It’s time to Adult again!

It has come to the time that I need to start to become an Adult again. Well it has been a month since I have finished my last assignment and closing my University degree which I started 3 years ago. It really hasn’t hit me that I was able to finish it within the 3 years since I set my goal to study. As a major bucket list item, I spent a lot of mental energy in getting it done through the past few years. During my travels I have managed to complete it whilst at the same time living the Uber experience as a driver. I have spent the past few weeks unfocused on many things.

https://unsplash.com/s/photos/graduation

During 2020, I spent a lot of mental energy on focused on the small things and like everyone, just tried to get through every single day as best I could. In reality, this has been my life the past 10 years, so in many ways it has been not much difference in that respect. Every day my energy  is spent on getting through another day. For 10 years I have fought so hard to get through every day and build my life from scratch again. Throughout all of this, I have seen my kids grow up to be young men. I am very proud of them and I have a sense of optimism for them, despite everything that has gone on.

Looking back at the back end of the year, the second major lockdown of Melbourne really took it out of me. My last couple of subjects took some doing as I struggled to focus on the assignments and keep up with the required tasks. Somehow I got through it and I will now graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Digital and Social Media  from Curtin University. What a mind blast! It still hasn’t hit home yet. Once I attend the ceremony and walk on the stage to get that piece of paper, it will only become real then. It is of course easier for me to get the document delivered to me, but I want the whole Shebang graduation experience. With Co-Vid and all things that are surrounding it there are no defined dates for this to happen soon. There is also the logistical hurdle being in Melbourne and getting to Perth to attend it. I have however registered for my graduation to happen in Singapore as they have a campus there, so this suits me fine. Of course, the date is yet to be confirmed also.  I have waited 30 years for this, and I will do it in style.

https://pixabay.com/photos/legs-street-alone-challenge-loner-1031653/

What some people don’t realise is that my wife actually lives in Singapore, and we have not been together since early March when I surprised her for her birthday with a quick visit. I got back as the world was crashing around us and Australia went into lockdown after the Formula 1 Grand Prix.  It sure hasn’t been easy on both of us.  I have survived daily by not focusing too much on it for too long and now I have finished my studying, I have had some extra time to reflect on the situation. She has endured so much through the year being isolated from me and her family in Indonesia. I have my kids here so to a certain extent; and this has helped me get through it so far, but I feel guilty for still being here in Australia whist she is there on her own.  

There is a constant feeling of fear in my mind and I haven’t quite pinpointed the reason for it. Maybe it is a combination of many things. I am not so much scared for my kids as I am of what lays ahead for me in the future. I have been living through a sense of failure now for nearly a decade now. So much so that surviving each day was no different to any other day since I went through my divorce.

I have had so much to do with my kids and no matter how I look at it, I have had this sense of fear that I have failed them. Every time I dwell on it, it upsets me. I know this is not the case, but my failings are my own and this impacts on my point of view. This Christmas has been a tough one as I am normally with my wife travelling in Australia or elsewhere. I have spent a lot of time just being with myself and trying to chill. I have also been driving more on the roads again as the city has come out of lockdown. This has kept me busy and things are nearly back to normal on that front, but I am finding it more fatiguing than I remembered it to be. My future however does belong  in the digital space.  My instinct and intuition are that I will continue with this blog and podcast as I move forward. I also have been working on an e-commerce project the past 6 months and am working through the testing and soft launch phase of this. I haven’t spent as much time on this as I should have in recent weeks, but I am guided by my energy levels at the moment. Part of the getting back on the horse is writing this blogpost and getting the momentum back in my goals for the next 12 months.

E-Commerce – Its a thing. Are you in or out?
https://barssupplements.com/

So here I am. I still have lots to share and write about, but it is a start. I have some podcast episodes to launch in the coming week or so and I need to get the feelers out on the job market (maybe). The cynical me is thinking about who would want to hire a 51-year-old graduate. I am now at the point where my previous work experience maybe doesn’t get me in the door to similar roles. Having said that, I don’t actually want to do the roles I used to do. It defeats the purpose of doing my degree and forging a career in the digital world. My instincts continue to tell me that this is my path and I need to make sure I continue down it. There is a business side and a creative side of me that is ready to show to the world and it is time to come in from the long run.

