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.

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #4]

Ok folks, it has taken a bit of time to update everyone with this post, “How not to make a podcast.” As we mentioned, this journey is all about learning and developing the concept as we go. With the actual subject completed at University that resulted in this project, Lisa and I are now focused on the next subject(s) of our respective degrees and our own personal lives.  It is now a balance to maintain and continue both the blog and the podcast. 

Lisa is going gangbusters with her E-Learning business so that is her priority. For me, I continue to drive as the country comes out of lockdown. It has become busier in some regards, but it is still a bit of treading water with Taxi drivers back on the road and more ride share drivers as well. Along with this, I am also working out my next move as I need to start thinking about what happens next after I complete the degree in November.

As much as we have slowed up a bit and reflect on our progress, it was also time to take stock of where to go with Live Work Digital.

These are the sort of things we are now assessing at this point of the journey:

• Should we upgrade our WordPress blog site from the free version?
• What is working with our Instagram?
• What is the impact of LinkedIn?
• Do we need to change our feel or branding? 
• Do we need to focus on branding at all?
• How do we promote our podcast further?
• Do we need to continue to reach out to people to get more content?

Currently we are about to launch our 5th episode and still have 2 more in the wings ready to be edited and already have another 2 or 3 potential as well which essentially covers our initial target of having a 10 episode season.

There is also the opportunity for Lisa and myself to use this platform also for our own businesses and opportunity by recording specific content that we could release. This is something that we have kept in mind throughout the journey.

As we move forward with our episodes, we will continue to find our brand and share our experiences. Our focus has been on ensuring the episodes continue on and we are organised with that area.

The purpose of the blog and the posts are to ensure that we are building our SEO presence and we continue to learn more about this area of digital marketing. Testing our presence through my personal browsers and the words Live Work and Digital, we seem to have a reasonable online presence,  especially when the search is on the words with no spaces. (liveworkdigital)

Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash

Our images that are tagged on social media appear regularly on searches. This is because we have made the effort to ensure our images are embedded with information through the Alt Text html coding sequence. (Which we learnt from Jason Borg, our SEO Guru)

Presumably the hashtags we use are also having an impact on search results. This is also another area which requires a bit of focus. We are continuing to play around with this aspect of SEO on Instagram and LinkedIn specifically. 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Also on search results for Live Work Digital, our videos on YouTube  appear. Yes, we have a Live Work Digital YouTube Channel. It’s not a big focus, but it is there. We thought that in the long term it will obviously build our ongoing presence. More to come on that one at a later date.

The whole SEO thing has got me thinking as I have been focused on the Key Words as a starting point. The question I ask myself currently is:

• Who would search for us?
• What questions would be put to Google that would lead people to us?
• What is the more important? The Blog or the Podcast?

As an extension on using Key Words in our blog posts (Which we do sparingly and try not to overdo it!) we want to focus on short statements at the beginning and at the end of the posts which relate to the Blog Post Heading. This is something I learnt on a podcast recently so hopefully this will add to our searchability. Which makes sense as these statements are potentially matching the questions that people potentially be entering on their Google Search for answers. For example, “How not to make a Podcast!”

We want our blog to be a portal of information to the concept of “Living and Working in the Digital World.”  We want to inspire people through our podcasts by listening too and having conversations with ordinary people that are living it and doing it. Maybe we can educate people along the way and encourage them to open doors.

Anyway, My next step is now to check out and analyse how our website ranks on Google and there are some free tools that we can use. I purposefully haven’t looked at these up until this point because I want to see what impact the website has based on the things we have done on the blog. (With no clear knowledge or direction apart from actioning some things that we have learnt along the way). There will of course be a whole blog topic on this area in the future.

It has got me thinking though as to how our domain name impacts on the whole thing. This is the domain name that we started with:

https://liveworkdigital.wordpress.com/

We then captured the domain liveworkdigital.com. At the moment, people can find us on here, but they will be directed to the WordPress domain name. We had to upgrade the site from the free version to the next level so that we were able to map the domain name to WordPress. 

Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

So I hope to update everyone next time on what impact this has on SEO rankings of the site.  I purchased the domain name from a separate provider not attached to WordPress. My guess is that we may need to transfer the name but who knows!

We are just making this whole thing up as we go along right?!

Then there is the question as to how we promote the Podcast! But you will all need to read the next blog post to find out our progress there. As you follow and watch us, you will inevitably see the subtle changes in what we are creating.

