Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart
Welcome to Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart—the podcast dedicated to empowering men to break through barriers and achieve their full potential.
Hosted by Lachlan Stuart, this show dives deep into the challenges men face, offering actionable insights, real-life stories, and expert advice. Whether you're focused on fitness, business, personal growth, or fatherhood, you'll find inspiration and tools here to help you rise above any challenge and become the man that can.
New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Tune in, get inspired, and start living the life you’ve always wanted.
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Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart
Shaun Birley: Transforming Narratives - Hair Loss, Self-Respect, and Fashion #506
Let's face it, hair loss can be a tough journey, one that's often laden with societal pressures and stigma. But what if you had the option to redefine that narrative? Today, we're thrilled to have Shaun Birley, an entrepreneur turning heads in the digital world, joining us to discuss his own personal journey with hair loss and the transformative process of undergoing a hair transplant.
An insider's look into the hair transplant world, Shaun takes us through his journey to Turkey for his procedure, discussing the various considerations, risks, and research aspects that led him to his decision. We also delve into the different options for ongoing hair maintenance, the costs, and Sean's personal recommendations for anyone considering this path. Sean's authenticity and transparency shine through every discussion, making it an enlightening experience you wouldn't want to miss.
But there's more to Sean than his hair transplant journey. A creative force on Instagram, Sean shares how he transitioned from being a business owner to curating engaging content and pitching campaigns to brands. He dives into the emotional investment that fuels his work, how he uses fashion as a conversation starter, and how his experience with hair loss shaped his self-confidence.
This episode is as much about hair loss as it is about fashion, self-respect, and the empowering effects of self-care on self-esteem - an inspiring tale of transformation, both inside and out.
Tune in for an episode that promises to inspire, enlighten, and provoke thought.
Contact Shaun:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shaunbirley/
Website: http://www.shaunbirley.com/
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Website: https://themanthatcanproject.com/
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Do Something Today To Be Better For Tomorrow
Welcome to episode 506 of the man that Can Project podcast, your ultimate guide to unlocking your full potential of the mind and body. I'm your host, locky Stewart, and today I'm going to be reading from the script, because we've got a lot to cover here. Um, we have a very special guest, sean Burley. Mate, you are dressed to impress and we're going to dive into that in a moment, but thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:That's awesome to be here.
Speaker 1:So Sean's an entrepreneur, a fashion enthusiast, a lifestyle influencer who has made a significant impact in the digital world. He is known for his impeccable style. As for those who are watching along on YouTube, you can see his adventurous spirit and his authentic approach to sharing his life's experiences. And, uh, for those who are following along on Tik Tok, he's doing a great job with that and Instagram and every other platform. In today's episode, we're going to delve deep into a topic that many men grapple with but few openly discuss. You're literally the first person I've seen the man that can project podcast, a podcast in power. We're driven men to live more fulfilling lives. We are here to challenge your beliefs, redefine success and talk about the important stuff in a relatable way. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
Speaker 1:My name's Lockies, stuart. Let's get into it. Talk about this topic and when we? You know we're having a coffee the other day, as I mentioned. It got me so inspired, which is why I'm so excited we're having a coffee the other day, as I mentioned. It got me so inspired, which is wild and everyone's probably. What's the topic? It's hair loss and hair transplant. So, sean, you recently underwent a hair transplant and have been incredibly open about the journey. We'll discuss societal pressures, stigma around balding, the decision-making process for getting a hair transplant and the impact it has had on self-esteem and confidence. So our goal today is obviously to not only to inform people, but to foster a conversation that can help men have more comfortable experiencing discussing these topics and making decisions that are right for them. So, without further ado, let's dive into the conversation I was going to say competition conversation with Sean Burley. Mate, thank you so much for giving up your time. You're a busy man. You got a lot on. You were supposed to be in Europe at the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that all got cancelled, which I'm not angry about. I'm happy to sit down here and just sort of not travel now and get into a good routine. See at the gym most mornings.
Speaker 1:Now, which is awesome Crushing it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, the whole travel routine does throw the routine where it comes to health and fitness out the window, but that's something I'm just trying to focus on whilst I've got some downtime at home now.
Speaker 1:Yep, well, let's go back to the beginning, mate. You have a big online presence and you're a man who has a lot of self-respect in the way that you dress, and I see you in the gym, as you mentioned a lot, and for me those are big signs of individuals who give a crap about themselves and the people that I want to surround myself with. What was life like for you before social media? How did you get into the social media role? What influenced your, I guess, interest in fashion, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was probably right. After university, we me, my business partner decided to start a career company, a digital career company, and like the. I guess the idea of it is pretty simple. It's very similar to like Skyscanner or WebJet, and what we do is, if any companies want to jump online and send a parcel from here to Europe or Europe to Australia or domestically, essentially what it does is just compares you know, fedex, dhl, ups, tnt on a comparison website, depending on weight, size, urgency and where it's going. We pretty much compare the market of career companies. That's what we do, right.
Speaker 2:And then so, once we sort of got that up and running, we were pretty young, we were like 24, 25, and we were starting to get sort of meetings with like Uber and big fashion labels and all this kind of stuff. And you know, we were sitting down in warehouses with logistics and procure management, who managers who've been in the business for like 25, 30 years, right. So like who the hell are these guys who are 24, 25, telling me how to do my logistics job? It's a pretty archaic industry, as it is right. So well, me and my buddy were like well, we need to really start to like give off a really good first impression, a professional first impression, if we're going to start sitting down with some of these bigger companies.
Speaker 2:So we just took, just started investing in our clothing a little bit more, and that's kind of when I got hooked on tailoring and suits and, yeah, got delved into the world of sartorialism, which is like Italian tailoring, right. So that's where the addiction started. And then, of course, the suit collection grew. It's a full blown addiction. Man, you haven't looked at my wardrobe? There's like 50 suits and they're color coded like a rainbow. Yeah, they slowly go from grays to light blues, to dark blues, to blacks, to pretty random suits.
Speaker 1:I've got a question for you, then how do you choose the perfect suit for the occasion that you've got on? How does that go?
Speaker 2:You can't ask me that because, like, when it comes to fashion on, absolute peacocks. So it'll be. I'll just be like I'm going to grab that red suede Hugh Hefner looking one today and I'll wear that because I've realized I can get away with some pretty loud, audacious suits. So, yeah, I'm an absolute peacock. Yeah, it's true. So yeah, that's how that sort of that addiction started and then started uploading sort of social media for posts of where I was having coffee and what suit I was wearing with work and we were traveling between Sydney, melbourne and Brisbane at the time. And then, yeah, I just started uploading photos of at a different cafe with a different suit combination and it was usually just a top down photo of like my face down. So no one really saw my face in social media for quite some time. It was a little bit mysterious, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how like that.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, the following kind of just went up from there. I wasn't really trying. And then, and then one of my mates who was an amateur photographer was like, why don't we just take a couple of photos with your face in it and some walking shots in the suits? And then, and then, yeah, I posted a photo of my face and then just people just was like, is that Deadpool Mate? I was literally going to say on the photo show before.
