The Business of Comedy | Morry Morgan

What does it look like when an entrepreneur applies business discipline to comedy – and comedy thinking to business?

In this episode of Naked at the Top, Morry Morgan shares the unconventional path that took him from an only-child upbringing and global travel, through China’s fast-moving business culture, and into building one of the most unexpected ventures in Australia: a comedy school and conference that shouldn’t exist – but does.

This conversation is about preparation, courage, and following ideas all the way through. Morry unpacks how five minutes on stage became the turning point for an entirely new career direction, why breaking comedy’s rules unlocked commercial opportunity, and how creating something niche can actually grow the wider economy.

We explore the reality of fast-speed living, the mental cost of always being “on”, and the resilience required when momentum disappears overnight. Morry speaks candidly about burnout, anxiety, fasting, and the mindset shift that turned a breakdown into a breakthrough.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your strangest idea might actually be your most viable one – this episode will challenge how you think about preparation, energy, and commitment. This is a conversation for founders, creatives, and leaders who don’t fit neatly into one box – and don’t want to.

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Transcript

Aleyx 0:10

Welcome to another episode of Naked at the Top. Today's guest is someone who reminds me of a Chinese plate spinner, juggling a few businesses, all moving parts, yet somehow managing to launch a FinTech platform, run a comedy school, host a podcast, and organize a national comedy conference all while holding down a job. He's being called an innovator, a visionary, a lateral thinker, and one of the few people who can take an idea from wild to real without losing the plot. Morry Morgan, welcome to Naked At the Top.

Morry Morgan 0:44

Thank you very much. Great.

Aleyx 0:46

so I'd love to start before the rubber chicken, before the knock, knock comedy school, before China. You've been described as someone who never had a sibling, to say that's a stupid idea. Do you think being an only child gave you the freedom to try wild things?

Morry Morgan 1:03

an only child. Great. I think that what an only child does, and I've just come back from a caravan trip. It makes you, it forces you to make friends with people you, you wouldn't normally make friends with. many of your listeners or watchers may have gone to a caravan park in Australia, and if they've got siblings, they'll just hang out with their siblings and family. But for me, as an only child, as you've correctly pointed out, I had to get on my BMX and ride around the, camp and look for troublemakers. And, was my idea of, holidays. So maybe that just rubbed, off.

Aleyx 1:40

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah, it was a conversation with with Brad, brought up, when we were talking about all the, all the ideas and, things that you come up with, which, we'll, we'll get onto because it's, fascinating, all the things that you do. so you co-founded and scaled a corporate training firm in China, and you grew that to an eight person company across multiple offices, that's no mean feat. Can you take us back to that? How did it all start and why China?

Morry Morgan 2:11

Yes. again, many of your listeners and watchers can probably relate to the great Aussie tour of duty, which is getting, a round the world ticket. And, sometimes it's one direction, it's to the UK or another country. For me, it was around the world and I, what was I 25? father had met my mother in, Canada. she was Welsh. Still is. He's Australian. So it seemed like it was in the, genes to go traveling at that, age. So I did, went around the world, America, uk, Europe, didn't get to Scotland, but to Asia and got to Shanghai and, interesting. This was 2001 and now everyone was talking about Japan, Tokyo specifically, and Hong Kong. they weren't talking about Shanghai or Beijing at the time, there was something, I noticed, something I felt like there was a buzz going on and I decided to go back and I said to myself, I remember saying, I'll go back for three months, even if it kills me. I was there for 12 years.

Aleyx 3:22

Wow.

Morry Morgan 3:23

Yeah. So I think I was there, just lucky. I was just there at the right time. This was China 2001 it hadn't opened up. It got called the, the Birth of a Dragon or something similar to that effect. And by, and, around that time they started getting double digits in their GDP growth and the rest of the world was on three or 4%. China was on 12 to 15% GDP growth. and of course we know today in hindsight that China is an enormous economy. With enormous opportunities, and I was there quite luckily at the beginning. Yeah.

Aleyx 4:01

So what was it like to start a business in a foreign country?

Morry Morgan 4:06

there are rankings for countries on how easy it is to do business. China has improved massively. But back then, in 2001, to register a business, you needed to have, at the time it was about a hundred thousand. renminbi(RMB) or Yuan, the, currency, which the exchange rate for Australia was roughly, that would equate to around about$20,000 in cash. So you had to walk in with cash in a bag and give it to a bank, and then would, hold your money. You, weren't losing that money, but it was a, it was essentially their, a deposit to make sure that you were legitimate as a, new business owner. just getting to that point. Took 13 visits to the registration office, back and forth, So they, I think China was trying to work itself out at the time that I was working myself out in terms of business. no, in no way easy. Today, it's a lot easier today you can register WFOE, a WFOE, a wholly foreign owned enterprise in Hong Kong, which is part of China, of course, but is still recognized as an independent, region, So you can register a foreign business and then create, like a sibling business in China, and it takes a lot less time.

