The Imposter Podcast AU
Join former first responder and army veteran Burso as he plunges into the human psyche with insightful discussions on imposter syndrome and how it affects every aspect of our lives. Using personal stories and expert advice, he uncovers the secrets to overcoming feelings of inadequacy and stepping into your authentic self.
From boardrooms to crime scenes, the Imposters explore guests real-life stories of triumph and struggle, shedding light on how imposter syndrome impacts career advancement and personal fulfilment.
Whether you're a first responder, veteran, CEO, mother or student, this podcast will empower you to silence your inner critic and thrive in every endeavour.
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The Imposter Podcast AU
Nick Wise: Balancing Family, Farming, and Fulfillment
This episode delves into the captivating journey of Nick Wise as he transitions from a corporate manager to a full-time farmer, balancing family commitments, personal growth, and the challenges of agricultural life. Alongside hosts Burso and Fitzy, the discussion weaves through humorous anecdotes, thought-provoking debates, and honest reflections, offering listeners an engaging exploration of work-life balance, farming, and generational change.
What Questions Will This Episode Answer?
- What’s it like to swap a desk job for the open fields of a dairy farm?
- How do modern farmers balance family life and unrelenting responsibilities?
- Why is generational farming fading, and what could reignite interest in agriculture?
- Can manual labor be fulfilling in today’s convenience-driven society?
Anecdotes You’ll Enjoy
- Trial by Fire:
Nick shares his first day on the farm when he had to milk cows with barely any training and his constant worry of letting his family down. He recounts the steep learning curve and the many improvisations required, from fixing machinery with limited tools to cutting hay while jogging 22 kilometers back and forth between tasks. - The Cow Standoff:
A hilarious moment unfolds as Nick describes watching Burso nervously face off with a herd of curious cows on the farm. The cows, equally unsure, mirrored his movements in a stand-off straight out of a comedy skit. - Generational Wisdom:
Nick’s father-in-law, a seasoned farmer, instilled efficiency and innovation into the farm, teaching Nick to reduce his workload drastically by adopting smarter techniques—like halving his steps during milking. - Pregnancy Testing Goes Wrong:
A veterinary student’s surprising first encounter with shoulder-deep pregnancy testing becomes a comical highlight, sparking laughter and admiration for the less glamorous side of farm life. - Family First:
Nick emphasizes his commitment to family, whether taking over the farm during his mother-in-law’s medical treatments or ensuring his kids grow up understanding the value of hard work and community.
Key Themes and Insights
- The Challenges of Modern Farming:
Nick explains how unpredictable weather, financial strains, and the complexity of running a farm make it a demanding career. He also highlights the importance of efficiency and innovation in sustaining small-scale operations. - Generational Farming’s Decline:
The trio discusses how generational farming is fading due to high costs, lack of interest, and societal shifts. They propose solutions like mentorships and apprenticeships to bridge the gap between older and younger generations. - The Balance Between Work and Purpose:
Nick reflects on finding purpose in farming, even amidst its challenges, and the profound impact of stepping back into nature and prioritizing family. - Community and Resilience:
From helping neighboring farmers during peak seasons to relying on locals for support, Nick’s story underscores t
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Yeah, subway. Yeah, we did KFC last night. Not a sponsor. Yeah, not sponsored. We're definitely sponsors. We're going to be looking out next year Subway.
Fitzy:KFC. I thought you said before this might be the last time you've.
Burso:The last time this year we're playing this one, unless, of course, something happens to you. I'll be pretty sure that this I'm not going to say it. It's a waste of time saying it. Anyway, welcome back to the last last one Since the last one that we had.
Nick Wise:John Farnham.
Burso:Yeah, yeah yeah, more tours than John Farnham at the moment. I mean, the other thing is, I have this week off, so I might actually this might not be the last one at all, but I mean that's a good thing, because everyone else is on leave. Anyway, people are like no one cares. Mate, start talking. What are we talking about today? Today is literally just 20 minutes after the last one for us For you guys. Who knows who knows how long it took for you guys. Anyway, welcome back. We've got Nick Wise. See that I'm all over it. That was good. See that I'm all over it. That was good.
Burso:You knew exactly which button to press. Yeah, well, on the last one we'd been a bit rusty. We were a bit rusty last time, as it shows in the intro, but we are, yeah, I mean, that's where it's at now, anyway. So last time we talked about getting punched in the face running triathlons challenging your wife kids all that sort of stuff that no one cares about. And now we're going to talk about how do you become a farmer.
Nick Wise:Well, the long and the short of it is oh, there's buttons to push.
Burso:Take me back to when you first became a farmer.
Nick Wise:Wow. Yeah, that's very special, the long and the short of it is, I needed to help the family out, my in-laws' family out, and at that particular time I probably was happy to have a bit of a break from what I was doing, because you were corporate, weren't you? Sort of? So still based in a factory, so not corporate as in wear a suit every day, but still somewhat present.
Nick Wise:You were management, you weren't actually doing any work yourself, Of course, not Just lots of coffee and occasionally oh another meeting, just having a crack at the boys that actually do the work, absolutely.
Burso:Yeah, it's your corporate.
Nick Wise:Yeah, yeah, all right, I'll allow that. So I guess there was a challenge of sorts with health within the family and there was a need to support by having an extra set of arms and legs.
Burso:Yeah, obviously your hand was forced. Did you have any interest in it?
Nick Wise:My family were farmers before I was born, so there was interest.
Nick Wise:From before you were born From before I was born. Yeah, that makes sense, as in, I grew up being aware of farming and I was probably I knew about farms as well. You're a good host. So yeah, I had interest in it, let's say, but it's probably something that my childhood had steered me away from going down that path because, I don't know, it's a bloody hard slog. But yeah, I had to. Like you said, my hand was forced, for lack of a better phrase, and thought, all right, well, there's a challenge there and I enjoy a challenge, let's give it a go. So I wasn't probably doing it, I mean it wasn't really forced as such.
Burso:You were given an opportunity to help your family out. Yeah, that's probably a better way to put it, and you weren't really overly happy where you were at the time because you were essentially burnt out.
Nick Wise:Yeah, if anyone from that place is listening, everything was hunky-dory, it was all fine. No, I was looking for a bit of a we'll call it a strategic break from what I was doing.
Fitzy:So how did they start you off? Here's a bit of hay Ben.
Burso:Here's a bit of hay. Chew it for a bit. Get a real feel for it before you go.
Nick Wise:Here's a bit of hay.
Fitzy:Ben, here's a bit of poly pipe. Go do stuff.
Nick Wise:Basically yeah, here's a bit glove, stick it on, stick it in somewhere, we just leave a little bit of silence and the Germans are back. No, I'd had little bits of experience with it. I'd help my father-in-law milk from time to time because they are dairy farmers Him milk or his cows. The cows.
Burso:Yeah.
