Season 2 Episode 1 – Sheryl Worthington [Healthy Ageing Advocate]

Hi everyone.  Welcome to our first guest for season 2.   On our latest Podcast I talked to Sheryl Worthington, a Senior Laboratory Scientist from Auckland New Zealand.

She is  a Healthy Ageing Advocate and a business mentor in a wellness company. From early on in her life she lived life like any normal adult. Along her journey she realised that her body wasn’t keeping up with her activities in life.

She was relatively fit and healthy, but found her body had more creaks and groans she thought she should have at her age.

She shares with us a little bit about her background and some reasons why she sought a path in natural medicine to help her body age as gracefully as possible. This was more evident as she is now a mum with young kids. She became a mother later in life, so she understood that her body needed a bit more care and nurturing. She wanted the energy to enjoy being with her kids as they grew older. She also wanted to continue to be the fittest that she could be for as long as can be.

Nutrigenomics

Along the way she searched for anything that would align herself with her holistic approach. Her search for solutions led her  to using essential oils and nutrigenomics. Sheryl has always had a background in science. She believes in natural health solutions that can be evidenced by results.Her journey was like everyone else’s. In her 20’s she played hard and was not very kind to her body. She exercised and partied like everyone else but realised that her body was not keeping up with her activities. She realised that to maintain her body in reasonable condition, she had to look at a more holistic approach to health.

It was a couple of years ago that she was approached by a colleague of hers to check out a product that she had come across.  A week later, after doing her research, she went back to him and was happy to give them a go. Two and a half years later, she is still using the same products and can see herself never being without them.

LifeVantage

What makes the supplements Sheryl uses different than others. With health and immunity being in the focus of the world in recent years during  the pandemic many people are searching for natural solutions.  Never before has our bodies and our health has been under so much pressure. With the world’s food supply also under threat, finding the right supplementation for our bodies has become an important part of life. There is a reason that the supplementation industry worldwide is now worth around $220 billion in revenue.

There are millions of supplements available around the world and much of them are under constant scrutiny from naysayers, regulators and health practitioners etc. Of course, they all say that their products are based on science. The  products she uses are based on a relatively new field of science called nutrigenomics. This concept is based on how foods have the ability to impact on our genes at a cellular level.

Photo by Taryn Elliott

The products are totally sourced from natural ingredients and formulated with the right quantities to get the desired results. The uniqueness of these products however are backed by medical research and also backed by scientific results. The research results are also peer reviewed on various independent medical journals. This is the reason why Sheryl knew she was on a good thing.

In her words, she says that “these supplements aren’t adding something to the body that enhances energy or performance, but it assist in the body at a cellular level to create its own natural immunity and energy.”

Moving along her health journey,  she started to share the product and her knowledge to others. She enjoys sharing her story with others and it has become a passion for her to help others to also become healthier.  As a self-proclaimed introvert, Sheryl began her journey into entrepreneurship knowing nothing about the business model. You see, the products are available only by word of mouth. The business model that she works with is based entirely online and by just using the products for herself she was able to tap into a whole network of mentors and positive people who are working together for the one goal.

Her company helped her set up an online e-commerce portal and she is now  mentoring others to build their businesses. Previous to this, she has had never been involved with business before in her life. Now, she is a bona fide small business owner and her company is continuing to help her  grow and become a leader in the industry.  She is now building a sustainable e-commerce business that will eventually grow exponentially. All the while doing it part time whilst she is working in the medical science field.

Sheryl knows and understands that in business, she will get knocked down constantly. Her health journey is testament to her determination to share what she has with as many people as possible. She is an example of the products working and she believes in what the company is trying to achieve. This is why she continues to connect with like-minded people that have an interest in health and wellness. This is how we connected on LinkedIn.

Thank you very much  Sheryl for sharing your story with us.  I like the fact that you did not hesitate to try the product once you knew it was all about the science.

I look forward to watching her grow and develop her business further as she ages gracefully with her husband and her kids in the future. Hopefully we can touch base later in about 12 months’ time to get an update on your journey.

Until next time. Live Work Digital..

Luki…………Ciao.

Episode 11 – Kathryn Morland [Adventure Racer]

Today we are chatting with Adventure Racer, Kathryn Morland, who competed in the recent World’s Toughest Race which was featured on Amazon Prime video.

Worlds Toughest Race Trailer

I met Kathryn through the local running group. I have the watched her journey from being a local runner and then watched her move through to orienteering, mountain biking and then adventure racing.

She found her love for adventure and the outdoors by accident and then continued to push the boundaries of what her mind and body could do.

Team Kathryn

By day she runs her Town Planning business and in her free time, she focuses on anything to do with the outdoors. After I found out that she was doing the race, I waited intently to watch it on Amazon.