Aleyx 5:26

Wow. so you, literally walked into a bank with a bag full of cash

Morry Morgan 5:31

I did. in fact, it wasn't even my money. was a girl I was dating at the time, and, we're married now,

Aleyx 5:39

Oh, that's good.

Morry Morgan 5:41

yeah. Yeah. She, yeah, she was on.

Aleyx 5:44

She's invested.

Morry Morgan 5:45

Yeah, been married for, we've been together for over 20 years now, so yeah. A long-term investment.

Aleyx 5:50

So what was one of the kind of biggest standout moments, from that time in, in China and building a business?'cause, building up to 80 people in multiple offices, it's impressive.

Morry Morgan 6:01

I think the energy, the, energy of China at that time, again, I'm back in Melbourne, and have been I, I had been back to China pre COVID, but post COVID, I've been back in, in Melbourne. the energy level, I used to explain it to my friends and family who had no idea, of course, that it was like, those old record players that had two speeds. Was it a 33 and a 72 or something? Whatever. Generation X, not a boomer. So I'm not really into LPs, but there's the two speeds that you play. China was like the fast speed. So would have five meetings a day, you would travel from one end of the city to the other. and the city's, massive. It's, geographically the same size as, Melbourne. very large space. have offices. To go to on either side. it was exhausting, but thrilling. And then you come back to Melbourne, little old quiet Melbourne where nothing's changed, even though it's a great city. And it was like the record player was slowing down and everything was slower. So just coming home felt like a holiday for me. And then back to China goes up again. Yeah, that was probably the most amazing experience. Yeah.

Aleyx 7:17

Yeah.

Morry Morgan 7:18

But,

Aleyx 7:18

which do you prefer?

Morry Morgan 7:21

look, in my twenties and early thirties, China was amazing, but in my late forties and fifties it became a bit of a drag. My son was born in China, in Shanghai, and we left when he was going into primary school and. It, was fine when he was a baby and we could put him in a basket or push him in a tram, but once he could start running down the street, that became horrifying. lots of buses and, bikes and you, would know having kids that, that's the worst fear is, your kid running onto a road.

Aleyx 7:55

Yeah. Yeah. So was that the, main reason to, come back to Melbourne when you had kids?

Morry Morgan 8:00

I was also an entrepreneur at that time that was making good money, but not entrepr, I would say not expat money. So there's two types of in at the, again, in that, that moment I was there, there was, you were either the CEO of BHP Billiton. or GlaxoSmithKline, or you were an English teacher and I was in the middle and I was a amongst a, there was a fair few of us, hundreds of us, but not tens or hundreds of thousands of us, but there was hundreds of us that I knew in Shanghai and we were doing well, but we weren't making extraordinary money. And the education system was either you went to a Chinese school. you went to an expat school and the expat school is like the top schools of a, of Melbourne, Sydney. The rest of Australia, you're looking at 30,000 to$50,000 a year. so it's a lot of money when you're an entrepreneur. Yeah.

Aleyx 8:52

Yeah, yeah. So you had, you had the idea for the rubber chicken while you were in China. Is that, correct? Was that the next move for you?

Morry Morgan 9:02

a little bit. So I came back with this with my son. He got schooled mostly in Australia, and then I got headhunted back to China to run a German company that was operating a, a joint venture essentially in. Beijing. So I went back and I was, an expat, so everything I just told you about schooling and, money and so on, suddenly I, I had, so I was there, and I was focused on hard knock knocks. The comedy school was already started at that time and someone else was managing that, that's hard. Knock knocks comedy school. And I gave my advice from a distance. The great, again, the great thing about China is we're either two from Melbourne anyway. We're either two hours or three hours time difference. If you're Perth, it's the same time zone. So in your mind, you don't feel like you would feel in your family in the UK that, it's a 12 hour gap, isn't it? Or 11 hours. And so it's, you're on a different wavelength, for, Yeah, for, China it's a different story. It you wake up at 10 o'clock, everyone's outta bed, 10:00 AM Australia time, everyone's getting outta bed in China. to answer your question, came back, that, because that involved was in China for COVID. I was in Beijing. For COVID. So I got to, in fact I posted about 60 videos at the time prior to Melbourne and, other states going into lockdown. I posted a whole lot of videos just highlighting that China was managing and that there was plenty of toilet paper on the shelves, for example, and then my business in China, which I had been headhunted to come back to. It decided to pack up'cause it was German and they were just getting COVID and they said, oh, they went, they, they saw the worst case scenario and then they said pulling outta China. So sadly that company which had around eight also 80 staff, basically imploded and I came back unemployed. At that point I started the rubber chicken comedy pub.