Nick Wise:And not the almonds because they're really hard to milk just if anyone's asking Cows and not the almonds because they're really hard to milk just if anyone's asking. So yeah, I'd had little bits of experience with the various tasks associated with farming, but hadn't done it sort of as a full-time role, I guess, and so it was a little bit of a trial by fire at first, and I was doing farming as well as trying to help them build their forever home, if you want to call it that. So they're coming off the farm, hopefully in the near future to be able to enjoy a slightly more relaxed lifestyle. So I've gone from, as Chris said, being corporate and being the only tool around was me, rather than being handy with any of them. That's what I wanted. I don't know, was it my joke or was it your button ability?
Fitzy:That wasn't even 50-50.
Burso:Fitzy, fitzy, we're delirious, let's not even bother hearing this.
Fitzy:So you've gone on to the tools.
Nick Wise:Yeah gone on to the tools and had probably no right in doing so, but I guess picked up certain things pretty quickly. So by part of the day I'd be working on the house and then the other part of the day be either on the tractor or milking the cows or whatever.
Fitzy:So you were still more of a hand at that stage.
Nick Wise:You weren't sort of doing all the jobs, jobs, no so my father-in-law was still, um, doing a fair bit behind the scenes, but it was more. He just couldn't commit all of the hours to it that he used to because he was also trying to help build the house. And then, uh, while my mother-in-law was going through treatment, he wanted to be able to be there to support her. So, um, the days when they had to go to to mel have her treatment, then the keys were handed over to me for that period of time and panic would set in, because you know again the imposter side of things how am I going to be a farmer with five minutes of training?
Burso:And the situation was a fair bit of pressure.
Nick Wise:Yeah, and you don't want to let anyone down, or at least that's, and that's why I probably stepped into the role in the first place is because family is first for me and you don't want to let anyone down. You want to try and do absolutely everything you can to help, and that was my way of being able to help.
Fitzy:Were there any other dairy hands on deck, or was it just you?
Nick Wise:It was just me. Look Durringal, which is the area they live in. All the farmers around there. They're always happy to help to some extent. So if I got stuck, one phone call and I'd have two or three guys there that would be able to give me a chop out. But you also kind of want to do it all yourself as well.
Fitzy:How many cows are?
Nick Wise:we talking At the moment there's only about 80-odd actually milking and then a few beefies and whatever else floating around. So it's not a massive farm but it's run very well so that it doesn't necessarily need to be but the actual milking phase. You know you're looking at about an hour's worth of milking work and then it's all the clean up and everything and then the behind the scenes stuff that I don't think people realise how much actually goes into being able to just have that hour's worth of milking. There's still another 23 hours' worth of work that goes into it, around the clock basically. So I think that's probably the best thing. For me was kind of an eye-opener. As I said, I had an awareness for farming and where food and everything comes from, but there is so much unrewarding work that goes into just the general food that we're able to consume so that was good for me to get a bit of perspective on that.
Burso:I remember it was good. I went up to the farm. They've got like quad bikes and all sorts of stuff. I'm like, yeah, this is heapsick. You just cruise around on the bikes and then, like it was um, like your, uh, your father-in-law was like, oh, if you turn around, the cows come over. You turn around your face the other way, the cows come over to you and stuff.
Nick Wise:It's fun being on a farm, not if you're up at four in the morning doing all this sort of stuff, like it's long days and I do recall that instance was hilarious for me because it was literally like watching chicken, because the cows were sort of moving closer to chris and then he'd move closer and it was who's going to run first. And I reckon there was a split second where Chris was about to leg it, but a noise went off somewhere else and the herd ran.
Burso:So as far as he's concerned it's me versus the herd. I don't care, I'll do what I want.
Nick Wise:It was hilarious.
Burso:We flew the drone around over his farm and stuff. That was pretty cool, but we have to go back and do that again.
Fitzy:How many acres are we talking, or hectares?
Nick Wise:I think it's about 70 acres or something like that, so it's a fairly good-sized farm. But yeah, my father-in-law, he's a very smart man, so he doesn't need the 300, 400, 500 head of dairy cattle that some others are running. He just knows how to run it for himself. So, yeah, I think the problem we face with a lot of farms in Australia is they're and I'm going to probably get called out if I go back to Durring Gull and anyone hears this, Hopefully they don't but farmers tend to run things from their heart or from another appendage, let's say instead of with their head. And that's where you see they're chasing the bigger herd to try and justify the extra expenditure and everything. And then the farm starts to fail and the little 1%ers go out the window and all of a sudden no one wants to do farming because it's all too hard. So if you can run it as a business, which that's where things are going now, it's probably good to some extent, but then you lose out on the animal husbandry to some extent as well.
Burso:There are plenty of rules in place, though. With the animal husbandry, you can't just throw that out the window.
Nick Wise:No, absolutely, and that's where the real farmers do still come into it, because they're all about the animal welfare and everything.
Burso:Corporate farms are becoming a thing, so those rules are being tested let's say, they're being bought out by international companies and they obviously don't really care about the local rules and stuff. But it's interesting because you've got to have like per head, you've got to have a certain amount of water, and then they've got to have a certain amount of feed and stuff per 24 hours and all that sort of stuff. So it's actually regulated how much food and water they get and all that sort of stuff. Amongst the….
Nick Wise:It is. But that's the thing about how you run it as well, because you've got your bare minimum that you need but your output's not going to be as good. So if you were just trying to run it on a lower cost expenditure, you're still probably not going to get great milk out of it because your feed quality is less. So you know it's a very technical sort of stuff.
Burso:And like the wool quality and all that sort of stuff. Like if you've got them out, like you've got the. Have you seen like the sheep graziers warning that comes up on your phone for weather? No, no, well, like, sometimes it comes out of the sheep and there's like a which basically means like the rain's coming and then it's going to be windy. So if you're shearing your sheep, they're going to basically get hypothermia and die, so don't shear them, and stuff like that. And then there was other ones I've seen. There's like brown something warning which is basically just it's going to be rot. Like there's so much stuff with the weather that farmers need to worry about as well, so they need to be across. Like all the I don't even know how to say the word anymore whatever Jane Bunn's into meteorology. I was trying to say it in my head and I was just like I'm going to choke on this word so bad.
Nick Wise:We call it maybe-ology in the farming business. Fair enough, is it going to rain?
Burso:Oh, maybe, but the other thing that was weird, like when I was a prisoner in the state, was water rights, the fact that people can buy the right to the water and when it comes.
Fitzy:So you can buy a big bit of land, think you've got everything, but you don't own the water rights and your land is officially useless.
Burso:Yeah, because you've got a water. So people are just like, well, they buy the land which came with the water rights or they'll sell the water rights yeah no-transcript the land. They just assume they got water and you're like nope, like they sold the land but they're getting a rent from the like. It's genius, it's stupid that it was allowed to happen. It's genius for the people that own more own the water that runs through a river.
Fitzy:But the other interesting thing would be is, it's the channels, it's the wheels that you see going around all the time, monitoring yeah it's crazy.
Burso:Yeah, the water rights thing is just bizarre.
Nick Wise:You could get my father-in-law on here and get about eight episodes talking about it. Yeah, that's going to be.
Burso:Fitzy's side hustle when he goes up to Bendigo. He's just going to interview farmers.