Speaker 1:I was like when you look like you just owned Wrexham.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know how far out they get a lot of that. And then, yeah, that just went up. And then, yeah, just suit brands and stuff started hitting me up and I was like, far out, man, if I can get a free suit, I've made it. And yeah, got my first suit with Rod and Gun. They sent me a. I love Rod and Gun.
Speaker 1:I love them too, dude.
Speaker 2:I've got a great relationship for the last like five years with them now, but they were the first guys to hit me up and be like hey, sean, you want to do like a free suit for content stuff. I was like, oh yeah, made it, yeah, yeah, so tick that off.
Speaker 2:The vision, yeah, yeah so that was like the first gig and then, yeah, just kind of just went up from there. It was just putting up daily photos of suits combinations. People hit me up saying you know, I'm wearing this today. I've got this coming up, hey, I'm looking to buy a suit for a wedding, or girls being like I'm looking to buy something for my boyfriend or husband, can you suggest something? So that's how that element just kind of went nuts and then it developed into travel content and then the travel content turned into like then being hit up by hotels and airlines. I'm like this is starting to get some traction now. So better, better, better, put some energy into this.
Speaker 1:And so, coming from initially at all, just rolled off of your entrepreneurial endeavors and you just started, pretty much I'd say, vlogging or bringing people along on the journey and it was just, it was it was back in the old school days where Instagram was just a photo yeah, there was.
Speaker 2:There wasn't stories involved, there was nothing. You never really got to get an idea of the person's personality. So I think, like social media, back then you were following everybody because you really didn't understand who yes, who, what the person was like. I think when stories came out for me personally there was it went one or two ways, like people were now putting up stories and I was like man, I'm really disengaged with their content now as, like a speaker and personality, I'm like they're really great photos but, yeah, unfollow or the other other way. There'd be people that I've seen that had, you know, okay, content, but they had really contagious personalities and spoke really well and they're really engaging and told really good stories.
Speaker 2:Those people did really well as well. So I think, yeah, there was most of my growth was in that period where you know stories went around, so it was just. It was just a nice photo, the nice suit at a really nice cafe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's. It's still brilliant that you've now built this whole brand off the back of that and you still have your business now. Yeah, how did that idea come about first? I know we'll bounce around here, but just for that business. When you were talking through, I was like that is so unique and random.
Speaker 2:It is random, it's so. It was essentially family business at the beginning. It actually the idea originated in the US and my dad and I both used to work for DHL, the courier company. I was unloading cargo freight planes at nighttime, graveyard shift, just just plane after plane after plane. My dad was working with DHL in Singapore, philippines. I spent most of my life growing up in Asia, did you really? Yeah, yeah, I was in Johannesburg, raised in the Philippines, lived in Singapore, malaysia, Hong Kong, thailand and then and then decided to call Australia home in like full time in like 2007. Yeah, and then my dad left DHL. I was just finishing university and I'd already worked at DHL with my best mate. I went to boarding school with him. I was like 12 and dad was like I've got this idea. He's like you know freight, you know how to self-rate. He's like let's get this thing off the ground. We're going to franchise it. You're going to be the first franchise I sell. You're going to be the proof of concept as well. So then, once we got that up and running, we integrated with a couple of carriers. Then we moved from our franchise into the head office with my dad. Then I started selling franchises. Then I turned from the franchise sales into the franchise business coach and started coaching the franchisees that we sold to. And then eventually, that just that. I think we're probably at 250 franchises across Asia Pacific now. Wow, yeah, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And then I decided that's when Instagram started going crazy. I started taking photos in like Asia we were setting up in Mumbai and Singapore, south Korea, vietnam and we were traveling around setting up the offices. And then, of course, I took my camera with me, started shooting the coffee shots in like cafes in Saigon, and then some places in Mumbai and Delhi, and then so the content got a little bit more travel orientated. And then, yeah, there was a couple of big jobs that came my way and I realized, fire out, this is. I'm going to take a walk from the business and just focus on being creative and decide to go to the Instagram route full time.
Speaker 2:Did you feel that was a bit of a risk? Definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean you've got the security of you know, owning your franchise and a salary. And then there was this Instagram world, which is so hot and cold. Yeah, one month you'd be sailing around the world getting these awesome jobs. These ones are lifetime experiences that money can't buy, and I'd be pinching myself like this is awesome, and then and then, like some months, there's just nothing. You're like you're only as good as your last job on social media. So yeah, there was definitely a risk, but again, with that risk becomes a little bit more pro activity with it as well. So I mean, I had a manager at the time as well, so every week would sit down, brainstorm creative concepts.
Speaker 2:We take the concepts and pretty much white label them, whether it was for a car or for a suit, or for an alcohol or was for colognes. We'd come up with a sort of a creative concept and then we would just pitch it and say who's got more money for the idea? So yeah, rather than waiting for a brand to come to you and say this is the brief, this is what we want, this is the product, this is the tone of voice, this is the angle that we're going for, we jumped on the front foot and created that, that whole essential campaign, and then took it to people and say this is going to cost you five grand, this is going to cost you eight or whatever, and then pitch it, to sit to pitch it to other brands to see who would pick up the idea.
Speaker 1:I love that. You just mentioned about being proactive. That's one thing. Even in the podcast game until about 16 weeks ago is very passive. That I was like. You know, people were always asking to come on, which was fine, yeah. So I think it's like collaborations are a great way to grow, like leverage each other's audiences and doing that. But some people don't have the time to collaborate properly because they might want to write the copy or cut up the reels or whatever it is. So I'm like well, what I do now is a done for you package. We have key points and stuff that we want. I'm giving away all my tips here.
Speaker 2:All the stuff that.
Speaker 1:You know I have a theme around what I want to learn from someone, right, because I'm always, you know, follow you for various reasons and I'm like, I get to pick your brand, I get to sit down with you. What do I really want to learn? And then how can that go to market, how can that really add value to our audience? And then how can I give that to in a way where you don't have to do a single thing except go if I want to collaborate, click, collaborate, and we then reach a bigger audience. And it's a little bit more work, but, man, it just pays off because it makes it super easy for the guests to have an awesome experience, and I think no one else is doing that just yet.
Speaker 2:And I think the content as well. For somebody who's producing content, whether it be social media or podcast, when you start working with brands and pitching to brands or even people that you want to talk to, that's noticeable in the room and in the content because it aligns with you. Yes and you take far more interest in something that you're interested in rather than someone asking you like it's the same with me. If a brand comes to me goes Shawn, here's a budget, here's this. I'm like, okay, I'll do it, you're not pumped about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know if I'm sitting there going like man, I've always wanted to work with this watch brand. I've got this idea. We've created it. There's a bit more, you know, emotional investment in the idea. Yeah, and then the brand picks up and goes hey, man, we love that. I'm like I feel way more pumped to do that job Than someone approaching me to do a job. Yeah, because it's my idea, it's my creation and I want to execute on it better, yeah, bring it to life for sure.