Aleyx 11:09

Yeah. And I spoke to, Stig and, he said it was, something that you, shared the idea with him and he thought, oh, he supported you because he's that's a bold idea. But he thought, that's all it is, a bold idea. But you actually, within six months of being in Melbourne, you had the venue sorted and you were running it and booking, gigs. So what's the, What's the drive within comedy? Like why comedy? What's your, great interest with comedy because you've got quite a few different ventures in the comedy field.

Morry Morgan 11:43

and comedy has been part of my life, but they're independents in a way. But I will say my very first comedy show that I performed was in Shanghai. And it, in fact, it all comes down to an experience I had when I was in my, business, the first business, Clark Morgan, we got my business, which was doing very well, was working with the, Fortune 500 companies, probably 80% of the biggest companies in the world. That were operating in, in China, an opportunity to go to, Thailand, Bangkok to, with my team, to do a, leadership program. part of, Johnson, one of their, one of their departments. They got many different and they had le leaders from, China, Australia, the us. was, ties obviously there and I think, Kong some other regions in India and they were all there for day one. And I was the opening address to announce what was happening and talk about what the, three days would entail and the projector didn't work. So we were in Thailand, Bangkok, not my projector. I'm in a hotel, a five star hotel. The projector didn't work and the Thai staff member with, broken hand signals and gestures said to me, five minutes, can you stall for five minutes? And I could do five minutes. And I played a little game that involved cultural differences of animals. that, I don't know if you know this, but Chinese chickens don't talk the same way English language chickens do.

Aleyx 13:24

I have heard this. Yes.

Morry Morgan 13:26

it's interesting. I, won't give you any information about that, but yeah, anyone who listens to this and has a friend who's from another region, another country, ask them what their, their animals, their farm yard animals say. they're not the same. anyway, so I did five minutes and I turned to the technician we ready to go? And he goes, five more minutes, please. And I was out of ideas. anyway, that's the story. So anyway, my wife turned to me and said, why don't you just do some standup comedy To her, it was just, oh, just do some standup comedy. But for me it was terrifying. I'd never done any standup comedy before. and also I might be funny with my friends, but it doesn't mean I'm funny to a group of strangers. I've heard, Brad Oaks actually say that. difference between performing and making your friends laugh and making a room of a hundred strangers laugh is the same as being a cook at home to your family or a chef in a restaurant and a fine star restaurant, a fine dining restaurant. I coincidentally, two weeks later, there was a course running in Melbourne from a guy from Sydney, and I did that course. Now, was both a student of the comedy, but I was also, I guess a critic of the course itself because the businesses that I ran in China were all corporate training companies. So I very, I knew vividly. adult learning principles, training principles, how to take knowledge from one person and give it to another, and how to retain that knowledge. And so I took it as a bit of a challenge that same year to use that experience and generate or create a little booklet on how to create, how to become a standup comedian. And I met a few comedians like Brad Oaks.

Aleyx 15:19

So can I just, pause there and just ask, because it is one thing to, and it just shows your brain and how it operates. So it's one thing to just go onto a course and learn, but then it's another to be like, okay, now I'm gonna, now I want to take this one step further. what was, what goes on for you when you're, when, you were in that training to think, oh, actually I think I can do this better.

Morry Morgan 15:43

Louis Paste, a, French, was a French, microbiologist. I happened to study microbiology as my degree, at university, but that's another story. Louis Pasteur said that Chance favours the prepared mind, chance favours the prepared mind. Obviously he said it in French, so it didn't sound like that at all. but that is probably one of my mottos, my life's mottos. So when I walked into that training, the comedy. Standup comedy course. My mind had already been trained. It was prepared. Sorry. It would already prepared because I knew what a. a training model should look like. I knew that if, watching something, just watching something doesn't equate to knowing and being able to do something, as to be able to transfer a skill, you need to have a theory, you need to have an example. You need to have practice, and you need to have an evaluation of that practice, which I call STEPE. that, that's the short of it. Everything I've done often, it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit slumdog millionaire. I've already been there. I've got enough of a background and not, preparation prepared mind that I can see something and go, you know what, it can be better. Yeah.