Until next time,

Live Work Digital……..Luki

 

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #2]

Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

Ok, so we are now on a bit of a role and we will soon be dropping Episode 3 of our little Podcast Channel. It has been fun so far and we are in the process of doing more interviews. As I write this, we did our first Zoom interview with a dynamic chap who is originally from Albany, but is now residing in Bali, following his heart and his passion. His story will resonate with a lot people.

The thing is, now what? What do we do with this thing? Our plan is to build a 10 episode season with 10 people and then we do a summary of the things we have learnt so we can share the main points to everyone. By this stage, we will have enough to develop an e-book or a training course, but we shall have to see how we feel when we get there. The other point is, neither Lisa or I have been interviewed as well! The plan is to do a special interview Bonus Episode as a bookend at the end of the first season. I suspect, we both have more of a story to tell  when we get a chance to ask each other some hard hitting questions.

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

Eventually we  need to start setting some goals about what we want to achieve out of this thing, What do we want our Instagram account to achieve? Do we just want to gain as many followers as possible and as quickly as possible? Where does LinkedIn sit in with all of this? Are we in a hurry? Not particularly. We want to be able to research and build on our knowledge base and then share what we did. We can then see whether the strategies we are using are working. We can also see what is not working.

Our journey seems to be continuing because we both want to see where this takes us. We both agreed today after discussing our recent interview recording that if we both had wanted to try this podcast thing out separately, then it wouldn’t have gotten this far. There is no expectation for either of us to push each other to get done. There seems to be a natural flow about how we work together on this little podcast thing.

The beauty of our partnership, is that we both are on the same page on most things we have done up to this point. We will keep things fluid and by the time our first season is completed, I am sure we will have figured it out to some point. There is no pressure for Lisa to add content on the blog even. I am enjoying the sharing and the writing and learning a bit more about myself along the way.

So, where too from here? It is well and good that we are creating these episodes, but there is no point if only a few people listen to it. The key for us is to keep things steady and pointed in the right direction. We are also being mindful that it doesn’t put too much stress and pressure on our normal weekly routines. For me its easy, I just fit it in amongst my driving. Lisa still has her normal Digital Life business to keep going.

At this moment in time, we actually have actually locked in a confirmed 7 episodes and about to lock in an 8th. This covers a broad range of people and their stories, but we want to make sure we don’t miss out on an opportunity to showcase a specific topic which relates to living or working in this digital lifestyle. The episode we are editing covers SEO and someone who works in the corporate space already. in fact, it is someone who Lisa had connected with through another subject at Uni.

I will share my thoughts and feelings along the way here because it is coming from a good heart space within me. Our brand, whatever that may be, is evolving and developing on it’s own and even though we did not set out to develop a brand, we are creating one through our sharing and our connecting with business owners.   As we do more interviews and we develop our followers and build a tribe of like minded thinkers, then we will evolve into our space.

For some, this airy fairy way to navigate through the venture would not be a suitable fit. This might be the case, but our Collective Intelligence forms the cornerstone of our brand and our way of thinking. The end result seems to be working. I think what is important is the thought process and how we can evolve at any time. If people are seeing what we are doing and have an opinion on it, then as a result, by default, they are learning about themselves and starting to get some ideas into their own picture.

Lisa and I seem to work in synergy with each other blindly fumbling our way through it, but still learning some really good lessons along the way.  I said to Lisa the other week that we have a unique style of conversation that is  “Professionally Unpolished.” Bit of a weird statement, but as we continue to define our audience, this will change. We want to capture an audience where they know that we are just learning along the way.

There will come a time  when we definitely need to set some clear and defined goals. This is so we start to have an idea where this is headed. For the moment, there is no pressure to to get to an end date by a certain timeframe. I think it is more important that we are both enjoying the process than the project itself. What becomes of it after, and how it impacts on business new connections for Lisa and opportunities for me, then that will naturally present itself  when the time is right.

From my point of view, the path is getting clearer. Luki Soeradinata, Podcaster/Blogger. This is where I am headed.

Until the next Journal post, Go your own way!

Live Work Digital,

Luki

Why Working from Home is Not for You.

Working from home has to be the dream lifestyle right? There is no commute, there is no uniform standards and you set your own breaks. What a life this would be.

In recent times there has been a need to shift the workplace into the home environment. This of course is not by their own choice. Different industries needed this to happen to ensure that not only people were able to be safe whilst doing their jobs, but also to ensure that business was continuing as normal as possible.

