PDM 031: Traveling Your Way To A Connection

Lucas P. Johnson: Hey, y'all. My name is Lucas Johnson.

Patryk Labuzek: And I'm Patryk Labuzek.

Lucas P. Johnson: Welcome to Project Dream Mastery, a podcast for dreamers, creatives, and entrepreneurs who want to live a happier, more purposeful, and passionate life that is on their own terms. Today, I want to talk to you about something that is super close to home and goes back to the series we were talking about previously, traveling your way to a connection. And Paddy, you know me, I am not someone that does anything half-assed. When I go in, I go in full out. I am ready to go. I'm pumped. I'm stoked. I'm so excited to do the things that I say I'm going to do. And so do you. When you say you want to climb a tree, what do you do? You go and get up that tree and you get that coconut.

Patryk Labuzek: I get a coconut. That's damn right.

Lucas P. Johnson: So today we're going to be focusing in on this topic of traveling your way to a connection. And for Paddy and I, it is something that we are passionate about. We are super duper excited about talking to you specifically about. Because throughout the last two years, three years of Paddy and I being friends, we have found our way to different parts of the world, meeting the most incredible people, making the most incredible memories, and having the best experiences of our life doing so. But along this journey, we were kind of caught off guard. And how does that come back to who we are as people? We were caught off guard because we never meant to make as many friends as we did. In fact, when we were in Australia, we found ourselves meeting over 130 people as part of a Facebook group. Now, I didn't think that all those people would become our friends. I think there was a little over 300 or 400 people in that group. But Paddy and I somehow managed to become friends or acquaintances with probably 130 of those people.

Lucas P. Johnson: Now out of that 130, we became really close with about 60 of them. How do you manage to get 60 people into an apartment, into a house when you're not necessarily a part of the immersed into the culture yet? So we had a problem. We made all of these connections within two weeks of being in Australia and it was super exciting and super powerful. But what we never intended on happening was becoming best of friends with roughly 12 of them. We never intended on making these connections that would be as, as Paddy likes to say, friends for life, brothers from another mother. Maybe that's me, brothers from another mother.

Patryk Labuzek: That's a you thing, Lucas.

Lucas P. Johnson: And you're the one that says, what is that, what is that quote you used to say to me? We are, we are friends...

Patryk Labuzek: Friends for life.

Lucas P. Johnson: Friends for life. So through this journey, man, I first off never anticipated on me and you becoming best friends. Never even saw it. I knew I was going to make friends in Australia naturally. I knew that when we went to New Zealand, I was going to meet some people but I never anticipated making friends. Heck, I mean the back of that van, when all of a sudden we stopped, we see these girls that are on the side of the road. Like oh, they're cute. You know, stop. And what do we know? We're meeting them for drinks the night of or at least trying to and it never happening. But we tried. You know, Paddy, I just want to talk about this really, really detailed, in great detail for today because it's incredible what one person can do to your life and how it can change your entire future. Heck, I mean, Paddy, let's just start off with this. Remember when we were starting off with this application in Australia and it was this place where you can order your food to go. It's similar to what we have in the States called Uber Eats and Grub Hub and all these other apps that you have, Postmates.

Patryk Labuzek: That's a very interesting story.

Lucas P. Johnson: Why don't we just start with that? Because Paddy ended up getting a job offer because of it. Let's just say, let's say how people, one person, one act can change your life.

Patryk Labuzek: If I can jump in. Straighten it out. The job offer is a little bit much to say. I got an internship offer to start myself off. But anyway, continue.

Lucas P. Johnson: It's just amazing. Right, man? What happened first? Why don't you just give them the context of what happened? Because if I was the owner of this app, I would be doing something a little different with the amount of money that was spent. I'm just going to say it that way. So why don't you just give us a little bit of context and show how one little act or one big act can change your entire life?

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. I think this could be perhaps the most funny story I have, something that I bring back with me from Australia with that memory of that particular I think probably two or three weeks while we were there. I'm not going to name what company it was or what app. I'm not going to--

Lucas P. Johnson: You don't even remember.

Patryk Labuzek: I do. I do. Obviously, I got an internship with them. But I'm not going to say their name for obvious reasons. Anyway, all week, when we started the UNSW in Sydney, our week is an orientation week basically. A lot of events, parties, first week where everybody gets back on campus and into college. A lot of fun, a lot of people to be met, some crazy, crazy events. Anyway, as part of our week, we were handed out on multiple occasions, you know, business cards, kind of with a little code to log into your app store, whatever phone you have and download an app that allows you to basically order food through the app to your table from the various participant restaurants and you get a little bit of a discount. But the whole point of the app was that you didn't have to go and order food. You ordered it from the table.