Aleyx 17:05

So, you, came up with a booklet and then you just created the comedy

Morry Morgan 17:10

So, yeah, I got introduced to a Comedian called Ben, and he introduced me to a number of other comedians. And then lay, to date, probably 30, professional comedians have been involved in creating the course. Either through the, and from doing the course yourself that we have guest comedians come in and, often I'll listen to what they say in their little workshop when they're, talking to the students and they might say something that then gets put into the booklet. for example, on though, it was quite interesting. I had to think about what is a joke and what is the joke structure? And I mentioned that I was a former microbiologist. I've got a scientific mind that I like to break things down. And so I, we came up with a few concepts, mostly by me asking the questions, what is a joke? and then we came up with normal twist was one structure of a joke. Now it wasn't called normal twist at the time. I think there was a couple of other ideas, and four different people had four different names for it. But I had to decide. based on normal, you say something normal, you say something normal again, and then instead of saying something normal again, you twist it and you make it twisty and you so that is how it came out. Yeah.

Aleyx 18:37

Yeah, they're very memorable ways. I'm actually holding, I'm actually holding, your pen.

Morry Morgan 18:43

Who's that?

Aleyx 18:44

and you've got Jeff Green quoted on there, 10% of writing. The rest is rewriting.

Morry Morgan 18:49

And, again, I remember where I was when he said that. That was in one of our venues, one of our, rented venues before the rubber chicken over in South Yarra. And, Jeff Green, a fantastic British comedian, a regular for hard knock knocks. He does at least one course per year with us. and he said that, and I was like, oh, that's genius. And it probably just came off the top of his head at the time. but it was, it's on the pen now.

Aleyx 19:14

so then you, set up the venues as well, the rubber chicken. So you've got the school, you had the venue, the podcast studio, and now the conference. So now you're, planning your first conference. Could you, tell us about the conference because it's bringing comedy and business, together. It's very interesting.

Morry Morgan 19:33

called the Business of Comedy Conference, so it's exactly what it says on the tin. In Australia we consider comedy to be integral into our culture. So we like to think that we're, larrikins, Australians, that we, don't take things too seriously. So the culture of comedy is important to us, but at the same time, I was also noticing that a lot of the funding, a lot of the business, a lot of the philanthropy, was going to higher brow. Performance. Theater, ballet, orchestral performances, these things. And at the same time, a lot of the resources that go to the live performance space don't necessarily go to standup comedy. And yet comedy as a horizontal and not just standup, I mean written comedy, performed comedy. as a horizontal, covers a lot of very important verticals. So we've got, film, television, radio, podcasts, of course, animation and voiceovers even. look at some of the, most impressive advertising and brand and marketing, it's often humorous. It's got comedy involved with it. then of course your workshops as well, which is hard knock knocks. Now, across that spectrum, if you think of Australian culture in terms of. Films, you'd probably say things like Crocodile Dundee as one of the most influential movies of all time. it's a comedy. If you think of tv, you might think of, full frontal frontline, the Degeneration. more recently, utopia, again, a comedy and featuring a lot of standup comedians. Richard Stubbs, was a comedian back in the eighties and he was, one of the first comedians to actually be handpicked to be a radio announcer. And be on the radio on the new band called This Thing called fm. And and he took, radio obviously, in new directions with humor. And today you often see two or three people, at least one of them is a comedian. So comedy has, is part of our entire culture, but as a industry it is horizontal, it is not vertical, and therefore it often gets ignored. That being said, and I'm gonna. this is a, big tangent. the industry of hvac. is heating, ventilation, air conditioning. Yep. It's in your

Aleyx 22:08

Believe it or not, I actually have heard of them because one of my clients in ES consultancy, so I actually know.

Morry Morgan 22:16

HVAC and comedy have a lot in common because hvac, that, essentially it's cooling and heating, hotels and resorts. It covers supermarkets. where you get your meat from. That's all HVAC technology, keeping the meat cold, your, home, the air conditioners in your rooms, your air conditioning in your car, air conditioning on airplanes. you can see that the industry goes from hotels, resorts, through to automotive and aeronautical. That's like comedy. Comedy's exactly the same.

Aleyx 22:49

So what are the, what are the types of, attendees and things that, that you'll be attracted and, what can they gain from the conference? What can we expect?

Morry Morgan 23:00

within that framework of those industries I mentioned, we've, got three major groups. So the first group is government and industry. That's day one. That's Thursday, the 16th of April. Then we've got industry and small business. which is day two, 17th of April, and then we've got the general public. So on day one, step one is to get the government involved. Now we, this is during the same window as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and historically pre COVID Melbourne International Comedy Festival would get around 700,000 tickets sold to shows comparatively the, Australian Football League, the AFL Grand Final. which the season runs for roughly a month as well. It gets around 550,000 tickets sold. now. The Melbourne Comedy Festival runs for 26 days. On the 27th day comedy falls off a cliff. So day one is, government and industry, firstly, recognizing that comedy is an industry. As is hvac, recognizes that it's a important, economy beyond the 26 days of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and then looks at ways of growing that. So for example, we've got, we've got a fellow called Scott Dikkers. He's coming over from the United States. He's one of the co-founders of The Onion. may know the

Aleyx 24:27

Oh

Morry Morgan 24:27

a

Aleyx 24:28

yeah.

