SPEAKER_02 0:00

So today we've got a bit of a special episode, a mix-up of things, a shake up of sorts. It's my first non-healthcare non-clinician guest on the show, Mr. Amit Kosai. Thanks so much for being here, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Thanks for having me. What are you doing? What are you doing in Joba? No, I just came for a bit of a family holiday. I came to see my siblings, my nieces.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Okay. Now people you even asked me, you said to me, Yeah, you know I'm not a doctor, right? Because I said to you, come come on my show.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I mean the name of the podcast is Why I Became a Doctor.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Yeah, well, why did I become a doctor? South Africa. T M. Um But I said to you firstly, the beauty of running your own show is that you call the shots. Correct. And so it's my party. Yeah. But low-key, as the kids say, um, I believe this podcast is is not simply about healthcare clinicians. I actually think deep down it's about careers. And even though you're not a doctor, you can properly operate. And you've got a really interesting story. You're waiting for that line.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I was waiting for that line.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

I was wondering whether you're gonna slip it in. I had to. I had to somebody. Now you can operate and you've got an interesting story, and I think people will find your career story, your life story quite interesting. I know, I certainly do. And I actually have questions because we've been friends for a while now.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, it's been a while.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

And I don't actually know. Okay. So you're an engineer, right? Correct. Now I know a few engineers. Um but you drive like a car every a new car every other second week or third week. Uh it's actually every week. Every week, literally. Every seven days, yeah. So what's the secret? Why I I know engineers are bowling, but yeah, no, I'm not selling drugs or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So you do know I've got a blog.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

And fortunately for me, uh it's gained some popularity.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

And uh like you said, this is your podcast, you call the shots. When I did start my blog back in the early of say 2010, roundabout there, I had certain I I used to blog about practically everything until you find a niche, yeah, what your readers like. And one of them was motoring. Yeah. Fortunately for me, uh, one of the major motoring brands in South Africa got in touch and uh saw value in my blog. Yeah. And then offered me uh a performance driving uh day. So I I went and did performance driving with them, and from there they saw the the traction it gained. Yeah. But not intended. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Uh then they invited me for a launch for one of their new models. Right. And then again, the amount of traction it got on all my social streams was for them quite, you know, critical. And then they asked me if I would like to test drive one of their cars while in while I'm back at home. So it was a foreign thing to me. Getting a brand new car delivered for seven days. I've got to drive it around as per normal. So they just give you a car and they say drive it. And and then it's it's up to me. They don't like call the shots. Yeah. They they give me the car, I just drive it, and then the onus is on me to do a review.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

And at the same time, it's not a review whereby I'm be biased to the brand because they're giving me the car. They want an honest review, they appreciate the honesty. Okay. So and then from there, it just sort of built on other brands got in touch with me, and that's why every second or every week I get new cars coming in.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

So hold on, let's let's let's go back. Yeah. Were you an engineer at the time that this happened, or were you were you working?

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah. So what happened was uh at my first job, yeah, when I first started back in 2004, it's over 20 years, I'll be sure. So uh it was very busy. It was before 2010 World Cup, a lot of development happening in South Africa. Yeah, everyone wants to invest. So we were like, you know, very, very busy. If I wanted to say the phrase was bolts to the wall, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we went through a recession. It was a major, major dip around about 20 2011.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And then that's sort of when I started taking more interest in the blog because there was not much work to do. And I was exploring different ideas, you know. Where where does this idea of like so you what type of engineer are you? Firstly, what do you do? I mean what's your day job? My day job, I'm an electrical engineer by trade. So what is that? Uh so what it entails is I do light current engineering. Okay. So, for example, if you're building this magnificent dental studio here, if I can call it that, yeah, I'll be in charge of everything power related. So, from your mains connection, yeah, coming into the place where you've got your distribution board. A lot of people call it DB board, but it's just DB. Distribution board board. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. To the design of your lights. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Lights. And then the thing is, we we I I design everything that's got to do with power. So even if you want to put an air conditioner here, like the one that's not working very well.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Exactly. I need to supply power to that. That's my job. But you know, that's in a nutshell. Obviously, it gets more intense depending on the type of projects. Now, how do you get into this?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Uh why didn't you become a doctor? Because uh people people watching us would probably um it wouldn't come as a surprise if they can see us. Yeah. We probably know a lot of doctors, we probably have doctor family, friends.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

I mean, it's surprising the amount of relatives that are doctors, the friends that are doctors. I mean, I I even design hospitals. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Okay. So let's get into that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Uh at the moment we've got we are the design review uh review consultants for the biggest hospital in Africa that's being built.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

In Rwanda.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

But how do you get into this engineer? Why don't you become a doctor? I mean, you're Indian. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

So I'm Gujarati. Right. Not many people know that we're from like the north, yeah, east or northwest of India. Yeah. Uh we mainly in the financial sector. My family had businesses in town. Most of my relatives went the accounting route, and as much as I was good at accounting, I didn't like accounting. Okay. What I did want to become was a car designer. Oh. I loved cars from a young age, but it wasn't like the performance, you know, it I I liked the styling of cars. Okay. So when I was in Matric, I was like, you know, head straight, I want to become a car designer. But unfortunately in South Africa, there wasn't any courses for it. Okay. And uh I spoke to a lot of relatives, a lot of other uh people in the industry, car car industry, and they're like, you know what, you can only go overseas to do these type of design courses unless, you know, you you you look at like drafting courses. Okay. Maybe that can lead you in somewhere. And that's what I did. I did a drafting course. Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

You made all these, you did all this research while you were in high school or in high school.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

And you and you figured, okay, this drafting course might be a stepping stone to it was the closest thing that I could get to getting me into some sort of design. Right. Um, and then when I started doing it, I found like I I quite enjoyed the engineering design aspect of it, which what my first job uh landed in an electrical engineer's office. And uh from there, you know, once you earn your first paycheck, you don't look back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the same time it's easy to just stay stagnant, right? Exactly. And it to an extent it was a bit of to my detriment, but it it I learned a lot. Yeah. I learned a lot from that first job. And then yeah, it it led me to bigger things.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

And how did it just take me through that?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

So I was there from 2004 till about 2010. Yeah. Uh at the time it was a very, very small business. Uh it still is a small business. But and what are you doing there? I was just predominantly doing the drawing work.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Uh, but like nothing else, nothing engineering related. So I wanted to obviously further my knowledge. I used to do that on my own. What were you drawing? I was drawing electrical plans for major developments at the time. Uh, like my first project was uh a factory for Coca-Cola and Swazi. Right. So that's just like the scale of the projects I was working on.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Sure. And that, you know, obviously to draw the electrical plans. Now, this is my understanding, you need to have the plan of the building or whatever. Correct. So you will have insight into like the new up-and-coming projects and everything and how it's going to look an in-depth.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

So basically how the engineering world works, yeah. Uh, you come, if you got money, you want to develop something, you come to uh a project team. You you or you you go to someone that will initiate the architects, mainly the first port of call. They'll obviously put a team together or they'll get a project manager, put a team together, professional team. We'll start with the concept. Once the concept is, you know, rubber stamped, like you know, this is what we're going for, then the other professionals get involved, like myself.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Because if you're not happy with the concept and we start doing our design work based on something that you're not happy with, it's gonna change. It's a waste of my time, your time, everyone's time.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

All right. So everything's gonna be sort of ready and waiting for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Look, I'm not saying that everything is gonna be, you know, as is from when we start. Yeah. There's obviously gonna be changes. When I come in, I'll tell the architect, look, there's certain things that don't work for me, we need to change this, change it.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

So now you said you're a Gucci guy. Most of the family's in finance. And um, what about your folks?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Uh I mean, are you the first engineer in your family? Or funny enough, no. I've got a cousin that's a chemical engineer, but he ended up going back into finance again. Okay. So I was hoping I don't go down that route, but funny enough, with engineering, yeah, there's also finance. And right now I'm more project management, which is finance related. So I'm watching the figures, invoicing clients, making sure people don't overspend or overspend the budget. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, also I'm still doing some design work, which is cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

And don't you come from like a family of famous shopkeepers or business people or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

So my family, my family, I'm currently fourth generation. Right. Fourth generation um South African. South African, yeah. Um third generation, I think. Yeah. No, I'm trying to think. No, no, third generation. Okay. So we've had businesses in Durban for a while. It uh actually, I think it's over close to 100 years now. Shish. We we closed our last shop in 2018.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Or 2019, late early 2019. Yeah. But we've had a supermarket which was quite famous in Durban Victoria Street.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah, what was it called?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Gosai Supermarket.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Gosai Supermarket. And and people from Durban will, you know, the old timers especially will know.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