Working from home can be a lonely affair at the best of times. Traditionally, people who worked from home were generally small business owners and freelancers. The recent shift has dramatically changed this working landscape.

With the digital technologies now available, the Australian Government had already flagged this potential shift in how people would work in the future with recent studies highlighting this trend. Teleworking occurs when employees are able to perform their duties within the confines of their home environment. An agreement is reached where this occurs.

I will cover this topic more in another post, however this article will be more on my experience as a small business owner where I had a home office setup.

A lifetime ago, I was a Franchisee Bookkeeper with a well known brand. Yes, there will be more to this story also on another post.  I will also explain the reasons why and how as well.

Okay, so I had this home office decked out with 3 workstations, a decent printer and whiteboards. The office furniture was also not the cheap ones you get from Officeworks or Kmart, but they were bought from a business which sold ex-corporate office furniture. We had just moved into a new house that  we had just built so we had in mind that the space which was normally earmarked for a formal living room at the front of the house, was always going to be an office. We just put some double doors on it and it was virtually ready made., It was also right at the entrance of the house as you walked in.

It was perfect. I didn’t have to go anywhere if I chose not to right! I could not be more wrong. The best part of working from home was that I would save money on fuel and time. I am not sure whether timing was an issue but, I had started a new business and started this new adventure with a brood of 3 young kids. At the time, my boys were roughly about 2, 4 and 6 years old. In some ways it was perfect as I was available if needed with the kids at any time. Thank goodness I didn’t have a pet as well as I know that would be just as big a distraction.

Photo by Allie on Unsplash

In other ways, it made my life difficult. My time working in the home was one of the most difficult times in my life. I spiralled into a situation that I could not control. There was no separation between work and home life. It became a major issue in my relationship with my family.

Here are my 10 reasons why Working from home may not be for you:

• It is a lonely life
• Being a small business owner is not easy
• You need to be disciplined with your work day
• If you don’t have structure, you can get distracted with other things
• It is strangely a very tiring experience
• You still need to dress up for work
• Clients come to visit at your home
• There is no one to make you accountable
• You need a good Internet Provider
• Work doesn’t stop at 5pm every day

Here is my experience in a nutshell. I found it difficult to separate the home and life balance. I wanted to work from home because I was close to the family and wanted to be available for my young kids and my wife. What I didn’t realise was that no matter how structured and disciplined I was, I was always drawn to the guilt of not being able to be switched off totally from my work.

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Life became a rolling ball of momentum that I was not able to stop. When you take into consideration of the mechanics of starting up a new business, plus the fact that I was learning this bookkeeping caper on the go. Say what?!  Yep you got it. I had never been a bookkeeper in my life. I mean, I flunked out of University the first time because I hated Accounting so much. I did the relevant courses of course, but I was new to the industry and I had the steepest learning curve you could ever have in starting a new business.

Oh yes, I had never used MYOB or any real accounting platform before in my life and I didn’t really know too much about GST and BAS. What was I thinking?

Looking back at the whole experience, it was a pretty stupid thing to do, leaving a perfectly good job to get into something I didn’t like and to something I had no experience in doing.  This is a bigger story than I can cover in this particular blog post, but I am hoping you get my drift.

Working from home needs to have a certain amount of driven responsibility and adaptability. Unless you have both, you will find it difficult to be productive on a day to day basis. Who is going to push you to and who is there to guide you when you have a business question.  Do you have an office space big and airy enough to work in? Do you have a window? Depending on the window, this even maybe a distraction for you.

If you are not careful, the boundaries of home and work life become blurred and you end up alone and working away until all hours of the night.

Photo by Burst from Pexels

One major piece of learning I got from this experience was to ensure that no matter what I did, I would never do something again where my heart wasn’t in it, This didn’t meant I was never going to try different options again, but it meant that I needed to be more measured in what it is I was doing in the future. If I was a painter or an artist and I loved doing it, working from home would be perfect.

10 years later, I am able to give you some reasons why working from home is not for you!

Find what you love!

Cheers,

Luki

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #1]

Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

Don’t Wait until you start a University degree, and more importantly, don’t wait until the time is right. When you decide the time is right and it is something that you want to do, just get it done.

Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels

With the wind in our faces and our tongues hanging out our mouths, like excited puppies on a road trip winding through the Great Ocean Road, we definitely were on our way.  There was no turning back. We now actually have a live Podcast Channel and it is available on Spotify and Apple Podcast amongst other platforms available  everywhere!