Morry Morgan 24:29

newspaper. I

Aleyx 24:30

That's amazing. It's, again, it's, it is a big idea that you're, you are peeling off. Like what's driving you when it comes to comedy and being seen as an industry?'cause you're clearly passionate about it. what's that drive for you?

Morry Morgan 24:46

I've always loved comedy. I think my parents at the age of 18 took me to a comedy show. Tripod is my memory. The trio of musical comedians, and that was one of my biggest memories growing up. Then, I would take friends and, girlfriends to comedy shows, in my twenties and then got into comedy.'cause I realized it was part of, business. my, the way that I present, the way that I, give information is with humor as well. look, it's always been there. I just feel like. If you, lucky enough that I get invited to, lunches and events with some of Australia's biggest names, comedians, people like Jack Levi, who's, stage name is Elliot Goblet. I, will go to a lunch or a dinner with him and Ard will be there. Richard Stubbs will be there. Shane Jacobson will be there. very few people. Like myself, who are in the business side, are there. mind you, I did say Shane Jacobson, Steve, er, they're also business people. They're also very proactive in building their own careers, but the majority of comedians and, comedy performers, they are waiting for, and that's fair enough. That's their, prerogative. They're waiting for the next break. I, don't need to be on stage. That's not my, that's not my passion. I don't get a thrill from performing. I get a thrill from watching. Performances, and watching people grow as a trainer. so if we can take the economy of comedy that's this big today and we can expand it, that's, exciting. Gives us more choice, doesn't, it? Makes us laugh more.

Aleyx 26:33

Yeah. it's really valuable. I myself love, love comedy. The dark humor is my, thing. But one of the, reason that I, I did the comedy course wasn't because I wanna be a standup comedian, but I'm a speaker and I recognize every time I went to events. The speakers that I remembered were simply the ones that made me laugh. And, I think it's a great skill, whenever you're communicating to, be able to learn it because you've gotta be so concise in your delivery. And it was, yeah, doing that, training was one of the best trainings I've done. It's, yeah, it's fantastic. So yeah, really behind your cause and what you're trying to build.

Morry Morgan 27:13

And if you look at TEDxs and TED Talks, I think the most watched shows, most watched Ted Talks have all got humor involved with them. yeah,

Aleyx 27:24

yeah, a hundred percent. so when I spoke to Brad, who you work with at, hard knocks, he, he said that, comedy is a, is quite a conservative industry and innovation sometimes is, feared and even mocked. But he said Maur is un unstoppable, in, in that respect. what's it, like being a disruptor in this space and trying to do something different?

Morry Morgan 27:48

maybe it goes back to that first question about being an only child, right? and being in a caravan park and riding my, age six or seven up to a group of and going, hi, I wanna be your friend for a week. some of them are gonna say piss off. And, that's probably true with comedy as well, that, that, yeah, certainly in the early days. I was, there, there were some people, very small minority of people who said, no, you can't disrupt, you can't rock the boat to become a comedian. You have to do four to 10 years to infinite years of hard slog. if you are lucky, someone notices you and if you are lucky, you get an opportunity to perform to on stage or on tv. I just thought that there was another way of doing things that didn't have to be that way. and you mentioned earlier someone referred to me as lateral thinking. I had met one of the original authors of lateral thinking. Edward De Bono and Michael Hewitt Gleason are two people that were involved in the creation of lateral thinking. Maybe behind you in your bookshelf, you've got Edward de Bono probably a

Aleyx 29:03

actually, no,

Morry Morgan 29:04

he's got about,

Aleyx 29:05

I have to get on my big list.

Morry Morgan 29:06

got a, he's got about 15 or 20 books out there

Aleyx 29:09

Right.

Morry Morgan 29:09

and his, he, fellow by the name of Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, who's an Australian. Edward de Bono is British. although I think he was raised in Malta. it, Michael Huey Gleason is from Melbourne, and I happen to meet him and. Early, on before the global financial crisis, I brought him over as a guest speaker to China, to Shanghai and Beijing, and we toured and I was his chaperone'cause he didn't speak Mandarin and I also wanted to get basically free consulting from him. So I, sat in him, sat with him on every flight, every train, in every restaurant. And of course we talked and, I got some of the best training on lateral thinking. Ever And when the global financial crisis hit and my company was massively hit 80 staff in China, I was able to think laterally and reshape the business and actually come out of that more, profitable with a smaller team and a different product. And I think that goes back to the comedy. I just see the world through a different paradigm.'cause I'm always challenging what is acceptable as normal.

