cause I don't. But it's definitely something I'm interested in. - So they had, we had a developer come and talk to us and so beer and beer and that's like where I'm working. - We hold like the most land than anyone in there, like with, alongside government, if that makes sense. - Really? - So from where? - It's like Morissette or goes all the way up there. And then back to that side of the lake. So like Belmont, Bluroo. - True. - Tomato spots here. - Yeah, but like one of the developers, - Cab is beach, aren't we? - That's where I was. - Yeah, probably. - Yeah, it's interesting. - Heaps of the, heaps of developers come and just speak at board meetings and just basically say this is what we wanna do with Iran and like obviously the board can kind of, all the members can kind of decide who they wanna go with and be a part of that process. And one of the developers, he was like so smart on land rights and he's worked a lot with Aboriginal communities and developing their land and stuff before. So he's like insidious, like here's an example of how like twisted the government is at the moment. He's like I worked with Metropolitan Lauk down there in Sydney and we were developing this square bit of land that we wanted to put things on. And he goes, our project was a Zach Same as this other company that was doing one on the other side of the city. Zach Same size land and they wanted to develop at residential wall. They wanted to do the same development we did. They had like 443 objections to what they wanted to do. We had 16,000. - Yeah. - And that's just the difference between, it's not what you know too, you know what? - Yeah, and it's not what's been developed, it's who's developing it. - Yep. - Look how it's to anything really life but hey. - Yeah. - So it's been good, bro. And yeah, we obviously launched from the ground up. - From the ground up. So for anyone that doesn't know what it is, do you wanna give them a bit of a? - Yeah, it's kind of, if you don't know what it is, look at how your socials and be active. - Yeah, that's right. - Engage. - No, it's kind of like just using the platform to give back to community. And the way we do that is just going into different sporting clubs and kind of creating content for them for free, launching it on socials. And I guess it's getting a bit of their story out and who they are, but also just, we've got some really talented athletes within our community or within our village. And I think just showcasing that, I don't know, coming from an education background, working in schools and stuff like, we used to do this thing at Mount Fee, where they were on their main oval, which is in the middle of school. They would have this free game every year. And basically it would be 14, so you seven and eight. And then there'd be another one, which was year nine and 10. And the two PE teachers would draft their games. - Oh, true. - For the four games and all the two games. And like all the teachers and all the kids in the school watched the games as well. And the amount of teachers I was at in the middle like I have this kid in my class and he doesn't communicate and he hates it. And he doesn't have a very good team where I think I come here and I'm watching play 40 Yanys Talk and his community games. - Ladieship. - Yeah, so I think that's good to showcase that. We obviously went out to Moop with there and did a little bit for the men for their, before their interviews round. So that was mad actually. - I think obviously I'm working this weekend, but I got next weekend off, so I'm hopefully to reach out to Curry there, the 16s. - Yeah. - Mad. - And do, depending on what you're, depending on the Saturday or the Friday night. But I'd like to do a game day one. I can obviously see it. - Yeah, well I'm gonna do, I think tomorrow. And then Saturday I'm gonna do a bit with Raleigh Sisters Netball team. - Even if, 'cause I put on my, I don't even know if I'm working the next two, but even if we do a Friday night and then going to the Saturday night just to build that, you know what I mean? - Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do with Netball. - Yeah. - I get sort of just depending on what time they play on and what not for this will. But I think as well is like, instead of what we notice doing that nation's, and I know that I've noticed it in myself is like, sort of getting confident in front of a camera as well. - Yeah. - I feel like it's something that I'm always trying to do. And I feel like just the more that you do with the better you get obviously. But I feel like if you can become confident in front of the camera and you, I think that just can sort of get pushed in some different aspects of your law of. Like you just, confident in speaking front of people, you're like, and I think the biggest thing is just not giving a fuck to be honest of staffing up. And you know, at the start there, there was some boys and girls that were like, or what do I say I do this? And by the end of it, I said just be, like honestly be yourself. The more you think