“I Never Thought I’d Make As Much Money Whilst Experiencing As Much Joy” - Walking the Pathless Path with Nic Huzz

This episode is brought to you by this is a studio. The studio with all you need to start your own creative journey. If you would like to begin head to this is a studio.com.au Hello and welcome back to how did you do it. On this episode I interview Huzz who is currently living his life traveling globally and running silent discos all around the world authentically living his truth and living in joy. Huzz talks about his transformation from a footballer into living more of his authentic truth and I really hope that you enjoy this episode as we dive deep into feelings of shame, feelings of limiting beliefs and really discussing how to overcome that mindset and what it all means underneath. I really hope that you enjoy this episode and I cannot wait to hear your feedback. Hey Nick. Hello. Do I address you as Huzz or Nick? Huzz. Huzz. Hey Huzz. Lots of nicks. Yeah that's fair. I'm like saying one Huzz but my dad's also called Huzz and then my younger brother is as well. So that's your Huzz hierarchy. Wow. That whoever the oldest Huzz in the room is is called Huzz. Right. So then I was going to say that makes you junior Huzz but that doesn't even make you junior Huzz. Just like the middle Huzz I guess. I am so excited to learn about your story because you are currently running silent discos all over the world and living in Bali. Is that correct? Is that the spiel? Correct. How did that start for you? The start of last year I decided that I'm going to challenge myself and do one thing a week that absolutely terrifies me and I didn't know what the challenges would look like going into it. I was just like I'm just going to have this philosophy and just see how wild this adventure can get. And so the fourth challenge I did was I had this silent discohed sets dating back from pre-COVID when I used to always have kick-ons at my house and my neighbors used to hate minks. They always played music until 4 a.m. in the morning and they were like one Christmas I came home and I was like, "Dud!" Was it a party last night at the best time? We had a silent discohed was awesome. That was like we don't need silent discohed sets and I was like, "Dud, you're not understand. It was so much fun." But I actually wasn't going to call you in that. I was calling my huzz. Huzz. And then I warmed down. We got the silent discohed sets and so the funny thing about it is our neighbors ended up hating us more because instead of hearing the music that has hurt us yelling. But fast forward, four years and these headsets are sitting at home and I had this like weird reoccurring dream for about a year in advance where I was popping up starting silent discohes in random places in public. And so the fourth week of this challenge I was like, "I'm going to get the headsets Saturday morning, Bondo Beach, after our breath work meditation meetup. I'm just going to start a discohed down there." And I had about 15 of us all joined and we all had like the best time and we went into that day and I was like, "Wow, I feel just so good." And so that was an awesome experience. But I then went to Bali for three months and I didn't bring the headsets with me. And so the challenges kind of evolved over time. I did like a magic show for 30 people. I did stand up comedy. I pierced my ears, painted my fingernails, I was just doing whatever I could to kind of just like scare myself and push every boundary that I had previously placed on myself. And eventually one of the challenges was to quit my job and that was something that I had been, probably thinking about doing for the better part of two years but just never having the courage to do it. Always being a reason that I'll do it later. I need to build up more money. I need to have more savings. I need to have more constant income from side hustles until eventually I just did it. And after I quit I needed to go back to Sydney just for one month. I was my dad's sixth year amongst other things and I'm still challenging myself and so I was like, "Okay, let's up this disco thing one more time." And so the first time I was in Bondo with a group of friends and they said, "I'm going to go to the out the front of the Sydney Opera House but I'm going to do it completely by myself." And I'm going to dance for half an hour even if no one else joins in and that's the problem that I'm going to make to myself. So I popped up. It was a beautiful sunset. It was like golden hour and I start dancing. And for the first five minutes I was going to just have my eyes shut and just whipping out moves, just like doing my thing. And then I opened my eyes and slowly but surely people started to kind of like stop and just stare and that's usually the first thing that tends to happen. They just like, "Oh, that's, that's pretty weird." It looks like something a pretty good time. And eventually there was these two girls who joined in and that's like the biggest challenge. If you get one or two people to join in then the rest tend to be pretty easy. So by the end of that evening I had all 20 headsets taken and I actually pulled the plug in the disco because it was kind of getting too out of control like out of line of people. People offering to pay me. I was like, "No, no, no, no, no, I'm literally just doing this as fun." But I also pay me. It was based off that that I had a mentor of mine and basically go Nick, like you did this thing. People literally trying to give you money. You're about to go traveling to Thailand, Bali and do these things. Why don't you take the headsets with you and just start popping up everywhere you go. And so from there I did a breathwork training in Thailand. And every Sunday I just started to pop up there on the beach. And the first time I did it once again, everyone loved it and I had friends going, "Nick, you need to start taking donations for