SPEAKER_02 0:00

This episode of Why Did I Become a Doctor is brought to you in partnership with Medical Brief, South Africa's leading daily healthcare news service. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. Subscribe free at medicalbrief.co.za forward slash subscribe. Enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

It's called Apple Guy. He's got a sh store here. We went to school together, actually. He um he's got a store here, he's got a store in Durban, he's got a store in Cape Town.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, so if you're looking for any Apple products.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

I have seen it. Maybe we can keep that on Apple Game Plug. What's in the Apple guy? Yeah. Do we should we take this take this down or if you need it, just pour it?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Why did I become a doctor? I I I was wondering what that long Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Have you come across this? Where? I saw it online. Uh clips popped up. You ever watched?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Not the whole thing. Okay. I've watched the shots.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Alright. I mean I've I've come across you online. Dr. Sahel Essa. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Oh we started. Okay. Yeah, let's start. Let's just do it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

I like it when it's natural. Yeah, perfect. I came across you online. Uh I knew you were a doctor.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

But the time that I said to Yak, we need to get this all on is when I saw you having a go at one of my esteemed colleagues, Dr. Asking you're a real doctor. She's a dentist. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

We had a good back and forth there. Oh, was it yeah? Or was she part of the crowd or something? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yeah, at one of your shows, stand-up shows. I mean, I I didn't usually I at least know the people that we bring on. I didn't vet you. I mean, are you sh are you a real doctor? What's your what's your way let's do it, let's do it now. You can do it. I mean, this is a public service because you I mean, just for for lay people, you know, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Look, I no longer practice, but yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Uh you can actually check online to see if somebody's you go on the HPCSA's website and you go to find a practitioner.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

But that's what you do on every episode. No, no, no, because I usually know the guys. What's your HPCSA? MP083 7423.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

7423. You're not you're not gonna cut that out now. I'm not cutting that out. That's public knowledge. That that's what your MP number? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Well why not? Dr. Suhail.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Well, it I've got a different surname, I will explain that.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah, yeah, no problem. And and you read it. You registered in Globu, DC. That means elephant. And there's a Johannesburg. But it's uh what's in Globo?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Elephant. Yeah. I don't know why that's there.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Okay, must just check because uh the kid registered properly. And let's see. You qualify. But speaking of, did you vet us? I mean all the kidnapping and stuff around.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

I didn't know, but I took a little bit uh but I watched a little bit of the podcast, saw a couple of different episodes. I saw the one I think the way I started following you guys when I saw Riyadh on there. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

You qu you qualified in a real comedian. Are we allowed to have digs at you? No, yeah, of course. Uh you qualified in 2016 at Wits.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yes, 2016. University of Witwaltersrant.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Welcome and it's thank you for coming in and in the city.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

No, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I was gonna take the early morning flight, but uh you know, because uh I want to be back in Cape Town. Yeah, you had your gig last night in Lenz. Yeah. How'd that go? Uh excellent, excellent. Uh I the last time I was in Lenz was probably about two, three years ago. When I uh I was on tour. Yeah, I was touring the country. Okay, wait.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

So let's get the first question out of the way Why'd you become a doctor, so yeah?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Where you from Why did I become a doctor? Um probably because of my grandfather. Um I grew up with my grandparents. My parents are divorced. Uh and uh he was a really great doctor, um and anaesthetist. Uh I lived with him in Sydenham in Durban.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Right?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

The Nymphs together. Yeah, in the NIMMS, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Grew up in the heart of Sydenham, uh in the heart, heart, heart of Syndam, amongst uh people that did not look like me. We were the only Indian family uh in that colored neighborhood. And uh my grandfather was also uh very passionate about his job, uh, but more so than that, he was uh very passionate about human rights. He was a big uh anti-apartheid activist, member of the ANC, imprisoned with Praveen Gordon. Um was he in state or in private? He was in state for many years and then went into private uh in the latter half of his career.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Where was he doping?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Is it Augustine's or well initially he was for many years he was actually at Prince Mshani, King Edward, and then uh he moved on to uh Victoria Hospital. Tongat. Tongat's my hometown. Yeah, Tongat, he was there for many, many years. What's his name, doctor? Faruq Mir.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Faruk Mir, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah. And then uh also Aman Hcombe.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Not related to the old time uh the Mir's uh what's it, Fatima Mir?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yes, that's his sister.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, I know some history. Fatimirist, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yes, yes, yes, she's also so it was he was kind of inspired by his his older sister and um uh he studied in Ireland. He came back from Ireland as uh most people did at that time, you know, because they couldn't get in. So Is your mom's dad or your dad's dad? That's my mom's dad. My dad's dad is from Peter Maritzburg, so all the family is there. Um yeah, I was born in America.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

In 1992. Wow. Shh. So you have citizenship. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to talk too much of We'll talk, we'll talk about that. I don't want them to revoke it.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah, if they check your social media.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So I um yeah, yeah. My parents came back to South Africa. Both my myself and my brother are born there, and then we came back. Shortly after that, my parents were divorced. I'm I lived with my grandparents. And uh, yeah, I think it was through his example, more than anything else. Uh, towards the latter half of my uh high school career, I started going with him to the hospital. And, you know, he was sort of when people ask me, yeah, what type of doctor, he was like, I was I I say he was he was like the orchestrator of that theater. You know, people don't really consider Nisathista as uh the main guy there. But uh he's the guy that's taking your life away and giving it back to you, essentially. It's a very, very there's an art to it. I think he had it down to a T. And uh he retired the year I uh graduated.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

The day I graduated, actually. Um he was very proud of me, and I was I was happy uh uh to be a doctor because I could see myself living through uh, you know, his um what's the word I'm looking for? I I could see myself living through um through his lens. And I I now saw what he saw, and I saw how um this profession, and not to say that there aren't any other professions, but uh this profession for me specifically would allow me to uh serve others and uh be remunerated for it as well. But um, you know, the sacrifices and everything else that comes with it is all part and uh part of the package. Is he still around? No. So he passed away um three years ago, 2023, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Dr. Mir.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah. And did did he know like what you subsequently started doing, like comedy or something? So yeah, while I was while I started uh I started doing stand-up comedy while I was a medical student.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

And he was always he was always very supportive. I think he enjoyed he, especially within the family circles, because he was a very prolific speaker. If you go on YouTube, you'll find some of his stuff. Um and uh people often used to tell him, like, oh, he gets it from you. And I think he enjoyed that. And he had Alzheimer's, and he the last performance he saw of mine, I was performing uh at the Suncoast Globe uh with David Cow. Uh he has a show called Blacks Only, which he's been doing for the last 20 some odd years. And um I think Riyad is the only other Indian guy that's ever been on that show.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

So he came there and uh, you know, he his uh Alzheimer's was pretty advanced at that point. He was very almost non-verbal. Uh but I could see in his eyes, like he really, really enjoyed it. He was proud. And um my grandmother, she always used to say, Yeah, yeah, but just specialize, man. Just specialize. Don't waste your degree, man.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Yeah. Yeah. So look, I know I know two Souheils. Well, one other Suheel. Yeah. He was like one of my favorite friends in school, you know him, Sohil Bucks. He was one of the funniest guys I he is one of the funniest guys I know.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Maybe it's a soheil. What does Soheil mean? Do you even know? Suhel is a name of a star in the constellation. Yeah. Doesn't have a meaning. And okay, so you're born in America. Then you uh when do you grow up in Sydenham? Like when do you move?

SPEAKER_00 9:05

I was probably about three, four years old. Yeah. Uh when we moved back to South Africa. And then yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

And where did you school? Sorry, it's a very Cape Town question. What school did you go to? School. Yeah, uh, Delban High School, DHS. DHS Oh boy. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh. Okay. School.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

You must have been one of the first charles in that school.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

I'm not that old, but I just got great hair. I don't know what you're talking about surprised. That's like the only No, I didn't know you were a DHS O boy. Yes, what year? Uh 2005. Okay. I started there in 2006. Okay, so we wouldn't have crossed paths then.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, cool, man. I was there, yeah. I was there from 2006 to 2010. Did you feel part of did you do you feel like an old boy? I mean, I don't I don't really buy into that type of like maybe swear yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you can. I don't really buy into that bullshit culture like of school, but I enjoyed school. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. Like I went to all the rugby games, I was fully immersed in that culture. But the day I left, I was maybe like two days after that, I was like, all right, I'm done now. You know what, when it's the next step.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

The greater things are belong to. No, you know what I think it is? I think it's the guys that were into sport in in high school that like buy inside culture. Like I feel more of a Clifton all-boy than a DHS or all boy. Why? Because I was in Clifton Prep, right? And I was first team cricket. We went on tour and everything. And I was one of the it just made me feel connected to the school. But at DHS, after under 15A, you know, they they import all these top players, so I didn't make first team. Oh, I made the first team squad and never really played because they had like Jonathan Vandier and all these guys who you might even know.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Ah, Vandia sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yeah, he was he was in grade seven or grade nine or whatever. But anyway, I didn't make first team, so I never felt a connection to the school. But I did go to a 20-year anniversary recently. And I realized I do feel connected. Anyway, so Hell Bucks. Yeah, Sohell is also a DHS or boy. Okay, so you went to DHS, huh?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

And he's were you a funny guy like in school, class clown?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

No, Mike, but in fact, uh on one of when I did my first one man show, I had uh I teamed up with a production company. So basically both of us started our journeys into like, okay, we let's make it. And uh he shot this whole documentary of me coming out of COVID. Who's who's who are you talking about? Narrate Studios. He shoots SMWX podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Oh, yeah. Uh he does weddings and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, yeah, that's how he started.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, yeah. So funny story about him. We met, his father is one of the biggest like grand priests in the country, Muslim priests. Okay, so his father didn't know that he does this. Okay. Because he obviously that's not ideal for him. Because his dirty little secret, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we would go on tour, he would li he would basically tell his father, I'm going with this doctor, we can only travel. Nice boy. Decent boy. Now we'd come there and grief, Slamlaikum, yeah. I'm just taking your son. For three days, we'd go to like the Northwest, do a show in three different towns.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

