E32: Scott Montgomery: Rethinking Wellness, Discipline, and Success

30:29And this place has been in the large part a fantastic place to grow, to learn, to go for those processes that you do with building your business. And we've been able to take that idea through to a public listing in Canada, to a trade sale to now be AHI NASDAQ listed. And it's all been from Singapore as a base. so you talk about public listening thing about this second uh overnight success how long was it like nine years ten years well the that company that i brought up here was incorporated in october 2013 okay um there was a name change from that to welltech um and that's what it's a learning you know you put a bad name on a company and it's a disadvantage thankfully recognized it And WorldTech sat far more comfortably in both the team's mind that we were building and also customers.

31:21And that helped. So that company then acquired a company in Canada in late 2021. Sorry, early 2021. And we listed in the CSE, the Canadian Securities Exchange, early 2021. So why do you take a company public? What's a good moment or why do... I'll tell you when not to do it. It's March 2021 when capital markets tank. Yes, exactly. We have seen the decline of a substantial period in public market history, not just small cap or mid cap, not just health tech sector, but capital markets. And to give you a comparison, just as we were listing, there was an acquisition by one of the largest, if not the largest at that time.

32:09So Teladoc, they acquired Livongo for 18 and a half billion dollars to give an early to mid 40s, a billion dollar market cap. That company today sits under four. So the sector has been chopped by 90 % at least. And we rode that wave. It was a wave down in market cap. Yeah, because I think like the top of the market was about like November 2021, something like that and then you had all these crazy rate uh like rate hikes which completely destroyed uh especially the i mean obviously crypto but like all the the technology sector yeah a lot like we've seen that with the most of the tech companies the big ones too uh i think i think i mean we work is a bit of a a special example but like they are like minus 98 or something like that well there's one that's real time in our space at the moment and and i find this as a i think we work as a bit of a kodak story you know you speak to anyone with an mba which i don't have but one of the first case studies is kodak they were front runners inventing the digital camera and then didn't believe in it and uh they are where they are we work as the same grow grow at all costs that that model doesn't work for most businesses where there's been an over correction is that foundations and good solid companies earning money have been thrown out with the bathwater because not every company is bad.

33:38Not every company is a grow or die, you know, growth at all costs type company. And so we're going to see that rising tide bring a lot of businesses back up in the public markets. The question that you did ask though was why? Yeah. Why public markets? I think a couple of reasons. I think that we had an opportunity with acquiring a piece of technology up in Canada that was very interesting to us, very complimentary and helped us bridge a lot of the sort of wellness and consumer tech space into a medical domain. Now, if you can bring medical credibility and accuracy, scalability, sorry, into the scale and the consumerization of wellness technology, IoT, passively collated data to then understand an individual to encourage those behavior changes at the right time in the right manner, then that works.

34:33And so there was an opportunity to do that that then led us towards a public listing. I had very supportive and great shareholders at the time, Singapore-based, that were also supportive of that. So that made that process really easy. So there's that opportunity side, but also the VC community down in Australia. And I can't really comment on Singapore at the moment, but my experience with it from the previous sort of nine, eight, seven, six years ago, it's not that mature. Okay, because I want to say you could raise debt, you could raise equity, private equity, or you could raise public capital market money.

35:11And therefore, you went for the latter. And so, why? Is it because it's easier? Is it because? I think a bit of both. And, you know, you also are a bit of an engine from the guidance that you have around you. and there's opportunity when you see geographical expansion, complementary technology on the other side of the world, access to capital that we did have going through that process, that made a lot of sense. When you couple that together with, as a B2B business model, you have retail recognition of the brands, of the customers that you're bringing forward. As technology and in that same business model, we had access to regular news, which is important.

35:52So we had all of the right ingredients. We just didn't realize that there was going to be this landslide in capital markets. So there's all these positive and benefits of doing that. But obviously, you're a public company, which also comes with a lot of difficulties. So how has your life changed since your company went public? look in a lot of ways it hasn't changed much at all um i think that there's some again foundation or some some mandatory disciplines that any good business should have you know you you should have reporting you should have systems and process and monitoring tools um whether your shareholder is a long tail of thousands of retail investors or a single vc investor or high net worth a lot of those pieces of information and operational rigor remain the same and and from very early on that's what i put in place is that we were going to have um very mature systems around it doesn't always work out like that but the the the quest and the and the process was always around that so going public actually is not that different okay yeah so basically it's because you've done everything kind of right and serious before that the change is not huge whereas for a lot of companies that might just say like oh we purchase growth and everything but internally all the systems and internal systems and gonna matter more later then that's a big change for them because they need to be much more transparent on everything they do once they go public and who's right and who's wrong you know because there's there's companies that have been ideated established and have grown to billions of dollars into the time that that i've done and my team has worked with me to do um and so i'm not saying our formula is correct or right by any means um it worked though so there was a I suppose a maturity coming out of a previous business where we had things that worked like that company built grew got sold it was a great multiple everyone did well so it was a rinse and repeat approach filling the gap of the lack of technical knowledge and early days it was like how can you run a technology company without the slightest idea of technology and I actually think that was an advantage and still do believe it's an advantage because you don't know the limitations a lot of the time.