about it. - I think that goes to any young person, like no matter what you do, and no matter where you kind of travel in terms of career and you jump to different places, like you need to learn how to speak. - Yeah. - And like, sorry, if you don't know how to hold a conversation or if you don't know how to like be able to communicate what you're doing or what project you're working on or what your aspirations are or what you want to achieve, then sit in your bedroom looking to me and learn how to do it because like in this world, you need to be able to talk to where you get to. - Yeah. - And obviously you can walk the walk-off through the actions, but you know, think about everything in this adult life. It all evolves around speaking and communication. You go for a job interview, you need to be able to sell yourself, you need to be able to speak like, you need to be able to communicate with people that sometimes you might not even like. - Yeah. - And you need to be able to tell your story and if you can't do that, then like you can't text through a job interview like you know what I mean. So when we had this conference last week with NewsWalk, like I kind of got the microphone and spoke around, they were talking about like barriers that I youth find or are finding. And I was listening to a few of the answers. It was like drugs, alcohol, homelessness and while they were doing answers, they're kind of like what happens at the end of whatever we're not doing right in the early days. And I spoke around and I was like, and you know how daunting that is when there's so many people that I don't know and they're all worked for lens accounts. - And they're all old off. - Yeah. But I was like, you know what, like what I noticed is the connections that we have today, they're all fake connections like you. I think like care to say that, bro, I have myself like every single person listening to this right now has people that they have on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, whatever that they've never met before and they talk to him, but it's not a real connection. And what happens is, and it's all right to have them as well, that's fine. But do you know how many followers that I know that will message me or comment on the stuff that we put out there and be like, bro, this is deadly killing it brothers, like I love this. And then I'll go to a night of day or I'll go somewhere in community and I walk straight up and realize that that's me. And that's wild to me, bro. And I think what that is creating is like, our young people aren't confident to have conversations with people outside of their little kind of network. And when we look at our young people in schools, you see that, like, you know, they'll text their friends, they'll be at school or they, bro, they'll go home, they'll text their friends and they'll be like, do you want to come to mind for a sleepover? Well, you're with him more day, but you're too scared to ask. Like, and I think it's that fear of rejection and the fear of like whatever it might be or it's just easier to do that. And I just feel like, and then what I said in this conference, I was like, what we're finding right now is there's a lot of really strong black leaders in our schools. The AACJs, junior AACJs in our schools are doing a significant job where they're identifying so strongly in year 11, year 12, year 7, year 8, year 9, year 10. They transition out of high school and they go, I want to keep doing this, I'm going to go and join the lab. They go to the lab and someone says to a merge a mob where you're from and they don't know what to say. They don't know how to have a conversation with someone like that. So they just say the wrong thing or they don't say anything. They get staunched out of there and rightfully so. And then they come back and they go, I'm never going to do that again. So I feel like whilst our young people are passionate and they're strong and they need to lead the way and they're going to be the future generation, like they got to earn the right as well. And you need, like I was always told growing up, bro, you got two ears and a mouth for a reason. You need to double listening, you do the speaking. So something like that, sometimes it might be that you push yourself in that circle, you listen, you take it all in and then you start having those conversations. But the only way to sort of broaden your skills and get better is stepping the uncomfortable as well. Like the more, if you're going to sit there and over thinking, "Bakor, should I do this to that?" You're just going to end up in your mind. And the only way that you see people that are, you look at people, you might look at me and say, "Oh, you're really good at speaking." It's like, yeah, but we had to earn that way. We started just like you and we had to step into the uncomfortable. That's right. There's been times where I've had to present in front of people where I'm like, I'd be like, honestly, shit in myself, brah. And I wouldn't sleep the night before in my own head. And