these things." And I was like, "Oh, limiting the leaves coming in." I was like, "Okay, I'll start taking donations." And I had like $30 the first time I was like, "Well, like a couple of people paid me for this." All I did was put a Spotify playlist together and danced on the beach. And then eventually I got a bit more formal, I had a sign. And there was one moment about six weeks and just showing up once or twice a week on this beach where I made over like $200 in an hour. And I remember looking up the sky and I was like crying. I was like, "I've never been more money than an hour, but having more fun." And from that, it was kind of like all the signals that I needed that, "Nick, let's just keep going. Brick by brick. Let's see how far you can push this." And I got to a stage where back in Bali there's a guy there who runs biggest conscious parties. And he's like, "Oh, you'd go with the headsets. Like, you want to start doing a collab? Let's start doing things together." And it's kind of from this place that I've no idea where it's going to end up. I've got some dreams and aspirations. That would be awesome. But at the same time, it's like, "I'm taking one disco at a time." And like, the way we met, at least, she joined us at a beach. And she then invited me to do a retreat. I had no idea. I'd never been invited to a retreat to run disco. I got, once I got paid to just dance and play a Spotify playlist. It was like, "This is incredible." But I really credit it back to just this philosophy of like doing one thing with that terrifying stuff. And I've had the courage to do the first thing that I would have never got to the 20th thing. Yeah. So let's take a step back. I feel like that was an amazing oversight of the whole journey and where you're up to now. And I'm really interested in that moment when you were working in corporate where you were like, "This isn't it." And something needs to change because so many people are at that point where it's like, something needs to change. But what is it? And how do I do that? And throughout that you mentioned, "Dementor." And I know for me, like, the biggest transfer of "Oh, I do this sometimes. I try and make up a word." The biggest transformative moments for me have been when I've worked with mentors that align so well. So was it a mentor at that time in corporate that started it for you or was it just you being like, "What was the moment?" The person who gave me the nudge for the discos was someone I'd met in Bali and was encouraging me to step out and do my own thing. And I think what his word really did for me was just gave me permission. Before that, I would have had the courage to go, "Hey, Mum, I'm just going to take the headsets with me and like, go to Thailand and start doing a thing." But it was him going, "Nic, why wouldn't you?" And it kind of gave me the confidence to then tell my friends and family, "Hey, this is what I'm doing." So it was him seeing something and then believing in me and then giving me the permission to do it, which kind of was a domino that led to everything else. I think that's a really important point of someone giving you permission because oftentimes it won't be our parents or our friends because they come from the same mindset and it's someone outside of it that goes, "I see this and I see the gift and I see where this could lead that really takes you to that next step." Hey, man. What was, I know you've sort of mentioned that there was a moment for you where your manager asked you to do something and that triggered a response in you. Can you take me through that? Yeah, so I was sitting on my now girlfriend's bed. It was in the morning and the sun's coming through the door and she goes, "Nic, can you just remind a tell Mark, I'll see you, that you're going on this on page sabbatical to do your breathwork training, but you're coming back and you're really committed to the company and you really want to be here." My body in that moment went, "Nic, it's not a big shock." And it was at that time where I was starting to get out of my mind and begin listening to my body and that was like the biggest signal that I needed. And for the past years, I'd probably felt the same way but I'd told myself story after stories to why I couldn't and those stories ended up just being shackles and chains to the situation. But as soon as I stopped listening to those stories and started listening to my body, the signal was the easiest and most obvious decision to make in the world. So when you showed that reaction of your body, when you're doing something that's not aligned to you, it's this internal reaction of the heart racing, it's all the chest, the belly, the tensing. Just tense, everything constricted. I was like, "You wrap yourself around because you're just trying to almost hide away from the reality. And then when you think about this opportunity of the breath work and the disc goes, the fear still shows up though, right? Totally, it's just a different fear. And it's a fear that it's an authentic expression. And the reason you fear it is because if people judge you or don't like you, you're not good at it, it feels like a condemnation of your soul because it's such an authentic thing for you. Whereas I fear, let's say as an example, walking down the street in a dress, even though I don't really fear that, but I fear that for a different reason. How can I best put it this as an example? I fear walking dressed not because I don't want to do that because I just don't feel like that's me. But the breath work and the disc go, that is me. And so to then do it and be judged for it is the scary thing in the world. Do you think that there was a moment of accepting yourself before you were able to actually take the steps to do that? I'd say I've been on a three year journey that is moving away from being the person that I was told to be. And I thought I was expected to be to being the person I am