38:16So you go out and do it and you'll be surprised what happens when you push people. Is it something that you actually pushed in the kind of people you were hiring? Saying, hey, I'll prioritize people who are completely outside of the technical space or you still want to have some experts in the field? No, I was outside the tech space and my co-founder at the time, again, no idea really of the technology. So we included people in our team and our recruitment and our partnership strategies to bring that expertise. So it's one thing to say, hey, I can do this and figure it out. Now, when you're talking about code and data strategy and things like you're on a hiding to nothing.

38:55But if you're saying to that set of expertise, whether it's an individual or a group to say, this is what I want. And I think you can do it. Can you try and can you keep going? Try that again. If that's not working, try. And because you don't know what normal is, you can push some of those boundaries. And we had some fracking early results. I think it's because we didn't know. So you went public in Canada and Australia, I think? No, no, no. So it was an RTO listing on the CSE, Canadian Securities Exchange. Okay. We then established an OTC company on the QB. and then after about 18 months or so with a long-term partner and good friend of mine, we came together and sold that CSE company now to be AHI, which is ASX and NASDAQ listed.

39:48So basically you sold a public company to another public company? Why not, right? How hard can it be? So why? Is it something that happens often? It's the first time I've done it, certainly. It's a well-trodden path in a lot of ways. So the transactional structure and the instruments used, it's legal and account of will that they can do with their eyes closed. There was complexity being that we were US-Canadian listed. They were Australian and US listed. So there's a bit of work to do, but it's work. It wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel by any means. But we had some good bills to do it. so your company is now listed on the nasdaq what does this mean to you it's the biggest audience for a technology company and the concept of people say look why nasdaq but you put a profile on the nasdaq and you say we're solving one of the world's biggest problems right now and contributing to better health care we are a piece of technology that provides accessibility equitably to people that don't otherwise have it.

41:01And we can put that into a profitable state very quickly. We don't need hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And so if you can put a scalable piece of technology, which is relevant to all of the world's population, and you're not introducing anything else for them to buy because they've already got a mobile phone in the large part, we've got 6.6 billion smartphone users on the planet. Now, out of eight, that's a pretty good ratio for a total addressable market. If you can put a profitable piece of technology on that smartphone for that many people, and we can do it at a unit price that is accessible to a series of payers or a single payer, you're going to the moon.

41:37So the NASDAQ is the right place. It's the most mature market for investors that we're seeking. And it understands the type of business that we're building on technology and data, which you could argue that other exchanges certainly don't. Okay. what's your relationship to money and wealth it's a good one it's a good one i think um i like it um i i respect it and but i also don't it's not the master of everything to be done and this is where i'll probably use the analogy of process as well so um you know do i like nice things 100 do i like going to places that few people go to or that are postcard type images Look, I'd be absolutely bullshitting you if I said no.

42:25I do love that stuff. Of course. But there's also a process element around what I do, which it doesn't need to be. I don't have to have 10 Lamborghinis. One would be nice, you know? So... You have a Lambo? No, I don't. I don't. But my son actually came back from show and tell at school just this week. And for some reason, he now has a picture of a Lamborghini on his wall. Never put a picture on his wall before in his life. And the first one he puts up there is a Lambo. Is there a moment in your life where you built wealth and you actually spent money in something that you thought afterwards that was stupid or not necessary?

43:03Oh, look, definitely some, you know, you come back from a big holiday and you might have opened doors or a big night out and you're going, geez, did I really spend that much money? I don't even remember spending that money. But nothing substantial. I came from fortunate but relatively humble beginning so we never had exuberance of money to go out and waste or to go and throw around and I think New Zealand's by culture a quite a frugal society yeah that's interesting because it's similar to Switzerland and I have the same like a bunch of friends who made a lot of money but who come from other countries or who didn't have money at all and they're now completely overcompensating.