What were you guys doing? What was the pretext? So here's the story.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Now now let's jump to the story, right? I decided that in 2019, after I finished my community service, I worked only here in Joburg. So I did job to finish, worked internship Jobak Gen, Compsurb Jobak Gen, did surgery during uh my Compsurb year, was actually potentially thinking of going down that route. And um in in October they had asked me, like, hey, are you gonna apply for the jobs in Jan? And I was like, nah. That was the best year I'd had in comedy in my career, in comedy by far. That was the year I did the black the all all of those blacks-only shows. And um, you know, I was making decent money, not enough to um to match my doctor's salary, but I was like, if I just give this, imagine if I just give this my all, you know. So I left, and then 2020 comes, and we go into lockdown three months later. So now I'm stuck with a job, and I've, you know, I put my eggs in all in one basket, and then that happens, and nobody could see that coming. So I was pretty depressed, and by December, once things started opening up, I'd already started a job back at Chobert Gen in the emergency department in August. So by December, I was just like, you know what, let me just do one little show. And we did one little show, and I kind of just felt like I gotta keep this going. I said I was gonna do it, let me just do it. Was tough, you know, working full-time as a medical officer in an emergency, a busy emergency department like Choberg Jen's. And every single day I was like, okay, where are we going next? And one show just led to another, and as things started opening up more and the COVID restrictions uh began uh to lift, uh, the numbers in my shows would, you know, gradually get bigger and bigger and bigger, and it just grew. Um and my strategy was just to to to be consistent on social media, which I hate. I don't like social media. I don't like the fact that I have to post and do all of that stuff. But I understand that, you know, there's certain parts of any career that you don't like that you just have to do. So the social media part was like religious. Uh, I like the fact that I worked with uh Noman uh from Narate because he's a perfectionist and he's O C D and we had a schedule, and every uh uh at one point we were posting like maybe four videos a week with long form YouTube content, um like a documentary style of us traveling from one city to the next and like our experiences, very like vlog style almost. You you know Waffa? Yes, very well, good friend of mine.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah, I I feel like you're the medical Waffa.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

That that's just my so Waffa used to open for me at my shows. Wow. Yeah, now he's like he's uh definitely by far overtaken me. But a lot of the blueprint that he has for his tour, um s he basically um you know through him the experiences that he had. That's amazing, man. Um because we we did the the countrywide tour.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Shh but let's let's rewind, let's rewind. DHS, right? Yeah. Were you good at academics? Because you weren't a sports guy. What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Why do you assume all the sports? Yeah, I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

No, didn't didn't we discuss that? Like I said, we we didn't feel a connection, and I said maybe it's because we went into sports and the sports. No, that was you.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

That was you.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

I don't feel connected because I'm just like, okay, there's certain things you can't be connected to everything in your life. Like when one door shuts, another one opens, you progress in life, you carry on going forward. I really thoroughly enjoyed it. I was a rugby player, I was a basketball player, um, soccer player.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

So they still have that team. Um I don't know if it's a derogatory term, but they used to call it the Charatas.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

What? Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that's like they made it like under under 16, like F teams, whatever. It's just Indians. They call it the Charatas. But uh no, they kind of like rugby team. I think they kind of by the time I I got there, they were kind of like, okay, this is not.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

They're much more politically correct.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, yeah, way more PC. They were like, all right, we gotta get rid of these. You know, what am I high? Bunch of childhoods who just want to hang out together. Honestly, it was. That's what it was.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Well, my teachers told me to go back to India, you know this?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Oh, wow. Did you ever get kicked out of class in DHS? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For what? Oh, many things. I was a very naughty kid. And I was never academically inclined, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Okay, so you sports you weren't great, but you played. You participated.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So though my main sport was actually basketball. Basketball, I ended up playing first team, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Wow, that was big in DHS, sir.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Very, very popular. And um I was the only non-black kid in the team.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

And you're tall. I mean, I I when you greeted us for the first time now, I realized it's tall. Yeah, wait, sorry, you go back to the Charitas thing. Charitas. Charitas. It's a play on the word Waratas, which is another. Waratas are rugby. But like you have to volunteer to be on the team, or how do how does that work? I don't know. I just remember the No, no.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

So it's basically the guys just get together and they make a team. Like unlike normal uh uh a schoolboy rugby where they they all come for tiles, they do that. These are like, no, we want to smoke, we wanna we wanna relax. I'm telling you, DHS was actually I loved my school because firstly I came from Sydenham, right? Colored neighborhood through and through. We were living across the road from proper blue-collar workers. There were RDP houses opposite us. There was it was a barren land. I don't know if you know how well are you guys from Derby?

SPEAKER_02 17:33

I'm from Maritzburg.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah, I say Durban. Where in Maritzburg are you from? Uh like Belfort area. Oh, okay, okay. I don't know. So I used to visit Maritzburg every second weekend to go see my father. And um, but we lived in Sydney, right? So I had all these worlds that I was exposed to. Go to DHS, and DHS at the time I went there, I don't know if it was the same as you, but that was the first couple of years that now things were starting to transform really, like in numbers-wise. Yeah. Because now when I entered the grade eight, 60% of the school was actually non-white, and 40 were white. And by the end, there was a way bigger majority. It was like 70, 80% non-white, and 20. Um black kids, yeah. Yes, black, Indian, there was a big number of Indian kids, colored, all races.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

And you get exposed to people from all walks of life, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I I enjoyed that. And my grandfather made it a very strong point to say, I will not send your kids to private schools because I don't like I think Model C is a good balance. Yeah. Because you're gonna get the you you're gonna be exposed to people who have money but are here, people who don't have as much money and are here either through scholarship or their parents are real hustlers. Like some of my friends' mothers were nurses, police officers, those are the type of people that I went to school with. And that uh sort of mentality even carried through to my university because my father was like, I'm not buying you a flat and a car. You're gonna take the bus and go live at Res. So I was again now the non me, my in fact, my business partners in the gents clinic, it was me, him, and probably three or four of us in the whole of RES that were non-black.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

I fully agree with you on the DHS thing, because I as I said, I went to Clifton, right? Clifton is full of rich kids. Yeah, yeah. And then when I I moved to DHS in high school and I used to tell people, like, I'm grateful that I'm exposed to people that are not just super lani, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All walks of life, you're absolutely right. Okay, so let's go back. DHS, right? You were not a kid, you got kicked out. I also got kicked out of class, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah, yeah. I got kicked out of class once because I locked the teacher out of the classroom.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Okay. I I got kicked out because one of my colleagues threw an apple at the teacher, and then she was upset, and then I said to her, she said, You guys have no respect, and I stood up stood up and said, Ma'am, we only respect respectable people. Oh. Wow. I got kicked out, and then my dad had to write letters and things. Old man. Anyway. Is that what you told you to go back to India? No, no, there was another teacher who was a history teacher who told me to go back to India. Oh, maybe you meant historically. But look, DHS was a great place. We enjoyed it, right? Now, did you so you said you weren't brilliant academically? When did this the medicine thing come in?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

So uh how look, I I wouldn't I'm not I wouldn't say like I'm a dumb kid. I definitely have ADHD. I've never I've never I I I only really realized that when I started uh studying medicine and I s I knew like okay, because I once took retlin. Right. Guys were taking retilin and they enhance my studying focus. But when I took it, I was like, whoa. Yeah, this is this has fixed that problem of my brain just see one of the reasons why I think I quit medicine is because I it's just things get boring for me.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Okay. You see, aga I I agree, you you do go all over the place because now you asked me the question.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

I know what the question is, and I'm gonna come back to it. Like I 100% know. But I'm building the story so that you understand. So I was an undiagnosed ADHD kid, but not of the typical hyperactive kind. You know you get six different types of ADHD, yeah. Um I I I don't have the time to explain all of them now, but um remember we're dentists, right? Yeah, yeah. There's a high functioning, there's there's like people who are high functioning and whatever. In fact, ADHD is a i i is is is one of the hallmark features of most great entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Um because uh well, I don't know the exact reason, but for me, I think it's because I I like solving problems and my mind will go here, here, here, here, here, and I'll eventually get get down to solving it. And that's essentially what business is. Just problem solve it, make money. So I um I started high school in the lowest class in grade eight. I was in Miss uh uh Miss Governor's class, I don't know if you know her. Miss Governor, no, I'm not sure. She was there right at the bottom. If you enter the school and you turn left and you go down, there was like those biology classes where there was like rats and she had like crazy stuff. Like a like a baby uh pig fetus in a in a jar. Crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Crazy stuff. So anyway, I was.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

She's a small, short, thin, petite lady. No, no.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, not petite, but you know. So anyway, she uh I was in the lowest class in grade eight uh based on the entrance exam. Uh so that's where my career, just to get just just to put you guys in in uh in frame here, I was in the lowest class in grade eight. So all my friends when I started high school were like the lowest of the low guys, like gangsters, like proper, like degenerates. Like one guy was uh 19 years old in grade eight, stole the school bus. Wow. Shh. He once stole the school bus, took it around the block. That was the he failed that year, then came back, came back, came back. So these are the kind of guys, grade nine, one of my best friends, Julian Higgins, got stabbed to death out of a night outside a nightclub.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Shh.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Um, yeah. And so these so I had all these friends, right? And then when I decided in grade 11 that I'm gonna make the switch and I'm just gonna do medicine, um, I grade 11 was the first time I ever saw an A on my report card. How did that happen? I just You start taking Ritalin then or No, no, never. That was in only in university, and I took it once. So before uh uh in Grade 11, my grandfather sat me down and he was like, Look, it's fine if you don't know what you want to do right now, but you better have a plan by next year. So I suggest you start thinking about it. Now you can come with me to work, um, and you can see what I do. And I went and he was very motivating. And he was like, even if this is not what you want to do, you've got to at least Where'd you go? Which hospitals? Manage him. All right, cool. Yeah, yeah, I would go to there with him. Yeah. Um it was lovely, man, and they treated the doctor so well. And also, I think mm the thought in my mind was like, oh, I'm gonna get this when I graduate. Oh, this lovely little And that's private. Yeah, that's private. So now you think, I think in my head, like, also, oh, I'm just gonna walk in, the nurses greet me wonderfully, they'll make my toast and have my eggs for like those surgeons and anesitors were treated like gods. They had like nurses at their back and core making them food and uh setting up their theaters and drawing up their drugs for their anesitors. So I thought, oh, this is a lovely environment to work in. I even spent time working in the emergency department in that hospital. So I was like, hey, this is. When you say your culture, what what would you call it? So uh Gujarati, my my mother's side of the family, they speak Gujarati. And my father is Memmon. That's a different like tribe in India. So Guji speaking, are you Muslim? Muslim, yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Okay. And did you uh do you practice or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

I do, I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

All right. So grade 11, you start shadowing PA.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