today. I didn't think there was one moment that completely changed that, but it's a series of little steps and choices that you make along the way that ultimately change your path. That's really interesting and I relate to that a lot. I'm always curious of the male perspective on this because I speak to a lot of females about it who are very open on the journey and I feel like, you know, for men, they're not really taught how to express and talk about it. What's been your experience with that? So to rewind and kind of share my experience to paint the picture, it was March of 2020. I was a month into what I considered my dream job. I didn't have a plan B. If I didn't get this job, I had worked in it part time throughout my final year of uni. I knew I wanted this as a job and a month into starting it. I didn't find joy, happiness, fulfillment, any of the positive emotions that I thought would come from a dream job. And this happened to perfectly coincide with lockdowns in 2020. So my escapism of the weekend was taken away and it's fair to say like most 23 old boys, I was a big party at the time. And so I just found myself in that first lockdown with all your usual existential questions. Who am I? What's my purpose? What am I doing in my life? And it's from that point that I began analyzing why I had gone to all right. Why had I perceived this as my dream job and gotten it so wrong? And I felt really betrayed almost because I'd gone to school for 13 years, uni for four years. I'm paid to internships and part time jobs to get to this moment. I got there and I felt nothing and I just smiled. And so brick by brick, I literally began to must rebuild my understandings of how things worked. And the scariest part of that journey was I thought I began to see the world a little bit differently to a lot of my friends and family at that time. And I was so scared to start sharing and showing up as this new person and the way I kind of described it at the time was I end up being a bad version of my old self. Oh, sorry, a bad imposter of my old self and a bad version of my new self. And I strictly remember a moment with another mentor who was jumping on Instagram lives to overcome his fear of public speaking. And he just asked, is that Nick would you mind jumping on with me? I was like, yeah, totally like no hesitation. I'm more than happy to jump on. Let's chat. And I said yes because I thought jumping on the Instagram live would just be his followers. I didn't realize that me jumping on all my followers at the time would also get a notification. And this is the type of mentor we weren't there to chat about the weather, the footy, the housing market. We were there to talk about my deepest darkest fears, like everything that I'd like the journey that I'd been on. I remember jumping on Instagram live and I just start seeing names pop up of this person joint. This person joint was like high school friends, people from 40 people who just knew me from my drunk antics. And I was like inside I was freaking the F out of. And on the outside I was just like trying to keep myself cool, come and collect it. We got through the 45 minutes and like afterwards I like hung up and I just like went into my bed and cudd up into a ball and like I just wanted to like hide away because I was like that was the very first time I remember showing kind of a true authentic self to that audience that had no idea I was going through this journey. And it was the most terrifying thing in the world for that reason. And it was like the first time I felt like I was authentic and 20 year old Nick who used to do a lot of dumb things when he was drunk. He didn't care about judgment because if you thought he was a dickhead or an idiot or attention seeker, I would have agreed with you. But now so that those antics in a way with my armor, my protection to say you don't really know who I am. You can think this about me, but I'm someone else deep down, but I'm not going to show you that person. The first time I actually showed people that person I no longer had the armor to protect me and that's what made it so scary. My God, I do not know how you stayed on that life because I think that's like when you first start showing underneath the armor it's so vulnerable and I remember even starting this podcast six months ago, like there were people that I for some reason I was like I the thought of them coming across it terrified me to the point that it stopped me from taking action and so I can't even imagine for you to sit there on this line and actually see who was watching from different crowds. Did you feel free after or did you feel terrified? At first I had a massive vulnerability hangover because I probably, I didn't feel safe to share what I did share with those people, but upon reflection it was the exact thing that I needed to happen because there was no turning back now. I now announce myself and even better I had a lot of people reach out to me after I said Nick, I was really like inspirational and interesting, like I had no idea and it was actually the first time that I'd probably been able to feel accepted and seen and I want to say all the sudden I showed up as this new person still probably took me another year to like fully start expressing and showing up, but it was kind of like pushing me off the cliff so there was no turning back. Yeah. And I'm grateful for it. Yeah, definitely. And I also think that it's so interesting because you think that people are going to push you away but so often, more often than not. They reach out and they'll make contact and be like that's inspiring, which is I think such a blessing for and also gives permission for other people to show up as they really are as well. Did anyone surprise you from previous groups? The answer is, yes, because I just expected everyone. Like your brain is very good at going, everyone's probably just laughing and you're not calling you a loser