then I'm like, I get up there, probably butcher it to be honest, but that's the only way to learn and the only way is to step in today's uncomfortableness. And that's why I'm really passionate about, from the grand up he's given that youth that platform to tell their story. With social media being so big at the moment, I feel like if you can do that in front of the camera and you build that comfortable confidence there, I think it would seem that into other aspects of your life too. A good thing, I do brah. If I apply for something, if it's like a leadership program or anything like that, I always write in my notes like, "Why, I want to apply for that?" What are the top three things I want to do it? One's always like, yeah, sorry, go. No, you're right. Because what happens is, and I did this with the Young Aboriginal Leaders program I did, I wrote in there like, "Why do I want to apply for it when I was applying for it?" And it was like, get outside my comfort zone, build connections with people that think the way I do and something else. And then when I got accepted into the program, I was like, "Yeah, man, deadly." And then when I actually got down to Sydney Bra, or before even pack them, and I'm getting real anxious, I'm like, "I got down there, I don't know anyone." And everyone's wiggling out and then you're full of speaking in parliament, and I'm just proper, like, in the city. I'm like, "Why did you want to do this? Those are the reasons, sweet." You're doing that right now. Cool. This is why you want to end brah even speaking in parliament. I have never experienced the nerves like that before. Everyone's lined up waiting to be called. As soon as the first speaker started, I was like, "I need a wee." I was like, "I'm surprised by that." You did it at four times in the past. "I was like, "Right, I'm going to wee myself." And I got up and spoke, and I don't think I went to the 12 hours after that, but just a full wigan. And I think also, just going back to what we spoke about, is you can't trust your gut, or you can't trust your instincts based off Snapchat and someone. You can, but not to the degree you need to. I feel like a lot of young people get burnt, whether it be in relationships or friendships or whatever, because the main part of their relationship is built online. And then when they get faced to face, they're already attached. But then they get burnt by these people. If someone reaches out to me that I don't know, and they ask me all these questions about who should I contact or what should I do, I'll always say, "Brother, let's catch up." And we did that. And then we started our friendship, essentially, it was like, you know, and then sometimes you'll say that and it just everyone's so busy, it doesn't happen for a while, but it will happen when it's meant to, you know. Yeah. Now, I just want to touch on that as well, like obviously you were talking about speaking in parliament. But the start of this year, I did something called the ABC Trailblazers, which was for young people in regional areas of Australia that are doing different projects in community, or wanting to do different projects in community. And that expression of interest for the haywire and trailblazers are open again for this year, or for next year, sorry, but obviously they start the process at end of this year. I just want to put it out there, that any young person that is wanting change or is wanting to try and do something in community that you think you don't have the support, or you just second-guessing it a little bit, this is like an awesome opportunity. And this was something that I think that process there made me grow so much as a person, and it come from stepping out of my comfort zone, but then given me a platform to tell my story from my community. And it was such an awesome week. I met so many great people that are now really good friends, and I've had so many like awesome opportunities from it. So if there's anyone out there and you're having a, and you're keen, reach out to me for some questions, but I really, like I highly suggest you do it, because it was so sick. And there are just different opportunities that probably went around 10 years ago, you know what I mean? To take every opportunity you can, and that's an awesome one to do. And I, yeah. Yeah. But on the back of that too, that trailblazers thing, because I was shooting at the whole time. But, and I think they, you know, at the time I didn't know what they were doing, but there were so many different things that you just forget, like you'd be like, oh, I'm shooting at all this, something else near. And I just, and you're like, oh, I've just, I've just done five different things that I was shooting about. I can do this next one. That was like, I was Brian, like, it was just non-stop, I, it was so tiring. Yeah, well, bastard. You were just going to like all these different places, meeting these different people. Yeah. Some of them you remember fondly, some of them you kind of don't. Yeah. And you always get like, you always