Speaker 1:Behind it and it's definitely something that I feel Obviously walking away from the security net of having the franchise and all of those sorts of things it does light a fire under your ass because you're like, if I fail, I'm the only person to blame. Yeah, and a lot of people never get to really experience that and you can become this Gruntled I know I was when I was just employed. I'd always be like, oh, how can? My boss gets to do this and do that. I'm like, well, he's the one who's taking the risk, he's the one who has the fire under his ass to make it work.
Speaker 1:I'm just showing up, get my $20 an hour and being a lazy bastard really. Whereas now, every day, I'm like everything that I do. I'm like how can I be better? Yeah, how can I make it this easier for that person to add more value to then ultimately grow the concept that I have in my head as well? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:You feel guilty about the downtime off, don't you what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're like I need to be doing something. That's what I just open up my fingers side. It's just I just like writing ideas down, I'm like just giving myself work for no reason, but I'm like maybe just absorb the downtime, but I don't know. It's yeah, it's, it's there's that fire, yeah, and it's there's pressure.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, as as as an individual, when you're the product and you're the brand as well, you start to bring. This is why I also feel pressure now as well, like when you're the product, brand and service, like you know, apart from the franchise where you've actually got something and something's using that service inside and out. But then this social media side, people are investing you into you as a person and as a brand and as a personality, and I just find that way there's more pressure in that, definitely in that as well. And then I also feel like now I've got a full-time manager who's talking to on the phone. She's heavily invested into me. You know like, and that's I mean that is that's, it's really, I mean quite humbling as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah someone's putting their time and effort into you as a product. Yeah, they, they believe in you and the things that you come up with. So there's also that element and also going on Go, videographer, photographer, script writer and animatic guy. So I've got this little team underneath me. So it's you, go far out. I need to keep doing more to keep these people happy, because these people invested into me as a person. Yeah, I think it's quite selfless. Oh, definitely, it's crazy. I'm like I'm the product and someone's working there to help me Get more views and more followers and all this kind of stuff to make more money. Yeah, but it's. Yeah, it's quite a bizarre concept for me to get my head around at the beginning. How?
Speaker 1:do you find, though, like cuz, that can be perceived two ways right. One way could be like it's very exciting. You've now got to make sure you perform, which the way that I would view it is like I want to be as healthy as I can. I want to be as well-rested, because every day I'm not performing well, I'm letting this team down.
Speaker 1:Yeah the flip side of that is the immense pressure that it's like I've got to be better than I want. You know, you're only as good as your last campaign. Yeah, how do you balance that? I'd sort of say that probably comes into like a self-esteem, confidence, maybe mindset sort of field. How do you balance that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's also like. It's also a personality thing, like I think I get Matt. For me it's a Matt I could get. The reward for me is when I create something creative and something's like that's epic, good job. Yeah, so, and it also as a creative person, you want to get feedback on creative stuff. So yeah, for me it's feedback.
Speaker 2:I can be pretty hard of myself. I create a job, I we did a job last week down in Melbourne and I saw the final product and I was like I'm not happy with that, not at all. My manager's like I really like it and I'm thinking maybe my expectations are here. Yeah, but the brand was like we really loved it Hit the hit the mark for what we want. And yeah, I don't know at this stage yet it's yeah. For me it's just it's getting the feedback off other people. If someone turns around and goes, yeah, it's not quite what we wanted to know, happy with that, I'm like far out. It's about finding when that went wrong and trying again and doing it again. Yeah, yeah. For me, staying, I guess, on top of it is just feedback. I just need as much feedback as I can as a creative person.
Speaker 1:I think as well, though You're a very ambitious person, right, and as a Result of that is the destination we never reach, right. What we now have, we once wanted and it's now not enough in To a degree, and it's not coming from a place of scarcity. It's like I now know that's my bench, like that's my baseline. Sorry, I've done that before.
Speaker 2:I want to go bigger the thing in this, the thing, like you asked me every, I asked myself and my manager every like year, like where we going next, what's the next plan? And you know it's. It's hard because with social media and content is it's Coming from your, your scarcity points. This is this, isn't. This is an industry of abundance that you can't put enough out.
Speaker 2:Yes and then, once you know, once you're starting to do no social media posts, then do you move into podcast, then do you move into vlogs and do you move into Travel content. I'd like, where's the end? Yeah, you almost need. You're getting to a point now where you Need, like a separate person for a different platform right, yeah definitely the content varies per platform as well. So, yeah, there's just there's a non-stop amount of things that you can be doing this and there's yeah, there's not enough time.
Speaker 1:It's literally and it's a whole new skill set like podcasting is so different to. I've tried you. We got a YouTube channel as well and I've only just started doing the podcast on that about six months ago, like properly, yeah, and it's just a whole different ballgame even for vlogging. It's like you got to learn cuts and it's like I feel like a lot of people really don't understand how much work and you've shared a fair bit of the stuff that goes into your you know, designing concepts and stuff like that for me. I didn't even know that I was just like I just post a video and smile and here we go, but so much thought goes into it, which is what has made you so successful in that space and and in an experimenting as well, like there's there's there's different forms of content that do well on other platforms and other people are like I don't know.
Speaker 2:There's always trying to figure out. Like how can I capture somebody's attention in the first two, three minutes? Two, three seconds? I'm sorry. Yeah, like what's the hook line? I think talking you're on to the next thing so quickly, yeah, unless you don't catch someone's attention. That first two, three seconds being like this is why you should go to Turkey to get hair transplant people like whoa. Okay, I'll come back to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's gonna deliver deliver but that's.
Speaker 1:Before we go into their hair stuff, because I do really want to go there. When you venture into the social media space, like getting photos done you mentioned you were taking, started taking your camera to cafes and stuff like that that scares the shit out of me. Hmm, like my wife, you know, and her sister and stuff at or smatter and I want to be or smatter like I think it had a lot of value to what we do. Yeah, but having in my head I'm like what are they? What is that person thinking about me for taking a photo of me doing that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, how do you?
Speaker 1:are you comfortable with that?
Speaker 2:You're gonna block that out so quickly you do because like and there I can tell you there was a turning point for me. I would set up my camera like really slightly. And it would stream to my mobile.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like you can see what's Connect the miles thing, I could see this. I'd set it up at somewhere obscure and then like see myself in the camera. And then I'd like, for a time only, one, two, three, and like the look away. It's like I was candid, someone else is taking photo of me.
Speaker 2:But then I started working with this photographer, ali. He's a Brisbane based guy and I was doing all my own content and he was just Baraging me in my DMs, being like broke, let's work, bro, let's hustle, come on, man, let me shoot you. I was like man, this guy is relentless and I just left him in the DMs for like a couple of months and then one day my photographer cancelled on me and I was shooting a job for Uniqlo and I texted him and it was like an hour before I needed to shoot this content. I was like I hate, bro, sorry, I didn't see these. I was like, yeah, I need to shoot a Uniqlo job at an hour. He's like don't see there. I was like sweet, he rocked up and I remember being in this. Like it's like Queen Street Mall or something like that, and I'm standing there and he is climbing on top of bands. He's like look to me, look to me. To the right there's people walking around everywhere. I'm like far out, everyone's fucking looking at me subtle.