Nick Wise:He's just going to interview farmers there's plenty to learn.
Burso:Yeah, I'm happy to learn lots of stuff, but did you ever feel over your head when you went in? Because there's not really. Is it like apprenticeships and stuff? If you wanted to be a farmer?
Nick Wise:how do you even go about it? You don't go and spend a couple of days at trade school for it. Put it that way it's literally.
Burso:There is actually uni courses in agriculture and stuff there are, but it's.
Nick Wise:I'll give you a classic example of how that probably doesn't work, and it's a couple of couple of weeks in, when we were doing pregnancy testing with the vets, that came on site there was a I think she was second or third year veterinary student and she had to pull the glove on and go sort of you call her out what's her oh.
Nick Wise:I don't even recall Jessie, but she had to go shoulder deep basically just to do a pregnancy test. And I said, do they sort of allude to this stuff in first year? Because imagine you've committed to whatever seven years of study and whatever the heck's that is to find out you've actually got to almost get your head inside an animal walk. That could be a little bit off-putting for some people.
Burso:But yeah, so for farming there's no pressure, especially when you can just go to, like APCO, grab yourself one of those clear blue things and just get the catapult on it and you just get a result in a couple of hours, easy, to some extent Almost.
Nick Wise:And there are other technologies where they can use cameras and whatever else, but the very good old school vets and farmers, they've got their methods that are probably more accurate.
Burso:It takes them only two minutes, as opposed to if you had to set up all the machines and stuff.
Nick Wise:Basically yeah, and they know what they're feeling for.
Fitzy:Most farmers, I would think, would be generational or from areas like that where they've been working on farms, because they live in that area and there's nothing else to do. That's right.
Nick Wise:So your apprenticeship is basically you're born into it, I guess for lack of anything else. So you do learn by doing so. Did I feel like I was, you know, fish out of water? Absolutely Probably still do, even every time I milk now it's still like, oh, what could go wrong? But, like with anything, every time you have a failure let's say you learn from that and go okay. Well, next time this goes wrong, this is how I need to respond to it. So it's been a very steep learning curve from that perspective, but also, I think, because of the nature of it being that it's my father-in-law's farm. If anything does go wrong, he's gonna know how to fix it and he's also not gonna necessarily blame me. So it's probably a not bad not a bad way to experience it all. But, like with most things, I probably put more pressure on myself than what anyone else would to make sure I do a good job. Cool.
Burso:What other stuff Does he have, like harvesters and all that sort of stuff as well?
Nick Wise:Sort of. So he has the equipment for hay baling and all that sort of thing. So that was one of my first jobs was. I started in December so I had to cut all the hay and then that gets bailed up and then carted in. So I think one day I was running back and forth between the tractor and the truck to cart all the hay in, and over the course of that day I did something like the equivalent of 22 kilometers of running just back and forth between the tractor and the truck. Now it wasn't all in one go, it was only sort of short distances. But I did the equivalent of a half marathon just bringing in hay using the two bits of equipment.
Fitzy:So that was an interesting and exhausting day and outside of all that I mean, he's only on 70 acres too, so it's not like it's a big farm.
Burso:No, it's not huge it's funny when you say only 70 acres, when people are like I've got 400 metres on my land.
Nick Wise:Yes, it's all about perspective, but yeah, it's not.
Fitzy:There's farms in WA that could fit Victoria, tasmania Countries yeah. Yeah, no problems.
Nick Wise:Yeah, and they start harvesting and then once they start, they've got to start again, sort of thing. It's immense. But that was another side of things where, again, you put a lot of pressure on yourself because you don't want to damage any equipment, you don't want to do anything that might spoil the hay or whatever, because you understand the impact of all those inputs. I guess.
Fitzy:Yep. So he started you off doing sort of the more easier things to start with Basically, yeah, A little bit of this and…. So he's away, and so does he give you tasks. While he was away, was he giving you tasks, or was he going away for like a week or just a day?
Nick Wise:I think the longest period was he was away for about four days. So there was certain tasks that needed to rebuild the cattle yard or need to clean up the dairy itself, because the other thing was okay, how do we modernise some of this? Because he was used to milking a certain way for a really long time and then I'd go in and go can we change this? Can we fix this? And that's part of my background and what I normally do is I go in and continuous improvement stuff.
Fitzy:Look for ways to make it easier and more efficient.
Nick Wise:So and you know some of my ideas you go no, that can't work here. Fair enough. But so if he was away I'd be like I said I'd rebuild the cattle yards, which again that was me using tools which in the past would have gone. No, I'll get someone else to do that. But when you're on a farm, you don't have a maintenance team or whatever just sitting there waiting to hear you out on the radio and say oh, you know, there's a breakdown here, come and fix it. So you've got to figure out really quickly what do you have at your disposal and how are you going to make it work basically. So that was a good bit of fun, and they're still standing outside.
Fitzy:Pretty rewarding, though, absolutely. So you've like, found the fault, worked out how to fix it and then, yeah, come up with a solution and it's done.
Nick Wise:Yeah, and they're still standing now and have been tested fairly well by um. There was a recent batch of steers and calves and everything that have been put through there, so you sort of step back and go yeah, I, I made that and it's stood the test.
Fitzy:So you've got a farmer that's been there for however many years, so how long has he been 30?
Nick Wise:well, I mean he's.
Fitzy:he's run the farm himself for 30 years and he grew up on it, so imagine how many things like that he's got around the farm where he's like I got that, I did that.
Nick Wise:Thousands millions probably, and he's just sort of taken it all in his stride. But then that's the nice thing about he's been able to build his own house now, and behind some of the insulation he actually signed it. This house was built by rock and all that sort of stuff which no one will ever see, even if they do sell a house. But it's just that was that one thing he's like. I never thought I'd build a house, so I'm going to give myself credit for that. But then he'll run you through his day of all the things he's had to fix and you go. My whole maintenance team doesn't even accomplish that. How do you get that much stuff done in a day? So yeah, I think, if nothing else, it just gave me a lot more gratitude for what farmers do on a daily basis.
Burso:Why does everything keep breaking on the farm? They're always chasing their tail, these boys.
Nick Wise:That is one thing. They're half-assing stuff. What's going on?
Burso:Well, the fences are never done, very, that is one thing, they're half-assing stuff.
Nick Wise:What's going on? Well, your fences are never done Very controversial, I think. The thing is you go on about the weather, for instance. You are dictated by so many things that are outside of your control, so you can set up for success and in the space of one weather event, that's your whole year's revenue gone. So then if someone says, okay, well, you haven't made any money, but I need you to go and fix all of your pipes, of course you're not going to be able to because the money's not there. So I think to some extent it is a case of not half-assing it. There's just not enough money all the time to fix everything. There's not enough time in the day because there's so many tasks that need to fix everything. There's not enough time in the day because there's so many tasks that need to be accomplished.
Burso:Oh bro look at my garden, my garden's terrible, no, no mate. Yeah, just trying to vacuum. I mean it is interesting because even just if you're on like vacuum, you've got to clean your toilet, you've got to. You know your hot water system's doing whatever. Like I've got to replace the water system At the moment. I'm just waiting Every now and then I just get cold and I'm like, oh, what's that about? And then you look at it, it's like, oh, you've got to replace them every six years. I'm like, well, it's been 10.