The race itself was based in Fiji and it is a 670km plus event where 50 odd teams of 4 race against each other against the clock.  There is open water paddling, stand up paddle boarding, mountain bikes, thunderstorms, cliffs,  waterfalls and plenty of mud. Throw that in the mix with checkpoints to reach, time deadlines to meet and then getting along with your teammates and you get a recipe for a TV show.

The Mexicans & The Aussie

Kathryn shares her experiences on how she got to be a competitor in the race. She also shares with me some intimate details of where she has come from. She touches on some of her past and how far she has come. Very few people would know her story and more of this information can be unpacked, but the message is a positive one. She is one amazing lady. She is testament to the fact  that when you set your mind to something that is worthwhile, it can be done.  She has had many challenges in her life and at different points in it, the end result could well have been very different.

Her message is one of hope and positivity. She made a decision to change her life and started off with small steps. This is her message. Change doesn’t need to be big. It just needs a decision and then the small steps that come from it will create the change. Once small steps have been achieved these leads to bigger ones.

We love her story and we love the way she leads her life. Now what does all this have to do with living a digital life you may ask? Well, the reason the show exists is because it is a streaming series on Amazon.

And the reason I knew Kathryn was competing was because of social media

And now, she gets to share her story on a Podcast.

Until Episode 12,  Live Work Digital….Peace.

Luki

Life Updates

A few weeks ago, Lisa and I touched base to record our latest podcast episode. It had been a long time between drinks so really it was just to catch up and also see what we both have been doing since we initially started the Podcast that is Live Work Digital.

Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

Obviously we haven’t posted much in recent times but there is actually also 2 episodes that were done last year that remain unpublished. They will be launching shortly.

We could have easily shut everything down, but I had always had the feeling that the podcast had to keep going. I felt that it would help us both in the longer term. It was just a gut feel because we put in a lot of effort to get it started and it would have been a shame to let the knowledge go by the wayside.

Lets face it, the last 12 months has been an interesting one for everyone. For me, it was being apart from my wife who is a Permanent Resident in Singapore. From the very start, we were in a long distance relationship and we both just travelled back and forth the whole time. With having kids from a previous marriage and the fact that I was finishing my University Degree in Digital and Social Media, this was the path we were destined to follow. Like everyone else in most parts of the world, we just had to do what we could to get through and remain as positive as we could. So, now I start my new journey in Singapore and looking forward to opening more doors, whilst I build my brand and doing a little more studying. (TESOL – Teaching English as a Second Language).

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

For Lisa, her e-Learning business was going from strength to strength. She had plenty of learnings along the way as all small business owners do. More on this on our podcast but her business was gaining momentum and she knew she had to make changes to take it to the next level. Currently she is in the process of rebranding but she also has changed the structure of her business. Along the way, she also consulted for a large Queensland based corporation. This was where she had an ‘AHA’ moment. She realised that she was not built to work for anyone else again! She was a busy girl indeed but she knew this fact. So much so that she was not able to start her last University Subject to graduate. She is about to finish that shortly now that she has a bit more time up her sleeve.

Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash

More insight into both our journey’s will be on our upcoming podcast but what is evident is that both our paths are clearly involved in working and living in the digital environment. We will therefore continue to spruik the Live Work Digital message. Of course, it isn’t for everyone, but what is evident now is that the workplace environment in most industries has changed forever. Whether we like it or not, most of us cannot avoid this fact.

Until next time, Live Work Digital.

Luki

TikTok – Is it Safe?

Live Work Digital
Live Work Digital – The Podcast

TikTok is currently one of the most downloaded Apps in the world. It currently has around a billion monthly active users. So, what is it?  In short, it is a platform where people can upload short form video content. It is a little like YouTube, but  the videos only go for 60 seconds. In recent times, the company has been under the spotlight because of its links to China. So much so that the US Government is looking to ban the company from operating in America. So, what are the issues with it? Why is there so much fear surrounding the company if it is so popular around the world? The platform is already banned in India, Bangladesh and Malaysia and there is increasing concern that it also provides a security risk in Australia. Why is there so much concern about this particular social media platform which is not only predominantly used by teenagers but also growing in the older demographics.

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

The company is owned by a Chinese group called Bytedance who launched in China in 2012. By 2017, it took over a relatively small company called Musicly which had slowly been growing in the US market since it began in 2014. Here lies the main reason causing concern for the US Government. Essentially, Musicly was not on the radar in the US until Bytedance took it over. The company merged under the TikTok name and the popularity of the platform skyrocketed.