You're singing it through a lens of okay, these doctors get a nice get a nice treatment. I want to do this. This I could do this, maybe. Yeah. And then you start pulling up your socks and start studying and working at it.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, so I just I think uh it was a combination. I definitely, my my parents were very supportive. They got me help particularly for maths and and physics. So I I was very then became very passionate about it. I actually started enjoying it. I started seeing like how this can be applied to the real world. Did you go for t for tuition? Yes, I went for tuition. No, no, no, no. I went to this guy in uh Recibo Hills, man. Ashwin.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Ashwin, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Ashwin. Well, every guy. Yeah, yeah. Ashwin, Ashwin had like a class of like 40 people and it was. On campus, yeah. It was proper. No, no, he had in this by that time, probably I heard when he had it at campus. Yeah, by this time he had rented a school hall. Sure, he was on the up. And he was on the up, and he was driving the craziest cars and only cash, huh? Only cash.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

He was right up at the top there, Mount Button Rub. Yes. No, you think you have Arun. You think you have Arun? No, no, Arun is a different guy. I went to Arun for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

I was like Arun turned me around, eh? Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Arun turned me from almost failing to getting an A in Matric. Really? No, he's good. He's good. I just didn't like his style, but I preferred Ashrid. So I used to go there, I used to have a great time. Um and um then yeah, things changed. Uh Matrik was the first time I entered the the top class. Wow. And as you can imagine, all of the nerds were looking at me like, what the fuck are you doing here? Why are you here? Um and then uh your other bras were like. And all my other bras were like, okay, we're all like, oh my gosh, it has made it to the top. That's cool. Um and then uh even when I won awards, oh my goodness, it was havoc. It was havoc. Winning awards at school. Uh so not awards, but like, you know, when I got my colours and stuff like that. I never actually got like any prizes or anything. I always somehow I always missed it by like a percent. Yeah. Like just a little bit or whatever. But um no, I got very good results by the end of the year. And when I got colours, all the guys in the back went crazy. All the guys in the back were throwing their blazers.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

But you must have gotten like 20 A's or something to get into Vits.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah, no, I got all theirs. Yeah. I managed to finally get all A's. The only one was Afrikaans. I got a 79, so I told him to remark that thing. And I came back with the 80s something. Oh, so yeah. But um it was really I sacrificed idea. So no social life, nothing. As more as most people would do in matric. Um, but at that time in my life, I was always like my as I said, my grandmother, still to this day, well, she's late now, but she could never understand how I did this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

That's a shame.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

She could never ever understand. My brother, Samir, he's the fat, jolly guy, had all the girls, was always the most popular, always a big talker, always the funny guy. Me, no. Introvert, shy, quiet, could never speak. Publicly, could never speak. Even in high school, even towards Matric and stuff. Even towards Matrik, I was never, never like We need to get we need to get back to that.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

That's interesting. Well, let's do it now. What so what happened? When did it when did the change happen?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Because I mean, so look, I would say I wasn't I always I was a bit mischievous. I was always a bit naughty or but I would never I would never have confidence whether it would be to approach a girl, whether it would be to speak publicly, any of that type of stuff. Um Yeah, I mean you went to all boys' school, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it's when we used to be a good one. I mean, there's girls around the corner. Really? There's girls around the corner, and we had mix it, man. We had mix it.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

You had mix it?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Okay. Do you remember mix it?

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Surely you guys had mix it. Yeah, look, I met my wife when I was in high school. She went to DGCs, but we went to one of these uh we met at a DHS play.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Hey, look at this guy, classy, huh? Classy took his throat to uh to a play when you're in high school to wear a suit. Uh I'm so glad you're bubbly because comedians can also like not necessarily be bubbly in real life.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

No, I know. Look, a lot of people say that um, you know, uh, because they expect you to always be funny. Yeah. No, I don't I don't try. Yeah, but it naturally comes up. Comedians are like often like contemplative and reflective and very deep. Look, I can be if you want me to be, but uh I prefer not to right now.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Yeah, but luckily it no, it's it's happening naturally. I don't feel like you're putting it on now.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Uh okay, so wait, wait, wait. Because we must unpack that. But Metric grade eleven, presumably, then you start applying to med school.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yes, so I applied to med school and I deliberately did not apply to UK ZN because I wanted to leave.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

That was just it. Right? So I wanted to leave everywhere. I got accepted actually. Um I got my provisional acceptance at Virts based on my trial results, and then I did better in finals. Uh, but uh I was I really wanted UCT. I kind of wanted UCT. And then I just I think I at that time I thought of it as like prestigious, hey Cape Town, it's a cool, it's a jewel. So Did you apply to Trans Kai?

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Because you said you applied everywhere, but I I bet you no, I did I don't think I see nobody applies to Umtata.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Well my brother studied at Umtata.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Oh U Samir?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Uh no, no. So Samir, uh uh so I have uh four brothers.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Uh my father remarried, so I've got three from from and the oldest there, he's a doctor. He actually lives with me in Cape Town. Okay. He's doing his comserve now. And then I've got uh my youngest brother, Yusuf, he's studying at uh Nelson Mandela University and PE. Now they've got a new university there. Medicine. Medicine, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Sure. All the most of the brews are medics.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have any sisters? Uh no, no, no, no. Five. Just the five of us. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

So okay, I didn't apply. I got accepted uh VITS provisionally, and then free state. Those are the two. And then come year end, VITS just doesn't get back to me. I get better results. So I assume obviously I'm getting accepted. The only people that were begging me was UFS. Oh my god, I was getting phone calls in Afrikaans. I had no idea what they were saying. You know Yacin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what?

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Do you know Yacin Bismillah, the forensic pathologist? Yeah, yeah, I've seen him.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

He was at Vasti uh around the same time.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

Okay, because he studied at Free State. Okay, I didn't know that. That's what I'm saying. Maybe you could have if if you'd if you'd said yeah to them or yes. Okay, so Vutts tell us they were quiet, then what happened?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

So I'm I'm I'm depressed now. I'm gonna go to Free State for five years, and I was gonna stay in the res there at Free State. So I eventually, it was the literally the day we've been trying to follow up all of that. The day they said you have to make a decision. My father said, just get in the car, drive to Bloemfontein, and start. And that day I was just like, just one more phone call. And I phoned Witz, and my bags are in the car. And I'm like, Mom, we one more phone call. So I phone them, we finally get through to someone, and they're like, Oh, so hey, oh yes, the lady that was dealing with the application was on leave. So they know you are accepted, of course. Wow. This makes no sense. So I you I immediately said, unpacked the car, prepped myself to go to Joburg. We drove up to Joburg, uh, moved into Ernest Open I'm all reds, stayed there for six years. What year was this first uh the first one? Uh this was twenty uh eleven.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Okay. You know, this is the third time on the show we're hearing about. I knew you could say it's uh uh well paperwork administered.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Yeah, it's all bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

It's uh I think that's all universities, but poor Free State, man. You just you blue tick them on the last.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

No, they're even willing to give me a scholarship and everything. Wow. They were really like, we need some color in this place. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's say let's start off with this uh with the with this latte and go to the cortados later. Uh gosh. How was Witz med school? Witz is lovely. I like the diversity. I think if if I look across the country and I look uh uh at my colleagues who've been to medical school, I think the Western Cape guys were very white. Um Pretoria and Pretoria still Afrikaans.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Uh but us, proper diversity. Right. Um UK ZN.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Yeah. But not not as diverse as the UK.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah, yeah, not as diverse as everywhere else. And they've got a very strict quota system, understandable. Yeah. Um and then I speak to my brother about what uh you know Trans Kai was like, and he was like, hey. Yeah, he was also one of very few. Yeah, I had a cousin that studied there. So no, I enjoyed it. I uh Did you fail? Second year almost failed. Almost. I wrote subs. Yeah. So having too much of a good time in second year. Yeah. Um Cool Runnings. Was Cool Runnings a thing? Cool runnings was a thing by the time, but it closed down when I was in my third year of medical school. In fact, some of the first how I got into comedy was I was dating a girl, right? And at that time, she wanted to do stand-up as like a bucket listing. Okay. So she didn't want to tell anyone because she was really nervous. So her sister told me, like, oh, she's gonna be performing at this place called Kitcheners in Bramfontain. So I go down there and I watch, and I'm just amazed that this type of environment even exists. Like you can just go to a place on a random night and just watch people say jokes. I never really thought of myself as the funny guy, but I I always enjoyed. Back in high school, I would make little sketch videos.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Uh, me, my brother. We had a very interesting home set up when I lived in Sydenham. So I uh come from a family of my mother, she has two siblings, neither of them were there. So it was just my mother, me and my brother, my uncle, my adopted uncle Bilal. Um, and then my maid came with our entire family and lived with us. So her kids were also our friends. So we used to make these little like sketch videos. Yeah, with your phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With like a very basic phone, put it on Facebook. Fairly like rudimentary but funny type stuff for like a kid, what a kid would you know, finding it? Do you still have that? Yeah, do you still have that kid? You would have to look for it. I would have to look for it, uh. Yes, yes, yes. The point of it was we're making a little storyline of something. Um, I just Did you guys watch comedy or something? No. It honestly, there was nothing I could say inspired me to do that. Right. That came from within. And me and my brother, and I one of my cousins from Peter Mannersburg used to visit us and he used to join us. And uh So there was something there, even from that. There was something there. There was something there. There was an interest.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

You go to kitcheners, I go to kitcheners.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

No, she uh did dietetics.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Right, okay, in healthcare then, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Yeah. So anyway, she she did a performance. Um, she subsequently did a few more and quit. Yeah. I went back for about a year. Cool runnings, kitcheners, just kept watching.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Just enjoy. Because I never had the confidence, right? Who did you go with? The man you see before you now is not the man that was here, but uh then a year later, uh very very popular comedian Robbie Collins, who used to open for Trevor Noah, he he came up to me and he they all knew me because they used to see me coming to all of these shows. Oh so he was like, why don't you just want to don't you just don't you ever feel like trying it out?