get people in the group that they don't know, no one and they got no shame. Like, I'm not that person. Like, I'm not sure, like, I'm not a shy person, but I want to go out of my way to kind of, like, be that clan and make everyone born. Like, I'm just not that kind of person. And like, I think what that probably comes down to is I've done a little work lately around like, I don't really need, I'm not here to make friends, bro. I don't really need that. So I've got the people in my network and, you know, and that sounds harsh, but it's kind of just basically like understanding. When you have enough self respect to understand that your time and energy is valuable when it costs something and be mindful of who you give it to, then, bro, you're unbeatable. And I think that's something that I've tried hard to learn over the last few years. But one of the boys in the program, like, steadily as far as I'm concerned. I think the mad shirt, bro. Can you get sponsored or? Yeah, non-side, ain't sure. Hey, yeah, they're hectic shirts, but he's funny on a fun, yeah, he was good for that. He's one of them follows a, just, yeah, no shame. On this, I'm similar to you, like, once I get comfortable in a group, I'm able to do that, but I seriously sit there and I just probably not look rude, but I assess everything out, like the environment, the people, and who to say, who I can say certain things. You know what I mean? Actually, like, oh, because I got there pretty early, went up to the hotel, just kick him back in the room. And we had to meet, I think downstairs at five or something to go and see parliament or two or something. And then it was early and then Malik put in the group chat and he was like, who's he? Come downstairs. And I was like, should I? I was like, yeah, I don't. So we went down and there was a couple of us and we had like a mad young and that. And yeah, bro, I was like, it was, it was a spin-ac. And then I think the next night, yeah, the next night, the biggest charge in Sydney. Did you just like do anything online prior to going there? No. You just didn't even like know who else was in there. I didn't know who else. We got sent a handbook and you could read their stories. Oh, yeah. So you'd read the story but that matter can't wait to kind of talk to us and all of that with that person. Yeah. But like, yeah, and then where was the origin of the Wednesday night? So we just, did we win at least? No, it was that game that um, Swally. No, no, no, no, no, we were down like 24,000 and a half times. We started coming back. And then we didn't quite, when it was 26, 22 was like, we were blind, bro. True. We went, that was the second last time my drink. There are. It was June last year, yeah. We went in, we went out at this bar with everyone and then me, Malik and old Dre. Cargo bar? He didn't know. Me, Malik and Dre, bro, we just backdoored it and just diced and uptown. Things cross now. Yeah. And um, it was, we'll be at rough the next morning but that all good. They said, you know, you can go out of his want, but um, we're going to believe in it. Seven years. You still got a turn up. Yeah. You got to turn up and we got, we got back about two-thirds. We turned up, but that's the main thing. It was good, bro. It was mad actually. Um, anything else you want to touch on? No, I just wanted to touch on, um, I've been doing some one on one mentoring with a few different young people, um, from around here and new stuff like that. And um, sometimes in, and this is another thing as well. Sometimes I stress myself out on my corner to have this plan for the session and have that planned. And um, I've sort of went away from that. I think, um, there's no point plan. Well, there is certain aspects to plan, but um, I think just being present is massive. Like, just to be able to get young people away from screens out on country, like we just went to caves beach because I was like, bro, you've never been like seeing the caves, a caves beach. And you know, I can like, I don't know if you've been in a low tide. No, no. Well, no tide. It goes out and you can walk through the caves and stuff and go at the other side. And he's like, this is mad, bro. He goes like, can we catch some crabs? I'm like, yeah, I was in there catching crabs. Um, but I think. War crabs. Yeah. Yeah. Nietzsche and myself. No, I think it was just mad, um, for me as well as to take, I'm always on my phone doing different things, just to sort of reconnect back and just have those conversations. And he's like, oh, I got a bummer and can we bring it and throw it around us? Yeah. So he was, he was showing me what, what, how he doesn't stuff like that. But I think. It was just so mad just to get it out away from everything and just have like conversation. Yeah. Sort of what we're going back to is like these young people are so connected via their phones that they sort of forget to have conversations. So that's weird how you sort of bought that up because that's what I was thinking about there yesterday. I'm like, there's nothing more important