43:48Whereas like if you come from a more, you know, simple background and you got like good values from your parents, like very simple values, you just realize like, actually, I don't need that much to be happy and make a massive difference, except in a few moments where I can just enjoy much more than I could otherwise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of feel like I should start making up stories because it sounds very boring, isn't it? This is bullshit. I need to come up with something for you. almost too balanced out so money didn't change as a person nothing or is there a moment where you just said like oh like now i'm gonna you know start to do a few things that i wouldn't do before and then and then you realize oh no actually this is not this is stupid doesn't make sense vision boards uh you know i've always been a big one for trying to get around um goal setting vision boards where do you want to go what do you want and i've got some grandiose plans like some absolute moonshots of, of things that I want to do and want to, and want to own and have the ability to fund.

44:53There's the, it's not a, and there's a lot of that, which is not physical, hard and tangible and material. You know, so. For example. I want to go, I'd love to go to space. Okay. It costs money. Okay. But it doesn't need to, I don't need to, you know, have it sitting here when I get back. I'm a big, I've got an almost undying passion for kids' education. Like I genuinely think my next business venture will be in around understanding the health and physiology and psychology of people to better educate kids because that's a fire, that's a burn in here, but it stems from health, which is understanding, identifying, and then changing behavior.

45:37Yeah. Yeah. And if you think about it, I don't even know. Like, that's something I talked a lot with my friends to. Like, what are you going to do with your kids? Because there's this school system. I mean, there's a technology that goes so fast that the school system, which is made of teachers who don't necessarily have a huge passion for technology, they just can't follow it. It's impossible. Therefore, the kids are there. It's as fucked as healthcare. It absolutely is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's completely fucked. And then if you go a bit further, I mean, I have a lot of friends who are super nice and teachers, but they're not necessarily the ones who are the most driven.

46:15Don't even think about AI and all this stuff because this is like next level. And so how do you educate? Today, I'm almost thinking like the kids better like learn stuff on YouTube and try out some things when they're 16, 17, 18. Like, oh, I want to be a YouTuber or whatever you want to do. Just learn and try to do stuff, try to make money out of it or go on, you know, Upwork or Fiverr or these freelance platforms and you just work for free for some other businesses, rather than you go from 18 to, let's say, 25 to university, where you're being taught things by professors who are literally in university since 30 years, never got out, never worked.

46:54And because otherwise you're spending seven years, you're wasting seven years doing some subjects that are mostly useless, when you could be trying out shit and learn. So what are you thinking about this? How would you even start with kind of rethinking the education system? I haven't got there yet, but I want to do it early and I want to do it with a bang. The two things that have always, I've never understood like a true academic that works in research and I've had the luxury of being able to work with some of the most amazing minds and still do. Like on our team at the moment, we've got these wizards of CPUs, but they're in practice.

47:41The ones that stay in academic research, and I mean no disrespect by this at all, but it seems like the more you can regurgitate other people's work, the smarter you are in academic world. Like that's plagiarism at its best. And the entire university system is built on that. the ratings of universities based on, oh, where did this professor have this MBA or etc. or PhD and the whole thing doesn't make sense. So the great ones pull that out and they apply it into real world or they work with real world to bring it to life. It's not just sitting on pages and dusty books. The other one is healthcare.

48:15You know, why is it that we practice measurement? You should be good at it if you're doing it right. So I think the concept here around and why I think there's an inertia for it to change and change radically is the consequence of getting it wrong is so dire. Like if you come out and say healthcare, now we're going to flip and we're going to do all of this radical stuff over here, the old way is dead. And if it's wrong, then the consequences are so dire. If you get education wrong, it doesn't improve with that shift. That's a generation that you've heard. And so I think that there's this over-conservative approach to change, therefore inertia and bureaucracy and red tape because if you get it wrong or if it doesn't do what it should do then it's potentially very very damaging whereas media you know snapchat you can just delete or you can't just delete it but do you know what i mean like it's a lot easier to fail fast and that mantra works so much easier yeah with the lower consequence outcomes so basically changing the whole thing so that you have higher consequences of failing so that people are forced to to improve the like the actual we've just got to have iteration and and where i think that where where healthcare has got it wrong is that we're expecting it just a pivot and a and a brand new way of doing it and it will solve all problems bullshit it's not going to work like even if we have the best technology here we've got to have adoption we've got to have compatibility and we've got to have um we've got to have harmonization and the ways of working what we're producing because you can have a 65-year-old doctor and this is a real world problem here in Singapore where they're not adopting these new technology platforms EMRs, EHRs, technologies because getting late stage in their career it's a very very big change for someone who's been doing something the same way for 40 years and we've got to solve that as much as we've got to solve security and accuracy and universality and some of these metrics and measurements yeah absolutely it's gonna be a it's gonna be a tough one but someone has to do it ah i've got an idea in fact i've got a company you know so i look i think that if if um people are consuming knowledge like like this like you gotta have a bit of fun with your work um i'm thankful that we're not jumping up on the table shirtless or not yet not yet this is when the The water kicks in.