Lucas P. Johnson: It was COVID before COVID happened.

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah, pretty much.

Lucas P. Johnson: But before you go on, there was only six restaurants on this entire app. So just take that for what it's worth.

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah, yeah. Six restaurants in and around the the university. So look, we were like, discounts, new app. It's our week. We've just met, like Lucas said, a group of 60 friends. What do we do? We go to the bar. And luckily enough, there was this amazing, truly amazing bar right on campus or just outside of it, honestly. Coco Cubanos. Oh my God. It had this amazing atmosphere going. Like when you went into Coco Cubanos, you felt like you were in the Bahamas. Palm trees, you know, incredible experience.

Lucas P. Johnson: Great milkshakes.

Patryk Labuzek: Highly recommend for anyone who's around the Kensington area in Sydney. Check that place out. Great memories. Anyway, we're there, having a good time. We opened the app and what do we see? Buy one Corona, get one free. Boom. I mean for a student with not a lot of money and living in the most expensive, one of the most expensive cities in the world, this is a gift sent from the heavens. Buy one Corona, get one free. I mean who wouldn't take advantage of that. Right? So each one of us and there might have been five, four of us in Coco Cubanos at that time. We all went to the app, got ourselves one Corona, got the second one free. Amazing. We're drinking it. And our very, very good mate Eric figured out a way that if you uninstalled the app via pure coincidence, by the way, pure coincidence, when you uninstalled the app and installed it again, you can avail of the same offer.

Lucas P. Johnson: Can we make a note though that he wasn't purposely trying to do this? He was like, I'm not gonna use the app again. I'm just going to delete it. And then all of a sudden, he was like, well, let me try it out again because I want to actually get some food from this restaurant. So he redownloaded it and then he tried, he tried the code again. It wasn't even intentionally doing it. It just so happened that it worked. And he was like, oh well, if it works, might as well just see if it keeps on working,

Patryk Labuzek: That's it. He re-installed the app. The same offer work again. And if I recall correctly, there was another offer that allowed you to get a free drink or something like that going. Right?

Lucas P. Johnson: Uh-huh. Yeah. Buy one, get one. 20 beers later.

Patryk Labuzek: 20 beers later. Exactly. So this moral of story, we kind of pushed the boundaries of what the app was supposed to do and how you're supposed to make money. Okay. We took a little bit of advantage of it to be honest. But we were students. We were having a good time. We were pretty drunk at this stage as well. I mean how many buy one, get one free can you have in a night? Right? And it worked. Amazing. Soon we realized that not only it works on drinks but also works on food. What do we do? We get some free food. And so that took us probably two to three weeks of using this app, getting a lot and a lot and a lot of free food and drinks every single night nonstop in various places in and around the university. We were very happy about that. Right? And oh, a little bit of important information. When you signed up to the app, you had to provide your phone number. So one of the days, we were just casually walking to the beach and my mate, Eric receives, Eric, our second friend, receives a phone call from allegedly the CEO of the app, Brian I think. And this man is like, look, what you're doing is not wrong. It's our fault and all that kind of stuff. This shouldn't have happened. It's a tactical error on our side. But please stop. And by the way, he was like, do you know this guy called so-and-so? I don't remember his name. And we're like, no, not part of his group, not part of our group. And he's like, the CEO is like, man, this lad is absolutely killing it. What you guys are doing, like that's pushing the boundaries. But what this other lad is doing, that's like insane.

Lucas P. Johnson: He was ordering friends of friends of friends food over and over and over again. And if I'm right, he spent what? $1,200 every week for three weeks?

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. So that's awkward. Right? So you might've called Eric or a friend. Can't remember now. Anyway, few minutes. So we go to the beach. We do something. I go back home, I receive a call from unknown number. Pick it up. I hear, hi, it's Brian, CEO of the app. I'm like, oh shit. Like it's this over again. Now I'm going to be in trouble. Can we have a chat? He was like, look, you shouldn't do it. And I was like, look, you know, it's a technical error that you guys probably shouldn't, like you should have picked that out straight away. Like this shouldn't happen if you're releasing an app. And mind me, I'm a computer scientist. I was studying computer science at that time as well. And I took an opportunity. And I was like, look, I'm actually a computer scientist here at UNSW.

Patryk Labuzek: I'm looking for an internship. I mean we figured out that this app is crashed. I'm giving advice what to do here to get fixed. If you need help, I'm available and I'm looking for an internship. And like fast forward, like a day later, I got an email from Brian with an internship offer in their Sydney offices. So that's just an absolutely crazy and funny story of how an event, as funny as that event was, turned into something that I potentially could have turned into a nice, you know, a nice thing for myself. So interesting to say the least.