in this day and age just than just to be present to hold a conversation. Right. I do this from time to time, but I want to put a challenge out to our listeners and if you want to like reach out and kind of say that I did it and explain how you did it. That'll be mad. But like go somewhere and just leave your phone in the car and just go for a walk somewhere busy like shop in center or like go anywhere and just not have your phone and not be near your phone and just see how you respond to that because it's hectic. Like when if you leave your phone in your car and you go for like a 5k walk, you kind of get in there and you're like, oh, if something goes south now, what am I going to bra? Like learn to think about what people were like before that and it just really makes you realise that like, no, I'm right. Or the thing about it and this is why our society has gone so far away from the things that we need and we talk about instinct and trust in your gut. For example, if I'm not on my phone and I'm walking saying down to Castle Foreshaw and don't have my phone and something happens. Like the moment approaches me, anything happens. The first thing I'm or even when that's not happening, but if I say someone a little bit suss, I'm always aware of my surroundings. I'm sweet. I've got people over there that are safe or that need protecting this person's a bit suss water there. Like you know what I mean? You're always kind of like aware of everything and then where is then like if you're on your phone, it's kind of like either don't say it or you kind of gooling things or you're getting things to help you in that situation. Even just like Bra, like if you walk, if you like people walk along the little time, right? If you stop someone after they walk and said, you said that bloke up there in the red t-shirt, like if you're a police officer and you needed someone, don't say not. But like, do you know how many times do you reckon that happens where they're looking for like a person of interest? Where it's back in the day, where there was like big cases that always be like, oh, like you know, our lead come from someone that said that they just happen to say it because they're so present in like what is around me? And I guess just doing that simple, what kind of smell, what can I say, what can I hear? Like whatever you need to do. But that's the challenge. Don't do something and not have your phone. And I don't mean like, oh, it was in my pocket the whole time, but because you still have a safety net over, yeah, over having access to it. But remove that. Yeah, it's good. Hey, so you're going to have no phone for the whole day or reckon? No, I'll just do it sometimes and you're like, I'll just leave it. Yeah, no, I've been, yeah, I've like, I used to go for a walk around my where I live and just leave my phone at home. Yeah. And even that was a bit dicey sometimes. And obviously it's different for different people as well. So if you don't feel safe to do it. Yeah. No, no, for me, walking through the shop in San E.C. It's a had noise central. So as you go to Greenfields, but I see 40 different people I know. I hate it. And I feel like that's a suck force conversation too, because you're like, oh, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, hey, go on. What have you done? Right. Going back to what we're talking about before with like just sus or sketchy environments. One for me was, um, Fortitude Valley. True. I've never actually gone to a place where I felt like, because I've been like, I went, I remember going and staying down in Kings Cross a couple of years ago. And obviously it's not like it used to be. Like I've worked in Matt drill as well. I've walked through there like I've, you know, I've seen some of those environments, but I've never felt as unsafe anywhere. Really? When I was just cruising through the valley. Yeah, we were on Lime Scooters. And just like, I don't know, but it was just different gravy. I was just like, I said to do what I said, but I was like, just to Maggie gravy. I was like, just watch, you know, like I was always just watch my back. But those just like groups of people and like, like, young and like, at any moment, they look like they could be fights breaking out. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, I just want to blow that away. That's us. That's us. That's episode 11. We're back now. We're coiators, but we're back. And we're looking to take over. Um, before we go, I did want to say that if you don't look like anything on Saturday, I know it's a bit far, but I know the boys down there join that good collective company. Good company, collective company. Yeah, good company. They go like a little barbecue, get together, a little walker, nor ahead light hour, set seven. Yeah, in the coast. Yeah, I shout out to that boys. They're doing hectic stuff down there and it's so good to see other black fellas, especially around our age, doing things in community, I think. That's it, I don't know. It's refreshing. Yeah. That's us. That's us. That's us.