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Hold on, so it's that small of a setup that they can notice somebody in sitting there.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

For a year, if they're coming for a year. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

And this is this is post-COVID now.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

No, no, no, this is pre-COVID. This is 2011, 2019. Uh this is, well, my my career starts around 2015, 2014. So I'd have been like fourth fifth year medical school. And I'm just going and watching, and and then he noticed and he was like, you know what? Why don't you just try it? So I'm thinking he's gonna offer me something next month, but it is a weekly show.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

And it was an open mic, like new material night on a Tuesday. Um, so I'm like, okay, yeah, cool, I'll try it out. He's like, yeah, come next week. So you used to go on weeknights. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

When were you studying then?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Not Oh, very, very rarely was I studying.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

So that's what the subs are pulling in for you.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

No, so mm, in fact, I felt that comedy actually put me back because if I wasn't doing that, I was partying.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

So in in my second year, it was uh all the distractions that were taking me away from my work. Not necessarily the comedy actually made me go like, oh, I gotta go and do this thing. And it made me more regimented because I was like, oh, I gotta get back from campus, maybe I gotta hit the gym, study for an hour, go do a gig, come back, study more, write more jokes, and go sleep. Did you used to go alone and watch these things? Sit in the corner. Yes, I was alone. I wouldn't I didn't need to take someone to go and watch it. Wow. But tell us about that first show, right? He asked you and then. So a week later. And he was like a week later, he was like, Yeah, come next week, Tuesday. So now I'm like panicking, writing, my whole set out, whatever. That first performance, if you go back and watch it, and I may have it, I may be able to find it somewhere. Yeah. If you go back and watch it, you'll probably find that uh there was potential. Very subtle potential. But the one thing you'll definitely notice is that I am I am fearful.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

That I I did could not look the audience in the eye. I struggled with eye contact. I could never make eye contact with people. I don't know why. But uh I I I I I struggled. Well, just in general or just in general, even in in real life interactions was a problem. And so the moment I got up there the first performance, it wasn't the greatest. And then go back subsequently. And obviously, in your early years of your career, you're gonna eat shit, you're gonna die, you're gonna bomb on stage. And um, I mean, I wasn't earning any money for like two, three years, like zero. Like I'm saying, not even one person thought I'm worthy of being paid. So I did it for free. It was like a pastime, it was like a hobby. And for me, it was all about I didn't realize it at the time, but for me, it was me breaking free of these shackles that I felt I had from this really amazing, funny personality that I knew I had, but I knew that I'd have to go through this damn difficulty to get there. And the first phase was just being able to look at the audience. So that took me like two years just to be able to look at them in the eye. And then another year, two years of, okay, now we can try and be funny, and then another maybe year. And by that time, then I was actually funny. What were people encouraging you? Because it can be easy to simply. If you asked, do you know Jason Goliath?

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Jason Goliath, I had um, I used to do this thing called dinner with Swell, where I'd invite a friend over and we'd record me having dinner, and he said, you know, Swale? I never in a million years, if you had to ask me of all the people that I thought that would be as successful in comedy, you would not be in my top ten list. Because he owned a club in Mallose Arch. And in the early years, I used to come there. He said, You used to come there. They used to have shows from a Thursday night until a Saturday night. And he says, religiously, I could not believe how you go and work. At that time I was working. You work a full-day job as a doctor, sometimes you're working the night, and you're coming here from a Thursday till a Saturday, so long as you're not working, you're here in my club. And I was like, Yeah, because I became a student of the art.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

And I just wasn't prepared to No, but why I asked the question is that like I would think if the first show happens, right, and I go on stage and I feel like I'm not even having eye contact, I might just say, Okay, look, this is not for me. Cheers. Yeah. Let me stop. Like, what was keeping you motivated? But did you have people supporting you?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

No, nobody did. Yeah. My parents obviously come on now.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Did they know?

SPEAKER_00 40:41

The early days, no, but after about a year or so, they heard, they found out. My father was just very much like, you're wasting your life, you're wasting your time, this, this, this. My mother, she she's very artistic. She's got a BAI, creative, you know. So she was like, What did they go for it?

SPEAKER_02 40:56

We we didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

My father is a uh he's got a master's in chemical engineering, he set up his own manufacturing plant uh in Peter Maritzburg. Um and he does he's got a hundred other businesses. Yeah. He's a workaholic, but uh, he loves what he does. So uh yeah, that's my father, my mother. She um she does a l a lot of human rights work, uh particularly for Palestine. And uh in fact, I went with her to Gaza once. So um, yeah, that's predominantly what she does.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

So you but so you had this internal drive to say, let me persevere and try and make it work.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah, in fact, everybody was telling me to quit. They were like, Why? They couldn't they I I think they they felt uh they f they felt like they couldn't tell me to my face, like, you're cra you're shit, like stop now. It's it's enough now. Uh and and even to this day, a lot of the people that did say like quit, they were like, I can't believe this. Wow, that's so cool. I really can't believe this. Because I wasn't good. I was not good. It was like one of those, you know, one of those like you ever heard the story about Michael Jordan? How in one high school uh in one high school summer, he just felt like I cannot accept that I'm gonna be in the B team or the C team. I'm gonna be in the first team. And uh in one summer he just put in all the work and he managed to get it, and then he became the b one of the greatest uh.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

Do you know Steve Martin?

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Steve Martin, yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Like I was watching a documentary on Apple about it, and when he started off, he was shocking.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

And he also like really tried and persevered and eventually got into Saturday Night Live and became It's really all about honestly, you've got to have some really thick skin to do this. Because one, you're facing criticism from people. See, in my opinion, right, I love all arts, music, dance, whatever it is. But I can tell you now, no art form. I will I will debate anyone who tells me that there's any art form that gives you a purer, instantaneous reaction than comedy does. You know immediately, once you say something, if someone experiences joy from what you're saying or not. You go to a uh um art gallery, you'll never know what those people think about your work. Or musician or music. They're sitting in their car listening to it, you in your studio in California, you have no idea how people are perceiving it. I look into your soul and I know exactly what you think about what I do. You're getting instantaneous feedback. Yeah. And in the early days, you tell you you you try a lot of um, you know, provocative or daring material. And at the early days also, you don't know how to navigate talking about t difficult issues or things like that. So you now you'll you can see people's the awkwardness in their face. You can feel. I now have I feel like uh because I've reflected about it, I feel people's energy. It's weird. Like it sounds like some some nonsense psychic thing. I know. I can feel an audience. Energy being offended. I can feel when they knack, like I I can feel a laugh that's genuine. I can feel a laugh that's forced. I can feel a laugh that's awkward.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

So you could never do a virtual gig, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:13

I hated it. I hated it. In COVID.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

In COVID, because I was like, no, I got no work, I got nothing else. I'll take this thing, but I hated it. Once we even went into a studio, everyone had masks and things on. They recorded me live for a corporate event. Shesh. And I'm there like standing and performing and ugh, it was horrible.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

I feel embarrassed about my my my my opening jab uh at you where I said a real comedian. Like you are a real comedian. I'm sorry. I didn't even know that. Yeah, sorry. I thought you were very offended. That's why I like quickly segue. But can we talk quickly about like the nuances of what how it turned around for you? I mean, what what work did you do to get better? Good question. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Um I would say the one thing is the consistency. Um stand-up comedy is like going to the gym. Um you stop going, your muscles get flat. It's exactly the same with stand-up comedy. The moment you start um being lazy and not going out there, and it it gets tempting because you have one great night and then you think, ugh, I don't need to go tomorrow night. But you need to go every night. And some nights you go there and you tell the exact same jokes over again just to a different audience to see what how they react to it. And I just think I I just kept I think i i the the only trick I used was just consistency. And I used to write out my my my jokes, and I know Riyadh also does it. He still does it, line for line. But if you see the like for example, um it's stylistically we we maybe a little bit different. And I'm only bringing him up because you mentioned it.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Yeah, please do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Stylistically we're different, he's more polished and prim and proper, and I'm a little bit rough around the edges. Uh so I sound a little bit more conversational, he sounds a little bit more like the theater and uh you know that type of thing. And it's just different styles. But I used to write it out very like line for line, and now I don't do that. Now I just I have an idea of the story, and then I know in between, okay, this is funny, this is funny, this is funny, this is funny. And now I can just I'm guessing that comes with being like comfortable with yourself, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Or self-confidence.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Now I feel like I'm at the point in my career where my first show was a little bit introspective, but now my next show is gonna be very much more introspective. Do you have any like uh people you look up to as comedians, like or any favorites? Really is honestly one of mine.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I do. Uh if we're talking local South African, uh Lois Ogola is also um in fact, one of my friends, Waffa, I look up to the guy. I think uh stand-up comedy has many different facets, and um, you know, the his social media content creation is absolutely hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Really?

SPEAKER_00 46:58

And his focus and his drive, you know, I know how long and how hard he's been working at this. So I I enjoy I enjoy my even my friend's uh comedy.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Um like Waffa taps into the culture, like things he posts.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

I feel like I know what you know what what what what's great about him is yes, he knows all of about the culture because he grew up in the Northwest in Mafia King, he speaks, and then he worked in Eastern Cape as an engineer for many, many years. So he speaks Orsa, he speaks Tsuana, um, he hangs out with me, and when I speak to him, hey, I'm full Durban. So and he whenever he does something that that that uh maybe insults or or makes fun of, teases a specific culture, he'll sit down with a person of that culture and make sure he gets the nuances right. So for example, if you go for his Durban video, we sat together and he asked me, okay, tell me how the guy must dress. You work out. Yeah, yeah. How must the guy dress? So I told him, hey, BVD, you gotta have the BVD, you gotta have a baseball cap, uh uh one of those puffer jackets, the American football jackets, put a handkerchief in the back.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Uh because it's well researched.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Like the name.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Every single thing is very, very, very meticulous about what he does. And so that's what I like. Um But you guys all do this kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah, we all. But I don't really focus on that sketch type comedy. And I'll be honest, as I said, uh social media is not my I don't like it. I don't want to sit and shoot a I'll do it now and then if an idea comes to me. Um like sometimes like sketch ideas will just randomly come to me, but I can never sit and plan and do all of that. So I don't have that that that he has, right? So for example, my most recent one, when the Springboks beat uh New Zealand. Yeah, I uh I was watching the game with a bunch of Indian guys. So I was just like, hey, what would it be like if I had one of my uncles here at this at this rugby match, right? And then I just shot it, just like that, with no prep, no nothing, just let's go. Uh while you're there. While while we're sitting and watching the game, I'm just telling them like it was the game was almost over, and we knew they were gonna win. So I was like, hey, let's shoot this thing. So you have these moments of inspiration and then you just you know. I just say go and do it. I can't like sit and like I must plan a video and I'm gonna just put a category. That's where you started off in school. That's yes, exactly. But I can't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

So do you like like what is you what are your gigs like? Do you talk about just how things are observational? Is it like observational humor?