Speaker 2:Not yet. But you know, the stuff that he he shot was awesome. And then I ended up working with him for like three or four years and we used to go to cafes and the guy did not care who was watching, who was looking, no matter what, like he's just In the moment, he'd be just tunnel vision on getting the right shot. And then I just I just wanted to give it up. And then it was also a conversation starter. People were like who are you man? What are you shooting for? I'm shooting for this watch band and social media stuff.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I never thought sorry for disturbing you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's my card. Yeah, exactly, follow me. Yeah, um, no, but uh, yeah, no, I just just learned to block it out and Now you can see people doing it everywhere. Yeah, you just got to live with confidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, there's times where I find myself going what an idiot I'm like I just wish I had the balls to do. And I do some some days like I'm all over, I'm like this is fine. Yeah but majority of the time it's what I want to be doing, because Social media ads it drives a lot of business to demand the camp project, though, oh yeah. So I'm like, just own it, dude, and, as you just said, I never thought about it. It's a great conversation starter. What are you doing? I'm hand. We run this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just shooting some content for this, you're gonna see me everywhere in Brisbane now, guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Just every coffee shop In active work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just getting the sweat on Um, obviously into the fashion space. It was a guy I had on the podcast, uh, maybe a couple of months ago, greg Schreimann, where he was talking about for him as a midlife male how fashion is such an important part, as I mentioned, like self-respect and just helping you build your confidence. And obviously I'm sitting here in active wear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, normally I like slacks.
Speaker 1:I'm, yeah, I am on wear but like this shirt's a little bit big for me and whatnot. But it was when he sort of said that. That's when it clicked. And I said to Amy I was like, once I get to America, like I'm gonna Start giving a shit about my appearance because I can literally just wear the same stuff for years and I look ragged and haggard. I'm like I don't care, yeah, which is just a lazy man's approach. But then, as you were saying, it's like when you suit up and stuff, you do feel like your confidence goes through the roof. You just feel like a million bucks, yeah. And when you feel good, you generally look out for better things, you behave in a More certain way and you get better outcomes.
Speaker 2:Definitely, I think, and it's also one of the things that is included in that whole first impressions. Look right. Yeah, I agree with your friend, I think it's a, it's it. It comes down to an element of self-respect and an element the Italians say Dressing well as a form of good manners. The Italians say that as well. Um, yeah, I, and he's right. When I'm in a three-piece suit double-breasted suit, suit tie, pocket square and I'm going out man, I'm all going to a meeting I feel bulletproof. I feel like my level of confidence is way higher. Yeah, um, I hate being that person in a room when, like I'm like, should I have worn that? Oh, you know, I was a bit, maybe a little bit over the top, maybe too much, and then I get there, then someone's wearing something nice to me like damn it.
Speaker 1:I should have always be the best best dressed person in the room.
Speaker 2:Always set the standard because? Then because, if you see the feeling overdressed everyone else is going. I wish I fucking dressed like him actually.
Speaker 1:I feel underdressed, dude. I'm feeling that right now, like yesterday. I did a podcast with a guy and I knew he'd be wearing and I didn't have things on before. So I wore a button-up shirts the first time I think I've ever worn one on a podcast. But I walked in going yeah, I feel nice. And then when I rolled in here after a session, I'm like Fuck my legs look good though.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'm also like, okay, well, that's a. It's another good reminder Of the importance of setting the standard and then maintaining that standard. Obviously, you have hundreds of thousands of followers. At what point for you? Let's dive into the hair stuff. Did you start noticing? Were you ever self-conscious about the hair, and what was it for you? Was it balding, receding hairline? How did it all come about? What made you sort of go down this path?
Speaker 2:It was the. I had always had a high widow's peak and that was like it was evident through school. What's that for that average?
Speaker 1:punter.
Speaker 2:Okay, for the widow's peak is just a high hairline. So it might not actually be a genetic balding. You know you might not be balding, it's just this is where your hairline just naturally sits. So it's a kind of you have that peak up here towards, like I guess, just above your temples. So even during school, when I was younger, it was just my natural hairline. And then, I guess, when I was like getting into the social media side of it and it started happening more about two and a half, two, three years ago, let's be honest, the social media world, especially in the industry that I'm working with, obviously like the fashion side of things, it was being talked about and people were bringing up in photo shoots and like being like hey, mate, come on.
Speaker 1:I'm about with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what happened? I think maybe when I was in my 30s 35 now, so around 32, people started bringing it. I think it just started going back from the high widow's peak a little bit more, going back and back a little bit more, and it actually did kind of come back about two, about three inches from where it is right now, and I'll give you some photos.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you can overlaid this, but I'll just show you before and after photo and it started going back and going back and then when I was getting like makeup done for ads or I was doing speaking or whatever and people were putting like makeup, people would be like, oh, don't get his receding hairline. They're like, make sure that, right, I tell you what makeup artists and producers or whatever, or people that you're on set with I just like they don't notice. They're being mean, right, because they're just making sure that everything looks good, right for TV or for a photo shoot or a. Yeah, they're like, make sure you get the makeup up in here. Or like, can you please get his hair to sweep over his receding hairline?
Speaker 2:I was sitting there going, oh fuck, it happened once, right. And then it's just one of those things when it didn't bother me at all, like it wasn't even on the radar for me at like 31. 32. Then it happened at an ad and I was like, okay, that's the first time that's kind of been talked about. And then it happened once or twice or three times. And then I was like now I'm getting self-conscious about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it was like, once it's brought up, it's kind of like the theory of you know the red. Have you ever liked the red Mazda theory? Like you're thinking about buying a red Mazda. You're like, oh cool, oh yeah, that looks great. Then you see the red. Then when you go and have a look at the car, then suddenly you start seeing the car everywhere Everyone has a red Mazda.
Speaker 2:Everyone has a red Mazda and it was that thing. It's like someone pointed it out and then it was just kept seeing it. It was like walking into an elevator with down light and I'm like fucking hell, that actually looks a little bit bad. And then the days that, rather than me walking to an elevator or seeing my reflection, I'll be looking at the clothes and stuff I'm wearing to see if I'm dressed well, I was looking at my receding hair line. I was like, fuck it, it's getting worse. Is it getting worse? I'm making it worse for myself? I can't, I don't know.
Speaker 2:So then yeah, and then yeah, so it's part and parcel of the industry, I mean it's. I mean they're very, they're buying into a person, into a look. And then, yeah, it started coming up more and more often. And then I started getting reviews of photos. And then, after a couple of photos, I noticed that, you know, they were picking photos where, like, my hair would be turned to the side and this hair would be covering over the receding hairline or whatever. And then I started picking photos from my social media based on that as well, being like, oh, you know, I don't really like that angle because I can see heaps of my receding hairline there and, yeah, then I started to be getting self-conscious about it.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if it was I think it was driven mainly by the industry that I'm working in and I started noticing more and more. And then I started getting more self-conscious about it and before going out on Saturday nights I was just changing my hair a little bit and then I noticed, like when I was taking group photos and stuff, I'd favor one side more than the other because the hair would go over it. And then, yeah, then that's when I decided to go down the process of, like, inquiring about it.