50:48The cool thing about the world these days is that you've got access to different pieces of information. It doesn't necessarily get formalized. I mean, the reason you wear a uniform and the reason why education is what it is was control back into the autism era. It was production line. It was allocation and control. So you got educated and that was specialization of labor. And you wore that uniform because you worked in that part of the manufacturing facility. And that's trickled over into modern day or K-12 education. And so it's got to change. It's just, again, it's going to be series and we'll see where it goes.

51:24Actually, thinking about that has trickled into education, but also working. You know, these eight hours being in the office, I mean, it has a bit changed with COVID, but kind of like the factory work that basically continued into the offices. And so what do you do in your company regarding that, especially after what happened with COVID and the kind of way things changed? Because you have this thing where it's kind of a double-edged sword. Like you have this thing where you say people need to be in the office because for the culture is much better. How do you build a nice culture where people help each other, the teamwork, all that stuff, which is obviously not the same when you're remote or online.

52:05but at the same time you also want to break this kind of factory style kind of work that is completely outdated especially for our generation we're all about kind of purpose and i don't want to say work-life balance because at the end of the day like if you really love what you're doing you're just going to work like crazy you know yeah the stats around burnout for work from home are bad actually we're we're more burnt out we're we're more stressed and we're less productive sorry where yeah we're less efficient less productive than um compared to the pre-pandemic era because work's always there and you know you've always got something else to do the the flexibility that come or the um the adaptability that you can fit your lifestyle and your work together in a more malleable way rather than monday friday nine five that's a that's a great outcome for this.

53:00But, you know, I look back at some of my best memories at work and my biggest learning lessons. It's not been at home. You know, it's been overhearing conversations or being dragged into meetings. It's being forced to sit in front of somebody and say, you are not doing this correctly. How do we do this? And it's a learning opportunity that we've missed. I said at the start, I love being around people and I love being around people when they've got a combined goal and they're trying to figure out how to do better, faster, or more savvy than what we're currently doing. Breaking the status quo for a goal, that is what we're missing at the moment.

53:36And so we're actually localized in the way. We've got offices in six countries around the world, so you can't bring everybody together. I would love everyone to be in the same room, have access to do that every single working day of the week, but it's an impossibility. but I think we're missing so much of where a lot of our growth, a lot of our innovation, a lot of our critique. You don't know it's a shit idea until someone says, you haven't really done that right. And then you're missing that. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

54:07So let's get into Scott's mind. Oh, okay. All right. You ready? Maybe you can have one of the other bottles.

54:22someone once said the man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder, a weight and nothing and no man, have you found your life's purpose yet and if yet, what is it in words and this is where I would love some prep on this sort of stuff so thanks for throwing this right at me

54:45I'm going to try and give you a cool answer, not a shit one because I've had some shit ones so far the purpose I think is to

54:55is to impact and do better now that is that does sound like a shit example but it's the reason why I'm I'm probably not such a great employee and haven't been I've worked for myself for a long time and I work with like-minded people exceptionally well but also don't like it when there are ways of doing things better and people don't do it that it breaks me so I think if anything there's a purpose of pulling people together to do something better and and greater and so that's in a work capacity um you know I also don't like being the guy at a dinner party sitting there saying nothing and just laughing at other people's jokes I like to I like to weigh in every now and then so that's on a work side what about if you think like kind of greater I don't know are you a spiritual person do you think about or or in terms of like family or all like why do you think you are on earth jesus we're going big all right um so not spiritual not spiritual not religious um i energetic maybe you know i think you can walk into a room and you can feel if it's a if it's a good vibe or if it's a bad vibe so how do you feel about the vibe here what's starting to warm up isn't it it's good it's good um i think that um you know i have children You know, I've got three great kids and I've got a great home environment.