SPEAKER_00 49:23

If I asked you to make fine biash right now, what could you do? So look, now we now in this context, I'm not just gonna randomly just start picking on you. But but um I think firstly, my comedy when I first started was very much, I think I was trying to copy everyone else. I was trying to copy, and as the years go by, you become more and more attuned with yourself. If I had to really reflect on my comedy, yeah, I talk politics, yeah, I talk about myself, yeah, I talk about race relations. I like talking about race relations and like the difference between us and how we perceive things. Uh, but uh, if you really listen to my jokes, you'll find that most of my jokes there's um there's a meaning behind all of them. And I think uh also the other beauty of my comedy is that I um I feel similar to Waffa, why me and him connect on a uh on a deeper level is because we both also are like these very misunderstood guys. Okay. We're both professionals, right? We both study. He's got his master's engineering. Okay, I was gonna specialize, we'll get to that. And then um uh we we both like we come from these multicultural diverse my uncle's black, I speak Zulu. I wear I lived there, yeah. Not like just medical zulu. Not far. Not far. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

We can talk dental Zulu also.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. Full. So I I my my you know how I learned.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Yeah, yeah, go a kulum. Oh, wow. I'm the Zululingo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you learn? I I learned because in my house, and I actually do this as a joke on stage, so I'll give you one, right? So my I grew up with my grandparents. We had one domestic worker, Auntie Jabu. Auntie Jiabu couldn't speak a word of English. No English, even to this day, only Zulu. So that's how we communicate. But now, and I'll start before, growing up I learned how to speak Zulu, but I spoke Zulu like a 55-year-old Zulu woman with her voice. So, you know, uh that's that's and then also when I when I went to high school, my entire basketball team was all black and it all speaks Zulu. So now it's weird. Now you don't want to be left out, you know, of the conversation. So you force yourself to learn. And that's how I learnt. And then when I went to Joburg, I would perform anywhere. I've done gigs in Soweto and bars in the middle of the week. There's a bar called Ozone. Ozone used to close at 5 a.m. on our Thursday morning. The comedy used to start at midnight. I used to get there, do my show, still get to work the next morning.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

That's wow. That's bad.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

And it was only because I wanted to be the best at every different in every different environment. Because if you can make people laugh at midnight, a room full of black people laugh at midnight is going to be easy the next day when you're as a brown person, it's gonna be and I think uh like Zulu, I don't I use Zulu as a weapon in my jokes. I don't just start speaking Zulu and tell the whole joke in Zulu, even if I'm speaking to a black audience. Yeah. I would rather just whoop it out like it's a weapon. They must get surprised. Yeah, they must get surprised. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

And people love it when you can speak their language. Have you seen that guy on TikTok who walks up to people and says, I can speak your language? Oh, yes, yes, yes, I've seen that. Yeah. I wonder how he does that. I mean, he's just talented. But I the thing about language is amazing. Like people feel like you can you can connect with people. Yeah. They feel like you're part of it.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

And it's really funny because I didn't Afrikaans up until Matik, but I can't speak Afrikaans. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

I did it up until also, you know, in KZ and the Africans they teach us is like watered down, right? Like genuinely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easier than the definitely imagine.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Because I live in Cape Town now and oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

But it's good to know that you speak Zulu, man. I think that's cool. Really cool.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Yeah, look, I mean, even my father speaks Zulu.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

He, I think he growing up and speaking to his workers and things like that, he he also learned. Um yeah, but most my my grandmother could speak fluent Zulu and Gujarati and all the languages. Um so I grew up in a like and Māori, you know, culture. So my uncle, I told you, is black also.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

Yeah, yeah. So my other friend Suhel, the guy, we suppose a manko, because that's like a Durban thing. Uncle. And you just said it, that it was very Durban of you. Yeah, yeah. Manko. Uh okay, but we when you were describing how you like practiced, um, it reminded me of I used to play cricket, I had a made Natal under 13, all that stuff. But so I had this talent, but because I wasn't into it, I never bothered and I it just went away. It fizzled out. It feels like maybe com comedy is not just necessarily about raw talent. It's like maybe a small percentage raw talent, the rest of it is perseverance at practice, it's like or maybe unearthing the raw talent that might be there anyway. Yak tried some comedy. You know, he or she tried such talent during COVID. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Oh, you really was a reverse of uh what you did. Oh, wait, you in front of a computer.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

No, but that's not where? At uh at with the Goliaths.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Oh, wow, okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

And we I don't know, we can't talk about it, but there were underground shows because people were not allowed together. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was uh one of their bras there, he had a farm in the south of Joe Bug, but he'd have all of these invite-only like underground things and then they asked me to perform. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Nice, nice, nice.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Well, let's go back to medicine a little bit now. All right, let's so that's that's that's what the podcast is about. Well, not really. The podcast is about anything. It's about used. We spoke about whether you think you uh we'll live forever and stuff like that. So we ended up speaking about his kidney stone. There's more water on the and uh we heard about how he had to pull this thing out of his uretra. Anyway, he's we now. So you you're doing comedy and then you're doing med school and you're passing both, right?

SPEAKER_00 55:00

In fact, the medic as I said, uh comedy was helping me pass medicine.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Yes. So then after after six years, Fitz is a six year degree.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

See, as I said, I get very bored. So comedy would give me the right amount of stimulation so that I could sit down after that and feel like, oh, I've got that excitement out now, I can sit and focus. And now, as I said, much later in my life, I realized that's definitely ATHD.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Were you staying on Res your the whole whole, whole six years?

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Best experience in my life.

SPEAKER_02 55:24

Res Life is the best life. Yeah. You also were at Wits? No, no, I was at Tux. Okay. Uh I you did uh and I stayed on Res so my whole five years.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

At Wits, there's a medical res, right? You were there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The medical res, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

No, Res Life was cool because it's like a different.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

But the nice thing about me is so that's uh that was Ernest Oppenheimer's one of his actual farms there.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

So his old farmhouse was still a potential dwelling for some of the students. So the the the warden of the res would stay on the first floor, and then there were two other floors up. So I stayed on the top floor of Ernest Oppenheimer's house.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

And what is it like a little jail cell or no?

SPEAKER_00 56:00

It's a house. It looks like a house. Wow. Proper rooms in the house. Um your own shower and everything. You don't like a No, no, no. Shower was outside. I had to walk with my slops and my everything. But the warden walked living outside. He's living on the first floor, he has a fully kitted house. That was like Was it co-ed? No, no, no, no. All men. All men, but across the road there was a lot of girls.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

Uh funky in there, filthy. Uh how's the hygiene?

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Hygiene in the showers.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

Yeah, everywhere, just in general. Ah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Some some sometimes good, sometimes bad. Yeah. Uh it was alright. Okay. But uh, like I mean, there, you know, thankfully the warden was Muslim. So the food, the rest food was he managed to get halal food. But then you're still catering to the audience. You know what I'm saying? So we're eating pop and sap and beans and uh that was our staple diet.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Yeah. And um okay, so you you you managed to pass every year.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

You had some subs? Subs only second year, and then I just got too scared and I was like, I'm never doing that again. Please focus now.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

And and when you're finishing now, final year, what are you thinking? What's the plan for the future when you're in final year?

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Plan for the future in final year was okay, I said you want to. I I am still not entirely sure what I'm doing with comedy, but it's a good hobby and I'm enjoying it. And then I I thought about being being a surgeon. I thought that would be a good life for me. That's a horrible life, man. Yeah. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

Why were you thinking of that? And what gives you the impression? My sister's a surgeon.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Where does she practice?

SPEAKER_02 57:33

In Cartu. Len made Cartu private.

unknown 57:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

More than in Cape.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

Okay. Um Yeah, no, man.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

I just I couldn't but what made you think you want to be a surgeon? It was just like cool. It sounded cool.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

I think yeah, I think it was honestly, I think at that time, that age I was in, I thought it it just it's it's a good uh I felt a bit uh call yourself a surgeon. Yeah, you can call yourself a surgeon. No, we're mister, we're not doctor.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Oh, you know about that thing. Yeah, just a case of it.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

But you know why that is, huh?

SPEAKER_02 58:05

Why tell us tell us?

SPEAKER_00 58:06

You've never known why they called surgeons mister. No. Because traditionally in the in Britain in the like 1800s or whatever, I can't remember the exact time, you can check that up. Yeah. But um most surgeons were originally barbers.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

Oh yeah, at this.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

Yeah. Because they had a skill with a blade. So I thought it was dentists. They called them mister. And then it kind of just stuck as like the status of you become a doctor and then you become a mister when you come become a surgeon.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

So you're thinking of surgery, but now you you're passing.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Yeah, but most of them are assholes, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

I mean, you keep complicated.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

I'm sorry, I just looked at it. I'm like, I don't want to become like you. I surely surgeon. Surely you weren't one. I don't know. Your sister's probably a lovely person.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

Uh but she also meant that's what type of surgeon?

SPEAKER_02 58:50

General, general, yeah. Well, what's her name? The Gesha, Naidu.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

Oh, okay. No, no. I wouldn't never work to the show. Yeah, short before.

SPEAKER_02 58:59

She was on the show and the episode's called probably the shortest surgeon in South Africa.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, no, I um I enjoyed uh I enjoyed surgery. I won't lie, vascular surgery was really nice. That was the only thing I really, really enjoyed. Pediatric surgery, so in Jobojin, you rotate through the different departments. So pediatric surgery was at the end of the year, and that's the busiest corporate season as a comedian. So I'm doing that plus of working as a oh uh pediatric surgery was the one that broke. That was the straw that broke this camel's back. Because I said after that, I was like, no, dead, dying children is not for me. I can't do that. That was one thing. And the hours were ridiculous, and the responsibilities for someone who's in community service was insane because our registrar would go sleep and say, you deal with everything. Just call me when the case, when they're putting cases on the table. So that's com- I mean And they would call us, pediatric surgery, there's only Barra and Jobak Jin. They would call us from Pumalanga for patients to transfer patients from Pumalanga Northwest to come to us. Now I'm busy taking these consults and trying to give advice as a community service doctor doing pediatric surgery for the first time in their life. So that was rough. Crazy system, yeah. And then I was like, nah, there's no part of me that wants this, and I don't know what else in medicine I would want to do. I think this is a time in my career where I'm peaking comedic-wise. I don't have the money, I don't have the followers yet, but I think I can get there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

So internship wasn't your first paycheck then?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

Technically, no. Comedy was your first paycheck. How much were they paying you? Oh. I mean, when I first, maybe my first couple of gigs, like 100 bucks. Is it 300 bucks, 200 and 10? 500 and a chow. I was a goliath. They used to give me a chow. He's always used to give me a chow. But it was good chows, man. Yeah, it was good chows. Goliath, yeah. In Goliath Comedy Club, they had good chows, huh? Yeah. Kitchen, a halal kitchen and everything. I used to whack the chows. Um, so at least I knew I had my chow sorted from Thursday to Saturday, as long as I'm gonna go perform.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