and idiot. Who do you think you are to say these things? When in reality, some people may have said that. They never said it to my face, but I received much more support and every time I got a positive message I was really surprised just because I put myself in such a cage that I just thought everyone wouldn't like me for being this person. Simply out of fear because I had no evidence to suggest otherwise. I'd never give myself the chance to be seen. And so the scariest thing in the world was to be seen, but it felt like at that time I had a choice between authenticity and isolation. So if I was my authentic self, I tricked myself into thinking I'd be isolated. So I would be easy just to conform and do what I thought was the right thing to do to be accepted, but I realized I got that backwards because your vulnerabilities are what connect you. And so actually by being vulnerable, like you've shared, I end up connecting with people in a way that was able to deepen our relationships, which is actually at the end of the day, the way everyone. It sounds like there was like such a shift for you. What, when you say that there was the you that did dumb stupid things who had the armor up, does that stem back into childhood? Is it a high school or? Yeah, so the, I date it back to when I was 13, around 1314, I was super talented and Osirul's footballer got taught I'd be drafted the whole things and at that age, I end up wrapping my identity around being a great footballer, a great footy player. Come 15, 16, 17, combination of teenage distractions, I stopped growing, makes my my dad and just injuries. I went from being the best to like just falling back and end up being mediocre, but my whole identity was built on being the best. Not knowing what shame was, I realized that as I began to become your average player, I couldn't deal with the shame that I felt. My stress response in that moment was like most teenage boys to act like I didn't care, to be a clown, to be the jokester, to put on that armor that you don't care because to deal with the shame of actually caring, this is too overwhelming. and so from ages, let's say 16 to that moment in 23. I used to make a joke that if TikTok was around, I'd either be dead or in an LA mansion. Dead because I would have pushed myself to do something so dumb I would have killed myself or an LA mansion because what I was doing was so extreme and entertaining that I would have got a million followers. - Wow. - And so in a funny way, only recently did friends begin to share saying, "Hey, Nick, we actually don't think you've changed. "We think your essence is still the same, "but just how you're showing up is different, "because you're still doing extreme and funny things, "but instead of doing it because you're running away "out of fear and you're escaping, "you're now doing it to spread joy." - Hmm. - And that's what really me starting discoses about. Just my favorite quote by Niche is those were considered insane by those who couldn't hear the music. And so when you're on the beach there dancing, literally no one else can hear the music except you, but you're having the best time. - Yeah, it's literally my favorite thing ever. I'm obsessed. (laughs) And I'll blast your socials across all the platforms and I'm sure people will relate to your story and relate to you as a person. And I think shame's a really interesting one. Do you think that you've fully overcome that shame or is it something that still shows up for you? I definitely still wrestle with tying my worth to the value that I create. - Hmm. - So. It literally came up the other day. And I'm just trying to think of the moment where I kind of observed that pattern of behavior in myself still where finding or connecting with that unconditional self-worth, I think is a life journey. And I think I'm nowhere, I'm moving halfway on that journey. So I can point to all the trauma in my past to suggest why I still behave in this way, but ultimately I think it's just something we also all wrestle with. - Definitely. It's like you can, I'm never stuck. It's like you hit somewhere and it's like, oh shit, like there's 10 more layers just here. (laughs) It's almost better not to know, not to look at it. So starting this business with Silent Eskows across the world and you said that you have dreams and ambitions and that it's brick by brick. What's the scariest thing for you now looking at it? - I'll reframe scariest and the most challenging because I think the challenge comes from the fear. And I was actually talking to a friend today who I did the breathwork training with. And she was there in Thailand when I just started doing this and started, and she was the one really accepting me to accept donations and pushing me because she saw something in it. And when I first started discussing, I just kind of called it my side thing. I had these online courses. I wanted to be running. I thought they would be my main thing. The Disco is just a fun little side thing. And the reason I thought it needed to be a side thing was 'cause it was so easy. And my whole life works when it be hard. You're gonna work hard for your money. It's not gonna be easy. And so the biggest challenge right now is I'm just accepting that hey Nick, you can have fun, find work easy and still be rewarded physically for it. And that's just, I'm just completely changing my perspective and paradigm and I'm almost my conditioning up until this point. - So just thinking about like when you look to your future, do you see that it's, 'cause it's not the clear path, right? But it's trusting that it's the authentic, it's the authentic you, it's the authentic past and trusting that it will unfold the way it's meant to, right? Yeah, I guess it's the challenge I guess, but the gap, I guess the challenge of between where I am now and where I intend or aspire to be. That is a challenge, but I also almost don't call that a challenge 