Aleyx 30:20

Yeah. You just don't, you, don't accept, if they say it's, if they say it's red, it's like, maybe, it is. Maybe it's not. and you're somebody that's, done a lot of things. You've got a lot of ideas, but you actually see them through. how do you do that? How do you juggle it all and how do you see things through? Because there's many of us that have lots of ideas, but they just stay as ideas. what do you do?

Morry Morgan 30:50

my first business partner in China was a, guy called Andy Clark, and he is, and to this day, is still involved in NLP Neurolinguistic programming. Yeah. Now I learned a lot of different aspects of NLP, but one I recall. through time and in time. Do you ever come across that expression? Through time and in time and I'm gonna mess, mess it up that I can't remember which is which, but in essence, it's the way that we see our world. some people see their world as and in fact, I should add, sometimes we jump into in time and through time. Sometimes we're jumping in and out. but on average, you're one or the other. And what I mean by that is, you know how you have a moment where you're just in the moment and time flies. I dunno if that's through time or in time. Maybe one of your listeners watches can help there. But, you are in a certain timeframe in your head where you making decisions without having to think. you are reacting to the immediate moment. Some people are always in that window, always in that immediate moment, which means they cannot plan, right? They cannot see themselves either. Sometimes if you close your eyes and go, where is my future? Where is my past? Sometimes it's to your left or right. Sometimes it's in front of you or the back of you. And for some people it's immediately in front of them. The front, the future is immediately in front of them, so they can't plan very well. And I don't know the. The, physiology of this, I dunno if it's a genetic thing or if it's just something one can learn, but I found that, I could, I can see the plan reasonably well. I can see three months to 12 months in front of me. And so when I embark on a, big project like the, business of Comedy conference in April for many, that's a single event that's right in front of them. But for me, it's down the track. And I know that on this, on the next day of that conference, is finished. I've got no more pressures for that conference, and I can start another pressure. I can start another project. So why don't I just put that project in plan right now so after April I can have another project. And so for some people they go, Morry, you've got so much on your plate. And I'm like, no, because I can see. I can see what's approaching. Yeah.

Aleyx 33:17

It is just how you look at it. Do you ever not have a project in play, like you said after that you'll, move on to the next. Do you ever just not have a project?

Morry Morgan 33:29

I didn't have a project during COVID really. I was sitting on my bum in China. I was in, in, Beijing. I was employed still. I was still getting a salary, but I didn't have to go to work. and I was, it was winter and I was just throwing snowballs at my son. And the next thing that happens, I come up with an idea for a, an app called Gig Me, which is a payment platform app. and so most ideas, they you create the idea and then you get to minimum viable product as soon as possible. But I couldn't do that because we're in COVID. So I got a lot of time to think about this payment platform. so when COVID opened up and I was able to come back to Australia, the. I was able to run that out pretty quickly. But no, to answer your question, no. I, my brain just is always on. Yeah.

Aleyx 34:19

It's always on. yeah. and on that as well, talking about, COVID, there's, you've obviously, as all of us, you've gone through, different wins, different fails, and you've had like legal threats. You've had COVID venue closures. What's, what's a failure that's taught you the most and what have you, you learned from it? Because I think we learned so much from failure.