Fitzy:Probably just don't need to have half-hour showers every time you jump yeah that's probably the biggest thing.
Burso:Yeah Well, where else am I going? Good audio no, it's terrible. I mean every movie I've seen you always cry in the shower standard.
Nick Wise:It's a real fedora thing to do.
Nick Wise:No, that's fair, good shade. Um, he'll know that it's been a basketball trip, yeah anyway. No, it is interesting and like there's a sort of I guess it's a family motto of sorts which everyone would probably relate to. But in my family there was saying was always, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. And farmers are exactly that. So you look at how much they would get done in a day and it's just ridiculous, whereas most of us go, oh geez, that's a lot of effort, I'll just procrastinate a little bit.
Burso:They also do say if you want to see innovation, give it to a lazy person.
Nick Wise:This is true. It's two ends of the sliding scale. Have you heard?
Burso:that for tea. Yeah, it's good terms anytime. We always had it at work where you're like you wanted to get something better. And then there's like, obviously people are like, oh, I cannot be bothered doing anything, so you give them that task and you're like they're gonna find the most efficient way of doing something. But likewise, like when any time there was work, they always gave it to the person that did the work, because you're like you just knew they'd get to it. But yeah, there's not really much in the way of farmers that can do be the lazing part.
Nick Wise:If you're a lazy farmer, you don't last very long.
Fitzy:You don't last long, no.
Burso:But I wonder, if that doesn't that also because they're consistently flat out all the time whether that doesn't give them a chance to be innovative.
Nick Wise:I think there is still innovation and I look at again the way my father-in-law does certain things and he's very much set it up. So he had a short period of time away from the farm where he worked in sort of the corporate world and he's got very much a business mind. So he's still set it up in an efficient manner where he spends the least amount of time in the dairy, for instance. So you know, when I first started I'd have me fit in my watch just to see how many steps I'd done, and I'd do like 10,000 steps in a milking and then towards the end, once I started learning the way he did it and started emulating that, I was down to about 3,500 steps, because you're not doubling up, you figure out. Okay, well, if I go down that end, at this point in time I only have to do this task versus at the start. You're trying to do everything that you think needs to happen. Sometimes you're just creating busy work for yourself. So there's still efficiency in there, but they also don't stop.
Fitzy:What sort of dairy is it?
Nick Wise:It's a side-by-side, so I know there's, which means so literally there's a run either side. The cows come in on your right or your left. Versus the conventional for the larger dairies now is a rotary where basically the cows walk in and they munch away on their grain or whatever else and they spin around and the milker will stand in the middle and put the cups on just from one position. So for the larger herds that's a lot easier and more efficient. Less movement for the person milking. But this one's side by side doesn't move. The cows walk in, you put the cups on, the cows walk out. It's very scientific.
Fitzy:Much more cost effective, though, for something with a smaller dairy like that.
Nick Wise:That's exactly right and it allows for a lot more control, I guess, from my experience anyway over if you've got certain cows within the herd that you want to move around because maybe.
Fitzy:Yeah, that's good.
Nick Wise:I enjoy that. Andy's remembered the button too. Great job, pitsy, great job. They love it, everyone loved it.
Fitzy:Shout out to shepherding moving up yeah.
Burso:Yeah, so he's still grinning at himself. Look at him, he's happy with that.
Nick Wise:He's a sheer cat over there.
Burso:Lots of trains, yeah.
Nick Wise:Side I've lost my train of thought. Side by side milking. Yeah, it just makes it easier, for you know, let's say, some cows need treatment for whatever reason, and you can usher them off straight after they've gone through that particular effectively another race, if that makes sense, were they?
Burso:to say that, yes, moving on really quick, yeah. So like you've obviously gone from that, I mean, will I just say that, yes, moving on really quick, oh, okay, yeah, right, yeah. So like you've obviously gone from that, gone to the, I mean, how would you go about doing it? Let's just say, like Fitz, you wanted to pick up and move and be, a farmer.
Fitzy:Like you obviously had an in.
Burso:Is there like how hard is it?
Nick Wise:for you to Incredibly hard, and that's what we actually discuss this. We actually discussed this at family dinners. Generational farming is fading and the incentive for people to get into farming just isn't there. It's very cost prohibitive. That's why corporate farms are sort of taking it over.
Fitzy:Well, you think about it. If you wanted to buy a farm, you've got to buy the land to set up that farm. And if you're going to go into Probably the easiest one is definitely going into dairy, because it's the smallest amount of land that you're going to need. If you're going to go into grain or something like that, you're going to need huge paddocks. If you have a bad year, that's it. You're buggered because you're going to also have to buy your grain to sow. If you get a bad season, that amount of money that you've spent on grain, that's going to sink you. So you've got to be able to support yourself. You've got to have the land. You've got to be able to support yourself for probably three, four seasons, just to make sure that if you have one of those bad or two of those seasons that are bad, you can still go on the next year. That's huge amounts of money.
Burso:Yeah, but like it's not your farm, like you've jumped up and that's what I mean Like how could you do an apprenticeship with the intent to like manage it Are?
Nick Wise:there any options out there for that sort of thing? Oh, there definitely are, and you can have. There's a lot of people in the area who they'll be classified as a relief milker, so they might have grown up on a dairy farm, but they've gone to become a relief milker had a few of them.
Burso:What just over in the Otways?
Nick Wise:and stuff, yeah, 50-50.
Burso:Fitzy, fitzy.
Nick Wise:So they might have grown up on a dairy farm. They've got the knowledge and experience, but they don't necessarily want to take over the farm. They'll go and help out and milk. So that could be one way that you can kind of get into it as you offer and say, okay, well, I'll come and do the milking part and then you learn more and more as you go. But yeah, the idea of actually getting into farming is is very difficult if you don't have that in, because you've got to buy the land first and then all the stock or feed or whatever. It is um and interesting. You mentioned about the three to four year survival package. We'll call it. You talk to a lot of farmers and the whole support.
Fitzy:I've heard one Can I put? This to you just before, so I've heard it's actually a 10-year period. You bank on three years loss, three years gain and then you make money on that. Last year is virtually so the three Something like that. Three, I've stuffed that up wherever it is.
Burso:Yeah, three and three is 10.
Fitzy:Yeah, yeah, sorry I don't know where I've gone with that, but it's virtually it's virtually three years.
Nick Wise:Three years and then shaded farmer's maths.
Fitzy:I don't know what's going on.
Nick Wise:Maybe it was, maybe it was fitsy, fitsy, yeah, seven no it's sort of like a five to seven year plan where you need to be prepared that things are going to go pear-shaped for quite a while. So when we had that whole thing of people couldn't work for whatever you know.
Burso:I'm pretty sure you're allowed to say COVID now.