Speaker 1:Why do you feel there's such a stigma around balding and like receding hairlines, especially in your industry, but just in general?
Speaker 2:I think it's the one thing that men are scared of. Like I think it's. I think it's one thing that I mean you sit down at the pub and have a few beers. I think it becomes a topic of conversation in your 30s a little bit more openly, but amongst mates and you know, like my mates have just owned it, gone to the, you're gonna go down the Chrome Dome route and take it straight off and own it, but I think it's the one thing that that generally make men. That's. I think it's just associated with youth, nice head of hair. You look younger.
Speaker 2:I think it's just one thing that men are scared to lose. I think we were. I feel like for me personally, I'm in control of most of my stuff, most things Health, my fitness, mental health as well, all those elements of your life you can have control of. Your hair feels is one thing You're like am I losing because of the stress? Am I losing it because of genetics? I don't know, but it's like far out. I'm trying to keep a hold of it and you can see brands like I don't know if you get the ads on social media from, like I did.
Speaker 2:I get it, I don't want to mention the name, plug a brand, but you get those. Like you know, it's monthly subscription. We're gonna send you hair pills. You'll use this roller for your hair and, like there's this, use this cream, use this special shampoo. There is a bunch of things out there right now that are getting targeted to men and I just think that it's a underspoken, under talked about thing, but it's also an avenue that's also not got much content on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:As well, and I think that's why the content's doing so well on my other pages is because I'm just I'm an open book on it. Really, I really care, so I'm happy to share it, but it's just the one thing that guys are scared of.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's awesome that you are speaking about it, because even prior to it, say there's. There's always people going, oh, this person had a hairpray, and then you go, oh, what a loser.
Speaker 2:Blah, blah, blah but then when you?
Speaker 1:actually meet and understand why people are doing it, because everyone's thinking it right, like there's a few things you were saying like around once someone person points it out because I have my buddies pointed out all the time like Are you gonna think you know you crowning or whatever the fuck it's called chrome doming? Yeah, and I've always just like I don't care, it doesn't make it stop bringing it up. But then when you were like you jump in the elevator or you notice on a photo that it's thin and I'm like, yeah, probably won't use that one. Yeah, like I've done, I'm guilty of that. Yeah, yeah. And so then, as you were saying that I might actually I think I do care.
Speaker 1:I just try to not care as all like, almost like, let's just bury, that will not deal with it. But then now, amy, amy's like, get hair transplant if you want. Yeah, cares. And I've been like, well, is there a stigma around it? Like, do you feel there's a stigma around hair transplant?
Speaker 2:Far out. I, you know it's. Oh, I Think I don't know. It's a good question, because I there was a there was a short lead time between me being like should I do this to let's do it right? Yeah, and I did. I did my research. I had a couple of friends, I had a couple friends who did it right prior to me doing and they're the opposite to me. They've they disappeared from social media for like six, seven months, right, they just suddenly, just we reappeared into society with like thick, luscious locks and they're like what happened here? You're like what are you talking about? I don't know they own it like you. Where did that come from? You have the most ridiculous hairline and one of my mates has gone. He's got like Fiji and style here, right, and he's gone literally from like balding to full-blown like NBA style. I'm like Don't tell me, that just came out of nowhere man, what come on exactly.
Speaker 2:So I think the people that have them there's a stigma. They're like I just don't people to know they're a head transponder, because then I have to talk about my the balding process and that was an embarrassing process. So I mean, I mean, I think there is, but yeah, I don't know there's. People want to talk about it for me, having it done, I'm getting. The conversations online are endless. Yeah, I can't keep up with the questions and the DMs and the comments on tick tock videos and Instagram videos. So I just think it's. Yeah, it's a topic that needs to be spoken about. The stigma around getting the hair transplant, I don't know because I'm living in a world right now where I'm fully open about it I don't feel like there is. I've got pretty thick skin and I'm brilliant, I'm an open book when it comes to most things. So, yeah, I feel like For me it's.
Speaker 1:It isn't that's because you've owned it right, like if you had known it. Maybe you were trying to hide it. That's when you keep getting these questions and like people know, people know. It's like of course people fucking know self-conscious about it, yeah, but you've owned it, so now you can just be like, yep, this is what I'm doing. Answer all their questions, yeah and yeah, that's awesome. How is it impacted your, your confidence and mental health since having it done?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good one, the it's, it's. I tell you, the whole procedure is a freaking roller coaster, right? Because you get there, you shave your hair, they take the hair and they also talk. They talk about like when this is gonna go and how many hairs you can. Where do they take?
Speaker 1:the hairs from.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about a yeah, so there's a you've got a donor area that goes from the back to eat the ear right round this back here, and you've seen guys in their 50s and 60s and 70s, right, and all they've got is that like strand at the back. Yeah, they've got nothing on the top and there's gonna be, maybe yeah well that.
Speaker 2:So that hair in that back section right there, yep, is genetically Three times stronger and three times more dense than the rest of your hair in your body, so the rest of the hair on your head. So what they do is they take the hair from there, yeah, put it in your transplant area in your front or your crown there. But because that hair is so strong it's always gonna grow the the. The only problem with hair transplant is you're gonna lose the hair. That isn't the hair transplanted area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right further back right.
Speaker 2:So the hair that goes in there is always gonna be. It's gonna stay there because it's just. It's just the Way that's the hair in that area was built. It's it's strong, it's tough and it's three times denser. So you can lose up to two-thirds of your hair in that area. It's like the best way to sorry is like you're just essentially Repotting repotting a plant, pulling it out from its roots and just putting it somewhere else exactly right, so so you take that there and obviously it's a six hour process of extraction.
Speaker 2:There's a three hour Process of implantation Yep, right, and what they do is they, wow, put anesthetic in your head. And then what they do is they swell up your area, right? So they put this in these injections. That increases yeah, right, they increase the Surface area of the front part of your head, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You look like you've just your whole faces just been pumped for Botox. Honestly, you, you only as photos like right, mid-term, like fuck, I look 25 single wrinkle in my face, anyway. So what happens? Then? They take these little, this little knife. Yeah, they make individual holes in the, which are the. The. A person's just doing that one by one. Yeah, there's little like needle hole and this. There's two people on both sides here and they're just sitting there with like a microscope on things over there and they're just going pop, pop, pop and just making them, these tiny little incisions, right. And then they take the hair and they drop them in one by one with tweezers. Yeah, so like it's super.
Speaker 2:And then what happens is, over three or four days, the swelling goes down, the skin Goes back, but it tightens it up, groups and close it together. Wow, yeah, yeah. And then, and then the hairs grow. Then you go through this Thing called the shedding phase, which is just a Fucking kick in the nuts, because you're, your pumps right, your hair is growing and the and the area that's been transplanted is growing at the same time. So it all looks even, yeah, right, about a month and a half in this thing goes through shedding phase, which the Part that generates the hair Drops the hair, so the rest of your hair keeps growing and all the hair in your front section drops out.