The thing is, like, I've we've known the we've the supermarket, we grew up with it. Yeah. And it was part of our life. Yeah. But like to sometimes come to Johannesburg or even like our places where people will, when you hear when they say your and when you say then your name and they're like, Goshai supermarket. Yeah, yeah. How do you know about it? Yeah. And like we'll get people that come up to us and say, you know, we should come shopping at your supermarket or go to the clothing store. My granny used to take us to buy our school shoes there, and you're like blown away by it. And like, you know, you you don't know how many people that actually visited your store know about your store. Did you used to go work there? Like, unfortunately, I didn't have much of a December holiday when I was a kid. Soon as schools were closed, we were in the supermarket.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Oh, okay. Yeah, so they were I mean, that's make the most of these kids.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

I mean, come on. Exactly. I mean what were you doing there? Like, so it does was a bit of everything. Um, obviously, it was mainly not packing shelves and stuff like that. Yeah. So we had different departments in the supermarket, it was quite big. So we used to help with the like the cosmetic department where everything was behind counter. Yeah. So if it almost like a pharmacy, but wasn't a pharmacy. Right. So people will come and they want like medication, not medication, like panado, yeah, or deodorants, whatever stuff that was like, you know, small, small items. Yeah. Then we should take cash.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Okay. We used to handle my money and things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Physically. Physically. And then uh Christmas time, it was a bit of everything because it was always chaos. Yeah. Yeah. Cues were going out the store. Right. So packing shelves, making sure everything is stocked up. And then New Year's was like also a fun time for us. We should sell fireworks. We were one of the few businesses in town that had an explosive license to sell deal in explosives. So a lot of people love fireworks over the New Year's, and we only got And it's Durban. And it's Durban. And you only got four days, that gap between Christmas and New Year to sell or New Year's New Year's Eve to sell your fireworks. And we should push. And it was quite fun.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

And then after that, we got like a bit of a lull until back to school starts.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Okay. And I'm guessing Diwali time was similar with the fireworks story.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Not really, eh?

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

It's more New Year's than Diwali.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah. Okay. So you were exposed to that from like childhood, this kind of working very early age. I'd say probably seven ages. Did you look forward to it, or are you like one of the lazy types like me? Like, oh, I don't want to go, I want to be on holiday.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

At first it was like, you know, oh, everyone's on holiday. Why do I have to come work in the shop? But then because it was a family business and all my cousins and relatives were there, you enjoyed going there. And my grand used to stay across the road in the building there in town.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

So we should go there for lunch, see her every day. So it was it was fun.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

I mean, it was the thing that kept us together. Yeah. The community. Well, yeah, the the the family aspect of it. You know, when when you look at family and people with large families, like my dad has five brothers, five sisters. That that essence of coming together almost every day, seeing each other, or even on the weekends too.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Yeah, it was it was fun. And everybody contributed to this exact common purpose.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And so you said 2018 was the last uh shop that was Yeah, the clothing store, 2019, actually, it was 2019. Uh my dad and his uh elder brother were running it, and they weren't looking at selling, but someone came in and said, Look, you know, I'd like to make an offer. Dad came home, we spoke about it, did the proper goodie thing and accounting thing, looked at the figures, rental stuff, all of that. We said, you know what? You are looking another two years until you retire. We don't have an offer like this is gonna come in again.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

And the son is not taking over.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, yeah, clearly. I mean, I've I can't bring the fancy cars into town outside.

unknown 14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So yeah, we made a decision to sell up. And you know you said we now, so it was a family decision. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we still we even to uh my dad's brothers who are not involved, we consulted them because we always look for you know inspiration and yeah, other aspects and advice from them. So we said, okay, let's let's do it. And in hindsight, it was it worked out well because the next year, 2020, COVID hit. Oh, sure. So that was lucky. Yeah, so I mean, we would have had not been trading for like a good few months, and I don't think the business would have survived if it if it did. And at what we always say, like even when we sold our supermarket back in 2010, we left on a high. Yeah. And the same thing goes for the clothing store. We left on a high. We didn't owe people money, we weren't liquidated or banking. It worked out really well, yeah. Yeah. So it it's this we can go out and say, you know, the businesses were successful and we closed it successfully.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah. Do you have ever gone back there and like driven past and had some nostalgia and stuff? So we still own the properties. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So we go back. I was there like about a month back. So the buildings and stuff you guys own. Yeah, yeah. The one building in particular where the supermarket is. Yeah. And we've got tenants there, but we still got like stuff happening there. Yeah, so I I I do go now and then. My dad goes every twice a week, I think.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And so does his brothers. But yeah, you go back, the nostalgia is still there, but at the same time, it's not what it was. You know, as people say, things change. Yeah. And uh the business, if it was still there, we had to evolve the business to suit the current climate. It would have worked, but it's a lot of hard work.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

And Durban, just on that topic, I mean, I watched a video, I've I watched this guy on YouTube. He's got a channel called Living in South Africa. I don't know if you've heard of him, as you can.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah, no, I have, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Um, he did a like a one-hour video going into Durban proper, like town and stuff. I was super impressed by how nice the place actually looks. Because you know, Durban has been getting a lot of negative publicity recently. Am I right? Or is that uh is it on the up or how what's it like?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Look, um, in terms of the city itself, like where we were based, yeah, uh it's a lot of it's a high traffic area because there's the mark Victoria Street Market there. Yes. A lot of tourists come in. Yeah. Uh there's a taxi rank just down the road. Yeah. And look, it it's got all the CBDs in general in South Africa have the you know, essence that it's not safe.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yeah. And look, but this guy went into Victoria Street Market. I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah. I mean, look, look, Victoria Street Market is one of the main tourist destinations in Durban. So if you are a tourist coming from overseas and you're on a tour bus, they're definitely stopping there for spices, for curios. So two, they credit uh Durban's Holidways every morning without fail, they they're cleaning up the streets.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

But like it does get dirty. Okay. There is not crime, but there's petty crime.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

So like pickpocketing. So you just gotta be like anyway, you gotta be careful.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

I appreciate your insight because I know you travel a lot in the country. Yeah. So we'll we will dig into that a bit later. Now, okay, so that's the family life, that's the shop life, yeah, the business. You get in you do a drafting course, you get into design in the early stages. And then you is there a transition to becoming like an engineer proper, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Or you have to register with a with a a body Yeah, there's a body professional body called EXA.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Uh EXA. Yeah. Engineering Council of South Africa. Right. That you have to not register with, you get a professional registration.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

PR of it.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

PR PR. Uh you get PR tech, you get PR Engine, say if you engineer PR Eng, or if you're a technician like me, you get PR tech N. Okay. So uh I I'm currently registering to become getting my professional registration. There's various clauses that you know apply to me because I didn't go the conventional to varsity and get my uh degree as such. Yes. But because of my um, as I said, I've been working in the industry for 20 years now. Because of my experience and what I know, yeah, uh, they obviously have to test me on that enable to give me the registration.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

So you have to write exams and stuff too?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Not really exams, uh they call it Turs, uh, where you write like assignments on the various projects you do. Turs, T-E-R-S. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then uh there's uh one last major assignment that you've got to submit, and then there's an interview process. Yeah. So first, when in my case, they'll probably have two interviews where they'll interview me in terms of my knowledge on you know my experience. And then the main interview is where they'll see whether I'm fit to get the PR.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

So when's that coming up? Hopefully, I'm hoping to submit in Fib.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Sheesh, so you got some work ahead of you.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, yeah, lots of work. But the blog is gonna take a backseat or what? The thing is, with the blog, why I started the blog, I like writing. Okay. So in school, creative writing and essays, that was my forte. Really? As much as people, uh most of the the students didn't like it, I loved it. I don't think for English I got anything less than 80% for my creative. That is very in in my experience, that's unusual for the engineering times.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because all the engineers I know, like they're great with numbers and they're super intelligent, but you know, I'd want to proofread their stuff uh a couple of times as a lawyer.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Exactly. I mean, and at the same time, that's why I love writing reports for projects as well. Yeah. And now, because of where I'm going in the company, I'm a bit senior now, so I have to give it to somebody else. But I always also like proofread it, delegate, change things, and yeah, make it look nice, make it sound nice.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Okay, I didn't know this about you. I I just assume this engineering types, these guys, and also, I mean, yeah, we'll get into it just now, but I want to see I I want to figure out what's we haven't talked about, right? So you start working, you're doing this engineering type of work, and then just randomly, who uh who just thinks, let me start a blog? How does that happen? Like, yeah, was there an epiphany one day you woke up and said, Let's do this blog?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Or not really. Um it was in the back of my mind, but at the same time, a lot of people were starting blogs back then. Okay. So there wasn't much like mainstream, uh what do you call like even YouTube was not very accessible to everybody. And obviously you need equipment and and and back then it was difficult to break into like a video stuff.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

And wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're saying a lot of people started blogs.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, yeah. So blogs were very popular back in like 2010, but it was almost like an online journal where people used to like journal and people should read what they used to do.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

No, but so what what what this tells me is that you had an online presence. Uh yeah, clearly, because you know, people that are not online won't know that a lot of people are starting blogs. Exactly. Yeah. So what were you like uh were you on Twitter or what was it? So obviously Mixit.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

People uh we're showing our age, but Mixit was like the first messaging platform in South Africa, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, not like was the most accessible to everybody and cheapest. Right. And then obviously BBM came in and whatever the case is. But I did have a Twitter account. Yeah. And funny enough, a cousin of mine who was going to India.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

And I was like, hey, you're at that time, you know, post pictures on Facebook. And she's like, no, no, no, I'm gonna be posting on Twitter. No, what's Twitter?

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Sends me a link to her profile. I log in, I follow her, and then I was like seeing her pictures, and then eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I said, Who else can I follow? How did she know Twitter? I have no idea. I need to ask for this. Yeah, please find out because I in my mind you're big on Twitter, right? I think that is my biggest uh social media platform where I've got the most following. Okay. Apart from the blog, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

So that's your cousin is going to India, you say put on Facebook. So this is probably around 2007, post 2002. 2007, yeah. Exactly. Facebook came out, right? In South Africa or wherever in the world. Yeah. So you said put it on Facebook. She says, do it on Twitter. You're like, what is this? Let me look. You dig.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

You get into Twitter. And the thing is, with Twitter, everyone wants to follow the international celebs. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, cool. But for me, it was okay, let's see what's happening on the ground. Yeah. So it was all the local celebs. Yeah. Whether it be radio DJs, actors, or even like, you know, people in corporate that are having accounts to, you know, share their thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Right. So and Twitter used to call itself a micro blogging example. Exactly. Yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah. So the thing is, and it had character limits back then. Yes, 140. Yes. Okay. And that included when you tagged people or used hashtags and things like that. So it it got your brain thinking to get a message across in that short character limits. Yeah. Also, you want hashtags were big on Twitter because that was the whole thing to search. Yeah. So from that, you know, your brain, you have to like sort of, you know, you when you want to get a message across, you know, you you've got to think about how you're going to phrase it and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

So yeah, there was an art to it. Yeah, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

There was an art to it. You can say that. You know, a lot of people just went there and uh spoke nonsense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which at the same time was also fun.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yeah. We all did, right? Yeah, we all did. I mean, if you look at your Facebook memories, that's the one thing, in my opinion, that said that shows you that you've grown. Exactly. You look at a post from 10 years ago, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah, yeah, it's a cringe moment.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

We'll probably look at this podcast in 10 years' time and say, I can't believe we're doing that. I sat down on a couch and the X practice and we're talking about our life. Exactly. But hopefully it's not too cringe.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

No, no, no. I don't think it's cringe at all.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

So you start Twitter 2007, you realize there's this place online where people are journaling and documenting their life and their experience.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

And also the thing is you you find like-minded people. Right. And while you've got may have a creative side, someone else's creativity inspires you.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

And then you follow them. I'm not saying copy them, but maybe like adapt to what you can do.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Of course. You know? There's no such thing as an original idea, but not at all.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Not at all. I mean, we've seen it in the car industry. Everyone's like a new car comes that, oh, it looks like this, it looks like that. I was like, how? It's got four wheels. Yeah. Obviously, all cars are gonna, but you know, the the similarities that they're gonna borrow. I mean, yes. We've seen cars coming in from China now that mimic cars from Europe.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yes, yes, yes. So So you you you you see that there's this gap in the market or there's this outlet where you can express your creativity and you decide, let me start a blog. Yeah. About what I love, which is cars. Is that all am I summarizing it, paraphrasing it?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

No, actually the blog started off as a journal. Okay. Well, not so much like a journal, what I did every day. Yeah, it was just things that I thought about. If you go to like my first blog post was an introduction about me. Which year is this? At when? Do you know? It was in 2010. 2010. Yes. What's the blog uh called? The blog with the blog, sorry, the blog is called the bucket. Yeah, all right. And everyone's asked me like what does it mean? I said, look, I've got the I've got the phrase there on top. Uh everyone thinks it's because I like uh Kentucky fried chicken. Okay, which is not that used to be your thing on Twitter at the back of the day.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

You should always talk about KFC as I did.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, I remember this. But if you think about a bucket, yeah, it collects things, whether it be water, sand, you can so I say the mind's like a bucket.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

So you're always thinking about things, filling up your mind with things. Okay. And this is an insight into my bucket.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Okay. So it was never the plan that you woke, it was never the set the I mean you can tell from that I wasn't taking this seriously. Yeah, yeah. You just said, let me just do this thing and talk what's on my mind. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't like I'm gonna do this and become a car blogger and uh brands reach out to me and No, 100%. Okay. And and does it like how long does this happen where you're just going and spewing your thoughts before anything really kicks out?

SPEAKER_01 26:02

So back then I didn't have any, like, you know, oh, today I gotta write a post. It was just when and whenever.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Okay. And how did you write? On a phone or what what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

No, no, it was on a computer. Yeah. Um at that time, phones, you while you could access the blog, it wasn't very easy to edit and publish on a phone.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Uh so computer, it was only computer back in the day. And like I said, if you look at my early blog posts, it was introduction to myself. I even wrote about a potato chip that I like. Yeah. I did a comparison on chicken wings.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Yeah, okay. It was AB stuff. Did your parents know you're doing this?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yeah. Until you know why I asked this because just before you you came here, well before we started recording, I said, How's I asked you how's your focus and stuff, and you said your dad is very confused because it's like, um, where are you going and you said from going to the dentist? Uh and it's you know, sometimes our parents don't even know the stuff we're we're getting up to, right? True.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

He must have been thinking, they must have been thinking, look at this guy, he's just playing on his computer, he's not that's exactly what they think because again, family business, old school manual labor. Yes, yes. Now I'm sitting at a computer just clicking, clicking away. Yeah, get off that computer. It's like you're wasting your time. Yeah. So uh yeah, no, it it's still to this day when I explained they like I I get invited to launches, whether it be cell phones or cars, yeah. They still don't grasp as to how and why I'm going. Yes, yes. I mean, they they they they're happy, yeah, but at the same time, it's they find it difficult because they're still old school, want to read in the paper.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yes. And like let's just imagine. Imagine you're in Matric, right? And you go to your folks and say, I don't know what I want to do. Yeah. They would never say to you, I mean, become a social media influencer, blogger, because they don't know it does, it doesn't exist. It didn't even you didn't even know about it, right? When you started. Exactly. You're just journaling thoughts and you take and also like I'm assuming when your dad's saying you're wasting your time on the computer, you might have a part of you might have thought, yeah, I am wasting my time here, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:04

No, true. Yeah, true. Because at that time it wasn't taking, as I said, I had no intention of it to take off. Yeah. It it's just me doing what I wanted to do. It was another outlet for me. Yes. Because I I feel people need outlets in their life. Yes. Whether it's you know going to see friends and talking about life in general or writing things in a journal manually or on the computer. Yeah. And as I said, you never know who's gonna read it and you know associate with it. Yeah. I mean, we all know about famous Yash notes.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Yeah. Oh, yeah, my my my Unissa study notes. I'm sitting with King Yesh. I talk about that. Yeah. So uh how did people actually read your blog? Like how did you get it out there?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So I used to use my various various social media streams, so Facebook, Twitter. Yeah, but with the the where I use a blog spot, it's uh hosting website by Google. Right. It helps also, you know, on the search engines when people search for things. Okay. So it'll be one of the top ones because it's uh from Google and people use Google, it'll show up. So if they search for a certain thing, you know, my blog will be probably there. And as I said, uh it it took me a while to sort of realize what I want to blog about because I should just blog about every anything and everything. And then I said, no, you know what? If this is a reflection of me, I'd rather just stick to things that I like. So I I I form categories. Okay. Uh so music is a big part of it. Yeah. And uh electronic music. Okay. Because in my work I do a lot of traveling, yeah, mainly on my own. Yeah. And the thing that keeps me going and not falling asleep on the road and concentrating is electronic music. Okay. So I said, okay, I'll feature a song every week.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