Lucas P. Johnson: So moral of the story is you never know when a connection can turn into something more. We had all of these people that we met in the matter of two weeks and it turned into five because of this app. That app allowed us to bridge divides and make new friendships, to conquer boundaries and conquer fears and become uncomfortable. It allowed us to learn a lot about each other through a lot of different options, whether it be beer or whether it be food. We were able to go and experience new things and maybe things that we may have not been doing if we were using some of our own money. Do we feel bad about it? Yes. But what happened was a blantant mistake that occurred by the app and, you know, we learned from it. And nothing transpired from it but it was a great opportunity to help that person which I think we didn't spend that much. I mean we knew what was going on.

Patryk Labuzek: And I'm just going to explain here. We actually didn't cost the company any money or like the restaurants that we were buying food or drinks from didn't lose any money either. The restaurants and everybody got paid accordingly as they should. And the app actually, what I learned from Brian was that they had a set budget of, I don't know, I think $15,000 Australian dollars set aside especially for all week. So like that money has already been spent in vouchers and, mind you, some people used the app. Most of them didn't. Like what do you do when you get a newsletter home? You just throw it away. You don't even look at it. And that's the reality. Like most people, I'd say three-quarters, 80% of people didn't even bother installing the app or using it. So technically speaking, we just used it more to balance out that ratio of people using it to people not using it to our advantage. But everybody was happy at the end of the day. Nobody lost any money.

Lucas P. Johnson: It's a reminder too that, and I think this is something that Brian noted, was it was a chance for them to do a little beta test. And clearly, they needed to, they needed to have a geo-tagging system in there or a EMEI or some sort of serial code reference for each app user that was actually going in. So once that was fixed, it was fixed. And it's a learning lesson as they go on and develop new software, as they develop new applications. And really, if it wasn't for our group and for the other group, they could have ended up losing a lot more because what if it was a thousand people doing that? I mean, that wouldn't, that code wasn't just set aside for that $15,000 budget they had. It was set aside as a whole for the marketing budget. So it was a learning opportunity. I think as one thing we can say is, even though something happened because of that, the CEO was happy to know that we gave him an opportunity to grow his company and make sure that there wasn't anything happening from that. That one connection though, he offered you that internship, right?

Patryk Labuzek: He did and it's absolutely crazy that he did.

Lucas P. Johnson: It's wild. So what I want to jump to here is this kind of talking about how you're traveling your way to a connection. You went to the other side of the world. I went to the other.side of the world, you know, coming from the U.S., you coming from Ireland. We both experienced something incredible and that was the first three weeks just in a new country. How about whenever you are in your own country, when you're in your own territory or your own backyard? You know how amazing it is when you can find someone new to interact with around you? Traveling your way to a new connection doesn't just have to be to a new country as we talked about in the previous episode. For example, recently I was on the dating apps and I was just trying to make some new friends because I've been in Charlotte for, I want to say I'll be two years in September. So I really haven't had a chance to make a ton of friends just because I moved here in September of 2019. And in March of 2020, COVID happened. And here in Charlotte, everything locked down. It was a complete disaster for what someone would like to call the social norm. You're trying to go out and meet new people. You're trying to join [inaudible]. Anytime you move somewhere, you have to experience something new. You have to make new friends or otherwise, you just go crazy. It's like Groundhog Day every day.

Lucas P. Johnson: So I started get on these dating apps and I started playing around trying to meet some new people. I tried Bumble Friends or whatever that's called. I was just like, okay, let's try it out. I mean there's no other way. I mean they're just now starting to open up a little bit but people are still taking a break from interacting because they don't want to be, they want to be careful, want to be cautious. So I went on there and I actually started making some friends. I started to get to know people. And Paddy, it was, it's been scary. You know? It's not, I mean dating apps are not anything normal. And I recently just talked to a friend of mine, actually yesterday about this, is people get on these apps and they have this kind of idea that they're going to meet the man or woman of their dreams. And when they're talking to them through texts, they're just excited. They're so excited to have someone to talk to. But they're so excited because they have this fantasy of what someone actually looks like, what someone actually acts like, who they ultimately want.