Morry Morgan 34:42

I think it was, Gates that said you don't learn anything from success. but I'm sure many people have said that the years, but, the rubber chicken failed, right? So the rubber chicken ran for two and a half years. I went into that after COVID, it was the end of COVID, which in Melbourne became the middle of COVID. We got shut down six times, because of, because of, Dan Andrews and his decisions. And, when you run a comedy venue, you are, you don't have a loyal. Group of drinkers that come through. You are after new people all the time. It's incredibly, it's stressful because it's stressful. I was say, I had a mental breakdown. I had two mental breakdowns, to the point where I had to go on anti antidepressants. I was hyperventilating and having anxiety attacks. all of these things happened during COVID. And I also got, sued in court, in, federal court over a trademark infringement. And you can, Google that. so I was getting hit on two sides. One, I'm getting hit by, a lawsuit wanting hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. And on the other side, I've got, staff that I can't pay. I've got fridges full of food that's going off. I've got, I've got a building that I'm paying rent for. And then. I, can, I'm losing money every day. So I got through that with a great support from my wife. She's, she, I, because of my mind is always on, like I've just described. It was hard for me to go into the OR, be a bit more spiritual, a bit more, listened to my own body and she forced me. like a tiger mother, she forced me to sit down there, do breathing exercises, do the a kind of yoga, which I'm terrible at. That's why I don't play golf. And whether it was that, or whether it was the drugs, whether it was a combination, whether it was,'cause it's when you have a, when you have a breakdown and you have anxiety, you, and I'm a scientist, like I said. Logically I'm saying to myself, this makes no sense. I can get out of this. This is, I'm, it's not the end of the world. there's people in worse situations than me. This is Australia, at the, very least, I'll lose the business, but I'll be able to rebuild it. I did, so the, I lost the business and it was almost a relief. My mental health improved and I got back up and I think a lot of people have given me a lot of support since then and said Maori. Fantastic. You got up again.'cause it, something like that learned, losing a business, getting sued in the federal court could have crushed lot, of people. So yeah, that was probably the biggest learnings that I personally I can do it. If I can get through that and I've got through SARS in China. I got through global financial crisis in China. I got through COVID and then going through getting sued, in the federal court, then I think I'm pretty unstoppable. Okay.

Aleyx 37:53

Yeah, it's, almost sometimes, it's those, hard times and seeing what you're made of and how you come through the other end. That is actually drives you to, do, to grow further and do more.'cause you realize how much power you've got within you to overcome those things. So I think sometimes we actually need, those things, to keep us going.

Morry Morgan 38:15

there's a scene from Gattaca the, the movie, it's a science fiction movie based in the near future, and it's about a brother who's an invalid and a brother that's a'perfect specimen'. And the invalid, beats the perfect specimen brother in a swimming race. and the moral of that story is the, invalid didn't save energy for the swim back. And, he he spent himself a hundred percent, whereas the'perfect' person gave, came back, swam back to shore before he reached his peak performance. I think that's the kind of a don't be, don't accept perfection, go into things that it's going to, you're going to be invalid at times. It's not, always gonna work out.

Aleyx 39:11

Yeah. Yeah. Did you, when you, when you lost the business, said it was almost a sense of relief. Did, was that when you, started to recover and feel calmer and things like that?

Morry Morgan 39:25

I, couldn't even walk past the venue for, a time without. My heart going up now, I cannot live in the suburb. I walk my dog past it all the time. But yeah, there was a, there was definitely a physiological connection with the emotional. and that's, that is what, is anxiety is the right reaction at the wrong time. That's what they say. We should always have, anxiety'cause it, it's a fight or flight, scenario. It gets us outta trouble. But when it's putting us in trouble, when it's making us feel uncomfortable, then that's when it's outta control. So I'm at, I'm totally fine now, but I can also read my body a lot better now. And I can say, oh, that's, I'm beginning to. pressure's going up or heart rate's going up. Alright, calm down. Speak slower. Relax. Yeah. But I think I'm also older as well. Maybe it just comes with age. Yeah.

Aleyx 40:22

I think when these things happen, it's, being able to reflect on that, okay, what's happening inside my body and my mind? Why is that happening? Because, you know, our thoughts aren't us. So it's being able to, look at that and understand what's going on. Is that true? and, your wife gave you such great advice of just slowing down and breathing and reflecting because when we're just a hundred miles a minute, then we're, we don't actually take the time to examine, okay, what's really going on here? yeah. Do you still do the breathing and the yoga did.

Morry Morgan 40:58

I, what I do now is I do fasting, so back on, not, quite sort of yoga.'cause I just don't have time. I mentally, I'm just too much in the moment. but I do fasting and I think fasting is a way of me controlling my feelings. So when you fast, in fact, I lost a lot of weight when I was, having those mental health issues when I was on that, that, the drug that. Reduced, made me more calm. I found that the, then this is an NLP thing. feelings have locations. So even though our, obviously our brain is the location of all feelings, I was feeling the pressure in certain parts and for me, hunger. Was in, in the same place as anxiety. So when I was at very anxious, I, couldn't, I, I didn't, I was confusing, hunger with anxiety and anxiety for hunger. So I wasn't eating very well and I lost a lot of weight. lost about 15 kilograms. So now I do, hours of fasting every week. So Sunday through today's, Tuesday, so I can start to eat after this. This, call, but I haven't eaten since

Aleyx 42:11

Wow.

Morry Morgan 42:12

and the feeling of hunger is there and it's in the same place as anxiety. But I, because I've had so much practice with that anxiety, I can conco, I can control it. I do get a bit edgy at about 6:00 PM on a Monday, so don't prod me. But generally, yeah, it's, allowed me to do these, fasts and sometimes I can do 65 hours, I'll go all the way to Wednesday as

Aleyx 42:38

fascinating. So what does the first thing do for you, aside from the obvious, but.