'cause that's the fun, that's the journey. Like the Disco that I ran with the lease on Friday, I'm gonna have just as much fun there as I do if I have triple 10 times the number of people, often it's me dancing, just sharing my energy. And so, the challenge is, I guess I most continuing to just love it and not to start judging it. It's like this Disco is better than that Disco. I made more money there, I don't make more money there. Like coming back to that essence, like, oh, I'll tell you, I'm just hit a dance, have fun and I feel dance is that, I'm just a metaphor for how I like to live my life. Alan Watch shares how life isn't a journey, life isn't like getting into taxi from A to B, life is a dance when you dance, you don't try to get someone on the dance where you just said to do it. And so I really like to approach life like that. - That's really inspiring. And I can say as well, after going to one of the Disco's on the beach, like you do you literally just, I've never seen anything like it, you just start it and you're just in it and it's like, it's probably a challenge where you can feel it and everyone just lifts. Even looking at your Instagram, starting it at the airport, like, I just, I don't know how you did that, but you did it. And people joined in. - So goodbye, I like to interpret our emotions is, I believe that anxiety, nervousness and excitement are actually all the emotional sensation. It's just our expectations of the outcome that changes what we think we're feeling. So if I expect it, if we have a negative expectation of an outcome, we feel anxiety. If we have a positive expectation, we feel excitement. And if we're not sure, we just flip flop between both and that, we call that nervousness. And so in that airport, one, I was super nervous nervous because I actually have learned now that not once have I done a disco and people haven't liked it. But at the same time, you still terrified because you've never done something like that before. And so it ended up being so funny because we just danced. It was me and Spear, if we ended up getting three people to join and we danced with three songs and then we turned it off and that's probably 100 people in the tunnel, they all started clapping. And it was just like going into that moment, our brain is telling us everyone's gonna laugh at you. Everyone's gonna hate you. But if I was sitting there watching someone else start a scientist go, I wouldn't laugh and hate that person. I would celebrate the person. I think the other coolest person in the world, but it's just so hard to keep that perspective when it's you doing the scary thing. - Why is that? - Our brain's hardwired about five to one to the negative. It's like a survival instinct dating back to a hundred gatherer age. - How do you handle those limiting beliefs? Do you change the expectation of the outcome for yourself? Do you kind of label it as could be exciting or what's your process with that? - So three fears after doing this for a whole year just analyzing, diving into my fears. I believe this, I call them the devil's trifactor. Three fears we will wrestle with. The fear of judgment, the fear of failure and the fear of not equipping good enough. And I actually believe that it all linked. We fear judgment because we fear we're gonna fail and we fear we're gonna fail because we fear we're not good enough. And so to overcome fear of judgment, it's often as easy as just changing your expectation of the outcome, expect a positive outcome instead of a negative outcome. And you'll be amazed at how quickly you find courage. And that's also the reason it's so important to have a good environment of friends around you to support your lift you up. And all the group containers I create, the reason I love working groups is I say to them, when you're about to do this scary thing this week, think of me, think of this group who's gonna celebrate you next week on the call for the amazing thing that you're doing. Don't think of that idiot when you're in year nine who laughed at you in the back of the classroom. Who you don't care what that guy's doing in his life anymore, who you care about is us and we're celebrating you. To overcome the fear of failure, it's actually just redefining what success is. Ben Crowe likes to share that the definition of anxiety is trying to control what you can't control. You can't control an outcome. I can't control if in that airport everyone's gonna laugh at me or if everyone's gonna celebrate me, but I can control my process. I can control whether I'm having fun. I can control the purpose of why I'm doing something. And so if we disassociate success from the success to your process, to purpose, to play, all of a sudden you can never fail if you show up. And then finally overcoming the fear of not being good enough, often those limiting beliefs are a trauma from a previous experience in your life. That's just continuing to manifest itself. And so there's a framework that I like to take people through which is like let's identify that limiting belief. Oakland, you didn't wake up this morning go, I have this belief. There's something that happened previous in your life that led you to believe this thing. So let's identify that moment in time where then ask ourselves is believing this thing. So let's say I'm not worth getting paid $5,000 to run a program. I started to believe that because one time I asked someone to pay me $200 for a program and they said no. I'm now fearful to charge $5,000 because I'm scared of getting rejected again. But if I ask myself logically, hey Nick, if you don't charge $5,000, are you removing the chance that you're never going to get rejected again? Basically I'm basically trying to protect myself from being rejected. And that was a lot of double negative. So I apologize, I was hard to follow. But ultimately I can still be rejected whether I charge $5,000 or $2,000 or $10,000 or $100. The