Lucas P. Johnson: So then when you have that opportunity to meet, you have all of these conditions that need to be met. Right? You know? You have these little check boxes. All right. They have to check this one off. That you get lost. You forget what's the most important part of this is when you go into the dating scene, and this is not an episode on dating, but it comes back to that love deeply aspect. When you get into that zone, you need to remember that there's so much more than checking your own boxes but establishing a friendship. Because that network that you are growing as you evolve and you become more experienced is unbelievably powerful as you evolve in not only your professional career but your personal life as well. These people that you interact with, they have a network. They have people that can help you. There's people that can provide information to you. There's people just like Paddy who's got this incredible creative side and incredible technical background that can help you achieve your ultimate dreams, like build a software or do something that you don't have the skills to do.

Lucas P. Johnson: So when you go and you're going around and you're trying to learn and travel your way to a connection, keep that in mind that there are these people that need to just check that friendship box. So when you're traveling and you're making a new connection, that's all you need to focus on. Paddy, as you travel, what is the one thing that you want to have checked off outside of friendship when you meet someone? I think we talked about being a good human being in the last episode. But for this one, what is one aspect of that equation for you?

Patryk Labuzek: Not an easy question to answer.

Lucas P. Johnson: Like for example, we had the friendship car when we first met. It just was a natural click. Then we had the, okay, we can get a beer. We like the same beer. Click. There's just a lot of commonalities that come into play. And although we have differences, not too many, I mean Paddy and I, we have a little bit of synergy as we like to say. We like to get our dance on and kind of just enjoy life together. But when you find things in your life and you connect with people. So let me just give you an example, Paddy. When we were in this Facebook group, you know, with 300 people or so, there was people of all different backgrounds from all over the world. And what was the one thing that me and you had in common? That. What did we have in common when we met? We wanted to make friends. Check. We wanted to find someone who was a good human being. Check. Done. But as we started to evolve this friendship, we learned a lot more about each other. We learned about our network which was now 120 down to 60. Each one of those people, and I'll change the names for their sake, is, you know, for example, we have Erica. Erica was traveling with us all over. She's traveled to all these different countries throughout the world. She has made such amazing impact with us. Now lives in Canada but originally from a different part of the world. She's got a really immerse background and she made an impact on us. That connection has all kinds of ramifications because she has so many friends. She has a network of herself. She was able to help us grow as people. She's got people that she lived with that we became friends with. And just that one person allowed us to make endless connections. So my point to you, Paddy, is when you were traveling and you made all these amazing connections with me, what was just the one thing that said, hey, I want to keep this person close, I want to make sure that I stay in touch?

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. I mean if we're talking about you and me, I knew straightaway that we're going to be very, very good friends. And when I came into Australia, I came with the mindset of making friends for life as I like to say. Because we can have many hundreds of friends, acquaintances. But what's really important is, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, is building your tribe. It's like we become the people we surround ourselves with. So those friends for life are my friends that, you know, push me, push me forward or make me develop. They're positive. They're vibing. They have similar interests. But most important, I can learn a lot from them across various, various different aspects. You know? So I knew straight away that are we going to be friends after, I wouldn't say maybe even the first conversation, but like our first kind of like deeper conversation I'd say. When I invited you over to my bedroom, we're having a chat, just had a beer and you talk to me about Coachington.

Patryk Labuzek: And I was like, okay, this guy is clearly passionate, is clearly interested in entrepreneurship. He's an entrepreneur. He has a successful entrepreneurial career to this stage. He loves traveling. Like he's from USA. He's kind. All this kind of stuff. So when we started chatting more and more and more and we started doing those smaller trips around Australia before we left that place, I already knew that you are a friend worth keeping for life. Like I knew that I can learn so much from you that it would be a shame to just leave it. And it's not only you, Lucas. Like you said, we became really like very close friends with maybe 12 out of the 130 people. Like and I mean super close friends. So I still keep in contact with them because it's so important to stay in touch.

Patryk Labuzek: Like even when, and that's the kind of like attitude that I don't really like, you know, people say, oh, I'm not going to message the person first just because they can do exactly the same. They can message you first. I don't like this way of thinking because a lot of people go through a lot of things in their life. You could be down. You could have problems at work. You could be doing mad overtime as I was, for example, over the past few weeks at work. You could be in hospital. Whatever it may be. There's different situations. So I like to think if I want to keep a connection, there's nothing wrong with being the first person to message whoever it is. Obviously, I'm more than happy and pleasantly surprised every single time one of those really, really good friends of mine that I might have not talked for a while messages me first. And I'm like, oh, hey, like what's, you know, what's going on? Long time, no see. How are you kind of thing? And I'm super happy. But what I'm saying is keeping those important people close to your life and putting the effort to keep them there is important. Like you have to water the plants. You have to water the plants to see them grow, to see them alive. And if you just leave them for too long, things will fade out. And that is even more--

Lucas P. Johnson: They don't just fade, buddy. They die. That connection dies. Sorry.