Suddenly this brought the company into  the focus of the US Government regulators. From this point, people started to realise the significance of its reach. The  company had  a social media  presence in the US, with 180 million users on it  worldwide. People started to ask questions on how it all happened. How was the company able to operate in the country without any oversite or approval? The answer to this question is simple. They didn’t ask. They must have gone  through the appropriate legal process, but it seemed that, because no one was looking, they went and did it anyway.

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

The difference between TikTok and the others is that this platform uses information that is garnered through peoples interests and choices rather than just socially connected links. What this means is that the intelligence behind the platform, remembers places, locations, type of content watched and so on and so forth. This builds a story and a picture of the person’s life and it starts immediately after the App has been downloaded and the profile is set up. With the content being short, a lot of information can be harvested quickly as people watch more and more video clips.

So how can a social media platform be a security risk? How can we let platforms control so much of our data? The answer to this is that we allow it. When someone signs on, not only do they enter in all their relevant requested details, but they also  click yes to the terms and conditions of using the platform. This opens the door for the data to be collected.

Bytedance,  the company, continuously argues that all personal information is safe and that it is not given to the Chinese Government. They point out that their servers are stored in the US and in Singapore. Interestingly enough however, deep in the TikTok website,  there is a note that says information can be potentially be shared with Bytedance and any of its affiliates.  Of course, because all users of the App have already agreed on the Terms and Conditions of the platform, it leaves the door open.

The question we ask ourselves in Australia is whether we also should be looking to ban the platform. As from February 2020 there were 1.6 million Australians who were already using it. The mood seems to be a very cautious approach by the federal government with Scott Morrison flagging that there is “no reason” currently to look at banning TikTok. He does acknowledge that there is risk for personal data to be sent to Beijing and “Australians need to be very aware” of such platforms.

Source: Hootsuite/We Are Social

However, there are some very serious concerns that are being raised by cyber security experts in Australia who warn of the dangers of not being vigilant with personal information online. They warn that the difference between this and other social media platforms is that there are no guarantees that the information isn’t being spied on by the Chinese state. TikTok continues to spruik how safe their App is and at the same time has set up offices in Sydney . It looks like they’re here for the long haul. So, for the moment, we will watch this space. Maybe we may even dance a bit along the way.

Will you download TikTok?

Information Links

Tik Tok and Law Primer https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-need-explain-things-your-teenager

Concerns over Chinese access to personal data gathered through TikTok. https://youtu.be/CAUIaC7hDpQ

TikTok Statistics https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/

What’s going on with TikTok https://www.businessinsider.com.au/whats-going-on-with-tiktok-censorship-privacy-2019-11?r=US&IR=T#:~:text=TikTok%20lets%20users%20easily%20share,that%20doesn’t%20appease%20China.

China’s Bytedance is buying Music.ly https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/09/chinas-toutiao-is-buying-musical-ly-in-a-deal-worth-800m-1b/

TikTok Revenue and Statistics https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/

TikTok Terms and Conditions https://www.tiktok.com/legal/terms-of-use?lang=en

The Australian governments concern about Tik Tok https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/the-australian-governments-concern-about-tiktok-is-not-just-about-data-ethics-its-about-politics

Over 1.6 million Australians already using TikTok http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8289-launch-of-tiktok-in-australia-december-2019-202002240606#:~:text=Already%20over%201.6%20million%20Australians,known%20Instagram%2C%20Facebook%20and%20Pinterest.

Revealed:how TikTok censors videos that do not please Beijing. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing

What countries have banned Tiktok https://www.distractify.com/p/what-countries-have-banned-tiktok

Buyer beware…Of TikTok https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/buyer-beware-prime-minister-says-there-is-no-case-to-ban-tiktok-20200805-p55inl.html

Why this data expert says Tikok is not safe https://youtu.be/hZNHJNcO7BM

Episode 7 – Elliot Jaffe [Writer]

Hi all. Welcome to episode 7. For this episode we feature Elliot, a young University graduate who is finding his place in the world after graduating from his Bachelor of International Business Degree from the University of Auckland. On a chance conversation with a random rider in the car through lockdown, I met Chelsea. We got to talking and she mentioned her partner was working with blogs.  Through this connection, I connected with Elliot and this is how we ended up talking about his experiences in this new digital age and how he navigated to this point in his life.

After completing his degree in 2016, Elliot continued on and also completed his Masters with honours. The world was at his feet and it would seem that he had it all planned out. As many young people do in this age, he decided to take a bit of a break to travel. After a stint in England playing a bit of cricket and a detour to Japan, he decided to settle in and plan out what the next move to be.

The plan was not to necessarily move to Australia, but Chelsea managed to get a job at the Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and their destiny was set in motion. Elliot managed to get a couple of Sales roles and it would seem that this was to be his future path. Deep down however he knew that this was not the path he really wanted. In fact, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do with himself.