56:20And so for me, there's got to be everything that I do in a professional capacity has got to work with that. And equally, everything that I've got to do with work, sometimes there's sacrifice. I do work my ass off. And I'm lucky that I love what I do, but I work my ass off. And so by doing that, there's a cost for the home life. I'm not one to sit at home and draw pictures with five-year-olds all day. That's not me. So my drive is actually to go out and enable things to happen. So I've got the flexibility to do more of what I want to do with those three children and also friends. Like it's a big part of my life.

56:54I've got family in different pockets of the world and I want to have the ability to go and see them more than I do at the moment. And the sacrifice of doing what I do with my time now, I choose to do what I do now so that I have the ability down the track to do those things, go and see them more often or to meet them in places or to. Do you think you will actually do that? Because you're saying I'm working so hard so I can build so much abundance that then I can do whatever I want. But this is the problem, right? It's not. There's no end. Yeah. Yeah. It's not do this, get that. Exactly. It's got to work.

57:30It's got to be this rhythm that works together. And the example I gave in the first year of those twins' life is that I didn't really see them because I was choosing to work consecutively or continuously and then coming home and putting my feet up and going, oh, how are they today? And show me a couple of photos. That's bullshit. That's not the way to parent. I'm not going to be a figure in their way of growing up if I choose to live that way. So I made a conscious decision. And that's why the dinner time is so important to me. I exercise. I get dinner table time with my kids. And then I try and put them down most nights.

58:05And then I pick things up after. So I choose that. and that that's good for me because i can get my work done for what i need to do for the articulation of the team because there's there's there's dialogue it's not a monologue it's not a dictator anymore it's different and then i can do things after but do i work more hours in a day than the average person damn right i do um but but it's a conscious decision to do that do you feel like since you have kids your entire life is more meaningful and you kind of like feel like oh i'm actually doing all this work kind of for them, you know, to offer them like more security or you have your, your mission and you say like, whether I would have like one kid, two kids, zero kids, like my mission would still be the same.

58:47And I'm driven like that. And therefore, because I'm so driven, my wife and my kids can trust me to take care of them because nothing can deviate me from my mission, you know? So either like, my question is like, are you like super mission driven or is it more like this mission like makes more sense because you have these people to take care of and kind of i think it's more that you know there's there's never been a question of burn or desire in me to do anything you know and if that was figuring out a way to get somewhere if it was a way of making a team and made some great teams in a sporting capacity there was always a drive to do something always and you know i've been told many a times that I'm always going to do well in life because even down to you like this, buying a Coca-Cola and a dairy or a 7-Eleven equivalent to whatever they are.

59:40And the label was off, ripped. And I said, oh, what deal are you going to do on this? I'm not paying retail for this. And I was like 13. And the lady said, no, that's bullshit. And I said, well, that's rubbish. No one else is going to buy it. So you sell it to me, otherwise you throw it out. And it was that. She said, whatever you do, you're going to go far in life. So little examples like that. I've always been driven. There's always a purpose, but it's never really been defined or sharp. Having kids absolutely does that. I want them to look back in time or in future in time and say, I love what dad does.

1:00:17I love how he does it. But I also love that he's there so that we can have that relationship so they can be proud. So they're a big factor in it, of course. how can younger people discover their purpose as fast as possible guys girls because we're thinking you gotta try and this is where i don't believe in a lot of the there's too much safety helicopter parenting is one of them like you need bacteria in your body to develop an immune system and if you remove all of that trial and error of a kid um and and whether that be someone who's 25 and thinking about starting a business or whether they're 55 and going, I want to learn to paint, whatever it is, do it.

1:00:58Like this whole live in fear of getting it wrong is, is, is a, is a cancer for development and a, and it's an, it's an accelerant for unhappiness and that's just the shittest way to live. Yeah. Yeah. Because the, in French we say, I don't know if we say this in English, but the regrets are worse than the remorse. Yeah. So is it the same? Permission forgiveness, you know. Yeah. And a lot of people will say for a lot of situations, it was never really as bad as I thought. Well, no shit. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't matter if you're learning to surf and you get thrown over by a wave or you ask your boss for a pay rise the first time or you write a business plan and it gets completely critiqued by, you know, probably the taxi driver.

1:01:41Like we ask those guys too much wisdom. Sometimes it's great, but why are we so needy of feedback? all of the time. It's okay to get things wrong. It's probably because of the kind of survival instinct of the brain, like how we've been, how we've developed, which is more like, I need to be scared of everything to survive rather than like, pocket, I'll just try things and see what happens. And look at the anxiety and the depressive level of society these days. The fastest rate of growth, unfortunately, tragically, of suicide is not male. It's not old. It's young girls. And, you know, self-harm went, I think it was 18 times the standard rate of self-harm for emergency department admission in a state in Australia.