And then I also started doing tech because tech's a big part of my life as well. I don't consider myself a huge tech fundie, but I take interest in cell phones, high-end audio, things like that.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

So again, it's what I like. EDM, tech, cars. And then cars. And then I fortunately, or unfortunately, as some people might say, in in the industry, uh in at the time, you know, there was a lot of other brands like getting in touch with me, asking me if I can help out. And uh a couple of the events I've attended was like through some of the publications.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Uh, one of them was FHM. Right, right. So I got to meet a lot of the models.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Wait, how do you get but uh FHM reach out to you? No, no, wait, wait. You I mean, you're going too fast. Okay, okay. I need to rewind. There's this there's no time limit on this, and I'm really I'm really interested in this conversation. So you you're starting to, you're writing all these thoughts, right? Yeah. Now I'm assuming somewhere along the line, um you realize people are actually reading this this nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, when you when you start seeing like you can see each article, how many views and reads and it's the it goes right down to unique views where people just like browse the thing or they're properly reading it. So the analytics tell you. Yeah, the analytics tell you like how many people are properly reading your blog. And then you like so when did you notice was there ever like a specific article that went viral or yeah, for the wrong reasons though.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Tell? I didn't know this.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

I'm not uh if you could tell me if you Yeah, I would I'd love to share the story because her life is you know it's quite uh prominent one in South Africa, and it's uh again for the wrong reasons. But uh as I said, so let me let me just backtrack a bit and please tell you how I got to the FHM's part. So PR company started noticing my my blog. Okay. And though those guys reached out to me and said, look, we're working with this brand, that brand, would you like to assist? Right. So again, uh at the time I said, okay, fine, let me just try everything. You know, I didn't like want to filter out, like, you know, I'm only going to concentrate on this. Yes. And uh one of the brands was X, and they were doing work with contradiction with FHM.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

So I didn't work with who? FHM. Okay. The publication.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So uh they invited me to a few of the parties. That's where I met most of the South African models. How old are you at this time now? Uh 23, 24. So still young, young. Very young.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

And then, you know, it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. Yeah. You invite you to a party. 200 models. Yeah. And you're like, okay, this is what heaven's like.

unknown 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

And then they're like curious as to who you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you like tell them, and then they're like, oh, you got a blog. Oh, you know, there's this competition coming up, but you mind like featuring me. Okay. So I'm like, okay. So that's where the bucket babe segment came. Oh, bucket babe. Okay, I've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember this. Uh so I interviewed a lot of local. I I said first, I'll keep it local. Yeah. And then one or two international models even approached me via the website. They contacted me, hey, yes, we see you feature. Can you feature me? Mainly because obviously they're part of some competition or whatever the case is.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

And it was just like I told them, you know, just send me a bio pictures and we'll put it up. Until um Riva Stienkamp approached.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Is this where we're getting to the viral?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah, the viral blog post. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

And Riva Stienkamp was Oscar Pastor.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

This is, yeah. Yeah. The late girlfriend of him. Yes. So I sent her, I said, look, this is what I want. And then she got back to me and she says, No, make it more interesting. Does she approach you and Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, okay, Riva, explain. She's like, no, I've I've looked at your blog, it's very cool. But like, I just feel this segment can be more. Like when you ask me questions, uh things like that. So I said, okay, so we workshopped with it. There were emails with us back and forth, yeah. How we can change the segment. And uh in that interview, she she gave me her her basically her life story, yeah, which she never shared with any other publication printed or online.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

So that was, I'm not sure when, but I know it was about two years before she passed on.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Okay. So this is probably around 2011, 2010.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Yeah, around about there. The early 2010s. And the thing is, even after I published it, you know, it obviously got quite a few hits at the time. Not a lot, but a few. And then she kept like, you know, telling me, why don't you try doing this? Why don't you maybe you know, you from Durban tell people what's nice to see in Durban. She kept giving me ideas on the blog, and her last email to me was, you know, you got something good, and I'm gonna help you get your name out there. You know, like Wow, that's so cool. And then, yeah, when she did pass on, obviously, again, as I mentioned before, with the search with Google, yeah, my article was number one. So it got featured on CNN, BBC, Sky. Wow. I got the guys that wrote the book about her, Carol Moon and everybody else. They feature my blog. Oh my god. There's some snippets from the blog in there because as I said, no one spoke about her life, whether it was published or online. And then it it went through like where she had a horse riding accident, hurt her back. She was could have never walked again, but she went through that. So that day she passed on. The the views on that article were sitting at maybe 5,000 before that. It skyrocked it to over half a million within the space of like three hours. I never knew this story, eh?

SPEAKER_02 35:05

This is such an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Yeah. So that's why like a lot of what this my blog has to do has got to do with her. Wow. Sort of got my name, the blog internationally recognized. And she seemed like a really nice person who was very, very cool. Uh, I never got to meet her like personally on a one-on-one level. Yes. The one time we we we arranged to meet, and we were both in Cape Town at the same time, and she said, Let's have breakfast at the spot. And then I was waiting, waiting, waiting, and then I said, Oh, I got stood up.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

And then, like, three hours later, she messaged me and she like, no, she had a blackout and she collapsed as she entered the mall. Wow. And when I the funny thing is, when I was leaving the mall, I saw the ambulance taking somebody away. I was like, Oh, okay, maybe something happened. Wow. That was her in the ambulance. She had a blackout and there, she had to go. So, yeah, but that in essence what made the blog go viral. That was the one viral post. Look, after that, there were others, but nothing to the extent of that.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Yeah, that's a fascinating story, man. And so the blog is still going on. Blog is still going on.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Uh very limited categories now. There's just three that I focus on. Yeah. Uh music, cars, and tech.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Sometimes if something that catches my mind, you know, or or interest that I want to get the world out there, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

So this is how you're driving cars every week, literally. Correct. Tell me some cars. Like I you see, firstly, you'll know this about me. I know nothing about cars. Like to me, I rate a car if it like it looks cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what I'm saying. Well, that was me when I was a kid. I like the look of cars, which is why I want to become a car designer. Yeah. So in school, I was always doodling cars, like drawing not current cars, I was drawing like future what the cars could look like next. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

All right.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Yeah. So again, um coming back to the car thing, as I said, it was first BMW that approached me. I did advanced driving with them. Then I went for a launch, then they gave me cars, then they have a sister brand Mini. Okay. They also said, okay, we would use you. I was one of the first non-journalists to be at a car launch in South Africa. Oh. And the amount of stick that I got at that first one. Yes. Because from the purists. Unreal. Really? Like the journalists, if we've come, some of us become good friends now. Yeah. They're like, what are you doing here? Who are you? What publication you write for? It's like my own thing. Oh, okay. Where did you study journalism? I didn't study journalism. Then what how how are you gonna be constructive? And this is so important. What testing equipment are you using? I don't know. My phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you take pictures with? My phone. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

So they were like looking at you with skepticism and was this.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

They are honestly thought it was gonna be like a one-time thing.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

And uh a chancer.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

You're a bit of a chancer. Who's this guy? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, I think they started brands started seeing value in having uh, you know, people that are outside the journalistic spectrum. Yes. Uh we call them now influencers. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, it depends on each one, uh, what they talk about and what their audience wants. It works.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

It's it's funny, you this is a very coincidental thing because I was watching uh you might know MKBHD. Yes, I don't know. He's a tech influencer, right? Biggest in the world. He was talking about how back in the day all the big tech companies used to only reach out to like proper journalists, right? Yes. And now it's the other way around. So you might have been one of the pioneer influencer journalist types in South Africa.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

I I don't want to say it, but yeah, I mean our early doors. Please do say it though. Early doors, I was like the only guy that wasn't a proper journalist writing for a paper. Even to my first tech event, yeah. I was excited to be there, but at the same time, all the tech journalists were like, you know, with themselves, I'm there standing alone. I'm just happy to be there.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

And you you you don't feel um because I I I when you were telling me the story about how you got invited to this FHM. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I put myself in your shoes and I was thinking, I would have been nervous.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Like No, I was. I'm I'm a lot of people think I'm extroverted, but I'll be introvert.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