Speaker 2:So now you look like you've just got your natural receding hairline you can see it, and Then it starts regrowing. But of course in that process you get a couple of like ingrown hairs and you know you get a couple like little Pimples and stuff here and it's it's red as well and you're using this like special spray that give you to calm everything down and Then about three to four months in all those hairs are start growing out, right? So from three months, they say, 50% of the hairs will grow six months, 60 come out.
Speaker 2:Eight months, 80% come out. Nine months in. 90% of the hair goes to about. They reckon that there's about a 5% loss of hair. So you get 95% of the hair they transplant, which is pretty good success rate. Really good, really good. And then that's six months in you can get no, yeah, six months in you can get your first haircut which evens out all the hair that's growing so you're not running an even haircut.
Speaker 2:No, no, you've got like these ones at the front here already fucking short and stubby, and the rest back are all that long, and you're just like what the hell is going on. It looks like someone's absolutely just butchered your head, so you're walking around with a hat for a little bit as well, yeah it's like man this is.
Speaker 2:I don't not feel sexy at all right now. I've got like ingrown hairs. It's gross, yeah. And then you get your first haircut at six months and I remember looking at the mirror being like this looks sick. I was like it all looks even. You can see it on my tiktok as well. I put my first video up. I was like, oh, it's like full sharp across the front. You know they were seeing the hairline's gone. I was like Fuck. And then I just remember that day just walking out of the father, just Convigorated just fucking.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm on throne.
Speaker 1:I'm on the bend, yeah exactly so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that first six months it's tough. You gotta trust the process and and you know people were messaging me on on Tiktok when I was posting my journey, being like this is where it's at, this is the supplements I'm taking, this is what I'm getting done. Ba ba ba. It hang it. Socially. It can be a pretty cruel place and and I just had nothing but like People that had hair transplants Prior to me and there is like mate, stay in it. This is a tough part. It's just a process. It's it'll get, it'll, it'll be good. This is the time that you're going far out. You're sitting there month three on fuck. A matter of this is. This is. This is the worst decision I've ever made. What am I doing? Look this, yeah, does your confidence?
Speaker 1:take a dip there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and everyone says you know everyone that goes through his hair transplant goes. You go in month three. You just you question everything. Being like this was just a waste of time and a waste of money. Look at my fucking head now, yeah, and then yeah, yeah, six months later, your first haircut and you're like, yeah, I'm stuck. This is awesome, so yeah. So confidence now through the roof, man, I've. It's been a year, so yeah, I love waking up in the morning and just going in and out, of looking at my head it's, it's so, it's.
Speaker 2:It's different the feedback that you get as well from other people being like, yeah, man, you didn't need one. But now that you've got one yeah, you needed one I was like I didn't really think you need one. Then you look at the before and after photos You're like, yeah, I styled my hair in a certain way that Made me look like I didn't need it. Yeah, but now I've just got my hair like pushed back, yeah, and you know, you got this like sharp line here. Now I'm like, yeah, man, this is, I'm absolutely wrapped. It was probably One of the best decisions I've made and it was a fun. It was a fun journey. You're super nervous before you do it, but I did it with my mate Wells and he got I got three and a half thousand graphs, he got four and a half thousand graphs and it was fun. Well, we did it. I mean we did it together. So we would I mean, I think, if I did it by myself a little bit, a little bit more daunting being in Turkey by myself.
Speaker 1:You went to Turkey for it. Why, yeah? What was the decision behind going to Turkey as opposed to getting it done in Brisbane, For example?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I went and actually got it done here in Brisbane awesome. Well, my initial quotation and my initial consultation was done here in Brisbane and I was a little underwhelmed by the experience. I'm a guy who feeds off the energy, so had I been in a room with a guy that was Mate, we're gonna that, you're gonna look schmick after this, I would have been like, oh so, yeah, right. But I was like, yeah, we'll do this and we'll get you in surgery. And then, yeah, yeah, I think we'll give you about three and a half thousand graphs or three, I think, three thousand graphs, and this is where we'll put it. And then we'll get you in for six hour surgery and we'll discharge you and then, matter where you go, I was like, okay, sweet, cool. And then they had sent me a quote for twenty two thousand dollars and I was like what's?
Speaker 2:that's a fair chunk of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no energy behind that.
Speaker 2:That's a lot, yeah, yeah. And then he said If we think we need more on the day, there's an extra two and a half. There's an extra one and a half to two and a half grand per two hundred and fifty graphs. So I was like, oh man, this is a bit of a, this is so. It could be more. Then I end up getting like 500 graphs more, right? So the quote would probably have gone from two to an half twenty two grand to maybe twenty five grand right.
Speaker 2:And then One of the guys I spoke to he and what he had went and got a quote, a quote from the same guys. Yeah, he walked out on the day of surgery because they asked him we need to give you another 500 graphs. And he was like man, I'm already paying 18 grand for this. And he was in surgery studio ready to rock and roll. And they, they re quoted him and he's, he got out of there. He was like, nah, I'm leaving. So he left.
Speaker 2:And then so that I guess that wasn't really it wasn't a really great start for the, for the guys that I was going to go do it with. So I was like, look, I'm just going to have a look elsewhere and just see what's going on, right. And then I started doing my research in Turkey and I came to, came up with two people. One of them was an individual doctor. He'd done some done some amazing work and you can see all the. You know they're before and afters on Instagram. One of them had four and a half million followers. They had, yeah, they had just finished, they had just done UFC heavyweight champion I can't remember his name. They've been doing like they had done a Manchester city player they had done, all these football, football guys, and their content as well was just like phenomenal. Yeah, like they're just the clinics, they had like a smoothie bar in there. They just the whole operation that they portrayed online just looked so incredibly professional, right.
Speaker 2:So I reached out to them and said hey guys, I'm thinking about getting a head transplant with you. Guys Just want to know what the the cost would be. So they sent me back going yep, it's, it's a 4,250 US dollars, right. And I was like fine, it's pretty, that's good, that's really decent, it's really decent. Yeah, I was like let me, let me just like quote up the rest of what the rest of my trip would be, right. So four and a half thousand USD jumped on the line. I had a look at flights. I just flew Emirates over there. It was 2400, return Landing in Istanbul. Looked for, I wanted to do like five, six nights accommodation first to check out Istanbul, cause I've heard it was unreal. Yeah, I think we paid like it was. I mean, you could get a decent hotel for about 180 Aussie dollars a night.
Speaker 2:Like five star. You mean, if you really wanted to, you could probably go three, four star mid range for about 90 US dollars or 90 Aussie dollars a night. It was cheaper chips, yeah. And then so I was like, okay, so three, four nights there. Then I asked them what did the? What did it? Included the girls, it includes transfers We'll pick you up from the airport and take you to your hotel. Includes three nights accommodation at a five star hotel, transfers to and from the clinic, the procedure itself, and then we'll do two days of recovery at the hotel and we've got a nurse, a translator, yeah, and six months of supplements and shampoos for you as well Included in that three days. Now, I don't know whether the Australian one did that or how to know what the follow up stuff in Australia looked like. I knew that they sold their products afterwards as well, which were quite expensive. The impression I got from this other company here in Australia was that I was discharged and had like maybe a follow up meeting. That was it.