1:02:32Went up 17 or 18 times when COVID sat on. You know, there's so much anxiety in here. And it was one of the reasons, the main reason that initially started what is still was the most successful mental health program we deployed through WellTech. It was okay for us to sit up and say, you need to do 10 ,000 steps a day and you need to eat five fruit or five veg and two fruit. You need three meat, no more than three times a week. You've got to have a balance of protein and carbs. But where was our education on sleep or mindfulness, mental health? It was nowhere. And so in a period of about nine months, I had five people within my network.

1:03:15Some I knew well, some I didn't. It was through wife or friends. and they chose suicide. And from the outside looking in, a lot of those were successful, career-driven, financially set. On the outside, beautiful marriages and kids and all sorts, and they chose that, and that's tragic. And so I just thought that how is it that we can talk about these basics of living physically but we can't mentally? And so I went to my sister-in-law who was PhD psych, and I just said, what's the common thing across every, only 12 points that every single patient hears or that you talk about in psychology? And I just wanted to get what those 10 ,000 steps equivalent were for the mind for anxiety.

1:04:01What was the five-bedge and two-fruit equivalent for better sleep? And so that was the birth of a program called Mind Your Step. And it was the basics of mental and physical health coming together. so what are those like if you like for example for anxiety the most commonly and this is part of the problem with health is it's not just one thing like there was a series of things that we that we went through with um simple breathing techniques it was getting to bed at the same time it was understanding that there's a social requirement like it's a nutrient that we have as individuals and if we starve ourselves that's what loneliness manifests in And so going through these 12, and these were academically drawn out and supported by a university down in Australia.

1:04:47But these simple truths of basics, right? It's not rocket science. You know that you should control your macronutrient intake. You know you should move. You know you should sleep. You know you should drink water. We also know that we should be around people. We should also have alone time. We also know that we need time to recharge and we should have plans and preparation for it's okay to actually have a day where you just veg out and watch TV, but you can't do that every day and so these basics came through and and that was why it was so well received yeah

1:05:19what do you believe today and your belief only gets stronger every day

1:05:28you gotta back yourself you back yourself you want to go for it do it you sit and think about you took yourself out of it. Preparation is so important, but you got to do it, you got to take that leap. And it's something that I'm really proud of is that I can look back across this last eight or 10 years, in particular, 20 years, and say, I'm not left wondering, you know, to go through what I've been able to do with exiting a company with some brilliant people who are still very good friends, to then moving to a part of the world, which I had no idea about. building a company, acquiring a company, listing a company publicly on the opposite side of the world, selling that company, and now having the trust by a lot of people to hold my position as CEO of AHI, you don't go through that process without fucking up.

1:06:22And you don't go through that without asking for favors, but you don't go through that by wondering. You got to do it. Yeah, it's as, I mean, obviously, but it's almost as simple as that is you think about even starting a podcast. Like you just say, oh, I could do this or that. I'm not really sure. Or you just freaking invite someone and you start to talk and you put it online. Yeah. And then you continue and you continue and you continue. And after actually not too much for a long time, I mean, after a short time or just, let's say a few years, like you look back and you're like, it's crazy. like if I just didn't start like how everything happened.

1:07:02I mean, happened. Obviously nothing happens alone, but it's very underrated. Actually, most people are always talking. Ah, what do you think about my business idea? I should do that. I think I'm going to start this. Start. Yeah. Like just start like, oh, I'm going to do this online business. Okay. What do you want to sell? I don't know. Some hats. Just go buy 10 hats and try to sell them to your friends first without an online shop. Like just do it like very small. Just try. and then you'll see like you get excited because if you can sell one maybe you can sell two you can sell 20 maybe you can sell 100 yeah and it's just this thing where most people just stay stuck at this wandering or kind of this dream but like if you actually start and go for it like it might just happen and and you've you've got to do it it's about it's about movement it's about conviction and it's about commitment to it.