I think that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

I'm an introvert, but I like I was always that guy standing in the corner and not wanting to like participate in anything. But this sort of threw me out there. And I was like, you know, after the second or third event where I was just keeping to myself, I was like, if I don't introduce myself.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

No, but it threw you out there, but you still had to say yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

It's not you could have easily just said nah.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I mean, it did cross my mind because again, most of this events are during the week. Yeah. I've got to take time off from work. Yes. I've got to see what my schedule is at work, yeah, whether I can make it or not. Yes. So at the same time, it came down to that. And then when you're going there, if you're gonna be, you know, a recluse just sitting to yourself doing everything yourself, yeah. You're not gonna get the whole experience.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

Oh, like a like a little like a wall fly or sitting in the corner.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah, and look, you still get those people when I go to launch, you'll see them, and you're looking, I've been there. Yeah. So I've always made the effort to go greet them, see what they are, what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

And then, you know, give them advice or even seek advice from them. Okay. Because you never know. As you said, there's never an original idea. So the point I wanted to make is like you've got to just say yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah. Right? And sort of maybe even force yourself if you don't want to really do it. Exactly. Because there's always an excuse not to do something.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

That's the thing. It's easier to say no than yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah. It's it's a nice uh I like that. Uh I mean, that's do you think it it you said you're not a you're an introvert, so it wouldn't have come naturally to you to just say yes, put myself out of it. Exactly, yeah. But you probably had some sort of foresight to think this I need to do it. It's a necessary evil.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

No, it's it's something that I wanted to experience as well. Because the thing is, as much as I still have attending launches, yeah, one day it can stop.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

And I don't want to sit there and say, Oh, I should have gone for this. I should have gone for this.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Experience it, live it, enjoy it while it's there.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Why I think you're an extrovert or why I assumed you're an extrovert is because you and I met. Um, I met you on Twitter. Like my family and my close friends would say, Oh, you're going out with your Twitter brass. Yeah. Uh like I'd not met you in real life.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Even though we were from the same city.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Same city, yeah, same, you know, similar groups of friends and things. There's always that seven degrees of separation sort of thing. But I can't remember exactly, but you just said, there, let's meet up and and we ended up meeting, and you became actually closer, a closer friend than a lot of my my school friends and things, but we met for on Twitter.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

So I and I used to think, yeah, these guys are super um outgoing because to me it's a it was a foreign concept to just randomly meet people that you've just only spoken to online. Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

I mean, you never know who you're gonna meet, for us. We're not serial killers.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, not yet. But but the point is like I admire the fact that you guys just put yourselves out there and are keen to meet up with people. You don't say who's gonna be there. Exactly, yeah. You know what I mean? That used to be my line.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

When people would say, Let's go somewhere, I say, Who's who's coming? Now I purposefully force myself to not ask that question. Yeah. Because I want to put myself in a situation where I'm meeting somebody I don't know, and you never know.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Exactly, yeah. You never know. And that's the beauty about networking, and it ties into the business aspect of things as well. Like uh the last year I got, I wasn't I'm not part of a golf club, but my friend is, and I I play golf, but I'm not really good.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

So he's like, Look, we won short this weekend. Can you join us? So I was like, okay, cool. Now normally in golf your pairings of four.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

So I said, no, I'm gonna be with my friend, so at least I know him. But when I go there, they're like, no, no, no, it's a random, you get picked randomly. And I'm paired with three other guys who I've never met in my life.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

And you know, once you start, it's a social game, you have to talk to each other. And then I got to know these guys, and like one guy is one of he's the owner of the supplier that I use. Okay. And I'm like blown away, and then the the old CEOs, CFOs, and like I'm not saying in only in golf aspect, but like, you know, going to meet up. Yeah. If you know, if someone invites me to for like a drink session or coffee with some of their friends, you get to know what they're doing, and you never know how it could relate back to you.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

So you're conscious and and uh you're conscious of the importance of networking and yeah, very much so. And I don't sometimes I don't like the term networking because it it has a bit of a selfish sort of um connotation to it, like you're doing it just to but I think you actually what I like to call it is making connections. Yes. Like, and I think you actually really like to make connections with people. No, I do.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

I like to know something. I like to find out what makes people tick, right? What they enjoy, yeah, or what they you know uh are helpful for. So that's why when people come to Durban and like or or in general, yeah. Do you know anyone can do this? You know anyone can do that. I'm like, I did meet someone a couple months back, I got their number. Let me just check with it.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

I noticed this about you, even up till now today. Yeah, Yak Lindy's aircon is not working in this room, and you said, I know I you know let me sort some. And encourage people to have that kind of mindset and attitude. Help others.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

The thing is, helping others gives you a sense of like, you know, accomplishment, you know, you you got them something that they needed. Yes. And you often find it's not hard. Yes, yes. It is not difficult to help somebody.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

You know? I mean, a car guard giving him a two rand, even if you're there for like one minute, yeah. He's happy. You gave him something. Yeah. And the same, Brett, like, you know, your aircraft's not working. No, I know somebody here in Johannesburg that can sort it out for you.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

It doesn't cost you anything.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

I love that. Where does AMG133 come from? What is this? Uh yeah. Just for the listeners and reviewers, AMG133 is, I mean it's Twitter handle, Instagram handle, even even to the blog to its AMG blogspot, amg133blogspot.com. AMG133.blogspot.com. Correct. Yeah, what is this AMG133 now?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Yeah, it's uh it's got nothing to do with the car.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Yeah. So my my initial wait the car is the Mercedes. Mercedes car, yeah. So my initials uh my name is Amit Gosai. Right. And it's a weird thing because back in the day when you had internet for the first time, you only had one email address. Okay. If you wanted multiple email addresses, you had to pay. Right. So it was a a merge of my my my name and my brother's name. My brother's name is Mahesh.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Mahesh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

So N-A-G sounded not as nice as A M G. Yeah. So it was that was our shared email address, which became my email address after that. And it just stuck. And then when I when I joined Twitter, it needed like characters as well. So I mean like numbers. Yeah. So our our address in Victoria Street for the property is 133 Victoria Street. So that's where the 133 comes.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

I just I thought 13th March, maybe your birthday or something.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

No, no, it's got nothing to do with it. My birthday is actually 420, by the way. Oh, okay. April, April 20th. Well, light up for that. I don't partake in it, but everyone's like, why? You're born on that day.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

420. Okay. Have you told a story about the AMG 133, where it comes from before? Just to people when they ask in person.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

But not outlets. No one knows why it's there. Okay, so you've got to be able to do that. Yeah, you gotta I've got an exclusive. You got an exclusive, yeah. And and it every time I do want to change it to my proper name, I was like, you know what? Just too much effort, just leave it.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

No, I like it. It's got a good ring to it. It flows off the top. AMG133. I even sometimes when I see you in real life, I'd be like AMG 133.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

A lot of people call me AMG. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

And I'm like, okay, it just sticks. Amit Gosai.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Yeah. It works. You don't have a middle name, do you? No, I don't. I'm the only sibling that doesn't. So my parents didn't like me that much.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Our culture. No, they just said, yeah, you let's name him once. Give him one name and that's it.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Uh he's not like New York my name's like in four or four letters, Amit A M I T H. Well the five letters, but yeah. Some some people give me a small. And it autocorrects to Smith. Sometimes I call you Smith. A lot of people call me Smith, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Yeah. A lot of people call me Nash for that very reason.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Yes, uh I quite like Yash and Gravy because of the KFC connection.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Yeah, that was my I had to make a Gmail account because there were so many services on Gmail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I was yeah, so I I just made it, and sometimes when I share that email address to people, it's embarrassing because I had to recently share it with an advocate because she wanted to share a larger file with me, and then I felt so embarrassed to give her my Gmail one. Um but I'll still read that document, Jade. Uh I'm looking forward to it. Now, so I asked you, like, did you ever put that story out there? On that sort of note, have you ever been on a podcast or you've done your own podcasting and things like that?