We are currently well on the way to our 4th interview (at the time of writing this post) and about to drop our 2nd Episode with the amazing Amanda Stevenson. She is a dynamic personal trainer who runs a fitness program and works with young kids at a  local Primary School.

Part of what we want to achieve is to document our journey to show  how easy it can be done to start something like this. It also doesn’t matter if  we stuff up along the way. The good thing is that, it doesn’t really matter.  Who cares right?

One of the challenges that we initially thought we would have was the fact that we both lived in different States in the country. The other thing was, what the heck were going to talk about, and who would listen to what we had to say. Driving through the day, especially in these times, everyone seemed to be advertising a podcast. It seemed that if anyone was going to launch one, it was now. There are now over 100 Million people around the world who listen to podcasts, and the numbers are growing each year.

Here is a listen to a few reasons why we shouldn’t do a podcast:

• We don’t have the equipment to start one.
• We are both busy working and studying already. We don’t have time.
• It must be expensive to launch something like this.
• What are we going to talk about?
• Where do we start?
• Why would anyone listen to us.
• How do we get listeners?
• How do we get onto Apple Podcast and Spotify?
• How do we find people to interview?

The list can go on and on forever right?

All of the reasons above are all reasons why we are doing this. It is a challenge and it is an exciting new frontier for us. Although the industry seems new, Podcasts have been around over a good decade now.

It is also important to keep in mind that before 8 weeks ago, Lisa and I did not even know each other. In fact , we still haven’t officially met. The reason we have connected is because of the existence of this digitally connected world. The good thing about this for our situation was that because it was a pretty major assignment for us. We had to at least follow through to a working product that could be assessed.

We did our research and we assigned tasks evenly and we just got it done.  There are many podcast platforms out there that we could have used:

• Buzzsprout
• Podbean
• Transistor
• Simulcast
• Captivate
• Spreaker
• Blah
• Blah
• Blah

So the point is that there are a ton load of choices to choose from. Our main points of difference that we were looking for was that we just wanted the platform to be:

• Totally Free
• East to use
• Able to be used with gear we already had
• We could record with multiple people involved
• It could get us onto the main listening platforms
• There were available resources to learn how to podcast
• One that had a track record within the industry
• It had to be the easiest and shiniest platform out there (Kidding…..not really!)

The internet is a weird and wonderful place for everything and anything. The one thing to point out with the platforms above that I have pointed out, was that none were free. When you look for stuff on the internet for a while, you kind of find out what is bullshit and what is not out there. There you go, I said it! Shhhhh. What, some of the stuff on here is rubbish! Crazy right!

All the platforms mentioned above may have some free trial period, and a couple have some very basic functionality that is free, but in my eyes, none of them were useable for what we wanted. We actually started to set up our channel on one platform, but it wasn’t very useable or editable from a hosting point of view. There were a handful of templates we could use, but we couldn’t edit most of it. We wanted to create something that was our brand.

The interesting thing I realised on my search for a hosting platform  was that many of the major blogs that spruiked these lists of platforms, were most likely earning affiliate commissions on the links that were on these lists. Therefore, this is why these platforms are all not totally free. They are being pushed to make money for the blogs for people who sign up from their personalised links. (Of course this is what we want to eventually do though right?)

Enter Anchor.fm. We actually set up our details on another platform before I found this one. At the end of the day, this hosting platforms did everything we wanted it to do. I only found it by accident whilst doing some research on another subject I was studying. I found this article on Anchor.fm by one of their founders on Medium, a writing and ideas platform. (More on this later, because this company is mind-blowing).

Side Note – Check out Medium for articles on EVERYTHING! If you are going to search for ideas on where to start or just want some inspiration, do yourself a favour and cruise through their pages.

In a very short amount of time, we just got things going and started. We didn’t use fancy equipment microphones or sound studio. And not long after, we were recording away.

Photo by Jaz King on Unsplash

There you have the beginnings of how we got started on our podcast journey. We still have no idea what we are doing most of the time, but we are having fun doing this.

More on our journey soon. Oh yes, you also don’t need to start a blog. It’s just something we are doing as we can share the love with building this project together. I am also just enjoying writing content at the moment, which is weird for me. Slowly, I am learning and finding my groove. This is one message that I want to continue to put across,

Just find what you love and keep searching for it. Never stop learning and exploring.

Love you all

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.