1:07:55Now there's times where that means withdrawal. It means out. It means I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to back myself to extract myself from this scenario or situation, but you've got to do it. If you just go with the tide, you'll end up where everyone else is going. And that doesn't excite me. And I think that some of the lessons, and it's not always easy. In fact, it's usually harder, but you've got to do it. You've got to back yourself and you've got to go recognize the signals if it's the wrong street and you've got to reverse and then find another one but without doing that you just never know and no one on their deathbed will say oh i shouldn't have done that um around something that they the biggest regrets i think you said right at the start there's a way that you put it far more elegantly in your accent but was regrets over remorse remorse yeah yeah yeah yeah so there's a lot of remorse or regret i mean one basically you i think remorse is not i think remorse is when you've done something but it didn't go well so you're like oh fuck I shouldn't have done it whereas the other one is when you never did it and you will never know yeah actually you better you better do things and fuck up than just not do them and wonder all your life what could have happened 100 % now there's a nice way of putting that I just haven't got it I need your accent you have a nice accent too you talked about how important your friends are before you have many friends yeah that's not very common actually what's what's your definition of like a friend i can go into most parts of the world and call someone up and have dinner with them i can call people if i've got something on my mind that i want to talk about and it's not just a two or three people i've got i do yeah i have lots of friends do you have a mix of different friends or do you have more like well i haven't cloned them if that's what you're asking that's not the same person cloned over and over number it for me not yet that's maybe was something that might happen in the future um in the metaverse or no so my question is more i mean we met here in i think it was in mandala with a bunch of common friends or acquaintances that are fairly or very successful do you also have some friends who are kind of more normal yeah less so in singapore because i think that there's a self selection process to get here in the first place.

1:10:24You know, I've got, unfortunately, I've got friends that have been dear friends and I've lost touch with, but that have on all the way through the spectrum from homeless living on the streets all the way to what we find here in Singapore. And, you know, good friends from, you know, vocation perspective pretty much across the gamut, different ages as well. I've got some very old friends. I've got some very young friends. So I think that there's a, you know, one of my tonics is that I just love being around people a lot of the time. And I'm lucky because my work takes me to some pretty cool places and I get to meet very interesting people.

1:11:04And, you know, I like to hold on to those. A guy here, actually, Gibbo once said, a network is no burden to carry. And so, you know, as long as you're good to it, and that's about being a citizen to that network as well, not just take, take, take. You've got to support that. Yep. um it's a it's a great thing to not go shit i've got no one to call that's something that a lot of people need to hear actually because a lot of people are takers you just take take take and you don't understand that actually so much so that if you go and you just do something and they're always wondering like what is this person wanting like just no just take this take this take this because i know like if i give you karma or whatever energy like he's gonna give something back to me hopefully one day creating it here this is this is amazing what you what you're doing it's very cool actually yeah yeah yeah so actually podcasting is absolutely amazing for friendship and this kind of net is amazing and i knew it already before but the more i do it the more i'm like it's absolutely amazing that kind of like connections like actual real connection that you can make out of that is crazy.

1:12:15Some men say that they can only be friends with other, let's say men in this example, who can help them make money. What do you think about that? Who are your mates? That's bullshit. I think the same, but like there is some people who just say, if you're not going to be in my life to bring me something where you actually can help me make money in one or another, I don't have time for you because as you said before time is very limited and I need to choose as an adult because I have so many things to do work at some point you have a family you have kids you have your sport like like you actually have not that much time for your friends so like they say I want to be friends only with people who can help me make money and you're saying it's bullshit well look that just would not be a friend of mine yeah you know that's good and I think the yeah there's there's an element and i do there's a theme of luck there's also good management around a lot of things as well if you let shit into your life then you're around shit and um no one's ever going to get it perfect but if you live by some pretty pretty good principles most of the time then most of the time you're going to enjoy where you are um so by luck by luck and by management i have a lot of people that i know i have a lot of those people that i know that i can call friends and i have very few that, well, I think anyway, because you never know until you really know, are very few that I think would be attaching to me to make the money because it's just, it's not my jam.

1:13:48What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? This one I can answer. Yes! We got one. So my old man, dad, he said, whatever you do, just make sure that wherever you are in the world, you can walk into a bar and hold your head high. Okay, awesome. And I love the analogy because it's so functional and so factual. It doesn't mean that you have to go out and invent a rocket to take you to the moon the quickest. Elon's trying to do that. It doesn't mean you have to be a billionaire or gazillionaire. It's so true in all situations. And it's cross-cultural, it's cross-time, but you don't want to walk in and have to duck because, shit, I screwed over that guy or I was an asshole to that woman.