Stay tuned world – Live Work Digital

Luki

Episode 5 – Trish Martin [Digital Marketing Guru]

In this week’s instalment of Live Work Digital Podcast we are chatting to Trish Martin from Chromatical. She is a Marketing Guru. Trish is a a colourful, vintage clothed, bright and bubbly soul that knows all about digital marketing.

Her vast experience in the marketing world should render her about 85 years old but she is so young and is just about to expect her first child!

I (Lisa) approached Trish to jump on our podcast for a number of reasons:

1. She knows her digital marketing shiz and us business owners/entrepreneurs/digital nomads NEED to know how to market to our vast audience.
2. I am in her Chromatical Club (listen for details) and have experienced first hand the value and knowledge she gives to us members. The ideas can be so small and so big that they will launch your business into the stratosphere.
3. I think she is a top lady and genuinely wants to help people.

I don’t know about you, but I’m baffled by social media marketing. Like, why does it matter if I have a nice Instagram feed? Why do some businesses post a lot and some not at all? How often is TOO often to post? What should I even post about?

SO MANY QUESTIONS

Trish covers all of these questions AND MORE in the podcast.

So get your fave cup of tea/coffee or wine (hello!) and get that pen and paper handy! You are going to want to write her tips and tricks down.

LISTEN NOW!

Don’t forget to jump on Trish’s social here and get ready to smile because her feed is a DELIGHT!

Trish Martin, Digital Marketing Guru

Let us know what you learned from the podcast!

Enjoy,

Lisa Sparkle 🙂

Special Episode [The Story So Far]

Hi all! Yes we are only a few episodes into this journey and we are doing a special edition episode?

It’s ok, we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves. We are doing this for a few reasons:

• We thought it would be fun to share how much we are having with it and also showing you the warmth and the openness that our interviewees have been. They are all very kind with their time and have so much passion with what they are doing or creating around them.
• Secondly, we wanted to enter the Rode Cast Podcast Competition.  We can win some really cool equipment! In the process we wanted to do a mashup anyway so people can see the fun we are having with it. We also wanted to see that we are just ordinary people doing something pretty fun, mistakes and all.
• Thirdly, did I mention the competition?
• Lastly, as part of our evolution of learning new skills, putting it together and editing the content so it would flow was invaluable.  A sprinkle of everyones voice, leave in some umms and aaahs and add in some extra cringe worthy laughing clips in between the bits takes some doing.

The competition is due to close and up to this point we were about to drop Episode 4. We snuck this one in so we can get the episode locked in and submitted.

With everything going on, we currently have a bit of a backlog, but thats ok as we are fitting it all in around our normal day to day. At this moment in time there are currently 2 more episodes  to edit and write blog posts for.

We also have more people already locked in for interviews. I think we have got a pretty broad cross section of people for our whole season so far. The thing that has been  the constant for everyone is that they all had to navigate their way through the recent epidemic. No matter what industry they are in, it has been affected and they have had to shape their way through it and out of it.

Going through the  raw recordings also jogged the memory banks as to the things we learnt and even showed how we have progressed n the short time we have been doing this. A little more refined each time and the quality of the questions also are bringing some good responses and conversations.

Some of you may ask also who the dog is on our promo pic! Well since Toulouse, our CEO is a little media shy, we have used a Stunt Double for all our associated Memes, Instagram posts and story’s. If you have noticed, we also have used some of his four legged fan pups through our brand building evolution as well. We share the love with pictures of all sorts of dogs. Well mainly Frenchies as he is our CEO after all. Plus he is our boss. (Hmmm maybe we need a profile page for him?)

Anyway, slightly off topic I know, but as we said, we are sharing everything we are doing along the way.   Seriously, the podcast thing is just a cool thing to do. When I originally suggested we do one with Lisa she didn’t hesitate and said yeah that could be awesome. From there, we just kept on going with it. This Special Episode  is indeed a really happy and fun episode to showcase our journey to date.

Live Work Digital to you all. Til next time…….Peace!

Luki & Lisa

Living the Zeitgeist Life.

What the heck is Zeitgeist you ask? The easiest explanation, according to Wikipedia, is that the word means “The spirit of the age.”  This age is the age of opportunity and experiences. It is a world of connectivity where anyone is able to share and contribute in the life of others. Through my journey, I want to  show people that no matter what your situation, the journey is about the many new experiences that are encountered when you open new doors. This is the Zeitgeist life. How is it I ended up making a podcast together with a complete stranger?