limiting belief is ultimately just trying to protect me from that rejection. And now that I realize that that limit to least isn't protecting me because I can still be rejected in other areas of my life or a different price. I now have the courage to actually charge a price like that. - How do you deal with rejection now? - A lot of the time it comes back to that worth. It's like, am I, if I'm cut up by someone's rejection, is because I don't have that self-worth in myself that I need that person's approval to make myself feel worthy. And I often come back to intentions. If that person rejected me, they reject me 'cause they don't like me as a person, or is they rejected me just 'cause the offer that I have right now isn't for them. And if it's not for them, then good on them that they have the courage to say no, and respect their own boundaries. And if anything, especially when it comes to price, if I say, hey, this is $5,000, I said, hey, that's too much. They're not walking away going, oh Nick, such a dick, he charges so much money for what he does. They're probably going, damn, Nick's so good at what he does, he can charge that high of a price, and I can't do that right now. Because the funny thing about price is we, price equate is equated to value. So when you charge a low price, people are like, oh, it can't be that good. It's funny thing, right? If we think we're doing them a favor, it's really cheap, come do it. But subconsciously, we've already equated that, oh, well, it's okay, but it's in 200 bucks, like. - So you work with groups of people through coaching and breath work as well, yeah? - Correct, I have a program called Sprouter. And Sprouter is basically the program that I wish I had when I was 23 and lost in life and having my existential crisis. What I realized is the reason I thought that job that I ended up getting was a dream job was actually because I didn't have, what's the reason? One was because I didn't have enough self-worth. I saw the prestige of that company. It was in a cool industry as giving me a sense of worth that would impress my friends and family. And when I was aspiring to get the job, doing all the grumbour was worth it 'cause when I got it, my friends would be so impressed with me and my family would love me so much more because this company's so cool. And then once I had the job, I had the status that I thought I had, all of a sudden that grumbour just kind of worked. And it sucked, I was like, I don't wanna hate what I'm doing today just to get approval for my friends and family. And so that was reason one. And the second reason that I was, I strived to find my sense of self and worth in my job was also because I just had no self-knowledge. And I'm a big believer that school in uni is great for teaching the external knowledge to live and work but never teaches us self-knowledge on how to decide what that career or life ideally is. - Mm-hmm. - And so what's sprouting is the first two weeks is helping people answer the question. What do you wanna be when you grow up? 'Cause we literally, every single person needs to answer that question but the only advice we get is fully your passions. But no additional support and how, what a passion is, how to find it. And so one thing I like to do is I break down passions into four areas. Skills you're passionate about using, a problem you're passionate about solving, people you're passionate about helping and a mission you're passionate about serving. And if you can align those four things, I call that the holy grail, you're gonna love your job, or love your life and what you do. And so the first week is identifying those four things and the second half of the program is all about overcoming fears. You're gonna overcome your fear of judgment, overcome your fear of failure, and overcome your fear of not being good enough. So you have the confidence and courage to actually action what you've now learned. Because sometimes actioning these things is really scary for all the reasons I've shared about being authentic, but also it might be a path that other people have walked. And one of the things that I've realized is people would rather feel safe, that be unhappy, that potentially be unsafe, that be happy. And so part of even having this conversation with you is wanting to provide language and frameworks and reference points. So people who are exploring what I like to almost describe as the pathless path, a framework that I can then share with their friends and family. So it's not, hey, I'm quitting my job because I'm lost in life and I have no idea what I wanna do. It's, hey, I'm quitting my job because I'm following the pathless path. I don't know where I'm gonna end up, but I'm giving myself the best chance that I can get there. - My grandpa said the same thing to me one time. Not too long ago, he said to me, you are choosing to walk the pathless traveled. And that's a really scary place to be, but I think it's so much more fulfilling because what you see and what you learn and what you experience is so much more fulfilling than the existing, then being passive, than knowing that you're not happy but being too scared to do anything about it. And I agree, like, if I think it's so important, the program that you're running and starting and teaching people about because I remember when I was in high school, TikTok didn't exist. Instagram was just coming out. I sound so hot. Facebook existed a little. But yeah, and it was like, you can be a doctor, you can be a vet, you can be a nurse, you can be this. And I just was like, I don't want any of that though. And then I thought, maybe I'll just figure it out. Like, maybe I'll just fall into a job and went down this whole path and not too long ago, or speaking to someone who, she said to me, I'm 47. And I just still am like, is this it? Like, do I just work to pay off my mortgage, to put food on the table like I feel dead inside? And I