You mentioned halal chow, right? Being good. And also you said in Dreas there was a Muslim guy, so the food was good. Pro tip for people that don't know, but like order halal food. If you've got the choice, you know, on the list it says if you want good food, select halal.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Because why do you think that's what it's like Muslims can cook.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

I don't I think the quality of the meat is because of the how of the process of halal. I think it's just the cooking. Okay, but you know how how why why halal. Okay. This is my opinion. I'm not stating this as fact, but um so uh the one theory is because of the process of halal, the whole process of halal like is kinda like free range. Because one, you gotta keep your animal very, you know, uh free and open, and um they cannot be like caged to the point where you know these big commercial farms. That's not allowed. Now, there's a scale of halal and what people will accept or not. But in the most purest form, you're not allowed to have animals in cages and just kept like who cannot cannot move freely.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Why is that good for the meat? Muscles, you need to move to get your muscle more leaner, firmer, all of that, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Then technically they should not have any hormones or anything injected in them to make them bulkier or bigger, right? You must not affect the animal before you slaughtered. You cannot let the one animal see the other animal being slaughtered.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Right? Why? Why would that m make your meat less tender? Because they release a lot of cortisol. Cortisol and and that causes vasoconstriction and it makes them the meat very tight. Okay? So you don't want them to be scared, you don't want them to be worried. Um and I think on a more philosophical level, like, have you ever you you you cannot let the one animal see the other animal be slaughtered.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

So they have to be kept separate. But you know this. Yeah, you're not allowed to. So even on uh the second Eid where we slaughter, the animals are kept in a separate coop, they're brought in, slaughtered, blood must drain, washed out, and then the next animal comes in. And and and and and and the way I explain it to other people, I'm like, have you ever have you ever watched your brother being beaten and then your mother says you're next? That's exactly that what happened, what would happen if if you allowed this these animals. So there's a big debate, you know, are these big commercial farms actually halal?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

But uh no, uh besides all of that, Muslim people can just cook. They just cook nicely. Yeah, yeah, yeah look, it's good food.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

But the meat, the meat that we we get, I can guarantee you, I've eaten haram meat, I've tried it before. Um, but I can guarantee you that because of those specific reasons, and even kosher to some extent, same thing, same a lot of the similar principles. We have to slot and let the blood rush. And you're not allowed to do stunning and all of that stuff. Why is it? Why should haram meat? Uh to be honest, my my mother's side of the family is very liberal.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

So they wouldn't mind. Not pork and that, but like sometimes I'll go to a restaurant and they'll just be like, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Because eating haram is a big thing because I know some of my friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

Oh, some of them would crack a duck, but then they'll say, hey, make sure the pie's a la.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

Exactly. And that is not as that is so true. Like I've had friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

And then the one you've got to do. Because my my family was different. Like my grandfather, and they wouldn't no drink, no none of that. They were liberal in their ways, but he would still pray, but it's sometimes also there is a belief that, and a lot of people still hold this belief, uh, that uh people of the book, so Christians and Jews, you can eat meat from them.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

So long as it's coming from them. Now, in today's day and age, we can't like we don't know where the meat is coming from. You don't know exactly who slaughtered this, how it was slaughtered, all of that. It's kind of like if you saw a Jewish man slaughter that chicken and he put it on your plate, you can eat it. That's the idea back then.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

So that's why we wouldn't do that now.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:50

But But so so back to my point, pro tip. If you've got no dietary.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

If you've got no dietary comes, pick a law.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

Pick a law. But inference, shouldn't the halal food be more expensive then? Because it sounds like free range. It is. It is. Well, there we go. I'm vegetarian, I wouldn't know. Even if you all kind of stuff, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be pescatarian and all that stuff. Yeah. Okay, so then where are we right now? No, we so we at we were at and I asked you. I asked you so your first paycheck. No, no, because you got it. You got a couple of hundred bucks, the Goliath Brews would feed you. Give me a chow. Yeah, they'd feed you. Um internship is your proper, proper check, first paycheck.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Yeah, proper paycheck, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:27

And uh was it good money? Do you remember it? What did you do with it? It should have been because 35 grand.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

35 grand a month.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:34

The SMS that comes in.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

Yeah, the SMS that comes in was probably around 35. So that's probably the most you paid at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember what you did with the first paycheck? I gave my mother uh the first one and then You gave it the whole thing? Yeah. Wow. I had comedy money, so I was fine. Oh, I didn't like struggling, you know what I'm saying? Oh, but still the comedy money was my when I uh that uh you know, after the six years, saved. Yeah. I saved I had saved my own money. Now really, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:01

As a student, you were saving it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Yeah, I was saving money. I wasn't just blowing it. Look, I blew some of it, man. December 2016, I just graduated. I went and took all my friends to Cape Town. I took all my friends to Cape Town. I said, I'm booking the Airbnb. No, they ain't booked their flights. I was like the Airbnb. I paid for their food. I was like the baller. Because I was the only guy that was working. In fact, we all have interesting stories, man. The guys, so my closest group of friends, we started this company together. We all used to sit at Res uh at the dining table.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

And uh we would chat about like one day we're going to open a business together. And when we just said, yeah, let's open this together.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

The gentleman's club.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

I mean, the gentleman's clinic.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

The gentleman's clinic. That was a haram slip. Freudian slip, haram slip.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

The gentleman's clinic. Accessible health care for men. Okay, so you're sitting in rares with all these clubs.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

We're sitting in rares with all these guys. We go Cape Town, December 2016, we've all graduated, and we finally and that trip, we made that pact. We said we're going to split up. We're probably going to go all the way, but we're going to come back together and we're going to open a company together.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

A company, it wasn't gentleman's clinic.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

We didn't have the direct idea. But when the idea came, and my uh one of my other business partners, Nassim, he came to me and he was like, This is it. There's a company called Romans in America that I believe is going to be the next biggest company. And now today, if you look at JSE, Romans is listed there. Does exactly what we do.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:24

With the NYSE or where are they listed? You said in America?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

JSE. Not the JSE, the uh the what's the stock market? The New York stock market. NASDAQ or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

One of those, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

And uh he was like, I think this is gonna be a killer. Okay. So in 2022, we start the company, all of us together. We put money together because we felt like we don't want to take outside investment. This is post-com serv and everything. This is post-com serv. Now I'm two years in. I'm already a comedian. I'm already actually finishing up my first tour.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

What were you doing medically? Were you an MO or something? MO in emergency medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

So I'm working two weekends. And yeah, Joba. Working two weekends in the hospital and two weekends I'm on the road. Shh. So I had no there was no break. There was absolutely no break. And in fact, I hit a major burnout after that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

Major, major burnout. And then on top of the backdrop of I'm still thinking of like, am I gonna specialize? Am I not? My work told me, okay, if you don't write your diploma in emergency and critical care, we don't have any justification to keep you. And I was on a year, one year-to-year contract. So I was, they were like, if you don't write it, we're gonna terminate your contract.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:28

And get somebody else who's interested.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Yeah. Who's actually wants to progress in this. Now I wasn't really like passionate about emergency, but I was just like, you know, when you're kinda in a department and you're like, I'm here for a while now, may as well just do it. So I went down the path of doing the DIPEC, Diploma and Primary Emergency uh Emergency Care. Um, but I literally finished my last show on the 16th of December 2022.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

Uh sorry, 2021, 2022, I write this thing in Feb. So I had eight weeks at best, not even eight, six weeks at best to study for an exam. Most people take three, four months to study for. So I'm cramming, cramming, no sleep. I on the backdrop of working two weekends, two shows every month. After that exam, I ended up the following week, uh, because I took leave, I went and did my hair transplant.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

I had a hair transplant, and I came back, and I don't know what concoction or whatever they gave me to put me out, but it messed me up so bad I couldn't sleep. I just started becoming anxious. Went to see a psychiatrist. It was like you're burnt out.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:28

Shh.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:29

You are burnt out. You've been working nights and days and studying in between and all of that, and I just uh I burnt out. And at the same time, as all of that, we launched the Gen's Clinic. So it was all of that happening all at once. What is the Gen's Clinic? So it's an online healthcare platform specifically catering for men's uh needs. Uh we do testosterone replacement therapy, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, STDs. We even provide uh prescriptions uh for PrEP. Um pre-exposure, prophylaxis. Pre-exposure, prophylaxis. Right. Uh and uh we also post exposure and then hair loss. We also provide the products and stuff for hair loss. And now our next phase is we're moving into I've got a SAPRA licensed facility that's going to be supplying us with peptides, and we're going to uh move into uh online coaching and nutrition. Sure. So to complement, a lot of our patients would come to us saying, I can't really, you know, I'm not athletically as gifted as I used to be, and I'm having this symptom and this symptom and this symptom and this symptom. How can I, how can I actually improve uh um all of these aspects of my life? And you put them on TLT and things improve. But if they don't have direction, if they want to really, you know, improve their health in terms of fitness and and nutrition, uh, we didn't really have an avenue. Now we do. So we partnered up with a guy named Jonathan Pooler. He runs an online uh training company called uh Pooler Performance, and he's going to be supplying them with the online nutrition training plans. We supply the TRT, the peptides and the medical support. Replacement therapy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

Wow. And so Yuck is nodding away here. What do you think you're investing or can a dentist get into it? No, no, it's I mean it's great. I I've seen uh a few of these clinics, now especially since the trade.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

Uh well, not this specific, but because we don't spend any money on marketing at the moment. We've only been our focus has been on just developing the most leanest, leanest, and so affordable for our patients, and best uh service um best service to our customers before we start marketing. So how are people finding you then? Word of mouth. Oh. And price. Would be to everyone in the market. So if the if basically they say no one can compete with us on price. So we've got that tap. Remember, being uh being an online clinic, our overheads are zero. We don't have an office to do that. You outsource your blood patients. We have a dispatch that deals with our orders. Who consults? Do you consult? I do, but uh only when I need to. Okay. As I said, I when I walked away from medicine, and I'll get to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

Yeah, please, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

But uh uh when I walked away from medicine, I said I'll never do this for money again.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