The past decade of my life has been a never-ending journey of self-discovery and persistence. After going through divorce and separation, I found myself also being out of work within a short space of time. After some soul searching I somehow found the energy to swing into action. I needed to find some options, and quickly.

As circumstance would have it, this all  happened around the  same time that Uber started to operate in Melbourne. The year was 2013 and the company was constantly in the news for its illegal status as a new way for people to get about around town. It was described as another option instead of using taxis.  At this time Uber had been around for six months  so the battle was already in full swing for a number of months. The Taxi industry was reeling from the Victorian Government’s decision to deregulate the way it distributed its licenses to new operators.

For the most part I was oblivious to all of the implications that arose through this new ridesharing industry. I only understood part of what was going on and I was only  interested in the ability to find an income quickly . This was the opportunity for me to get on my feet again. Looking back, according to the ABC online news, the new ride share industry didn’t officially come into being until the legislation was passed in early 2016. It meant that my first stint as an Uber driver was operating  illegally.

I remember vividly how it all started and my circumstances at that time. My previous job required a car which I  had leased, so I still had it at my disposal. It was relatively new as I only had it for a couple of years at that point. After  I did a bit of research on the company, I enquired online, and I quickly  booked myself  in for a meeting to get set up .

I  did my orientation on a Thursday afternoon in a seedy brick  building on Inkerman street, St Kilda which took about 45 minutes. I had a 5-minute interview, watched some  training videos and I did my test on paper with a grey lead pencil. I was the only one that actually turned up for that particular orientation session. After I handed in my test, a guy gave me an iPhone to use and he walked me around my car with his clipboard. Within 5 minutes he ticks me off as being approved. My life in the new gig economy had started.

Little did I know at the time, this was the beginning of a quiet revolution. The Taxi industry had a monopoly in the hire car industry, and I quickly realised how big an impact Uber was on that industry. In a previous work life, I was a bookkeeper. One of my clients bought and sold Taxi licenses as part of their business. Some licenses at its peak could demand up to $1m.  It was big business. At the time there were many people whose plight was written about on the front page of the Herald Sun and other local newspapers. All of their stories were all similar in that they were all about to lose their life savings.

Many people put their money into Taxi licenses as part of their Superannuation strategy.  I started to get it. I slowly understood why Uber was so hated by all the Taxi drivers. There seemed to be a lot of angst on the roads as I encountered areas where I picked up people next to the city Taxi ranks.  As much as I understood how they felt, I didn’t feel it was anything to do with me. Here is why.

• Firstly Uber served its purpose because I needed  to stay afloat financially.  This gave me time to look for what I called a normal job. In my eyes, if the Taxi industry was doing its job efficiently and was cost effective for everyone, then there would be enough business for everyone.
• Secondly, the good cabbies would always be busy, and they should be able to survive and still make a good income.

I did eventually find myself some more permanent work and lived a normal working life for a time. Fast forward five years, and I found myself again behind the wheel as an Uber driver. Things had changed since the early days. It was easier for me get back online, however, there was one major hurdle. My actual car was probably a bit long in the tooth and at the time had 280,000km already on the odometer. I possible could have used it, but I would have needed to get it checked and then I would have had to rectify any issues, which potentially would have taken time and money to get on the road.

It wasn’t as easy as one guy with a clipboard walking around a car and ticking it off as being ok to use. Conveniently, I found a way to drive on the Uber platform again and as a bonus be driving  a brand-new vehicle was organised through a third-party  provider. Now people can actually rent cars to use for ride sharing purposes.

I have been a full time Uber drive now for two years and it has been a tough grind, but it has kept me afloat all that time. There are a couple of reasons why I still drive.

• It suits my life at the moment.
• I travel regularly
• I study
• I look after my three teenage kids at the same time.

I am often asked whether I make money from Uber. The answer is of course I do, otherwise there is no point to it. It hasn’t been easy though. Like anything, it is hard work. I generally work a six- and seven-day work week and because of this my health and fitness  has taken a hit.  The positive is that I am flexible for my kids and I can adjust my week accordingly. It’s not what I expected to be doing for my career as I hit my 50^th year on this earth, but I know this is what I needed to do to get to my plan B.

Its not rocket science and it’s not a hard job to do, but I tackle it like any other. I got better and better at it. I now know enough to understand the intricacies of the App and traffic patterns to keep busy even during the quiet days. However,  the best part of all of this is that it  gives me  the freedom of being flexible for my current lifestyle.  I also drive a new car every 8 weeks because renting a vehicle  gives me the option to changeover to a different one all the time.