Speaker 2:I had to buy all of my products. Moving forward, when we landed in Tokyo, our like got there and was picked up by the guys Limo picks up, picks us up in in these plush lazy boys. We got, drove into the hotel. The hotel was awesome. We checked in, we, the van waited for us outside. We went to the clinic. We walked in and there's like, as we walked in, they had like three or four videographers. Boom, my guy. We were like man, this is feel like a proper TV set yeah.
Speaker 2:They're like introduce yourself. I was like yeah, hi, I'm Sean, I'm here from Australia getting a hair transplant. I mean, we just fucking jumped straight into it and the guys like sit down, we're going to draw the line. Okay, when you met three and a half thousand graphs, this is all we're going to do. Then they sent us across into the, into another barber studio where me and my buddy got to shave each other's heads A little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, we went into the procedure Three hours of extraction, had a lunch break, three hours of implanting, and then they took care of us for the next two and a half days, like it was. I didn't want to leave. It was awesome. We had someone looking after us every minute, every hour, every time. Something like, if something was to go wrong, there was a doctor at the hotel in a second being like all right, let me re-banage that up for you, let me give you some antibiotics, let's get you to back to the clinic.
Speaker 2:We're going to wash your hair, clean you up and re-banage you up as well. And then, of course, when we left, they gave us all the supplements and everything we needed for six months and I think, yeah, it would have been half the price of that what was in Australia.
Speaker 1:Including a holiday. Including the holiday yeah, that's phenomenal, yeah. And with the supplements and stuff now do you still need to take them? Or what's the what's the go with that? And like, even like can. Now, can you not like brush it as hard as maybe you would, or how does that all work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, the six months of I've taken all the natural supplements in the shampoo already, so I'm actually not doing anything. There's one treatment I'm doing which we can walk through. It's called PRP, plasma treatment where they take your blood, they spin it, they take the plasma and they inject it in?
Speaker 2:What do they just inject it in your head? Yeah, they take your blood and spin it, but at the moment, yeah, there's I mean there's two options that you can be taking. You can take in minoxidil or finasteride and people take that pre-hair transplant and the feedback that I get from there is mixed, I mean across the board. The supplements work? Yeah, there are. People are seeing that there's stronger hair, less, less like it's maintaining that they've got some some.
Speaker 2:some are finding increased thickness as well. There are some side effects. Again, this is not medical advice, by the way, but I understand some of the fight is side effects are dropping libido, sexual performance drive, which is something that I don't really want to play around with as a single dude. Yeah, so you need to be thriving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Right. So. So I haven't taken any supplements like that. I think if I start to see, you know, my hair drop back or thin, I might. I might jump on it, but right now I'm just doing this PRP treatment. Yeah, so what they do is they take your blood, they spin it and they take the plasma that separates the white stuff at the top and then your blood sits at the bottom of a test tube and they take that and they just inject that into the, into your transplant area and your existing hair area, and what happens is that just increases the flow of blood to that area as well. So any of the head it's probably your hair goes through cycles of dropping out and regrowing and dropping out and regrowing, so that just keeps it in that growth phase, so it just thickens all the hair in that area. So none of your hair is dropping out and regrowing, dropping out and regrowing.
Speaker 1:And how frequently do you do that?
Speaker 2:Once a month. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So do that somewhere local.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually go to the place that gave me the initial 20,000 dollars, oh really. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're charging like 5,000 for a PRP or something to get that money back. Mate, it's about five grand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every month, not every month. So no for a package of six. All right, so every six, seven. I think I paid about two and a half grand for about a package of six.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so five grand a year or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about five grand a year. You'd be at about 12 sessions, so one a month, yeah.
Speaker 1:Maintenance phase.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's so, that's I mean, that's the. Again, like the PRP thing is pretty much the only thing I'm doing at this stage. If anything, you can also go through another. There's another hair transplant procedure they can do, which is only 500 hairs, soup less invasive in terms of like shaving your hair and going through that whole process of extracting 3,500 hairs.
Speaker 2:But yeah, they can thicken up your hair where they just take another 500 hair follicles out. It's a shorter procedure and what they do is they keep your hair here and they just, they just find gaps and they can.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:And just they, just we'll just grow through. But you know, one of my mates down in Melbourne, he, he just gets that 500, 500 top up every year. Oh right, just to slowly, essentially, just slowly removing more hair from the back area just to put it in the front, because he's got a height fade anyway, so he keeps his hair super short. Yeah, so essentially he's just moving hair from one place to another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's keeping the same haircut, so he doesn't really have hair around the back here anyway, cause he's either. He's either got a one or no hair.
Speaker 1:Straight there.
Speaker 2:And he, and he just keeps it at the front.
Speaker 1:Far out. Yeah, it's so fascinating Like it is. What do you wish? Like for you, maybe? I mean what two and a half years ago, when people started commenting on it? What do you wish? You had information you had access to or conversations that were being had that would have made it easier for you to sort of get on top of it earlier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I don't know, cause I don't know. I didn't. I didn't know the hair transplant was a thing. I just dealt with it for a year and a half and for me I thought that I was reaching a stage on social media that my age and where I was, where I was at I, was going to slowly become irrelevant. You know as well, especially with the vein, super vein industry, how does that? Am I good looking enough for social media?
Speaker 1:You're Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 2:But these are the questions you ask yourself, right, and like they're natural. I just think these are the things that just your brain just creates this, and then you start thinking about it and questioning it, and I was looking at the procedure and I'm a I am a not a man of patience at all whatsoever Like if I want to do something, I want to go do it, I want to get it over and done with. And you know, if it's a new sport, it's like you know, I'm not something to just dabble. It's like my ADHD means like I need full commitment and there's like, yeah, tunnel vision on that thing. I want to become good at that.
Speaker 2:And if I want something to be done, like my hair, I'm not the guy who's going to sit there and wait nine months for a shampoo to work or whatever. Right, I'm like this is the fastest option for me because of the industry that I'm in and maybe I create some content around it. So I just there wasn't, and you know to the point, there wasn't much information, or I didn't really know anybody that had a hair transplant at the time as well. So I had one or two mates. They were pretty cagey about it as well, and they're already already cagey about the whole process, and so I didn't feel like there were people that were worth talking to as well, like I'm feeling. Am I really? Am I probing them too much about this sort of stuff? Do they want they want to be exposed as like, in fact, I talk to?
Speaker 1:you at my head.
Speaker 2:I don't want to talk about it. Man, I was. I was balding, so, yeah, I just kind of just went out there and did all my own research and then started following a couple of the a couple of the profiles, the hair transplant clinics, and then reaching out directly to the guys that they had tagged and said, hey, like, how are you finding this? What's going on YouTube as well? There's a couple of YouTubers that have also documented about vlog their journeys as well. So all that information was kind of stuff that was all new. Yeah, and the procedure that I went through called this Sapphire, Sapphire, DHI. Yeah, DHI procedure was also a fairly new procedure as well.