But if I have to see patients in my own clinic, I'll do that. But I Brendan, the other guy that uh I was telling you about my partner, he sees patients. Um and sometimes, you know, it gets busy. Sometimes we have like nine, ten patients a day. We give them half an hour slots, it's all online. I've done ones on the beach in China, I've done one uh consult in Dubai while I was on holiday. So the beauty of this is that we we currently I I see, as I said to you, business is all about solutions. One, we've got a problem in this country where there's an oversupply of doctors and a huge demand for jobs, but no jobs being supplied. We want to create this system so that doctors can also come on and earn on a commission basis per patient that they see at our clinic, right? That's the first thing. So incentivize them to work rather than giving them a salary. I'm not paying you per hour to be a locum and see what I'm gonna pay you for your time, for your service to see patients. All you're paying me for is to use my platform to see them. That's the goal in the future. Right now, we just want to develop it. And then the other aspect of it is men find it difficult to speak about these things or even want to go. Some of them have their own GPs. Their family doctor was treated their father, whatever, they can't come there and say, I can't get it up, boss. You know what I mean? And the third thing is it's perfect for telemedicine for the niche that we've chosen because I don't need to examine you. If you tell me it's not standing, I don't need you to show me. I don't need to examine anything. Bloods are really important, doctor. But we send all our patients for blood. So we outsource that, they go do their bloods, we send a blood form to them, they go do their bloods, we do a review, we check the results, and uh we we treat our patients like that. And every month we sit down as a team and we look through the most recent research on TRT. I will confidently say we're the experts.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

I've sat down, we've sat down with the endocrinologist on one of our podcasts, and he was honestly impressed. Do you guys have podcasts? Yeah, yeah. We had our own as marketing in the beginning to get ourselves out. So because I come from the comedic background and whatever, they put me in charge of marketing. So I said, guys, let's do a podcast. It was costing us almost 12,000. And we shot six episodes. We had DJ Fresh, was one of our uh things, and um the guests, one of the guests. One of the guests. We had one episode where we brought in two Sangomas just to talk about how our line of work and their line of work differs. What a crazy episode. The one female Sangoma, she was pregnant, she ended up delivering that night. Whoa. She had to rush. She rushed with Bedford View, yeah. Lynxfield, maybe. It was crazy. Yeah. Fertility clinic consults.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

This is so the clinicians are all men.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

All men. We're all men. So it's four men by men that's kind of what patients want that. Patients want that. Yeah. They don't want to speak to a woman about their penis. I'm sorry. It's just not I it's not I got a g it's not gender. I'm not, I don't have any problem, but it's my business. And I think that's a good idea. Well, that's the reality, also, right? Yeah. I know how it works. Yeah. Men want to speak to men. And we we have designed it, and I train whoever comes to see patients. We've had other people see patients. I train them that this is one, a business, and two, this is a consultation. And three, this is you you developing a relationship with your patient, which I find is very important. I talk to them, and if you look at the podcast, what was beautiful about seeing six men who happen to be doctors just talking as men. So we're talking about interesting cases, we're talking about this, but we browse at the end of the day, man. You know, we like, we'll have a laugh, we'll make a joke, and that's how I feel. I'll talk to my patients. Because we as men have also suffered from some of those issues. Yeah, you need to connect. There has to be a therapeutic connection. I'll tell them, hey, man, I also couldn't get it up. Like it's not a, you know, these things happen. I'll explain uh, you know, all of this to them. They need to relate. Exactly. So I I never, you know, I never uh uh wanted this to be a platform that men feel uncomfortable talking about the issues.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

They w otherwise it won't come. It won't come. It's a big stigma. It's a big stigma.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:16

Yes, it's a big stigma. So I feel like you make you make this relationship like this guy's your friend, you know, we've got guys that'll come and tell us, hey, I had an oopsie last night, I need pep. You've got to treat it with sensitivity and you know, make people feel comfortable that they're coming to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:32

Otherwise they won't come. And then there's no access to healthcare. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:36

So they they really in in in in enjoy that whole aspect of the Jets Clinic. And look, ever since I quit uh at the end of uh in September last year, quit my my job, I uh I focus on the clinic. We're now doing excellent numbers, we've got hundreds of guys on subscription. Now we're looking at the online training, now we're looking at more marketing, now we're looking at peptides and and and all of that uh to create uh all-encompassing service and hopefully in the future also a female division of this clinic. Are you are you taking any peptides? Uh currently BPC157 and TB500. That's what I'm currently taking.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:14

And repair.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:15

For repair? For for healing and repair. I'm prepping for the HyRox Pro in November. Oh, wow. Uh with one of my business partners, Lantla. So he's a bodybuilder, professional bodybuilder, as well as becoming an ophthalmologist. So the guys in my group, in my team, we're all that type of people. Yeah we don't like to just do medicine. Uh and if you meet some of them, they've all got crazy interests. Naseem is our, he's like our tech developer. He can do anything. Well, you could have narrated, eh?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:42

Naseem.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:42

No, no, Naseem is Naseem is the he's my business partner in Gen's Clinic. Okay. He's a doctor, we were raised together. He is a genius. He's a genius. Like there's no other way to put it. He's like one of those guys that you only meet once in your life.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

He designed the entire if you go online and you check Jens Clinic, he's designed that entire thing using AI.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:01

He's one of those guys who would have wasted their brain only doing medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:04

Yes. Yeah. And I I I tell him to this day, and I'm going to tell you now, and I see him quit your job. Quit your job and just do this because he's so good. He uh they they uh a company offered us a WhatsApp AI bot that could answer calls and take messages and whatever, and it was gonna cost us about 10 grand to install and 2.5 a month. He's immediately said, No, I don't want to spend that money. So I was like, okay, what are we gonna do? Because this has been something that we needed to do for a while. So it's fine. Give me some time, I'll do it. I said, okay, I'll give you a week. He says, okay, no problem. Five days later, he creates our first WhatsApp AI bot named Temba. It has its own voice.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

Temba will talk to you, he will give you a you can give Temba instructions as a doctor, book me off, change my availability. XYZ. So all the admin on the doctor side. If a patient comes and inquires, hi um uh Yak, uh, when would you like a um a consultation? These are the available time slots for this doctor. These are the available times for this doctor. And you reply, you can even reply with a voice note. You can phone in.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:11

Answer. So how do I get uh book a consultation? Uh either through WhatsApp or you go directly to the site and book it. What's the site? gensclinic.ciata.t.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:19

Okay. And so I can on WhatsApp just say hello and then this box is a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:23

Timba will, yeah, Timba will reply to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:26

That's cool, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:27

Yeah, that's super interesting. Especially with the peptides, I think you guys are onto something. That's peptides is the future. Yeah. And uh we'll probably we can sit here for another hour talking about that. Uh, but all I'll say about it is it's a big market, a lot of regulation coming in. I've done we've done an extensive amount of research to find the SAPRA-approved license facility. There's only three in the country. Are you? If you're getting it from anywhere else, it's illegal and it's probably not what it says it is. Are you guys compounding then or uh yes compounding pharmacy? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:58

So as a comedian, right? Wait, wait. You quit. So you quit medicine when? Or not so.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:03

So you just fast-track that story. Yeah. I eventually get fed up. I'm tired of this. I wrote primaries for anesthesia and then quit my job.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:13

Wait, wait, primaries for anesthesia.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:14

So you're planning on maybe Yeah, after my grandfather died, I kind of felt lost.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:18

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:18

And I felt like I needed to do this, you know, to live up to his honor and that type of thing. And I felt like I wasn't progressing. And I spent a lot of time trying really hard while still maintaining everything else to go in and specialize. So doing extra time, I would work half a day in the emergency and then the other half day I would work in theater just to get cases on a logbook. I then did my primaries. I didn't know whether I passed, but I was just frustrated with the system advertising and like I wasn't getting in there. So I thought maybe let me just quit. I had enough money from the comedy, so I said, let me just go. And I just said, I need a new environment, I need a change of scenery. So I moved to Cape Town, I got a job. They promised me just six months, you do your diploma in anesthesia, and then after that, we'll give you because you you you you were you at that point I didn't know whether I had my primaries, but everybody assumed I was gonna pass. I was really scared, I wasn't. And then I managed to pass while I was there, and uh at the end of the month, they told me, no, you're gonna spend a year before we sign you off for your DA. And I said, This is an exploitative practice, and I can see that this is the way the country is going. And I uh long story short, I don't think the ROI is worth it for me. I can't work at night, I struggle. Um you can make good money, but I believe that with my my potential, I can make a lot more elsewhere. And then I just quit. And my family, honestly, my father thought I was on drugs, my whole family thought I was on drugs. I thought I was like having a breakdown or something, but I was so sure. I was still a little bit confused because everybody else was telling me I'm on drugs and I'm crazy. But uh now I'm 100% satisfied with my decision, and I have no no no part of me would would ever want to go back and work as a doctor for money.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

So you're living in Cape Town, what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:58

So I do comedy, that's the one streamer of revenue. Um, I do the gents clinic, that's the second streamer of revenue. And the third, interestingly enough, I happened to meet a guy in the gym one day who we had met two years prior. And um, now obviously I run the gents clinic from home. And he says to me, Hey, come to my office, you know, let's uh just catch up, have a chat. I have no idea what this guy does. But you know, when you have like one of those meetings where you don't know this guy, like you don't know his name, you don't know what he does, but you have to pretend like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he said, Come meet my office. Oh yeah, yeah, where's your office again? And then uh he says, No, Granger Bay Court. So I go to the VA, I meet this guy, we get to chatting, he's just asking me about my whole life story and what's been happening and this and that. Um, and then I tell him that I'm interested in a lot of like I want to learn more about business and property and this and that. So he mentions, oh, okay, you know what I do? Property development. So he takes me for a drive, he says, Hey, why don't you come with me? I'm going to one of my developments. Takes me to Clifton, he shows me these four units. I was like stunned. I was like, wow, this is um amazing. Um and he said, like, yeah, if you're looking, because I was at that point just thinking of like buying a unit, like something small, reno, flip it, that kind of thing. And he was like, Oh, as like a as like uh as an income source, you know, like uh because also the property market's hot there. And so he introduced me to all of his contractors on the site, um, uh very, very friendly. Then at the end, after the conversation, he was like, you know what? Do you want to come work for me? And I said, for you. I said, but I told you, I I after one of the reasons why I left medicine, because I can't work for anyone else. It's okay, work with me. I think you can sell. I think you can sell property. I think you have a a a natural knack for this, for being able to speak to people, for being able to sell value. I think I could train you up to be really good at this. So he essentially does property development. He has a commercial and industrial brokerage.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

And um and he does luxury residential developments. Gee, so you're doing that also? So I'm doing that now also. And and and the and the one question I said is can I do my concept? Can I run my business from my the office? He says, Do whatever you want. I'm not paying you a salary, you work for commission only. I was like, what about the parking? Nope. You work for your parking.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:17