1:14:32You don't want that at all. and it's something that I've lived by for a long, long time. It's kind of the same as I want to be able to sleep at night. Yeah. Like whatever I do, same principle. But I prefer this one actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember the… Well, and there's probably people that will disagree with me because you've got to break your estimate omelette sometimes. But I think as a rule or a theme, then that's definitely one that stuck with me for a long, long time now. What's something that you believe in that most people would not agree with? oh here's one that i can't explain very well um but memory is a collect so every cell in your body has all of your memory okay the more cells that you put together the more detailed that memory gets and so what is apparently known and some of your listeners might actually know better because they're more currently read but there's no part of your brain that if you cut out you lose all memory.

1:15:33There's aspects that contribute to it. So think of it like a hologram. The more cells you put together or the more particles you put together, the richer that hologram is and therefore memory. And a lot of people think that, so I give the analogy that memory is a hologram and people don't believe me on that. So that's the one that comes to mind. What else do people not believe me on? ah that New Zealand has a summer that's from my wife apparently it gets cold there a lot of the year but Wellington one of the greatest cities to be in for at least five days a year when the sun's shining otherwise you just say like move to Singapore and see what having summer all year looks like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it's bucketing outside at the moment if there was a key takeaway from today what would it be

1:16:29it would be to find your biggest fuck up and bring it so I could give you an answer. Because that's the bit that I'm going to walk away with here, most ashamed that I don't have one for you. Look, this is an amazing environment. I think if everyone could see or hear this room and what you put together, it's phenomenal. It's just a start. It's just a start. It's an impressive start, mate. I think that's it. Shooting from the hip, I love it. you know um there's always a bit of apprehension with a with a mic in your grill um but i think uh probably my biggest takeaway here is um i'd love to come back amazing because i love what you're doing amazing wow also if you have some people like who you think would potentially like to come here we'll definitely can talk about that because like we're always looking for like bright minds and people who are doing amazing things to talk no i thought i really do think that this amplification of experience of ideas of conflict you know um and and challenging um is brilliant the world needs way more of it because we don't get it from formal education we've got to find it elsewhere and without people like you doing what you're doing um where does it come from then most of the things online are also as you said before instant gratification therefore people I want instant hacks and solutions to every problem, but that's not how it works.

1:17:57So what we're trying to do here is like going into the real, like the mind of the people and understanding, like especially people who are really successful or who are doing really cool thing. We do a lot of also biohacking, functional medicine, everything. Entrepreneurship, crypto, investing. And so the key thing is really trying to bring a mindset of like, And when you say, I think, when you say, oh man, like it's kind of boring what I'm saying. Boring is good because boring is what works. Discipline, repetition, compounding, all the same thing over and over again. That's what works. That's what people don't want because they want the overnight success.

1:18:39The eight days overnight success, not the eight years overnight success. And all that stuff. Like it's something that is so important. And that's why I think also most people will kind of never make it. And even especially in this generation, our generation, even like younger ones, you're used to this Snapchat, TikTok. These videos are 10, 20 seconds. Actually, this podcast, we do videos that are 30 to 60 seconds because we know that's what people consume today. But that's not how they're going to learn the real shit. Like they need to listen to this one hour and 27 minute podcast to understand.

1:19:14So yeah. You watch this year because the last eight or nine months of, you know, spoken about my personal journey going through into Welltech being acquired late last year. And now into a byproduct of that acquisition and another one from earlier in that year by this company has put together a phenomenal group of people, small group of people, but holy shit, are they talented. Now, when you get that talent in coordination, in harmony, you can build great things. And mark my words, what's the date today? 23rd. 23rd May. 23rd of May. Six months time. Have a look at the company again and just come back to this day because what we are doing and what we are bringing to the world is a change.

1:19:59It's not a step change. It's not an incremental adjustment. It is a game change in the way that people can access biometric insights. And that thing there means that we're absolutely all passionate and driven about what we're trying to achieve. and it's very simple. It's very simple. Can we get biometric information non-invasively, contactlessly, anywhere, anytime using a mobile phone? The answer is yes and we're proving that to the world at the moment. Now, put that together with wicked smart minds. You have a hell of a laugh doing it. You work your ass off and you celebrate like shit when it happens because it's going to happen.

1:20:36So in six month time, you come back here and we celebrate on this table, shirts off. Cameras off. Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this, Scott. Where can people learn about you and even follow you or connect with you? So all of the, probably the usual professional angles and methods. So LinkedIn, our company website is ahi.tech, nice and simple. I'm not a big Instagram or Twitter user, so via LinkedIn. Otherwise, give you a call, Kevin, and you can put us in touch. Amazing. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much for having me. And guys, if you've endured this whole audition, then I appreciate your time thinking about the history.

1:21:21Amazing. Thank you. Love it, mate. Thank you.