Speaker 2:So like it's yeah, guess there was an element of risk involved.
Speaker 1:Now I think yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and you know it's, it was yeah. Yeah, there was all the research was done online. Yeah, there wasn't a crazy amount, that was just out here. I think there's only one or two clinics in Brisbane that did it as well. So again going through that consultation as well. That's where I got my information from. It's kind of where I also knew from that initial consultation in Australia where that new hairline was gonna be how it works, because cause do you do that virtually with them, or?
Speaker 1:No, I went in. I went in.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, but for the guys in Turkey, yeah, so the one in Turkey was on WhatsApp A lot of FaceTime or something. Yeah, actually, no, you just take photos. Actually, at one point I was like I'm having scammed here, like I don't actually know this is all WhatsApp. The guy was like yeah, it looks good, we can give you through in a half thousand hairs. When do you want to come? I was like when's your next availability? The guy was like early June.
Speaker 2:I was like okay, and he was like okay, he guys like okay, what date? And then he gave me my date. And then he's like okay, see you then. And then we that's it. We didn't speak for like three months. I was like and I've already bought my flights. I'm like hey, like we're still good for June, right? And the guy's like yeah, see you. Then I was like okay, email follow up. Yeah, exactly. So then, like I landed in Turkey and then once I messaged them, like six or seven days before, yeah, I was like yeah, I'm here in Turkey.
Speaker 2:Now you guys like, okay, yeah, we'll see you on the date that you booked in. I was like, far out, man, this is like give me something, give me something. But then the day before man, the communication came in thick and fast. They were like Sean, how's your trip to Turkey? You have a. And suddenly just all picked up. They've been the best mate. Yeah, they're all over it. Where are you staying? Where are you picking up? This is what's happening. And then, like the conversation from pickup to drop off at the airport, they were just like all everything. I just felt like I was being taken.
Speaker 1:So I was taken, so I was like yeah, I was like yeah I think another thing to highlight as well like you put yourself in a position to be able to afford that and do that.
Speaker 1:A lot of you know there might be financial limitations for a lot of people, and one of the things we're always talking about is like taking responsibility for how you want your life to be.
Speaker 1:And finances is, you know, makes the world go around, whether you want to believe it or not. And if you feel like balding or there's so many other things in your life that can impact your confidence, your quality of your life, your relationships with people, for me it's like okay, well, that shit could happen to me, balding could happen, financial stress I need to make sure that I put myself in a position that if there is a solution that costs money, I can do that without having to stress too much about it. And obviously, with what you've done in the lead up to you know, two and a half years ago, or even a year ago, since the transplant, put you in the position to do that. I think that also needs to be recognized because people can say, oh, it's easy for Sean. You know it's like well, it wasn't easy for you, you took the risk all those years ago and put yourself in the position to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and on that point as well, like, I think the financial element is probably one of the reasons why people choose Turkey over Australia. Right, it is a more affordable option for People in general. People in general. Yeah, 22 grand in Australia is expensive and I get the reasons why. Right, you know, doctor wages, a hotel room, I think paying for Faster food over here too.
Speaker 2:That's right, it's getting crazy now and you get to Turkey and, yeah, it is cheaper, but, like, again, that bracket for Turkey can still be unaffordable for some people, right? So, paying for flights two and a half grand, I think that your trip to Turkey is gonna cost you about 10 grand out of the pocket. I know without sounding like a plug for the hair transplant company in Turkey, but they also are able to put that. Do payment plans as well. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they do interest free payment plans as well. So, but again, yeah, if it's something that you wanna do, it's a big step, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, I think, just putting the funds away to do it and weighing up whether you really genuinely care about your hair and what it looks like. I know some and I take my hat off to some of my mates who are like I don't give a fuck, whatever. You know, this is what's this is part of growing up and you know I'm not an industry they really care about. So one of my buddies over the weekend we were talking to him a military boy shaved his head off and shaved all his hair off, and he's now gone and get that tattooing. Have you seen the dots?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had seen it.
Speaker 2:So it makes it look like he's just got a shaved head but a real super sharp hairline Looks awesome. Yeah, I mean, that's another thing. And the truth is, when we were in Turkey and I shaved my head completely bald, part of me was like fuck, I look pretty good.
Speaker 2:I was like this looks like prison break style. I'm like, actually I can do this. Actually I was like, before you go down the hair transplant route, before you go down any sort of like thing that's gonna cost you money on looking after your hair, have a crack at shaving it off, Cause you might turn and go. Hey, this looks pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so what's coming up for you, like what's the direction you're going in over the next 12 months and where can people follow you?
Speaker 2:Direction, okay. Well, I still want to cover as much stuff on this hair transplant stuff as much as possible. I want to be an open book about it. I actually want people to reach out. So I'm pretty active both on TikTok and social media. Most of the hair transplant stuff is gonna be on TikTok. It's kind of where that's blowing up at the moment, Like some of the views are hitting like 9 million views. That's insane.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. It shows, though, that there's people out there.
Speaker 2:It's just interested yeah, literally interesting. So the avenue for me is just gonna keep talking about maybe more of the hair transplant stuff and trying to get back to as many questions as possible as videos. So if you want to get some more information on that, I'm gonna try maybe do a bit of more of a deep dive into hair transplant stuff and maybe have more industry professionals. Right now, the only thing I'm doing is recounting my personal experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, so getting people on board that can actually talk doctors, people that can actually talk about the medication, aftercare stuff from a professional aspect is something that I want to sort of focus on as well, and then, of course, right I, just my real passion is the travel and fashion side of things. So Instagram and that's my creative outlet, and we want to stick to creating fun, fashionable content for people on social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is there anything you feel we've left out? That would be a burning question for someone listening that we haven't covered yet off the top of your head.
Speaker 2:Let me have a think about that. No, I don't think so. I think we can cover. I think we've covered most things. I think the key is, if you're thinking about hair transplant, shave your head, see how you look first. Right, it's gonna go, you're gonna shave it off anyway at some stage. Yeah, see whether or not it's also like oh, one advice if you're gonna get it, get it done in Australian. Get it done at the very beginning of winter, because you can't get your hair in water, you can't get it sunburned, you gotta keep it out of the sun. So I got mine done in June and I spent over the three months to the majority of my recovery in winter and I rugged up hats on, hoodies, beanies. So it was perfect. Yeah, so it was ready for summertime. Ha ha, ha ha ha. Ready just for the fresh locks in my budgies. It was perfect, yeah, so getting, yes, it's yeah. I think people are gonna watch this and come up with more questions and stuff, so I just didn't encourage them to reach out.
Speaker 1:And what are your links and you got the website. I'll plug all of these links that Sean's about to share.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's just my name, sean Burley. Simple, just put it in there, self-branded, so you'll be the finder in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in the show notes for everyone listening along Sean Burley. Everyone, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, it's been awesome, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you, thanks, lucky.