There is so much noise that surrounds Uber that is more than just the company itself.  To me,  it’s just noise. I have never worried about the politics of the industry or whether Uber is good or bad for the economy.  What I do know is that It is good for me. It suits me and I use it as a means to an end. People are also able to use it as they please. It is convenient for everyone and anyone whether they are drivers or riders or even both. I do what I do for my family and this fact continues to drive me every day.

Being in the front seat is like being in the front seat of my own life, I own it and I drive it, and until the next destination, it is my life of convenience. It is the Zeitgeist life and here I am now on a podcast channel. Mind Blowing! More to come from my journey ahead.

Acknowledgements

Our ongoing goal is to use and develop our own material and content, however with the spirit of teaching and learning, on our journey to build this podcast project, we want to be transparent with our learnings and how we are evolving. We want to show that anyone can do what we are doing with a bit of research and and some motivation.

All images used for the purpose of the website have been obtained through services which provide royalty free images which are free to be used for any purpose including for commercial uses.

We would like to acknowledge these people for their talented work and give them credit for their art and images.

Any video images used for media  in our promotional content will have an acknowledgement  on our Live Work Digital YouTube Channel here. All clips are also using royalty free video.

 

Nathan Dumlao https://unsplash.com/photos/6VhPY27jdps

Cristian Dina white-smartphone-1851415.jpg

Jonathan Farber https://unsplash.com/photos/gjHmip_Lmg4

Pixabay Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

Bayu Jefri https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-people-by-the-seashore-1387037/

Jeremy Bishop https://unsplash.com/photos/_CFv3bntQlQ

Johnny Doomsday

Shawn Ang https://unsplash.com/photos/nmpW_WwwVSc

Toa Heftiba https://unsplash.com/photos/6bKpHAun4d8

Pexels https://images.pexels.com/photos/230544/pexels-photo-230544.jpeg

Retro Microphone by Jonny-Doomsday FreeVector.com

Full restaurant image [Toa Heftiba] 

Coffee Drinks [Nathan Dumlao]

Microphone [Jonathan Farber]

Silhouette of people jumping on the beach [Bayu Jefri]

Surfing the wave [Jeremy Bishop]

SEO tiles [Pixabay]

White Phone with Likes, Connections & Message bubble [Cristiano Dino] 

Restaurant with a couple of people [Shawn Ang]

Person buying something with phone [Pexels]

Anyone can do it!

This whole project has been developed to show people how to go about starting anything online. The internet is a vast and wonderful ocean full of information and it can be very overwhelming.  To be build this website, we used Google and  the collective knowledge of the both of us. However it is not as easy at it seams. Everywhere you go there are thousands of doors with just as much information behind them. It is easy for people to be disheartened because they don’t know where to start.

There is one key message we do would like to stress to everyone. One of the most important aspects of building an online presence is to ensure any copyright and intellectual property is protected. This is for the benefit of everyone. Never use anyone else’s work or information. Something that may seem harmless at the beginning, may end up putting you in a difficult position in the future.

One of our strategy’s was to ensure all the images and media we have used are all royalty free from a number of well known websites. [We used Unsplash, Pixabay & Pexels, but there are many others available for people to use].

There also many website free applications that can help build your website and brands with all of them having many templates available for the first time user. You can play around and  you can make as many mistakes as possible. The reason we used WordPress here was because I did just that a number of years ago. I played around and built some different things and my knowledge grew for there.

Lisa and I did our research and we even found anchor.fm for the podcast platform. It was easy to open an account with them and they have there own teaching episodes on their podcast channel.  There is plenty of information to get answers for when we got stuck with things,. Everything is free and all we needed was a profile and an app on the phone. No fancy equipment required! We just made it happen. The App was also easy to use and navigate through.

As much as we have used royalty free images in the spirit of sharing and collaborating online, our next blog post will acknowledge some of the freelancer images and videos we have used to create media for our use to build our brand for the podcast.

We also have licensed our website and content through here. More on this kind of licensing is going to be covered at a later blog post.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

So if you are stuck, or you don’t know where to start, drop us a line and make contact with us and maybe we can point you in the right direction. GO FOR IT!

Live Work Digital……….Peace & Love

Luki & Lisa