SPEAKER_01 47:42

No, not really, but I tried to first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, lovely. Look, I've been interviewed on news. I don't think that counts.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

It does well, yeah, okay. That's uh mainstream media. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Elon Musk will look down on that. Exactly. Tell me about the news thing. Well, it wasn't really okay. News was for I think one of the events in Johannesburg. Well, it mainly was at events. I think I saw it, yeah. Oh, the most recent one was Espresso TV show. Yes, yes. Where where I went to a Samsung event. Yeah. But previously it was for some motoring stuff, some tech stuff.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Oh, okay, okay, okay. So you've been on mainstream media.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh a bit. And also on CakeNet.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

CakeNet, right? African stuff.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

Through Twitter, I became friends with uh a guy by the he calls as Jan Bray. Jan Bray, yeah. He started off the whole National Bride Day campaign and became quite good friends with him. I shared recipes. I like to cook. Yes. I'm sure you'll touch on that. I've got that.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

There's literally a note here. You love cooking.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

So uh yeah, so he and another guy that again I met on Twitter, uh, Dan Nickel, who's quite a big cedeb. Uh he does, he's got his own wine show, TV show, things like that. They reached out to me a couple of times and they're coming out to Durban. They're like, you know, we in down. Would you come want to meet up with us? Yeah. So, like for National Bride, the one year he was doing a three-city bride tour. Yeah. So he started off having bride breakfast in Johannesburg, bride lunch in Durban, and then in Cape Town ending up for the sunset bride. And the Durban leg, he's like, When you join us, yeah. So I went up to the uh newly restaurant then am Schlanger where they cooked on coal.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

We had lunch with the whole sharks team.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah. And then from there, uh obviously that was televised. And then he came down again for another sharks game where he bride for the entire team and the opposition team. So I was there for that. Obviously, I didn't talk much because I don't speak Afrikaans. Yes. That's my first tongue. But I was there. Cake net, cake one plus. And then one of the other ones where we had like a bride competition at uh Sunko's Towers, and he's like, I want you to have a team there.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

So it's gonna be televised again. So I needed to like think now who can I invite to be on my team. Like, I obviously I want friends there, but also they gotta be they gotta be able to do the thing, do the thing on camera. So a very good friend of mine, Carl Bagondine, who's an actress and uh presenter, she was one of them, and she also likes cooking, which helped. Yeah, another friend of mine, uh well, friend of a friend who's who at the time worked for Unilever. He was brand manager for Robertson's. Right. I said, Look, I gotta have you there because we're using your spices.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

And then I needed someone to bribe, do the hard work. Yeah. So another good friend of mine, uh Vikesh, who's very handy when it comes to that. Vikesh, I know, I think I know him. Yeah, we call him more famously known as Vax. Vax, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So but you see, you knew people. Yeah. Like, so these guys, you know, you gotta know people, otherwise you just rock up there with your. And it was such a nice little thing. You know, even though it was a contest, everyone was there having fun. Yeah. I mean, the other teams also had celebs. So we had like Neil Tovey had his own team there, you know, for our famous Bafana Bafana captain, who won the African Cup of Nations. And like a whole lot of other guys were there, and we I think we played second. Wow. And do you feature these things on your blogs or not really? Yeah, yeah. No, that I did. Yeah. Because uh, I mean it was quite an achievement for us. Yeah, you know, the Indian team shining through there. Can I go and watch that? On is it available online or I need to check up. I don't know if it's still there, but you know, I'm not very avid CakeNet watcher.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

So funny, uh on this on this topic of because CakeNet's on DS TV, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

I'm just thinking of that show. I didn't watch it um organically.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Because people that I know that live in the same house as me watch it. I don't want to out them. Yes. But it's that it's that, what's it called? Spice, uh, sugar and spice or the mum the mummies, yeah. A mummy club where it's like all these Durban uh celebrities. Yeah, it's like a reality TV show. Yes, and there was one episode that went viral where the lady is talking about her significant other being a doctor, and then everybody else says no, he's not a doctor, he's just a well a surgeon, I think it was.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Or surgeon, and then they say no, he's a child. He was just doing his locum practicing. Internship internship.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You haven't been on that show yet.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

I yeah, I don't see myself being on that show. Well, you never know. It was one of the that's probably one of the ones where I'll probably say no.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

I enjoyed that show.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

If they're it's doing well, but I don't think it you you sort of want you you build your brand.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

And while it's great for me to have exposure on the show, it's not part of the brand.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

So now you're a bit more discerning. Because remember earlier you mentioned you would just say yes, Jenny. Yeah, now you're a bit more discerning. And um you you've gotta keep that in mind, like your personal brand and true, yeah. Okay, so on the topic of doctors now, what do you think about doctors? We have to talk about something in it. Like, what's your experience?

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Do you have friends, family, doctors? Yeah, I've got quite a few relatives that are doctors, specialized doctors. Yeah, uh a lot of friends that are doctors as well.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Um, look, medical for us, it's very important, I feel. Yeah, you know, a lot of people are looking at natural healing these days, but I still feel there's a need for science. Yeah. I'm a firm believer in science.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

And uh I'm guessing you know lots of like influencers slash celebrities, slash famous doctors, or not really?

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Not really, no. I mean, I've I'd like to consider my friends famous. Yeah. For I mean, I've got we both know uh a surgeon, Sandir. Oh, yeah, Sandir. I mean, but he's like popular because of the patients that speak out of how he treats people and his approach to it. And you know, uh doctors like that for me are you know one in the million. How do you pick a doctor?

SPEAKER_02 53:12

Like as a as a you're the first layperson. Yeah. Um and I was gonna say, like, you know, engineers, layperson, yeah. Don't think you're here to get laid. It means you're just not a you know you're not a doctor on the show, right? Yeah. So how do you pick a doctor?

SPEAKER_01 53:25

Like a dentist or whatever. I guess starting off, your your parents picked them for you. Okay, all right. And uh the family doctor is down the road. Yeah. Funny enough, he's a very close family friend.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Uh and he studied with my dad uh in school. Okay. My dad didn't study medicine. So he's been your family GP for ages. For ages, from the time I was born. What's his name? Uh Dr. Parag. Parag, okay. And he's got a brother who's a specialist physician who I ended up going to as well.

SPEAKER_03 53:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

Where is this in Reservoir Hills? Yeah, so the GP is in Reservoir Hills, and my physician's at St. Augustine's hospital. Okay. Who's a physician? Uh his brother, Dr. KB Parag. KB Parag. Yeah. And and the thing is, uh, again, because of the history, and I I'm quite satisfied with that. And but in terms of, you know, as you said, picking doctors, it's it's tricky. So you look to them for recommendations when you have ailments. So doctors themselves. Doctors themselves. Right. And obviously the doctors that you trust because you know you you're going to them, you're seeing them, you but how do you trust them? How do you know to trust them? That's the thing. You you just have to trust them. But a couple years ago, I had a had a issue, uh medical issue.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

And uh all the doctors I've seen in Durban, like the friends that consult I consulted with, told me, look, you need to try and see this guy, yeah, see where he can sort you out. And I had no luck. Like literally all the doctors I got referred to told me that there was nothing wrong with me and they, you know, they don't see an issue. I must just go away. But I know there was an issue. Yeah. And uh my uncle in Johannesburg said, Look, his client who is from uh Middle East came down to have a similar uh procedure that you know you're suffering with here in Joburg at the Donald Gordon uh hospital. Right. Why don't you go next time you're up, go see this lady? And I did. And she says, No, you're right, there is something wrong, and I can fix you. Okay. So I flew up to Johannesburg, had the procedure within the week I was back home. And yeah. So word of mouth is an important thing in um Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:24

And also, look, trusts. You don't Google and say, like, look at the the reviews and and yeah, maybe I should, but yeah, no, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

But who's this doctor Donald Gordon? Just shout out to her. Dr. Nadine Heron, thank you very much. Nadine Haran. How do you spell that? Uh I think it's H R R E N. Oh, A-N, sorry. H-A-R-R-E-N. A-N, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

So she's well, shout out to her, that's great. Um and you got referred to her, but you we're talking about like because I Google the funny thing is, right? Yeah. I know lots of friends and family and colleagues.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

But I want to sometimes um out of convenience find the person closest to me. So I type in like dermatologist near me.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

No, look, for things like dentists and things like that, I suppose. Yeah, that you know, near me or do you have a dentist? I do. Who's the dentist? Uh Dr. Yeshiv Harku.