Morry Morgan 42:43

the scientific, back to, yeah, but you don't lose that much, weight actually. But but what it does on the physiological level, it converts. So you go into, burning obviously, so that's, you've the glycogen I think it's called, which is the liver holds a lot of energy in the form of glycogen. You have blood sugar as well. So the blood sugar goes down to zero, the glycogen is then released from the liver, it then goes to zero, and then the body starts to, now is it app? your listeners should write in again and tell me the correct pronunciation. A apathy, a not apathy. it's autophagy it's where the body starts to eat old and dying cells, or cell cells that are not as necessary. So there is a bit of a general toxin clean. In a way. and also of course it start to eat the fat, you're not eating the fat cells.'cause fat cells don't go away. Just the storage of fat within those cells, depleted. So you do lose, a little bit of water, fair bit of water, but you do lose those fat cells and those fat cells. For a man like me who likes a good beer, not necessarily on my neck or my, on my thighs, they're actually more dangerous. They're around my organs or in my arteries. So it does clean out the body, gets rid of those fat cells and I should say makes you more clear with, with thinking as well.

Aleyx 44:12

I've, I fasted, years ago, I, used to, there was a thing called the Five two Diet that came out and, I did it for a while and that's one thing I noticed. I was actually, which I didn't think would be the case, I was actually able to concentrate more. I thought it would distract me'cause I'd be constantly thinking I'm hungry. But actually I was more focused, which I thought was fascinating. alright, we're coming towards the end. I always do a quick fire round. so just the, the first answer that, that, that comes to you. oh. This might, one might not be relevant actually, but last time you bombed on stage.

Morry Morgan 44:53

it would've been Adelaide when I graduated from my own course, with Glen Nichols. I had to graduate from my own course, so I did it with. Away from my friends and family in Melbourne. Did it in Adelaide? yeah. Yeah.

Aleyx 45:04

favorite business slogan besides GBB? This came from Brad.

Morry Morgan 45:11

it would be, chance favours the prepared mind as I mentioned earlier, if your mind's ready, you can see opportunities.

Aleyx 45:19

Yeah. Love it. one, one, guess you killed to get on your comedy podcast.

Morry Morgan 45:24

look, I think, look, Jim Jeffries would be amazing at the moment. and I say that because it's, possible, right? If he listens to this podcast, I could get it.'cause he does come to Melbourne, he's Australian, of course, and he lives in Sydney. But I could get him on one degree of separation from him already. This might help. Yeah.

Aleyx 45:43

Yeah. Let's, throw it out there. I really like Jim Jeffries. weirdest thing that happened at the rubber chicken

Morry Morgan 45:50

we did a ghost tour, there was a guy called Ken, and Ken does ghost tours, and he came in with his little metal sticks. and we, I didn't tell him anything about the murder that had happened in the seventies, and he went around like one of those sticks for finding water and he went around, he said, all right, this was where the murder happened and this was, happened over here and he's feeling something. So yeah, that was pretty, pretty crazy.

Aleyx 46:14

Wow.

Morry Morgan 46:15

Yeah.

Aleyx 46:15

Was he right?

Morry Morgan 46:16

there was a murder there. Yeah. Yep, that's right. pat Shannon. Yeah, that's right.

Aleyx 46:21

Fantastic. okay, so I always, my last question, I always, leave a pass it on for the listener. and Stig said that Morry's the only guy I know who can take something from a wild idea to a real, business without losing his weight. So what would you say to the creative listening with 50 ideas, but no follow through?

Morry Morgan 46:45

don't be perfect. Like I said in earlier, criticism comes from people who could never do it themselves. So don't e don't worry about those people. app that I built wasn't perfect the first time. The restaurant menu for the rubber chicken and the gigs weren't perfect the first time. first guide, the comedy for hard knock knocks the, not the one that you used, but the one, from nine years ago or 10 years ago, wasn't perfect. Don't expect perfection. In fact, I think there's a fellow in the IT space who said that if you are proud of your creation, you've started too late.

Aleyx 47:22

Fantastic. where can, people learn more about you, Morry And we can put links in, in the show notes as well.

Morry Morgan 47:30

Yeah, I think, at the end of the day, hard knock knocks is the hub of all my businesses. Hard knock knocks, comedy school hard, knock knocks.com. and from that you'll learn a bit about Gig Me or this week in comedy, which is the podcast you, refer to, the Business of Comedy Conference.

Aleyx 47:48

Yeah. Great. thank you so much for joining me, Morry.

Morry Morgan 47:51

Thanks, Aleyx.