Patryk Labuzek: Connection dies. And there this even more applicable to the friends that you meet from all over the world. I mean all over the world. Like I have you in USA and few others in the USA. We have our common friend in Norway, Canada, UAE, Portugal, London. Just spread out completely. Australia, New Zealand, all over the place. So it's even more important to water that plant because it's so easy to lose that connection.

Lucas P. Johnson: Paddy, one thing that we have really been able to do as part of this show, and I don't know how. I haven't really, I don't know if I've been super transparent about this. But I love to send out gratitude texts and positive messages to people randomly. That's just something that through the show I found myself doing, not just because it's something good to do as a good human being but going back to being COVID and going through all these things like you were just saying and it's being stuck at home and not knowing what people are going through. I recently sent out just a few this week and one of which was actually to Brandon Walker, one of the guests we had on this show. Him and his company and his team are putting together their second cohort of their Beanie and Blazer masterclass.

Lucas P. Johnson: It is just, it's a game changer. And I know how it is going through the entrepreneurship journey. And I know he's been going through the entrepreneur journey with Untapped as well prior to his own company here. One thing I knew is that if I got a text or a message like that, just saying, hey man, everything looks great. Things are coming together. You are awesome. Keep pushing forward. Keep crushing it. Keep being you. Don't stop. Keep pushing. Keep moving. That it would just make such an impact on my life. And because sometimes I get stuck in that mindset, like even with Coachington or Project Dream Mastery and the numbers not being where I want them to be, I say to myself, man, this sucks. I don't want to do this. And I think I was saying to you just a few weeks ago, Paddy, I was like, man, dude, we're not at the numbers we need to be at. We're going to be at a year in July and we have not hit our target.

Lucas P. Johnson: And I just like, oh man. So one thing that I realized is these little connections we make along the way and even though we only got to connect with Brandon one-off for an episode, it's amazing how that one-off connection turned into a friendship and a relationship for life. You never know when that connection can turn into so much more. And Paddy, the best part about being who we are and being just a human of this earth is having that opportunity to bridge the divide between a meaningful connection and someone that is just going through life day to day and forgetting about all those people that actually matter. Because people, when they come together, they can do amazing things as one people. They can bring new thoughts, new perspectives, new light. They can show the way to a path that's not always clear.

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. And a good relationship, a good friendship goes such a long way. You never know when you might need help and your friend has the answer. Your best friend has the answer and answers your call for help. You never know. Another thing is like having those amazing, amazing people as your friends spread all around the world means that you have a little home everywhere you go. I mean like if Lucas messages me, calls me, let's say tomorrow morning and he's like, man, I'm at Dublin airport. I need somewhere to crash. I'm the first guy he's gonna message and he's here. There's no questions. How long are you going to stay? Whatever. Like he's staying here. We're going to have a good time. And I know it's the same for me. If ever I'm in USA for whatever random reason it happens to be so, I can always rely on Lucas. And then when I'm in Canada on someone else. It's just, there's so many perks of having a positive, a great, great, great friendship. And it's what we're trying to say in this very episode. Traveling the world to a new connection. It's incredible, incredible how you can meet these insanely talented, insanely positive like-minded people spread all across the world that you wouldn't have met them otherwise. It's just a chance. It's just a chance. And it just happens to be, you know, the right call to be friends with with some of them and it's incredible

Lucas P. Johnson: Take that leap, man. You gotta to take that leap to find yourself but also to find the people that you want to surround yourself with. Your tribe can be unbelievable. And you also find that your tribe can really put you down the kind of, as we'd like to say, the trashcan here because that's the proper way of I guess being nice about it instead of swearing, cursing. Yeah. Your tribe can make a serious impact on you. So go out and do it. So with that, I think, Paddy, you've really said that just the way I wanted to close is in this next episode, we will be, as part of the series, we're going to focus in on finding love through traveling. And there's so many components that make up that. There's so many pieces, whether it be a relationship, whether it be a person, whether it be the place. You might even find yourself wanting to live in a place because you fell in love with that.

Lucas P. Johnson: You fall in love with someone that you became friends with through this journey. And there's so many ways that you can just fall from that and become not only a better person but a better human and you can find yourself, find your dreams along that. So with that, I want to encourage you to subscribe, share, like the, whole nine yards. And I want to make sure that you come back next week because we have an incredible episode planned for you. And we're super excited just to have you here with us today. So with that, I want to encourage you just to be who you are. Love, dream, defy. We'll see you on the next one of Project Dream Mastery.