Nick Wise:Right. Well, during COVID, when they're like, oh, we're giving handouts because people can't work and it's been four minutes since they actually had a paycheck, the farmers are sitting back going. Hang on, I had three years where I had to survive off absolutely nothing and I've just become accustomed to that nothing and I've just become accustomed to that. And if I do cry poor, everyone says oh well, you chose that industry.
Burso:Yeah, they did Yep.
Nick Wise:So yeah, it's been interesting seeing both sides of that story.
Burso:Well, the funny thing is too, my old man would be like the farmers all get handouts and then other people get this and it's like, well, he's an owner driver and he's been told he can't drive anymore, he can't do whatever. And you're like, well, he literally can't do anything, whereas like farmers ask for handouts when, like the weather's poor and you're like, well, that's a farmer's thing, so I get where they're coming from.
Nick Wise:They ask for the handouts. But there's nothing there, so maybe the counsellors and all that sort of stuff can work on that. I don't know.
Burso:Is no, it won't be no okay, but it is an interesting concept, right. Like you start a business up and then if it doesn't work for the first two, three years you don't get a handout for it, you just go bankrupt and you deal with it, yeah, whereas farmers are like well, we literally have to work because otherwise you're not going to get food. So the government sort of goes I guess we have to give you a handout. And then they do give certain handouts to certain people. And then you've got other people who, like I mean other people buy houses in bushfire prone areas and then, when they don't have insurance and the house gets burnt down, they're like oh, this is bollocks, I need my house back. It's interesting that, like, different groups will get different responses through the government.
Nick Wise:So I do understand the argument on both sides Well, and you look at different countries and how much subsidising goes on for Like farming in Europe for interest's sake. The subsidies over there are far and away more than what happens in Australia, but they're also very highly impacted by weather, more regularly than what we are in Australia. So if you're going to have that argument, you need to have all the information. But no one really wants to see any side other than theirs.
Burso:Yeah, but I could understand if you were like as an owner driver who has a truck, who then the fuel goes from $1.20 a litre to $2.45, like it did from 2019 to 2021, and then them going well, I'm literally paying double in the fuel. I'm not going to have fuel subsidy, I'm not getting this, I'm not getting that, and your work doesn't double. Yeah, and now I can't afford to, you know, and now my interest rates have gone up on my house, which is my place of work, and so I'm not getting a subsidy for that. I'm not getting a subsidy for the other one. And it's like and now I'm going bankrupt. I handout, like, my house is just important to me and my family is, so I can understand both sides of it. But then you watch, like the Commonwealth Bank or Westpac or whatever going oh, we made a couple of loose decisions, how's about a bailout, guys? And then you're like oh, here's a couple of billion dollars from the taxpayer.
Nick Wise:We still made a profit, but it wasn't enough, so can we have a bit more from the government?
Burso:Yeah, and still made a profit, but it wasn't enough. So can we have a bit more from the government? Yeah, and then like that, and then that rides me. But then they're like well, if you don't have that, you can't have houses, and people can't get home lines and like everybody has their own story. But at no point is it fair anywhere.
Fitzy:I would suggest no, I think we only have to look at, um, the fellow that, uh, harvey norman, I think he got like a lot of money uh, when they were out things as well. He didn't pay any of it back, it's not like that guy needs any of it.
Burso:Harvey Norman. He's got no interest, hasn't he?
Nick Wise:Yeah, I see what you did there Boxing Day sales coming up.
Burso:Yeah.
Nick Wise:Shout out Well, he's got a cashier, I think it's Jerry Harvey.
Fitzy:Jerry, that's his actual name.
Burso:Oh okay, when did Norman come from?
Fitzy:Checks out. Yeah, we'll do that in the future.
Burso:We'll look that up. We'll get back to people on that one Wikipedia.
Nick Wise:I'm sure people are super excited about this now, yeah, we've gone from cows to furniture sales. People ripping off.
Burso:Australians yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, get around him, answer it. No, I won't answer it. Who's the other one? Who's it? Don't just let's just call out some other dudes that are well above us. That can get us cancelled.
Burso:Careful Some we can't mention. Yeah, no, but so the other thing that I found when I went around is like kids don't want to do farming anymore. No, so there's like. So I feel like there might be a potential opportunity there where you know people like yourself, like how you've gone and helped out with you know like, hey, you've gone and helped out with your father-in-law. It's like I wonder if there's other farmers that are like, hey, we're looking at actually getting people apprentices and we want them to take over. They'll still own the farm or whatever it is, but they want a general manager, which would still then let it be generational farming, so to say, and that way they can still leave it to their kids. But I mean, they might even want to go 50-50 and just go look, you can pay my kids royalties or whatever it is, but it's your farm now because you've worked on it for the last 20 years.
Nick Wise:Yeah, I think there's potential in that. But again, it's trying to get interest. And I think you look at a certain generation, particularly my father-in-law. He's the type of person who wants to do everything for his kids and there'd be so many farmers like him. The consequence of that is the kids sort of go well, dad's doing everything, I won't, I don't need to learn that just yet. And then there's a whole generation that never learned those basic skills. So if there's no skill, there's no interest. And then all of a sudden that's why there's and I think the world's changed.
Nick Wise:It's hard. They've seen that they don't have to work as hard.
Burso:That's right they see everybody else.
Fitzy:They've had everything their whole life.
Burso:Yeah, like this I mean it's funny because Dana White says that sort of stuff. He's like oh, there's no better time to be a savage than now. And it's like, if you did want to work, there is Like there's plenty of opportunities for people that are happy to work Absolutely but people don't want to, so I haven't heard anybody that wants to be a farmer anybody that wants to be a farmer.
Nick Wise:Well, and I think the nail on the head is literally, we've become accustomed to everything just being handed to us, because everything is so readily available now that you don't have to work nearly as hard as what you used to in the past.
Burso:Manual labour is not a thing that people are keen on.
Nick Wise:No, but like you said, if you are keen on it, you can write your own check. Particularly with trades and everything, at the moment I'm looking at what are my boys going to do when they grow up, and not that I'm going to dictate to them what they have to do, but sort of like well, if they go and learn the trade, let's say Will becomes a plumber, I can teach him the business side of things, so he's very profitable at it and he just has to learn the skill. Whereas when I was growing up it was like, okay, yeah, there's a bit of money in trades, but it's not a long-term thing because your body can't handle it. Go and get a degree. Well, I got the degree and it kind of helped me to get to where I am, but also I had a massive hex debt as a result of it and you sort of go, should I have gone down a different path? But then you know, 20 years' time maybe trades aren't as profitable. Who knows what's going to come.
Burso:One of the other boys over in. He's over in Camperdown. They do dairy farm as well, but they also help out on other people's farms, so like they all sort of have a bit of a round robin, like somebody's got grain and they're like all right, cool, we're on harvest mode, so they all go over and they do that. It's interesting to see all the farmers helping each other out like that Kind of diverse farming. Well, it's not like they have their own farm, but they go and help the other dude out when it's like peak time, because they all peak at different times. So they go and do that. But he was like you come down, learn how to drive a harvester and dudes will pay you big cash.
Fitzy:Lots of money in driving a harvester.