I'm gonna I'm gonna ask a place to be for the property. For property, I can tell you now, one of my mandates is literally to get conglomerates of of medical professionals who don't have the time to go and look for investments. So take the two of you, or four, four, four friends, you, you and two friends. Uh let's say you guys are earning like between each of you 250 each, right? Specialists earn like decent money, right? So 250, four people a bar a month, you qualify at the bank for like 10 bars. Hey, you can buy a building in town for 10 bars, you can buy something small in town for 10 bars. Now, you guys split that, we basically find you the property, we do all our due diligence, we make sure it's getting a good uh uh rental yield, and we sell it to conglomerate as a group.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:03

And I ask you an unfair question. I mean, if if you had to ditch what if you had to only stay stick with one three, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

If I had to only stay with one, currently at this point in my life, honestly, um I would I would stay with the property. For me, that's the newest venture, it's the most interesting. Comedy, I never want to do comedy for money anymore. That's all right. I realized why I lost the passion. I did the tour and I haven't been on tour for two years. I lost the passion because it became about money.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

And it became very it's painful when you when you when you you know, uh they say it's show business for a reason. There's the show and there's the business. And the business is horrible. I hate doing show business. It's it's it's it's really it's it's it's the the most difficult business. I I I in all the business ventures that I've done, that's the most difficult.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:53

But how can you live in Cape Town, man? Cape Town, how's Cape Town?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:56

I love it. Is it? I've lived in all three major cities, so I think I have at least a good understanding.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:01

Isn't Joberg the best?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:02

No. Come on. Not at all. Not at all. I hate Cape. What's so good about Cape Town? Cape Town is clicky and I don't need new friends. Tell us. I'm very happy about myself. So what's so good about Cape Town? Tell us. Um I like the fact that it has a good work-life balance. Um, I enjoy nature. I never was able to hike here. I was never able and I enjoy the beach and I enjoy that having the two of them together is wonderful for me. Um I like the fact that people are lazy there and that I can defeat them very easily.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:34

That's a good answer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:36

People in Cape Town are very, very lazy. Whether it's a contractor, whether it's a doctor, whether it's they just purpose by the mountain in the ocean and they just do it too late back. So you come in there, like I have a friend that convinced an entrepreneur from Peter Maritzburg, very interesting character. Um, he ended up making millions in Bitcoin and dropping out of varsity and then moved to Joburg, started a Bitcoin mine here, did some other business. I convinced him to come to Cape Town because I was like, bruh, if you see how these guys are working, you will you will take over. He now owns two laundromats in uh in Cape Town. He's opening another tech company. Um and he's just like, yeah, I I agree. So it's easy to watch because of your work ethic like that. Yeah. So uh they will hustle. They all inherited daddy's business. Um so if you really want to make money, it's not hard. You're not competing against the world's finest. Let me just say that.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

You're competing against people who are fairly uh look, obviously, I've met people who are really true hustlers and you know work hard and stuff like that. But across the ball, no, just lazier.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:50

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:50

So there's a gap.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:51

That's why you like yeah, Cape Town is offers a gap.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. At Joburg's place, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:55

At Joburg.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:56

No, look, if you're gonna make money, nah, I would never come back.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

Never, never never. And Durbs? Ever? No, we never. After my grandparents died, uh, there's nothing left for me in Durban.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:06

You know family and stuff still there?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:07

My mom's there, but she doesn't even know if she wants to be in Durban anymore. And the rest of my family's in Maritzburg. So Cape Town, I think, is home for me now.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:15

All right. You're gonna Is mom gonna come stay with you in Cape Town eventually?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:19

No, no, I don't think so. I don't think she likes Cape Town. I think she actually likes Pretoria for some reason.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:23

Yeah, she's shocked. Cape Town. What's next though? Is uh next time we speak to you, you're gonna be like some property mogul or well hopefully, hopefully. Meet up with Michael Mole. You know, he's a top billing guy who's a doctor. You're the doctor who became a community. So he's also doing this the wellness thing as well. Oh, okay, okay, okay. You got a podcast. Oh, interesting, interesting. Yeah, we should do it. I always had this like fantasy of opening up a company because you know in CompServe, right? When you get posted, it's hard to find a place to live within Comps, especially if you're in like the Bundu. Yes. I was in Standardton. So I always thought I want to open this company and call it Doctors with Borders, as in B-O-A-R-D-E-R-S. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:06

That's a good that's a good idea. But I feel like only Indian people use that because they're my second read is child.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:13

Yes, there must be a direct line is doctors with a career diet line.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:20

Oh my god. Or from now you make money, I'll tell you that. You'll make money.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:24

Yeah, just a pun on word. Doctors would border.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:26

So how are you gonna make money off of it? You're gonna make a commission?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:28

I don't know. I never I see that.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:32

So there's an IP gone then, yeah. Look, I realized I realized medicine's not for me. I realized it, and I'm glad that I realized it before I it was too late. Because just for me, I just believe. Because that's what this whole podcast is about, guys. Why did I become a doctor? And why well why did I leave? I left because one, from a personal point of view, the ROI wasn't worth it. The number of hours I was spending and the amount I was making per hour right now for the next couple of years did not justify me doing that to then get to work for that many hours to get a little more.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:07

And uh in medicine, you are the employer in your company and you are the only employee. And when you stop working, the your business stops making money. And yes, you can employ other people, but they can never do the same job as you. So why would you want to change your business with somebody else? Okay. Um, so that's from that aspect. On a more legislative, uh from a more legislative perspective, uh, with NHI and the advent of that coming in, whether it will or won't come in, that is going to make things already an already shaky and and and uh tumultuous system is going to be rocked even further. Yeah. And I don't want to be there to find out what's gonna happen. Uh I don't want to go spend five, six years and then end up being paid government salary wages, or when they feel like paying you and when they don't want to pay you, then you m skip a month. So if that's the case, uh, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:01

And remember, you got in because you saw a pa getting treated nicely and that's not the reality. That's not the reality. That's not the reality.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:09

But but but I I I said that that was when I was a kid, that's why but I understand. But you are a kid when you have to make the decision, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you you're a kid, you make that decision, you go down this, you're like, oh, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and then your parents tell you you need a profession and you can't make money everywhere else, even though my father studied and then opened a business.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:27

He didn't stay practicing as an engineer, but he used those skills. Similarly, the way I use my doctor's skills to be a great comedian, to be a great entrepreneur. What is medicine? It's a great fallback. Yeah. What is what is medicine actually? What is anything in healthcare? You're dealing with people all the time. And if you understand people, and then I do comedy and then I deal with people again. So I'm like, now I can relate to people on a far deeper level. I understand people far better. So it it feeds into business, it feeds into doing uh things outside of just healthcare. And that's why I'd made the decision that I'm not going to be exploited by this is basically a slave labor system.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:11

I'm not going to be exploited. I uh will not, I can I my personality is not one in which I can work for somebody else. I struggle to even work with my partners. Right. But definitely I can't work for somebody else ever again. So that's why I made it clear that I own the gentleman's clinic, I own Essa Entertainment, which is my entertainment company for my comedy. And I I made it clear in that first meeting with uh um uh Ahmed, the guy who owns Clifton Equity, the company that does the real estate, said I can't work for you, I can work with you. And as long as you're willing to teach me and mentor me, and he he's been a solid mentor who's taught me, you know, uh a countless, countless of lessons uh regarding business and business psychology and how to make sales. And I think even if I don't make a cent selling buildings, that's why I said that's the only thing I would stay doing because I'm learning so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:07

If you had to go all the way back to grade 11 metric and knowing all the stuff you know now, and I'm deliberately la rapping now because I know you've got a flight. Like, would you make the same decision again to study medicine?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:20

No doubt. It's it's what I wanted to do then. I don't hate the job. Don't get me wrong. I don't hate the job, I don't hate treating people. A great aspect of it, of the reason I left was because I do get bored and I can't do one thing. And I know that to be a specialist, you've got to be special. You've got to focus on that one thing and really like give it your all. It's a lot of commitment. I know guys that are specializing on antidepressants.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:45

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's great. I know guys that I saw my wife go through it.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:48

Yeah. And and it's just not something I don't think I want to sacrifice me for for for for the sister.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:58

That's essentially what I'm not willing to sacrifice.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:00

But I still love that you'd still pick it. I mean, you you know, you had to go through all of this to learn what you got into, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:06

And I don't I don't regret any of the lessons that the university experiences. Uh forget, okay, forget the university experience side, because you know, you could have asked me, would I have studied something else just for the university experience? Would I have gone to university? I think I needed that at that point in my life. I think uh, you know, some people say, you know, you can just quit school and you can go be successful, you just gotta hustle and like make a plan. I don't think I would have made that plan at that age. But now at this age, with the knowledge I have and the people I've met and the life skills I've learned through medicine, through comedy, through traveling, through business, now I feel uh uh confident that I've exhausted that possibility and it's no longer something that I want. And I can firmly shut the door and open a new one.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:51

It's beautiful. And our people are gonna learn so much from watching this. From one DHS oh boy to another, thanks so much. DHS must must invite you and ask you to speak. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You must tell them. Yeah, tell them I'll speak too. Mental thanks. I just wanted to say, like, you know, with everything that you said that you've been you're doing and you embark on, like it's uh it's fulfillment. You're trying to attain some fulfillment, but yeah, throughout all of that, what I took was you can still following your passions, you can still have burnout.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:20

And that's the interesting part here for me, is that like, you know, you actually But I think uh just in closing, I think the burnout factor was as a result of me doing it, doing my passion for money versus it just being a hobby. Like I always tell people, you play paddle for fun. That's your that's that's your fun, that's your de-stress time or whatever. Now imagine you had to do that as a professional.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:43

Imagine you had to get up and train every day and eat a certain diet and do all the things, all make all the sacrifices to make it a profitable business. That's what I did with comedy. It was something that I enjoyed, that I had a passion, and and for me, as I said, the intention for doing it was character development. It was not because I thought I was funny or because I liked attention. I hate attention. In fact, one of the reasons I stepped away from touring and stuff was because I was getting recognized in public and I hated that.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:13

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:13

I don't like that. I don't want you to bother me in public, but I knew I needed to get famous to get people to come to the show. Otherwise, you guys wouldn't have me on this podcast. Nobody would know who I was.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:24

So I had to do that in order to get famous, in order to get clients, but then I realized it's not for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:36

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Cheers. That was cool.