SPEAKER_02 56:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Uh he's based in Dublin, not very close to the office, so it's convenient. Okay. Yeah, he so I saw there's a reminder I need to go see him in March.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Okay, yeah, yeah. Discovery is also telling me I need to go for my checkup.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Yeah. Okay, so you Google and you check, but then No, well, this this was uh also a recommended. Also recommended. Well, I know I know him for a few years. Harku. Harku, yeah. Okay. And uh yeah, as much as it to get thousands uh points for vitality, it's also good to have your teeth uh no, definitely go regularly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:43

Have you ever had any like negative experiences with doctors? Ever had to complain formally or informally? Not for me personally, my mum. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

So you've lodged complaints on behalf of your mum? Uh well, I wanted to, but obviously we needed other doctors to back up. Okay. And no one was willing to go against this doctor because he's quite prominent in the world. Okay, okay. That's interesting. But at the same time, I'm glad my mother's issues were sorted out by the doctor. Okay. You know, the the second doctor who who told us what went wrong and what this guy did wrong.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Okay, second opinions and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Yeah, she had to go for a second procedure, a corrective surgery.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

And uh he told us, like, you know, this guy it was a bot surgery.

SPEAKER_02 57:25

Okay, okay. Oh, so the second opinion gave you that.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

Yeah, he because it it there were it could have led to serious conditions with her. Luckily, we we got it sorted out in time, and that's what like you know, got us a bit angry and made me want to take it up. But the thing is we needed medical or professional backing, yeah, which no one wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

My line of work, I s uh I help doctors and dentists and clinicians when they're when they have complaints and in trouble. So I I find it fascinating to get the insight on patients. So that's why I'm I'm digging.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Oh, that's why like did you ever consider like complaining to the the regulator and things like that about the Yeah, so I I did proper research and uh as I said, I've got family that are doctors as well, and he was also saying, like, no, this is what you need to do, this is what you need to do, you know, get the form, get it filled out, send it through, and you know, see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

And did you guys ever pursue that or you decided not worth it?

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Look, as I said, for one, we didn't get the professional backing that we needed, and two, uh, we got advice from other people saying, you know what, it's not worth it.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

You know, if if if it was, you know, fatal, maybe then it would have been. But my my mom got sorted out after that. And was the the doctor that in question were they evasive or were they Yeah, very evasive. When we told them, like, you know, this is a story, he was like, No, nothing was wrong from okay. Yeah, so not really welcoming the feedback and also the consulting prior to the first operation was very abrupt from what they told me. Okay. And it was money first kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, okay. And and from what we've learned, he's a specialist, but he's not a surgeon, so he shouldn't have been doing the operating first place.

SPEAKER_02 59:09

Okay. So there's a interesting insight there. I like to see the other side.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

I mean, like we uh non-doctors don't know these things. Yeah, yeah. You know, like even too, I went to go see a consultant, like a gastroenterologist, and he can do a scope, but he can't do the operation. You know, it's all new for us. You don't realize, like, okay, fine, they work with surgeons. Yeah, it's all hand in hand. For us, it's just like, no, you'll taught me on.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

Yeah, they're the they're the expert, I've got to trust them because you said, and that's why I asked you what what actually makes you trust the doctor? One of my colleagues calls the service that doctors and professionals, even engineers and stuff, they call it a credence service, which means that there's such a big gap in the information of the person purchasing the service. So, like you as a patient, yeah, you have to rely on what the doctor says, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it is it goes the same way. People come to me as an engineer and I tell them, look, this is what you need to do. And they're they they have to have a certain level of trust that I'm doing the right thing. And you know, you for best results, you want you want to give them the best, you know, yeah. I get you, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:13

Alrighty. So you love cooking. How does this happen? Now mom teaches you, dad teaches you. No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Uh good. Mom wants me out the kitchen. All right, because I messed things up. Taking up and I take up space. But uh we've been on a couple of trips together, and I I look forward to it because you you you you take control, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The the Clarence trip was quite a nice one because you were you were the only person that were fasting that fasting as in, yeah, no meat, no meat. Yeah, yeah. So look, uh cooking for me maybe just round about high school. Yeah. Started taking an interest. You know, we knew the basics, how to fry an egg and things like that. But uh, like I used to watch a lot of cooking channels. Okay. And like, you know the the the the new reality TV shows at the time, you know, like Ready Steady Cook or Make a Meal in 10 Minutes kind of thing. And you see them doing these things in 10, it's like, I can do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

And look, it may not have taken 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. Yeah. And the kitchen a total mess. And was your mom like, what are you doing? What are you doing here, dude? Yeah, yeah. It's like I made food. Why are you cooking more stuff? Eat what I made. And there's usually like plenty of food.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:15

I'm sure in the Gucci also, but it's like too much to eat.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

And then, yeah, uh, from that, you know, okay, doing the 10 minute stuff, and then you're like looking at other pictures, or you go to a restaurant, you see a me and you want to replicate it at home. And that just sort of snowballed into a passion. Yeah. Another one of my passions. Yeah. And uh, I don't eat beef. Yeah. And every time I see steak, it looks amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

So I I try to replicate that with lamb.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

And then at least now too, we've getting a lot more different cuts, you know, in terms of meat. So you never used to get a lamb steak before. Now you're getting like a lamb rum.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

Well, maybe you must do it a channel of just like Amit uh tries or AMG133 cooks or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

Funny enough, the Post newspaper, which is a very uh famous Indian newspaper in Durban, I think it gets circulated to Jansburg as well. Yeah. They featured me a couple years ago with a few of my recipes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

Cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

You talked about passions now, lots of passions. It seems I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

One of them I know you're always going on about on is is is this Y N W A nonsense, uh, which is an acronym for You'll never walk alone. Which is uh yeah, I mean it is a big Liverpool very big fanatic. I think I can call you a fanatic in the proper sense of the word. Yeah. Tomorrow's a game, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Big game.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Well, big game for for United. Not not for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:33

I mean, I wish it's not televised, but I always tell people, like, you know, even though we're flying high, that game against United, just there's something special about it. You never know what can happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

Have you been to one of these games?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

I was meant to go in 2020. I had two tickets, one for Liverpool versus Aston Villa in Anfield in the COP.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

And the second the next weekend was uh Brighton versus Liverpool over there, and I had tickets to that. And literally two months before I could leave, lockdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lost my UK visa money, lost the tickets money. Goodness. But yeah, fortunately, most of the other stuff got refunded.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

But it's gonna happen again, you're gonna plan it sometime.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:11

Hoping this year, April.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:12

Oh, okay. That's that's that's soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

That's soon, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:15

Um in the next in the next two weeks, I should know whether I get my tickets or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

Well, after you get the PR Eng thing, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Well, I'm also turning 40 this year. So nice. I want to do it because I suppose we go on my 36th birthday, so this is gonna be the 40th. Oh, that'll be brilliant, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

Awesome. And um, okay, we we touched on it earlier, but like you travel a lot. Yeah. Uh is it international or like local? You do a lot of local travel. That's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:40

Yeah, with my work, yeah, a lot of local travel, a lot of through a KZN. Yeah. But in the last two years, we started getting our kind the company I work for is actually in Africa and Middle East. Okay. So we're working throughout that, but we have offices everywhere. And the the rule of thumb is if there's work in the city, that office needs to do it. Whether the office in Durban means the work or not. But because we are the client managers, yeah, we need to go there. So I've I've got projects in Pelaborwa, Johannesburg, and uh you're traveling all over the place to like places that are less traveled. Yes. And you get to see the beauty. It it's I tell people we see things that you don't even think about.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

And we've seen places that just blew my mind in terms of beauty, yeah, how people live. Yeah. Uh like I do a lot of schools in rural areas, and we take so much for granted there. We take like running water is such a luxury.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:37

I worked in a rural area.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:39

Yeah, I mean, you know yourself. Yeah. And like building a school from nothing, there's nothing, it's just a grass field, and seeing the community get uplifted, so happy to see that you know they're getting things finally.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:50

But do you also like not it gives you an appreciation of the beauty of this country?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

It does. Yeah, and the people. The people more so than, you know. I mean, look, landscape nature-wise, I don't think you can find yeah. I mean, every every country in the world got its own beauty, but to appreciate and see what we have to offer in this country is amazing. Yeah, and then you know with that too, as I said, you know, we get to see places that you don't normally see, and I wouldn't really even want to uh think about going there.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and like when you're flying back uh uh from an overseas trip and then you hear that like Afrikaans, or you hear like a local language, you're like, ah, I'm back home, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

It's just that sense of like welcoming, like, oh, I'm back.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

Yeah, because the people are what make this place exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

I mean, uh when I my first overseas trip uh was in 2007, yeah, and we're staying in this hotel in Bangkok, yeah, and uh I heard someone speak Zulu after like a week, and I was like, Yes, one of us, one of our people. And like because I used to work in the shop and predominantly most of our customers were were African, yeah, or Zulu speaking, I I like I know a bit. Yeah, no, you can. So like Kuluma is Zul. Yeah, yeah. Kan Lani. I was gonna say a bikki, but that's African. But yeah, I got so happy, and then like we went, and I'm I'm speaking broken Zulu to them, and they're like they're also like overjoyed. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's brilliant, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