Burso:Yeah, like bulk money in driving a harvester and you don't even do anything. You sit in it and you press like go, and it's like got a little GPS thing and it just goes back and forth. They've got good sound systems too. Yeah, air conditioning, all sorts of stuff like there, and it's like and you travel too there and do whatever like it's.
Nick Wise:And you don't necessarily have to. There's no real responsibility. I guess to some extent because you're using someone else's equipment.
Fitzy:It's not your farm.
Nick Wise:So you're literally just taking the skill you have and charging for that. You don't have to have your own harvester or anything.
Burso:But you can travel too. You can go overseas work on like farms over there. So, yeah, but you can travel too. You can go overseas work on like farms over there. So you can do and because it's good cash and you generally will stay on a farm. It's like you rock up. They give you accommodation. If you're not breaking equipment and just doing your job, then I'm going to get rid of you yeah, look you rock up, they'll feed you, they'll, you know, they'll put you up in a place and you'll do long hours yeah.
Nick Wise:And then you take off and they double pass you as a result.
Burso:Yeah, it's like all these lads that go out to the mines and stuff and they go and they work 12-hour days but they're still getting paid hourly, whereas these guys will be like, hey, we've got three months, we'll pay you 120 grand, yep, and you're like sweet, like obviously you lose those, you need a bit of cash. You go and do harvesting out there, like the machines are all the same. It's a central drive, it's not even a right drive.
Nick Wise:All the instructions are in French, so it's a bit hard Wow.
Burso:How many different ways. Can you say give up?
Nick Wise:We don't hold grudges.
Burso:Yeah, but it's interesting because I just don't think that. And this is where. What do they call them? The bloody counsellors that you have at school? Employee counsellor, I don't know, we'll go with that. What's the person you go and speak to about jobs and stuff?
Fitzy:Careers advisor. Yeah, we'll go with that yeah yeah, One of those punters.
Burso:They don't sit there and talk to you about. Hey, have you ever thought about being a farmer?
Fitzy:Hey, have you ever thought about being a farmer?
Burso:Hey, have you ever thought about hay? Yeah, exactly how do you feel about hay and milk and stuff? They don't talk to you about being a beekeeper or whatever.
Fitzy:It's very generic. They do, though, in some of those areas, oh, in the farms. So if you're in Shepparton, if you're in those places, they will have those things for kids at school.
Nick Wise:They should be doing it at city schools. They should because, again, that's probably one of the main reasons we wanted to have our kids grow up in a more regional area, because we've actually witnessed interviews of sorts with kids. We're like okay, where does milk come from? Oh, the grocery store.
Burso:Does that? That's where I got mine from, if they're saying grocery store.
Fitzy:they're not Well supermarket.
Burso:You know, it's like just down at your local milk bar. Milk bar, yeah. Last time you saw a milk bar, but it's like you go if you went to like in a Melbourne city place.
Burso:I mean sure, they're probably going to be lawyers and do whatever else it is, so they may be able to still afford a place there. But most people in the city now lease a house. Yep, they lease their car, they lease their house, they lease everything because they can't afford it. That's right. And you've got all these other metro kids now that are looking at stuff. You're like mate, housing is terrible, your interest rates are going up, everything costs a fortune, your rates are through the roof, et cetera, et cetera, and it's like, but there is still good money to be made. If you travel out of the cities and there's nobody like pushing regional stuff like when I was traveling around, talking to them all employer like employees was the hardest thing they were coming by like it's not, there's no work out there. There's plenty of work. Yep, um, it's hard to work. They pay you better, though, and they'll put you up in like the local hotel, which is like the pub. The pub will give you a free dinner and the room's like 45 bucks a or something.
Nick Wise:And you're part of a community of really good people as a result of it as well.
Burso:Yeah, and again, they actually care about it.
Fitzy:The pub a few years ago was in Mildura and we were speaking to the public one night there and we noticed that there were a lot of internationals in the pub and he said, mate, love them, love these guys.
Nick Wise:They come up here.
Fitzy:They're the only ones that'll work. They pick all the apples. All of them are loaded because they're making all this money picking all the oranges and things around the area Can't get the locals to do it. They're not interested and literally like there wasn't, no one could speak English apart from sort of the couple of us that were there. The rest were sort of from all over the world coming around to you know, pick oranges and have fun.
Nick Wise:Well, and Shepparton was essentially founded on fruit picking as well. Same thing. There was a lot of Italians and Greeks that moved there, and they're still part of the community today. And, yes, they were getting paid for it and they'd put money back into the community, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, for lack of a better phrase. That makes sense, but people don't want to do the work for the money.
Burso:Yeah, like if you're hanging around going, oh it's too hard, everyone's an accountant, everyone's this, everyone's that. Go and do something new and you will find that you get paid well to go out and do that and the house you can get further out of town versus what you're getting for a townhouse in Melbourne.
Nick Wise:That's one side of it, but for me, for instance, it was also being able to step away from that sort of corporate life and have a different perspective of things. So you know, the pay definitely wasn't there in my instance, but I didn't need it to be for the purpose I was doing. But I was suddenly spending a lot of time outside and in nature and you know that sounds very philosophical, but I noticed my ability to control cortisol levels and all the scientific stuff behind that. You start to get a bit of better perspective about what it is and by that you mean you were less stressed.
Nick Wise:Yeah, essentially. Well, different type of stress, because obviously there's still the responsibility of this is my father-in-law's farm.
Fitzy:I think some stress is a good thing, though.
Nick Wise:And look, I think there's For performance you need it you do, and there's certain personality traits, and I'm one of those ones who probably thrives from stress. If there's not something stressful going on, I think something's wrong. But I've been able to step back into that corporate world with a better perspective of what is stressful and what isn't, and I probably wouldn't have been able to achieve that without stepping out into a different environment.
Fitzy:But you also said earlier that you wanted to move up there for family reasons and things. I mean that's got to be part of it, knowing that your kids are going to grow up in a, you know, in a community based area you've got family around, rather than growing up in Melbourne it's not. It's pretty bleak a lot of the time when you look at the kids that are sort of in some of those areas. It's very easy for them to when they get to high school to be. They might not even be in the wrong crowd, but that wrong crowd is definitely going to be there.
Nick Wise:Absolutely.
Fitzy:Whereas somewhere in a place like Shepparton, yeah, you're still going to have those little elements that are there, but it's probably more on a. It's more extreme to sort of see those bad sides of things that are going to affect your family.
Nick Wise:Well, the bad crowds are still there. But I think the thing that drives those bad behaviours is boredom. And if there's something to do whether it is, you know, your family actually needs you to do some work on the farm, or you can focus on your sport, which Shepparton's really big on well, you're less likely to get pulled into one of those bad crowds. But yeah, the biggest thing, like you said, it is a community thing in Shepparton and even the availability of resources for our kids as young as they are in Shepparton, and even the availability of resources for our kids as young as they are in Shepparton, is amazing. There's so many playgroups that are funded by the local council or whatever.