Like many others, when the country went into lockdown, he suddenly found that the work dried up and was suddenly out of work. He then made a decision that the sales area was not something he wanted to go into and accidentally fell into writing. 

He decided to develop a blog to document the stories of small business owners living through the pandemic. He wasn’t sure how to go about it in the beginning. He just did his research and made a start. He learnt how to build a website, utilise Zoom and then also taught himself how to touch type to transcribe the interviews he does.

He also didn’t have much of a network, but he just went to work contacting small business owners randomly to see if they wanted to get involved in his project. Some said no, but most were open to a conversation and he went on from there. His Sales experience started to kick in and he just went to work connecting, chatting and then interviewing. Check out his work with our very own Lisa Listama of the Live Work Digital fame!

Small Business World Blog

His story is one of positivity. His blog continues to grow  with the stories of hope and determination from business owners doing it tough. The message is clear,  local small businesses are struggling but they continue to fight and remain hopeful for the future.

He made a decision to follow another path and in the middle of it he found his passion. We love the fact that he is able to connect with random business owners who want to share their journeys.

What is clear is that no matter what stage of life or career you are at, the opportunity is there for anyone to be able to change course. Elliot is an amazing example for this generation of new leaders connecting and building relationships through this digital age we live in. There is still some uncertainty for the immediate future, but what is clear is that we can all find despair in these tough times, but we can also find hope and optimism as well.

We wish him well for his journey ahead.

From us, until next time….Auf Widersehen [Live, Work, Digital]

Episode 6 – Joel Curtis [Psychologist]

Meeting Joel a number of years ago, he was always someone who had a different outlook on business and psychology.He isn’t the stereotypical psychologist with the thin wire rimmed glasses and tweed jacket with the elbow patches who sits on a leather sofa with pad and paper in hand. Well, maybe thats just the visual stereo type I have in my head because I have been watching a lot of movies during lockdown?!

He has worked with high profile sports clubs and personalities in the past, but his passion is the promotion of general wellbeing as a whole. He wants  to get people out of the old mindset of “whatever happens, she’ll be right mate!” This attitude does not cut it in this day and age.

Being as cutting edge that I know Joel is, I wanted to touch base with him to see how he has been these past couple of years and to see whether his approach to business has changed in this new digital frontier. I wanted to see what he was doing differently living and working in the digital world.

As Lisa and I recorded our podcast with Joel, he himself had also recently released his own podcast based on having conversations with people of all walks of life driving around in his Datsun 180b. Yep that’s right, a Datsun…not the Kingswood!

Tune Up Podcast Logo-Joel Curtis
The Tune Up Podcast featuring Joel Curtis & Friends

His episodes can be found on his Endeavour Wellness website and on his Youtube channel. He takes out ordinary people for a drive in his Datsun and gives them an opportunity to share and chat about life in general. It is his way of getting people comfortable and talking. Nothing too deep of course, but enough for people to open up and share their experiences in life.

Indeed, this unique experience encourages people to talk about everything and nothing in particular (Next think you know, he will create his own Seinfeld episode!).

As much as Lisa and I are advocates of the opportunities working and living in the digital world, Joel gave us another perspective which gave us a light bulb moment.

He points out that people shouldn’t just change their whole careers because thats what everyone else is doing. Sometimes people need to look at this option to know that going digital may not actually be their path.

What he does say is that there is now a new “normal.” There are now many different options for people and for businesses to operate within industries that can adapt and change how their workforce operates.

There is now the opportunity for people to work from home, and maybe even have a mix where people do both throughout the week. Businesses now need to be flexible to provide an adaptable working environment. He does heed however that some caution will need to be noted. Joel points out some people actually do not fair well working in isolation where others thrive on it. In general, most people like to have the the connectivity of face to face interaction that a regular workplace provides and many people will continue to work in the traditional office workspace.

There will, indeed be many new issues that companies need to navigate through in this new frontier of the working world. The fact is, many businesses are already geared up for people to work from home, a situation created by the current pandemic lockdown. It is now also relatively easy for small business to be set up to do the same.

So, there you go folks. Like I said, Joel is no ordinary Psychologist. His perspective and approach to psychology is down to earth and his outlook on getting his message to the masses is a breath of fresh air. He is on personal mission to break down the stigma around mental health and is making inroads in achieving this goal.

The example of his podcast is somewhat unorthodox in the psychology world, but the world needs more people like him. I look forward to catching up with Joel and maybe even sitting with him in the future, in the 180b, doing blockies  in the Shire.

Joel and his Datsun

Until next time, adios amigos.

Luki & Lisa