just think it's so important that we teach younger people how to find that passion and how to take the risks and how to work with the challenges of the limiting beliefs and the unknowns as well. Do you find that you get certain types of personalities that come or is it like all sorts of people? Is there a certain group of us that are just like, let's just do whack things. - Most people I've worked with are people have had that moment where they've followed, let's call the traditional path and haven't found what they're looking for. And they've started to ask the questions. And I feel I resonate most with them because they are asking the same questions I did and other questions I'm trying to help them answer. A lot of times I struggle with, let me reframe. I've learned not to preach, that my way, that it comes my way, is the right way because I actually don't think this such thing is right, wrong, I think everyone has their own right or wrong. And it's not about preaching, it's just about sharing your story and whoever gravitates, that's, or resonates with that story, that's who you're serving and to answer the question. I guess more specifically it's creative people. It's people who, her spider have their own business, it'll be a solid printer, people who are spider, be digital nomads, people who have found themselves lost and want to do something else. - Hmm, wow. And how has that grown recently? Like do you watch people transform their lives through this? Is that like what's the experience been? - The testimonials that I get from the program, like I've got a folder in my phone called Nix folder of awesomeness. And it's like when you feel bad, you just go into that folder, you go, "God damn, I'm good." Just kidding. - No, he totally. - I've had some really absolutely heartwarming testimonials. The challenge that I actually have is, I know I've got something amazing to offer people, but I still really struggled actually to sell it because everyone these days is, wants to call themselves a coach, deliver a transformational container, et cetera. And I'm actually almost taking a step back from that program. I'm going, "Hey, Nick, you're kind of just like everyone else out there at the moment, like telling people that they, telling people that you can help them." And I believe I can, but I prefer to walk the talk more than talk the talk. I don't want to just be that guy on Instagram, showing up twice a week, saying, "Hey guys, this is what you can do to deliver your life." So half the reason at the moment, I'm going just all in on discos, like, "Hey, I'm just going to deliver my best fricking life and do these really cool things." And I'm expecting that that you're going to convert more people to saying, "Hey, Nick, how can we do what you're doing rather than selling people, "Hey, I can get you to do this thing." - It's so true. I think like when I started this podcast six months ago, however long ago it was, and I had this whole vision of my path and where I was going, suddenly I was exposed to everyone who was doing the same thing as me and I was like, "Well, what's the point?" Like everyone else is doing that. How do I be different? And then I got really analytical and I was like, "Well, how am I going to make money and how am I this?" And that, and then I was like, "Well, that's just taking all the enjoyment out of it, so I'm just going to live. I'm going to do what I enjoy doing. I'm going to spread awareness and I'm going to do slow steps." And it'll unfold the way it's meant to, because I think as well, like, taking that step, we suddenly then go straight into comparison of like, "Well, everyone else is out there doing it anyway, so what's the point?" And I think that such, that doubt is also just trying to stop us from taking the steps. - 1,000 per cent, I think the point is, if you're just doing this to earn X amount of money to impress X amount of people, you're going to quit within a month, maybe two, three if you're lucky, because that's not how long it takes to achieve those things. Those things take probably two to three to four, five years maybe, and that's terrifying. (laughing) - It is. - And so, to anchor back to, we can use this as an example. You love talking to people, that's your skill. You love the problem you're solving is providing language and telling stories so people can relate to walking this different path, who you're doing it for, probably doing it for people like you three years ago, who I think you about doing something like this, but haven't done it yet. And the mission is, to help people leave more fulfilling lives that don't wake up at 47 when the mortgage going, I'm dead inside. And so you anchoring to these four things is what keeps you coming back week after week after week and you love it. And ultimately you're going to get success. But by the time you get there, that's not even going to be your definition anymore. That was like the most, that was, they're just that. I'm just going to clip that and play that everybody into myself. You just nailed that. That's exactly, yes. You've worded that really, really well. And I think that, you know, my, this, this is weird. This is turning on me. I don't like talking about me. But, um, no, I think that my mission with the podcast has evolved and changed. And I think the journey of the podcast as well is changing all the time with the people that I'm meeting and the stories that are coming on. It's so interesting because as you were talking earlier, when I first wrote down like the types of stories that I wanted, it was like, I had one of like, I want an A.O.F.L. player or like a footy player who's gone through it and like, come out of it and been like, that's not me. And that was really hard. And when you, I didn't even know that about you. And when you went into that, I was like, it's here. Like when I, when I sat and did my first episode six months ago, I did not think that