Nick Wise:Then you go to Melbourne and you want to be part of a playgroup. You're on a 12-month wait list and it's like trying to get into an MCC membership with a wait list and the cost and everything. So it's no wonder parents don't go down that path. And then they go okay, well, I may as well put the kid in childcare and I'll just go back to work. And all of a sudden there's no real family dynamic anymore and you understand why. We're probably getting pretty deep here. But you start to understand why there's more and more issues, let's say, from kids to families and whatever else. So, yeah, I'm really glad that we're in a position to be able to live in a regional area.
Nick Wise:We've got family around us and there's a sense of community, but it's also the knowledge of where things come from. That was the biggest thing for me, because I don't want my kids growing up thinking that everything's just handed to them on a plate.
Fitzy:They need to know where it comes from and the work that goes into it. Agreed, I think we've talked about it slightly before. I don't talk about it too much, but yeah, I mean that hits home with me.
Fitzy:I don't eat animal products or anything like that, and a lot of that is because of that side of things where I'm like, well, I just take it for granted, just going and picking up these things from the supermarket, no real thought of the sacrifice, anything that's happened to have that just sitting in front of me and that's a lot of the reasoning behind where I'm at with it all. Yeah, yeah.
Burso:Cool. Is there any other tips for young players to get into farming? Would you suggest Like is there an actual course that would work to get people out there, or would you just suggest ringing?
Nick Wise:and going to speak to a local farmer. If you're genuinely interested in getting into it, just go and talk to a farmer, because they I mean as busy as they are, they all love a chat. They've all got plenty of stories to tell.
Burso:Are you suggesting they just drive and find a farm and then go talk to them, or is it like you can email them or whatever it?
Nick Wise:might be initiative from local councils or someone you know. It might be as simple as I go around to all the farmers in Durringal and say, hey, do you want to chop out? Let's put something up on Facebook or whatever it is.
Burso:So would they do that on Facebook, though? Would they have like ads for farm ads?
Fitzy:I think there is some actual sites that you can go.
Fitzy:I think some of the farmers can advertise on sites and a lot of the time they pick universities, things like that. When they've got jobs that need to be done and that's one way for people to get could get into it. So they might have. They might advertise that they've got fencing to do always got fencing to do and for a uni student who's looking to make a little bit of money, they can go out, help out with a bit of fencing and stuff. So I mean, that's one of the ways that they do it. But yeah, I don't know of any other real ways to, unless you know somebody.
Burso:Sort of a hard part about it Because there's a Victorian Farmers Federation, but I don't know that they would do anything employment-wise.
Nick Wise:Probably not. I think they probably should because there's definitely potential in it, because I know the direction farming is heading in at the moment isn't a healthy one for the sake of people taking over. So a lot of farmers would be absolutely thrilled if someone said hey, I want to show interest in your trade, I want to learn it and then I want to potentially take over your farm one day.
Burso:It's funny because you've got like RSLs that are sort of similar at the moment, where there's a bunch of the older lads in there and they're like, yeah, we love it and we're trying to hold on to it and do whatever. Some of them are looking to try and get new people in, but it's very resistant to change. But there's a lot of them that do want to get younger people. They just can't find them and it's just a Well.
Nick Wise:Again, it's how do you incentivise it? Because if the information isn't readily available, my generation and below, unless they can find it in 30 seconds on a TikTok, they're not interested for a start.
Burso:This might be a challenge for Fitzy. He might be doing the travelling podcast, talking to farmers trying to get these faces like mm-hmm sure yeah.
Burso:There's definitely merit in advertising. It's say, yeah, because that's what we had when we went to the marie pub in the middle of the desert and like there was dudes out there. They're just like plumbers or chippies or whatever else it is. It's like they're making a fortune out there, but obviously they're in the middle of the desert and they have to drive around. They have to get around like everything's harder for them. Yeah, but that's why it's more. It's also like you're in the middle of the desert, it's amazing out there, but I don't know that people can handle being away from like phones, reception, all that sort of stuff and interesting themselves and hard labour.
Nick Wise:I think it's the time impact. So probably the main reason that my father-in-law doesn't just say I want you to take over the farm is he knows the impact that has or had on him, with him and his family, and things that you do miss out on as a farmer, because you can't just go and watch your kids in their school play at 3 o'clock because you've got to milk the cows and you can't go and say hey, cows, can you just wait for two hours, I'll be back. It's not how it works. So it's probably similar. In that instance, to be fair, the cows would just wait in the field. They'll wait, but there is impacts to all of that sort of stuff and that's where the animal husbandry comes along. But yeah, there's. There are pros and cons to everything and the consequence of being a farmer is you do probably miss out on a lot of family time because you're working around the clock.
Burso:It's like owner-driver.
Burso:There's a lot of money to be made in owner-driver but you've got to work to make the money and you're away from your family a long time.
Burso:Yeah, like you can do 14-hour days and get paid five grand a week or whatever it is, which is like great money, obviously, but it comes at the expense of you know, like you can't do anything without costing something and it's just what you want to weigh up, um, which I think is another reason why plenty of people are now happy to do jobs where they just go, they do 80 hours, they don't care about it, they come home, they do whatever, but no one seems to be overly challenged. Like I think if you were to have a farm, like when you see like, yeah, people love it when they see new calves and they do whatever else it is like they get really excited about that. But then they also have the trade-off to that where, if it's a drought and they have to put their animals down and whatever else, it is like that's traumatising for them. There's a lot of ups and downs in that, plus, I mean, and that's in money and emotion and all sorts of stuff.
Nick Wise:The financial side. Getting back to the whole family balance, that's something that I noticed growing up in Vietnam. Being an expat kid, I went to school with kids whose parents were incredibly wealthy like just disgustingly rich but they never saw their parents. They might have had like two or three local Vietnamese nannies that cooked their meals for them, tidied the house and made sure they got to school and everything, but it's like when did you last see your dad? Oh, september last year. But it's all right, because he sends money and that's the way he shows love and you go. Well, that can only work for so long before you start to wonder what's the psychological impact on the child of that sort of approach of parenting.
Burso:It is funny, though, because you've also got poor dads that aren't around for their kids and they're working 12 hour days for stuff all, and they like they're just trying to put food on the table and it's like the same psychological impact then, but you also don't have the education and the holidays as a kid.
Nick Wise:How do you perceive that as well, because in every individual is different. But if, if you it's a poor dad situation, you go. My dad's literally doing everything he can for us, versus dad's away on another business trip, whatever.
Fitzy:He's still trying, so that's the thing you can still look at that.
Nick Wise:He's still trying to do everything he can for us. That's right. It's how you interpret everything.
Burso:You look at like we were watching this show Landman and Billy Bob is away all the time, but he's like he's doing it to take care of people, he's doing it to pay the bills, he's doing all this sort of stuff and he's like, well, this is literally what I can't do. Anything else, this is my job. And sometimes people do dangerous jobs because it's the only thing they can do and they're away for a long time. It's like people going out to the mines. They're like, sweet, I've got my house paid off, but their wife's at home with their kids, they never see them.