That's local travel. You've been catching any international flights. I I see you track uh interesting thing. You like a big flight tracker type with are you big into aviation? I love it. Recently you tweeted about an A380 or something coming to South Africa.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

Yeah, so we've the only airport that cases for A380s at the moment is Oatambo. What's the A380? It's a it's the largest passenger plane available. Um they discontinued, they don't make it anymore. Airbus. Airbus, yeah, French. So um, yeah. So what happened was uh last week uh flight departed from Sydney, Qantas A380 heading, and they had some mechanical issues. Four hours into the flight, they had to turn back. Right. So now every day back to Oz. Yeah. Every day there's a flight from Sydney to to Joburg. Direct flight, okay. Direct flight. Yeah. So on that's because that flight had turned around, it had to depart the next day. Okay. So there was two A380s flying four hours apart. That's cool. Yeah. So it was a it was a nice thing for aviation geeks out there to see like, you know, we're getting two planes coming from the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

So are you like an aviation geek type of thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:16

I love I love aviation, but I wouldn't say a geek. Yeah, but you follow these things. I follow these things, and I I like aviation. Like last year when I went to Mauritius, I got a chance to fly on uh A350, which is people aircrafts are now going for smaller, more efficient fleet that can go longer distances on you know less fuel.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:37

So the A3, 83, 747s, Boeings, they're not very economical.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

So these smaller planes are much more you know streamlined, more comfortable for the passengers, yeah, yeah. More tech. So yeah, that was a nice uh bucketless tick-off for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:52

Cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:52

So what flights are you catching or planning on catching except to the one to Liverpool?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

Well, uh, might be going back to the east end of the year. Yeah, work on business. No, no, no. It's uh for friends uh stag.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

All right, cool. That's a nice, nice thing to do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:09

So there's something to look forward to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:12

No invite. Uh can't be a mutual friend. It better not be, because then I wasn't invited. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, man. All right. Anything else you want to talk about or interested in?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:23

Plug? Yeah, no, I mean, look, in general, I mean, you said this is about people, about your careers.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Uh I think, you know, even to for the youngsters that are going to varsity right now, you know, even though if you're gonna be doing BCOM or medicine, don't limit yourself. You know, if you've got an interest, yeah, use it as, you know, concentrate on your studies. Yeah. But at the same time, don't lose interest on other stuff. Like there's so much you can still do while doing your day job. I it takes a lot. Trust me, I know this. There's certain days where I don't have time for the blog.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:55

And like I've I've I've got it down where I've do three posts a week Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:01

Monday is for the music, Wednesday is normally for tech, and Fridays for the cards. How are you distributing this? All online. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

Via email or like newsletter?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

So I thought about doing the newsletter thing, but I hate newsletters. Okay. You don't read them, you just swipe. Yeah, I delete them or I report them, I spam. Right. So how do you so I just it's all organic.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

So uh So you there's there is a following of like organic following. You don't have to trouble people to remind them they come to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

I used to tweet the links. I still do, but before I should like plug it the whole week. I hardly see you tweeting. Now it's just once. That's it. On the day itself. Monday, if there's a f the song, I'll I'll tweet about the link maybe twice a day in the afternoon. So again, with social media, it's very different. Um each stream or each platform has different trends. Oh, algorithms and algorithms and things like that. So you you gotta sort of figure out yourself how it works. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's no proper science to it, but you gotta see what works for you. What time would a certain uh tweet gain traction?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:08

And you yourselves gotta look at it. Okay, I work, I've got a full-time job. Yeah. When am I more relaxed to read something? It's during lunch. So that's why you'll see me tweeting something during lunch or link to the blog during lunch. So there's method to your madness. There is always method.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

And uh And people won't necessarily realize that. No, no, no, they don't. And like also again, the the second one will go out like maybe seven o'clock or after seven. Why? Because people just finished dinner, they want to watch something on TV or they're scrolling through their phone more or less.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:37

Yeah. Any tips for me? Like I'm starting off here. My my um video with KFIS, it just took off. I think the YouTube algorithm put it out there on people's homepage. It was a Botswana. Yeah, tips.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:49

Give me some tips for YouTube. I'm not too well versed on it, even though I had a channel for like the longest time. Yeah. Um I'm I don't know if you, your channel, whether you, you know, youtube.com slash It's the whole long thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:03

Why did I become a doctor?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

So it's it's available. Yeah. Okay, because I know before they were randomly just giving numbers. Oh, I don't know. It's yeah. So I was also fortunate to get my YouTube channel. Okay. Name there. But what is it? AMG133. No, AM Kosai, I think it is. Okay, okay. But like the videos there I'm were at first were just URB.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

And uh, as you said, it's the weirdest things that you don't know how it works, but the weirdest videos get the most traction.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

Is it car videos and things? No. I do try and put content on cars there now.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:33

So are you focusing and like you could do a proper YouTube channel?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

Yeah, yeah. So but I'm I'm I'm doing more on the short base more than the long base. So there's YouTube Shorts now. Yes, yes. Which also very, very tricky in terms of the algorithm to get views.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:48

But at the same time, you know, it's it's a nice way to get content out quickly. Because for me, when you're on the go, you want to look at content that's short, but if you know, has a lot of information on it. Right, right. So that appeals to me. So that's what I'm trying to do. Whereas, you know, there's nothing wrong with this, what we're doing here. It's it's it's got its place.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:10

Yeah, yeah. When you're driving to Palabova, I just put my podcast on a list of videos. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

No, I've I've actually down, I download, I've got YouTube Premium, which is the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

Yeah, I can't survive without it. Yeah. I don't know how people do.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:21

Yeah. And then uh I download it. Yeah. And on the plane, I'll watch it. Okay, cool. And then when you're like obviously walking through the terminals, headphones plugged in.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:30

So I learned a lot from speaking to you, man. What I've learned especially or reinforced and learnt is that you don't necessarily have to have a plan.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

No, you don't.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:41

Like you've got to pursue, and Dr. Yak said it in the first interview, I think, or he says it on his thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

Find things that you enjoy and just do it without even thinking. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:50

I mean, it can be anything like gardening too. Yeah. It might not work out, right? It might but I mean I tried my hand at gardening last year.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

I like I liked to cook, so I wanted like a herb garden. Yeah. When and put all the seeds, thought I did everything right, nothing happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:05

Like you just died.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

So but you still did it. I mean, you know, I still did it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

I mean, if it did grow, it would have inspired me to do more. But at the same time, now I'm not saying I'm giving up on it. I want to try again, but maybe do things properly or differently.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:18

Yeah, I've learned that. And just say yes to things. Yeah. Don't shy away from things, get out of your comfort zone a bit. Yeah. You never know where where things might take you, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

The thing is, like I don't want to say the word formal because that's not it. Yeah. Fear of missing out. Yeah. Because there's not a fear of missing out. It's it's when you see when you decline, and if I had to decline the invite and I know I could have attended and I see what was going on, it's like I could have been a part of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

You know, I could have learned something from that as well. Yeah. It wasn't so much about having four more, such as missing out on the fun and stuff like that. But it's just, you know, you get to go there, it's not always what you think it is. You know, there's always something that you'll take home from it. Yes. You might have to do that. Apart from the free gifts.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:07

Oh, yeah. You might bump into some random person and make some connection that um has nothing to do with the event.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:15

Exactly. I mean, um, for example, I bumped into one of these travel vloggers for at one of the events, and he was telling me like how he does things, and uh he's he's actually from based in the UK. Yeah. And uh again, you know, you learn from him. You don't necessarily have to do what he's doing, but and it's something nice to learn about.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

Yeah, you learn from any interaction you no matter what. Thank you so much, dude. This was really interesting for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

Yeah, no, no, thanks for having me. As I said, I'd I'm not a doctor, but anyway, I hope I cont I contributed somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:47

Yeah, yeah. My first layperson, non clinician, first Gucci, first uh lots of first, yeah. Uh I'm honored then. Thank you so much, man. Thank you. I hope the viewers, I know they will enjoy this one. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:01

Well, if you don't, just send complaints to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Yeah, yeah. Put a comment, like, uh, don't comment, give me all the comments. Cheers, Amit. Thanks, man. Thanks, Yesh.