it would be here now in front of me and hearing, you know, the way that you've pushed out of that comfort zone and you've re-identified yourself and you've shown up as your authentic self and been accepted. Like that will speak to people in such a way that they weren't even, that will change, change lives right then and there. Where can people find you? What's your, what's your plan? You're, you live in Bali? Yep. So Bali is home these days down in Urwatu for anyone who wants to come down to get out. Where to find me? I'm trying to do this TikTok thing. I've been told by people that Silent Disco videos and TikTok will probably be really popular. I've tended to be really bad at social media in the past. So currently on Instagram, underscore huzz, TikToks, Nickhuzz. I've got a, I've got a newsletter that I send out, wait, just sharing everything that I'm doing. That's called Puzzle Pieces. I'm trying to help you put the puzzle pieces together for who you are. And um, so that adds to your question. Yeah. Who would you say that you are? That's a very deep question. We're coming up to the end. But as you said, Puzzle Pieces, I was like, I'm curious. I'm smiling just because I'm moving all the fricking away. You're like the answer changes at any moment. Yeah. And I think, I think when you start out building in person brand and like, I came across a term, person will not be as like what you're going to be known for. This is who you are. And you like start putting together things like I'm the business guy cross with sports, cross with breath work or going to be like dancing and footy and writing. And like you spend hours trying to perfectly craft who you're going to be. And like, then the universe or life goes. Good plans, mate. And I think that's part of the magic of life and actually why one of the reasons I love when I get some describing some path as path is I truly think life is magic. Like you don't know when you're going to meet a random girl who's going to change your life. You don't know when you're going to start a side disco that then ends up changing your whole career directory. One of the things I find so crippling about corporate is working nine to five. It takes that magic out. You know what you're doing day after day after day. It takes out that serendipity and that magic. And I think that's why a lot of people love traveling because you never know when you're going to go to a bar made around a group of friends and have the best night ever. And I share all that because to try to put yourself in a box I think is cheating yourself because you don't know the adventure you're going to go on. You might know in the next step, the next brick. But if you already knew the end of the story, you probably want to read the full story. That's so true. That's so true. I mean, I know so many people within corporate that don't want to be there, but don't know how to step out of it. And they have the parents and the friends telling them not to. And they have the limiting beliefs telling them that they wouldn't be good and etc. etc. And I think especially our I don't know like our generation Gen Z millennials, whatever we all are. There's just such a different attitude to life because we were brought up in schools where it was you were able to explore more curiosity and gap years came into it and you know traveling and suddenly it was just like I actually spoke to someone the other day. She's beautiful girl. She's 20. And she was like, yeah, I got a bit uni and she was like, I'm just I'm so scared to turn 25 though because the thought of going to like a full time job is just doesn't feel right to me. Like I just love working and traveling. And I was like, well, I'm going to tell you now, it doesn't check. That doesn't go away if you start corporate. You're still going to want to travel and explore and find you know parts of yourself and do the things that excite you. It's just a little bit more of a journey to to do it to actually do it. Yeah. And I guess if I can give a a framework to people who are looking to leave corporate but to do so in a safe way. My challenge to them is figure out what your living expenses are. So in Australia, that might be 500 to a thousand bucks a week in Bali. That's close to three to 500 bucks a week. Now you know why I'm there. I'll join. Find a part time job that you can work remotely for two days a week, cover your living expenses. And then now you've got the rest of the week to build or grow or experiment or try. Actually, there's no such thing as trying. So remove that word to intend to do whatever it is you want to draw on the side and give yourself six months a year. Make a bet on yourself that you're going to be able to figure it out. And if you can't figure it out, you've probably had an awesome adventure over the six or 12 months. You wouldn't have lost anything. And you can always go back to the job, corporate job. But if you want to take a bet on yourself, let's do it. I'm here for you as well. Let's play together. That's so fun. Well, what would be the one message you would give to the person at home who's sort of tatering like, should I reach out? Should I not? Is it the time? To me, nothing brings more fulfillment or joy to my life than helping and serving other people. So I'm no different to anyone. I'm just a guy who's a little bit crazy enough to do scary things every single week. And it's taken me on this crazy journey. Let's play. I want to be everyone's best friend. I love that so much. Do you have anything else that you want to share before we wrap up? Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for coming on. I've loved learning your story. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you do get something out of the podcast and you do enjoy it, the number one way to support me is to follow me across my socials on hdwadi.pod and to also subscribe on YouTube. I look forward to seeing you next week.