Nick Wise:Well, and you start to look at what's my role in life and I think Sarah and I both have not settled on the idea, but the perspective is okay. Well, she's at home looking after the boys, because that's what she does, and I go and I work and it means I don't get nearly as much time with the boys as what she does, but what I'm doing makes sure that she can be home with the boys and that we can provide the environment that we want to for them to grow up. So you know, there is massive consequence to that, obviously, but where do you draw the line in not being able to provide?
Burso:Well, because it goes the other way too, where you're like oh, we can both work and pay the mortgage off earlier, and then we can spend more time with our kids when they're older. It is the damage done by that stuff.
Burso:Yeah, and then we can spend more time with our kids when they're older. It is the damage done by that stuff, yeah, and you're looking at the functional development of your kids and stuff and it's like whether you hang around for the kid stuff or whether you want to be able to generate wealth later on because you've paid your mortgage off and now you're like, oh, we can go for holidays with the kids now that they're 15.
Burso:Some people are like, oh, I'm spending 10 grand on a first-year-old's birthday and it's clearly just for the parents yeah, you know whereas other ones would be like oh, I want to get it all out of the way. I want to have kids when I'm younger, I want to do this and that, because I want to be able to be an adult with my adult children and do whatever. So it's yeah, and it's 20-year plan. When, like, your kid gets to 15, gets a drug problem and you're like, well, I just wasted all that time anyway.
Nick Wise:But even as simple, I mean, that's the extreme of it. I think that's funny, that's what goes through your head.
Burso:Oh, they've got a drug problem. Oh, again Stuffed up my plan If I was around longer. I didn't budget for that, but that's the thing. And then you're like well, I paid my house off now, but little Johnny keeps bloody stealing all my jewellery to pay for his heroin addicts.
Nick Wise:Even if we take about a couple of notches. It doesn't even have to be a drug problem. But what 15-year-old really wants to hang out with their parents and be like oh yeah, let's go on a family holiday? You kind of miss the boat.
Burso:I don't.
Nick Wise:Is that something you want to talk about?
Burso:But I mean it was funny because my old man was there. He used to work long hours but he'd always have Saturday morning off to play basketball. He was our coach. Other dads were doing nine to five. They didn't come to training. He'd always be there for Wednesday night training and then he'd be there for the Saturday morning and he'd be in a vile mood sometimes.
Nick Wise:But he still turned up.
Burso:Yeah, but he was there, but he wasn't there. A lot of the other times he would be working. He would come home after working a 14-hour day, have like two beers, pass out on your parents and you see what they do Absolutely. And I was like his work ethic is miles ahead of what mine's at, but at the same time, that's why I don't want to work like him.
Nick Wise:And that's interesting. So that brings two things to mind for me. One is every interaction you have with people will teach you one way or another. It's either you want to try and emulate them or you want to try and not do what they're doing. But the other thing of your dad turning up every single Saturday, no matter what, my favourite saying with everything I do, is what's my purpose? So if I'm going to spend time doing something, is it actually adding to my purpose? My purpose right now is being the best dad I can. So if that means that, yeah, I have to go and travel for work or whatever, or I'm milking the cows, or I'm going to Melbourne for a meeting or whatever, the purpose is making sure that I have enough financial stability for my kids to grow up well and Sarah's in a position to be able to look after them. But then the moments when I have to be there, I'm doing everything I can to be there as well, same as what your dad did.
Fitzy:It does make a difference not being there, and the reason why it makes a difference If you're not there-.
Burso:Yeah, the reason why it makes a massive difference. It makes a massive difference.
Fitzy:My dad wasn't there. He worked away, but that's all he could do at the time and was trying to provide has zero impact on knowing that dad wasn't there. I don't think about that. I don't remember that dad wasn't there. Like I don't think about that, I don't remember that he wasn't there. I remember when he was there and I know that. Like you know I think I've talked about it before my dad is my hero and yeah, so I think that's more about the reason why.
Nick Wise:Absolutely, and look not to go into it too much, but I'm probably on the other end of that scale, like I don't have a relationship with my dad now because he was away a lot and didn't necessarily have an impact on me for that sake, but it didn't align with the purpose that I saw in life. So I probably took some of his work, ethic and conscious decision-making and business side of things and followed on with that.
Burso:That's all right financially, doesn't it I?
Nick Wise:don't know, possibly.
Burso:But that's my point, is like he was doing. He does well financially but you're like I don't care.
Nick Wise:Well, and I guess I don't associate money in that way as success, like money is very much a motivating force because I want to be able to provide, but I don't. The reason he was doing certain things is probably different to why I would do them. So the idea of going on a business trip doesn't excite me. I'll do it because I need to, whereas I think for him it's potentially an escape. So they're the two sides of the coin. But again, that's why everything's back to what's my purpose in doing whatever I'm doing?
Burso:Well, yeah, because my old man working his ass off was always to keep the lights on, to have a roof over our head, to make sure I never didn't have anything. And that was because he was like he would hate his life Just working on the truck pulling stuff, doing whatever, because he didn't even drive us. He's like he would sit there and they don't care and they're not in a rush to you know, get his thing. Because he gets paid by load as opposed to by hour, so like he would get there and he'd be dragging. But that's why he's a monster of a man, because he was dragging like these one-ton pellets back and forth and doing whatever and his knees were cooked. His back was cooked Like I've not seen a dude work as hard as he did and I was just like, oh.
Nick Wise:And see, he's very purposeful in that and you've learned from that. Oh yeah, that's a great example for you to emulate.
Burso:Yeah, I was very impressed, but I'm just like jeez. I don't want to work like that.
Nick Wise:Well, and again, it's that example of learning. I want to do that or I don't want to do that. Yeah, example of learning.
Burso:I want to do that or I don't want to do that. Yeah, but he was the same. He's like you don't want to be a truck driver like me. He's like get an education, do whatever. I mean, I didn't. I'm still dumb as.
Nick Wise:You're a lady, so you're just a truck driver in the air, right? Yeah, well, not even a driver, mate.
Burso:He's a pilot to revision I think what they call it was ball. We're a bit left wing, low mate. Can you just jump on the right a little bit?
Fitzy:more yeah, well, dads and farms well, it is Christmas time as well, so we should be talking some Christmas stuff before we finish this episode. How are you going to spend your normal Christmas day going to look like for you? What are we, the 23rd at the moment?
Nick Wise:Christmas day will be at the farm with my wife's family Italian background. So lots of really good food, lots and lots of people. I think at the moment the guest list is something like 35 people.
Burso:Oh, wow massive Well, that's a small gathering for them, right?
Nick Wise:Not for Italians, but for a fifth-generation Australian with a total family of maybe 10 people that we don't always get in a room together, the idea of going to a small gathering with 35 people plus kids. When I first started dating Sarah, all of those events were quite confronting. But now you just take it in your stride and it's all right. Well, I don't have to talk to the one person over and over again.
Burso:I'm not going to lie to you. If you two are coming back, we're doing one more.
Fitzy:I'm not that interesting. Yeah, we're doing another one. We're going to have to do another one.
Burso:Yeah, but I'm hungry Is it because of Christmas. Yeah, we'll do a Christmas wrap-up.
Fitzy:A Christmas wrap-up.
